"But in spite of his flatness and insensitiveness, his talent was great. His success came from the fact that he did know how people feel, and, above that, he could paint the intricacy of tragic feelings. Especially he knew how women feel, and how they would like to think they feel; and he was on their side. He describes himself as "with his eye always on the ladies"; he felt himself at home with them; he was always sizing up their air, their reactions, and their emotions. The milieu in which he set himself, his circle of women friends, did not, after all, serve only to swell his sense of prestige. Under that very explicit moral intention he preserved in addition a real artistic integrity."
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Alan Porter, 'Samuel Richardson', The Spectator (17 November 1928), p. 742
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Richardson
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Samuel Richardson
(19 August 1689 – 4 July 1761) was an 18th-century English writer and printer. He was one of the most admired fiction-writers of his day, both in his native England and across Europe. He is now considered one of the fathers of the novel.
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