Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.

She wondered if, when human souls try to get too near each other, they do not inevitably become mere blurs to each other's vision.

It is the omnipresent rush of water which give the Este Gardens their peculiar character. From the Anio, drawn up the hillside at incalculable cost and labour, a thousand rills gush downward, terrace by terrace, channeling the stone rails of the balusters, leaping from step to step, dripping into mossy conches, flashing in spray from the horns of sea-gods and the jaws of mythical monsters, or forcing themselves in irrepressible overflow down the ivy-matted banks.

One cares so little for the style in which one's praises are written.

I don't know that I should care for a man who made life easy; I should want some one who made it interesting.

Through this atmosphere of torrid splendor moved wan beings as richly upholstered as the furniture, beings without definite pursuits or permanent relations, who drifted on a languid tide of curiosity... Somewhere behind them, in the background of their lives there was doubtless a real past, yet they had no more real existence than the poet's shades in limbo.

Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone.