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Marchmont: A Novel

Book by Charlotte Turner Smith · 5 quotes · Novel, Writing, Empathy

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Marchmont: A Novel Quotes

“Ah! candid and unadulterated mind! you have learned early to reflect; but take care lest this habit, hitherto so well applied, should totally unfit you for society. It will strew thorns in your path, while other young women of your age seek only flowers. By imagining yourself in the place of others, as you now continually do, you will learn to feel for all the unhappy, or even for those who appear so; whereas it might save a great deal of (for the most part useless) pain, if you could contrive to feel only for yourself.”

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“They say I am a reformer. They say wrong: for I have long since given up any such chimerical idea, as that of being able to make men happier who are wicked and miserable by prescription. Withdrawing, therefore, from any such Utopian and hopeless attempt, I believed the best thing I could do was, to relieve, where I could, individual distress, and to lighten the chains that villany often imposes on simplicity under the name of law. In this I have done some good, and what else ought a man to do on this earth?”

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“It has been said that Shakespeare, the great delineator of human character, has failed in distinguishing his principal women—and that such as he meant to be amiable are all equally gentle and good. How difficult then it is for a novelist to give to one of his heroines any very marked feature which shall not disfigure her! Too much reason and self-command destroy the interest we take in her distresses. It has been observed, that Clarissa is so equal to every trial as to diminish our pity. Other virtues than gentleness, pity, filial obedience, or faithful attachment, hardly belong to the sex.”

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“Novel-writing has in one respect an affinity to the drama—that time and distance are required to soften for use the harsher features that may be exhibited from real life; that it was almost impossible to bring forward events without touching on their causes; and that any tendency to political discussion, however liberal or applicable, was not to be tolerated in a sort of work which people took up with no other design than to be amused at the least possible expence of thought.”

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