Anthony Trollope (1815 – 1882)
One of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era.
“They’re giving ?2 10s. a vote at the Fallgate this minute” said Ruddles to him at a quarter past three.
“We shall have to prove it.”
“We can do that, I think,” said Ruddles.
Audacity in wooing is a great virtue, but a man must measure even his virtues.
Gentlemen lacking substantial sympathy with their leader found it to be comfortable to deceive themselves, and raise their hearts at the same time by the easy enthusiasm of noise.
He don't look the sort of fellow I like; but he's got money and he comes here, and he's good looking, — and therefore he'll be a success.
The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so.
“Do you mean to say that the morals of your party will be offended?” said Madame Goesler, almost laughing.
A man's own dinner is to himself so important that he cannot bring himself to believe that it is a matter utterly indifferent to every one else.
I know very well that if you get men who are really, — really swells, for that is what it is, Mr. Low, — and pay them well enough, and so make it really an important thing, they can browbeat any judge and hoodwink any jury.
It's dogged as does it. It's not thinking about it.
It is a remarkable thing with reference to men who are distressed for money... they never seem at a loss for small sums, or deny themselves those luxuries which small sums purchase. Cabs, dinners, wine, theatres, and new gloves are always at the command of men who are drowned in pecuniary embarrassments, whereas those who don't owe a shilling are so frequently obliged to go without them!
Perhaps there is nothing so generally remarkable in the conduct of young ladies in the phase of life of which we are now speaking as the facility, — it may almost be said audacity, — with which they do make up their minds.
But how shall I excuse it? There are things done which are as holy as the heavens, — which are clear before God as the light of the sun, which leave no stain on the conscience, and which yet the malignity of man can invest with the very blackness of hell!
She rides to hounds, and talks Italian, and writes for the Times.
Men who cannot believe in the mystery of our Saviour's redemption can believe that spirits from the dead have visited them in a stranger's parlour, because they see a table shake and do not know how it is shaken; because they hear a rapping on a board, and cannot see the instrument that raps it; because they are touched in the dark, and do not know the hand that touches them.
He must have known me had he seen me as he was wont to see me, for he was in the habit of flogging me constantly. Perhaps he did not recognise me by my face.
There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.
But the prospect of an explanation, — or otherwise of a flight, — between two leading politicians will fill the House; and any allusion to our Eastern Empire will certainly empty it.
Now a conjuror is I think a very pleasant fellow to have among us, if we know that he is a conjuror; — but a conjuror who is believed to do his tricks without sleight of hand is a dangerous man.
He was not so anxious to prove himself right, as to be so.
A man who is supposed to have caused a disturbance between two married people, in a certain rank of life, does generally receive a certain meed of admiration.