What are the odds so long as the fire of the soul is kindled at the taper of conviviality, and the wing of friendship never molts a feather?
Charles DickensMy hair stands on end at the cost and charges of these boys. Why was I ever a father! Why was my father ever a father!
Charles DickensThus, it comes to pass, that a certain room in a certain old hall, where a certain bad lord, baronet, knight, or gentleman, shot himself, has certain planks in the floor from which the blood will not be taken out. You may scrape and scrape, as the present owner has done, or plane and plane, as his father did, or scrub and scrub, as his grandfather did, or burn and burn with strong acids, as his great-grandfather did, but, there the blood will still be - no redder and no paler - no more and no less - always just the same.
Charles Dickens