It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

For a long time, no village girl would dress her hair or bosom with the sweetest flower from that field of death: and after many a year had come and gone, the berries growing there, were still believed to leave too deep a stain upon the hand that plucked them.

When I have heard him talking to Papa during the sittings for the picture, I have sat wondering whether it could be that he has no belief in anybody else, because he has no belief in himself.

To be allowed to call her "Dora", to write to her, to dote upon and worship her, to have reason to think that when she was with other people she was yet mindful of me, seemed to me the summit of human ambition - I am sure it was the summit of mine.

I wish I were the Commander in Chief in India... I should do my utmost to exterminate the Race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested.

For though we are perpetually bragging of it as our safety, it is nothing but a poor fringe on the mantle of the upper.

Poetry's unnat'ral; no man ever talked poetry 'cept a beadle on boxin' day.