Underrated Anne/Wentworth tender/pining moments in Persuasion
Excepting one short period of her life, she had never, since the age of fourteen, never since the loss of her dear mother, known the happiness of being listened to, or encouraged by any just appreciation or real taste.
(Wentworth jumping over eight feet - or more - of bushes and running over to get Anne a carriage when she’s hiding the fact that she’s too tired to walk) Captain Wentworth cleared the hedge in a moment to say something to his sister.
(Wentworth not feeling jealous when Anne was being admired in Lyme and feeling happy that she looked healthy and well again) He gave her a momentary glance, a glance of brightness, which seemed to say, “That man is struck with you, and even I, at this moment, see something like Anne Elliot again.” / Jealousy of Mr Elliot had been the retarding weight, the doubt, the torment. That had begun to operate in the very hour of first meeting her in Bath;
(Mr. Elliot) gave her to understand that he had looked at her with some earnestness (in Lyme). She knew it well; and she remembered another person’s look also.
and sinking into the chair which he had occupied, succeeding to the very spot where he had leaned and written, her eyes devoured the following words
(After Wentworth found out Anne rejected Charles Musgrove, he immediately left Uppercross for Lyme and tells her at the end that he kept wondering if she did it for him) “It was possible that you might retain the feelings of the past, as I did; and one encouragement happened to be mine. I could never doubt that you would be loved and sought by others, but I knew to a certainty that you had refused one man, at least, of better pretensions than myself; and I could not help often saying, ‘Was this for me?’”
(secret flirting at the evening party near the end) with Captain Wentworth, some moments of communications continually occurring, and always the hope of more, and always the knowledge of his being there.
(and, of course) Anne was tenderness itself, and she had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth’s affection. His profession was all that could ever make her friends wish that tenderness less, the dread of a future war all that could dim her sunshine. She gloried in being a sailor’s wife, but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance.
