This particular pool of light moving in a mesmeric manner backwards and forwards picked out from time to time a long red island of spilt wine. It seemed to leap forward from the mottled cloth when the light fastened upon it in startling contrast to the chiaroscuro and to defy the laws of tone.
Never less solitary than when he was alone, never more busy than when he seemed most idle.
Varium et mutabile semper femina is the sharpest satire, in the fewest words, that ever was made on womankind; for both the adjectives are neuter, and animal must be understood, to make them grammar. Virgil does well to put those words into the mouth of Mercury. If a god had not spoken them, neither durst he have written them, nor I translated them.
We are naturally displeas’d with an unknown critic, because we are bitten in the dark, and know not where to fasten our revenge.
The man’s voracious vanity devoured this implied tribute to his local and critical supremacy, with an appearance of the highest relish.
It appeared to me, on looking over the tradesmen’s books, as if we might have kept the basement story paved with butter, such was the extensive scale of our consumption of that article. I don’t know whether the Excise returns of the period may have exhibited any increase in the demand for pepper; but if our performances did not affect the market, I should say several families must have left off using it. And the most wonderful fact of all was, that we never had anything in the house.
The best men are not consistent in good – why should the worst men be consistent in evil?
I entered a little room, with a flaring paper, of the largest pattern, on the walls. Chairs, tables, cheffonier, and sofa, all gleamed with the glutinous brightness of cheap upholstery. On the largest table, in the middle of the room, stood a smart Bible, placed exactly in the centre, on a red and yellow woollen mat; and at the side of the table nearest to the window, with a little knitting-basket on her lap, and a weezing, blear-eyed old spaniel crouched at her feet, there sat an elderly woman, wearing a black net cap and a black silk gown, and having slate-coloured mittens on her hands. Her iron-grey hair hung in heavy bands on either side of her face; her dark eyes looked straight forward, with a hard, defiant, implacable stare. She had full square cheeks, a long, firm chin, and thick, sensual, colourless lips. Her figure was stout and sturdy, and her manner aggressively self-possessed. This was Mrs. Catherick.
Seeking to avoid Scylla, they fall into Charybdis.
Opposite to exercise is idleness (the badge of gentry) or want of exercise, the bane of body and mind, the nurse of naughtiness, stepmother of discipline, the chief author of all mischief, one of the seven deadly sins, and a sole cause for this an many other maladies, the devil’s cushion, as Gualter calls it, his pillow and chief reposal.
If, in conformity to right reason, you transact whatever affairs you have in hand with attention, steadiness, and benevolence, and without suffering any thing foreign to your present purpose to interfere, you pay the same deference to the divine monitor within you, as if you were the next moment to part for ever; if you can thus persevere, inattentive to any thing further, and without shrinking from any difficulty, and act with simplicity and energy, according to the nature of the present business, with an heroic regard to truth in all your words; you will thus secure a happy life.
It is not in the power of any one to prevent your acting thus.
Although you should live three thousand or three myriads of years, yet observe, that no man when he dies loses any more than that instant portion of time in which he then lived; and that he only lives that moment of life which he is constantly losing; so that the longest and the shortest life, in this view, come to the same thing. For the present time is equal to every one, though that which is past may have been unequal.
But, as the portion of life which we lose at our death is a mere point or instant, it appears from hence, that no one can lose either what is past or what is future. For how can he lose what he does not possess?
If he wants to keep a whole skin on his bones, I recommend him not to come back in a hurry.
But I am over-tedious in these toys, which howsoever, in some men’s too severe censures, they may be held absurd and ridiculous, I am the bolder to insert, as not borrowed from circumforanean rogues and gipsies, but out of the writings of some worthy philosophers and physicians, yet living some of them, and religious professors in famous universities, who are able to patronize that which they have said, and vindicate themselves from all cavillers and ignorant persons.
Why do you suffer yourself thus to be the sport of accidents, and your mind distracted by external objects, and not give yourself leisure to acquire any useful knowledge? and why do you live thus in a perpetual whirl of dissipation?
You will hardly find any man unhappy from being ignorant of what passes in the thoughts of other people; but he that does not attend to the regulation of his own thoughts, must necessarily be miserable.
