The Razor's Edge

e would be delighted when he had got for me something I fancied for half the asking price. It was a treat to watch him bargain. He would argue, cajole, lose his temper, appeal to the seller's better nature, ridicule him, point out the defects of the object in question, threaten never to cross his threshold again, sigh, shrug his shoulders, admonish, start for the door in frowning anger, and when finally he had won his point shake his head sadly as though he accepted defeat with resignation. Then he would whisper to me in English.

'Take it with you. It would be cheap at double the money.'

They were afraid he was a snob. And of course he was. He was a colossal snob. He was a snob without shame. He would put up with any affront, he would ignore any rebuff, he would swallow any rudeness to get asked to a party he wanted to go to or to make a connexion with some crusty old dowager of great name.

Watteau, Fragonard, Claude Lorraine

Nous autres Americains, we Americans,' he said, 'like change. It is at once our weakness and our strength.'

Nous autres Americain

I can only admire the radiance of such a rare creature, I cannot step into his shoes and enter into his inmost heart as I sometimes think I can do with persons more nearly allied to the common run of men

The multitudinous gods of India are but expedients to lead to the realization that the self is one with the supreme self.

The Indians wouldn’t speak of an accident. They would answer that it’s your actions in previous lives that have determined your soul to inhabit an imperfect body.”

After all, he created men, if he so created them that it was possible for them to sin, it was because he willed it. If I trained a dog to fly at the throat of any stranger who came into my back yard, it wouldn’t be fair to beat him when he did so.

It was hard for me to believe that God thought much of a man who tried to wangle salvation by fulsome flattery