Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.'-William Boot

One has to regard a man as a Master who can produce on average three uniquely brilliant and entirely original similes to every page.

They are a very decent generous lot of people out here and they don't expect you to listen.... It's the secret of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard.

"It is typical of Oxford," I said, "to start the new year in autumn."

We are American at puberty. We die French.

"What war?" said the Prime Minister sharply. "No one has said anything to me about a war. I really think I should have been told. I'll be damned," he said defiantly, "if they shall have a war without consulting me. What's a cabinet for, if there's not more mutual confidence than that? What do they want a war for anyway?"

I think it's one of the kindest things you can do to the very wicked, to give them time to repent.