“She was cold by nature, self-love predominating over passion; rather than being virtuous, she preferred to have her pleasures all to herself.”

“She would tell you herself that she has a very dreadful cold in her head at present; but I have not much compassion for colds in the head without fever or sore throat.”

“She had promised him she would consider his question [of marrying him] […]. But this was not the case; she was wondering if she were not a cold, hard, priggish person, and, on her at last getting up and going rather quickly back to the house, felt, as she had said to her friend, really frightened at herself.”

“Love itself became the object of her love. She loved herself in love, she loved loving love, as love loves loving, and was able, in that way, to reconcile herself with a world that fell so short of what she would have hoped for.”

“In her first passion, a woman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.”

“An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be done.”

“Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of herself. She is not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil, rather than a mirror.”

“Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she should find herself in a difficult position, so that she might have the pleasure of being as heroic as the occasion demanded.”

“She let out a laugh, and then she put her hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness.”

“She could only realize that she herself — her present self — was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing with different eyes.”