Ashenden: or, The British Agent

"What you want in this country is a little less art and a little more civilisation."

She was immensely patriotic, but like many patriots she had an impression that her own aggrandisement tended to the good of her country.

She had a passion for intrigue and a desire for power

His manners were exquisite, formal, a trifle elaborate perhaps (there is no harm in that, for good manners are the product of an artificial state of society and so can bear a touch of the powdered wig and the lace ruffle), but though natural to his good breeding they gained a pleasant significance from his good heart.

Just as the advantage of culture is that it enables you to talk nonsense with distinction, so the habit of luxury allows you to regard its frills and furbelows with a proper contumely.

He read again with delight Rousseau's Confessions, and for the second or third time tried in vain to get on with La Nouvelle Héloïse.

Naples. Of course there was the Villa, the great leafy garden facing the bay in which stood the aquarium

. Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, but misfortune cannot last for ever. The time is ripe and soon we shall strike our blow."

These men were even stupider than he thought; but Ashenden had always a soft corner in his heart for the stupid and now he looked upon them with a feeling of unexpected kindliness.

You had a feeling in that black and bitter night that civilisation, ashamed of its artificiality, cowered before the fury of elemental things.