Charlotte Smith

“ You will believe, that it is not from malignity of nature, nor because of the money his creeping like a sycophant into my children's family, might have legally deprived them of, that I look with equal detestation and contempt on a man, who, having done this, attempts to deprive the best beloved descendants of his benefactor of their whole support, without deriving any benefit whatever to himself. ”

“ It is extremely flattering to me, dear Sir, to find that we are remembered by our newly-acquired friends.—To me it is particularly so; for I have lived to discover that poverty is, in regard to worldly attachments and connections, an almost universal menstruum;—I have seen it dissolve all the ties which I once fondly fancied indissolubly formed, by affection, taste, or habit ”

“ Whatever had been his original sentiments as to the affairs of France, he had, with very man of humanity, or principle been so disgusted by the folly, the wickedness, the unmanly cruelty of the persons into whose hands the government of that country had fallen, that he wished nothing so ardently as that the combined armies might put a final end to the war, where only it could be ended ”

“ You will imagine how I condemn and abhor his cowardly obstinacy, when, not daring to trust himself to talk on business in which even his own callous bloodless heart tells him he is wrong, he refers me to a wretch, whose unprincipled villainy is notorious; whose iniquity is supported only by his impudence ”

“ He now, indeed, felt what his brother had told him to be true, that in forming friendships with the unhappy, a man lays up uneasiness for himself; but he would not have been exempt from this uneasiness for all the tranquility that selfish apathy could have bestowed upon him. In answer to his sister, he severely reprehended her, for the malignity with which she spoke of persons who could never have offended her ”

“ Neither wisdom nor wit could affect attornies, to whose mercies I was consigned. Neither reason nor humanity, however forcibly pleaded, could influence such men; and though it has been said,—"Q'un soupir de l'innocence opprimée remuera le monde;" ”

“ The news that Ellesmere received from England, though it gave him some satisfaction so far as related to his family, was insufficient to counteract the uneasiness he felt, when he reflected on the loss he had sustained, in being deprived of a friend to whom he was sincerely attached ”