Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

honourable thises and thats

Mr Norrell’s coachman and footman

These third-rate scholars can never resist putting in something of themselves. He will make guesses – wrong guesses – at the sorts of magic I employed at York.

no doubt you say to yourself who is this impertinent creachure?

One statue spoke what seemed to be Italian. No one knew why this should be, though Mr Segundus discovered later that it was a copy of a work by Michael Angel.

From the first moment of their being able to speak the kings began quarrelling and scolding each other – for the pedestals were all of a height, and kings – even stone ones – dislike above all things to be made equal to others.

“Do not beat your wife with a stick made from wormwood.”

Many complained of their neighbours and perhaps this is not so surprizing since they had been obliged to stand together for so many hundreds of years.

Dr Foxcastle had got himself an excellent chair, tall and black and curiously carved – and this chair (which rather resembled a throne), and the sweep of the red velvet curtains behind him and the way in which he sat with his hands clasped over his large round stomach, all combined to give him a deeply magisterial air.

a manuscript scribbled down very hurriedly upon the backs of all kinds of bits of paper, most of them old ale-house bills.