France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter - it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men, and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart.

He had possessed the arrogance of a tall member of a short race, with no obligation save to be tall.

Englishmen must have an island.

When she saw him face to face their eyes met and brushed like birds’ wings. After that everything was all right, everything was wonderful, she knew that he was beginning to fall in love with her.

The compensation of a very early success is a conviction that life is a romantic matter. In the best sense one stays young.

Progress was a labyrinth ... people plunging blindly in and then rushing wildly back, shouting that they had found it ... the invisible king-the élan vital-the principle of evolution ... writing a book, starting a war, founding a school.

She was a mischief, and that was a satisfaction; no longer was she a huntress of corralled game