You know, Kaspar, said he, in conclusion, to the excited Almayer, "it is deucedly awkward to have a half-caste girl in the house.

The dramatist availed himself of the scholarship of his age — North's version of Plutarch, Holinshed's Chronicles, and much else — but he did not Tudorize history as we seem to want to Freudianize writing.

I have no materials — not a scrap.

As this sixth edition is published in 2011, it is exactly 25 years since the publication of the first edition in 1986. That, in itself, is a very sobering thought, for all kinds of reasons.