It was an old fashioned house --the sort of house in fact, as Strange expressed it, which a lady in a novel might like to be persecuted in.

There is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure - it is, after all, what everybody does all the time.

And how shall I think of you?' He considered a moment and then laughed. 'Think of me with my nose in a book!

you must learn to live as I do - in the face of constant criticism, opposition and censure. That, sir, is the English way.

Some years ago there was in the city of York a society of magicians. They met upon the third Wednesday of every month and read each other long, dull papers upon the history of English magic.

When he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog. Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant. "This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?" he said. "My kingdoms?" exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. "Oh, no! This is Scotland!

I was told once by some country people that a magician should never tell his dreams because the telling will make them come true. But I say that is great nonsense.