Maria Edgeworth

“ I am sorry to say that, from these last accounts of the pinna and his cancer friend, Dr. Darwin's beautiful description is more poetic than accurate. The cancer is neither watchman nor market-woman to the pinna, nor yet his friend: he has free ingress to his house, it is true, and is often found there, but he does not visit on equal terms, or on a friendly footing, for the moment the pinna gets him in he shuts the door and eats him; or if he is not hungry, kills the poor shrimp and keeps him in the house till the next day's dinner. I am sorry Dr. Darwin's story is not true. ”

“ Roland I should not have shot myself for her sake, and I question whether he would not have left undrawn the trigger if he could have seen all she intended to say of him to posterity: she has painted him as a harsh, stiff, pedantic man, to whom she devoted herself from a sense of duty; her own superiority, and his infinite obligations to her, she has taken sufficient pains to blazon forth to the world. ”