Charlotte Smith

“ Ah, D'Alonville, with such a wife, how lightly the little disappointments and vexations of life may be passed over! As to our pecuniary circumstances, I now think it a weakness that I ever suffered reflections on them to depress me: we are above indigence; we are independent, though not rich; and well as I love England, I can be content to quit it, if the luxuries, that are here accounted among the necessaries of a man of family, cannot be enjoyed but at the expence of that independence. ”

“ In losing every thing but my honour and my integrity, I have learned, that he who retains those qualities can never be degraded, however humble may be his fortune. If my calamities have deprived me of my natural friends, they have been the means of creating for me others, who in the unruffled bosom of prosperity I should never have found. To adversity I owe your invaluable attachment, my beloved Ellesmere—to adversity I am indebted for the dearest of all earthly blessings—the tender affection of my adored Angelina. ”

“ It is here, my friend, that I hope to forget, at least to cease feeling so acutely, the calamities which made, for many years, my country insupportable, and that have at length driven me from it.—It is here I hope still to enjoy at least that species of happiness which arises from seeing those we love happy. ”

“ Let me therefore hear of you, my dear D'Alonville, as soon as possible, and tell me where you and your household determine to fix. My accounts from Carlowitz are satisfactory: he entertains hopes of the affairs of his country, which I greatly fear will be found too sanguine; but the favourable view he gives Alexina of the projects in agitation, amuses and animates her mind, and of course contributes to my happiness, of which, notwithstanding the perverse circumstance I have related, I really think I enjoy a greater portion than falls to the usual lot of man. ”

“ I deplore, as a citizen of that world, the general devastation, the blood that has been shed in the field or on the scaffold, and the stupendous destruction that has overwhelmed a great nation.—While I can yet contemplate the minuti to feel the distresses of many amiable individuals—from these may you, my dear friend, have now escaped ”

“ I shall not be continual reproach to the persons who have impoverished me; and who have verified the observation of a man* who, knowing much of the wrong side of human nature, says, that
"Nothing is so apt to break the bravest spirit, as a continual chain of oppression.—One injury is best descended by a second, and a second by a third." ”

“ You, as a Frenchman, execrate the misery and devastation it has brought on the finest kingdom of Europe. You lament as an individual the death of your dearest friends, the disposition of your family, the ruin and beggary of many to whom you were attached.—I, as an Englishman, deplore the injury done to the cause of rational liberty throughout the world. ”

“ I still think, that originating from the acknowledged faults of your former government, the first design, aiming only at the correction of those faults, at a limited monarchy and a mixed government, was the most sublime and most worthy of a great people that ever was recorded in the annals of mankind. ”

“ I fear that from disposition and education, I am as volatile, as inconsiderate, as impetuous, as the generality of young men of my rank and country, who, born in the lap of prosperity, were educated only to appear in those scenes of life, here solidity of character would have impeded rather than have assisted their progress towards those objects to which the ambition of the French nobility was directed. ”

“ We hope to live much with them when winter obliges us to return to Verona; but at this moment we are too much delighted with the beauty and novelty of the objects around us, to think even of Verona with any wish to be there. ”

“ We differ still as to the commencement of a revolution, which in its progress has baffled all the reasoning which we could derive from analogy, in reflecting on the past events of the world—all the speculative opinions we could from thence build on the future. ”

“ I saw him in his vis-a-vis in Hyde Park yesterday.—I wish I could tell you that he was treated with the contempt he deserves; but the women who live in ton, receive him with the more kindness than ever; and the men who are of his set, seem to derive additional honour from their acquaintance with him. ”

“ The mountains which bound the lovely vallies we passed, are so majestic, so sublime, that the pencil might give some idea of them, but the pen dares not undertake it. On the summits of many, are level platforms ”