Huttle, we will meet you half-way - that is, till you get half-way through your cigar. That, at all events, will be the happy medium."
I shall never forget the effect the words, "happy medium," had upon him. He was brilliant and most daring in his interpretation of the words. He positively alarmed me. He said something like the following: "Happy medium, indeed. Do you know 'happy medium' are two words which mean 'miserable mediocrity'? I say, go first class or third; marry a duchess or her kitchenmaid. The happy medium means respectability, and respectability means insipidness.英文原著 · 《The Diary of a Nobody》
The humours of the situation were all the Deacon's own. He dressed the part in black; his respectability grinned behind a vizard; and all the while he trifled nonchalantly with a pistol. Breaking the silence with snatches from The Beggar's Opera, he promised that all their lead should turn to gold, christened the coulter and the crow the Great and Little Samuel, and then went off to drink and dice at the Vintner's. How could anger prevail against this undying gaiety? And if Smith were peevish at failure, he was presently reconciled, and prepared once more to die for his Deacon.英文原著 · 《A Book of Scoundrels》
But he must needs have a distraction from the respectability of his life. Everybody was at his feet; he was Deacon of his Guild, at an age whereat his fellows were striving to earn a reputable living; his masterpieces were fashioned, and the wrights' trade was already a burden. To go upon the cross seemed a dream of freedom, until he snapped his fingers at the world, filled his mouth with slang, prepared his alibi, and furnished him a whole wardrobe of disguises.英文原著 · 《A Book of Scoundrels》
Now, a semi-detached villa is an impregnable stronghold. Respectability oozes from the dusky mortar of its bricks, and escapes in clouds of smoke from its soot-grimed chimneys. No policeman ever detects a desperate ruffian in a demure black-coated gentleman who day after day turns an iron gate upon its rusty hinge. And thus, wrapt in a cloak of suburban piety, Peace waged a pitiless and effective war upon his neighbours.英文原著 · 《A Book of Scoundrels》
"How else could a woman hear such news? How else do you suppose she could feel to be told that she had been hoodwinked, and kept from her duty and a man's heart very likely broken, to save the respectability of a worn-out old family. Oh, how could they have dared to do it? How could they have dared to do it?"
"It was a beastly mistake," he admitted. A whirlwind of scorn seemed to sweep over her. She could keep still no longer. She walked up and down the little room. Her hands were clenched, her eyes flashing.英文原著 · 《A Millionaire of Yesterday》
It was twelve years ago."
"Child! I may have been only a child, but I should have been old enough to know where my place was. Thank God I have done with these people and their disgusting shibboleth of respectability."
"You are a little violent," he remarked. "Pshaw!" She flashed a look of scorn upon him. "You don't understand! How should you, you are of their kidney - you're only half a man. Thank God that my mother was of the people! I'd have died to have gone smirking through life with a brick for a heart and milk and water in my veins!英文原著 · 《A Millionaire of Yesterday》