Sublime

A warm sunlight was working its way through the leafage; a sunlight which though of saintless gold had taken on the quality of evening.

the spring of her heroine’s errors, and of many of ours. That spring is a philanthropy, and even a generosity, secretly founded on gentility.

Ursula thought that she would rather die for Fox Corner than “England.” For meadow and copse and the stream that ran through the bluebell wood. Well, that was England, wasn’t it? The blessed plot.

It was summer, and the light was tinged with pink.

The kindness, the earnestness of Eleanor’s manner in pressing her to stay, and Henry’s gratified look on being told that her stay was determined, were such sweet proofs of her importance with them, as left her only just so much solicitude as the human mind can never do comfortably without.

Anne wore an old heather mixture tweed suit—it was a good suit, but old enough to have lost its lines and become baggy. With her chestnut brown hair, russet cheeks and heather mixture tweed she looked almost part of the landscape, an appropriate sturdy figure, strong and competent. When Colonel St Cyres saw her, he said, “Thank God.” He always did

Cecilia (1782) and Camilla (1796) are by Frances (or Fanny) Burney; Belinda (1801) is by Maria Edgeworth. Burney, the most acclaimed novelist of the late eighteenth century, was, along with Samuel Richardson, the most important influence on Jane Austen’s work. Burney’s novels consistently focus on the tribulations—romantic and otherwise—of a young