"Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so threadbare—and all because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home late at night from Barker' s in Covent Garden? Do you remember how we eyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o' clock of the Saturday night, when you set off from lslington, fearing you should be too late—and when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper(for he was setting bedwards)lighted out the relic from his dusty treasures—and when you lugged it home, wishing it were twice as cumbersome—and when you presented it to me—and when we were exploring the perfectness of it (collating, you called it)—and while I was repairing some of these loose leaves with paste, which your impatience would not suffer to be left till daybreak—was there no pleasure in being a poor man? Or can those neat black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to keep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you half the honest vanity with which you flaunted it about in that overworn suit—your old corbeau—for four or five weeks longer than you should have done, to pacify your conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen—or sixteen shillings was it?—a great affair we thought it then—which you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afford to buy any book that pleases you, but I do not see that you ever bring me home any nice old purchases now.
"When you came home with twenty apologies for laying out a less number of shillings upon that print after Leonardo, which we christened the 'Lady Blanch'; when you look at the purchase, and thought of the money—and thought of the money, and looked again at the picture—was there no pleasure in being a poor man? Now, you have nothing to do but to walk into Colnaghi' s, and buy a wilderness of Leonardos. Yet do you?
"Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield, and Potter' s Bar, and Waltham, when we had a holiday—holidays, and all other fun, are gone now we are rich—and the little hand-basket in which I used to deposit our day' s fare of savory cold lamb and salad—and how you would pry about at noontide for some decent house, where we might go in and produce our store—only paying for the ale that you must call for—and speculate upon the looks of the landlady, and whether she was likely to allow us a tablecloth—and wish for such another honest hostess as Izaak Walton has described many a one on the pleasant blanks of the Lea, when he went a-fishing—anti sometimes they would prove obliging enough, and sometimes they would look grudgingly upon us—but we had cheerful looks still for one another, and would eat our plain food savorily, scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall? Now—when we go out a day' s pleasuring, which is seldom, moreover, we ride part of the way—and go into a fine inn, and order the best of dinners, never debating the expense—which, after all, never has half the relish of those chance country snaps, when we were at the mercy of uncertain usage and a precarious welcome.
"You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the pit. Do you remember where it was we used to sit, when we saw the Battle of Hexham, and the Surrender of Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in the Children in the Wood—when we squeezed out our shillings apiece to sit three or four times in a season in the one-shilling gallery—where you felt all the time that you ought not to have brought me—and more strongly I felt obligation to you for having brought me—and the pleasure was the better for a little shame—and when the curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the house, or what mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were with Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Ilyria. You used to say that the gallery was the best place of all for enjoying a play socially—that the relish of such exhibitions must be in proportion to the infrequency of going—that the company we met there, not being in general readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and did attend, to what was going on, on the stage—because a word lost would have been a chasm, which it was impossible for them to fill up. With such reflections we consoled our pride then—and I appeal to you whether, as a woman, I met generally with less attention and accommodation than I have done since in more expensive situations in the house? The getting in indeed, and the crowding up those inconvenient staircases was bad enough—but there was still a law of civility to woman recognized to quite as great an extent as we ever found in the other passages—and how a little difficulty overcome heightened the snug seat and the play, afterwards! Now we can only pay our money and walk in. You cannot see, you say, in the galleries now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, well enough then—but sight, and all, I think, is gone with our poverty."
我对古瓷器的偏爱甚至有些女性化。每次去大户人家造访，我都要求先看看瓷器架，然后才是?廊。我改变不了这个欣赏的先后顺序，只能说人人都有这样或那样的偏好，由于年代久远不可能记得哪些是后天形成的。我还记得跟人看的第一出戏、第一次展览，但真不记得这些瓷坛瓷碟是何时进入我的思索空间的。
那些怪异的天蓝色的小巧形体没有规律可以琢磨，我当时就不曾反感，现在又怎么会反感呢？在常人眼中，他们在那个没有透视的世界——一个瓷茶±上飘浮不定，不受任何局限。
我喜欢看老朋友们——距离不能缩小他们——浮现在半空（正如我的眼睛所看到的），但又踏在坚实的土地上——我们不得不礼貌地解释那个深蓝色的点，为了看上去不那么荒诞不，造诣深厚的艺术家，在他们拖鞋底下点了那个蓝点。
我喜欢长相女性化的男人和女人味十足的女人。
这位年轻的中国官员彬彬有礼，正用托盘向一位夫人献茶——他们之间的距离是两英里。距离就是这样衍生崇敬的！就是这一位女士——或者另外一位——因为在茶±上的相似就是相同——正要走进一条小巧的小船中，而小船正停在这条平静的花园小河的这一边。她轻轻地挪动着小巧的步子，如果估计正确（像我们生活中一样的话），绝对会踏上这片鲜花遍布的草地，草地就在200米以外的一条同样奇特的河的对岸。
