[Mrs. Weston] "She is loveliness itself. Mr. Knightley, is not she?"
"I have not a fault to find with her person," he replied. "I think her all you describe. I love to look at her; and I will add this praise, that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how handsome she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies another way."
Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley on Emma's beauty and faults
Emma, volume 1, chapter 5
I love this little bit:
"Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old. I have seen a great many lists of her drawing up at various times of books that she meant to read regularly through--and very good lists they were--very well chosen and very neatly arranged--sometimes alphabetically and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew up when only fourteen--I remember thinking it did her judgement so much credit that I preserved it some time; and I dare say she may have made out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to anything requiring industry and patience and a subjection of the fancy to the understanding."
Mr. Knightley discussing Emma's faults with Mrs. Weston, who will not admit them
Emma, volume 1, chapter 5
I think I have made various reading lists of my own over the years...
"I have no doubt that he will thrive and be a very rich man in time--and his being illiterate and coarse need not disturb us."
Emma's backhanded compliment of Robert Martin, the farmer Harriet adores
Emma, volume 1, chapter 4
"Encouragement should be given."
This is of Emma, and her perhaps unwise decision to encourage Harriet Smith into a different sphere of life. But it's a good sentiment all the same, no?
Emma, volume 1, chapter 3
Why is it everyone likes Miss Bates so much?
"Her daughter [Miss Bates] enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married. Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual superiority to make atonement to herself or frighten those who might hate her into outward respect. She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted to the care of a failing mother and the endeavor to make a small income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, a woman whom no one named without goodwill. It was her own universal goodwill and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved everybody, was interested in everybody's happiness, quick-sighted to everybody's merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with blessings in such an excellent mother and so many good neighbors and friends and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a recommendation to everybody and a mine of felicity to herself."
Emma, volume 1, chapter 3
"She was a great talker upon little matters . . . full of trivial communications and harmless gossip."
Our dear Miss Bates
Emma, volume 1, chapter 3
"Emma knows I never flatter her."
Mr. Knightley, to Mr. Woodhouse
Emma, volume 1, chapter 1
I'm just re-reading chapter 1 in Emma and realizing how many hints Austen gave us.
I'm also thrilled to say that I've had four good days in a row -- I'm so thankful. Thanks for your prayers and well wishes!
"Catherine hoped at least to pass uncensured through the crowd. As for admiration, it was always very welcome when it came, but she did not depend on it."
Of Catherine's first venture to Bath's Upper Rooms
Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 2
Ack! (I think that's my new word.) I was in a Lyme disease stupor yesterday and missed posting, and today's just a little better. I would appreciate your prayers for total, complete and miraculous healing--as well as for healing the old-fashioned way. It's incredibly discouraging, and I'm wondering if I should just give up trying to get better. On to today's quote...
"There was not one lord in the neighborhood; no -- not even a baronet. There was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door -- not one young man whose origin was unknown. Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no children.
But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way."
Of Catherine Morland, our would-be heroine
Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 1
Ack! I couldn't get into Typepad ealier.
"Provided that nothing like useful knowledge could be gained from them, provided they were all story and no reflection, she had never any objection to books at all."
Of Catherine's reading habits
Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 1
"'Catherine grows quite a good-looking girl, -- she is almost pretty today,' were words which caught her ears now and then; and how welcome were the sounds! To look almost pretty, is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life, than a beauty from the cradle can ever receive."
Of sweet Catherine Morland
Northanger Abbey, volume 1, chapter 1
Felicity Jones as Catherine.
"While Lady Elliot lived, there had been method, moderation, and economy, which had just kept him within his income; but with her had died all such right-mindedness, and from that period he had been constantly exceediing it. It had not been possible for him to spend less: he had done nothing but what Sir Walter Elliot was imperiously called on to do; but blameless as he was, he was not only growing dreadfully in debt, but was hearing of it so often, that it became vain to attempt concealing it longer."
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1
"Such were Elizabeth Elliot's sentiments and sensations; such the cares to alloy, the agitations to vary, the sameness and the elegance, the prosperity and the nothingness of her scene of life. . ."
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1
I love that phrase--"the prosperity and the nothingness."
"She had the consciousness of being nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and some apprehensions; she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two."
Of Elizabeth Elliot
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1
"His two other children were of very inferior value. . . . Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way -- she was only Anne."
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1
"Vanity was the beginning and end of Sir Walter Elliot's character: vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in his youth, and at fifty-four was still a very fine man. . . . He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and devotion."
Persuasion, volume 1, chapter 1
Thanks to Kellynch.com for the image -- check out this lovely site!
"Let me counsel you to remember that a lady, whether so called from birth or only from fortune, should never degrade herself by being put on a level with writers, and such sort of people."
miser Mr. Briggs, Cecilia's guardian, who refuses to give her any of her own money to pay the bookseller
Fanny Burney's Cecilia, volume 2, book 3, chapter 2
"It is always best to do right, however tardily; always better to repent, than to grow callous in wrong."
Cecilia (who is a little too good, imho)
Fanny Burney's Cecilia, volume 4, book 8, chapter 1
"The world is full of mortifications, and to endure, or to sink under them, makes all the distinction between the noble or the weak-minded."
the elegant Mrs. Delvile to Cecilia; Mrs. Delvile knows Cecilia is enduring the mortification of having to give up her affection for her son, Mortimer Delvile
Fanny Burney's Cecilia, volume 3, book 6, chapter 11
"Mrs. Harrel, with much simplicity, assured her that she did nothing but what every body else did, and that it was quite impossible for her to appear in the world in any other manner."
Cecilia's friend Mrs. Harrel and her husband are spending their way into misery (and worse) keeping up with fashionable London society. This is her defense when Cecilia admonishes her to retrench.
Cecilia, volume 2, book 3, chapter 3
