Short Story Writers From England

"—the unpunished crime is never regretted. We weep over the consequence, not over the fault."

"What is the reason that we find it so satisfactory to make excuses to ourselves—the only persons in the world to whom they must be altogether needless ?"

"Ill-timed admiration is enough to enrage a saint."

"We talk of unsophisticated nature—I should like to know where it is to be found."

"Now, a fancy ball is bad enough in London, where milliners are many, and where theatres have costumes that may be borrowed or copied ; but in the country, where people are left to their own devices—truly to them may be applied the old poet's account of murderers, "their fancies are all frightful.”"

"English people ... never speak, excepting in cases of fire or murder, unless they are introduced."

"[From Cecil Forrester]: Nothing like love-letters for filling up a rainy morning. A mistress gives a man such an interest in himself! You cannot run your fingers through your hair, without a vision of the locket wherein one of your curls reposes on the fairest neck in the world. An east-wind only conjures up a host of "sweet anxieties ;" and if the worst comes to the worst, you can sit down and write sonnets to your inamorata's eyebrow."

"On one side, lemons are selling for a shilling a dozen ; on the other, oranges for sixpence. One man blows a horn in your ear, and offers you the Standard ; another exerts his lungs, and shews you the Courier. Pencils are to be had for a penny ; and penknives, with from three to six blades each, for eighteen pence a-dozen. A fellow with a trunk turns its corner on your temples; another deposits a box, with the grocery of a family —sugar, soap, candles, and all—on your toes. A gigantic gentleman nearly knocks you down in his hurry ; and an elderly Jew slips past you so neatly, that you tumble over him before you are aware. Every body is always too late, and therefore every body is in a bustle. Two policemen keep the peace; and half-a-dozen individuals, whose notions on the law of property are at variance with established principles or prejudices, attend for the purpose of breaking it. Add to these some females with shawls and sharp elbows ; and pattens, whose iron rings are for the benefit of foot-passengers. Such is the White Horse Cellar, and the pavement from Dover Street to Albemarle Street."

"To make our story shorter than the miniature groom's, he learnt that his own property in himself was in danger; and that, if the patriot's definition of liberty be true —"it is like the air we breathe, without it we die"—his life was near its termination. A writ was issued against him; and, thanks to a douceur to his valet, two professional gentlemen, as he left his toilet, would deprive his friends at the Clarendon of his company."

"Cecil Forrester was heir to many misfortunes, being handsome, rich, high-born, and clever."

"Who does not know the restlessness of an anticipated arrival ?"

"... ; but conscience, like a child, is soon lulled to sleep ; and habit is our idea of eternity."

"I have ever remarked, that when Fate has any great misfortune in store, it is always preceded by a brief period of calm and sunshine—as if to add bitterness of contrast to all other misery. It is for the happy to tremble—it is over their heads that the thunderbolt is about to burst."

"But in this world every thing has its evil ; the dust is on the wheels of the conqueror's chariot—the silken-wrought tapestry covers the mouldering wall;"

"I am persuaded there is no triumph equal to one achieved on the stage—it comes so immediate and so home : you have before you the mass of human beings whose sympathies are at your will; you witness the emotions which you raise, you see the tears which you command : the poet has erected the statue, but it is for you to give it life—the words must find their music on your lips—the generous sentiment, the exalted hope, the touches of deep feeling, ask their expression from you : surely such influence is among the triumphs of the mind, ay and a great and noble triumph."

"[From Lee]: I believe that the mind may make its own immortality : thought is the spiritual part of existence ; and so long as my mind influences others, so long as my thoughts remain behind, so long shall my spirit be conscious and immortal. The body may perish—not so the essence which survives in the living and lasting page."

"[From Lee, a dramatist]: Ah! the poet hath no true hope, who doth not place it in the many, and in the feeling of the common multitude."

"Out upon the folly which, in estimating human misery, allows aught to bear comparison with the agony of the poor ! I use the word poor relatively; I call not those poor to whom honesty brings self-respect, whose habits and whose means have gone together, and whose industry is its own support. But those are the poor whose exertion supplies not their wants—to whom cold, hunger, and weariness, are common feelings ; who have known better days—to whom the past furnishes contrast, and the future fear."

"I do firmly believe that the Londoner is as contented with his city home as the dweller in the fairest valley among the Appennines ; and that habit brings its usual indifference as to place."

"[From Reginald Clinton]: I do not believe that the heart is turned from the Creator by enjoying his works. Of what avail is the sweet breath of the rose, the morning song of the lark ? The pleasure they impart is not matter of necessity, and yet we delight in both. The soul of the poet is as much His gift as the fragrance of the flower, or the lay of the bird ; and the page where inspired words record heroic deed, touching sorrow, or natural loveliness, is one of those pleasures for which we should be thankful. I, for my part, believe most devoutly in the Almighty mercy, when I see how much that is beautiful and gladdening has been scattered over our pilgrimage here."

