Writers were a strange sort; I knew that much from the newspapers.

From the plough to paper, from the wheel to house, from tool handles to sailing ships. Man would have been nothing without trees.

After all, it was only a story,' I said, determined to prove her wrong. 'All manner of terrible things may happen in a story. They may be startling at the time, but it passes. One gets caught up in the narrative, but the dangers aren't real, are they? Things happen in any way the storyteller chooses. It is all just made up.

Just because something is told as a story and that story is part legend or myth, or feat of imagination, does not mean there is no truth in it.

Writers were a strange sort; I knew that much from the newspapers.