Anne Brontë

“ Lowborough's going to give us a speech!"
'He waited calmly till the thunders of applause and jingling of glasses had ceased, and then proceeded, - "It's only this, gentlemen, - that I think we'd better go no further. We'd better stop while we can."
'"Just so!" cried Hattersley -
"Stop, poor sinner, stop and think Before you further go, No longer sport upon the brink Of everlasting woe." ”

“ For a while he managed very well; indeed, he was a model of moderation and prudence - something too much so for the tastes of our wild community; but, somehow, Lowborough had not the gift of moderation: if he stumbled a little to one side, he must go down before he could right himself: if he overshot the mark one night, the effects of it rendered him so miserable the next day that he must repeat the offence to mend it ”

“ And I took him home - that is, to our club - for he was as submissive as a child - and plied him with brandy-and-water till he began to look rather brighter - rather more alive, at least.
'"Huntingdon, I'm ruined!" said he, taking the third glass from my hand - he had drunk the others in dead silence.
'"Not you," said I. "You'll find a man can live without his money as merrily as a tortoise without its head, or a wasp without its body. ”

“ And he threw it out into the middle of the table.
'"Fill again!" said I, handing him the bottle - "and let us drink to your renunciation."
'"It's rank poison," said he, grasping the bottle by the neck, "and I forswear it! I've given up gambling, and I'll give up this too." He was on the point of deliberately pouring the whole contents of the bottle on to the table, but Hargrave wrested it from him. "On you be the curse, then!" said he. And, backing from the room, he shouted, "Farewell, ye tempters!" and vanished amid shouts of laughter and applause. ”

“ But I have sometimes frequented the gaming-houses just to watch the on-goings of those mad votaries of chance - a very interesting study, I assure you, Helen, and sometimes very diverting: I've had many a laugh at the boobies and bedlamites. Lowborough was quite infatuated - not willingly, but of necessity, - he was always resolving to give it up, and always breaking his resolutions. Every venture was the 'just once more:' if he gained a little, he hoped to gain a little more next time, and if he lost, it would not do to leave off at that juncture ”

“ Do be quiet, all of you! I'm not come to join you: I'm only come to be with you awhile, because I can't bear my own thoughts." And he folded his arms, and leant back in his chair; so we let him be. But I left the glass by him; and, after awhile, Grimsby directed my attention towards it, by a significant wink; and, on turning my head, I saw it was drained to the bottom. He made me a sign to replenish, and quietly pushed up the bottle. ”

“ She knows all the folly and all the wickedness of my former life, and is not afraid to trust me - and my rank and title are no allurements to her; for them she utterly disregards. She is the most generous, high-minded being that can be conceived of. ”

“ But he'll find himself in a fix when he's got her, I doubt.'
'And she'll find herself in a fix when she's got him,' said I, 'if what I've heard of him is true.'
'Not a bit of it. She knows what she's about; but he, poor fool, deludes himself with the notion that she'll make him a good wife, and because she has amused him with some rodomontade about despising rank and wealth in matters of love and marriage, he flatters himself that she's devotedly attached to him ”