London Has Always Provided The Landscape For

The Endless Chatter Of This Journey Had Wearied Me.

I Have Liv'd Long Enough For Others, Like The Dog In The Wheel, And It Is Now The Season To Begin For Myself: I Cannot Change That Thing Call'd Time, But I Can Alter Its Posture And, As Boys Do Turn A Looking-glass Against The Sunne, So I Will Dazzle You All.

Why Should A Novelist Not Also Be A Historian? To Force Unnatural Divisions Within The English Language Is To Work Against Its Capacious And Accommodating Nature. To Expect A Writer To Produce Only Novels, Or Only Histories, Is Equivalent To Demanding From A Composer That He Or She Write Only String Quartets Or Piano Sonatas.

The English Have Always Been Greedy For News Of Times Past, With That Mixture Of Fatalism And Melancholy Which Is Part Of The National Character.

There Are Certain People Who Seem Doomed To Buy Certain Houses. The House Expects Them. It Waits For Them.