Maria Edgeworth

“ He is a fair, whithky-looking man, very near-sighted, with spectacles which seem to pinch his nose. He pokes out his chin to keep the spectacles on, and yet looks over the top of his spectacles, squinching up his eyes so that you cannot see your way into his mind. Then he speaks through his nose, and with a lisp, strangely contrasting with the vehemence of his emphasis. He does not give me any confidence in the sincerity of his patriotism, nor any high idea of his talents, though he seems to have a mighty high idea of them himself. ”

“ She was almost in the dark with one ballooned lamp, and a semicircle of black men round her sofa, on which she sat cushioned up, giving the word for conversation—and a very odd course she gave to it—on some wife's separation from her husband; and she took the wife's part, and went on for a long time in a shrill voice, proving that, where a husband and wife detested each other, they should separate, and asserting that it must always be the man's fault when it comes to this pass! She ordered another lamp, that the gentlemen might, as she said, see my sisters' pretty faces ”