'In my sixth year [...] Nothing could contribute so much to my amusement as a novel. A novel at six years may appear ridiculous, but it was a real desire that I felt, -- not to instruct myself, I felt no such wish, but to divert myself and to afford more scope to my nightly meditations ... and it is worthy to remark that in a novel I carefully past over all passages which described CHILDREN -- 'The Fops love and pursuit of the heroines mother in "Temper" delighted me, but the description of the infancy of Emma was past over'.