Wilkie Collins

I am (thank God!) constitutionally superior to reason.

I have abstained from expressing any opinion, so far," says Mr. Superintendent, with his military voice still in good working order. "I have now only one remark to offer, on leaving this case in your hands. There IS such a thing, Sergeant, as making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Good-morning.""There is also such a thing as making nothing out of a mole-hill, in consequence of your head being too high to see it." Having returned his brother-officer's compliment in those terms, Sergeant Cuff wheeled about, and walked away to the window by himself.

I should have looked into my own heart, and found this new growth springing up there, and plucked it out while it was young.

Did you fall asleep?""No. I couldn't sleep that night.""You were restless?""I was thinking of you."The answer almost unmanned me. Something in the tone, even more than in the words, went straight to my heart. It was only after pausing a little first that I was able to go on.

What lurking temptations to forbidden tenderness find their finding-places in a woman's dressing-gown, when she is alone in her room at night!

But, ah me! where is the faultless human creature who can persevere in a good resolution, without sometimes failing and falling back?

If ever sorrow and suffering set their profaning marks on the youth and beauty of Miss Fairlie__ face, then, and then only, Anne Catherick and she would be the twin-sisters of chance resemblance, the living reflections of one another.

The first and last weakness of his life, before him again. For a moment he felt himself blinded by his own memories; his own remembrances of the wits and wiles of Marian Halcombe that would steal into his thoughts; the sound of her laughter at his outrageous tales, the shadowed glance of distrust, the way her eyebrows would raise ever so slightly despite her resolution to seem disinterested in his foreign insights. She was the first woman he ventured to have complete equality in matching his tremendous cleverness.

If you will look about you (which most people won't do)," says Sergeant Cuff, "you will see that the nature of a man's tastes is, most times, as opposite as possible to the nature of a man's business.

The woman who first gives life, light, and form to our shadowy conceptions of beauty, fills a void in our spiritual nature that has remained unknown to us till she appeared.

I dread the beginning of her new life more than words can tell, but I see some hope for her if she travels - none if she remains at home.

The explanation has been written already in the three words that were many enough, and plain enough, for my confession. I loved her.

Sympathies that lie too deep for words, too deep almost for thoughts, are touched, at such times, by other charms than those which the senses feel and which the resources of expression can realise.

Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service.

You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that such a book as ROBINSON CRUSOE never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years__enerally in combination with a pipe of tobacco__nd I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad__OBINSON CRUSOE. When I want advice__OBINSON CRUSOE. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much__OBINSON CRUSOE. I have worn out six stout ROBINSON CRUSOES with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and ROBINSON CRUSOE put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.

Destiny has got the rope round my neck _ and I feel it.

Shall I confess it, Mr. Hartright? I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise.

I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise.