They whirled past the dark trees, as feathers would be swept before a hurricane. Houses, gates, churches, hay-stacks, objects of every kind they shot by, with a velocity and noise like roaring waters suddenly let loose. Still the noise of pursuit grew louder, and still my uncle could hear the young lady wildly screaming, "Faster! Faster!"

As I said just now, the world has gone past me. I don't blame it; but I no longer understand it. Tradesmen are not the same as they used to be, apprentices are not the same, business is not the same, business commodities are not the same. Seven-eighths of my stock is old-fashioned. I am an old-fashioned man in an old-fashioned shop, in a street that is not the same as I remember it. I have fallen behind the time, and am too old to catch it again.

The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.

Two more houses have come in the past year, huge houses. I remember when there was nothing.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

It doesn't matter how good or how bad they are, they gonna stay there. The houses are not much to start with, but it's all they got. And they're proud of it, and rightly so. And we just do the best we can.