Such a set of tittle tattle, prittle prattle visitants! Oh Dear! I am so sick of the ceremony and fuss of these fall lall people! ...So much dressing--chitchat--complimentary nonsense--In short, a country town is my detestation. All the conversation is scandal, all the attention, dress, and almost all the heart, folly, envy, and censoriousness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When looking over a list of men's names in a foreign language, as of military officers, or of authors who have written on a partic...ular subject, I am reminded once more that there is nothing in a name.... It is as if they had been named by the child's rigmarole, Iery wiery ichery van, tittle-tol-tan. I see in my mind a herd of wild creatures swarming over the earth, and to each the herdsman has affixed some barbarous sound in his own dialect. The names of men are, of course, as cheap and meaningless as Bose and Tray, the names of dogs.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I hate to paint portraits! I hope never to paint another portrait in my life.... Portraiture may be all right for a man in his you...th, but after forty I believe that manual dexterity deserts one, and, besides, the colour-sense is less acute. Youth can better stand the exactions of a personal kind that are inseparable from portraiture. I have had enough of it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »