Historical Novels

"The results of this feminine interference were inevitable — vacillation, absurdity, and profligacy. The northern and southern hemispheres are not more divided than those allotted to man and woman — public and private life. There is no period of history which records the authority of the gentler sex without also recording its injurious effects. Leaving out the darker shades of the picture, are not impulse and sentiment the two mainsprings of all female action ?"

"The ear long accustomed to, and therefore on its guard against, dissimulation, often catches the fact from slight indications which would pass unnoticed by the common observer."

"Consistency is a human word, but it certainly expresses nothing human."

"The future is written in the past ; and if we prophesy, it is with eyes that look behind."

"Ah ! if the doctrine of amelioration be true, what a mighty debt does the future owe to the past ! And alas for those who have gone before ! Methinks the struggle has been but ill repaid."

"Interest is your only true cosmetic for smoothing the brow."

"But ill-nature is inevitable in those who "season their discourse with personal talk"."

"A woman only can understand a woman; and it is pleasant to be understood sometimes."

"Now, one may be very well content to renounce a lover, but it a very disagreeable to have him taken away."

"[From D'Argenteuil]: … a man's circumstances must be desperate before he attempt to mend them by marriage."

"[From Lord Avonleigh]: Marriage should always take young ladies by surprise."

"It is a curious fact, but a fact it is, that your witty people are the most hard-hearted in the world. The truth is, fancy destroys feeling. The quick eye to the ridiculous turns every thing to the absurd side ; and the neat sentence, the lively allusion, and the odd simile, invest what they touch with something of their own buoyant nature. Humour is of the heart, and has its tears ; but wit is of the head, and has only smiles — and the majority of those are bitter."

"That certain sign of intense selfishness — he never gave any one credit for a good motive, for he believed no one better than himself."

"Who has not observed in the daily intercourse of domestic life, that the very subject we have been striving to avoid, or planning to disclose, is sure to defeat our best-laid scheme, and start up before us when least expected?"

"[Of Sir Robert Evelyn]: [He might have said, that] if there be one habit more than another the dry-rot of all that is high and generous in youth, it is the habit of ridicule."

"We talk of the influence of education — in what does it consist ? Here were two with the same blood flowing in their veins, born under the same roof, nursed by the same mother, playmates in the same nursery, surrounded by the same scenes, pursuing the same studies, subject to the same rules, rewarded by the same indulgences — never till the age of eighteen having been parted for a day; and yet were these two as opposite as if they had never known one circumstance in common."

"[From Sir Robert Evelyn]: Opinion should guide in public affairs, not feeling. Opinion is grounded on circumstance, on observation, and on reflection. Feeling acts from impulse, which sees but half. Excitement leads to enthusiasm, that moral intoxication, whose effects seem incredible to the sober, while the influence which produces the extravagance appears more extraordinary than the act itself."

"Perhaps there is no moment when beloved objects are so much beloved, as on the return from a long absence. … Assuredly meeting after absence is one of — ah, no ! — it is life's most delicious feeling."

"I cannot love evergreens — they are the misanthropes of nature. To them the spring brings no promise, the autumn no decline ; they are cut off from the sweetest of all ties with their kind—sympathy. They have no hopes in common, but stand apart—very emblems for the fortunate and worldly man, whose harsh temper has been unsoftened by participating in general suffering, existing alone in his unshared and sullen prosperity. I will have no evergreens in my garden ; when the inevitable winter comes, every beloved plant and favourite tree shall droop together — no solitary fir left to triumph over the companionship of decay."

"It is wonderful how some words ever were invented, for they express what does not exist—confidence is among the number; confidence is what no human being ever really had in another."

"[Marie, Madame de Soissons, in reply]: Well, the fate of our sex and of the country seems to be much the same ; we are doomed to have a thousand fine things said of us which nobody means or ever acts upon. Your philosopher talks of the virtue only to be found in rural life, and remains quietly in his armchair,, and his town lodgings; your lover raves of your cruelty, which he vows he cannot survive, leaves your presence, and orders a good supper. Considering how much we say that we do not mean, how fortunate it is that we are not taken at our word ! We should then be cautious how we talked of rustic and innocent pleasures, of dying for love, and eternal constancy."

"There are some moments, the hues of which are like those on the wing of a butterfly — a touch brushes them away."

"There are words to paint the misery of love, but none to paint its happiness ; that childish, glad, and confiding time, to which youth gave its buoyancy and hope its colours. Its language repeated, ever seems exaggerated or foolish ; albeit there are none who have not thought such sounds "honey-sweet" in their time. The truth is, we never make for others the allowance we make for ourselves ; and we should deny even our own words, could we hear them spoken by another."

"THE history of a minute — why, it would give a bird's-eye view of every possible variety in human existence. Wonderful the many events that are happening together — life and death — joy and sorrow— the great and the mean — the common and the rare — good and evil — are all in the record of that brief segment of time."

"... — for nothing is more mournful than man's work and man's skill going to ruin for want of man's care — ..."

"[From the Duke of Buckingham]: I could not love a woman whose image was for ever accompanied in my memory by brick and mortar."

"[Robert Evelyn to his brother]: {Of Italy} What is the result of the exclusive privilege of one class, and the hereditary bondage of another, and the ignorance of both — what but cruelty, indolence, and debasing superstition ? … the slightest encroachment of the powerful, are not matters to be neglected — such are the first steps of tyranny. Woe betide the people who allow such invasion on their freedom to gain courage from endurance, or strength from time !"

"[From Francesca]: As far as my experience has gone, I infinitely prefer the country to the town. There is something to me at once desolate, and yet confined, in a city. The multitude of faces continually passing and repassing, all strangers, overwhelm you with a sense of your own nothingness. The brick walls are so dreary, the streets so dirty — all the associations belonging to whatever is most commonplace in our existence — that whenever I gaze from the window, I always feel lowered and dispirited. But, in the country, the green fields are so joyous, the pure air so fresh, the fine old trees, redolent of earth's loveliest mythology, the fair flowers, at the unfolding of whose leaves some line of delicious poetry springs to mind ; the singing of the wind, like a natural lute, plaining amid the leaves, all combine to carry me out of myself. I feel a thousand vague and sweet emotions, and am both better and happier. Yes, I do love the country."

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons, to Francesca]: Marrying for love is like putting from shore to dwell in the morning palace the fay Morgana builds at daybreak on the coast of Naples. Fair and far the glistening halls extend, and the shining gardens seem filled with fruit and flowers ; but the wind gets up, the glittering pinnacles melt into the cloudy sky, the haunted terraces vanish, and the golden chimera, born of sunshine and vapour, is no more. Suddenly you find yourself in a little wretched boat, rocked by the waves into sea-sickness, scorched by the hot noon, tossed about by a rough breeze, and left to weep or curse your fate as may best suit your peculiar disposition."

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons, to Francesca]: You will find that, at the very best, marriage is a state which requires all sorts of resources to make it even endurable; but to marry for love aggravates the evil; it adds contrast to its other disappointments. Far better to make up your mind to the worst, and say at once, I know that weariness is the regular matrimonial feeling ; but that may be alleviated by a splendid house, magnificent fetes; by influence in society, jewels, laces, a lap-dog, and half-a-dozen lovers."

"Ah! no questions are so difficult to ask as those which the heart deeply and dearly treasures ! When alone, we shape them into a thousand forms — imagine every possible occasion for asking them — say them over to our selves, as if there were a charm in the sound ; but the time comes, and they die unheard upon the lip, — we have not resolution to ask them."

"[From Francesca, in reply]: All our poetical feelings, delight to link themselves with natural objects. The leaf, the flower, the star, the dew, are the inexhaustible sources of imagery."

"Frankness and confidence belong to youth ; and where experience comes too soon, it brings but half knowledge. The conviction of much evil in the heart should be learned at a later period, when we shall be aware also of much good."

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons]: Business before pleasure, I am ready to grant; but when there is none, il faut s’amuser."

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons]: Marriage in real life is the very reverse of what it is in romances; we begin where they finish. I felt that a brilliant marriage was but the very commencement of my career. To assist my friends (because, if they hope nothing from you, what have you to hope from them ?) — to injure my enemies, for fear is the best preventive — to make a failure useful, if only in its experience, have been my rules. I can recommend them by the best test, success."

"[From Francesca]: Good Heavens! how many cross purposes there are in this intricate game of human life! We only mock ourselves by laying down plans for the future — at least if those plans embrace others."

"[From de Joinville, on the young queen of France]: Why, she is one of those persons whom negatives seem invented to describe — I doubt whether she is worth one single bad quality."

"Time, of which so little has been measured, seems so very long — we soon learn the worldly lesson, that friends are easily replaced, and still more easily forgotten."

"[From de Joinville, in continuation]: A few faults are indispensable in those with whom we are to live — they are needed to excuse our own. This sort of dull perfection is a perpetual reproach to ourselves ; besides, light cannot exist without shadow. Choose what fault you please ; but, for pity's sake, have one, if you ever mean to be liked or loved.""

"[From Marie, Comtesse de Soissons]: For once we agree — words alike make the destiny of empires and of individuals. Ambition, love, hate, interest, vanity, have words for their engines, and need none more powerful. Language is a fifth element — the one by which all the others are swayed. The king addresses his people, and the heaviest impost is levied with acclamations — the general harangues his troops, and thousands rush upon the smoking cannon and the gleaming bayonets — the lover whispers his mistress, and she forgets even herself for his sake. A word will part friends, and for ever — a word floats down the stream of time when all else has perished : in short, how do we persuade, invent, create, and live, but by words ? — they are at once our subjects and our masters. Judicious those who devote at least half their life to their study."

"[From the Duke]: And one feeling, loveliest of all, delights in such connexion. The poet bears love with him to his own haunted solitude."

"Ah ! what would life be without its perspective."

"Well, nature makes some wise provisions, it must be confessed. We should be envious of others' happiness if, in nine cases out of ten, we did not despise it."

"Ah ! the past is the true source of confidence. We must recollect together before we can confide."

"We are eloquent about oppression on a large scale, — we deprecate the tyranny of government, which, after all, extends but to few; and yet how little pity is bestowed upon those who suffer from that worst of tyranny in daily practice in daily life. What grievances would not most family histories disclose ! — how much comfort is put aside — how much kindly feeling wasted, by the arbitrary cruelties of temper ! I say cruelties ; for what torture of rack or wheel can equal that of words ? Take the annals of the majority of hearths for a twelvemonth, and we should be amazed at the quantity of wretchedness that would be writ in them, if writ truly."

"— for it is a wearisome task to teach where there is little inclination and less understanding."

"The first struggle between light and darkness is a dreary hour, — the air is so raw, so cold; the want of rest is then most severely felt ; sleep avenges itself for its dismissal by sending stupor in its place ; and the relaxed nerves and worn-out spirits presage the misfortunes which they yet lack strength to meet."

"... and most old sayings are singularly true — we are not so very much wiser than our ancestors, after all."

"Despair is unnatural ; and the powers of Time, the comforter, can scarcely be exaggerated ; but the agency by which he works is exhaustion."

"… there are many follies in this world, but none so foolish as regret."