Yet Love, thou'rt blinder then thy self in this, / To vex my Dove-like friend for my amiss […] .

The lower windows were barricaded, and the whole building loopholed for musketry fire.

The Madonna letters, which are interspersed with more personal missives in this curious epistolary memoir, accumulate into a rap about the downsides of celebrity - the problems of ageing, of invaded privacy, of becoming vain and impetuously adopting children from other continents.

At this moment Guido, who knew how disagreeable the subject must be to his sister, drew their attention to those golden slants of sunshine which seem to come so direct from heaven to earth,—bright and vapoury ladders,—fitting steps for our vain wishes to mount above; and just then so distinct from the dark mass of shadow flung from the deep forest in the distance.