“The fortnight at Venice passed quickly and sweetly-- perhaps too sweetly; I was drowning in honey, stingless.”
“I have a good mind not to take Aloysius to Venice. I don't want him to meet a lot of horrid Italian bears and pick up bad habits.”
“Old boy," said Grimes, "you're in love.""Nonsense!""Smitten?" said Grimes."No, no.""The tender passion?""No.""Cupid's jolly little darts?""No.""Spring fancies, love's young dream?""Nonsense!""Not even a quickening of the pulse?""No.""A sweet despair?""Certainly not.""A trembling hope?""No.""A frisson? a Je ne sais quoi?""Nothing of the sort.""Liar!" said Grimes.”
“Dearest Charles--I found a box of this paper at the back of a bureau so I must write to you as I am mourning for my lost innocence. It never looked like living. The doctors despaired of it from the start...I am never quite alone. Members of my family keep turning up and collecting luggage and going away again, but the white raspberries are ripe.I have a good mind not to take Aloysius to Venice. I don't want him to meet a lot of horrid Italian bears and pick up bad habits.Love or what you will.S.”
“The languor of Youth - how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost!”
“Then I knew that the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom.”
“Feather-footed through the plashy fen passes the questing vole.'--William Boot”