He was a man of dark moods and self-destructive impulses, subject to what euphemists call nervous illness. He was never at any safe distance from despair.

He is the right sort of man for a labourer, but he is a terrible eater, to be sure, thought the farmer.

Between you and me and the bed-post – young master’s quarrelled with old master.

All golden and lovely it blazed in the sunset, with walls, temples, colonnades and arched bridges of veined marble, silver-basined fountains of prismatic spray in broad squares and perfumed gardens, and wide streets marching between delicate trees and blossom-laden urns and ivory statues in gleaming rows; while on steep northward slopes climbed tiers of red roofs and old peaked gables harboring little lanes of grassy cobbles.