The commonplaces of life never opened up new worlds nor established them after; the prose of life never served as a song of progress.

Never a great onward movement but was called impossible.

The things that the sane-and-safe gentleman accepts as good sense are not the things that make for growth, anywhere.

And the principle, applied to lesser things, holds good.

Who wants to study a city's life through the registries of its civic diseases or cures?
We want its romances, its exceptions, its absurdities, its adventures.