Each wrong act brings with it its own anesthetic, dulling the conscience and blinding it against further light, and sometimes for years.

what about Christianity? Are we right in the face of so long a record of its poverty in international achievement, to keep invoking it as a standard, almost synonymous with civilization?

Nearly all novels are too long.

How agreeable to watch, from the other side of the high stile, this mighty creature, this fat bull of Bashan, snorting, champing, pawing the earth, lashing the tail, breathing defiance at heaven and at me ... his heart hot with hate, unable to climb a stile.

The great and recurrent question about Abroad is, is it worth the trouble of getting there?

Human passions against eternal laws -- that is the everlasting conflict.

Decades have a delusive edge to them. They are not, of course, really periods at all, except as any other ten years may be. But we, looking at them, are caught by the different name each bears, and give them different attributes, and tie labels on them, as if they were flowers in a border.