Now I recall my emotions at that moment, children seem to me a remarkable race. They want so much to murder so many people, and they so rarely murder… - Rebecca West

I find that this always happens when I try to interrupt Slavs who are quarreling. They draw all the energy out of the air by the passion of their debate, so that anything outside its orbit can only flutter trivially.

"Nikolai growled, "The French lost Strasbourg, they lost Alsace, they lost Lorraine, which they pretended was sacred to them because of their saint, though they are deeply infidel. A republican people deserves to lose all, must lose all."
"But," objected Laura, "when France lost Strasbourg and Alsace-Lorraine, France wasn't a republican, it was ruled by the Emperor."
"No matter," said Nikolai, "the French were a people who once had it in them to make France a republican country, and had it in them to make it one again.

I was like a sea pulled by two moons. This must mean a boiling of the waters, tides that rushed up and carried away structures meant for living in, and then receded till earth that should be covered lay naked.