‘We spent as much money as we could and got aslittle for it as people could make up their minds togive us. We were always more or less miserable, andmost of our acquaintance were in the same condition. There was a gay fiction among us that we wereconstantly enjoying ourselves, and a skeleton truththat we never did. To the best of my belief, our casewas in the last aspect a rather common one.‘
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations