Netta’s Reviews > Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell > Status Update

“This young woman, she had, I dare say, all the usual accomplishments and virtues? She was graceful? Witty? Vivacious? Capricious? Danced like sunlight? Rode like the wind? Sang like an angel? Embroidered like Penelope? Spoke French, Italian, German, Breton, Welsh and many other languages?”

Mr Norrell said he supposed so. He believed that those were the sorts of things young ladies did nowadays.

Sir Walter was distressed for money.
I do not mean that he merely lacked for cash. Poverty is one thing. Sir Walter's debts quite another. Miserable situation! - and all the more bitter since it was no fault of his: he had never been extravagant and he bad certainly never been foolish, but he was the son of one imprudent man and the grandson of another. Sir Walter had been born in debt.

It was not that the Ministers were dull-witted - upon the contrary there were some brilliant men among them. Nor were they, upon the whole, bad men; several led quite blameless domestic lives and were remarkably fond of children, music, dogs, landscape painting.

Consider, if you will, a man who sits in his library day after day; a small man of no particular personal attractions. His book is on the table before him. A fresh supply of pens. A knife to cut new nibs, ink, paper, notebooks - all is conveniently to hand. There is always a fire in the room - he cannot do without a fire, he feels the cold. The room changes with the season: he does not.

There was a tall, sensible man in the room called Thorpe, a gentleman with very little magical learning, but a degree of common sense rare in a magician.