Even as a coin attains its full value when it is spent, so life attains its supreme value when one knows how to forfeit it with grace when the time comes.
People, houses, streets, animals, flowers-everything in Holland looks as if it were washed and ironed each night in order to glisten immaculately and newly starched the next morning.
In Amsterdam the water is the mistress and the land the vassal. throughout the city there are as many canals and drawbridges as bracelets on a Gypsy's bronzed arms.
