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“IF we could always know at the time what we are doing.”

“Poor Alfred learned this to his cost, that to put small men into great places is to create monsters. When he had realised the bitter truth, he put the stony-hearted paper in his pocket, crept into the yard, and sat down, and, for all he could do, scalding tears ran down his cheeks.

"Homunculi quanti sunt!" he sobbed; "homunculi quanti sunt!”

their first act was to handcuff him. The cold steel struck into him deeper than his wrist,& reminded him of Silverton Grove; he could not suppress a shudder. The carriage rolled all through London with him. He saw the Parks with autumn's brown & golden tints: he saw the people,some rich,some poor,but none of them prisoners.He saw a little girl all rags. "Oh if I could be as ragged as you are,"he said, "and free.”

“Yet in so keen a battle he would not throw away a chance: so he determined to win Dr. Wycherley altogether by hook or by crook, and get a certificate of sanity from him. Now a single white lie, he knew would do the trick. He had only to say that Hamlet was mad. And "Hamlet was mad" is easily said.”

“ You cannot be in love with her, as you do not know her.”

“Alfred gazed at her face: devoured it. But her eyes never roved. She seemed to have put off feminine curiosity, and the world, at the church door. Indeed he wished she was not quite so heavenly discreet; her lashes were delicious, but he longed to see her eyes once more; to catch a glance from them, and, by it, decipher his fate.”

“Poor Mrs. Dodd was herself slipping into a morbid state. A mother collecting Doctors! It is a most fascinating kind of connoisseurship, grows on one like Drink; like Polemics; like Melodrama; like the Millennium; like any Thing.”

But lo! ere he had been an hour at home,he found his things put neatly away in his drawers on the feminine or vertical system—deep strata of waistcoats,strata of trousers,strata of coats,strata of papers—& his Logic gone.

In the course of the evening he taxed his sister good-humouredly,& asked What earthly use that book was to her,not wearing curls

I intend to read it,& study it,& teach you it, replied Julia

“Mr. Hardie, I have not the honour to be acquainted with you, and I am not here to annoy you, nor to be affronted by you. But the university has a stake in this race, and the university expostulates through us—through me, if you like."

"Who have I the honour?" inquired Hardie, assuming politeness sudden and vast.

"Badham, of Wadham.”

“Dear lucy.
It is very ungust of you to go and
Mary other peeple wen you
Promised me. but it is mr. dod.
So i dont so much mind i like
Mr. dod. he is a duc. and they all
Say i am too litle and jane says
Sailors always end by been
Drouned so it is only put off.
But you reely must keep your
Promise to me. wen i am biger
And mr. Dod is drouned. my
Ginny pigs—”

“I must say, Mr. Bazalgette, you are unwise to put such a sum of money into a young girl's hands."

"The young girl has been a woman an hour and ten minutes, and come into her property, movables, and cash aforesaid."

"If you were her real friend, you would take care of her money for her till she marries.”

The ancients used to bribe the Oracle of Delphi. Curious.

Aunt, how superior Mr. Hardie's conversation is.He interests one in topics that are unbearable generally; politics now. I thought I abhorred them,but I find it was only those little paltry Whig and Tory squabbles that wearied me.Mr. Hardie's views are neither Whig nor Tory;they are patriotic,& sober,& large-minded. He thinks of the country.I can take some interest in what he calls politics.

And, pray, what is that?

The journals, which are so seldom agreed, are all of one mind about these glorious times. Account for that!

How can you know their minds, sir?

By their leading columns.

Those are no clue.

What! Do they think one thing and print another? Why should the independent press do that? Nonsense.

Why, sir? Because they are bribed to print it, but they are not bribed to think it.

Bribed? The English press bribed?

“What was the cause of the distress in 1793?"

"Ah! that was the puzzle—wasn't it, Skinner? We were never so prosperous as that year. The distress came over us like a thunder-storm all in a moment. Nobody knows the exact cause.”

Pray,gentlemen,do you remember the year 1793?

For some minutes past a dead silence & a deep,absorbed attention had received the young man's words;but that quiet question was like a great stone descending suddenly on a silent stream.Such a noise,agitation,& flutter.The old banker & his clerk both began to speak at once

Don't we?

Oh,Lord,Mr. Richard,don't talk of 1793

What do you know about 1793?You weren't born

After dinner that same day Arthur sat in the drawing-room with Lucy.He was reading,she working placidly.She looked off her work demurely at him several times.He was absorbed in a flighty romance.
I have dropped my worsted,Arthur.It is by you.

Arthur picked the ball up & brought it to her;then back to his romance,heart & soul.Another sidelong glance at him;then,after a long silence,Your book seems very interesting.

“Which of you can tell all the consequences if you go and carry a pretty woman, with her little insinuating mouth close to your ears?”

“…my taste is not for sophisticated people. I only put up with them because I am obliged. Why, Lucy, you ought to know how my heart yearns for nature and truth; I am sure I have told you so often enough. An hour spent with a simple, natural creature like Captain Dodd refreshes me as a cooling breeze after the heat and odors of a crowded room.”

“If your heart is full, your head is empty. Why, you see nothing."

"I can't see why I should belie my heart.”

“David longed to tell how he loved her, but dared not. He looked wistfully at her face. It was quite calm and had suddenly became a little reserved. He felt he was on new and dangerous ground; he sighed and was silent. He turned away his face. When this involuntary sigh broke from him she turned her head a little and looked at him. He felt her eye dwell on him, and his cheeks burned under it.”

“A FABLE tells us a fowler one day saw sitting in tree a wood-pigeon. This is a very shy bird, so he had to creep and maneuver to get within gunshot unseen, unheard. He stole from tree to tree, and muffled his footsteps in the long grass so adroitly that, just as he was going to pull the trigger, he stepped light as a feather on a venomous snake. It bit; he died.”

“He had lived long enough to see that, in nine cases out of ten, husband and wife might be defined "a man and a woman that were thrown a good deal together—generally in the country." A marries B, and C D; but, under similar circumstances, i.e., thrown together, A would have married D, and C B. This applies to puppy dogs, male and female, as well as to boys and girls.”

“Ever since I saw you looked her way, my eye has hardly been off her, and she is Henry Dyke in petticoats."

"I don't thank you for saying that. Well, and if she is, what has that to do with it? I am not a woman. I am not forced to lie to waiting for a wind, as the girls are. I am a man. I can work for the wish of my heart, and, if it does not come to meet me, I can overhaul it."

“And then again, David, where the heart is concerned, young women are naturally in advance of young men."

"God knows. He made them both. I don't."

"Why, all the world knows it. And then, besides, I am five years older than you.

"So mother says; but I don't know how to believe it. No one would say so to look at you.”

David,you are in a fool's paradise.In company,& in flirtation,all sorts meet & part again;but it isn't so with marriage.There 'it is beasts of a kind that in one are joined,& birds of a feather that came together.' Like to like.She is a fine lady &will marry a fine gentleman,& nothing else,with a large income.If she knew what has been in your head this month past, she would open her eyes & ask if the man was mad

“Mr. Dodd," said Lucy, "now I see why Eastern kings have a story-teller always about them—a live story-teller. Would not you have one, Miss Dodd, if you were Queen of Persia?"

"Me? I'd have a couple—one to make me laugh; one miserable."

"One would be enough if his resources were equal to your brother's. Pray go on, Mr. Dodd. It was madness to interrupt you with small talk.”

Uncle,I am not sleepy to-night

Who is? that young rascal has set me on fire with his yarns. Who would have thought that awkward cub had so much in him?

Awkward,but not a cub; say rather a black swan; and you know, uncle, a swan is an awkward thing on land, but when it takes the water it is glorious,& that man was glorious; but—Da—vid Do—dd.

I don't know whether he was glorious,but I know he amused me,&…

And who is the gentleman? What is he?

A marine animal—first mate of a ship.

First mate? mate? Is that what in the novels is called boatswain's mate? Do tell me! I know admirals—they swear—and captains, and, I think, lieutenants, and, above all, those little loves of midshipmen, strutting with their dirks and cocked hats, like warlike bantams, but I never met 'mates.' Mates?

“In those days female dress committed two errors that are disappearing: it revealed the whole foot by day, and hid a section of the bosom at night.”