STACY GARROP

DURATION
6'10"

WRITER
Jane Austen

INSTRUMENTATION
Soprano with piano

YEAR COMPOSED
2022

DEDICATEES
Josefien Stoppelenburg, soprano, and Stephen Alltop, piano

ORDERING SCORES
Theodore Presser Company
Click to view product page

PROGRAM NOTE
Throughout all of English novelist Jane Austen’s six books, there is no more poignant declaration of love than Captain Frederick Wentworth’s letter in Persuasion (published posthumously in 1817). Prior to the beginning of the novel, a 19-year old Anne Elliot has turned down Wentworth’s marriage proposal, as she was persuaded by family and friends that his low social standing and lack of secured income were not suitable for a woman of her elevated rank. The story begins eight years later when Wentworth re-appears in Anne’s life, possessing enough money and social ranking to now be considered a suitable bachelor. Anne wonders for nearly the entire novel if Wentworth might still harbor strong feelings for her, as she does for him. It isn’t until Wentworth commits his thoughts onto paper that Anne finally discovers the truth:

“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…For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited…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…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 me. I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return…A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never.”  

I made a few deletions to the original text, as well as altered Wentworth’s initials to a pronoun, in order to bring a more timeless feeling to the text.

-S.G.