Persuasion

About two thirds of the way through my second favourite novel

(after Middlemarch, of course) it strikes me this may well be

the last time I read Persuasion.

Over these last 50 years or so, since I first filleted

it for an essay, I must have read it, what, five or six times,

so very roughly once a decade, which means that now, not far

off 70, and fairly fucked physically, there has to be

at least a 50:50 chance that

Louisa will never lie seemingly lifeless on the Cobb,

Mr Elliot will never turn out a heartless rogue, and

Anne and her Wentworth will never right the wrong that parted them

again for me.