Lydgate believes that "a woman ought to produce the effect of exquisite music." Plain women? Face with philosophy and investigate with science. Hilarious. 

Fred and Rosamond both want the best of everything without having to think about paying. 

I love their sibling banter. Fred: "A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions." 

Who will inherit Mr. Featherstone's fortune? "Money's a good egg, and if you've got money to leave behind, lay it in a warm nest." Likely Fred, who is handsome, lively, and frivolous. Perhaps Mary Garth, plain and poor but devoted. 

Featherstone's sister Jane Waule "was accustomed to think that entire freedom from the necessity of behaving agreeably was included in the Almighty's intentions about family," which reminds me of a reel I watched yesterday. A young woman said that in Slavic culture, friction means connection, so harsh truths are spoken. Mary says something in a similar vein to Rosamond: "If one is not to go into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?" 

Rosamond "was by nature an actress of parts that entered into her physique: she even acted her own character, and so well, that she did not know it to be precisely her own." 

"Their eyes met with that peculiar meeting which is never arrived at by effort, but seems like a sudden divine clearance of haze." But Rosamond was primed for this feeling, this "falling in love," with a well-born stranger.