Literary Bengali of prose, during the greater part of the 19th century, was thus a doubly artificial language; and, with its forms belonging to Middle Bengali, and its vocabulary highly Sanskritised, it could only be compared to a 'Modern English' with a Chaucerian grammar and a super-Johnsonian vocabulary, if such a thing could be conceived.

We discovered that our first idea would never work, so we were back to square one.

His buggish eyes were as prominent as the full moon overhead.

Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!