How To Tell If You're In A Late Eighteenth-Century Novel

• You are reconceptualizing the relationship of the individual to the collective through a series of letters to your dear friend Clare, who lives simply in the mountains

• You will never take the advice your dear friend Clare, who lives simply in the mountains gives you, but this will not stop you from asking her, nor her from giving it

• You started as an orphan and things have only gotten worse from there

• You have received a letter from Constance Worthy reminding you to guard against passions