There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath the careless calm of her ordinary moods-violent spring flashing white on almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy, moonlit peak, with its single star, soaring up to the passionate blue; or against the flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing dark guardian of some fiery secret.

Light-heartedness always made Soames suspicious - there was generally some reason for it.

Headlines twice the size of the events.

By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men's souls.

The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy, the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage.

Not the least hard thing to bear when they go from us, these quiet friends, is that they carry away with them so many years of our own lives.

Humanism is the creed of those who believe that in the circle of enwrapping mystery, men's fates are in their own hands - a faith that for modern man is becoming the only possible faith.