“...but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him with constant employment within.”

“There is nothing like employment, active indispensable employment, for relieving sorrow. Employment, even melancholy, may dispel melancholy.”

“There was that constant communication which strong family affection would dictate; and though sisters, and living almost within sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between themselves, or producing coolness between their husbands.”

“A submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of herself, which was from nature alone. It was the choicest gift of Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which, by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost every other want.”

“Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others.”

“The pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.-Sense and Sensibility”

“The evils arising from the loss of her uncle were neither trifling nor likely to lessen; and when thought had been freely indulged, in contrasting the past and the present, the employment of mind and dissipation of unpleasant ideas which only reading could produce made her thankfully turn to a book.”