What a troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to be as agreeable as possible.
But when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies... and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out.
Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Diwisions.
Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day. Chapter Ten The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to get out of Biddy everything she knew.
Let me persuade you then – oh, do let me persuade you,” said the child, “to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but the fortune we pursue together.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period.
It had been bright day, for hours, when Oliver opened his eyes; he felt cheerful and happy. The crisis of the disease was safely past. He belonged to the world again.
That’s the pint, sir,′ interposed Sam; ’out vith it, as the father said to the child, wen he swallowed a farden.
The responsible duty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged, and that excellent old gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed to me in some danger of melting his eyes. It was no nominal meal that we were going to make, but a vigorous reality.
I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding.
Job Trotter bowed low; and in spite of Mr. Weller’s previous remonstrance, the tears again rose to his eyes. ‘I never see such a feller,’ said Sam. ‘Blessed if I don’t think he’s got a main in his head as is always turned on.
You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune, and you can’t help showing it.
There’s one thing you may be sure of, Pip,’ said Joe, after some rumination, ’namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn’t ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to the same. Don’t you tell no more of ’em, Pip. That ain’t the way to get out of being common, old chap. And as to being common, I don’t make it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You’re oncommon small. Likewise you’re a oncommon scholar.
Marley’s Ghost bothered him exceedingly.
My flesh and blood... when it rises against me, is not my flesh and blood. I discard it.
Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!
What does it matter.
What do I mean?′ said Bill. ‘Why, THAT. All men are alike in the U-nited States, an’t they? It makes no odds whether a man has a thousand pound, or nothing, there. Particular in New York, I’m told, where Ned landed.’ ‘New York, was it?’ asked Martin, thoughtfully.
When he grew tall enough to peep through the keyhole of the great lock of the main door, he had divers times set down his father’s dinner, or supper, to get on as it might on the outer side thereof, while he stood taking cold in one eye by dint of peeping at her through that airy perspective.
But when he recollected that, being there as an assistant, he actually seemed – no matter what unhappy train of circumstances had brought him to that pass – to be the aider and abettor of a system which filled him with honest disgust and indignation, he loathed himself, and felt, for the moment, as though the mere consciousness of his present situation must, through all time to come, prevent his raising his head again.