“There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.”
- Source
- Barchester Towers
- Date
- 1857
Meaning of “There is no happiness in love, except at…”
Madeline Stanhope turns the convention of romantic closure into a cynical joke, separating the tidy endings of novels from the complications of lived relationships.
Where does it come from?
Barchester Towers, Chapter XXVII, ‘A Love Scene,’ Project Gutenberg #2432. Madeline Stanhope tells Mr Slope that there is no happiness in love except at the end of an English novel after a comic catalogue of tragic lovers. The sentence is witty fictional dialogue inside Trollope's satire, not a factual rule about love or happiness.