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.

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

You have to wait together - for a week, for a year, for a lifetime, before the final intimate conversation may be attained ... and exhausted. So that ... That in effect was love.

The instances of honesty that one comes across in this world are just as amazing as the instances of dishonesty. After forty-five years of mixing with one's kind, one ought to have acquired the habit of being able to know something about one's fellow beings. But one doesn't

Damn it all, it's the first duty of a soldier - it's the first duty of all Englishmen - to be able to tell a good lie in answer to a charge.

New York is large, glamorous, easy-going, kindly and incurious, but above all it is a crucible - because it is large enough to be incurious.

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.