Maria Edgeworth

“ Coming back to this place, to the same room where we were seven months ago, the whole seems to me and to my companions like a delightful dream, but in waking from Alps, and glaciers, and cascades, and Mont Blanc, and troops of acquaintance in splendid succession and visionary confusion, in waking from this wonderful dream, the sober certainty of happiness remains and assures us that all which has passed is not a dream. All our old friends at Paris are still more our friends than ever, and many new ones made. ”

“ Every expectation, every hope that I had formed for this journey has been more than gratified, far surpassed by the reality; and we return with thorough satisfaction to our own country, looking to our dear home for permanent happiness, without a wish unsatisfied or a regret for anything we have left behind, except our friends. ”