Eliza Fenwick > Quotes

“That he is gratified by, encourages, even stimulates the attention of fools and coquettes, I cannot deny; and when I view him indulging a weakness so contemptible, so dangerous, I am almost ready to believe he may be any thing that is vicious; and that, having taken vanity and flattery for his guides, he may attain to the horrid perfection of a successful debauchee.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“The principle which moves this mischief is the error males and females partake concerning softness.—Bid them form a woman of an enlightened understanding, and with the learning of a scholar they never fail to associate the manners of a porter.—Talk of one, who scorns to sink in apprehensions, who would rather protect herself than sacrifice herself, who can stand unpropped in the creation, they expect a giant in step and a monster in form.—If reason and coarseness were thus inseparable, it were better to take both than to abandon both. But it is the reverse. Wherever coarseness exists with talent, it is because the talent is contracted; let it expand, and the dignified grace and softness of active virtue takes its place.—”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Throughout life, the mind invariably rules the functions of the body. It transports itself from, and returns to its abode at pleasure; it can look back on the past, or fly forward to the future; it passes all boundary of place; creates or annihilates; and soars or dives into other worlds. Yet, in one moment, its wearied tool, the body, had extinguished these omnipotent powers, and to me quenched its vast energies for ever.' I wrung my hands in bitterness, and in anguish of heart; and I called loudly on the name of my lost instructor, for I had now no instructor.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Thus adorned by nature,' said I, 'in what way shall I further recommend her? Art has disclaimed her. This queer creature, Lady Mary, never out of her uncle's castle since she was six years old, has been left utterly without the skill of the governess and waiting maid. An old tutor, indeed, gave her some singular lessons on the value of sincerity, independence, courage, and capacity; and she, a worthy scholar of such a teacher, as indeed you may judge from the specimen I read of her letter, has odd notions and practices; and, half insane, as Mrs. Ashburn says, would rather think herself born to navigate ships and build edifices, than to come into a world for no other purpose, than to twist her hair into ringlets, learn to be feeble, and to find her feet too hallowed to tread on the ground beneath her.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“I was for a time wrapped in the sublimity of happiness. Is the mind so much fettered by its earthly clog the body, that it cannot long sustain these lofty flights, soaring as it were into divinity, but must ever sink back to its portion of pains and penalties?”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“A letter, Sir, cannot waft down your draw-bridges; the spirit of my affection breathed therein cannot disenchant her from the all-powerful spell of your authority. No. And you surely will not forbid an indulgence so endearing to us, while unimportant to yourself.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Numberless are the hours, child,' Mr. Valmont said to me soon after I entered, 'that I have employed in pondering on your welfare:—yet you are not the docile and grateful creature I expected to find you.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“I must bring you back again to my mother, with whom in these years of childhood I have been but little acquainted. She hated children; their noise and prattle and monkey tricks threw her into hysterics. For a few minutes after dinner, I was sometimes admitted, hushed to silence with a profusion of sweetmeats, and dismissed with a kiss or a frown, just as the avocations and pleasures of the day happened to fix her disposition.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Was I unjust, Caroline? but his mention of secresy instantly filled my mind with a supposition that his words wore one form, and his intentions another. I warned him to depart. I told him, I despised concealment; that I had ever scorned to separate my wishes from my acts, or my actions from my words. I said, his caution pointed out my duty. I bade him, as I then thought a final adieu.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“but we people of fashion know better things. We know self-love and insincerity to be useful and important qualities, the grand cement which binds our intercourse with each other. Born a superior race, we can bid truth and plain honesty depart; and, having dressed falsehood and guile in all the fascination of the senses, can bow down before the idol of our own creation.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Gladly would I possess the power of selecting my society. From that happy privilege I am debarred. But I seldom make one of a circle in which I do not find some novelty of character, and something either of excellence or absurdity from which I may draw improvement”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Yes, Miss Ashburn, when at night you had retired from me, I beheld only solitude and imprisonment; and I have waited hours in that forlorn gallery, that I might catch the whisper of your breathings, that the consciousness of being near a friend might restore me to hope, to hilarity, to confidence.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“What does the world care about either you or me? Nothing. But we care for each other, and I grasp at every opportunity of telling it. A letter, they may say, would do as well for that purpose as a dedication. I say no; for a letter is a sort of corruptible substance, and these volumes may be IMMORTAL. Beside, it is perhaps my pride to write a dedication and your pride to receive one. I desire the world then to let it pass; for, to tell them a truth—you have paid me for it before-hand.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“It is not for you, happy you, who live with liberty, live as free to indulge as to form your wishes, I say it is not for you to find tongues in the wind. It is for the imprisoned Sibella to feed on such illusions, to waft herself on the pinions of fancy beyond Mr. Valmont's barriers, within which, for the two last years, her fetters have been insupportable:—for two years, except when she saw you, has she been joyless.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“If Miss Valmont's education, treatment, and utter seclusion were most valuable for her, why should she, yet so young, and removed from the common misfortunes of life, why should she be unhappy. You, Sir, may not have perceived this effect of your system; for, although shut within the same boundary and resident under one roof, you seldom see her, and when you do see, you do not study her.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Oh teach me your art to soften his power, to unloose the grasp of his authority, and I will love you as——I believe I cannot love you better than I do; for have you not cast a ray of cheering light upon my dungeon?—Have you not bestowed upon me the only charm of existence that I have known for many and many a tedious day?”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“When it does arrive, I begin without fear; or, at least, I have only a weak trembling, which I should soon lose, if he did not call up one of those frowns which infallibly condemn me to silence and to terror. But I know, and he knows too if he would but own it, that I do think; that I was born to think:—and I will think.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Surely, Miss Ashburn,' and he looked at me stedfastly, 'you cannot think I would ever use your mother ill.' 'Do you love her, sir?' 'I have told you, Miss Ashburn, I admire her—I think her a fine spirited woman.' 'Do you love her, sir?' rejoined I with more emphasis. 'Love! why yes—no!—I have a great friendship for her, madam.—But as to love 'tis out of fashion—it is exploded.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“I go to taste simplicity. Not the simplicity of a golden age; but the simplicity of gold and tinsel.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Love shall never write its lasting characters on my mind, till my reason invites it: and where hopes rests not, reason cannot abide.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“How is he who has never reasoned to be enabled in his turn to train his offspring otherwise than he himself was trained. Proud of sway and dominion, he gratifies every impulse of caprice, blindly commands while they blindly obey; and thus from one generation to another the world is peopled with slaves, and the human mind degraded from the station which God had given to it.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“I replied, 'I do not think as you do.' 'Child, you are not born to think; you were not made to think.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“You will certainly remember, that the south-west wing is rather distant from that part of the body of the castle where most of the family inhabit. You know too that my rooms open into a long gallery; but you never explored this gallery. My hours with you were rich in pleasure and variety; and I thought not then of the solitary haunts to which I fly, when I seek amusement and find none.”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Tis true: but in imagination, I can encompass the vast globe in a second. Hail thought! Thought the soul of existence!—Not think!—why do not all forms in which the pulse of life vibrates, possess the power of thought?”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock

“Zounds! What a howl from Griffiths and his brother!”
― Eliza Fenwick, Secresy : or, Ruin on the Rock