Sublime
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and when he spoke, it was in a low tone, which might be taken for that of an informer ready to be bought off, rather than for the tone of an offended senior. He was not a man to feel any strong moral indignation even on account of trespasses against himself. It was natural that others should want to get an advantage over him, but then, he was a
... See moreRosemary Ashton • Middlemarch

Quite a strange man, thought James, watching him go – but what a relief to discover he still contained the capacity to be taken by surprise.
Sarah Perry • Enlightenment
‘I didn’t get you anything,’ said Nathan, with the good cheer of a sinner already absolved, ‘I forgot.’ Then Ronald Macaulay came in with holiness in the pleats of his trousers. The atmosphere thinned, as if the room had been elevated nearer heaven.
Sarah Perry • Enlightenment
Briefly Carleton considered the other man, of whom he’d made such a study he might have been appointed professor of Thomas Studies at the University of Essex. He knew, for example, that Thomas was a confirmed bachelor, as they say, never seen in the company of a beautiful young person or a stately older one; that he had about him the melancholy
... See moreSarah Perry • Enlightenment
Villain, ’tis thou that robb’st me of my lord.
Christopher Marlowe • Edward II Revised (New Mermaids)
‘I was sorry,’ said Thomas gravely, ‘to hear of your loss. The death of a father,’ he said, frowning at the window, ‘is at the same time both quite proper in the order of things, and incomprehensibly stupid.’ ‘I never saw him use it,’ said Carleton, containing tears, ‘and I don’t know how it works. It is a planisphere. A map of the stars.’