Charles Dickens

“ In the midst of the three loud cheers, Daniel gave them all a hearty ‘Good Bye, Men!’ and the coach disappeared from sight, as if the concussion of the air had blown it out of Bleeding Heart Yard.
Mr Baptist, as a grateful little fellow in a position of trust, was among the workmen, and had done as much towards the cheering as a mere foreigner could. ”

“ In truth, no men on earth can cheer like Englishmen, who do so rally one another’s blood and spirit when they cheer in earnest, that the stir is like the rush of their whole history, with all its standards waving at once, from Saxon Alfred’s downwards. ”

“ Arthur Clennam had made his unavailing expedition to Calais in the midst of a great pressure of business. A certain barbaric Power with valuable possessions on the map of the world, had occasion for the services of one or two engineers, quick in invention and determined in execution: practical men, who could make the men and means their ingenuity perceived to be wanted out of the best materials they could find at hand ”

“ They all know it in France. I have heard it many times, sung by the little children. The last time when it I have heard,’ said Mr Baptist, formerly Cavalletto, who usually went back to his native construction of sentences when his memory went near home, ‘is from a sweet little voice. A little voice, very pretty, very innocent. Altro!’
‘The last time I heard it,’ returned Arthur, ‘was in a voice quite the reverse of pretty, and quite the reverse of innocent.’ He said it more to himself than to his companion, and added to himself, repeating the man’s next words. ”

“ The workmen were at the gate to see him off, and were mightily proud of him. ‘Good luck to you, Mr Doyce!’ said one of the number. ‘Wherever you go, they’ll find as they’ve got a man among ’em, a man as knows his tools and as his tools knows, a man as is willing and a man as is able, and if that’s not a man, where is a man!’ This oration from a gruff volunteer in the back-ground, not previously suspected of any powers in that way, was received with three loud cheers ”

“ This Power, being a barbaric one, had no idea of stowing away a great national object in a Circumlocution Office, as strong wine is hidden from the light in a cellar until its fire and youth are gone, and the labourers who worked in the vineyard and pressed the grapes are dust. ”