Rosina Bulwer Lytton

“ I cannot, as I told him; for with me contempt is a moral bourne from which no affection ever returns. But I am not angry with him. Oh no, I wish I was; for that would pass. No, I am not angry with him; I have left him all I have in the world--not money, for I have none; but all my pictures, books, bronzes, rare carvings, and rarer historical enamel portraits, and miniatures, including a most exquisite one of la belle Ferronière, that belonged to FRANCOIS PREMIER, and a fine miniature of Madame DE MONTESPAN, set in a diamond bracelet, which had belonged to her son, the Duc DE MAINE! ”

“ No wonder then that I should have no admiration for, but a positive contempt for, mere intellect; as intellect without a moral fulcrum is, of all the Devil's levers, the one that raises the most fearful preponderances of evil, and causes them to float buoyantly and triumphantly over the world. ”

“ For had not my poor, generous Mother accepted me as a hostage, you know the QUEEN'S dominions would not have bribed her to forego the public redress she was so more than entitled to. But this would have been honest and true; and how could Sir E_____'s son, pupil, and tool, be either? And, alas! the Bible is right--as the twig is bent, so will it grow. Poor, poor, unfortunate young martyr! as his Fiend Father has crushed my life from out its setting, so has he crushed that young and once bright soul from out its orbit, and sent it erring through the tenebrous nebula of his own Avernus. ”