Regency Buck Quotes
"Never hit with an open palm, Clorinda," he told her. "I will show you how in a minute. Up with you!"
"But I am not going to give you my hand," he said. "I am going to drive you back to Grantham."
"It is a great honour," he said. "I never drive females."
"That is what I like in you," he agreed, and sprang lightly up into the curricle, and stepped across her to the box-seat. "Now let me show you how to hit me."
"Keep your thumb down so, and hit like that. Not at my chin, I think. Aim for the eye, or the nose, if you prefer."
"I see I shall have to offer you provocation," and swiftly kissed her.
"Even a dandy might remember the civility due to a gentlewoman. I shall not hit you."
"Just to annoy you, Clorinda. The impulse was irresistible, believe me."
"The mistake – if it is a mistake – is in the title."
"I assure you, you cannot regret the circumstance more than I do."
"You will not find me at all difficult. I shall not, I hope, find myself obliged to interfere in your lives very much."
"All I meant was – what I wished to make plain –"
"May mine be the privilege of escorting you to your first play?"
"You must not drench it with scent, or let it become too dry, or leave your box where it will grow cold. Good snuff is taken with the chill off."
"I should not otherwise have purchased it, Lord Worth."
"I cannot remember having done as much for anyone else in the whole course of my existence."
"The intelligence you have so far imparted has not been of a very interesting nature, has it?"
"I am mixing snuff – an anxious business, Miss Taverner."
"No doubt you will still be thinking so when he has gamed the whole of his fortune away!"
"On one point you may rest assured, Miss Taverner: while I hold the purse-strings Perry will not game his fortune away."
"Every eye is even now upon you. You have held me in conversation for close on half an hour."
"It was not until the small hours that they were set down at their own door again."
"I am persuaded it was no less – at the Botanic Gardens, and I not having the least notion that you cared a rap for all those odiously rare plants!"
"I have something of a private nature to say to Lord Worth."
"When I wish to be married I shall marry, with or without your consent."
"My heart would scarcely be broken by your refusal to consent to my marriage, sir."
"If I find at any time during the next two years that you have visited my friends Howard and Gibbs, or, in fact, any other moneylender, you will return to Yorkshire until you come of age."
"You are handsome, Miss Taverner; you are not unintelligent – except in your dealings with me; you are a termagant."
"It cannot signify to you in the least, after all!"
"I like a man to be a man, and not a mask of fashion."
"It is a pity. He has seen very little of the world, and at nineteen, you know, one’s taste is not fixed."
"I don’t play and not pay, sir! If you will neither advance me the money nor permit me to obtain it in my own way, keep my notes till I come of age, if you please!"
"You are a very wealthy young woman, Miss Taverner."
"I should warn you that my patience is by no means inexhaustible."
"True, but I might turn him back from it if I thought it proper to do so."
"Because I had not the smallest desire to see him persuade Miss Fairford into a runaway match."
"Believe me, I have your affairs well in hand."
"I am sure I do not know what you gentlemen would do if there were no clubs to spend the day in!"
"I don’t talk about cocking to females, Perry!"
"‘Oh, by no means,’ said Worth. ‘A dozen things might happen to prevent it.’"
"What’s your game, Ned? There’s more to it than you’ve told me, eh?"
"You are not in a position to resent any tone I may choose to take, Farnaby."
"‘Let us be frank,’ he said. ‘You have made a stupid bungle of a very simple affair, Farnaby.’"
"On the contrary, I can say it with the greatest of ease, my good Farnaby, and if you give me any trouble I shall say it."
"What I am endeavouring to point out to you is that though the reward has still to be earned, you are not the man to earn it."
"The scruples of persons of your kidney are, alas, hidden from me."
"I am persuaded you will perceive that any further attempt made by you on his life would bear an extremely suspicious appearance."
"You will have to forgive me for misjudging you."
"One blunder may be forgiven; a second would prove fatal."
"I am quite tired of it. There it goes, flow, flow, flow, always the same!"
"I am just a sailor, and say what I think: but I have the deepest regard for you – damme, I am head over ears in love with you, my dear Miss Taverner, and don’t care who hears me say it!"
"He beamed upon her with such goodwill, and seemed to have so simple a pride in his famous notion that Miss Taverner had not the heart to protest further."
"With this resolve in mind she was glad when, at Almack’s that evening, she perceived her guardian to be present."
"‘Sometimes, when they are as good as Miss Fairford,’ she replied. ‘Do not you?’"
"You might guess, I imagine, but I shall not gratify your vanity by telling you."
