I am not romantic, you know; I never was.

but a sanguine temper, though for ever expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by any proportionate depression. it soon flies over the present failure, and begins to hope again.

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 have read your book, and I disapprove.

Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim.

I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No - I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.

Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?" Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together, and yet for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.