[184] As an introduction this reminds one of the ironic terseness of Jane Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” (_Pride and Prejudice._) And--“About thirty years ago, Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of a handsome house and large income.” (_Mansfield Park_.) [185] _The Young Duke_, 85. Cf. a similar account of Tom Towers, of _The Jupiter_, in Trollope’s _Warden_. [186] _Tancred_, 37. [187] _Ibid._, 37. [188] _Tancred_, 39. [189] _Sybil_, 113. [190] _Oliver Twist_, 42. [191] _Martin Chuzzlewit_, I, 17. [192] _Ibid._, I, 234. [193] _Dombey and Son_, II, 416. Cf. the Musical Banks of Erewhon. [194] _Hard Times_, 156. [195] Arthur Clennam had remarked that the patriarchal Mr. Casby is a fine old fellow. Mr. Panks snorts a bitter concurrence of opinion: “Noble old boy, an’t he? * * * generous old buck. Confiding old boy. Philanthropic old buck. Benevolent old boy! Twenty per cent I engaged to pay him, sir. But we never do business for less, at our shop.” _Little Dorrit_, I, 554. [196] _Oliver Twist_, 219. [197] _Nicholas Nickleby_, II, 26. [198] _Bleak House_, 195. [199] _Nicholas Nickleby_, II, 85. [200] _Dombey and Son_, 433. [201] _Bleak House_, 105. [202] _Phineas Finn_, I, 214. In the story same Lady Glencora uses the Socratic method on Mrs. Bonteen to make her admit she is really an advocate of social equality. [203] _Framley Parsonage_, 180. [204] _Ibid._, 183. Cf. Heine’s remark of Louis Phillipe, that he “rose in solid majesty, every pound a king.” [205] _The Bertrams_, 6. There are pages in this strain. [206] _Dr. Thorne_, 207. [207] _Framley Parsonage_, 477. [208] _Last Chronicles_, 16. [209] _Maid Marian_, 15. [210] _Maid Marian_, 96. [211] _Crochet Castle_, 90. [212] _Erewhon_, 110. [213] _Ibid._, 113–116. [214] _Erewhon_, 153. Butler’s ability to deliver the casual nudge as well as the deliberate blow is shown in a feature of the prison régime; convict labor is required,--a trade already learned, if possible, otherwise--“if he be a gentleman born and bred to no profession, he must pick oakum, or write art criticisms for a newspaper.” 126. [215] _The Way of All Flesh_, 26. [216] _Vanity Fair_, I, 115. [217] _Vanity Fair_, I, 128. [218] _Ibid._, 192. [219] _Ibid._, 255. [220] _Ibid._, 110. [221] _Pendennis_, II, 22. [222] _Mill on the Floss_, I, 189. [223] _Middlemarch_, I, 161. This book is also pervaded by the exuberant presence of the versatile but cautious Mr. Brooke, who had always “gone a good deal into that at one time,” but always wisely refrained from pushing it too far, as one never can tell where such things will lead. [224] _Romola_, II, 523. [225] _Middlemarch_, I, 179.