I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print.
Category: Jane Austen
Jane Austen (/ˈdʒeɪn ˈɔːstən/; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature.
With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works.
A Mr. (save, perhaps, some half dozen in the nation,) always needs a note of explanation.
One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
Only one comes back with me tomorrow, probably Miss Eliza, & I rather dread it. We shall not have two Ideas in common. She is young, pretty, chattering, & thinking chiefly (I presume) of Dress, Company, & Admiration.
If the warmth of her Language could affect the Body it might be worth reading in this weather.
The post-office had a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.
The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, “Men never know when things are dirty or not;” and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to himself, “Women will have their little nonsense and needless cares.”
She believed that she must now submit to feel that another lesson, in the art of knowing our own nothingness beyond our own circle, was becoming necessary for her.
It is very unfair to judge any body’s conduct, without an intimate knowledge of their situation. Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
I am looking over Self Control again, & my opinion is confirmed of its being an excellently-meant, elegantly-written Work, without anything of Nature or Probability in it.
Lady Sondes’ match surprises, but does not offend me; had her first marriage been of affection, or had their been a grown-up daughter, I should not have forgiven her; but I consider everybody as having a right to marry once in their lives for love, if they can.
A man would always wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of her regard, must, I think, be the happiest of mortals.
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.
It was the misfortune of poetry, to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly, were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
A mind lively and at ease, can do with seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
I am greatly pleased with your account of Fanny; I found her in the summer just what you describe, almost another sister; and could not have supposed that a niece would ever have been so much to me. She is quite after one’s own heart; give her my best love, and tell her that I always think of her with pleasure.
She found his manners very pleasing indeed.-The little flaw of having a Mistress now living with him at Ashdown Park, seems to be the only unpleasing circumstance about him.
Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.
It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; but when a beginning is made-when felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt-it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.
My idea of good company … is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.
There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
I am fully sensible that an historical romance, founded on the House of Saxe Cobourg, might be much more to the purpose of profit or popularity than such pictures of domestic life in country villages as I deal in. But I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and 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 to my own style and go on in my own way.
I do not write for such dull elves
As have not a great deal of ingenuity themselves.