She was the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly ever.

... they know little of the passions who seek to argue with that most intractable of them all, the fear that is born of love.

[On Elizabeth Barrett Browning:] Her sweetness of character is even beyond her genius.

Fashion is a capricious deity.

I prepare myself for all disappointments by expecting nothing.

Our English people are much addicted to raising idols, and then revenging themselves on their own idolatry by knocking down and demolishing the poor bits of wood and stone that they had worshipped as gods. How many literary reputations have been so treated!

She was the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly ever.