George Tomkyns Chesney

“ Love needs no rules of time and opportunity. Has not my poor mother often said that she fell in love at first sight with my father, and that they were engaged to be married before they had known each other a week? ”

“ Yet, after all, to be sure, women don't choose men for their good looks or their wit. There is Tirtell of the 80th N.I., certainly not much to look at, and about as stupid a fellow as there is in the army, yet he found a pretty woman to fall in love with him, and one with ten times his brains. Look at Grumbull, too, our doctor; what little chance the climate leaves a fellow will be lost if he gets into his hands. ”

“ Yorke felt that his pony would ill compare with the other's high-caste Arab, as it stepped proudly along, excited by the exercise, and tossing its head as if enjoying the rattle of its caparisons. And yet, thought the youngster, bitterly, I am as good as he, for all that he is a colonel of hussars, and I am only subaltern of native infantry, and I would prove it if I only had a chance. Still, what chance shall I have against him if he enters the lists? She says she thinks there is no profession like the army ”

“ Yorke thought he was joking; the idea of a country-bred running in a race of any sort, was like entering a hack for a flat race in England.
The colonel said he was quite in earnest. It was not a matter of speed or blood. "It is astonishing how few horses in this country can jump; want of practice, I suppose. If any horse succeeds in getting round the course, the chances are it will win, and your horse has some good blood in him, and some capital points for a fencer ”