Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

“ Pepper," said our hero, colouring, and by no means pleased with the ingenious comparison of his friend, "if you are ashamed of my clothes, which I own might be newer, I will not wound you with my—"
"Pooh! my lad, pooh!" cried Long Ned, interrupting him; "never take offence. I never do. I never take anything but money, except, indeed, watches. I don't mean to hurt your feelings; all of us have been poor once. 'Gad, I remember when I had not a dud to my back; and now, you see me,—you see me, Paul! ”

“ So soon as MacGrawler, piercing through the gloomy mist which hung about the chamber, perceived the person of the intruder, a frown settled upon his brow.
"Have I not told you, youngster," he growled, "never to enter a gentleman's room without knocking? I tell you, sir, that manners are no less essential to human happiness than virtue; wherefore, never disturb a gentleman in his avocations, and sit yourself down without molesting the cat!" ”

“ Have a nobler spirit, a loftier emulation, Paul, than that which distinguishes the little ragamuffins of the street. Know that in this country genius and learning carry everything before them; and if you behave yourself properly, you may, one day or another, be as high in the world as myself. ”

“ The dying woman did not at first attend to the entrance either of Dummie or the female at the foot of the bed, but she turned herself round towards the child, and grasping his arm fiercely, she drew him towards her, and gazed on his terrified features with a look in which exhaustion and an exceeding wanness of complexion were even horribly contrasted by the glare and energy of delirium. ”

“ As our hero was slowly walking towards the sage's abode, depending on his gratitude and friendship for a temporary shelter, one of those lightning flashes of thought which often illumine the profoundest abyss of affliction darted across his mind. Recalling the image of the critic, he remembered that he had seen that ornament of "The Asinaeum" receive sundry sums for his critical lucubrations.
"Why," said Paul, seizing on that fact, and stopping short in the street,—"why should I not turn critic myself?" ”

“ At this speech Paul looked wistfully round the spruce parlour, and thought what a fine thing it would be to be lord of such a domain, together with the appliances of flageolet and cremona, boxing-gloves, books, fly-flanking flagellum, three guineas, with the little mountain of silver, and the reputation—shared only with Lord Dunshunner—of being the best whip in London.
"Yes," continued Tomlinson, with conscious pride, "I owe my rise to myself. Learning is better than house and land. ”

“ Your narration has given me a sensible pleasure; for curse me if it has not strengthened my favourite opinion,—that everything is for the best. If it had not been for the meanness of that pitiful fellow, MacGrawler, you might still be inspired with the paltry ambition of earning a few shillings a week and vilifying a parcel of poor devils in the what-d'ye-call it, with a hard name; whereas now, my good Paul, I trust I shall be able to open to your genius a new career, in which guineas are had for the asking,—in which you may wear fine clothes, and ogle the ladies at Ranelagh ”

“ Since this work was written, society has been busy with the evils in which it was then silently acquiescent. The true movement of the last fifteen years has been the progress of one idea,—Social Reform. There it advances with steady and noiseless march behind every louder question of constitutional change. Let us do justice to our time. There have been periods of more brilliant action on the destinies of States, but there is no time visible in History in which there was so earnest and general a desire to improve the condition of the great body of the people. ”

“ A child who is cradled in ignominy, whose schoolmaster is the felon, whose academy is the House of Correction,—who breathes an atmosphere in which virtue is poisoned, to which religion does not pierce,—becomes less a responsible and reasoning human being than a wild beast which we suffer to range in the wilderness, till it prowls near our homes, and we kill it in self-defence. ”

“ I recollect some years ago, when I first came out, that Dummie and I had an adventure together; to tell you the truth, it was not the sort of thing I would do now. But—would you believe it, Mr. Paul?—this pitiful fellow was quite rude to me the only time I ever met him since; that is to say, the only time I ever entered the Mug. I have no notion of such airs in a merchant,—a merchant of rags! Those commercial fellows are getting quite insufferable."
"You surprise me," said Paul. "Poor Dummie is the last man to be rude; he is as civil a creature as ever lived."
"Or sold a rag," said Ned. ”

“ People goes more by your words than your actions. If you wants what is not your own, try and do without it; and if you cannot do without it, take it away by insinivation, not bluster. They as swindles does more and risks less than they as robs; and if you cheats toppingly, you may laugh at the topping cheat [Gallows] . And now go play."
Paul seized his hat, but lingered; and the dame, guessing at the signification of the pause, drew forth and placed in the boy's hand the sum of five halfpence and one farthing. ”

“ But fiction follows truth into all the strongholds of convention; strikes through the disguise, lifts the mask, bares the heart, and leaves a moral wherever it brands a falsehood.
Out of this range of ideas the mind of the Author has, perhaps, emerged into an atmosphere which he believes to be more congenial to Art. ”

