"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 women, 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."
Sigh.......This is from The Annotated Persuasion (page 452), edited by David M. Shapard
Since I'm currently lacking in real life romance I read this passage from Persuasion when I feel the need for a little romance. I pull this book off the shelf, turn to page 452 and read Frederick Wentworth's letter to Anne Elliot and I float away in a cloud of romance.
(Also, I can't recommend David M. Shapard's annotated editions of Jane Austen enough. I've read Austen over and over again since I was in college, but these annotated editions enriched my reading experience of Austen a hundred fold. Seriously people--go buy them! Buy them all! They are more than worth the money.)
