Quotes / Victorian Novel Disease

...his daughter who died of Pale Complexion Disease That Does Not Compromise Attractiveness...''

— Blogger marionettasusette, describing a character

You'd have to pay me to sleep with the Dame Aux Camélias.

— Pierre Auguste Renoir, Renoir, My Father

"Pretty people with terminal illnesses."

—Worst Muse

In Victorian romance novels, female characters had a tendency to get sick all the time. Tuberculosis was the main culprit because it made your character "pale and weak with a tendency towards falling luxuriously onto nearby furniture" so Lucy catching Victorian fainting lady disease wouldn't have raised to many eyebrows at the time.

—Red on Dracula, Overly Sarcastic Productions

Consumption: 1. A disease that is supposed to affect operatic sopranos in the role of Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème. The audience is forced to accept that a 200-pound woman who sings for four hours is wasting away.

— 'David W. Barber and Dave Donald, A Musician's Dictionary''

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