Susan in NC’s Reviews > Cranford > Status Update

“I never knew what sad work the reading of old-letters was before that evening…The letters were as happy as letters could be - at least those early letters were.  There was in them a vivid and intense sense of the present time, which seemed so strong and full, as if it could never pass away, and as if the warm, living hearts that so expressed themselves could never die, and be as nothing to the sunny earth.”

“ “Elegant economy!”  How naturally one falls back into the phraseology of Cranford!  There, economy was always “elegant,” and money-spending always “vulgar and ostentatious”; a sort of sour-grapeism which made us very peaceful and satisfied. ”