I was sure to find some one to excel me in something, and this was enough to embitter my peace.

Our living Goldsmith is my favourite poet, and I perhaps insensibly venerate the genius the more because I find something congenial in the infirmities of the man.

I can fully credit the anecdotes recorded of him.

I, too, could once have been jealous of a puppet handling a spontoon; I, too, could once have been miserable if two ladies at the theatre were more the objects of attention than myself! You, Clarence, will not despise me for this confession; those who knew me less would.
Fools! there is no man so great as not to have some littleness more predominant than all his greatness.

Our virtues are the dupes, and often only the playthings, of our follies! smile, but it is mournfully, in looking back to that day.