Explore "Pelham Vol VI" by Edward Bulwer-lytton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Ah! Sir, had I but bestowed half the pains in learning a trade, that I have in learning to be a scoundrel, I might have been a rich man at this day; but, rogue as I am, still I may be your friend, and that, perhaps, when you least expect it. -- Vicar of Wakefield.
What with the anxiety and uncertainty of my political prospects, the continued dissipation in which I lived, and, above all, the unpropitious state of my belle passion, my health gave way; my appetite forsook me -- my sleep failed me -- a wrinkle settled itself under my left eye, and my mother declared, that I should have no chance with an heiress: all these circumstances together, were not without their weight. So I set out one morning to Hampton Court, (with a volume of Bishop Berkely, and a bottle of wrinkle water,) for the benefit of the country air.