Saki

“ Oh, the wolves would be a sort of elusive undercurrent in the background that would never be satisfactorily explained. After all, life teems with things that have no earthly reason. And whenever the characters could think of nothing brilliant to say about marriage or the War Office, they could open a window and listen to the howling of the wolves. ”

“ She belonged to the Guild of the Poor Dear Souls, and they hold the record for having nearly reformed a washerwoman. No one has ever really reformed a washerwoman, and that is why the competition is so keen. You can rescue charwomen by fifties with a little tea and personal magnetism, but with washerwomen it’s different; wages are too high. ”

“ There you have the material for a tragedy drawn straight from life—and the piece could be called ‘The Price They Paid for Empire.’ And of course one would have to work in studies of the struggle of hereditary tendency against environment and all that sort of thing. The woman’s father could have been an Envoy to some of the smaller German Courts; that’s where she’d get her passion for visiting the poor, in spite of the most careful upbringing. C’est le premier pa qui compte, as the cuckoo said when it swallowed its foster-parent. That, I think, is quite clever.”
“And the wolves?” ”