disillusionment

Even now I cannot recollect without passion my reveries while the work was incomplete. I trod heaven in my thoughts, now exulting in my powers, now burning with the idea of their effects. From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty ambition; but h...

And as they advanced towards Barnet a tumultuous murmuring grew stronger. For the most part these were staring before them, murmuring indistinct questions, jaded, haggard, unclean. One man in evening dress passed them on foot, his eyes on the ground.

“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” he said; “that’s what I’ve been thinking. Most of the people were hard at it squealing and exciting themselves. I’ve been in sight of death once or twice; I’m not an ornamental soldier, and at the best and worst, death—it’s ju...

This is the 22nd, and we shall reach Calcutta in time.” There was nothing to say to so confident a response. It was but too true that the railway came to a termination at this point. The papers were like some watches, which have a way of getting too fast, and ...

“Yes, but it’s on the other side of the river.” “And can’t we cross that in a boat?” asked the colonel. It is a rapid, and we shall have to make a circuit of ten miles to the north to find a ford.” The colonel launched a volley of oaths, denouncing the railway...

“What a place is this that you inhabit, my son!” said he, looking mournfully at the barred windows and wretched appearance of the room. “You travelled to seek happiness, but a fatality seems to pursue you.