When I proclaim that my adored mistress’s hair reminds me of gold I am quite consciously lying. It looks like yellow hair, and nothing else: nor would I willingly venture within ten feet of any woman whose head sprouted with wires, of whatever metal. And to protest that her eyes are as grey and fathomless as the sea is very well also, and the sort of thing which seems expected of me: but imagine how horrific would be puddles of water slopping about in a lady’s eye-sockets! If we poets could actually behold the monsters we rhyme of, we would scream and run.

Anaitis showed him Ogygia, and Tryphême, and Sudarsana, and the Fortunate Islands, and Æaea, and Caer-Is, and Invallis, and the Hesperides, and Meropis, and Planasia, and Uttarra, and Avalon, and Tir-nam-Beo, and Thelême, and a number of other lands to enter which men have desired: and Jurgen groaned.
“I am ashamed of my fellows,” says he: “ for it appears their notion of felicity is to dwell eternally in a glorified brothel. I do not think that as a self-respecting young Prince I would care to inhabit any of these earthly paradises, for were there nothing else, I would always be looking for an invasion by the police.”