If any one of us has had an ambition higher than that of making money; a motive better than that of expediency; a faith warmer than that of reasoning; a love purer than that of the self; he has been slow to express it; still slower to urge it.

History is the most aristocratic of all literary pursuits, because it obliges the historian to be rich as well as educated.

Henry James chews more than he bites off.

At best, the renewal of broken relations is a nervous matter.

He never labored so hard to learn a language as he did to hold his tongue, and it affected him for life. The habit of reticence — of talking without meaning — is never effaced.

If it were worth while to argue a paradox, one might maintain that nature regards the female as the essential, the male as the superfluity of her world. Perhaps the best starting-point for study of the Virgin would be a practical acquaintance with bees, and especially with queen bees.

Artists... disappeared long ago as social forces. So did the church.