An Afghan carpet is the same on any floor.

It is the foot that treads the carpet which makes one to differ from another.
Whether it be in Petersburg or Pekin, it still must be the human being that lends the interest to the still life around it.

A truce, therefore, to picturesque description--sour grapes to the present pen--of church and fort and river, with which the living persons of whom we tell have little or nothing to do.
Maggie was alone in the great drawing-room of the house at the end of the English Quay--alone and grave.

Some people, be it noted, are gravest when alone, and they are wise, for the world has too much gravity for us to go about it with a long face, making matters worse.

Let each of us be the centre of his own gravity.