Quotes About Expectations

Why should you be altered? It's only two years. I am altered because of Baby. That does change a woman. Of course I'm thinking always of what he will do in the world; whether he'll be a master of hounds or a Cabinet Minister or a great farmer; — or perhaps a miserable spendthrift, who will let everything that his grandfathers and grandmothers have done for him go to the dogs.

Till some one else has made himself agreeable to her." Was he to send his girl into the world in order that she might find a lover? There was something in the idea which was thoroughly distasteful to him.

If we look to our clergymen to be more than men, we shall probably teach ourselves to think that they are less, and can hardly hope to raise the character of the pastor by denying to him the right to entertain the aspirations of a man.

I know what it is, my dear, to be jumped upon. We talked with such horror of the French people giving their daughters in marriage, just as they might sell a house or a field, but we do exactly the same thing ourselves. When they all come upon you in earnest how are you to stand against them? How can any girl do it?

Blood, indeed! If my father had been a baker, I should know by this time where to look for my livelihood. As it is, I am told of nothing but my blood. Will my blood ever get me half a crown?

I do not believe in girls being saviours to men. It is the man who should be the saviour to the girl. If I marry at all, I have the right to expect that protection shall be given to me, — not that I shall have to give it.

As Lady Eustace, — certainly not. If Frederic does marry her, of course I must know her. That's a different thing. One has to make the best one can of a bad bargain. I don't doubt they'd be separated before two years were over." "Oh, dear, how dreadful!" exclaimed Augusta.

Ah! that's just it. People always do seem to think it so terrible that a girl should have her own way in anything. She mustn't like any one at first; and then, when she does like some one, she must marry him directly she's bidden. I haven't much of my own way at present; but you see, when I'm married I shan't have it at all. You can't wonder that I shouldn't be in a hurry.

She had no ambition to write a good book, but was painfully anxious to write a book that the critics should say was good. Had

Men are so seldom really good. They are so little sympathetic. What man thinks of changing himself so as to suit his wife? And yet men expect that women shall put on altogether new characters when they are married, and girls think that they can do so.

She felt sure that she never could love him. Had it been on the cards with her to love any man as a lover, it would have been some handsome spendthrift who would have hung from her neck like a nether millstone. This

When young Mark Steinmark knelt before your feet — he who now leads these stirring men of Bruges — his busy active energetic spirit could not command your love. You chose a scholar, and now are vexed because he will not rise, quick from his books, a patriot ready-armed.

Then they are to be married?" "I suppose it will come to that. It always does if the man is in earnest. Girls will accept men simply because they think it ill-natured to return the compliment of an offer with a hearty 'No.

I cannot fancy him with a wife," said Phineas, "There is a savagery about him which would make him an uncomfortable companion for a woman." "But he would love his wife?" "Yes, as he does his horses. And he would treat her well, — as he does his horses. But he expects every horse he has to do anything that any horse can do; and he would expect the same of his wife.

When I was young," she continued, "I did not credit myself with capacity for so much passion. I told myself that love after all should be a servant and not a master, and I married my husband fully intending to do my duty to him. Now we see what has come of it.

His grandfather, who was eighty years of age, would not die, — appeared to have no symptoms of dying; — whereas this Marquis, who was not yet much over fifty, was rushing headlong out of the world, simply because he was the one man whose continued life at the present moment would be serviceable to George Vavasor. As he thought of his grandfather he almost broke his umbrella by the vehemence with which he struck it against the pavement.

CHAPTER L 'IN THESE DAYS ONE CAN'T MAKE A MAN MARRY

I hate the twaddle talk of love, whether it's about myself or about any one else. It makes me feel ashamed of my sex, when I find out that I cannot talk of myself to another woman without being supposed to be either in love or thinking of love, -- either looking for it or avoiding it. When it comes, if it comes prosperously, it's a very good thing. But I for one can do without it, and I feel myself injured when such a state of things is presumed to be impossible.

But she thought that a governess should not be desirous of marrying, at any rate till a somewhat advanced period of life. A governess, if she were given to falling in love, could hardly perform her duties in life

There is nothing pleasanter than all this, although a man when so treated does feel himself to look like a calf at the altar, ready for the knife, with blue ribbons round his horns and neck. Crosbie felt that he was such a calf, — and the more calf-like, in that he had not as yet dared to ask a question about his wife's fortune.

A man raises a woman to his own standard, but a woman must take that of the man she marries.

You can make a joke of it, when I — . But I don't think, Miss Boncassen, you at all realise what I feel. As to settlements and all that, your father could do what he likes with me." "My father has nothing to do with it, and I don't know what settlements mean. We never think anything of settlements in our country. If two young people love each other they go and get married.

Henrietta had been taught by the conduct of both father and mother that every vice might be forgiven in a man and in a son, though every virtue was expected from a woman, and especially from a daughter.

I don't go for people who lead full and satisfying lives.