Monday, October 24, 2011

Good Quote from Austen

You know the story of Emma, right?

She tried to set up an innocent young friend with a man she thought was admirable, but it turns out Mr. Elton thinks very highly of himself and wants a trophy wife.

When Mr. Elton returns home with an obnoxious new bride, Emma muses:

    She was, in fact, beginning very much to wonder that she had ever thought him pleasing at all; and his sight was so inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings, that, except in a moral light, as a penance, a lesson, a source of profitable humiliation to her own mind, she would have been thankful to be assured of never seeing him again. She wished him very well; but he gave her pain, and his welfare twenty miles off would administer most satisfaction.

I like that!  I can also think of a person or two whom I wish very well at a distance of twenty miles!  Or better, make that 200 miles, to be comparable with today’s sense of distances 🙂


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