Lady Wesley

“I shall be much obliged to you, cousin, if you will refrain from telling my sisters that she has a face like a horse!’

‘But, Charles, no blame attaches to Miss Wraxton! She cannot help it, and that, I assure you, I have always pointed out to your sisters!’

‘I consider Miss Wraxton’s countenance particularly well-bred!’

‘Yes, indeed, but you have quite misunderstood the matter! I meant a particularly well-bred horse!’

'You mean, as I am perfectly aware, to belittle Miss Wraxton!'

'No, no! I am very fond of horses!' Sophy said earnestly.

Before he could stop himself he found that he was replying to this. 'Selina, who repeated the remark to me, is not fond of horses, however, and she—' He broke off, seeing how absurd it was to argue on such a head.

'I expect she will be, when she has lived in the same house with Miss Wraxton for a month or two,' said Sophy encouragingly.”
― Georgette Heyer, The Grand Sophy

“Finally, Elizabeth understood that she had been orphaned not once but twice when her mother passed away. She lost her father as surely as her mother on the day of her birth. All those years, she idealized the earl’s devotion to her mother’s memory and ignored the price she herself paid. She grew up a lonely child, envying a beloved spectral being and wishing someday for an undying, perfect love of her own in compensation.   Her next thought stunned her: she would never wish that childhood on any child of hers.”
― Miranda Davis, The Baron's Betrothal

“His parenting never involved indulgence, just benign neglect. And having let me do as I wish for two decades, it seems a mean trick to impose discipline by marrying me off to some relic from another age.”
“Perhaps.”
“Who knows if the old baron is even up to the task of managing me! You say I’ll give him fatal spasms.” “Only if the drink doesn’t kill him first,” Clun quipped.
“He’s a… a tippler?” She asked.
“More than tipples, if memory serves. A bottomless cask. Mouth like a funnel on one end and a wee spigot at the other,” he concluded with a wink.”
― Miranda Davis, The Baron's Betrothal

“Your average genre novel is like a high speed car chase ending in a massive crash, with death, destruction, and balls of flame, from which the main characters (usually) emerge mostly unscathed. Everything builds up to the crash, and it’s the anticipation that keeps us turning pages.

Anthony Trollope, by contrast, is like a pleasant Sunday afternoon drive through the countryside in an open carriage behind a pair of matched horses. There’s conflict, sure; a herd of sheep blocks the road, two countrymen come to blows outside the pub, the cows in this field are looking daggers at the cows in that field. But the point of the drive is the drive itself, not the destination, because of course you’re just going to end up at home anyway.”
― willduquette