Maria Edgeworth

“ The dress of her figure by no means suited the head and the elegance of her attitude: what her "nether weeds" might be we could not distinctly see, but they seemed to be a coarse short petticoat, like what Molly Bristow's children would wear—not on Sundays, a woollen gray spencer above, pinned with a single pin by the lapels tight across the neck under the chin, and open all below. ”

“ I stood still in melancholy astonishment, while my father groped his way into a kind of porter's lodge, or den, at the foot of the stairs, where he found a man who was porter to various people who inhabited this house. You know the Parisian houses are inhabited by hordes of different people, and the stairs are in fact streets, and dirty streets to their dwellings. The porter, who was neither obliging nor intelligent, carelessly said that "Madame de Genlis logeait au seconde à gauche, qu'il faudrait tirer sa sonnette," he believed she was at home, if she was not gone out. ”

“ But my father judges much more favourably of her than I do; she evidently took pains to please him, and he says he is sure she is a person over whose mind he could gain great ascendency: he thinks her a woman of violent passions, unbridled imagination, and ill-tempered, but not malevolent: one who has been so torn to pieces that she now turns upon her enemies, and longs to tear in her turn. ”

“ She has just published an additional volume of her Petits Romans, in which there are some beautiful stories, but you must not expect another "Mademoiselle de Clermont:" one such story in an age is as much as one can reasonably expect.
I had almost forgotten to tell you that the little girl who showed us in is a girl whom she is educating, "Elle m'appelle maman, mais elle n'est pas ma fille." The manner in which this little girl spoke to Madame de Genlis, and looked at her, appeared to me more in her favour than anything else. ”

“ It is excessively difficult to find people in Paris: we thought the names of Madame de Genlis and the Arsenal would have been sufficient, but the whole of this congregation of courts, and gateways, and houses, is called the Arsenal, and hundreds and hundreds of people inhabit it who are probably perfect strangers to Madame de Genlis. At the doors where our coachman inquired, some answered that they knew nothing of her, some that she lived in the Fauxbourg St. ”

“ He writes solely with the idea of doing good to his fellow-creatures. He wants nothing in this life, he says, neither fortune nor fame—he seems to forget that he wants health—he says, "I have so many blessings." ”