Charles Dickens

“ If you loved any one, you would no more be yourself, but you would quite lose and forget yourself in your devotion to him. If you loved him, Fanny——’ Fanny had stopped the dabbing hand, and was looking at her fixedly. ”

“ And as to marrying Mr Sparkler, I have not the slightest intention of doing so to-night, my dear, or to-morrow morning either.’
‘But at some time?’
‘At no time, for anything I know at present,’ answered Fanny, with indifference. Then, suddenly changing her indifference into a burning restlessness, she added, ‘You talk about the clever men, you little thing! It’s all very fine and easy to talk about the clever men ”

“ But of what class the remiss Britons were composed, and where the unlucky creatures hid themselves, and why they hid themselves, and how it constantly happened that they neglected their interests, when so many other Britons were quite at a loss to account for their not looking after those interests, was not, either upon the shore of the yellow Tiber or the shore of the black Thames, made apparent to men.
Mrs Merdle circulated the news, as she received congratulations on it, with a careless grace that displayed it to advantage, as the setting displays the jewel. ”

“ I am better fitted for such a life than for almost any other.’
There was something of a desolate tone in those words; but, with a short proud laugh she took another walk, and after passing a great looking-glass came to another stop. ”

“ Whether it would be more agreeable to Edmund than the army, remained to be seen.
Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make things of small account, and really enhancing them in the process. While Henry Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole round of his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and the town of Albano, vowing, almost (but not quite) with tears in his eyes, that Sparkler was the sweetest-tempered, simplest-hearted, altogether most lovable jackass that ever grazed on the public common ”

“ What I wished to declare was, that nothing can be a greater happiness to myself, myself-next to the happiness of being united to pre-eminently the most glorious of girls—than to have the happiness of cultivating the affectionate acquaintance of Amy. I may not myself,’ said Mr Sparkler manfully, ‘be up to the mark on some other subjects at a short notice, and I am aware that if you were to poll Society the general opinion would be that I am not ”