I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt, and, of course, if it ceased to beat, I would cease to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, no—sympathy—sentiment—nonsense.

The universe, he observed, makes rather an indifferent parent, I am afraid.

But injustice breeds injustice; the fighting with shadows and being defeated by them necessitates the setting up of substances to combat.

Old Mr. Rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk to, or to be with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid and selfish character, and that he had warped further and further out of the straight with time.

A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world!

So new to him," she muttered, "so old to me; so strange to him, so familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us!

Not only is the day waning, but the year. The low sun is fiery and yet cold behind the monastery ruin, and the Virginia creeper on the Cathedral wall has showered half its deep-red leaves down on the pavement. There has been rain this afternoon, and a wintry shudder goes among the little pools on the cracked, uneven flag-stones, and through the giant elm-trees as they shed a gust of tears.