To my daughter Leonora without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this book would have been finished in half the time.
In the spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove.’ ‘So.
The only thing that prevented a father’s love from faltering was the fact that there was in his possession a photograph of himself at the same early age, in which he, too, looked like a homicidal fried egg. This proof that it was possible for a child, in spite of a rocky start, to turn eventually into a suave and polished boulevardier with finely chiselled features heartened him a good deal, causing him to hope for the best.
Dear old Bicky, though a stout fellow and absolutely unrivaled as an imitator of bull-terriers and cats, was in many ways one of the most pronounced fatheads that ever pulled on a suit of gent’s underwear.
Himself strongly in favour of sharing the wealth, it seemed to him that the last thing to place in the hands of an impressionable child was a little wee passbook, starting it off in life – as it infallibly must – with capitalistic ideas out of tune with the trend of modern enlightened thought. Slip a baby ten quid, he reasoned, and before you knew where you were you had got another Economic Royalist on your hands.
The whole wheeze in married life, he had come to learn, was to give the opposite number as few opportunities of saying ‘Oh, how could you?’ as possible.
England still firmly believes that wealth accrues to every resident of New York by some mysterious process not understandable of the Briton.
A man, to use an old-fashioned phrase, of some twenty-eight summers, he gave the impression at the moment of having experienced at least that number of very hard winters.
Lady Constance conveyed the impression that anybody who had the choice between stealing anything from her and stirring up a nest of hornets with a short walking-stick would do well to choose the hornets.
Whatever his faults, he had strength; and after her experience of married life with a weak man, Lady Jane had come to the conclusion that strength was the only male quality worth consideration.
When I have a leisure moment, you will generally find me curled up with Spinoza’s latest.
If there’s one thing I like, it’s a quiet life. I’m not one of those fellows who get all restless and depressed if things aren’t happening to them all the time. You can’t make it too placid for me. Give me regular meals, a good show with decent music every now and then, and one or two pals to totter round with, and I ask no more.
A tall, drooping man, looking as if he has been stuffed in a hurry by an incompetent taxidermist.
That is the peculiarity of London. There is a sort of cold unfriendliness about it. A city like New York makes the new arrival feel at home in half an hour; but London is a specialist in what Psmith called in his letter the Distant Stare. You have to buy London’s good will.
He lit another cigar, and began to brood over the folly of mankind.
It was not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door, but ‘twas enough – it served. Stubbing it squarely with his toe, Henry shot forward, all arms and legs. It.
Humour, if one looks into it, is principally a matter of retrospect.
The ideal adventurer needs... the quality of not being content to mind his own affairs...
Work, the hobby of the philosopher and the poor man’s friend.
Then heaven bless it, and may it continue to bind indefinitely. Fate’s happenstance may oft win more than toil, as the fellow said.
And now into the space of a few hours he had crammed enough variegated lunacy to equip all the March Hares in England and leave some over for the Mad Hatters.