Right now I'm reading Anthony Trollop's A Framely Parsonage. Those Imperial Brits are such drama queens, tween novels got nothing on the passion and tragedy of English society people. And there's the bonus of heaping helpings of dry wit too. Maybe it's just my recent brush with illness but here's a passage I particularly enjoyed:
Mr. Sowerby was one of those men who are known to be very poor - as poor as debt can make a man - but who, nevertheless, enjoy all the luxuries which money can give. It was believed that he could not live in England out of jail but for his protection as a member of Parliament: and yet it seemed that there was no end to his horses and carriages, his servants and retinue. He had been at this work for a great many years, and practice, they say, makes perfect. Such companions are very dangerous. There is no cholera, no yellow-fever, no smallpox, more contagious than debt. If one lives habitually among embarrassed men, one catches it to a certainty. No one had injured the community in this way more fatally than Mr. Sowerby. But still he carried on the game himself; and now, on this morning, carriages and horses thronged at his gate, as though he were as substantially rich as his friend the Duke of Omniun.
Another life lesson in the book: there's really nothing as enchanting as a handsome, wealthy, aristocrat with a gun.
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