High rank and soft manners may not always belong to a true heart.

It is my purpose to disclose the mystery at once, and to ask you to look for your interest,--should you choose to go on with my chronicle,--simply in the conduct of my persons, during this disclosure to others.

An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.

As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent.

Marvelous is the power which can be exercised, almost unconsciously, over a company, or an individual, or even upon a crowd by one person gifted with good temper, good digestion, good intellects, and good looks.

But then in novels the most indifferent hero comes out right at last. Some god comes out of a theatrical cloud and leaves the poor devil ten thousand-a-year and a title.

Little bits of things make me do it; — perhaps a word that I said and ought not to have said ten years ago; — the most ordinary little mistakes, even my own past thoughts to myself about the merest trifles. They are always making me shiver.