Surely life has taught you that a thing can be both beautiful and vile.

Pride and Prejudice' - perhaps more than any other Jane Austen book - is engrained in our literary consciousness.

And I like a mouse who has taken a cat for its tutor.

It was a sort of peace I have rarely enjoyed since. As if we were the only two souls on earth—all of nature ours to enjoy. I wondered why a creator who had dreamt such beauty would have slandered it with such evil. Such grief. Why He had not been content to leave it unspoilt. I still wonder.

However, it has long been said that "my enemy's enemy is my friend.

Of all the weapons in the world, love is the most dangerous.

I think any period in history can be adapted into interesting fiction, as long as you approach the actual history with respect.