“‘[H]e wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were.’

‘And so ended his affection,’ said Elizabeth impatiently. ‘There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!’

‘I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,’ said Darcy.

‘Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.'”

—from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen