“She was an elfShe turned the lake to swampA dark and warm marshHer body sunk downThere unshaken lay”

“She lay in the dark and knew everything.”

“Beneath the stars the lake lay dark and sombre," Stead wrote, "but on its shores gleamed and glowed in golden radiance the ivory city, beautiful as a poet's dream, silent as a city of the dead.”

“Even as a solid rock is unshaken by the wind, so are the wise unshaken by praise or blame.”

“Is it a lack of faith to be thinking that we’re all going to be slain or captured and sunk into the Hot Lake?” asked one of the four chosen archers.“Yes,” snapped the Carp.”

“The day was gone, the twilight was gone, and the snow was invisible as I came down to the side of the lake. Only the moon, white and shining, was in the sky, like a woman glorying in her own loveliness as she loiters superbly to the gaze of all the world, looking sometimes through the fringe of dark olive leaves, sometimes looking at her own superb, quivering body, wholly naked in the water of the lake.”