Hilda hated gossip, and took refuge in generalities.

In three minutes the talk had wandered off to Ibsen's influence on the English drama, and we had forgotten the very existence of the Isle of Ushant.
"The English public will never understand Ibsen," the newcomer said, reflectively, with the omniscient air of the Indian civilian.

"He is too purely Scandinavian.

He represents that part of the Continental mind which is farthest removed from the English temperament.

To him, respectability--our god--is not only no fetish, it is the unspeakable thing, the Moabitish abomination.