Oh Captain Wentworth..........

One of the things I like best about wax seals is that a large number in my collection come from the Georgian period.  As does the work of my favourite author Jane Austen.  When I hold a seal, examine the craftsmanship and admire the materials used to make it, I can't help but picture Elizabeth Bennett sitting at a writing table and writing a letter to Jane or Charlotte.

But my favourite letter comes from Austen's Persuasion.

Anne Elliott is a much more sedate heroine that Eliza Bennett, but I feel her personality has a more emotional, self deprecating and therefore deeper quality.  I 'feel' more for Anne.


Therefore it makes it all the sweeter for me to see her receive the most breathtaking love letter.....

"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. 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."

When I read this I wonder what kind of a seal did he use to seal his letter?

With his nautical background and the fact that he has just emerged from war makes me think the this might be his choice.....

Proved by the storm

I have used a handmade wax letter seal to cast an impression onto sterling silver, and then created a pair of cufflinks......... very Fredrick Wentworth!