Sensuality, too, which used to show itself course, smiling, unmasked, and unmistakable, is now serious, analytic, and so burdened with a sense of its responsibilities that it passes muster half the time as a new type of asceticism.
Life is so full of miseries, minor and major; they press so close upon us at every step of the way, that it is hardly worthwhile to call one another’s attention to their presence.
The man who never tells an unpalatable truth ‘at the wrong time’ (the right time has yet to be discovered) is the man whose success in life is fairly well assured.
The gayety of life, like the beauty and the moral worth of life, is a saving grace, which to ignore is folly, and to destroy is crime. There is no more than we need; there is barely enough to go round.
There was no escape from the letter-writer who, a hundred or a hundred and twenty-five years ago, captured a coveted correspondent. It would have been as easy to shake off an octopus or a boa-constrictor.
