Victorian Novelists

"Dickens took great interest in theatrical affairs, and was very fond of theatrical society. He had a lifelong affection for , and a great regard for and ; of the latter he said once to me, "He has the brain of a man, combined with that strange power of arriving, without knowing how or why, at the truth, which one usually finds only in a woman." He had also a liking for , , , , and the . He saw most of the pieces which were produced from time to time, but he delighted in the irregular drama, the shows and booths and circuses."

"... No one succeeds better than Mr. Thackeray in cutting his coat according to his cloth. Here he flattered the aristocracy; but when he crossed the Atlantic, George Washington became the idol of his worship, the "" the object of his bitterest attacks. These last-named lectures have been dead failures in England, though as literary compositions they are most excellent."

"Gone is , with its very wide open pens and cattle-hutches; and gone with it is a good deal of the scandal of driving the wretched beasts through the streets, and whacking and torturing them in the most dreadful fashion. Enormous hordes of cattle for Smithfield Monday market, then—not as now, sent up by rail, bur driven long tedious journeys—used to arrive at on the Saturday, and pass the Sunday in the fields let out for the purpose."

"I look back to the six years which I passed at the with very little pleasure. The headmaster, Dr. Dyne was a capable pedagogue enough, not more than usually narrow-minded, priggish, and conventional. He was a type of the old-fashioned pedantic school, which looked upon Oxford as the "hub of the universe," thought the study of Latin and the primary object of our creation, despised modern languages and foreign countries, and believed thoroughly in the virtues of corporal punishment."

"But far the best of all these panoramic shows was the series exhibited at the in , called "The Overland Route," and representing all the principal places between Southampton and Calcutta. This was the work of those admirable scene-painters, and William Telbin, and was executed in their painting-rooms in , , a notorious thieves' quarter. The human figures were by , the animals by and . Such a combination of excellence had never seen, and a clear, concise, and most pleasantly delivered descriptive comment on the passing scene by , an author and journalist of the day, enhanced the success, which was tremendous."

"In those days, too, we used to lunch at places which seem entirely to have disappeared. The is not so frequently met with as it was thirty years ago. The "alehouses" were, in fact, small shops fitted with a and a counter; they had been established by Mr. Crowley, a brewer of , on finding the difficulty of procuring ordinary public-houses for the sake of his beer; and at them was sold nothing but beer, es, bread and cheese, but all of the very best."

"Seriously, Frank Churchill, it's time you began to look after a wife. In our profession, especially, it's the greatest blessing to have some one to care for and to be petted by in the intervals of business-strife. There used to be a notion that a literary man required to be perpetually 'seeing life,' which meant 'getting drunk, and never going home;' but that's exploded, and I believe that our best character-painters owe half their powers of delineation to their wives' suggestions. Women,—by Jove sir!—women read character wonderfully."

"Oh no! not at all; perfectly well—never was better in my life,” he said, becoming all at once preternaturally grave."

"To sleep at your post! shame on you! Had you been a sentinel in time of war that nod would have cost you your life, supposing you to have been caught in the act."

"I know something about the monkey tribes, but I cannot say that at this moment I remember any particular habit of which we might avail ourselves."

"If I go to sleep and the fires die down, who knows but wild beasts may come upon us and kill us before we can seize our arms."

"In her early writings in the 1840s and 1850s she had been an ardent supporter of women's rights and even free love, and had received particular notoriety with her shocking 1851 novel Realities. In her middle years, however, she modified her radical views, and her novels such as The Rebel of the Family (1880) reflect her growing conservatism and ambivalence about women's rights."

"We landed at the Ferry House, and struck off into the woods full of globe flowers by the lake side, and of yellow poppies by the wood wall; of hyacinths beneath the trees; of the curved crozier heads of the sprouting bracken; of young foxglove spathes, thick, downy, and as yet flowerless; of tufts of mountain fern like Indians' head-dresses; of trailing brambles and yet more delicate sprays of wild-raspberry; of bird's-eye, blue and lustrous, of violets and wood-sorrel; of lady's-mantles, green, gold-spotted; of delicate wind-flowers and starry stitchwort,—full of all manner of sweet wood-flowers; and then, returning, we saw two large carts and two large horses put into the ferry-boat, which a man nearly as large rowed leisurely across, according to the mode and manner of the place."

"In re-reading these pages I am now more than ever convinced that I have struck the right chord of condemnation, and advocated the best virtues and most valuable characteristics of women. I neither soften nor retract a line of what I have said."

"Other writers, such as Benjamin Disraeli, contended that an unbridgeable gap existed between the English rich and poor, but Besant claimed that individuals possessed the ability to advance socially if they received philanthropic assistance."

"Great and Little Wild Streets are called respectively Old and New Weld Streets by Strype. Weld House stood on the site of the present Wild Court, and was during the reign of James II occupied by the Spanish Embassy. In Great Wild Street Benjamin Franklin worked as a journeyman printer."

"The procession from Newgate to Tyburn used to pass along Broad Street, and halt at the great gate of the hospital, in order that the condemned man might take his last draught of ale on earth."

"Sir Walter Besant's work--his novels, records of fact, and, not least, the keen business instinct which led to the incorporation of the Society of Authors--is so widely known and appreciated that it would seem impertinent even to summarise it."

