I have done my fiddling so long under Vesuvius that I have almost forgotten to play, and can only wait for the eruption and think it long of coming. Literally no man has more wholly outlived life than I. And still it's good fun.

But even if we take matrimony at its lowest, even if we regard it as no more than a sort of friendship recognised by the police, there must be degrees in the freedom and sympathy realised, and some principle to guide simple folk in their selection.

I lived on rum, I tell you. It's been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me.

I am not afraid of the truth, if any one could tell it me, but I am afraid of parts of it impertinently uttered.

O wind, a-blowing all day long, O wind, that sings so loud a song!

I believe in an ultimate decency of things.

Death is given in a kiss; the dearest kindnesses are fatal; and into this life, where one thing preys upon another, the child too often makes its entrance from the mother's corpse.