A peasant can no more help believing in a traditional superstition than a horse can help trembling when be sees a camel.

The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite outline of our ignorance.

Upon my word, I think the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.

Life is measured by the rapidity of change, the succession of influences that modify the being.

I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I have been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but there is nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell musty. I wish I could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How delightful it must be to write books after one's own taste instead of reading other people's! Home-made books must be so nice.

It is a wonderful subduer, this need of love-this hunger of the heart-as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the face of the world.

Shepperton Church was a very different looking building five-and-twenty years ago. To be sure, its substantial stone tower looks at you through its intelligent eye, the clock, with the friendly expression of former days; but in everything else what changes!