"Any government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck." [<i>On Water</i>] - Guy de Maupassant

He had a fund of small talk, a pleasant voice, a caressing glance and his moustache was irresistible. Crisp and curly, it curved charmingly over his lip, fair with auburn tints, slightly paler where it bristled at the ends.

But I no longer had a taste for anything, a wish for anything, a love for anybody, a desire for anything whatever, any ambition, or any hope.

I reason everything out, and usually analyze my tastes too well to succumb to them blindly. And that's my chief defect, the real cause of my weakness. But this woman has taken possession of me in spite of myself, in spite of my fear and my knowledge of her; and she possesses me as if she had plucked out, one after the other, my every last aspiration.