You will have to take to violence, to contortions, to romanticism, in self-defense.

This sort of thing is like a man trying to lift himself up by the seat of his trousers.

He may stand on tiptoe, but he can't do more.

Here you stand on tiptoe, very gracefully, I admit; but you can't fly; there 's no use trying." "My 'America' shall answer you!" said Roderick, shaking toward him a tall glass of champagne and drinking it down.
Singleton had taken the photograph and was poring over it with a little murmur of delight.
"Was this done in America ?" he asked.
"In a square white wooden house at Northampton, Massachusetts," Roderick answered.
"Dear old white wooden houses!" said Miss Blanchard.
"If you could do as well as this there," said Singleton, blushing and smiling, "one might say that really you had only to lose by coming to Rome." "Mallet is to blame for that," said Roderick.

"But I am willing to risk the loss." The photograph had been passed to Madame Grandoni.