In former days the Earl had been a man quite capable of making himself disagreeable, and probably had not yet… — Anthony Trollope
In former days the Earl had been a man quite capable of making himself disagreeable, and probably had not yet lost the power of doing so. Of all our capabilities this is the one which clings longest to us.
Source: Wikiquote · CC BY-SA 4.0
More from this book
No doubt there were other first cousins as badly off, or perhaps worse, as to whom the Duchess would care nothing whether they were rich or poor, — married or single; but then they were first cousins who had not had the advantage of interesting the Duchess.
“Isn‘t there some trouble about money?”
“They wouldn‘t be very rich, Duchess.”
“What a blessing for them! But then, perhaps, they‘d be very poor.”
“They would be rather poor.”
“Which is not a blessing.”
The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so.
