Sublime

He prided himself on his ability to judge by appearances, a pardonable weakness in one who was already fifty—an age when an intelligent, well-to-do man of the world always starts to take himself seriously, sometimes even against his better judgement.

The one essential of an aristocracy is to be in advance of its age. That is, there must be something new known to a few. There must be a password; and it must always be a new password.

The chief English fault, especially in the nineteenth century, has been lack of decision, not only lack of decision in action, but lack of the equally essential decision in thought–which some call dogma.

What does Miss Pankhurst imagine a “rule” is—a sort of basilisk?

She had no sense of proportion, none whatever—and wasn’t that exactly the thing one looked for in a woman?

Not of course that she knew anything, but what woman was ever stopped by a want of information? She felt. And despised him for not acting in accordance with her feelings.

them,’ Lydia said. ‘Off you go.’ ‘Very good, m’lady.’ Annie ran toward the back of the house. Lydia sighed: the girls

A ‘great’ butler can only be, surely, one who can point to his years of service and say that he has applied his talents to serving a great gentleman – and through the latter, to serving humanity.

I think it is no more than justice to him to say that the knowledge, where it has come to him, has come to him slowly; and I think it came (as most things of common sense come) rather vaguely and as in a vision—that is, by the mere look of things.