As he contemplated the loveliness of her figure, it struck him as infinitely pathetic that even beauty such as hers should be so dependent on the sex… - John Cowper Powys

As with all daring and successful men the tricks and devices of his subconscious nature were much more formidable than his rational schemes; and so by a sort of automatic protective instinct he kept them subconscious.

He resumed his sentry's march, but his mind was beating now against the blood-stained wedge of the world's pain, and he could not give up himself with absolute assent to his good hour.

She [Mother Legge] was a vast, dusky, double-chinned mountain of a woman, with astute, little grey eyes; eyes that seemed rather to aim at not seeing what she wanted to avoid, than at seeing what she wanted to see.