You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart. - Anthony Trollope

She knew how to allure by denying, and to make the gift rich by delaying it.

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?

In former times great objects were attained by great work. When evils were to be reformed, reformers set about their heavy task with grave decorum and laborious argument. An age was occupied in proving a grievance, and philosophical researches were printed in folio pages, which it took a life to write, and an eternity to read. We get on now with a lighter step, and quicker: ridicule is found to be more convincing than argument, imaginary agonies touch more than true sorrows,