'[T]is a sad thing when all one's happiness is only that the world does not know you are miserable. - Dorothy Osborne

The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o’clock, I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of ballads. [...] I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world, but the knowledge that they are so.

I had rather agree to what you say than tell you that Dr Taylor (whose devote you must know I am) says there is a great advantage to be gained in resigning up one’s will to the command of another, because the same action which in itself is wholly indifferent if done upon our own choice, becomes an act of duty and religion if done in obedience to the command of any person whom nature, the laws, or our selves have given a power over us.

I shall never be persuaded that marriage has a charm to raise love out of nothing, much less out of dislike.