"If men were all home-keepers it would be a prosaic world." "Can you talk of the prosaic and Etterick in the same breath?
Besides, it is the old fallacy of man that the domestic excludes the heroic," said Alice, fighting for the privileges of her sex.
"But then, you know, there comes a thing they call the go-fever, which is not amenable to reason.

People who have it badly do not care a straw for a place in itself; all they want is to be eternally moving from one spot to another." "And you ?" "Oh, I am not a sufferer yet, but I walk in fear, for at any moment it may beset me." And, laughing, he climbed up beside her.
It may be true that the last subject of which a man tires is himself, but Lewis Haystoun in this matter must have been distinct from the common run of men.

Alice had given him excellent opportunities for egotism, but the blind young man had not taken them.

The girl, having been brought up to a very simple and natural conception of talk, thought no more about it, except that she would have liked so great a traveller to speak more generously.

No doubt, after all, this reticence was preferable to self-revelation.