Austen's Persuasion...

I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You piece my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever 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 lover has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in

F.W.

I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.

F.W is Fredrick Wentworth writing to Anne Elliot in Jane Austen's Persuasion, no matter how many times I read that, it blows me away. Austen really sets the bar for idealistic romance, she sets the level of romance high and beyond what seems achievable anymore.

Whether you love literature or not, you have to love that letter, just for the pure honesty and raw emotion behind it. Ahhhh I love it.

Literature is an escape from this world to another.