Anglicans From The United Kingdom

"When his story of Pamela first came out, some extracts got into the public papers, and used by that means to find their way down as far as Preston in Lancashire, where my aunt who told me the story then resided. One morning as she rose, the bells were set singing and the flag was observed to fly from the great steeple. She rang her bell and inquired the reason of these rejoicings, when her maid came in bursting with joy, and said, "Why, madam, poor Pamela's married at last; the news came down to us in this morning's paper.""

"Richardson is among English novelists the first analyst of the mind and the emotions: he is the inaugurator of the psychological novel. But his method differs widely from that of the psychological novelist of to-day, say George Meredith and Mr. Henry James. Richardson's method is purely objective, and in his analysis he does not set out upon a voyage of discovery. He stands firmly poised on his feet, satisfied with himself, and is unmoved in his dissection of the specimen which lies before him. His insight is objective, cold, hard, and unsympathetic. In a word, unlike the novelists of the latter decades of the nineteenth century, Richardson is not introspective. The mystery of individual character and personality interests us now, because we are impressed with the inexplicable mysteriousness of our own individuality. The novelist of to-day who probes into the secrets of the soul is the scholar who is perplexed with himself, and finds no master to instruct him. Richardson is imbued with the logical and scientific spirit of his age, and he approaches human life armed with his diploma as the qualified teacher. This is only to say that he belonged to his time, and knew nothing of that overstrained subjective temperament which is common with us."

"Men eminent for piety, wisdom, and virtue, have recommended Richardson's Clarissa from the pulpit; a work which Dr. Johnson, (so generally unwilling to praise) has been often heard to pronounce, "not only the first novel, but perhaps the first work in our language, splendid in point of genius, and calculated to promote the dearest interests of religion and virtue.""

"Except by Clarissa Harlowe I was never so moved by a work of genius as by Othello. I read seventeen hours a day at Clarissa, and held the book so long up leaning on my elbows in an arm-chair, that I stopped the circulation and could not move. When Lovelace writes, "Dear Belton, it is all over, and Clarissa lives," I got up in a fury and wept like an infant, and cursed and d——d Lovelace till exhausted. This is the triumph of genius over the imagination and heart of its readers."

"Sir, there is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's, than in all Tom Jones."

"Research! Research! A mere excuse for idleness; it has never achieved, and will never achieve any results of the slightest value."

"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."

"This is the creative spirit who, by means of instructive stories, commands us to feel the charm of virtue; who, by means of Grandison, extorts from the sinner himself a first wish to be pious also. The works which he created, no time can destroy; they are nature, taste, religion. Immortal is Homer, but among Christians the British Richardson is more immortal still."

"We have sought truth, and sometimes perhaps found it. But have we had any fun?"

"Learn just enough of the subject [metaphysics] to enable your mind to get rid of it."

"Doubt comes in at the window, when Inquiry is denied at the door."

"[The office of the interpreter] is to read Scripture like any other book."

"He despises me, because he knows I love him."

"I am truly miserable — more so than I like to acknowledge to myself. Pride refuses to aid me. It has brought me into the scrape, and will not help me out of it."

"Smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad."

"I imagine, there must be only a very, very few men in the world that I should like to marry; and of those few, it is ten to one I may never be acquainted with one; or if I should, it is twenty to one he may not happen to be single, or to take a fancy to me."

"A girl's affections should never be won unsought."

"A light wind swept over the corn; and all nature laughed in the sunshine."

"Are you hero enough to unite yourself to one whom you know to be suspected and despised by all around you, and identify your interests and your honour with hers? Think! it is a serious thing."

"You couldn't have given me less encouragement, or treated me with greater severity than you did! And if you think you have wronged me by giving me your friendship, and occasionally admitting to me to the enjoyment of your company and conversation, when all hopes of close intimacy were vain — as indeed you always gave me to understand — if you think you have wronged me by this, you are mistaken; for such favours, in themselves alone, are not only delightful to my heart, but purifying, exalting, ennobling to my soul; and I would rather have your friendship than the love of any other woman in the world!"

