Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of person and of situation. …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. (1)

Sir Walter does a job on various people’s appearance in the first six chapters:

Anne Elliot - 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. (1)

All his acquaintance & family but Elizabeth - Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face in the neighbourhood worsting, and the rapid increase of crow's foot about Lady Russell's temples had long been a distress to him. (1)

Sailors – “…it [naval profession] cuts up a man's youth and vigour most horribly: a sailor grows old sooner than any other man.” (1)

Admiral Baldwin – “the most deplorable looking personage you can imagine; his face the colour of mahogany, rough and rugged to the last degree, all lines and wrinkles, nine grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top.” (3)

Admiral Croft (having never looked upon him) - "Then I take it for granted," observed Sir Walter, "that his face is about as orange as the cuffs and capes of my livery." (3)

Mrs. Clay - She did not imagine that her father had at present an idea of the kind. Mrs. Clay had freckles, and a projecting tooth, and a clumsy wrist, which he was continually making severe remarks upon, in her absence…” (5)