Chapter: Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who,
for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there
he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed
one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by
contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any
unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally
into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations
of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he
could read his own history with an interest which never failed.  This
was the page at which the favourite volume always opened:

           "ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL.

"Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth,
daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of
Gloucester, by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth, born
June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son, November 5,
1789; Mary, born November 20, 1791."

Precisely such had the paragraph originally stood from the printer's
hands; but Sir Walter had improved it by adding, for the information of
himself and his family, these words, after the date of Mary's birth--
"Married, December 16, 1810, Charles, son and heir of Charles Musgrove,
Esq. of Uppercross, in the county of Somerset," and by inserting most
accurately the day of the month on which he had lost his wife.

Then followed the history and rise of the ancient and respectable
family, in the usual terms; how it had been first settled in Cheshire;
how mentioned in Dugdale, serving the office of high sheriff,
representing a borough in three successive parliaments, exertions of
loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the first year of Charles II, with
all the Marys and Elizabeths they had married; forming altogether two
handsome duodecimo pages, and concluding with the arms and
motto:--"Principal seat, Kellynch Hall, in the county of Somerset," and
Sir Walter's handwriting again in this finale:--

"Heir presumptive, William Walter Elliot, Esq., great grandson of the
second Sir Walter."

Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character;
vanity of person and of situation.  He had been remarkably handsome in
his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine man.  Few women
could think more of their personal appearance than he did, nor could
the valet of any new made lord be more delighted with the place he held
in society.  He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to
the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united
these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and
devotion.

His good looks and his rank had one fair claim on his attachment; since
to them he must have owed a wife of very superior character to any
thing deserved by his own.  Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman,
sensible and amiable; whose judgement and conduct, if they might be
pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady Elliot, had never
required indulgence afterwards.--She had humoured, or softened, or
concealed his failings, and promoted his real respectability for
seventeen years; and though not the very happiest being in the world
herself, had found enough in her duties, her friends, and her children,
to attach her to life, and make it no matter of indifference to her
when she was called on to quit them.--Three girls, the two eldest
sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath, an
awful charge rather, to confide to the authority and guidance of a
conceited, silly father.  She had, however, one very intimate friend, a
sensible, deserving woman, who had been brought, by strong attachment
to herself, to settle close by her, in the village of Kellynch; and on
her kindness and advice, Lady Elliot mainly relied for the best help
and maintenance of the good principles and instruction which she had
been anxiously giving her daughters.

This friend, and Sir Walter, did not marry, whatever might have been
anticipated on that head by their acquaintance.  Thirteen years had
passed away since Lady Elliot's death, and they were still near
neighbours and intimate friends, and one remained a widower, the other
a widow.

That Lady Russell, of steady age and character, and extremely well
provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage, needs no
apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably
discontented when a woman does marry again, than when she does not; but
Sir Walter's continuing in singleness requires explanation.  Be it
known then, that Sir Walter, like a good father, (having met with one
or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications),
prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughters' sake.  For
one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing,
which he had not been very much tempted to do.  Elizabeth had
succeeded, at sixteen, to all that was possible, of her mother's rights
and consequence; and being very handsome, and very like himself, her
influence had always been great, and they had gone on together most
happily.  His two other children were of very inferior value.  Mary had
acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs Charles
Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of
character, which must have placed her high with any people of real
understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no
weight, her convenience was always to give way--she was only Anne.

To Lady Russell, indeed, she was a most dear and highly valued
god-daughter, favourite, and friend.  Lady Russell loved them all; but
it was only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again.

A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl, but her
bloom had vanished early; and as even in its height, her father had
found little to admire in her, (so totally different were her delicate
features and mild dark eyes from his own), there could be nothing in
them, now that she was faded and thin, to excite his esteem. He had
never indulged much hope, he had now none, of ever reading her name in
any other page of his favourite work.  All equality of alliance must
rest with Elizabeth, for Mary had merely connected herself with an old
country family of respectability and large fortune, and had therefore
given all the honour and received none: Elizabeth would, one day or
other, marry suitably.

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she
was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been
neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely
any charm is lost.  It was so with Elizabeth, still the same handsome
Miss Elliot that she had begun to be thirteen years ago, and Sir Walter
might be excused, therefore, in forgetting her age, or, at least, be
deemed only half a fool, for thinking himself and Elizabeth as blooming
as ever, amidst the wreck of the good looks of everybody else; for he
could plainly see how old all the rest of his family and acquaintance
were growing.  Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face in the
neighbourhood worsting, and the rapid increase of the crow's foot about
Lady Russell's temples had long been a distress to him.

Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in personal contentment.
Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall, presiding and
directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have
given the idea of her being younger than she was.  For thirteen years
had she been doing the honours, and laying down the domestic law at
home, and leading the way to the chaise and four, and walking
immediately after Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and
dining-rooms in the country.  Thirteen winters' revolving frosts had
seen her opening every ball of credit which a scanty neighbourhood
afforded, and thirteen springs shewn their blossoms, as she travelled
up to London with her father, for a few weeks' annual enjoyment of the
great world.  She had the remembrance of all this, she had the
consciousness of being nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and
some apprehensions; she was fully satisfied of being still quite as
handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and
would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by
baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two.  Then might she again
take up the book of books with as much enjoyment as in her early youth,
but now she liked it not.  Always to be presented with the date of her
own birth and see no marriage follow but that of a youngest sister,
made the book an evil; and more than once, when her father had left it
open on the table near her, had she closed it, with averted eyes, and
pushed it away.

She had had a disappointment, moreover, which that book, and especially
the history of her own family, must ever present the remembrance of.
The heir presumptive, the very William Walter Elliot, Esq., whose
rights had been so generously supported by her father, had disappointed
her.

She had, while a very young girl, as soon as she had known him to be,
in the event of her having no brother, the future baronet, meant to
marry him, and her father had always meant that she should.  He had not
been known to them as a boy; but soon after Lady Elliot's death, Sir
Walter had sought the acquaintance, and though his overtures had not
been met with any warmth, he had persevered in seeking it, making
allowance for the modest drawing-back of youth; and, in one of their
spring excursions to London, when Elizabeth was in her first bloom, Mr
Elliot had been forced into the introduction.

He was at that time a very young man, just engaged in the study of the
law; and Elizabeth found him extremely agreeable, and every plan in his
favour was confirmed.  He was invited to Kellynch Hall; he was talked
of and expected all the rest of the year; but he never came.  The
following spring he was seen again in town, found equally agreeable,
again encouraged, invited, and expected, and again he did not come; and
the next tidings were that he was married.  Instead of pushing his
fortune in the line marked out for the heir of the house of Elliot, he
had purchased independence by uniting himself to a rich woman of
inferior birth.

Sir Walter had resented it.  As the head of the house, he felt that he
ought to have been consulted, especially after taking the young man so
publicly by the hand; "For they must have been seen together," he
observed, "once at Tattersall's, and twice in the lobby of the House of
Commons."  His disapprobation was expressed, but apparently very little
regarded.  Mr Elliot had attempted no apology, and shewn himself as
unsolicitous of being longer noticed by the family, as Sir Walter
considered him unworthy of it:  all acquaintance between them had
ceased.

This very awkward history of Mr Elliot was still, after an interval of
several years, felt with anger by Elizabeth, who had liked the man for
himself, and still more for being her father's heir, and whose strong
family pride could see only in him a proper match for Sir Walter
Elliot's eldest daughter.  There was not a baronet from A to Z whom her
feelings could have so willingly acknowledged as an equal.  Yet so
miserably had he conducted himself, that though she was at this present
time (the summer of 1814) wearing black ribbons for his wife, she could
not admit him to be worth thinking of again.  The disgrace of his first
marriage might, perhaps, as there was no reason to suppose it
perpetuated by offspring, have been got over, had he not done worse;
but he had, as by the accustomary intervention of kind friends, they
had been informed, spoken most disrespectfully of them all, most
slightingly and contemptuously of the very blood he belonged to, and
the honours which were hereafter to be his own.  This could not be
pardoned.

Such were Elizabeth Elliot's sentiments and sensations; such the cares
to alloy, the agitations to vary, the sameness and the elegance, the
prosperity and the nothingness of her scene of life; such the feelings
to give interest to a long, uneventful residence in one country circle,
to fill the vacancies which there were no habits of utility abroad, no
talents or accomplishments for home, to occupy.

