William Somerset Maugham

was a man of great size, two or three inches more than six feet high; but the most noticeable thing about him was a vast obesity. His paunch was of imposing dimensions. His face was large and fleshy

are the most matter-of-fact creature I have ever come across.'

I've never seen anyone with such a capacity for wretchedness as that man has. I don't think you can conceive how desperately he might suffer. Be very careful

'I cannot imagine that, however much I lived in Eastern countries, I could believe anything that had the whole weight of science against it. If there were a word of truth in anything Haddo says, we should be unable to form any reasonable theory of the universe.'

Silly ass!' answered Arthur with emphasis.

a plain, practical man,

I had not yet learnt how contradictory is human nature; I did not know how much pose there is in the sincere, how much baseness in the noble, nor how much goodness in the reprobate.

"You are a most unmitigated cad."
"Now that you've got that off your chest, let's go and have dinner."

But the fear of not being able to carry it through effectively has always made me shy of assuming the moral attitude; and in this case the certainty that my sentiments would be lost on Strickland made it peculiarly embarrassing to utter them.

But though he said nothing of any consequence, there was something in his personality which prevented him from being dull. Perhaps it was sincerity.