BOOK I: “LES

_“I’m not a young man.... I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; I knew how much I loved her, and how happy I should be.... But I had not--I feel it now--sufficiently considered her.... Did I consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved her, when everybody must, who knew her?... Did I consider that I took her--at her age...? I have not found it out before.”_

CHARLES DICKENS--_“The Cricket on the Hearth”_