1806

The year 1806 stands as the decisive hinge in the personal history of Anne Elliot and Captain Frederick Wentworth, the season in which a brief, passionate attachment was formed and then, under the pressure of family opposition and prudent counsel, tragically broken. It is the year to which all later feelings of regret, resentment, and lingering affection refer, and its consequences echo through every subsequent event of the novel.

The Meeting and the Engagement

In the summer of 1806, Captain Frederick Wentworth, having been made a commander in consequence of the action off St Domingo and not immediately employed, came into Somersetshire and found a home for half a year at Monkford. He was at that time a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit, and brilliancy. Anne Elliot, then an extremely pretty girl of nineteen, possessed gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling. With Wentworth having nothing to do and Anne having hardly anybody to love, the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They were gradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love. A short period of exquisite felicity followed, but troubles soon arose. Sir Walter Elliot, on being applied to, gave his consent all the negative of great astonishment, great coldness, great silence, and a professed resolution of doing nothing for his daughter, thinking it a very degrading alliance. Lady Russell, though with more tempered pride, received it as a most unfortunate one, seeing Anne throwing herself away on a young man who had nothing but himself to recommend him and no hopes of attaining affluence but in the chances of a most uncertain profession.

The Breaking of the Engagement

Captain Wentworth had no fortune; he had been lucky in his profession but, spending freely what had come freely, had realized nothing. He was confident he should soon be rich, full of life and ardour, knowing he should soon have a ship and be on a station that would lead to everything he wanted. Lady Russell, however, saw in his sanguine temper and fearlessness of mind only an aggravation of the evil, adding a dangerous character to himself. Such opposition was more than Anne could combat. Young and gentle as she was, she might have withstood her father's ill-will, but Lady Russell, whom she had always loved and relied on, could not be continually advising her in vain. Anne was persuaded to believe the engagement a wrong thing: indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success. She acted not from merely selfish caution; the belief of being prudent and self-denying principally for his advantage was her chief consolation under the misery of a final parting. Wentworth, totally unconvinced and unbending, felt himself ill-used by so forced a relinquishment and left the country in consequence.

Consequences and Lasting Effects

A few months had seen the beginning and the end of their acquaintance, but not with a few months ended Anne's share of suffering from it. Her attachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment of youth, and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect. More than seven years passed, and time had softened down much, but she had been too dependent on time alone; no aid had been given in change of place or any novelty of society. No one had ever come within the Kellynch circle who could bear a comparison with Frederick Wentworth as he stood in her memory. Meanwhile, all of Wentworth's sanguine expectations had been justified; his genius and ardour had commanded his prosperous path. He had very soon after the engagement ceased got employ, had distinguished himself, early gained the other step in rank, and by successive captures had made a handsome fortune. Anne, at seven-and-twenty, thought very differently from what she had been made to think at nineteen. She felt that she should have been a happier woman in maintaining the engagement than she had been in the sacrifice of it, and she had learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.