"Bad news fly fast."

"Beauty is that quality which, next to money, is generally the most attractive to the worst kinds of men; and, therefore, it is likely to entail a great deal of trouble on the possessor."

"In love affairs, there is no mediator like a merry, simple-hearted child — ever ready to cement divided hearts, to span the unfriendly gulf of custom, to melt the ice of cold reserve, and overthrow the separating walls of dread formality and pride."

"There is such a thing as looking through a person's eyes into the heart, and learning more of the height, and breadth, and depth of another's soul in one hour than it might take you a lifetime to discover, if he or she were not disposed to reveal it, or if you had not the sense to understand it."

"What are their thoughts to you or me, so long as we are satisfied with ourselves — and each other."

"If I hate the sins, I love the sinner, and would do much for his salvation."

"I perceive the backs of young ladies' drawings, like the postscripts of their letters, are the most important and interesting part of the concern."

"However little you may esteem them as individuals, it is not pleasant to be looked upon as a liar and a hypocrite, to be thought to practice what you abhor, and to encourage the vices you would discountenance, to find your good intentions frustrated, and your hands crippled by your supposed unworthiness, and to bring disgrace on the principles you profess."

"The brightest attractions to the lover too often prove the husband's greatest torments"

"She, however, attentively watched my looks, and her artist's pride was gratified, no doubt, to read my heartfelt admiration in my eyes."

"It’s well to have such a comfortable assurance regarding the worth of those we love. I only wish you may not find your confidence misplaced."

"If we can only speak to slander our betters, let us hold our tongues."

"I have often wished in vain," said she, "for another's judgment to appeal to when I could scarcely trust the direction of my own eye and head, they having been so long occupied with the contemplation of a single object as to become almost incapable of forming a proper idea respecting it." "That," replied I, "is only one of many evils to which a solitary life exposes us."

"When a lady condescends to apologize, there is no keeping one’s anger."

"If you would really study my pleasure, mother, you must consider your own comfort and convenience a little more than you do."

"No one can be happy in eternal solitude."

"I thought Mr. Millward never would cease telling us that he was no tea-drinker, and that it was highly injurious to keep loading the stomach with slops to the exclusion of more wholesome sustenance, and so give himself time to finish his fourth cup."

"You may have as many words as you please, – only I can’t stay to hear them."

"When a lady does consent to listen to an argument against her own opinions, she is always predetermined to withstand it — to listen only with her bodily ears, keeping the mental organs resolutely closed against the strongest reasoning."

"His heart was like a sensitive plant, that opens for a moment in the sunshine, but curls up and shrinks into itself at the slightest touch of the finger, or the lightest breath of wind."

"If you would have a boy to despise his mother, let her keep him at home, and spend her life in petting him up, and slaving to indulge his follies and caprices."

"I possess the faculty of enjoying the company of those I — of my friends as well in silence as in conversation."

"It is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble your foe."

"I would not send a poor girl into the world, ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself."

"I have heard that, with some persons, temperance – that is, moderation – is almost impossible; and if abstinence be an evil (which some have doubted), no one will deny that excess is a greater. Some parents have entirely prohibited their children from tasting intoxicating liquors; but a parent’s authority cannot last for ever; children are naturally prone to hanker after forbidden things; and a child, in such a case, would be likely to have a strong curiosity to taste, and try the effect of what has been so lauded and enjoyed by others, so strictly forbidden to himself – which curiosity would generally be gratified on the first convenient opportunity; and the restraint once broken, serious consequences might ensue."

"I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are, or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man."

"Dear Halford, When we were together last, you gave me a very particular and interesting account of the most remarkable occurrences of your early life..."

"If she were more perfect, she would be less interesting."

"It is natural for our unamiable sex to dislike the creatures, for you ladies lavish so many caresses upon them."

"Such humble talents as God had given me I will endeavour to put to their greatest use; if I am able to amuse I will try to benefit too; and when I feel it my duty to speak an unpalatable truth, with the help of God, I will speak it, though it be to the prejudice of my name and to the detriment of my readers immediate pleasure as well as my own."