Martin Chuzzlewit

Young Martin Chuzzlewit:
[oh hearing that Pecksniff has been pestering Miss Graham] I'll horsewhip the villain, I'll do it now.

Mr. Jones:
Are you really Miss Pinch's brother? I don't see any family resemblance, I must say.

Georgina Jones:
Miss Pinch is *always* talking about her brother when she should be teaching *me* *my* lessons.

Mr. Jones:
Hold your tongue Georgina. I must say, sir, we are completely unsatisfied with your sister.

Tom Pinch:
Indeed? On what grounds?

Mr. Jones:
She is completely unable to gain my daughter's respect. Judge of my feelings only the other day when I heard her refer to your sister as a beggar.

Mrs. Jones:
A beggarly thing.

Mr. Jones:
A beggarly thing. If I had known that she was without friends, I would have severed our connection on the spot.

Tom Pinch:
Dear me. This need be no consideration. She is not without friends, she is able to depart this instant. Ruth, get your bonnet on.

Mrs. Jones:
Nice family, he's her brother - there's no doubt about that.

Tom Pinch:
As little doubt, madam, as that this young lady is the fruit of your influence and not my sister.

Mr. Jones:
Upon my word! This is pretty well!

Tom Pinch:
It is very ill sir! It is very mean and cruel and wrong. How can my sister be expected to gain your daughter's respect when she cannot command your own, or your *wife's* or your *footman's*?

Mr. Jones:
Miss Pinch's money, my dear. How much do we owe her?

Tom Pinch:
Don't bother yourself with that now, you may send it after with my sister's box. Ruth, go and fetch your bonnet. If you think, sir, that the payment of an annual sum of money gives you the right to treat its recipient with contempt, then you very much underestimate its power and value.

Mercy Pecksniff:
How is old Mr Chuzzlewit?

Tom Pinch:
Somewhat frail these days I must confess.

Mercy Pecksniff:
Next time you see him, please tell him I often think of our conversation in the churchyard.

Tom Pinch:
Certainly, I don't know when...

Mercy Pecksniff:
I should like him to know how true his words were. I wish I had heeded them. Tell him if ever he should counsel a vain, foolish young girl again to persevere just a little longer.

Tom Pinch:
Ruth often meets me here after work.

John Westlock:
Yes, I know.

Ruth Pinch:
[whispers] John...

John Westlock:
Er, I know *now*.

Montague Tigg:
Perhaps you would rather not lend Slyme five shillings?

Seth Pecksniff:
I would much rather not.

Montague Tigg:
Would you have the same objection to lending me five shillings?

Seth Pecksniff:
I would.

Montague Tigg:
Not even half a crown?

Seth Pecksniff:
Not even half a crown.

Montague Tigg:
Why, then, we come to the ridiculously small amount of eighteen pence.

Seth Pecksniff:
That would be equally objectionable.

Montague Tigg:
[clasping Pecksniff's hand warmly] Then let me tell you, Mr. Pecksniff... you are the most remarkable and consistent man that ever I have met, and I hope for the honor of your future acquaintance.

Old Martin Chuzzlewit:
The curse of this family is the love of self. It always has been. I see it now on some of your faces. There is a kind of selfishness which is always on the watch for selfishness in others and keeping others at a distance by suspicions and distrusts wonders why they do not approach and do not confide. God forgive me I did not see it in myself.

Seth Pecksniff:
I came here today already weighed down by grief. Due to an unfortunate speculation combined with treachery, I find myself bankrupted. A child of my bosom is a widow in circumstances of deep disgrace. I have been unjustly stripped of an architectural prize.

Mrs. Gamp:
There's no persuading him to walk in a straight line like an ordinary Christian.

Old Martin Chuzzlewit:
I have made a new will. Every person in this room except Pecksniff will be named as a beneficiary for a minimum of ?50. Anyone who addresses a single word to me on the subject of money from this time forth immediately forfeits his or her right to a legacy. Some who have been stalwart and selfless friends to Martin and Mary will receive much more generous bequests. Mr Tapley and Mrs Lupin - who I understand is soon to change her name to Tapley. Mr Pinch. Tom Pinch, whom I misjudged at first but whose goodness acted like summer rain upon my heart during my long confinement at Pecksniff's. Mrs Todgers has been rewarded for her kindness to Mrs Chuzzlewit. Mercy herself I propose to take under my own protection. The bulk of my estate goes to my grandson Martin, on condition he marries my ward Mary.

Tom Pinch:
[reading a letter from Augustus Moddle to Charity Pecksniff] "By the time you read this, the undersigned will be, if not a corpse, on a ship bound for Tasmania. Send none in pursuit for I will not be taken alive. I love another, she is another's. Everything seems to be someone else's. Oh Miss Pecksniff, why would you not leave me alone? But I will not judge, may the furniture make some amends."

Old Martin Chuzzlewit:
Furniture? Does he mean future?

Tom Pinch:
No sir, I believe the allusion is to a four-poster bed. "Farewell, be the bride of a ducal coronet and forget me. Unalterably, never yours, Augustus".

Tom Pinch:
Ruth! What a day for revelation!

Ruth Pinch:
Including one that was never uttered. You love her, don't you? Oh Tom, I feel so for you.

Tom Pinch:
No, by her own choice she is betrothed to Martin. And even if she had never seen him, do you honestly think she would have fallen in love with me?

Ruth Pinch:
Yes she would have - of course she would have.

Tom Pinch:
You think of me Ruth, and it's perfectly natural that you should, as if I were a character in a book and that I should, by some impossible means, come at last to marry the woman I adore. I do not grieve for the impossible.