Elle’s Reviews > Vanity Fair > Status Update

“It is those who injure women who get the most kindness from them—they are born timid and tyrants and maltreat those who are humblest before them. So poor Amelia has been getting ready in silent misery for her son’s departure, and has passed many and many a long solitary hour in making preparations for the end. George stood by his mother, watching her arrangements without the least concern.”

“I know few things more affecting than the timid debasement and self-humiliation of a woman. How she owns that it is she and not the man who is guilty; how she takes all the faults on her side; how she judges in a manner punishing for the wrongs which she has not committed and persists in shielding the real culprit!”

“This is what the conjurors here pride themselves upon doing. They look down with pity upon us miserable sinners who have none. They think themselves generous if they give our children a five-pound note, and us contemptible if we are without one."

"I think I could be a good woman if I had five thousand a year…. I could ask old women about their rheumatisms and order half-a-crown's worth of soup for the poor. I could pay everybody, if I had but the money.”

Pg. 387/812: I’m convinced Vanity Fair is as relevant today as it was more than a hundred years ago. Please see chapter XXXIII.

“The night before, Mr Clump and Dr Squills had had a consultation (over a bottle of wine at the house of Sir Lapin Warren, whose lady was about to present him with a thirteenth blessing), regarding Miss Crawley and her case.”

“We are Turks with the affections of our women; and have made them subscribe to our doctrine too. We let their bodies go abroad liberally enough, with smiles and ringlets and pink bonnets to disguise them instead of veils and yakmaks. But their souls must be seen by only one man, and they obey not unwillingly, and consent to remain at home as our slaves—ministering to us and doing drudgery for us.”