It may be that what we call modern is nothing, but what is not worthy of remaining to become old. - Dante Alighieri

But if it is prose, it is prose of a previously unknown order, for the depth and multiplicity of mind that seem to function at every choice have not been matched in any piece of Western writing.

You’ll leave behind you all you hold most dear. And this will be the grievous arrow barb that exile, first of all, will shoot your way.

She appeared dressed in the most patrician of colors, a subdued and decorous crimson, her robe bound round and adorned in a style suitable to her years. At that very moment, and I speak the truth, the vital spirit, the one that dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that even the most minute veins of my body were strangely affected; and trembling, it spoke these words: “Here is a god stronger than I who comes to rule over me.