"What a visionary thing is the independence of youth ! how full of projects, which take the shape of certainties ! How much of rugged and stern experience it requires to convince the young and the eager, that the efforts of an individual unaided by connexion or circumstance, are the true reading of the allegory of the Danaides : —industry and skill, alas, how often are they but water drawn with labour into a bucket full of holes !"

"It is the mistake of a coxcomb, whose experience of affection is all to come—if it ever comes—to say that women are won by mere good looks. Though it does not owe its birth to them. Gratitude and Vanity are the nurses that rock the cradle of Love."

"It is a humbling thing to human pride to observe that strength of mind does not preserve its possessor from indulging any favourite delusion; but that this very strength gives its own force to the belief."

"Sound peculiarly appeals to memory."

"How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning! The first sunshine on the leaves: the first wind, laden with the first breath of the flowers-that deep sigh with which they seem to waken from sleep; the first dew, untouched even by the light foot of the early hare; the first chirping of the rousing birds, as if eager to begin song and flight; all is redolent of the strength given by rest, and the joy of conscious life."

"But as our explanation will be more brief than one broken in upon by words of wonder, regret, and affection, we will proceed to it ; holding that explanation, like advice, should be of all convenient shortness."

"Youth's first acquaintance with sorrow is a terrible thing—before time has taught, what it will surely teach, that grief is our natural portion, at once transitory and eternal. But the first lesson is the severest—we have not then looked among our fellows, and seen that suffering is general ; and we feel as if marked out by fate for misery that has no parallel."

"If we did but know how we rush into one evil while seeking to avoid another, we should have no resolution to shun any thing."

"Born with them—born with them : all alike ! No pleasure equal to the pleasure of tormenting, to a woman."

"The fearless make their own way."

"How incomprehensible is woman's love ! —it is not kindness that wins it, nor return that insures it; we daily see the most devoted attachment lavished on those who seem to us singularly unworthy. The Spectator shewed his usual knowledge of human nature, when, in speaking on this subject, he relates, that in a town besieged by the enemy, on the women being allowed to depart with whatever they held most precious, only one among them carried off her husband,—a man notorious for his tyrannical temper, and who had, moreover, a bad—or, as it turned out, a good—habit of beating his wife every morning. Well, all governments are maintained by fear—fear being our great principle of action ; and fear, we are tempted to believe, heightens and strengthens the love of woman."

"There is a deep impression of awe produced by such a vast but silent crowd ; we are at once conscious that the cause is terrible which can induce the unusual stillness. The issue of a trial on which hangs life or death, is indeed an appalling thing. We know that men are about to take away that which they cannot give—that a few words of human breath will deprive of breath one of the number for ever ; and though we acknowledge that in this evil world punishment is the only security against crime, and that blood for blood has been a necessity from the beginning of time ; still, we feel that the necessity is a dreadful one."

"Human nature is accused of much more selfishness than it really has ; a thousand kindly emotions break in upon and redeem our daily and interested life."

"Death never excites such sympathy as it does when it assumes the shape of murder."

"There is no denying the fact, that in all sudden emergencies a woman has ten times the presence of mind, or, to use the common expression, her wits more about her than a man."

"—what an odd thing it is, that the indications of terror are usually ludicrous !"

"The gallantry of an English peasant rarely expands into words."

"The discharge of a duty from affection is the best solace for sorrow."

"To use the established phrase, three months of uninterrupted happiness glided away—a phrase, though in frequent use, whose accuracy I greatly doubt ; there being no such thing as uninterrupted happiness any how or any where."

"... when was a woman ever witty without being bitter?"

"They say gravity is the centre of attraction ; I rather think that noise is. Nothing so soon assembles the inhabitants of a house as a loud and sudden noise : ..."

"—true love is like religion, it hath its silence and its sanctity."

"—vanity, like all social vices, craves for novelty ;"

"I rather disdained than coveted the luxuries I saw : alas ! we desire riches more for others than ourselves."

"A despotic power makes slaves."

"—to enjoy yourself is the easy method to give enjoyment to others; ..."

"What a falsehood it is to say that genius and industry are incompatible ! Does one work of genius exist that has not also been a work of labour ?"

"Not that we would detract one iota from the benevolence which does exist in humanity ; there is both more gratitude and more cause for gratitude than it is the fashion now-a-days to admit: but this we do say, that the obligation is never from those on whom we have a claim. Kindness is always unexpected; and “overcomes us like a summer cloud," exciting our "special wonder" as well as thankfulness."

"... who has not experienced, at some time or other, that words had all the relief of tears?"

"We again repeat, that there is no temper so communicative as an imaginative one."