I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together.

and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves as one, but every child was conducting itself like forty.

The word of a gentleman is as good as his bond — sometimes better; as in the present case, where his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security.

It is no worse, because I write of it. It would be no better, if I stopped my most unwilling hand. Nothing can undo it; nothing can make it otherwise than as it was.

The cramped monotony of my existence grinds me away by the grain.

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.

In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.