I don't know how to express it; but everything down here seems so small and local, and hard and fast." "I know," said Charles, gently; and they walked on in silence.

"And yet," he said at last, "it seems to me, and I should have thought you would have felt the same, that life is very small, very narrow and circumscribed everywhere; though perhaps more obviously so in Cranfords and Slumberleighs.

I have seen a good deal during the last fifteen years.

I have mixed with many sorts and conditions of men, but in no class or grade of society have I yet found independent men and women.
The groove is as narrow in one class as in another, though in some it is better concealed.

I sometimes feel as if I were walking in a ball-room full of people all dancing the lancers.