Wasn't he being overly confident or even arrogant in what the future would bring him? How can he expect Anne or any woman for that matter to accept a proposal from him? He is nothing yet. He must know he cannot provide for her. He can only offer her a long engagement, which he must know would be frowned upon by her family and friends (as has been explored in other threads) and expect her to share his confidence that he will succeed in rapid time where so many others fail.

Or is he just head over heals in love? Believing that by publicly pledging his love for Anne this will spur him on to succeed even more? And by being engaged, this will allow him to exchange letters with the woman he loves and give him something sweet to think about during his long voyages. Wasn't that just a bit selfish on his part too, given the stigma of a long engagement for a woman?

Or was that what prompted Anne to accept the idea of a long engagement in the first place? To be able to write and confide to him, when she has so little love in her family circle. I can see that as the most difficult aspect in breaking off her engagement(and losing his love of course.) For her to give up the ability to correspond with him must have been awful for her.

The sweet irony is that she does truly believe in him and all his confident abilities which leads her to conclude -- and I am still not convinced that LR played a role in this too -- that the engagement would be more of a hindrance than a help to enable him to achieve his career goals.

I know other posts have touched on aspects of the engagement and explored some of the issues. I have just been going over the whole engagement and break up business over the last few days trying to imagine it from the point of view of two young people, given the context of the times. And because JA, maddeningly, gives us so few details!