to be civilized is to be incapable of giving unnecessary offense, it is to have some quality of consideration for all who cross our path.

Anyone, however, who has had dealings with dates knows that they are worse than elusive, they are perverse. Events do not happen at the right time, nor in their proper sequence. That sense of harmony with place and season which is so strong in the historian--if he be a readable historian--is lamentably lacking in history, which takes no pains to verify his most convincing statements.

The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.

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

Guests are the delight of leisure, and the solace of ennui.

Personally, I do not believe that it is the duty of any man or woman to write a novel. In nine cases out of ten, there would be greater merit in leaving it unwritten.

the pleasure of possession, whether we possess trinkets, or offspring - or possibly books, or prints, or chessmen, or postage stamps - lies in showing these things to friends who are experiencing no immediate urge to look at them.