“And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, lookee here, to know in secret that I was making a gentleman. The blood horses of them colonists might fling up the dust over me as I was walking; what do I say? I says to myself, ‘I making a better gentleman nor you’ll be!’… I says to myself, ‘If I ain’t a gentleman, nor yet ain’t got no learning, I’m the owner of such. All on you owns stock and land; which on you owns a brought-up London gentleman?’” --Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1860)

“For oh,” say the children, “we are weary,       And we cannot run or leap; If we car’d for any meadows, it were merely       To drop down in them and sleep. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,   We fall upon our faces, trying to go; And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,   The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For, all day, we drag our burden tiring       Through the coal-dark, underground, Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron       In the factories, round and round.   “For all day, the wheels are droning, turning;       Their wind comes in our faces, Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,       And the walls turn in their places: Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,   Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,   All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day, the iron wheels are droning,       And sometimes we could pray, ‘O ye wheels,’ moaning breaking out in a mad       ‘Stop! be silent for to-day!’”  --Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "The Cry of the Children" (1843)

"One night I had been awakened by her yells – (since the medical men had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up) – it was a fiery West Indian night; one of the description that frequently precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like sulphur-steams – I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake – black clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball – she threw her last bloody glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest. I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with such language! – no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word – the thin partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish cries." --Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (1847)

Yet is it now my chosen task      To sing her worth as Maid and Wife; Nor happier post than this I ask,      To live her laureate all my life. On wings of love uplifted free,      And by her gentleness made great, I'll teach how noble man should be      To match with such a lovely mate; And then in her may move the more      The woman's wish to be desired, (By praise increased), till both shall soar,      With blissful emulations fired. And, as geranium, pink, or rose      Is thrice itself through power of art, So may my happy skill disclose      New fairness even in her fair heart; Until that churl shall nowhere be      Who bends not, awed, before the throne Of her affecting majesty,      So meek, so far unlike our own; Until (for who may hope too much      From her who wields the powers of love?) Our lifted lives at last shall touch      That happy goal to which they move; Until we find, as darkness rolls      Away, and evil mists dissolve, That nuptial contrasts are the poles      On which the heavenly spheres revolve. ---Coventry Patmore, "The Angel in the House" (1854)