So much I can say: the facts related, with some regretted omissions, by which my story has so skeleton a look, are those that led to the lamentable conclusion. But the melancholy, the pathos of it, the heart of all England stirred by it, have been—and the panting excitement it was to every listener—sacrificed in the vain effort to render events as consequent to your understanding as a piece of logic, through an exposure of character! Character must ever be a mystery, only to be explained in some degree by conduct; and that is very dependent upon accident: and unless we have a perpetual whipping of the tender part of the reader’s mind, interest in invisible persons must needs flag. For it is an infant we address, and the storyteller whose art excites an infant to serious attention succeeds best; with English people assuredly, I rejoice to think, though I have to pray their patience here while that philosophy and exposure of character block the course along a road inviting to traffic of the most animated kind.
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A dumb tongue can be a heavy liar
Accounting his tight blue tail coat and brass buttons a victory
Advised not to push at a shut gate
Always the shout for more produced it (“News”)
Amused after their tiresome work of slaughter
And her voice, against herself, was for England
Anecdotist to slaughter families for the amusement
As faith comes—no saying how; one swears by them
As for comparisons, they are flowers thrown into the fire
As if the age were the injury!
Be the woman and have the last word!
Bent double to gather things we have tossed away
Brains will beat Grim Death if we have enough of them
But a great success is full of temptations
Call of the great world’s appetite for more (Invented news)
Charity that supplied the place of justice was not thanked
Cock-sure has crowed low by sunset
Contempt of military weapons and ridicule of the art of war
Could affect me then, without being flung at me
Country enclosed us to make us feel snug in our own importance
Courage to grapple with his pride and open his heart was wanting
Deeds only are the title
Detested titles, invented by the English
Did not know the nature of an oath, and was dismissed
Dogs’ eyes have such a sick look of love
Drank to show his disdain of its powers
Drink is their death’s river, rolling them on helpless
Earl of Cressett fell from his coach-box in a fit
Enemy’s laugh is a bugle blown in the night
Everlastingly in this life the better pays for the worse
Fatal habit of superiority stopped his tongue
Father used to say, four hours for a man, six for a woman
Father and she were aware of one another without conversing
Festive board provided for them by the valour of their fathers
Flung him, pitied him, and passed on
Foe can spoil my face; he beats me if he spoils my temper
Fond, as they say, of his glass and his girl
Found that he ‘cursed better upon water’
Fun, at any cost, is the one object worth a shot
Good-bye to sorrow for a while—Keep your tears for the living
Had got the trick of lying, through fear of telling the truth
Hard enough for a man to be married to a fool
He did not vastly respect beautiful women
He was a figure on a horse, and naught when off it
He had wealth for a likeness of strength
He wants the whip; ought to have had it regularly
He was the prisoner of his word
Heartily she thanked the girl for the excuse to cry
Hearts that make one soul do not separately count their gifts
Her intimacy with a man old enough to be her grandfather
Himself in the worn old surplice of the converted rake
I hate sleep: I hate anything that robs me of my will
Ideas in gestation are the dullest matter you can have
Injury forbids us to be friends again
Innocence and uncleanness may go together
It was an honest buss, but dear at ten thousand
Lies are usurers’ coin we pay for ten thousand per cent
Life is the burlesque of young dreams
Limit was two bottles of port wine at a sitting
Little boy named Tommy Wedger said he saw a dead body go by
Look backward only to correct an error of conduct in future
Love of pleasure keeps us blind children
Magnificent in generosity; he had little humaneness
Make a girl drink her tears, if they ain’t to be let fall
Meditations upon the errors of the general man, as a cover
Mighty Highnesses who had only smelt the outside edge of battle
Never forgave an injury without a return blow for it
No enemy’s shot is equal to a weak heart in the act
Not afford to lose, and a disposition free of the craving to win
Not to be the idol, to have an aim of our own
Objects elevated even by a decayed world have their magnetism
On a morning when day and night were made one by fog
One idea is a bullet
Past, future, and present, the three weights upon humanity
Pebble may roll where it likes—not so the costly jewel
Poetic romance is delusion
Push me to condense my thoughts to a tight ball
Put material aid at a lower mark than gentleness
Puzzle to connect the foregoing and the succeeding
Quick to understand, she is in the quick of understanding
Reflection upon a statement is its lightning in advance
Religion condones offences: Philosophy has no forgiveness
Religion is the one refuge from women
Scorn titles which did not distinguish practical offices
Sensitiveness to the sting, which is not allowed to poison
Seventy, when most men are reaping and stacking their sins
She seemed really a soaring bird brought down by the fowler
She was thrust away because because he had offended
She stood with a dignity that the word did not express
She endured meekly, when there was no meekness
Should we leave a good deed half done
Showery, replied the admiral, as his cocked-hat was knocked off
So much for morality in those days!
So indulgent when they drop their blot on a lady’s character
Steady shakes them
Strengthening the backbone for a bend of the knee in calamity
Style is the mantle of greatness
Sweetest on earth to her was to be prized by her brother
That sort of progenitor is your “permanent aristocracy”
The habit of the defensive paralyzes will
The embraced respected woman
The idol of the hour is the mob’s wooden puppet
The divinely damnable naked truth won’t wear ornaments
Their sneer withers
There is no driver like stomach
There’s not an act of a man’s life lies dead behind him
They could have pardoned her a younger lover
Those who have the careless chatter, the ready laugh
Those who know little and dread much
Thus are we stricken by the days of our youth
Tighter than ever I was tight I’ll be to-night
To most men women are knaves or ninnies
Touch sin and you accommodate yourself to its vileness
Truth is, they have taken a stain from the life they lead
Very little parleying between determined men
Wakening to the claims of others—Youth’s infant conscience
Warm, is hardly the word—Winter’s warm on skates
We make our taskmasters of those to whom we have done a wrong
We shall go together; we shall not have to weep for one another
With one idea, we see nothing—nothing but itself
Woman finds herself on board a rudderless vessel
Women treat men as their tamed housemates
Wooing her with dog’s eyes instead of words
Writer society delights in, to show what it is composed of
You played for gain, and that was a licenced thieving
You saw nothing but handkerchiefs out all over the theatre
You are to imagine that they know everything
You want me to flick your indecision