Victoriana Quotes

“Their ardor alternated between a vague ideal and the common yearning of womanhood; so that the one was disapproved as extravagance, and the other condemned as a lapse.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“In 1895 Lady Londonberry commented acidly on a bridegroom who had 'married the 10,000 a year as well as the lady.”
― Pamela Horn, Life As a Victorian Lady

“He had always kept a journal. When he was a young man, in a village outside Rotherham in Yorkshire, he had written a daily examination of his conscience...In the days of the butchery, his journal was full of his desire to be a great man, and his self-castigation... he was a good Latin teacher... a good supervisor... but he was not using his unique gifts, whatever they were, he was *going* nowhere, and he meant to go far. He could not read the circular and painful journals now, with their cries of suffocation and their self-condemnatory periods, but he had them in a bank, for they were part of a record, of an accurate record, of the development of the mind and character of William Adamson, who still meant to be a great man.

(-Morpho Eugenia, Angels and Insects)”
― A.S. Byatt, Angels and Insects

“He had always kept a journal. When he was a young man, in a village outside Rotherham in Yorkshire, he had written a daily examination of his conscience...In the days of the butchery, his journal was full of his desire to be a great man, and his self-castigation... he was a good Latin teacher... a good supervisor... but he was not using his unique gifts, whatever they were, he was *going* nowhere, and he meant to go far. He could not read the circular and painful journals now, with their cries of suffocation and their self-condemnatory periods, but he had them in a bank, for they were part of a record, of an accurate record, of the development of the mind and character of William Adamson, who still meant to be a great man.
(-Angels & Insects: Morpho Eugenia)”
― AS Byatt

“Oh, she was a great beauty," Maggie replied, and Hetty nodded in agreement.

"The clearest blue-green eyes, and skin like peaches, with a splendid dusting of freckles," she said.

"And her hair -- 'twas flaming red, and fell in marvellous profusion," Maggie added. "We used to call her Queen Elizabeth -- in jest, you understand, for the real Queen was quite fearsome I do believe. Mrs Bramstone almost hated Bessie I think, for how lovely she was".”
― Clementine Darling, The Lost Children of Gloam's End

“The centrepiece of any Seaside Holiday is a Promenade along the Pier, a clever innovation which permits holidaymakers to enjoy the sense of being at sea without the inconvenience of actually setting foot aboard a boat.”
― Elizabeth C. Bunce, How to Get Away with Myrtle