Great Throughts Treasury

"When you look at me, when you think of me, I am in paradise."

"Whenever he met a great man he groveled before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can do."

"Where is truth, forsooth, and who knoweth it? Is Beauty beautiful, or is it only our eyes that make it so? Does Venus squint? Has she got a splay-foot, red hair, and a crooked back? Anoint my eyes, good Fairy Puck, so that I may ever consider the Beloved Object a paragon! Above all, keep on anointing my mistress's dainty peepers with the very strongest ointment, so that my noddle may ever appear lovely to her, and that she may continue to crown my honest ears with fresh roses!"

"Which among you does not know and suffer under such benevolent despots? It is in vain you say to them, 'Dear madam, I took Podgers' specific at your orders last year, and believe in it. Why, why, am I to recant and accept the Rodger's articles now?' There is no help for it; the faithful proselytizer, if she cannot convince by argument, bursts into tears, and the recusant finds himself, at the end of the contest, taking down the bolus, and saying, 'Well, well, Rodger's be it."

"Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied? Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out."

"Which of us that is thirty years old has not had his Pompeii? Deep under ashes lies Life, Youth, the careless sports, the pleasures and passions, the darling joy."

"Which, I wonder, brother reader, is the better lot, to die prosperous and famous, or poor and disappointed? To have, and to be forced to yield; or to sink out of life, having played and lost the game? That must be a strange feeling, when a day of our life comes and we say, 'To-morrow, success or failure won't matter much; and the sun will rise, and all the myriads of mankind go to their work or their pleasure as usual, but I shall be out of the turmoil.'"

"Who feels injustice, who shrinks before a slight, who has a sense of wrong so acute, and so glowing a gratitude for kindness, as a generous boy?"

"Who has not remarked the readiness with which the closest of friends and honestest of men suspect and accuse each other of cheating when they fall out on money matters? Everybody does it. Everybody is right, I suppose, and the world is a rogue."

"Who has not seen how women bully women? What tortures have men to endure compared to those daily repeated shafts of scorn and cruelty with which poor women are riddled by the tyrants of their sex?"

"Who misses, or who wins the prize? Go, lose and conquer as you can: but if you fail, or if you rise, be each, pray God, a gentleman."

"Who was the blundering idiot who said 'fine words butter no parsnips'? Half the parsnips of society are served and rendered palatable with no other sauce."

"Why do they always put mud into coffee on board steamers? Why does the tea generally taste of boiled boots?"

"Winds whistle shrill, Icy and chill. Little care we; little we fear weather without, sheltered about the Mahogany Tree."

"With whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like a Princess in the "Arabian Nights;" or to plight her young affections to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a sketch in the "Illustrated London News." You have an instinct within you which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody: you hear Somebody constantly praised; you walk, or ride, or waltz, or talk, or sit in the same pew at church with Somebody: you meet again, and again, and--"Marriages are made in Heaven," your dear mamma says, pinning your orange-flower wreath on, with her blessed eyes dimmed with tears--and there is a wedding breakfast, and you take off your white satin and retire to your coach-and-four, and you and he are a happy pair--Or, the affair is broken off and then, poor dear wounded heart! Why then you meed Somebody Else, and twine your young affections round number two. It is your nature so to do. Do you suppose it is all for the man's sake that you love, and not a bit for your own? Do you suppose you would drink if you were not thirsty, or eat if you were not hungry?"

"Women equitable, logical, and utterly just! Mercy upon us! If they were, population would cease, the world would be a howling wilderness."

"Women like not only to conquer, but to be conquered."

"Women only know how to wound so. There is a poison on the tips of their little shafts, which stings a thousand times more than a man's blunter weapon."

"Yes, I am a fatal man, Madame Fribsbi. To inspire hopeless passion is my destiny."

"You and I, my dear reader, may drop into this condition one day: for have not many of our friends attained it? Our luck may fail: our powers forsake us: our place on the boards be taken by better and younger mimes?the chance of life roll away and leave us shattered and stranded. Then men will walk across the road when they meet you?or, worse still, hold you out a couple of fingers and patronize you in a pitying way?then you will know, as soon as your back is turned, that your friend begins with a Poor devil, what imprudences he has committed, what chances that chap has thrown away! Well, well?a carriage and three thousand a year is not the summit of the reward nor the end of God's judgment of men. If quacks prosper as often as they go to the wall?if zanies succeed and knaves arrive at fortune, and, vice versa, sharing ill luck and prosperity for all the world like the ablest and most honest amongst us?I say, brother, the gifts and pleasures of Vanity Fair cannot be held of any great account, and that it is probable . . . but we are wandering out of the domain of the story."

"You can't order remembrance out of the mind; and a wrong that was a wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-morrow."

"You must not judge hastily or vulgarly of Snobs: to do so shows that you are yourself a Snob."

"You read the past in some old faces."

"You who are ashamed of your poverty, and blush for your calling, are a snob; as are you who boast of your pedigree, or are proud of your wealth."

"You, who forget your own friends, meanly to follow after those of a higher degree, are a snob."

"Your comedy and mine will have been played then, and we shall be removed."