“Mr Essex, I find it difficult to imagine you dabbling.”
“You needn’t, sir: those days are behind me.”
im in stitches. i love them

*signs in to my merriam webster account to save some of these five star words*

"Mr Coffey looked at him with a subtle delight on his face, that Theophilus should make some small push to further the conversation."
me when rhys says things

"It was uncanny, in a way, to think of Mr Coffey as a bachelor – a gentleman of some years past thirty, with such statuesque beauty, so irrepressible a zest for life… And unmarried? Having not ever been married?
The idea was one difficult to accept."
Gay. People.

im fuckin stimming go buy heart of stone im flapping my hands reading this

“And if he pronounces such a word as fuck before your clerk?”
“Before Essex?” Henry asked, and thought on it some. “He may well faint.”

Henry if you don't i will

he's constantly like "oh no! i overstepped. I'm sorry. i'm going to put myself in the bin now" and im like,,, thats kind of,, me

ohhhhhhh henry immortal angst time

tfw youre a vampire and your crush teaches you how to say "many happy returns / may you live many years" in greek and you get angsty because youre going to live many years and he isnt

"he had witnessed now two (two!) smiles"
i almost teared up at this what the fuck cute gay little vampire

“I have met my sister’s husband, Mr Coffey,” Essex said. “He would be hard-pressed indeed to command a rowboat.”

this reminds me of the lines i laughed at in the picture of dorian gray ,, aahh

WAIT WAIT WAIT HES GOING UP TO THE ROOM BUT---- THE DRAWINGS!! AKFLASKDFASKLJ

“Oh, Mr Essex,” he heard Mr Coffey say in hushed tones.
“Mr Coffey?”
“You did not tell me you could draw so well.”

i let a shriek out of me like a train whistle at this

“I do not think it is any newer than our own, Mr Coffey,” Theophilus said.

HELL YEAH YOURE RIGHT

"Henry did not know there existed such a thing as a normal conversationalist, and if there did, that man was not to be found in Theophilus Essex."
i kin this. which one? oh both

“I loathe entirely whatever man invented the cologne, that he might choke the lungs of every other who should pass him by.”

me me me me im so autistic and asthmatic though this is typically more of a problem for me with aerosol deodorants

henry wanting theophilus to say how much he doesn't like things and enjoying it when theophilus complains,, me about rhys

also its so interesting that henry thinks of theophilus as simply "essex",,,,,,, the quintessential englishman doesn't like pronouncing things even in thought. its certainly not about formality, otherwise itd be the other way around

ambrose is my special precious son