The tourist may complain of other tourists; but he would be lost without them. He may find them in his way, taking up the best seats in the motors, and the best tables in the hotel dining-rooms; but he grows amazingly intimate with them during the voyage, and not infrequently marries one of them when it is over.

This is the sphinx of the hearthstone, the little god of domesticity, whose presence turns a house into a home.

There is always a secret irritation about a laugh in which we cannot join

For my part, the good novel of character is the novel I can always pick up; but the good novel of incident is the novel I can never lay down.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food, and few things in the world are more wearying than a sarcastic attitude towards life.

The diseases of the present have little in common with the diseases of the past save that we die of them.

If everybody floated with the tide of talk, placidity would soon end in stagnation. It is the strong backward stroke which stirs the ripples, and gives animation and variety.