Pray, Pray Be Composed, And Do Not

We Are Each Of An Unsocial, Taciturn Disposition, Unwilling To Speak, Unless We Expect To Say Something That Will Amaze The Whole Room, And Be Handed Down To Posterity With All The Eclat Of A Proverb.

I Have Been Used To Consider Poetry As "the Food Of Love" Said Darcy. "of A Fine, Stout, Healthy Love It May. Everything Nourishes What Is Strong Already. But If It Be Only A Slight, Thin Sort Of Inclination, I Am Convinced That One Good Sonnet Will Starve It Entirely Away.

I Do Regard Her As One Who Is Too Modest For The World In General To Be Aware Of Half Her Accomplishments, And Too Highly Accomplished For Modesty To Be Natural Of Any Other Woman.

It Is Not Time Or Opportunity That Is To Determine Intimacy;—it Is Disposition Alone. Seven Years Would Be Insufficient To Make Some People Acquainted With Each Other, And Seven Days Are More Than Enough For Others.

I Could Not Sit Seriously Down To Write A Serious Romance Under Any Other Motive Than To Save My Life, & If It Were Indispensable For Me To Keep It Up & Never Relax Into Laughing At Myself Or Other People, I Am Sure I Should Be Hung Before I Had Finished The First Chapter. No - I Must Keep My Own Style & Go On In My Own Way; And Though I May Never Succeed Again In That, I Am Convinced That I Should Totally Fail In Any Other.