Charles Dickens

“ Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after Richard.
“Why, Mr. Carstone,” said Mrs. Badger, “is very well and is, I assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn to the midshipmen’s mess when the purser’s junk had become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. ”

“ I sat down and said after a little effort to be as calm as I ought to be, “One of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these words: ‘Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come, and soon enough, when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can.’” I had covered my face with my hands in repeating the words, but I took them away now with a better kind of shame, I hope, and told him that to him I owed the blessing that I had from my childhood to that hour never, never, never felt it. He put up his hand as if to stop me. ”

“ But we so strongly advised Richard to be frank and open with Mr. Jarndyce, without a moment’s delay, and his disposition was naturally so opposed to concealment that he sought him out at once (taking us with him) and made a full avowal. “Rick,” said my guardian, after hearing him attentively, “we can retreat with honour, and we will. But we must be careful—for our cousin’s sake, Rick, for our cousin’s sake—that we make no more such mistakes. Therefore, in the matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. We will look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it.” ”

“ I should be able to look after Ada’s interests and my own interests (the same thing!) ; and I should peg away at Blackstone and all those fellows with the most tremendous ardour.”
I was not by any means so sure of that, and I saw how his hankering after the vague things yet to come of those long-deferred hopes cast a shade on Ada’s face. But I thought it best to encourage him in any project of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be quite sure that his mind was made up now.
“My dear Minerva,” said Richard, “I am as steady as you are. I made a mistake; we are all liable to mistakes ”

“ Mr. Allan Woodcourt came. He came to take leave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. He was going to China and to India as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be away a long, long time.
I believe—at least I know—that he was not rich. All his widowed mother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his profession. It was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with very little influence in London; and although he was, night and day, at the service of numbers of poor people and did wonders of gentleness and skill for them, he gained very little by it in money. ”

“ He is of such a very easy disposition that probably he would never think it worth-while to mention how he really feels, but he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr. Allan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a very little money and through years of considerable endurance and disappointment. ”

“ After that, when I was with Captain Swosser in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser’s command. You never heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts, but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to me, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo.”
“A man of European reputation,” murmured Mr. Badger. ”

“ If any real disadvantage can attach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a thought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not magnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature. ”

“ Badger were here yesterday, Richard,” said I, “and they seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the profession.”
“Did they though?” said Richard. “Oh! Well, that rather alters the case, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I don’t care much about it. But, oh, it don’t matter! It’ll do as well as anything else!”
“You hear him, Ada!” said I.
“The fact is,” Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half jocosely, “it is not quite in my way. I don’t take to it. And I get too much of Mrs. ”