Status Updates From Shirley

Mrs. Pryor's opinion on romance novels, "My dear, romances are pernicious. You do not read them, I hope?” Pernicious: highly damaging or destructive often in a way that is not easily seen or noticed.

"When I hear Messrs... chatter about the authority of the church, the dignity and claims of the priesthood, the deference due to them as clergymen; when I hear the outbreaks of their small spite against Dissenters; when I witness their silly, narrow jealousies and assumptions; when I behold their insolent carriage to the poor, their often base servility to the rich—I think the Establishment is indeed in a poor way,"