Simon Dale

One who was in his day a person of great place and consideration, and has left a name which future generations shall surely repeat so long as the world may last, found no better...

The debate is years old; not indeed quite so old as the world, since Adam and Eve cannot, for want of opportunity, have fallen out over it, yet descending to us from unknown ant...

If a philosopher, learned in the human mind as Flamsteed in the courses of the stars or the great Newton in the laws of external nature, were to take one possessed by a strong p...

There, mounted on the coach at Hertford (for at last I am fairly on my way, and may boast that I have made short work of my farewells), a gentleman apparently about thirty years...

It must be allowed that by no possible union of unlucky chances could I, desiring to appear as a staid, sober gentleman, and not as a ruffler or debauched gallant, have had a wo...

I spent the rest of that day in my inn, agreeably to the advice of the surgeon, and the next morning, finding my wound healing well, and my body free from fever, I removed to Mr...

I should sin against the truth and thereby rob this my story of its solitary virtue were I to pretend that my troubles and perplexities, severe as they seemed, outweighed the pl...

When the curtain had fallen on the little-heeded play and the gay crowd began to disperse, I, perceiving that no more was to be seen or learnt, went home to my lodging alone. Af...

How I sought her, how I found her, that fine house of hers with the lawn round it and the river by it, the stare of her lackeys, the pomp of her living, the great lord who was b...

It pleased his Grace the Duke of Monmouth so to do all things that men should heed his doing of them. Even in those days, and notwithstanding certain transactions hereinbefore r...

Good fortune and bad had combined to make me somewhat more of a figure in the eyes of the Court than was warranted by my abilities or my station. The friend of Mistress Gwyn and...

Certainly he had some strange ways, this M. de Perrencourt. It was not enough for him to arrive by night, nor to have his meeting with M. Colbert (whose Star Darrell made me obs...

The next morning my exaltation had gone. I woke a prey to despondency and sickness of soul. Not only did difficulty loom large, and failure seem inevitable, but a disgust for al...

At least the Vicar would be pleased! A whimsical joy in the anticipation of his delight shot across my gloomy meditations as the sunset rays threaded their way through the narro...

Slowly the room and the scene came back to me, disengaging themselves from the darkness which had settled on my eyes, regaining distinctness and their proper form. I was sitting...

As I walked briskly from my quarters down to the sea, M. de Perrencourt's last whisper, "With my favour and such a lady for his wife, a gentleman might climb high," echoed in my...

There is this in great station, that it imparts to a man a bearing sedate in good times and debonair in evil. A king may be unkinged, as befell him whom in my youth we called th...

"In truth, madame," said I, "it's the wont of your sex. As soon as a woman knows a thing to be hers entirely, she'll fling it away." With this scrap of love's lore and youth's p...

In a man of green age and inexperience a hasty judgment may gain pardon and none need wonder that his hopes carry him on straightway to conclusions born of desire rather than of...

I do not know how long I stood outside the door there in the passage. After awhile I began to move softly to and fro, more than once reaching the room where I was to sleep, but...

I have heard it said that King Charles laughed most heartily when he learnt how a certain gentleman had tricked M. de Perrencourt and carried off from his clutches the lady who...

It is not my desire to assail, not is it my part to defend, the reputation of the great. There is no such purpose in anything that I have written here. History is their judge, a...

There was this great comfort in the Vicar's society that, having once and for all stated the irrefutable proposition which I have recorded, he let the matter alone. Nothing was...

On the next day but one M. de Fontelles and I took the road for London together. Carford lay between life and death (for the point had pierced his lung) at the inn to which we h...

As I made my way through the Court nothing seemed changed; all was as I had seen it when I came to lay down the commission that Mistress Gwyn had got me. They were as careless,...

I have written the foregoing for my children's sake that they may know that once their father played some part in great affairs, and, rubbing shoulder to shoulder with folk of h...