Charles Dickens

“ But the sun itself, however beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and rarely looked intently into any of its closer regions without engendering more death than life. So does the eye of Heaven itself become an evil eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the things it looks upon to bless.
Mrs. Sparsit sat in her afternoon apartment at the Bank, on the shadier side of the frying street. ”

“ Sparsit repeated the ejaculation, the shake of the head over her tea-cup, and the long gulp, as taking up the conversation again at the point where it had been interrupted.
‘An individual, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, ‘has never been what he ought to have been, since he first came into the place. He is a dissipated, extravagant idler. He is not worth his salt, ma’am. ”

“ Sparsit, making her nose more Roman and her eyebrows more Coriolanian in the strength of her severity, ‘that the united masters allow of any such class- combinations.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Bitzer.
‘Being united themselves, they ought one and all to set their faces against employing any man who is united with any other man,’ said Mrs. Sparsit. ”

“ The light porter placed the tea-tray on it, knuckling his forehead as a form of homage.
‘Thank you, Bitzer,’ said Mrs. Sparsit.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ returned the light porter. He was a very light porter indeed; as light as in the days when he blinkingly defined a horse, for girl number twenty.
‘All is shut up, Bitzer?’ said Mrs. Sparsit.
‘All is shut up, ma’am.’
‘And what,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, pouring out her tea, ‘is the news of the day? Anything?’
‘Well, ma’am, I can’t say that I have heard anything particular. Our people are a bad lot, ma’am ”

“ Any capitalist there, who had made sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, always professed to wonder why the sixty thousand nearest Hands didn’t each make sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, and more or less reproached them every one for not accomplishing the little feat. What I did you can do. Why don’t you go and do it?
‘As to their wanting recreations, ma’am,’ said Bitzer, ‘it’s stuff and nonsense. I don’t want recreations. ”

“ Sparsit, wiping her mouth and arranging her mittens.
‘A stranger, ma’am, evidently.’
‘What a stranger can want at the Bank at this time of the evening, unless he comes upon some business for which he is too late, I don’t know,’ said Mrs. Sparsit, ‘but I hold a charge in this establishment from Mr. Bounderby, and I will never shrink from it. If to see him is any part of the duty I have accepted, I will see him. Use your own discretion, Bitzer.’
Here the visitor, all unconscious of Mrs. Sparsit’s magnanimous words, repeated his knock so loudly that the light porter hastened down to open the door ”

“ A deaf serving-woman and the light porter completed Mrs. Sparsit’s empire. The deaf serving-woman was rumoured to be wealthy; and a saying had for years gone about among the lower orders of Coketown, that she would be murdered some night when the Bank was shut, for the sake of her money. ”

“ As to their combining together; there are many of them, I have no doubt, that by watching and informing upon one another could earn a trifle now and then, whether in money or good will, and improve their livelihood. ”