Oliver Twist

by Charles Dickens

The transitions in real life from well-spread boards to death-beds, and from mourning-weeds to holiday garments, are not a whit less startling; only, there, we are busy actors, instead of passive lookers-on, which makes a vast difference.

‘I was brought here, by the most dreadful and agonising of all apprehensions,’ said the young man; ‘the fear of losing the one dear being on whom my every wish and hope are fixed.

‘There is no pursuit more worthy of me: more worthy of the highest nature that exists: than the struggle to win such a heart as yours,’

It is a world of disappointment: often to the hopes we most cherish, and hopes that do our nature the greatest honour.