There Is No Substitute For Thoroughgoing, Ardent,

I Had Neither The Good Sense Nor The Good Feeling To Know That This Was All My Fault, And That If I Had Been Easier With Joe, Joe Would Have Been Easier With Me. I Felt Impatient Of Him And Out Of Temper With Him; In Which Condition He Heaped Coals Of Fire On My Head.

At The Great Iron Gate Of The Churchyard He Stopped And Looked In. He Looked Up At The High Tower Spectrally Resisting The Wind, And He Looked Round At The White Tombstones, Like Enough To The Dead In Their Winding-sheets, And He Counted The Nine Tolls Of The Clock-bell.

The Unqualified Truth Is, That When I Loved Estella With The Love Of A Man, I Loved Her Simply Because I Found Her Irresistible. Once For All; I Knew To My Sorrow, Often And Often, If Not Always, That I Loved Her Against Reason, Against Promise, Against Peace, Against Hope, Against Happiness, Against All Discouragement That Could Be. Once For All; I Love Her None The Less Because I Knew It, And It Had No More Influence In Restraining Me, Than If I Had Devoutly Believed Her To Be Human Perfection.

Heaped On The Floor Were Turkeys, Geese, Game, Poultry, Brawn, Great Joints Of Meat, Sucking Pigs, Long Wreaths Of Sausages, Mince-pies, Plum-puddings, Bartrels Of Oysters, Re-hot Chestnuts, Cherry-cheeked Apples, Juicy Oranges, Luscious Pears, Immense Twelfth-cakes, And Seething Bowls Of Punch That Made The Chamber Dim With Their Delicious Steam.

Old Marley Was As Dead As A Doornail. Mind! I Don't Mean To Say That, Of My Own Knowledge, What There Is Particularly Dead About A Doornail. I Might Have Been Inclined, Myself, To Regard A Coffin-nail As The Deadest Piece Of Ironmongery In The Trade. But The Wisdom Of Our Ancestors Is In The Simile; And My Unhallowed Hands Shall Not Disturb It, Or The Country's Done For. You Will Therefore Permit Me To Repeat, Emphatically, That Marley Was As Dead As A Doornail.