Charles Dickens

“ I should quite blush for myself before this stupendous creature, if remembering his precepts, one might blush at anything. An amazing man! a nobleman indeed! any King or Queen may make a Lord, but only the Devil himself—and the Graces—can make a Chesterfield.’
Men who are thoroughly false and hollow, seldom try to hide those vices from themselves; and yet in the very act of avowing them, they lay claim to the virtues they feign most to despise. ”

“ I thank the drink for it. I’ll drink to the drink again, master. Fill me one more. Come. One more!’
‘You are such a promising fellow,’ said his patron, putting on his waistcoat with great nicety, and taking no heed of this request, ‘that I must caution you against having too many impulses from the drink, and getting hung before your time. What’s your age?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘At any rate,’ said Mr Chester, ‘you are young enough to escape what I may call a natural death for some years to come. How can you trust yourself in my hands on so short an acquaintance, with a halter round your neck? ”

“ I am curious to know,’ said Mr Chester, with surpassing affability. ‘Some rustic beauty perhaps? But be cautious, my good friend. They are not always to be trusted. Do take my advice now, and be careful of yourself.’ With these words he turned to the glass again, and went on with his toilet.
Hugh would have answered him that he, the questioner himself had set him on, but the words stuck in his throat. The consummate art with which his patron had led him to this point, and managed the whole conversation, perfectly baffled him. ”

“ All mankind are like us, but they have not the candour to avow it.’ The more they affect to deny the existence of any sincerity in the world, the more they would be thought to possess it in its boldest shape; and this is an unconscious compliment to Truth on the part of these philosophers, which will turn the laugh against them to the Day of Judgment.
Mr Chester, having extolled his favourite author, as above recited, took up the book again in the excess of his admiration and was composing himself for a further perusal of its sublime morality, when he was disturbed by a noise at the outer door ”

“ With these thoughts passing through his mind, and yet wondering at the very same time how he who came there rioting in the confidence of this man (as he thought) , should be so soon and so thoroughly subdued, Hugh stood cowering before him, regarding him uneasily from time to time, while he finished dressing. When he had done so, he took up the letter, broke the seal, and throwing himself back in his chair, read it leisurely through. ”

“ Poor fellow, he loses time, and time is money as the good proverb says—I never found it out though. Well. What now? You know I am not at home.’
‘A man, sir,’ replied the servant, who was to the full as cool and negligent in his way as his master, ‘has brought home the riding- whip you lost the other day. ”