The blue and white of the Murano background and the frankly picaresque tramp seem to form strange bed-fellows for the supper-party below stairs into which any gentleman's gentleman of the siècle de Dr. [Samuel] Johnson might have walked at any moment. [Describing an adaptation of Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters (1746).]

Be careful with the casual clothes that you wear in China - no bare mid-drifts, or revealing fashion.

Before the early 1930s, pamphlets and journals hardly ever celebrated incineration as an ur-Germanic tradition.

“Oh! you can have no idea of its gaiety,” returned Frances; “and such a quantity of people.” “A number of persons, and a quantity of goods,” interjoined Miss Colville.