“Every ruin is packed like a biscuit box.”

“This is habitual. Mother flutters her wings, and every institution within sight tumbles flat.”

“Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin.”

“Go away and bleed to death,’ said his onetime saviour sharply. ‘On behalf of the female sex I feel I may cheer every lesion.”

“That day, engrossed together in the fate of the child, he met her mind to mind and fell in love with her, with every grain of his spirit and cell of his body; with the essential finality of death.”

“I echo like a mynah, that’s why.”

“Swirling furiously among the stairs and corridors of her exquisite home like a small and angry white bat Sybilla, Dowager Lady Culter, was not above spitting at her unfortunate son when he chose to sit down in his own great hall to take his boots off. ‘If Madge Mumblecrust comes down those stairs once again for a morsel of fowl’s liver with ginger, or pressed meats with almond-milk, I shall retire to a little wicker house in the forest and cast spells which will sink Venice into the sea for ever, and Madame Donati with it. The Church,’ said Sybilla definitely, ‘should excommunicate girls who do not replace lids on sticky jars and wash their hair every day with the best towels.”