18th Century Romance Quotes

“As I walked over the loose fragments of stone, which lay scattered and surveyed the sublimity and grandeur of the ruins, I recurred, by a natural association of ideas, to the times when these walls stood proudly in their original splendor, when the halls were the scenes of hospitality and festive magnificence, and when they resounded with the voices of those whom death had long since swept from earth. "Thus," said I, "shall the present generation - he who now sink in misery - and he who now swim in pleasure, alike pass away and be forgotten.”
― Ann Radcliffe, A Sicilian Romance

“And does Miss Anville feel no concern at the idea of the many mourners her absence will occasion?'

'O, my Lord, - I'm sure you don't think-'

'I DO think, that whoever has once seen Miss Anville, must receive an impression never to be forgotten.”
― Fanny Burney

“Each thing called improvement seems blackened with crimes,
If it tears up one record of blissful old times.”
― Susanna Blamire