The Buccaneers

once you’ve got the soot and the fog in your veins you simply can’t live without them

the fashions and follies of a society which had always ignored her. At least life in England had a background, layers and layers of rich deep background, of history, poetry, old traditional observances, beautiful houses, beautiful landscapes, beautiful ancient buildings, palaces, churches, cathedrals. Would it not be possible, in some mysterious way, to create for one’s self a life out of all this richness, a life which should somehow make up for the poverty of one’s personal lot?

was not the atmosphere of London but of England which had gradually filled her veins and penetrated to her heart. She thought of the thinness of the mental and moral air in her own home; the noisy quarrels about nothing, the paltry preoccupations, her mother’s feverish interest

Wherever the men are amused, fashion is bound to follow,”

I hate women who try to amuse me.”

Though he was not yet thirty, his life had been full of dramatic disturbances; indeed, to be the only son of Sir Helmsley Thwarte was in itself a potential drama

He preferred making a fortune to marrying one,

Guy had never learned to take his father’s tropical fits of rage without wincing.

with huddled village roofs and floating spires.

the young respect nothing and believe in nothing, l