When he has nothing else to do, he can always contemplate his own greatness. It is a considerable advantage to a man, to have so inexhaustible a subj… - Charles Dickens

Mr. Augustus Minns was a bachelor, of about forty as he said — of about eight-and-forty as his friends said. He was always exceedingly clean, precise, and tidy: perhaps somewhat priggish, and the most retiring man in the world.

I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

We are not rich in the bank, but we have always prospered and we have quite enough. I never walk out with my husband but I hear the people bless him. I never lie down at night, but I know that in the course of that day he has alleviated pain and soothed some fellow creature in the time of need. Is not this to be rich?