It often seems to me as if History was like a child's box of letters, with which we can spell any word we please. We have only to pick out such lette… - James Anthony Froude

The moral of human life is never simple, and the moral of a story which aims only at being true to human life cannot be expected to be any more so.

The landlord may become a direct oppressor. He may care nothing for the people, and have no object but to squeeze the most that he can out of them fairly or unfairly. The Russian government has been called despotism tempered with assassination. In Ireland landlordism was tempered by assassination. Unfortunately the wrong man was generally assassinated. The true criminal was an absentee, and his agent was shot instead of him. A noble lord living in England, two of whose agents had lost their lives already in his service, ordered the next to post a notice in his Barony that he intended to persevere in what he was doing, and if the tenants thought they would intimidate him by shooting his agents, they would find themselves mistaken.

As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities.