What excites and interests the looker-on at life, what the romances and the statues celebrate, and the grim civic monuments remind us of, is the everlasting battle of the powers of light with those of darkness; with heroism reduced to its bare chance, yet ever and anon snatching victory from the jaws of death.

On Some of Life's Ideals: On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings; What Makes a Life Significant (ed. 1900)