“ The next day the memoirs of the great Turpin were committed to the flames, and it was noticeable that henceforth Paul observed a choicer propriety of words, that he assumed a more refined air of dignity, and that he paid considerably more attention than heretofore to the lessons of Mr. Peter MacGrawler. Although it must be allowed that our young hero's progress in the learned languages was not astonishing, yet an early passion for reading, growing stronger and stronger by application, repaid him at last with a tolerable knowledge of the mother-tongue. ”

“ It ill becomes your heir apparent, my dear dame, to fight shy of his debts of honour."
"Taradididdle, don't think for to wheedle me with your debts and your honour," said the dame, in a passion. "Long Ned is as long in the forks [fingers] as he is in the back; may Old Harry fly off with him! And as for Durnmie Dunnaker, I wonders how you, brought up such a swell, and blest with the wery best of hedications, can think of putting up with such wulgar 'sociates. I tells you what, Paul, you'll please to break with them, smack and at once, or devil a brad you'll ever get from Peg Lobkins." ”

“ I would send him to school, but you knows as how the boys only corrupt one another. And so, I should like to meet with some decent man, as a tutor, to teach the lad Latin and vartue!"
"My eyes!" cried Dummie; aghast at the grandeur of this desire.
"The boy is 'cute enough, and he loves reading," continued the dame; but I does not think the books he gets hold of will teach him the way to grow old." ”

“ The only person to whom one ever puts a question with a tolerable certainty of receiving a satisfactory answer is one's self. The moment Paul started this luminous suggestion, it appeared to him that he had discovered the mines of Potosi. Burning with impatience to discuss with the great MacGrawler the feasibility of his project, he quickened his pace almost into a run, and in a very few minutes, having only overthrown one chimney-sweeper and two apple-women by the way, he arrived at the sage's door. ”

“ MacGrawler at the abrupt and astounding audacity of Paul.
"Receive!" he repeated,—"receive! Why, you impudent, ungrateful puppy, would you steal the bread from your old master? If I can obtain for your crude articles an admission into the illustrious pages of 'The Asinaeum,' will you not be sufficiently paid, sir, by the honour? Answer me that. Another man, young gentleman, would have charged you a premium for his instructions; and here have I, in one lesson, imparted to you all the mysteries of the science, and for nothing! ”

“ Their very sound makes you double your fist if you are a hero, or your pace if you are a peaceable man. They produced an instant effect upon Dummie Dunnaker, aided as they were by the effect of an athletic and youthful figure, already fast approaching to the height of six feet, a flushed cheek, and an eye that bespoke both passion and resolution. The rag-merchant's voice sank at once, and with the countenance of a wronged Cassius he whimpered forth,—
"Knock me down? 0 leetle Paul, vot wicked vhids are those! Vot! Dummie Dunnaker, as has dandled you on his knee mony's a time and oft! ”

“ Notwithstanding the shock this occasioned to the affectionate heart and aspiring temper of our friend Paul, it abated not his ardour in that field of science which it seemed that the distinguished absentee had so successfully cultivated. By little and little, he possessed himself (in addition to the literary stores we have alluded to) of all it was in the power of the wise and profound Peter MacGrawler to impart unto him; and at the age of sixteen he began (oh the presumption of youth!) to fancy himself more learned than his master. ”

“ Augustus Tomlinson did not doubt but that he (Paul) might have the honour to be murdered himself one of these days. "You understand me," continued Mr. Augustus,—"I mean murdered in effigy,—assassinated in type,—while you yourself, unconscious of the circumstance, are quietly enjoying what you imagine to be your existence. We never kill common persons,—to say truth, our chief spite is against the Church; we destroy bishops by wholesale. ”

“ MacGrawler, seeing that Paul hesitated, either from fear of his superior knowledge, as the critic's vanity suggested, or from (what was equally likely) want of a word to express his meaning.
"Why, I was thinking, sir," said Paul, with that desperate courage which gives a distinct and loud intonation to the voice of all who set, or think they set, their fate upon a cast,—"I was thinking that I should like to become a critic myself!"
"W-h-e-w!" whistled MacGrawler, elevating his eyebrows; "w-h-e-w! great ends have come of less beginnings!" ”

“ MacGrawler, I shall get nothing for my trouble?" said
Paul.
"To be sure not, sir; the very best writer in 'The Asinaeum' only gets three shillings an article!" Almost more than he deserves, the critic might have added; for he who writes for nobody should receive nothing!
"Then, sir," quoth the mercenary Paul, profanely, and rising, he kicked with one kick the cat, the Epic, and the Inquiry to the other end of the room,—"then, sir, you may all go to the devil!" ”

“ In every circle of the community that healthful desire is astir. It unites in one object men of parties the most opposed; it affords the most attractive nucleus for public meetings; it has cleansed the statute-book from blood; it is ridding the world of the hangman. ”

“ But there was one great vice among the fine people about Thames Court which we make no doubt does not exist anywhere else,—namely, these fine people were always in an agony to seem finer than they were; and the more airs a gentleman or a lady gave him or her self, the more important they became. Joe, the dog's-meat man, had indeed got into society entirely from a knack of saying impertinent things to everybody ”