Praise everybody, I say… Never be squeamish, but speak out your compliment both point-blank in a man’s face, and behind his back, when you know there… - William Makepeace Thackeray

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

As his hero and heroine pass the matrimonial barrier, the novelist generally drops the curtain, as if the drama were over then: the doubts and struggles of life ended: as if, once landed in the marriage country, all were green and pleasant there: and wife and husband had nothing to do but to link each other’s arms together, and wander gently downwards towards old age in happy and perfect fruition. But our little Amelia was just on the bank of her new country, and was already looking anxiously back towards the sad friendly figures waving farewell to her across the stream, from the other distant shore.

Let the man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim. Attacking is his only secret. Dare, and the world always yields: or, if it beat you sometimes, dare again, and it will succumb.