The tourist was the great conservative who hated novelty and adored dirt. - Henry Brooks Adams

Harvard College was a negative force, and negative forces have value. Slowly it weakened the violent political bias of childhood, not by putting interests in its place, but by mental habits which had no bias at all.

...no number of centuries could ever educate him to Swinburne's level, even in technical appreciation.

This view of the case amused Esther for a time, but not for long — the matter was too serious for any treatment but a joke, and joking made it more serious still.