Although wealth may not bring happiness, the immediate prospect of it provides a wonderfully close imitation.
Patrick O'Brian...looking angrily at the wombat: and a moment later, 'Come now, Stephen, this is coming it pretty high: your brute is eating my hat.' 'So he is, too,' said Dr. Maturin. 'But do not be perturbed, Jack; it will do him no harm, at all. His digestive processes--
Patrick O'BrianThat would be locking the horse after the stable door is gone, a very foolish thing to do.
Patrick O'BrianFor a moment Jack felt the strongest inclination to snatch up his little gilt chair and beat the white-faced man down with it.
Patrick O'BrianHe sat on as the sun's rays came slowly down through the trees, lower and lower, and when the lowest reached a branch not far above him it caught a dewdrop poised upon a leaf. The drop instantly blazed crimson, and a slight movement of his head made it show all the colours of the spectrum with extraordinary purity, from a red almost too deep to be seen through all the others to the ultimate violet and back again.
Patrick O'Brian