The Dweller on the Threshold

“lifted his cup, and drank the rest of his coffee. "May I have another cup?" he said. "It's excellent." The coffee-pot was on the table. Chichester poured out some more. "I will have another cup, too," he said. "How it wakes up the mind.””

— Robert Hichens

“the soldiers starting out vaguely from barracks, not knowing what to do, but free for a time, and hoping, a little heavily, for some adventure to break the military monotony of their lives; the shopgirls, also in hope of something to "take them out of themselves"”

— Robert Hichens

“in the evening rain fell with a gentle persistence. Blank grayness took the town. A breath as of deep autumn was in the air. And the strange sadness of cities, which is like no other sadness, held the spirit of Evelyn Malling as he walked under an umbrella in the direction of Kensington High Street.””

— Robert Hichens

“It is one of the curses of the Church," continued Chichester, "this passion for authority, for ruling, for having all men under one's feet as it were.””

— Robert Hichens

“Evidently Mr. Harding had attractive powers, and Malling began to wonder whether he would have any difficulty in obtaining the seat he wanted, in some corner from which he could get a good view both of the chancel and the pulpit. Were vergers "bribable"? What an ignoramus he was about church matters!””

— Robert Hichens

“The sadness noted by Malling was at first evasive and fleeting, not indellibly fixed in the puckers of a forehead, or in the down-drawn corners of a mouth. It was as a thin, almost impalpable mist, that can scarcely be seen, yet that alters all the features in a landscape ever so faintly.””

— Robert Hichens