All flattery is at somebody’s expense Be philosophical, but accept your personal dues But I leave it to you Distrust us, and it is a declaration of war Happiness in love is a match between ecstasy and compliance If I do not speak of payment Intellectual contempt of easy dupes Invite indecision to exhaust their scruples Is not one month of brightness as much as we can ask for? No flattery for me at the expense of my sisters Nothing desirable will you have which is not coveted Primitive appetite for noise She might turn out good, if well guarded for a time The alternative is, a garter and the bedpost They miss their pleasure in pursuing it This mania of young people for pleasure, eternal pleasure Wits, which are ordinarily less productive than land THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH By George Meredith A REALISTIC TALE CHAPTER I The experience of great officials who have laid down their dignities before death, or have had the philosophic mind to review themselves while still wielding the deputy sceptre, teaches them that in the exercise of authority over men an eccentric behaviour in trifles has most exposed them to hostile criticism and gone farthest to jeopardize their popularity. It is their Achilles’ heel; the place where their mother Nature holds them as she dips them in our waters. The eccentricity of common persons is the entertainment of the multitude, and the maternal hand is perceived for a cherishing and endearing sign upon them; but rarely can this be found suitable for the august in station; only, indeed, when their sceptre is no more fearful than a grandmother’s birch; and these must learn from it sooner or later that they are uncomfortably mortal. When herrings are at auction on a beach, for example, the man of chief distinction in the town should not step in among a poor fraternity to take advantage of an occasion of cheapness, though it be done, as he may protest, to relieve the fishermen of a burden; nor should such a dignitary as the bailiff of a Cinque Port carry home the spoil of victorious bargaining on his arm in a basket. It is not that his conduct is in itself objectionable, so much as that it causes him to be popularly weighed; and during life, until the best of all advocates can plead before our fellow Englishmen that we are out of their way, it is prudent to avoid the process.