But now, another occupation and solicitude of mind was beginning to be
added to these.  Her father was growing distressed for money.  She
knew, that when he now took up the Baronetage, it was to drive the
heavy bills of his tradespeople, and the unwelcome hints of Mr
Shepherd, his agent, from his thoughts.  The Kellynch property was
good, but not equal to Sir Walter's apprehension of the state required
in its possessor.  While Lady Elliot lived, there had been method,
moderation, and economy, which had just kept him within his income; but
with her had died all such right-mindedness, and from that period he
had been constantly exceeding it.  It had not been possible for him to
spend less; he had done nothing but what Sir Walter Elliot was
imperiously called on to do; but blameless as he was, he was not only
growing dreadfully in debt, but was hearing of it so often, that it
became vain to attempt concealing it longer, even partially, from his
daughter.  He had given her some hints of it the last spring in town;
he had gone so far even as to say, "Can we retrench?  Does it occur to
you that there is any one article in which we can retrench?" and
Elizabeth, to do her justice, had, in the first ardour of female alarm,
set seriously to think what could be done, and had finally proposed
these two branches of economy, to cut off some unnecessary charities,
and to refrain from new furnishing the drawing-room; to which
expedients she afterwards added the happy thought of their taking no
present down to Anne, as had been the usual yearly custom.  But these
measures, however good in themselves, were insufficient for the real
extent of the evil, the whole of which Sir Walter found himself obliged
to confess to her soon afterwards.  Elizabeth had nothing to propose of
deeper efficacy.  She felt herself ill-used and unfortunate, as did her
father; and they were neither of them able to devise any means of
lessening their expenses without compromising their dignity, or
relinquishing their comforts in a way not to be borne.

There was only a small part of his estate that Sir Walter could dispose
of; but had every acre been alienable, it would have made no
difference.  He had condescended to mortgage as far as he had the
power, but he would never condescend to sell.  No; he would never
disgrace his name so far.  The Kellynch estate should be transmitted
whole and entire, as he had received it.

Their two confidential friends, Mr Shepherd, who lived in the
neighbouring market town, and Lady Russell, were called to advise them;
and both father and daughter seemed to expect that something should be
struck out by one or the other to remove their embarrassments and
reduce their expenditure, without involving the loss of any indulgence
of taste or pride.

 , Persuasion, by Jane Austen Volume I , Chapter 1, pages 9-16 Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch-hall, an estate in Somersetshire, England, loves nothing more than to look up his name and his family history in the Baronetage, a book that lists the details regarding titled families in England. The listing for Sir Walter includes information about his birth, his marriage, the death of his wife in 1801, and the names and birthdates of his children, and the death date of his wife. Sir Walter has added that Mary married Charles Musgrove in 1810. He has also added that, because he has no son to inherit his property, a distant male relative, William Walter Elliot, is the heir presumptive to the estate. Sir Walter is a very vain man who thinks much of his rank and of his looks; at fifty-four, he is still a remarkably good-looking man. The only person besides himself whom he truly values is his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who values rank and beauty as much as her father does. Elizabeth has been in charge of the household since her mother, Lady Elliot, died thirteen years ago. Sir Walter esteems his youngest daughter, Mary, because she has married respectably, an achievement that even Elizabeth, at age twenty-nine, has yet to reach. As for Sir Walter's middle daughter, Anne, he finds little value in her. She has neither beauty ,nor does she share his pride--and therefore she goes unnoticed by father and sisters. The only person who truly loves Anne is a family friend, Lady Russell. Elizabeth is bitter because she was determined to marry William Walter Elliot, whom she and her father met in Bath when she was a younger woman. Mr. Elliot, however, did not return her affection and instead married a woman with wealth but no rank. He also snubbed Sir Walter by neglecting to visit Kellynch-hall. Rumor has it that he has also spoken disrespectfully about Sir Walter and his daughters. Unmarried, yet still beautiful enough to escape censure for being an unmarried woman near thirty, Elizabeth lives in "prosperity and nothingness," a life of ease and boredom. However, Sir Walter has not been a good custodian of his wealth and property since his wife, who was sensible and moderate, died. He has to admit to Elizabeth that years of living beyond their means has landed them in serious difficulties. Elizabeth proposes that they cease contributions to all charities--and she takes secret satisfaction in being unable to bring Anne a present from her annual trip to Bath. Of course, such measures are insignificant in reducing their debt. Lady Russell and the estate agent, Mr. Shepherd, realize that Sir Walter and Elizabeth are helpless to see what must be done; they simply cannot conceive of curtailing their lifestyle. Therefore, Lady Russell and Mr. Shepherd attempt to take matters into their own hands.

