A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can’t see — that’s my idea of happiness. - Henry James

"Madame Merle was very appreciative; she liked almost everything, including the English rain. "There is always a little of it, and never too much at once," she said; "and it never wets you, and it always smells good.

[of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones] [it is] like a vast episode in a sermon preached by a grandly humorous divine; and however we may be entertained by the way, we must not forget that our ultimate duty is to be instructed.

Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was.