I never knew a government yet that wanted to do anything.

Short accounts make long friends.

It is no good any longer having any opinion upon anything.

Life is so unlike theory.

Poverty, to be picturesque, should be rural. Suburban misery is as hideous as it is pitiable.

Of course, Lady Arabella could not suckle the young heir herself. Ladies Arabella never can. They are gifted with the powers of being mothers, but not nursing mothers. Nature gives them bosoms for show, but not for use. So Lady Arabella had a wet-nurse.

There is always a piano in an hotel drawing-room, on which, of course, some one of the forlorn ladies is generally employed. I do not suppose that these pianos are, in fact, as a rule, louder and harsher, more violent and less musical, than other instruments of the kind. They seem to be so, but that, I take it, arises from the exceptional mental depression of those who have to listen to them.