In the fourteenth century, the old English tie of retainership, similar to, but more liberal than that which had connected the thane and churl in earlier days, had replaced whatever of feudal relation the Norman Conquest had introduced […]

And then, as I say, in a fit of irritation he committed great-aunticide.

Such a scandal as the prosecution of a brother for forgery—with a verdict of guilty—is a most truly horrible, deplorable, fatal thing. It takes the respectability out of a family perhaps at a critical moment, when the family is just assuming the robes of respectability: […] it is a black spot which all the soaps ever advertised could never wash off.

gut reaction