Charlotte Smith

“ Author.—They were indeed.—One was an authoress; one who is herself above all the weaknesses of humanity, and whose talents give to her character a peculiar hardness, which is all placed to the account of her understanding. ”

“ But on some future occasion I may give you more fully my opinion of English novels. I speak not of the trifles which issue every day from the press to satisfy the idlest readers of a circulating library, but such as deserve to be read by persons who have other purposes in reading than to pass a vacant hour, or escape for a few moments from the insipid monotony of prosperity, by engaging their minds in the detail of adventures; of fables, that only a distempered imagination can produce, or a vitiated taste enjoy. ”

“ Author.—Alas! my dear Sir! if you had yourself ever seen much of that part of the critical world who descant on novels, you would be aware of the extreme difficulty of the task that a Novelist has to execute:—besides that the number of strange situations under which the heroes and heroines have been represented, are so numerous as to leave hardly any new means of bewildering them in difficulties, there are such objections continually made to some part or other of our fabricated stores, as have continually reminded me of the fable of the Man, his Son, and his Ass. ”

“ On giving the first volume however to a friend to peruse, and hinting at the difficulty I was sensible of in finding novelty from my dark drawings, he bade me remember the maxim so universally allowed—
"Que rien n'est beau que le vrai." ”

“ Keep therefore as nearly as you can to circumstances you have heard related, or to such as might have occurred in a country where murder stalks abroad, and calls itself patriotism; where the establishment of liberty serves as a pretence for the violation of humanity ”

“ I have been assailed with remonstrances on the evil tendency of having too much of love—too much of violent attachments in my novels; and as I thought in the present instance, the situation of my hero was of itself interesting enough to enable me to carry him on for some time without making him violently in love, I was determined to try the experiment. ”

“ Author.—Perhaps not.—In the various combinations of human life—in the various shades of human character, there are almost inexhaustible sources, from whence observation may draw materials, that very slender talents may weave into connected narratives ”