“... Mr Jellyband was indeed a typical rural John Bull of those days --- the days when our prejudiced insularity was at its height, when to an Englishman, be he lord, yeoman, or peasant, the whole of the continent of Europe was a den of immorality and the rest of the world an unexploited land of savages and cannibals.”

“...but in every century, and ever since England has been what it is, an Englishman has always felt somewhat ashamed of his own emotion and of his own sympathy.”

“When they are gay, the waves echo their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it rolls, seems to bring additional sadness, and to speak to us of hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys.”

“He made her laugh always made her taste a strange and exquisite bliss when he held her in his arms.”

“She said nothing, and Sir Andrew, too, was silent, yet those two young people understood one another, as young people have a way of doing all the world over, and have done since the world began.”

“It does seem simple, doesn't it?' she said, with a final bitter attempt at flippancy, 'when you want to kill a chicken...you take hold of it...then you wring its neck...it's only the chicken who does not find it quite so simple. Now you hold a knife at my throat, and a hostage for my obedience...You find it simple...I don't”

“Virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when it is crushed.”