It is a great while since I felt the grind of bone under my saw,' he added, smiling with anticipation.

And she hates being managed - that is not the word I want. What is it, Maturin?' 'Manipulated.' 'Exactly. She is a dutiful girl - a great sense of duty: I think it rather stupid, but there it is - but still she finds the way her mother has been arranging and pushing and managing and angling in all this perfectly odious. You two must have had hogsheads of that grocer's claret forced down your throats. Perfectly odious: and she is obstinate - strong, if you like - under that bread-and-butter way of hers. It will take a great deal to move her; much more than the excitement of a ball.

For me the process works best with no interruptions, no breaks in the steady application, no letters to be answered, very little social life, no holidays; it is therefore a form of happy imprisonment.

That would be locking the horse after the stable door is gone, a very foolish thing to do.

It is a great while since I felt the grind of bone under my saw,' he added, smiling with anticipation.

For very strangely his officers looked upon Jack Aubrey as a moral figure, in spite of all proofs of the contrary...

No man born of woman has ever understood spoken Portuguese.