[of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones] [it is] like a vast episode in a sermon preached by a grandly humorous divine; and however we may be entertained by t… - Henry James

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child.

I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did.

...Wherever we go we carry this burden of our personal consciousness and wherever we step we open it out over our heads like a great baleful cotton umbrella to obstruct the prospect and obscure the light of heaven.