Page:Shirley (1849 Volume 3).djvu/172

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SHIRLEY.

"I have so quarrelled with myself, Yorke. I have so kicked against the pricks, and struggled in a strait waistcoat, and dislocated my wrists with wrenching them in handcuffs, and battered my hard head, by driving it against a harder wall."

"Ha! I'm glad to hear that. Sharp exercise yon'! I hope it has done you good; ta'en some of the self-conceit out of you?"

"Self-conceit! What is it? Self-respect, self-tolerance, even, what are they? Do you sell the articles? Do you know anybody who does? Give an indication: they would find in me a liberal chapman. I would part with my last guinea this minute to buy."

"Is it so with you, Robert? I find that spicy. I like a man to speak his mind. What has gone wrong?"

"The machinery of all my nature; the whole enginery of this human mill: the boiler, which I take to be the heart, is fit to burst."

"That suld be putten i' print: it's striking. It's almost blank verse. Ye'll be jingling into poetry just e' now. If the afflatus comes, give way, Robert; never heed me: I'll bear it this whet (time)."

"Hideous, abhorrent, base blunder! You may commit in a moment what you will rue for years—what life cannot cancel."

"Lad, go on. I call it pie, nuts, sugar-candy. I like the taste uncommonly. Go on: it will do you good to talk: the moor is before us now, and there is no life for many a mile round."

"I will talk. I am not ashamed to tell. There is