Human life--that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams.

Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really shown in the work one creates.

Lord Illingworth told me this morning that there was an orchid there as beautiful as the seven deadly sins.

It is always the unreadable that occurs.

What is termed Sin is an essential element of progress. Without it the world would stagnate, or grow old, or become colorless. By its curiosity Sin increases the experience of the race. Through its intensified assertion of individualism it saves us from monotony of type. In its rejection of the current notions about morality, it is one with the higher ethics.

And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite.

Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.