The String of Pearls (1850), p. 331

"We do," replied Mrs. Lovett, with another smile, more metallic than the former.
"And where is your farm, mum?"
"Really, sir, you want to know too much. I appeal to those gentlemen if any of them know where my farm is."
"No—no. D—n it, no, nor don't care," said all the lawyer's clerks.
"Don't know anything about it."
"And don't care," said another. "Sufficient for the day is the pie thereof."
"Very good—Ha! ha!—Very good."
The crowd gradually dispersed. Mrs. Lovett put a placard in the window, announcing—
"A hot batch at two o'clock."
She then closed the shop door, and retired to the parlour. She cast herself upon a sofa, and hiding the light from her eyes with one of her arms, she gave herself up to thought. Yes, that bold bad woman was beginning to have her moments of thought, during which it appeared to be as though a thousand mocking fiends were thronging around her. No holy thoughts or impulses crossed her mind. Solitude, that best of company to the good and just, was to her peopled with countless horrors; and yet there must have been a time when that woman was pure, and her soul spotless—a time when it was free from
"The black engraved spots"
which now deformed it. And yet who, to look upon her now, could fancy that she was ever other than what she seemed? Who could bring themselves to
think that she had not been placed at once by the arch-fiend as she was upon the beautiful world, to make in the small circle around her a pestilence, a blight, and a desolation? There are persons in the world that it would be the greatest violence to our feelings ever to attempt to picture to our imaginations as children; and as such, surely were Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. Was she ever some gentle little girl, fondly clinging to a mother's arms? Was he ever a smiling infant, with pretty dimples? Was there at his or her birth much joy? Did a mothers tears ever fall upon his or her cheek, in sweet gratitude to God for such a glorious gift? No—no. We cannot—we will not believe that such persons as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett ever came into this world otherwise than ready-made man and woman! Any other belief, concerning such fiends in human shape is too repugnant. But we are forgetting that Mrs. Lovett is upon the sofa all this while, and that her metallic smile has quite vanished, giving way to such a look of utter abandonment of spirit, that you would have shuddered to have cast but one glance upon her. She could bear the quietude of the attitude she had assumed but for a very short time, and then she sprang to her feet.
"Yes," she said, "it must, and it shall come to an end!"
She stood for some few moments trembling, as though the dim echo of that word end, as she had jerked it forth, had awakened in her mind a world of horrifying thoughts. Again she sank upon the couch, and speaking in a low, plaintive voice, she said—
"Yes. I have need of the waters of oblivion, one draught of which shuts out for ever all memory of the past. Oh, that I had but a cup of such nectar at my
lips!"
Not a doubt of it, Mrs. Lovett. It is the memory of the wicked that constitutes that retribution, which is assuredly to be found in this world as day follows night.
"I—I must have this," she muttered. "Let Todd be dead or alive, I must have it. I am going mad—I feel certain. That I am going mad, and the only way to save myself, is to flee. I must collect as much money as I can and then flee far away." If I cannot quite obliterate the past from my memory, I can at least leave it as it is, and add nothing to it. Yes, that man may live. He seems to bear a charmed life. But I must flee."