'A man must be a poor beast that should _read_ no more in quantity than
he could _utter_ aloud.'

'Imlac in _Rasselas_, I spelt with a _c_ at the end, because it is less
like English, which should always have the Saxon _k_ added to the
_c_[110].'

'Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without
having it perceived[111]: for example, a madness has seized a person of
supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually[112]--had the
madness turned the opposite way and the person thought it a crime ever
to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.'

'He apprehended that the delineation of _characters_ in the end of the
first Book of the _Retreat of the Ten Thousand_ was the first instance
of the kind that was known.'

'Supposing (said he) a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn,
it would be very troublesome[113]: for instance,--if a woman should
continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy.'

'No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it be in his praise, if
he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would, if he thought he
was within hearing.'

'The applause of a single human being is of great consequence[114]: This
he said to me with great earnestness of manner, very near the time of
his decease, on occasion of having desired me to read a letter addressed
to him from some person in the North of England; which when I had done,