Of Quakers and kites

If he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of that! Franklin used to fly a kite. He was a Quaker, or something of that sort, if I am not mistaken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous object than anybody else. Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield

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To some small end

…money would never keep that man out of mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It’s his only compensation for the outward restraints he puts on himself. Always creeping along the ground to some small end or other, he will always magnify every object in the [...]

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Modern breeding specifications

…when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out. David Copperfield

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Ferocious doctrine

“Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in such association) religious still?” I inquired. “You anticipate, sir,” said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. “One of Mrs. Chillip’s most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip,” he proceeded, in the calmest and [...]

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The troubles of the world

What a troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to be as agreeable as possible!Clara Copperfield (Murdstone)

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Per the Colonels request

‘Don’t you read or get read to?’ [Mr. George]The old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. ‘No, no. We have never been readers in our family. It don’t pay. Stuff. Idleness. Folly. No, no!’ [Grandfather Smallweed]Bleak House

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Worthy to be a duchess…or queen as it were

‘My dear,’ he returned, ‘when a young lady is as mild as she’s game, and as game as she’s mild, that’s all I ask, and more than I expect. She then becomes a Queen, and that’s about what you are yourself.’Mr. Bucket to Esther. Bleak House.

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What’s better than a good reputation?

The name of Professor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European reputation.Mr. Badger, Bleak House

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Seeming rage

It was grand to see how the wind awoke, and bent the trees, and drove the rain before it like a cloud of smoke; and to hear the solemn thunder, and to see the lightning; and, while thinking with awe of the tremendous powers by which our little lives are encompassed, to consider how beneficent [...]

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A dissolved partnership

‘It won’t do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and lawyers,’ exclaims the old girl, apparently persuaded that the latter form a separate establishment, and have dissolved partnership with truth and justice for ever and a day.Bleak House – Charles Dickens.

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The slander of women

Miss Wisk’s mission, my guardian said, was to show the world that woman’s mission was man’s mission; and that the only genuine mission, of both man and woman was to be always moving declaratory resolutions about things in general at public meetings. …Such a mean mission as the domestic mission, was the very last thing [...]

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Nutcracker Sweet

‘Good God!’ cried Mr. Pocket, in an outburst of desolate desperation. ‘Are infants to be nutcracked into their tombs, and is nobody to save them?’ Mr. Pocket. Great Expectations

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Coward- what a descriptive word.

In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong. Pip in Great Expectations It still amazes me that a writer from 145 years ago could describe my life so well; I get the same [...]

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