"Don’t look so downcast. I did mean just what you thought. Are you satisfied?"
"You are to be congratulated; I could not have wished to see you more creditably provided for."
"My experience of you led me instead to suppose that you had sent your suitor to me in a spirit of pure mischief."
"‘I am very sensible of what an honour that is,’ she said, helping herself to an infinitesimal pinch."
"What Worth’s business with Farnaby may have been I have no means of knowing. It must be all conjecture."
"‘Lord Worth told me to trust him,’ she said slowly."
"I do not tell you to trust me. Mistrust me, if you please: I shall continue to do what I can to serve you."
"My dear Perry, it reeks of Otto of Roses! It is detestable!"
"If I could not be pleased in such company I must be an insufferable fellow!"
"Miss Taverner, you did not hear me; you were not attending!"
"I have only one arm, but I depend on your protection."
"My dear Miss Taverner, I am not in the least angry, except on one account."
"I think you take a great delight in crossing swords with me."
"‘Your father,’ said the Earl, ‘never saw you with one of my teams in hand.’"
"I cannot charge myself with such an office. I have neither interest nor influence with Captain Audley."
"I shall not permit you to marry my brother. You would not suit."
"Certainly; but he is not at all the sort of man I could fancy myself in love with. There is a volatility, a habit of being too generally pleasing which must preclude my taking him in any very serious spirit."
"It is not as bad as that, I daresay. I have had shocking bad luck, to be sure."
"Even Petersham pronounced it to be unexceptionable!"
"I have been wishing to meet you, Lord Worth. I have a favour to ask of you."
"You must know that my abuse of Lord Byron has its root in pique. He barely noticed me! You will not expect me to do him justice after that!"
"Time is precious. I wait only for the change."
"You will run as I choose, and by God! ma'am, if you try to take the bit between your teeth it will be very much the worse for you!"
"Once your guardianship of me ends I shall not willingly see you again!"
"There could be no defending her conduct; she had realized at Horley how indecorous it was, and had now the mortification of having earned Worth’s condemnation."
"Tears poured silently down Miss Taverner’s cheeks, and picturesque villages, turnpikes, and views passed unnoticed."
"The better understanding which had seemed to be growing up between them was quite at an end."
"The sight of the sun sparkling on the sea produced an alleviation; and the air, which was fresh and salt-tanged, invigorated the spirits."
"No good could come of talking over the affair; it must be left to time to remedy the harm that had been done."
"It was in anticipation of a day of interest and pleasure that Judith joined her brother and Mrs Scattergood in the breakfast-parlour."
"Every apartment of the most noble dimensions, and the whole fitted up with a degree of elegance beyond what is imaginable!"
"The question to occupy their thoughts during lunch was what was to be done with the rest of the day."
"Drive your phaeton. You are really very stupid not to have thought of it for yourself."
"He is autocratic; the mildness of manner which he has lately assumed towards you is as false as his pretended regard for you. He cares nothing for you, no man who could address you in the humiliating terms you have described to me!"
"Certainly not. What you do could never be bad. Let us say rather that it was not very wise."
"Upon every occasion, and where you would be least expected to do so. Did I not tell you once, Miss Taverner, never to admit a fault?"
"Drive my phaeton? Yes, it has just arrived from town. Some trifling fault made it necessary for me to send it to the coachmaker’s, which is why you have seen me walking lately. You must know that I am used to drive myself wherever I go."
"‘I cannot suppose it possible. Did you ever propose to any lady, sir?’ ‘Yes, once,’ replied Mr Brummell in a voice of gentle melancholy. ‘But it came to nothing. I discovered that she actually ate cabbage, so what could I do but cut the connection?’"
"Putting down your carriage!" exclaimed Peregrine, his thoughts instantly diverted. "How comes this about? Do not tell me your pockets are to let!"
"It is not as bad as that," replied Mr. Taverner, with a slight smile. "But I like to be beforehand with the world when I can, and I believe it will be prudent for me to retrench a little."
"How could I – how could any man – know you and not love you? I cannot offer you a title, I cannot offer you wealth –"
"My refusal has nothing to do with Worth's wishes!" she said quickly. "I should desire always to be your friend; I esteem and value you as a cousin, but I cannot love you!"
"You are the most disagreeable man I have ever met!" said Miss Taverner, a break in her voice.
"The thought of being saddled with me as a brother-in-law must be extremely unnerving."
"No, I have no right, but this I must and will say, Judith! – No man, I care not who he may be, can feel for you what I do!"