Date: 1851

"The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run."

— Melville, Herman (1819-1891)

Date: 1851

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it...

— Melville, Herman (1819-1891)

Date: November and December 1853, 1856

"To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange wilfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience."

— Melville, Herman (1819-1891)

Date: 1854

"The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside."

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

Date: 1854

"When from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by and by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancy lurking within--or sometimes only maim him and distort him!"

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

Date: 1854

"There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and particularly in the girl: yet, struggling through the dissatisfaction of her face, there was a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened its expression."

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

Date: 1854

"Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, but passed on as a practical man ought to pass on, either brushing the noisy insects from his thoughts, or consigning them to the House of Correction."

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

Date: 1854

"By nonsense he meant fancy; and truly it is probable she was as free from any alloy of that nature, as any human being not arrived at the perfection of an absolute idiot, ever was."

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

Date: 1854

"It was not the touch he needed most at such a moment--the touch that could calm the wild waters of his soul, as the uplifted hand of the sublimest love and patience could abate the raging of the sea--yet it was a woman's hand too."

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)

Date: 1854

"She turned her head, and the light of her face shone in upon the midnight of his mind."

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)