Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke

In familiar surroundings our manners are cheerful and easy, but only transport us to places where we know no one and no one knows us, and Lord! how uncomfortable we become!

Soldiers, I am sorry to say, steal everything.” He thought for a moment and then added, “Or at least ours do.”

Being a politician, he was never dissuaded from giving any body his opinion by the mere fact that they were not inclined to hear it.

Houses, like people, are apt to become rather eccentric if left too much on their own;