A novel is an impression, not an argument; and there the matter must rest.

...Nameless, unknown to me as you were, I couldn't forget your voice!' 'For how long?' 'O - ever so long. Days and days.' 'Days and days! Only days and days? O, the heart of a man! Days and days!' 'But, my dear madam, I had not known you more than a day or two. It was not a full-blown love - it was the merest bud - red, fresh, vivid, but small. It was a colossal passion in embryo. It never returned.

If the story-tellers could ha' got decency and good morals from true stories, who'd have troubled to invent parables?

That cold accretion called the world, so terrible in the mass, is so non formidable, even pitiable, in its units.

The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.

Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down you'd treat if met where any bar is, or help to half-a-crown.

So each had a private little sun for her soul to bask in; some dream, some affection, some hobby, or at least some remote and distant hope.