Francesca Carrara

"Perhaps there is not a situation in the world so confidential as pacing up and down some shady walk, arm in arm. The freedom of that freest element, the air, communicates itself to the thoughts ; the green obscurity of the closing branches over head reassures timidity ; the motion gives its own activity, and dissipates the nervous restlessness ever attendant on excitement. Your face is necessarily a little averted from your companion's, though not enough to prevent your marking the attention given. Then the chance which led to your choice of subject was so accidental, the discourse has proceeded so gradually, that restraint has melted away from the lip, and reserve from the heart, almost before the speaker is aware that the secret soul has found its way in words."

"Only those who have looked hopelessly upon life, and turned again to the restless and gloomy depths of their own heart with a despair which is as the shadow of the valley of death, — only they can know the peace that is of heaven, and the faith that looks beyond the portals of the grave."

"Nothing more truly proves that life is but a trial — than the pleasures which depart, the sense of enjoyment which deadens, and the disappointments which spring up at every step in our pilgrimage. Could life preserve its illusions, who would be fit to die ? Vanity of vanities is written on this side of the grave, but that we may more clearly discern that on the other shines the hope of immortality."

"We talk of youth as our happiest season, because, perhaps, we do not begin to moralise upon it till it has been long past. The present sorrow always exceeds its predecessors — not so the present joy ; comparison exaggerates the one, while it diminishes the other ; and people talk of their youth as if it had not been a period of feverish sensitiveness, awkward embarrassments, many heart burnings, and an utter want of that self-reliance which alone can ensure content. It is folly to dwell on any season's peculiar happiness ; each might in turn be weighed in the balance, and found wanting."

"… ; for in truth gaiety must make some small appeal to our vanity before it is enjoyed."

"One would think that, in society, beauty, instead of lying on the surface, was in the mine, and required discovery ; the majority would never discover the loveliness of the Venus de Medici, unless it were pointed out to them."

"… ; however, like most proofs of faith, it was to be put off as long as possible."

"She had all the faults peculiar to very weak people — faults which are of the meanest order ; violent, for it requires strength of mind to curb emotion; obstinate, for with the obstinate opinion is made up of habit and conceit ; and cunning for cunning is the genius of the fool."

"[From the ex-Queen Christina of Sweden]: I am persuaded that war was always meant to be the one great luxury of the human race. War calls out all our good qualities ; courage teaches a man to respect himself — and self-respect is at once the beginning and the guarantee of excellence. Besides, a campaign teaches patience, generosity, and exertion. So much for the morale; and as to the enjoyment, pardieu ! I can imagine nothing beyond the excitement of leading a charge of cavalry."

"Well — audacity, oddity, and flattery, are the three graces which wake their way in modern society."

"Even in our time, when they are so many in number — things of morning, noon, and night occurrence — a letter is a delight. We never hear the postman's knock without a vague sort of hope that it is for us. A letter, too, is one of the few mysteries that yet remain — a small and a transitory one, but still a mystery, though but of a moment. We have to open it. If these are a pleasure even now, what must they have been when an epistle was an event in a life, and when rarely any but a beloved hand traced the characters ?"

"Francesca's was a grievance of which most of her sex have to complain ; a man's letter is always the most unsatisfactory thing in the world. There are none of those minute details which are such a solace to feminine anxiety ; the mere fact of writing always seems sufficient to content a masculine conscience."

"The imagination shuns to reveal its workings, unless it can clothe them in some lovely and palpable shape, and create into existence the high romance, the mournful song, the animated canvas, or the carved marble ; …"

"[From the ex-Queen Christina of Sweden]: Certainly it is pleasant to appreciate one's own perfections ; it puts one on good terms with others, by first being on such with ourselves."

"A lover owes his mistress a little jealousy. Indifference to the homage she receives may show reliance, but it is a bad compliment."

"None but worldly people appreciate simplicity."

"There is a story somewhere of an eastern king, whose delight it was to assemble his subjects in a glittering hall, where they were crowned with roses, and drank the purple wine from cups of gold ; but beneath them were caverns and chains. Suddenly, the floor gave way, and the guests were precipitated into the darkness below, there to meditate at leisure over their former blind enjoyment. Human life is just such a tyrant — the pleasure hides the pain ; but not long — soon, very soon, are we precipitated into the depths of experience and regret !"

"Voiture belonged to a race of poets essentially French, who sacrificed to the Graces instead of the Muses ; to whom Cupid, with his wings and arrows, was the ideal of love, and whose art of poetry consisted in epigram, tournure, readiness, and facility."

"But the passion which gives its deep and melancholy tone to our English imaginative literature was unknown across the channel. Feeling never got beyond sentiment; and that bien arrangé. The heart's faith was but la galanterie — a term, by the bye, which our word gallantry does not translate."

"[From the ex-Queen Christina of Sweden]: Ah ! women like to have desperate things done on their account ; besides, people in love never calculate on probabilities."

"Like most persons utterly unused to deception, she could not imagine how it was to be managed ; and her thoughts conjured up every probable and improbable embarrassment that might occur."

"Ah ! misfortune ought to have sufficient self-respect for solitude."

