The sight of it made the earth seem unearthly. They were accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there — there you coul… - Joseph Conrad

"Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you, smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and always mute with an air of whispering, "Come and find out"."

It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream — making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams...No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence — that which makes its truth, its meaning — its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream-alone...

We return to face our superiors, our kindred, our friends — - those whom we obey, and those whom we love; but even they who have neither, the most free, lonely, irresponsible and bereft of ties, — - even those for whom home holds no dear face, no familiar voice, — - even they have to meet the spirit that dwells within the land, under its sky, in its air, in its valleys, and on its rises, in its fields, in its waters and its tress — - a mute friend, judge, and inspirer.
Say what you like, to get its joy, to breathe its peace, to face its truth, one must return with a clear conscience.
All this may seem to you sheer sentimentalism; and indeed very few of us have the will or capacity to look consciously under the surface of familiar emotions.
There are the girls we love, the men we look up to, the tenderness, the friendships, the opportunities, the pleasures! But the fact remains that you must touch your reward with clean hands, lest it turn to dead leaves, to thorns, in your grasp.