The Way We Live Now

by Anthony Trollope

Everything was to be provided by a purveyor, so that the club should be cheated only by one man.

"Of course they are vulgar," the Duchess had said,—"so much so as to be no longer distasteful because of the absurdity of the thing. I dare say he hasn't been very honest. When men make so much money, I don't know how they can have been honest.

He made a few words go a long way, and was well trained in the work of easing the burden of his own greatness for those who were for the moment inflicted with it.

It's all very well preaching sermons to good people, but nothing ever was got by preaching to people who ain't good."

There is the review intended to sell a book,—which comes out immediately after the appearance of the book, or sometimes before it; the review which gives reputation, but does not affect the sale, and which comes a little later; the review which snuffs a book out quietly; the review which is to raise or lower the author a single peg, or two pegs, as the case may be; the review which is suddenly to make an author, and the review which is to crush him. An exuberant Jones has been known before now to declare aloud that he would crush a man, and a self-confident Jones has been known to declare that he has accomplished the deed. Of all reviews, the crushing review is the most popular, as being the most readable.

When the rumour goes abroad that some notable man has been actually crushed,—been positively driven over by an entire Juggernaut's car of criticism till his literary body be a mere amorphous mass,—then a real success has been achieved, and the Alf of the day has done a great thing; but even the crushing of a poor Lady Carbury, if it be absolute, is effective. Such a review will not make all the world call for the "Evening Pulpit", but it will cause those who do take the paper to be satisfied with their bargain. Whenever the circulation of such a paper begins to slacken, the proprietors should, as a matter of course, admonish their Alf to add a little power to the crushing department.

It was Lady Carbury's duty on the occasion to say pretty things to everybody. And she did her duty.

Her happiness, like that of most of us, was ever in the future,—never reached but always coming. She, however, had not looked for happiness to love and loveliness, and need not therefore be disappointed on that score. She had never really determined what it was that might make her happy,—having some hazy aspiration after social distinction and literary fame, in which was ever commingled solicitude respecting money.

There are men,—and old men too, who ought to know the world,—who think that if they can only find the proper Medea to boil the cauldron for them, they can have their ruined fortunes so cooked that they shall come out of the pot fresh and new and unembarrassed.

The woman was affectionate, seeking good things for others rather than for herself; but she was essentially worldly, believing that good could come out of evil, that falsehood might in certain conditions be better than truth, that shams and pretences might do the work of true service, that a strong house might be built upon the sand!

Things aren't as they were, of course, and never will be again.

He is one whom we would not admit into our kitchens, much less to our tables, on the score of his own merits. But because he has learned the art of making money, we not only put up with him, but settle upon his carcase as so many birds of prey."

"Of course I don't want to be prejudiced; but Protestants are Protestants, and Roman Catholics are Roman Catholics."

Who does not know that ladies only are allowed to canter their friends' horses upon roads? A gentleman trots his horse, and his friend's horse.

"I don't know that it is worse than a belief which is no belief," said the priest with energy;—"than a creed which sits so easily on a man that he does not even know what it contains, and never asks himself as he repeats it, whether it be to him credible or incredible."

He thought that upon the whole his daughter liked a row in the house. If not, there surely would not be so many rows.

It would have taken him long to explain to her, even had he been able, that a man may break a promise and yet not tell a lie.

utrumque paratus,

Mr Splinter thought that the thing was clever but mean. These new publications generally were mean. Mr Splinter was constant in that opinion; but, putting the meanness aside, he thought that the article was well done.

If you make a bargain with the Devil, it may be dishonest to cheat him,—and yet I would have you cheat him if you could.

The horror of every agony is in its anticipation.

Nothing ever goes so quick as a Hansom cab when a man starts for a dinner-party a little too early;—nothing so slow when he starts too late.

She was a witch of a woman, and, as like most witches she could be terrible, so like most witches she could charm.

is an intoxication that makes merry in the midst of affliction,—and there is an intoxication that banishes affliction by producing oblivion. But again there is an intoxication which is conscious of itself though it makes the feet unsteady, and the voice thick, and the brain foolish; and which brings neither mirth nor oblivion.

To give up not only her love, but her wrath also;—that was too much for her!

The fervent Romanists have always this point in their favour, that they are ready to believe.

With the mingled ignorance of his life and the positiveness of his faith he had at once made up his mind that Melmotte was a great man, and that he might be made a great instrument on behalf of the Pope. He believed in the enormous proportions of the man's wealth,—believed that he was powerful in all quarters of the globe,—and believed, because he was so told by "The Surplice," that the man was at heart a Catholic. That a man should be at heart a Catholic, and live in the world professing the Protestant religion, was not to Father Barham either improbable or distressing. Kings who had done so were to him objects of veneration. By such subterfuges and falsehood of life had they been best able to keep alive the spark of heavenly fire. There was a mystery and religious intrigue in this which recommended itself to the young priest's mind.

Trump

In such families as his, when such results have been achieved, it is generally understood that matters shall be put right by an heiress. It has become an institution, like primogeniture, and is almost as serviceable for maintaining the proper order of things.

Rank squanders money; trade makes it;—and then trade purchases rank by re-gilding its splendour. The arrangement, as it affects the aristocracy generally, is well understood,

She had but a confused idea of any difference between commerce and fraud.

When such rumours are spread abroad, they are always believed. There is an excitement and a pleasure in believing them. Reasonable hesitation at such a moment is dull and phlegmatic.

That men should be thoroughly immoral, that they should gamble, get drunk, run into debt, and make love to other men's wives, was to him a matter of everyday life. Nothing of that kind shocked him at all. But he was not as yet quite old enough to believe in swindling.

It is so hard not to tumble into Scylla when you are avoiding Charybdis.

Throughout the world, the more wrong a man does, the more indignant is he at wrong done to him.

It is said that if you were to take a man of moderate parts and make him Prime Minister out of hand, he might probably do as well as other Prime Ministers, the greatness of the work elevating the man to its own level.

When large sums of money are concerned there is seldom much of personal indignation between man and man. The loss of fifty pounds or of a few hundreds may create personal wrath;—but fifty thousand require equanimity.

"Won't he rob you, old fellow?" suggested Nidderdale, "Of course he will;—but he won't let any one else do it. One has to be plucked, but it's everything to have it done on a system.

To a man not accustomed to thinking there is nothing in the world so difficult as to think.

After some loose fashion we turn over things in our mind and ultimately reach some decision, guided probably by our feelings at the last moment rather than by any process of ratiocination;—and then we think that we have thought. But to follow out one argument to an end, and then to found on the base so reached the commencement of another, is not common to us.

But how many absurdities of the kind are not only held to be pleasant, but almost holy,—as long as they remain mysteries inspected by no profane eyes! It is not that Age is ashamed of feeling passion and acknowledging,—it but that the display of it is without the graces of which Youth is proud, and which Age regrets.

A man would incur any danger for a woman, would subject himself to any toil,—would even die for her! But if this were done simply with the object of winning her, where was that real love of which sacrifice of self on behalf of another is the truest proof?