It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic and significant to his own imagination as he can.

Now there is any amount of this nonsense cropping up among American cranks. Anybody may propose to establish coercive Eugenics; or enforce psychoanalysis that is, enforce confession without absolution.

Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.

Romance is the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.

"Are you a devil?" "I am a man," answered Father Brown gravely; "and therefore have all devils in my heart."

The men of the East may spell the stars, And times and triumphs mark, But the men signed of the cross of Christ Go gaily in the dark.

But I was frightfully fond of the universe and wanted to address it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it never seemed to mind.