Social and political life is a Society for the Diffusion of Mendacity. - Samuel Laman Blanchard

Give me to live with Love alone
And let the world go dine and dress;
For Love hath lowly haunts...
If life's a flower, I choose my own—
'T is "love in Idleness".

As with the tender juvenile, who sets light to his frock, so with the sweet senior, who sets his fortunes on fire. Even in his maturer time, in his state of cinderhood, he still craves to be further consumed.

Shall we not rejoice then and revel in the glorious liberty of extract, and quote to the thousandth line? Shall we not have pages like the Pyramids? Who ever skipped a quotation, though it made against the interest of the story? Besides, how many books might be numbered that are valuable only in a solitary quotation!—as the oyster is esteemed for the pearl it may sometimes contain.