Ann Radcliffe QUOTES

61 " At some distance from the tribunal stood a large iron frame, which Vivaldi conjectured to be the rack, and near it another, resembling, in shape, a coffin, but, happily, he could not distinguish through the remote obscurity, any person undergoing actual suffering. In the vaults beyond, however, the diabolical decrees of the inquisitors seemed to be fulfilling; for, whenever a distant door opened for a moment, sounds of lamentation issued forth, and men, whom he judged to be familiars, habited like those who stood beside him, were seen passing to and fro within. "

― Ann Radcliffe , Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe

62 " It was nearly midnight, and the stillness that reigned was rather soothed than interrupted by the gentle dashing of the waters of the bay below, and by the hollow murmurs of Vesuvius, which threw up, at intervals, its sudden flame on the horizon, and then left it to darkness. "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Italian

63 " This discourse, Count Morano, sufficiently proves, that my affections ought not to be yours,” said Emily, mildly, “and this conduct, that I should not be placed beyond the reach of oppression, so long as I remained in your power. If you wish me to believe otherwise, cease to oppress me any longer by your presence. "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Mysteries of Udolpho

64 " Dear! Dear! To see how gentlefolks can afford to throw away their happiness! Now, if you were poor people, there would be none of this. To talk of unworthiness, and not caring about one another, when I know there are not such a kind-hearted lady and gentlemen in the whole province, nor any that love one another half so well, if truth was spoken! "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Mysteries of Udolpho

65 " The beauty of her countenance haunting his imagination, and the touching accents of her voice still vibrating on his heart, he descended to the shore below her residence, pleasing himself with the consciousness of being near her, though he could no longer behold her; and sometimes hoping that he might again see her, however distantly, in a balcony of the house, where the silk awning seemed to invite the breeze from the sea. "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Italian

66 " But that, which most delighted the Queen’s ladies in these wild woods was to see the nimble squirrels climbing among the boughs, and springing from branch to branch, so full of happy life it was a pleasure to behold. And some, when they had gained the topmost boughs, would quietly sit, cracking the chesnuts and securely looking, with their full, quick eyes, on the company below. There, I fear, were some, overborne by their own evil passions and galled by the consciousness of them, who might look up to those poor animals, with momentary envy. And doubtless many, who had not these painful reasons for choice, thought it were better so to live amongst these woodlands, in blessed ease and sprightly health, than confined in the golden trammels of a court, where every feeling was checked, that it might move only to certain steps of order, and nature was so nearly forgotten, that, if perchance she did appear, she was pitied and reproved for a child of ignorance, and straight altered after their own fashion. "

― Ann Radcliffe , Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe

67 " Though it was no lighted up by the setting sun, the gothic greatness of its features and its moulding walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Mysteries of Udolpho, Part I

68 " Her mind, long harassed by distress, now yielded to imaginary terrors. "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Mysteries of Udolpho

69 " No existence is more contemptible than that, which is embittered by fear. "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Mysteries of Udolpho

70 " That any human being should willingly afflict a fellow being who had never injured, or even offended him; that, unswayed by passion, he should deliberately become the means of torturing him, appeared to Vivaldi nearly incredible! "

― Ann Radcliffe , Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe

71 " She shrunk from the new scenes of misery and oppression, that might await her in the castle of Udolpho. "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Mysteries of Udolpho

72 " The commission of one crime often requires the perpetration of another. When once we enter on the ladyrinth of vice, we can seldom return, but are led on, through correspondent mazes, to destruction. "

― Ann Radcliffe , A Sicilian Romance

73 " The sound of her voice, and this acknowledgment of obligation, made him less willing to go than before, but at length he tore himself away. The beauty of her countenance haunting his imagination, and the touching accents of her voice still vibrating on his heart, he descended to the shore below her residence, pleasing himself with the consciousness of being near her, though he could no longer behold her; and sometimes hoping that he might again see her, however distantly, in a balcony of the house, where the silk awning seemed to invite the breeze from the sea. "

― Ann Radcliffe , Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe

74 " Oh GOD! thy great laws will one day be more fully known by thy creatures; we shall more fully understand Thee and ourselves. The GOD of order and of all this and of far greater grandeur, the Creator of that glorious sun, which never fails in its course, will not neglect us, His intelligent, though frail creatures, nor suffer us to perish, who have the consciousness of our mortal fate long before it arrives, and of HIM. He, who called us first from nothing, can again call us from death into life. "

― Ann Radcliffe , Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe

75 " his countenance became fixed, and, touched as it now was by the silver whiteness of the moon-light, he resembled one of those marble statues of a monument, which seem to bend, in hopeless sorrow, over the ashes of the dead "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Mysteries of Udolpho

76 " O Emily! these are moments, in which joy and grief struggle so powerfully for pre-eminence, that the heart can scarcely support the contest! "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Mysteries of Udolpho

77 " A well-informed mind,' he would say, 'is the best security against the contagion of folly and of vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from the world within. "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Mysteries of Udolpho

78 " ... you see how people get through their misfortunes, if they have a heart to bear up against them, and do nothing that can lie on their conscience afterwards; and how suddenly one comes to be happy, just, perhaps, when one is beginning to think one never is to be happy again! "

― Ann Radcliffe , The Italian

79 " Absorbed in the single idea of being beloved, her imagination soared into the regions of romantic bliss, and bore her high above the possibility of evil. "

― Ann Radcliffe , A Sicilian Romance

80 " Those walls, where gorgeous tapestry had hung, showed only the remains of door-ways and of beautiful gothic windows, that had admitted the light of the same sun, which at this moment sent the last gleam of another day upon Willoughton, and warned him, that another portion of his life too was departing. The melancholy scene around him spoke, with the simplicity of truth, the brevity and nothingness of this life. Those walls seemed to say— “Generations have beheld us and passed away, as you now behold us, and shall pass away. They have thought of the generations before their time, as you now think of them, and as future ones shall think of you. The voices, that revelled beneath us, the pomp of power, the magnificence of wealth, the grace of beauty, the joy of hope, the interests of high passion and of low pursuits have passed from this scene for ever; yet we remain, the spectres of departed years and shall remain, feeble as we are, when you, who now gaze upon us, shall have ceased to be in this world! "

― Ann Radcliffe , Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe