Jim’s Reviews > Sketches by Boz > Status Update

‘What kind of funeral was it?’ says the formal lady, when he returns
home. ‘Oh!’ replies the formal gentleman, ‘there never was such a gross
and disgusting impropriety; there were no feathers.’ ‘No feathers!’
cries the lady, as if on wings of black feathers dead people fly to
Heaven, and, lacking them, they must of necessity go elsewhere.

The theatrical young gentleman would prefer going a street or two out of his way, to omitting to pass a stage-entrance, into which he looks with a curious and searching eye. If he can identify a popular actor in the street, he is in a transport of delight; and no sooner meets him, than he hurries back, and walks a few paces in front of him, so that he can turn round, and have a good stare at his features.

Matrimony is proverbially a serious undertaking. Like an over-weening
predilection for brandy-and-water, it is a misfortune into which a man
easily falls, and from which he finds it remarkably difficult to
extricate himself. It is of no use telling a man who is timorous on
these points, that it is but one plunge, and all is over.

‘All I’ve got to say is this here: You sit quietly down in that chair, and I’ll sit hoppersite you here, and if you keep quiet and don’t stir, I won’t damage you; but, if you move hand or foot till half-past twelve o’clock, I shall alter the expression of your countenance so completely, that the next time you
look in the glass you’ll ask vether you’re gone out of town, and ven
you’re likely to come back again.’

There were two classes of created objects which he held in the deepest and most unmingled horror; these were dogs, and children. He was not unamiable, but he could, at any time, have viewed the execution of a dog, or the assassination of an infant, with the liveliest satisfaction. Their habits were at variance with his love of order; and his love of order was as powerful as his love of life.

There are strange chords in the human heart, which will lie dormant
through years of depravity and wickedness, but which will vibrate at
last to some slight circumstance apparently trivial in itself, but
connected by some undefined and indistinct association, with past days
that can never be recalled, and with bitter recollections from which
the most degraded creature in existence cannot escape.