The Moonstone

by Wilkie Collins

Most things they say have a moral, if you only look for it.

Persons and Things do turn up so vexatiously in this life, and will in a manner insist on being noticed.

This is what comes, Rosanna, of thinking on an empty stomach!”

My mind’s unquiet, sometimes that’s all.”

I set down here Mr. Franklin’s careless question, and my foolish answer, as a consolation and encouragement to all stupid people—it being, as I have remarked, a great satisfaction to our inferior fellow-creatures to find that their betters are, on occasions, no brighter than they are.

To make matters worse, he had promised to be tall, and had not kept his promise.

“We have got three things left, sir—Love, Music, and Salad”?

We had our breakfasts—whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn’t matter, you must have your breakfast.

But when you are old, you acquire one excellent habit. In cases where you don’t see your way clearly, you hold your tongue.

In all my experience along the dirtiest ways of this dirty little world, I have never met with such a thing as a trifle yet.

I was out of temper with him, because I was out of temper with myself.

I might as well (as the Irish say) have whistled jigs to a milestone.

I am brimful of downright questions; and I expect you to be brimful of downright answers.”

The exquisite freshness of the air made the mere act of living and breathing a luxury.

“Sir,” he said gravely, “there are great allowances to be made for a man who has not read Robinson Crusoe since he was a child. I wish you good-morning.”

“Mr. Bruff, you have no more imagination than a cow!” “A cow is a very useful animal, Mr. Blake,” said the lawyer.

Mr. Bruff sat down on the first chair that he could find, and (emulating the usefulness of the cow) plunged back again into his papers on the spot.

God be praised for His mercy! I have seen a little sunshine—I