"I can listen no longer in silence.  I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach.  You pierce my soul.  I am half agony, half hope.  Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever.  I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.  Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death.  I have loved none but you.  Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant." -- Jane Austen Persuasion

When I first read Jane Austen's novels, Pride and Prejudice was my favorite.   I loved the characters, the romance, the wit.  But as the years have progressed, I have come to absolutely love Persuasion.  Austen's last book has a maturity of characters and story.  Our heroine is older, wiser, but still stuck with the conventions of the day and her family's status.  I adore Anne Elliott, but even more I love Captain Wentworth.  Such a man!