Strange are the pictures of the future that mankind can thus draw with this brush of faith and these many-coloured pigments of the imagination! Strange, too, that no one of them tallies with another!

Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt.

As I grow older, I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems to be getting a hold of me.

Memory haunts me from age to age, and passion leads me by the hand--evil have I done, and with sorrow have I made acquaintance from age to age, and from age to age evil shall I do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes.

The law of England is much more severe upon offences against property than against the person, as becomes a people whose ruling passion is money.

It is not wise to neglect the present for the future, for who knows what the future will be?

The sky aft was dark as pitch, but the moon still shone brightly ahead of us and lit up the blackness. Beneath its sheen a huge white-topped breaker, twenty feet high or more, was rushing on to us. It was on the break-the moon shone on its crest and tipped its foam with light. On it rushed beneath the inky sky, driven by the awful squall behind it.