"Sir Walter Besant was a short, stout, thick-set man. His hair was iron-gray, he wore a full beard and had a ruddy face. His large, clear eyes looked at you through gold-rimmed spectacles. His manner was simple and sincere; his words were direct and to the point. He was a type of the John Bull whom we all love...Whether his talk was founded on fact or fancy, it was essentially worth while. As the physical Walter Besant gave the impression of "heart of oak," so did his conversation; there was not a "cranky," morbid, or meaningless thing about it."

"I lay it down as one of the distinctive characteristics of a good story that it pleases--or rather, seizes--every period of life; that the child, and his elder brother, and his father, and his grandfather, may read it with like enjoyment."

"Many a young fellow has found himself in a similar predicament, but I doubt whether anyone ever became so desperately hungry as I did on that day. I recollect that, having rashly eaten up my sausage before eight o'clock, I felt a sinking towards twelve; it was aggravated by the savoury smell of roast meat which steamed from the cookshops and dining-rooms as I walked along the streets. About one o'clock I gazed with malignant envy on the happy clerks who could go in and order platefuls of the roast and boiled which smoked in the windows, and threw a perfume more delicious than the sweetest strains of music into the streets where I lingered and looked. And at two I observed the diners come out again, walking more slowly, but with an upright and satisfied air, while I -- the sinking had been succeeded by a dull gnawing pain -- was slowly doubling up. At half-past two I felt as if I could bear it no longer. I had been walking about, trying different offices for a clerkship. I might as well have asked for a partnership. But I could walk no more."

"This work fascinates me more than anything else I have ever done. I've been walking about London for the last thirty years, and I find something fresh in it every day."

"Some of us can remember how under the old system at Cambridge the Senior Fellows remained in college all their lives, their interests centred in the society, dining in hall everyday, sitting over the College port in the Combination Room every day. Few among the seniors, as one remembers them, were any longer capable of intellectual work."

"And, having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labour is immense."

"A prig is a pompous fool who has gone out for a ceremonial walk, and without knowing it has lost an important part of his attire, namely, his sense of humour."

"is the story of a marriage. It was written out of experience and disappointment, and out of a kind of triumph. Marriage is appalling, says Bennett, but it is worth it. And he was well qualified to make the statement."

"Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true."

"Being a husband is a whole-time job. That is why so many husbands fail. They can't give their entire attention to it."

"Yes books are valuable. But not reading of books will take the place of a daily, candid, honest examination of what one has recently done, and what one is about to do - of a steady looking at one's self in the face (disconcerting though the sight may be)."

"Success is often described as a damaging thing for a writer, not so much because money is the root of all evil, but because it cuts him away from the material which is his strength. Arnold Bennett is probably the very best example of that in literature. When he was writing about the , he wrote magnificently because he wrote of what he knew in his veins, what is in his blood, his sinews. That is what he had known in his childhood and early years. When big success came, and he came up to London and he moved in a vivid and fashionable world, among very much more interesting people, very much more important people than he had known as a boy, he wrote nothing that was convincing; he described s, s, and restaurants in the . His work became... it was like cut flowers; it had no roots in itself, and this particular problem is worrying the novelist all the time because he knows he’s not getting the right material for his books."

"Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man."

"The price of justice is eternal publicity."

"A cause may be inconvenient, but it's magnificent. It's like champagne or high heels, and one must be prepared to suffer for it."

"Then drink, puppy, drink, and let ev’ry puppy drink, That is old enough to lap and to swallow; For he’ll grow into a hound, so we’ll pass the bottle round, And merrily we’ll whoop and we’ll holloa."

"Ah, better to love in the lowliest cot Than pine in a palace alone."

"For everything created In the bounds of earth and sky Has such longing to be mated, It must couple or must die."

"The life upon which youth fancies itself entering is very different from the life which age refuses to acknowledge it is on the eve of quitting."

"When you sleep in your cloak there's no lodging to pay."

"Fear God, and take your own part."

"I often think I should like to have another rally—one more rally, and then—but there’s a time for all things—youth will be served, every dog has his day, and mine has been a fine one—let me be content."

"I never saw such a place for merched anllad [wanton women] as Northampton."

"There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I would gladly live for ever."

"There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?"

"He is not deserving of the name of Englishman who speaketh against ale, that is, good ale."

"'Scotland! a queer country that, your honour!' 'So it is,' said I; 'a queerer country I never saw in all my life.' 'And a queer set of people, your honour,' 'So they are,' said I; 'a queerer set of people than the Scotch you would scarcely seen in a summer's day.'"

"If you must commit suicide – and there is no knowing to what people may be brought – always contrive to do it as decorously as possible; the decencies, whether of life or of death, should never be lost sight of."

"Smoking has a sedative effect upon the nerves, and enables a man to bear the sorrows of this life (of which every one has his share) not only decently, but dignifiedly."

"I have always been a friend to hero-worship; it is the only rational one, and has always been in use amongst civilized people."

"Sherry...a silly, sickly compound, the use of which will transform a nation, however bold and warlike by nature, into a race of sketchers, scribblers, and punsters, in fact into what Englishmen are at the present day."

"There is a peculiarity in the countenance, as everybody knows, which, though it cannot be described, is sure to betray the Englishman."