The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.

...and wondering where he had read that clever liars give details, but that the cleverest do not.

One of the surprises of her unoccupied state was the discovery that time, when it is left to itself and no definite demands are made on it, cannot be trusted to move at any recognized pace

Society soon grows used to any state of things which is imposed upon it without explanation.

... naturalness is not always consonant with taste.

People struggled on for years with 'troubles,' but they almost always succumbed to 'complications.

She would not have put herself out so much to say so little.