the choicest gift of Heaven

The phrase "the choicest gift of Heaven" occurs in Jane Austen's Persuasion as Anne Elliot's private assessment of her friend Mrs. Smith's extraordinary mental and emotional resilience. Anne, visiting the impoverished and crippled widow in her humble lodgings in Westgate Buildings, Bath, observes Mrs. Smith's cheerfulness with astonishment. Despite having buried a husband she loved, lost her former affluence, been left without children or helpful relations, and suffered a severe rheumatic fever that has made her a cripple, Mrs. Smith displays a spirit that Anne finds remarkable. Anne reflects that this is not merely a case of fortitude or resignation; a submissive spirit might be patient, and a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more. She identifies in Mrs. Smith "that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone." Anne concludes that this quality is "the choicest gift of Heaven" and views her friend as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want.

Context and Application

The phrase is embedded in a passage that contrasts Anne's own more subdued temperament with Mrs. Smith's active cheerfulness. Anne has come to Mrs. Smith's lodgings to renew an old school-friendship, and she is struck by how little her friend's external miseries have damaged her inner spirits. Mrs. Smith's accommodations are limited to a noisy parlour and a dark bedroom behind, with no possibility of moving from one to the other without assistance, which only one servant in the house can afford. She never quits the house but to be conveyed into the warm bath. Yet Anne has reason to believe that Mrs. Smith has moments only of languor and depression, to hours of occupation and enjoyment. The phrase "the choicest gift of Heaven" thus serves as Anne's theological and philosophical explanation for a phenomenon she cannot otherwise account for: the survival of a happy disposition under conditions that would crush most people.

Thematic Significance

In the broader moral landscape of Persuasion, the phrase "the choicest gift of Heaven" stands as a counterpoint to the novel's more prominent themes of pride, vanity, and social ambition. Sir Walter Elliot's vanity of person and situation, his obsessive reading of the Baronetage, and his contempt for the navy as a profession that "cuts up a man's youth and vigour most horribly" represent a value system that prizes birth and appearance above all. Anne's own journey in the novel is one of learning to value genuine worth over superficial rank, and her admiration for Mrs. Smith's resilience reflects this moral education. The phrase also resonates with the novel's treatment of the navy: sailors like Captain Wentworth, who have earned their fortunes through active service and risk, embody a similar kind of earned worth that contrasts with Sir Walter's inherited but mismanaged estate. Mrs. Smith's "choicest gift" is a natural endowment, not an acquired social grace, and Anne's recognition of it signals her own deepening understanding of what truly constitutes value in human character.

Connection to Anne's Own Character

Anne's identification of Mrs. Smith's gift as "the choicest gift of Heaven" also reflects back on Anne herself. Throughout the novel, Anne is characterized by her own form of resilience: she has endured the loss of her mother, the breaking of her engagement to Captain Wentworth, and years of being undervalued by her father and sister, yet she maintains an "elegance of mind and sweetness of character" that Lady Russell recognizes as reviving her mother's memory. Anne's own capacity for enduring suffering without becoming bitter is a quieter version of the same quality she admires in Mrs. Smith. The phrase thus functions as a moment of self-recognition, as Anne articulates a value that she herself embodies, though in a less demonstrative form. The novel's conclusion, in which Anne's patience and constancy are rewarded with a reunion with Captain Wentworth, suggests that her own quiet endurance has been its own kind of "choicest gift," though one that Anne herself would never claim.