Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.

I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts.

Youth is insolent; it is its right - its necessity; it has got to assert itself, and all assertion in this world of doubts is a defiance, is an insolence.

The Westerly Wind asserting his sway from the south-west quarter is often like a monarch gone mad, driving forth with wild imprecations the most faithful of his courtiers to shipwreck, disaster, and death.

The way of even the most jusitifiable revolution is prepared by personal impulses disguised into creeds.

I saw him open his mouth wide. . . as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him.

Books may be written in all sorts of places. Verbal inspiration may enter the berth of a mariner on board a ship frozen fast in a river in the middle of a town.