But the might-have-been is but boggy ground to build upon.

Where does any novelist pick up any character? For the most part, in town, to be sure.

Personal prudence, even when dictated by quite other than selfish considerations, surely is no special virtue in a military man; while an excessive love of glory, impassioning a less burning impulse, the honest sense of duty, is the first.

The sweetest joys of life grow in the very jaws of its perils.

It is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realise the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.

Let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God.

Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them.