First Impressions

The words of this week's First Impressions, our new competition in which you have to identify the opening sentence of a well-known book, were penned by a British novelist who once was listed but now is prized:

"And don't forget," my father would say, as if he expected me at any moment to up and leave to seek my fortune in the wide world, "whatever you learn about people, however bad they turn out, each one of them has a heart, and each one of them was once a tiny baby sucking his mother's milk."

As no one correctly guessed last week's entry, Edith Wharton's The Reef , the prize will be doubled this week to a Pounds 40 book token.