Night was a very different matter. It was dense, thicker than the very walls, and it was empty, so black, so immense that within it you could brush a… - Guy de Maupassant

She was, in fact, one of those people of exalted principles; one of those opinionated puritans, of which England produces so many; one of those good and insupportable old maids who haunt the tables d'hôte of every hotel in Europe, who spoil Italy, poison Switzerland, render the charming cities of the Mediterranean uninhabitable, carry everywhere their fantastic manias, their manners of petrified vestals, their indescribable toilets and a certain odor of india-rubber which makes one believe that at night they are slipped into a rubber casing.

"Any government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship's captain has to avoid a shipwreck."

[On Water]

What is the use of fine feelings when pitted against the power of instinct? And what chance does modest restraint have against that of natural desire?