The creature madly climbing back
Into his chrysalis.
Charlotte Perkins Stetson.
The very fiends weave ropes of sand
Rather than taste pure hell in idleness.
R. Browning (A Forgiveness).
He had formed several ingenious plans by which he meant to circumvent people of large fortune and small capacity; but then he never met with exactly the right people under exactly the right circumstances.... It is possible to pass a great many bad half-pennies and bad half-crowns, but I believe there has no instance been known of passing a half-penny or a half-crown for a sovereign.
George Eliot (Brother Jacob).