Sublime

And the reason is that there is a real if only a recurrent yearning for that sort of simplicity; and there is never that sort of yearning for that sort of complexity. The key to the mystery of the Merry Peasant is that the peasant often is merry.

What’s your question? Double or quits I can guess.” He tossed half-a-crown on the table. “What made you so anxious to come to live in these remote parts, Mr. Gressingham?” Macdonald allowed himself to laugh that time. The mimicry of Colonel St Cyres was so excellent, even to the little nervous cough which punctuated so many of his sentences. “Yes,

The common criminal is a bad man, but at least he is, as it were, a conditional good man. He says that if only a certain obstacle be removed—say a wealthy uncle—he is then prepared to accept the universe and to praise God. He is a reformer, but not an anarchist.

‘So we are hiding in a brothel?’ ‘Yes. You could put it that way.’ A most unexpected sound came from the bed. It was the sound of strangled laughter.

Falstaff the great mountain of English laughter and English sentimentalism,