I'll suffer no daughter of mine to play the fool with her heart, indeed! She shall marry for the purpose for which matrimony was ordained amongst people of birth--that is, for the aggrandisement of her family, the extending of their political influence--for becoming, in short, the depository of their mutual interest. These are the only purposes for which persons of rank ever think of marriage.

... what will not the heart endure ere it will voluntarily surrender the hoarded treasure of its love to the cold dictates of reason or the stern voice of duty!

But who can count the beatings of the lonely heart?

lovers, it is well known, carry the art of tautology to its utmost perfection, and even the most impatient of them can both bear to hear and repeat the same things times without number, till the sound becomes the echo to the sense or the nonsense previously uttered.

...the synagogin', the tabernaclin', the psalmin', that goes on in this hoose, that's enough to break the spirits o' ony young creature.

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that there is no passion so deeply rooted in human nature as that of pride.

It is universally allowed that, though nothing can be more interesting in itself than the conversation of two lovers, yet nothing can be more insipid in detail - just as the heavenly fragrance of the rose becomes vapid and sickly under all the attempts made to retain and embody its exquisite odor.