"But still, you will be an old maid! -- and that's so dreadful!"
Emma Woodhouse:
"Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty
only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman,
with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old maid! -- the
proper sport of boys and girls -- but a single woman, of good fortune, is
always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as any body else.
[...]"
Harriet Smith:
"Dear me! but what shall you do? how shall you employ yourself when you
grow old?"
Emma Woodhouse:
"If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great
many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more in want
of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman's usual
occupations of eye and hand and mind will be as open to me then as they are
now; or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read more; if I
give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for objects of interest,
objects for the affections, which is in truth the great point of inferiority,
the want of which is really the great evil to be avoided in not
marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the children of a sister I love
so much, to care about. There will be enough of them, in all probability, to
supply every sort of sensation that declining life can need. There will be
enough for every hope and every fear; and though my attachment to none can
equal that of a parent, it suits my ideas of comfort better than what is
warmer and blinder. My nephews and nieces! -- I shall often have a niece with
me."