From my governor (who had the care of the earlier part of my education) I learned not to engage in the disputes of the circus of the amphitheatre, the chariot races, or the combats of the gladiators.
He also taught me to endure hardships and fatigues; and to reduce the conveniences of life into a narrow compass; and to wait on myself on most occasions; not impertinently to interfere in other people’s affairs, nor hastily to listen to calumnies and slander.
Diognetus cautioned me against too eager a pursuit of trifles; particularly, not to busy myself in feeding quails.
And also [taught Rusticus] to read an author with care and attention, and not to content myself with a general superficial view of his subject, nor immediately to resign my opinion to every plausible declaimer.
Apollonius’ living example convinced me, that a man may be rigid in his principles, yet easy and affable in his manners, and free from any moroseness in delivering the precepts of his philosophy.
From the example of Sextus I formed a resolution of living according to Nature, of preserving an unaffected gravity in my deportment, and a careful attention to the expectations of my friends; to bear with the ignorance of the vulgar, and those that take up their opinions at random, without examination.
Fronto the orator informed me, how much envy, intrigue and dissimulation, usually prevailed under tyrannical governments, and observed, that those whom we call nobility are too often void of natural affection and the common feelings of humanity.
I am obliged to Alexander the Platonist, for the hint, ‘not often, nor ever, without a necessity, to complain, either in my letters or in the common intercourse with my friends, of my want of leisure; nor under a pretence of extraordinary embarrassment to decline or evade the common offices of friendship’.
Catulus admonished me not to slight the complaints of a friend, even though they should prove to be without foundation.
As for those things which conduce to the comfort and convenience of life, which fortune amply supplied, he made use of them, when at hand, without pride or ostentation; but, like a wise man, when at a distance, never regretted the want of them.
He was careful of his person, but neither foppish nor negligent; he had a proper regard to his health, but not too anxious in that particular, like a man that was too fond of life.
But to be able to bear affliction with fortitude, and the reverse without being too much elated, is an argument of consummate virtue and invincible resolution.
Out of this nettle danger, I’ll yet pluck the flower safety.
It would be difficult to misunderstand what you say, sir,“ replied Gammon; in whose dark bosom Mr. Aubrey’s words had, as it were, stung and roused the serpent pride—which might have been seen with crest erect, and glaring eyes. But Mr. Gammon’s external manner was calm and subdued.
…whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to say diabolical.
For God’s sake consider the consequences to your brother—to his family! I tell you that malice and rapacity are at this moment gleaming like wild wolves within a few paces of you—ready to rush upon you. Did you but see them as distinctly as I do, you would indeed shudder and shrink—
The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window – and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps – and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer – and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly!
Never was the old conventional maxim, that Nature cannot err, more flatly contradicted – never was the fair promise of a lovely figure more strangely and startlingly belied by the face and head that crowned it.
The Infernal Spirits obey me as their Sovereign: By their aid shall my days be past in every refinement of luxury and voluptuousness. I will enjoy unrestrained the gratification of my senses: Every passion shall be indulged, even to satiety; Then will I bid my Servants invent new pleasures, to revive and stimulate my glutted appetites! I go impatient to exercise my newly-gained dominion.
Theodore amused himself with relating to the credulous Nuns, for truths, all the strange stories which his imagination could invent. He related to them his supposed adventures, and penetrated every auditor with astonishment, while he talked of giants, savages, ship-wrecks, and islands inhabited
‘By Anthropophagi, and Men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders,’With many other circumstances to the full as remarkable. He said, that He was born in Terra Incognita, was educated at an Hottentot university, and had past two years among the Americans of Silesia.
These faults may occasionally be excused in a work of length; but a short poem must be correct and perfect.“
"All this is true, segnor; but you should consider that I only write for pleasure.”
"Your defects are the less excusable. Their incorrectness may be forgiven, who work for money, who are obliged to complete a given task in a given time, and are paid according to the bulk, not value of their productions. But in those whom no necessity forces to turn author, who merely write for fame, and have full leisure to polish their compositions, faults are unpardonable, and merit the sharpest arrows of criticism.
What can repay me for having kissed the leathern paw of that confounded old witch? Diavolo! She has left such a scent upon my lips, that I shall smell of garlick for this month to come! As I pass along the Prado, I shall be taken for a walking omelet, or some large onion running to seed!
