Sublime

Sir Godwin’s rudeness towards her and utter want of feeling ranged him with Dover and all other creditors – disagreeable people who only thought of themselves, and did not mind how annoying they were to her. Even her father was unkind, and might have done more for them. In fact there was but one person in Rosamond’s world whom she did not regard as

He had eventually flushed his fugitive sister out from Hôtel d’Alsace in St. Germain, a degenerate endroit, in Hugh’s estimation, the scene of Oscar Wilde’s demise, which said everything you needed to know about the place.

smart, pretty girl of nineteen, with a tidy, dumpy figure,

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

There was a serious pleading in Lydgate’s tone, as if he felt that she would be injuring him by any fantastic delays. Rosamond became serious too, and slightly meditative; in fact, she was going through many intricacies of lace-edging and hosiery and petticoat-tucking, in order to give an answer that would at least be approximate.

Laura also thought that the law had done a great deal to spoil Henry. It had changed his natural sturdy stupidity into a browbeating indifference to other people’s point of view. He seemed to consider himself briefed by his Creator to turn into ridicule the opinions of those who disagreed with him, and to attribute dishonesty, idiocy, or a base

She had never heard him say a foolish thing, though she knew that he did unwise ones; and perhaps foolish sayings were more objectionable to her than any of Mr Farebrother’s unwise doings.

‘You will have many lonely hours, Dorothea, for I shall be constrained to make the utmost use of my time during our stay in Rome, and I should feel more at liberty if you had a companion.’ The words ‘I should feel more at liberty’ grated on Dorothea. For the first time in speaking to Mr Casaubon she coloured from annoyance.

‘I am sorry to hear of this trouble between you and your husband, Mrs Napier,’ he said. ‘I think you should go back to him and talk things over.’ We were all – even Julian, I think – so taken aback at his boldness that for a moment nobody said anything.