Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales Quotes

“The maintenance of secrecy in the matter, the confining all knowledge of it for a time to the place where the homicide occurred, the quarter-deck cabin; in these particulars lurked some resemblance to the policy adopted in those tragedies of the palace which have occurred more than once in the capital founded by Peter the Barbarian.”
― Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor and Selected Tales