History was being manufactured at the rate of a sensation a week. - Fergus Hume

It was Saturday morning, and of course all fashionable Melbourne was doing the Block. With regard to its "Block," Collins Street corresponds to New York's Broadway, London's Regent Street and Rotten Row, and to the Boulevards of Paris. It is on the Block that people show off their new dresses, bow to their friends, cut their enemies, and chatter small talk.

I was not myself on that night. The wine was in and the wit was out.

Young men of the present day are very fond of running down women, and think it a manly thing to sneer at them for their failings; but God help the man who, in time of trouble, has not a woman to stand by his side with cheering words and loving smiles to help him in the battle of life.