"I should like to see the woman you would choose for a wife!"
"I wish you had a few of these common sense ideas you despise so much. I am afraid, Charles, that the time is not very distant when you will stand sadly in need of them."
"Don't trouble yourself, Walter. I'll take care of number one. Let me alone for that. But, I should like to know your serious objections to Cara? You sweep her aside with one wave of your hand, as if she were too insignificant to be thought of for a moment."
"I said that I should consider her a dear bargain, and so I would—for she would not suit me at all."
"Ah, there I believe you. But come, let me hear why she would not suit you."
"Because she has no correct and common sense estimation of life and its relations. She is full of poetry and romance, and fashion, and show, and 'all that kind of thing;' none of which, without a great deal of the salt of common sense, would suit me."
"Common sense! Common sense! Common sense! That is your hobby. Verily, Walter, you are a monomaniac on the subject of common sense; but, as for me, I will leave common sense to common people. I go in for uncommon sense."
"The poorest and most unprofitable sense of all, let me tell you. And one of these days you will discover it to be so."
"It is no use for us to compare our philosophical notes, I see plainly enough," Wilton responded. "We shall never view things in the same light. You are not the man of the world you should be, Walter. Men of half your merit will eclipse you, winning opulence and distinction—while you, with your common sense notions, will be plodding on at a snail's pace. You are behind the age, and a stranger to its powerful, onward impulses."
"And ever do I desire to remain behind the age, Wilton, if mere pretension and show be its ruling and impulsive spirit."