Life was to be lived — not torpidly dozed through in this queer cultured place, where age was in the blood! Life was for love — to be enjoyed! - John Galsworthy

A sudden ache beset his heart; he had stumbled on just one of those past moments in his life, whose beauty and rapture he had failed to arrest, whose wings had fluttered away into the unknown; he had stumbled on a buried memory, a wild sweet time, swiftly choked and ended.

God save the pennon, ragged to the dawn,
That signs to moon to stand, and sun to fly; And flutters when the weak is overborne
To stem the tide of fate and certainty.
That knows not reason, and that seeks no fame — So! Undismayed beneath the serried clouds, Raise up the banner of forlorn defence — A jest to the complacency of crowds — Bright-haloed with the one diviner sense:
To hold itself as nothing to itself;
And in the quest of its imagined star
To lose all thought of after-recompense!

Ljubav kao njezina — strastvena, koja obožava, koja štiti, koja čezne za potpunim podavanjem i žrtvovanjem same sebe, ali koja potajno traži i punu njegovu ljubav — jer kako bi bez toga mogla ljubiti ponosna žena? — takva ljubav čezne uvijek za potpunijim sjedinjenjem, nego što je moguće u ovom svijetu, gdje se sve mijenja i pokreće.