When one is five-and-twenty, one has not chalk-stones at one's finger-ends that the touch of a handsome girl should be entirely indifferent.

... the business of life shuts us up within the environs of London and within sight of human advancement, which I should be so very glad to believe in without seeing.

... one's own faults are always a heavy chain to drag through life and one can't help groaning under the weight now and then.

It's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance.

Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.

Fear was stronger than the calculation of probabilities.

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more than they can choose their birthplace or their father and mother.