“One doesn't come to Italy for niceness," was the retort; "one comes for life. Buon giorno! Buon giorno!”

“Let her go to Italy!" he cried. "Let her meddle with what she doesn't understand! ”

“Do you remember Italy?”

“Life's very difficult and full of surprises. At all events, I've got as far as that. To be humble and kind, to go straight ahead, to love people rather than pity them, to remember the submerged--well, one can't do all these things at once, worse luck, because they're so contradictory. It's then that proportion comes in--to live by proportion. Don't begin with proportion. Only prigs do that. Let proportion come in as a last resource, when the better things have failed...”

“Italy and London are the only places where I don't feel to exist on sufferance.”

“There were letters for her at the bureau-one from her brother, full of athletics and biology; one from her mother, delightful as only mother's letters could be. She had read in it of the crocuses which had been bought for yellow and were coming up puce, of the new parlour-maid, who had watered the ferns with essence of lemonade...”

“Life is sometimes life and sometimes only a drama, and one must learn to distinguish tother from which.”