Wilkie Collins

“ The air of London feels very heavy. There is a nasty smell of smoke in London. There are too many people in London. They seem to be mostly people in a hurry. The head of a country girl, when she goes into the streets, turns giddy—I suppose through not being used to the noise.
I do hope that it is London that has put me out of temper. Otherwise, it must be I myself who am ill-tempered. I have not yet been one whole day in the Staveleys’ house, and they have offended me already. I don’t want Helena to hear of this from other people, and then to ask me why I concealed it from her. ”

“ Young Miss is not quite as friendly now as she was at first. And young Master was impudent enough to ask me if “I had got religion.” To conclude the list of my worries, I received an angry answer from Helena. “Nobody but a simpleton,” she wrote, “would have contradicted me as you did. Who but you could have failed to see that papa’s strange objection to let it be known which of us is the elder makes us ridiculous before other people? My presence of mind prevented that. You ought to have been grateful, and held your tongue.” Perhaps Helena is right—but I don’t feel it so. ”

“ I said: “I never saw the flesh of any person’s face like the flesh in the faces which that man paints. He reminds me of wax-work. Why does he paint the same waxy flesh in all four of his pictures? I don’t see the same colored flesh in all the faces about us.” ”