The next he could not conceive any man should be such a witless ass as to stake his happiness on the steadiness of so manifest a weathercock as a woman's favour.

It was all very strange talk; it opened to me, just as when a fog lifts and rolls down again, a momentary vision of a world of colours in which I had no share; and to tell the truth it left me with a suspicion which has recurred again and again, that all my solitary years over my books, all the delights which the delicate turning of a phrase, or the chase and capture of an elusive idea, can bring to one may not be worth, after all, one single minute of living passion.

Passion, Chevalier! There is a word of which I know the meaning only by hearsay.

But I wonder at times, whatever harm it works, whether there can be any great thing without it.

But you are anxious to go forward upon your way." He again took up his lamp, and requesting Wogan to follow him, unlatched the window.