Misery Pivot

Jane Fairfax: "I was only going to observe, that though such unfortunate circumstances do sometimes occur both to men and women, I cannot imagine them to be very frequent. A hasty and imprudent attachment may arise - but there is generally time to recover from it afterwords. I would be understood to mean, that it can only be weak, irresolute characters (whose happiness must be always at the mercy of chance), who will suffer an unfortunate acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression forever." - Jane Austen, Emma