If he was not exactly a Spartan, he was, you might say, spartanatical. Things happened to you; they were good,or they were bad – and that was the truth about everything.

Holiness was always something richly dim.

Mothers are inscrutable beings to their sons, always. (“The Higgler”)

The Wife Of Ted Wickham”)

The Bogey Man”)

Father was an atheist; he had even joined the Skeleton Army – a club of men who went about in masks or black faces, with ribald placards and a brass band, to make war upon...

To analyze or assess a person’s failings or deficiencies,’ he declared to himself, ‘is useless, not because such blemishes are immovable, but because they affect the mass of beholders in diverse ways. Different minds perceive...

Pedersen was always wooing her. Sometimes he was gracious and kind, but at other times when his failure wearied him he would be cruel and sardonic, with a suggestive tongue whose vice would have scourged...

Dim loneliness came imperceivably into the fields and he turned back. The birds piped oddly; some wind was caressing the higher foliage, turning it all one way, the way home. Telegraph poles ahead looked like...