“I'll not listen to reason...Reason always means what some one else has got to say.”

“I'll not listen to reason... reason always means what someone else has got to say.”

“I just wished to know if you mean to marry the girl. Spite of what you said of her lightness, I ha' known her long enough to be sure she'll make a noble wife for any one, let him be what he may; and I mean to stand by her like a brother; and if you mean rightly, you'll not think the worse on me for what I've now said; and if--but no, I'll not say what I'll do to the man who wrongs a hair of her head. He shall rue it to the longest day he lives, that's all. Now, sir, what I ask of you is this. If you mean fair and honourable by her, well and good: but if not, for your own sake as well as hers, leave her alone, and never speak to her more.”

“Margaret had always dreaded lest her courage should fail her in any emergency, and she should be proved to be, what she dreaded lest she was--a coward. But now, in this real great time of reasonable fear and nearness of terror, she forgot herself, and felt only an intense sympathy--intense to painfulness--in the interests of the moment.”

“What does it signify how we dress here at Cranford, where everybody knows us?" And if they go from home, their reason is equally cogent, "What does it signify how we dress here, where nobody knows us?”

“Oh! A little bird told us,' said Miss Browning. Molly knew that little bird from her childhood, and had always hated it, and longed to wring its neck. Why could not people speak out and say that they did not mean to give up the name of their informant?”

“Such decisions ab extra* are sometimes a wonderful relief to those whose habit it has been to decide, not only for themselves, but for every one else;and occasionally the relaxation of the strain which a character for infallible wisdom brings with it does much to restore health.*from outside”