Evan Harrington: A Novel

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Robert Bros., 1886 - 519 pages
 

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Page 52 - He has little character for the moment. Most youths are like Pope's women — they have no character at all. And indeed a character that does not wait for circumstances to shape it is of small worth in the race that must be run.
Page 391 - In this struggle with society I see one of the instances where success is entirely to be honoured and remains a proof of merit. For however boldly antagonism may storm the ranks of society, it will certainly be repelled, whereas affinity cannot be resisted; and they who, against obstacles of birth, claim and keep their position among the educated and refined, have that affinity.
Page 56 - My oath on it, I don't get took in again by a squash hat in a hurry ! " Unaware of the ban he had, by a sixpenny stamp, put upon an unoffending class, Evan went a-head, hearing the wheels of the chariot still dragging the road in his rear. The postillion was in a dissatisfied state of mind. He had asked and received more than his due. But in the matter of his sweet self, he had been choused, as he termed it. And my gentleman had baffled him, he could not quite tell how ; but he had been got the better...
Page 128 - Gratitude forbid that I should say a word against good ale : I am disinclined to say a word in disfavour of Eve. Both Ale and Eve seem to speak imperiously to the soul of man. See that they be good, see that they come in season, and we bow to the consequences.
Page 484 - She heard black names cast at him and the whole of the great Mel's brood, and incapable of quite disbelieving them merited, unable to challenge and rebut them, she dropped into her recent state of self-contempt : into her lately-instilled doubt whether it really was in Nature's power, unaided by family-portraits, coats-of-arms, ballroom practice, and at least one small phial of Essence of Society, to make a Gentleman.
Page 1 - This had been a grand man, despite his calling, and in the teeth of opprobrious epithets against his craft. To be both generally blamed, and generally liked, evinces a peculiar construction of mortal. Mr. Melchisedec, whom people in private called the great Mel, had been at once the sad dog of Lymport, and the pride of the town. He was a tailor, and he kept horses ; he was a tailor, and he had gallant adventures ; he was a tailor, and he shook hands with his customers. Finally, he was a tradesman,...
Page 102 - ... that some plan is working out: that the heavens, icy as they are to the pangs of our blood, have been throughout speaking to our souls ; and, according to the strength there existing, we learn to comprehend them.

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