Jonathan Strange was a very different sort of person from his father. He was not avaricious; he was not proud; he was not ill-tempered and disagreeable. But though he had no striking vices, his virtues were perhaps almost as hard to define. At the pleasure parties of Wcymouth and in the drawing-rooms of Bath he was regularly declared to be “the most charming man in the world” by the fashionable people he met there, but all that they meant by this was that he talked well, danced well, and hunted and gambled as much as a gentleman should.
Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the second shall long to behold me; The first shall be governed by thieves and murderers; the second shall conspire at his own destruction; The first shall bury his heart in a dark wood beneath the snow, yet still feel its ache; The second shall see his dearest possession in his enemy’s hand. The first shall pass his life alone; he shall be his own gaoler; The second shall tread lonely roads, the storm above his head, seeking a dark tower upon a high hillside. - Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke.
