The Way We Live Now (Centaur Classics) [The 100 greatest novels of all time - #76]

by Anthony Trollope

‘You think Melmotte will turn out a failure.’ ‘A failure! Of course he’s a failure, whether rich or poor; — a miserable imposition, a hollow vulgar fraud from beginning to end — too insignificant for you and me to talk of, were it not that his position is a sign of the degeneracy of the age. What are we coming to when such as he is an honoured guest at our tables?’