What then is to be the lot of Rossetti's fame and influence? 'An amateur who failed in two arts', it is true; yet it hardly harms Rossetti or touches his standing. On the contrary, it defines both very brilliantly. The small word 'failed' is a small word and little more to artists who are forever going on until they give up over a game that must be lost. Every artist, when confronted by the immensities of art, which is life, must confess to failure. A failure is a thing very relative.

Yes, a war is inevitable. Firstly, there's you fellows who can't be trusted. And then there's the multitude who mean to have bathrooms and white enamel. Millions of them; all over the world. Not merely here. And there aren't enough bathrooms and white enamel in the world to go round.

[W]e are almost always in one place with our minds somewhere quite other.

It's the quality of harmony, sir. The quality of being in harmony with you own soul. God having given you your own soul you are then in harmony with Heaven.

Six months ago I had never been to England, and, certainly, I had never sounded the depths of an English heart. I had known the shallows.

There is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.

They were simple, earnest people, those early Victorians, and had not yet learnt the trick of avoiding disturbing thoughts and sights.