The Way We Live Now

by Anthony Trollope

But she was not a woman to be unhappy because she was growing old. Her happiness, like that of most of us, was ever in the future,—never reached but always coming.

But what hope could there be for him if he should take to drink?

"I'll break his heart for him. He does not care about us,—not the least,—whether we are happy or miserable; but he cares very much about the family name. I'll tell him that I'm not going to be a slave. I'll marry a London tradesman before I'll stay down here." The younger Miss Longestaffe was lost in passion at the prospect before her. "Oh, Georgey, don't say such horrid things as that," pleaded her sister.

The three ladies knelt on their hassocks in the most becoming fashion, and sat during the sermon without the slightest sign either of weariness or of attention. They did not collect the meaning of any one combination of sentences. It was nothing to them whether the bishop had or had not a meaning.

"Mr Melmotte," she said, whispering to him, "I do so want to make you known to Mr Broune. Mr Broune I know you have never met before. A morning paper is a much heavier burden to an editor than one published in the afternoon. Mr Broune, as of course you know, manages the 'Breakfast Table.' There is hardly a more influential man in London than Mr Broune. And they declare, you know," she said, lowering the tone of her whisper as she communicated the fact, "that his commercial articles are gospel,—absolutely gospel." Then the two men were named to each other, and Lady Carbury retreated;—but not out of hearing. "Getting very hot," said Mr Melmotte. "Very hot indeed," said Mr Broune. "It was over 70 in the city to-day. I call that very hot for June." "Very hot indeed," said Mr Broune again. Then the conversation was over.

What curse can be much greater than that inflicted by a drunken, reprobate son?

Whatever be the misery to be endured, get it over. The horror of every agony is in its anticipation.

It may be well doubted whether upon the whole the telegraph has not added more to the annoyances than to the comforts of life,

of my readers will not probably know how a man looks when he comes home drunk at six in the morning; but they who have seen the thing will acknowledge that a sorrier sight cannot meet a mother's eye than that of a son in such a condition. "Oh, Felix!" she exclaimed.

"I'm sure it's not your fault, Mrs Hurtle. When a marriage is to be, and doesn't come off, it never is the lady's fault."

A Napoleon, though he may exterminate tribes in carrying out his projects, cannot be judged by the same law as a young lieutenant who may be punished for cruelty to a few negroes.

At dinner, and while he was thus employed, he drank a bottle of champagne,—feeling himself greatly comforted by the process.

"Miss Melmotte, you do not know the glorious west. Your past experiences have been drawn from this effete and stone-cold country in which passion is no longer allowed to sway. On those golden shores which the Pacific washes man is still true,—and woman is still tender."