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

Science may carry us to Mars, but it will leave the earth peopled as ever by the inept.

There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth.

The cat dwells within the circle of her own secret thoughts.

The gayety of life, like the beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy is crime. There is no more than we need; there is barely enough to go round.

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.

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