White founts falling in the courts of the sun, / And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run.

Hardy went down to botanize in the swamp, while Meredith climbed towards the sun. Meredith became, at his best, a sort of daintily dressed Walt Whitman: Hardy became a sort of village atheist brooding and blaspheming over the village idiot.

There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book, and a tired man who wants a book to read.

The pure modernist is merely a snob; he cannot bear to be a month behind the fashion.

I am going to hold a pistol to the head of the Modern Man. But I shall not use it to kill him–only to bring him to life.

The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy like a bird in spring.