"It was curious to observe the many indications of character called forth by the spirit of gambling so unexpectedly evoked. Some pressed forward ; others hung back, as if they feared to tempt their fate without some effort at propitiation, in the way of "muttered vow and inward prayer." While one would take up a sealed billet with affected carelessness — belied, however, by the anxious eye — another could not conceal the flushed cheek and the trembling hand."

"[From the ex-Queen Christina of Sweden]: {of Rome} Yet, you must admit, that the past, with its gathered glories of many ages, exceeds the past which has only to-day?"

"Her education, it is true, had preserved her from much of the ignorant belief of her country ; but, whatever the head may be, the heart is always superstitious."

"… ; she had already learned that leading lesson of society, namely, that of curbing your first impulses."

"There is something peculiarly attractive to a woman in any display of strong emotion, though she has herself no part in it."

"No person is much in any particular room without having a favourite seat in it;"

"— nothing is more painful than to have a kindly anxiety treated as curiosity."

"'Tis pity for those whose standard of love is high and ideal ; for them are prepared the downfall and the disappointment. The heart is the true sensitive plant — revolting at a touch."

"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."

"… ; a first lover was welcome rather as an omen of future triumph than for his own sake. The sentiment of such a heart is dew, that exhales with the earliest sunbeam."

"An idol must be picked to pieces before it is discovered to be but wood and stone."

"Injustice is so revolting to the young — they hear of it, they think of it, they believe in its existence, but always as of that which cannot affect themselves. It is a bitter lesson that which first brings it home."

"No marvel that we regret our youth. Let its bloom, let its health, let its pleasures depart, could they but leave behind the singleness and the innocence of the happy and the trusting heart. The lessons of experience may open the eyes; but, as in the northern superstition, they only open to see dust and clay, where they once beheld the beauty of palaces."

"The first appreciation of one's own face and figure is a very delightful feeling ; and as the youth outgrows the boy, it seems as if so much lost time had to be made up."

"Memory has many conveniences, and, among others, that of foreseeing things as they have afterwards happened."

"Truly, society is like a large piece of frozen water ; there are the rough places to be shunned, the very slippery ones all ready for a fall, and the holes which seem made expressly to drown you. All that can be done is to glide lightly over them. Skaiting well is the great art of social life."

"No entertainment, however brilliant, to which you merely go, can at all equal the delights of one where you have assisted from the original idea of the giving to the actual accomplishment of its being given. Your taste has been consulted, and your self-love enlisted in its cause; your advice has been asked, and, consequently, you have a personal interest in its success. Your time has been taken up by a thousand details — and occupation is the life of time."

"Enjoyment is the least descriptive of all feelings ; …"

"I believe there are few who have not, even in their gladdest hours, felt how nearly gaiety and sadness are allied ; a shadow steals over the spirits, like a cloud over the moon, soft and subduing, perhaps transitory, but not the less dark for the moment."

"We take some most favourable portion of another's existence, and compare it with one of the darkest in our own, and then exclaim against the difference."

"Evelyn — for falsehood brings its own cowardice — was speechless."

"— shame can never be the first feeling of the innocent; but even the falsest accusation brings the burning and bitter blush, to think that such can even have been imagined."

"I say, deeply is that woman to be pitied whose first attachment has been ill requited. The qualities most natural to youth are at once destroyed ; suspicion takes the place of confidence, reserve of reliance, distrust instead of that ready belief in all that was good and beautiful. Knowledge has come to her too soon — knowledge of evil, unqualified by the general charities which longer experience infallibly brings; but her age has lent its own freshness to this first great emotion ; it becomes unconsciously a criterion, and the judgment is harsh, because the remembrance is bitter. Another affection may, and in nine cases out of ten does, supersede the first ; and it is well that it should; the daily contentment of life, the household happiness of hourly duty and hourly love, are not to be offered up in vain sacrifice to the unpitying past. But not the less at the time did the disappointment appear too heavy, not the less cruel was its influence over the mind ; the ideal of love is gone for ever — its poetry a dream, its fairy-land a departed vision."

"There are few but must recollect the first awakening after any event ; the unconscious rousing, the gradual remembrance that something unusual has occurred, the half reluctance to recall it, till suddenly it flashes full upon your mind, and you start up in astonishment at even your momentary oblivion."

"No man likes to hear that any woman is in love with his friend — it seems a sort of personal affront to himself; … … And here we cannot but note the less selfish nature of woman. In nine cases out of ten, a girl is delighted in her companions' conquests — to be the confidante is almost equal to having the lover her own. This, we grant, is confined to the very young, and perhaps they may consider it as an augury ; still, this mere satisfaction in confidence is a purely feminine feeling."

"[From Marie Mancini]: Ah ! beauty without vanity is but a sort of barbaric gold, unfit for any of the purposes of civilised life. I can only supply its place by the delusions of self-love — by deceiving people into the belief that they are thinking of me, when they are in reality thinking of themselves."

"[From Marie Mancini]: Yes, it is ; for amusement destroys interest. There is nothing for which people are less grateful than for being entertained; in their hearts they are ashamed of not being able to entertain themselves, and therefore seek consolation in despising, or at least undervaluing, those to whom they owe that very entertainment."

"One proof of a great man is fitness for the circumstances in which he is placed. That talent may reasonably be doubted which is never exercised; …"