Setting ... Is Accident. Either A Building

One Summer Evening In The Year 1848, Three Cardinals And A Missionary Were Dining Together In The Gardens Of A Villa In The Sabine Hills, Overlooking Rome.

Yet The Summer Which Was To Change Everything Was Coming Nearer Every Day. When Boys And Girls Are Growing Up, Life Can't Stand Still, Not Even In The Quietest Of Country Towns; And They Have To Grow Up, Whether They Will Or No. That Is What Their Elders Are Always Forgetting.

Every Individual Taste, Every Natural Appetite, Was Bridled By Caution. The People Asleep In Those Houses, I Thought, Tried To Live Like The Mice In Their Own Kitchens; To Make No Noise, To Leave No Trace, To Slip Over The Surface Of Things In The Dark.

Too Much Information Is Rather Deadening.

Paris Is A Hard Place To Leave, Even When It Rains Incessantly And One Coughs Continually From The Dampness.