The Count of Monte Cristo

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"Oh," cried Eugenie, "you are a bad physiognomist, if you imagine
I deplore on my own account the catastrophe of which you warn me. I
ruined? and what will that signify to me? Have I not my talent left? Can
I not, like Pasta, Malibran, Grisi, acquire for myself what you would
never have given me, whatever might have been your fortune, a hundred
or a hundred and fifty thousand livres per annum, for which I shall be
indebted to no one but myself; and which, instead of being given as
you gave me those poor twelve thousand francs, with sour looks and
reproaches for my prodigality, will be accompanied with acclamations,
with bravos, and with flowers? And if I do not possess that talent,
which your smiles prove to me you doubt, should I not still have that
ardent love of independence, which will be a substitute for wealth, and
which in my mind supersedes even the instinct of self-preservation?
No, I grieve not on my own account, I shall always find a resource; my
books, my pencils, my piano, all the things which cost but little, and
which I shall be able to procure, will remain my own.