He was bright as a diamond, and as cutting, and also as unimpressionable.

He knew everyone whom to know was an honour, but he was without a friend; he wanted none, however, and knew not the meaning of the word in other than its parliamentary sense.

A friend! Had he not always been sufficient to himself, and now, at fifty, was it likely that he should trust another?
He was married, indeed, and had children, but what time had he for the soft idleness of conjugal felicity?
His working days or term times were occupied from his time of rising to the late hour at which he went to rest, and even his vacations were more full of labour than the busiest days of other men.

He never quarrelled with his wife, but he never talked to her;--he never had time to talk, he was so taken up with speaking.

She, poor lady, was not unhappy; she had all that money could give her, she would probably live to be a peeress, and she really thought Sir Abraham the best of husbands.
Sir Abraham was a man of wit, and sparkled among the brightest at the dinner-tables of political grandees: indeed, he always sparkled; whether in society, in the House of Commons, or the courts of law, coruscations flew from him; glittering sparkles, as from hot steel, but no heat; no cold heart was ever cheered by warmth from him, no unhappy soul ever dropped a portion of its burden at his door.
With him success alone was praiseworthy, and he knew none so successful as himself.