youth, when it is hurt, likes to feel itself betrayed.

William Tavener never heeded ominous forecasts in the domestic horizon, and he never looked for a storm until it broke.

There is something frank and joyous and young in the open face of the country. It gives itself ungrudgingly to the moods of the season, holding nothing back.

Whatever is felt upon the page without being specifically named there — that, one might say, is created.

The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate.

Loyal? As loyal as anyone who plays second fiddle ever is.

In a few hours one could cover that incalculable distance; from the winter country and homely neighbours, to the city where the air trembled like a tuning-fork with unimaginable possibilities.