Assaults of neighbours

John Addington Symonds & Phyllis Grosskurth (ed.), The memoirs of John Addington Symonds, New York, Random House, 1984, p. 247.

This is the way with all of us who, like the caddis worm, build houses around them, Men of a different stamp follow the ways of the hermit crab, and creep into solid shells which shelter against the sea and assaults of neighbours.

J