I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and cry, 'Tis all barren! - Laurence Sterne

What could Dr. Slop do? — he crossed himself + — Pugh! — but the doctor, Sir, was a Papist. — No matter; he had better have kept hold of the pummel. — He had so; — nay, as it happened, he had better have done nothing at all; for in crossing himself he let go his whip, — and in attempting to save his whip betwixt his knee and his saddle’s skirt, as it slipped, he lost his stirrup, — in losing which he lost his seat; — and in the multitude of all these losses (which, by the bye, shews what little advantage there is in crossing) the unfortunate doctor lost his presence of mind. So that without waiting for Obadiah’s onset, he left his pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, something in the stile and manner of a pack of wool, and without any other consequence from the fall, save that of being left (as it would have been) with the broadest part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in the mire.

It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some one....

First, Whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his Creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbours, and where they separate, depend upon it, ’tis for no other cause but quietness sake.