Men Prominent In Life Are Mostly Hard

People Are Either Born Hosts Or Born Guests.

Not That I Had Any Special Reason For Hating School. Strange As It May Seem To My Readers, I Was Not Unpopular There. I Was A Modest, Good-humoured Boy. It Is Oxford That Has Made Me Insufferable.

Admiration Involves A Glorious Obliquity Of Vision.

It Distresses Me, This Failure To Keep Pace With The Leaders Of Thought, As They Pass Into Oblivion.

Few, As I Have Said, Are The Humorists Who Can Induce This State. To Master And Dissolve Us, To Give Us The Joy Of Being Worn Down And Tired Out With Laughter, Is A Success To Be Won By No Man Save In Virtue Of A Rare Staying-power. Laughter Becomes Extreme Only If It Be Consecutive. There Must Be No Pauses For Recovery. Touch-and-go Humour, However Happy, Is Not Enough. The Jester Must Be Able To Grapple His Theme And Hang On To It, Twisting It This Way And That, And Making It Yield Magically All Manner Of Strange And Precious Things.