Maria Edgeworth

“ The all for murder, all for crime system of poetry will now go out of fashion; as long as he appeared an outrageous mad villain he might have ridden triumphant on the storm, but he has now shown himself too base, too mean, too contemptible for anything like an heroic devil. ”

“ I never saw a man who had lived in the world so anxious about the opinions which are formed of him by those with whom he is conversing, so quick at discovering, by the countenance and by implication, what is thought of him, or so incessantly alert in guarding all the suspected places in your opinion. ”

“ I like it much, I like the mind that produced it; the poetry is not always good, but there is a spirit through the whole that sustains it and that elevates and invigorates the mind of the reader.
September 18.
You know, my dear aunt, it is a favourite opinion of my father's that things come in bundles: that people come in bundles is, I think, true, as, after having lived, without seeing a creature but our own family for months, a press of company comes all at once. ”