But I am a just man, even to my enemy - and I will acknowledge, beforehand, that they are cleverer brains than I thought them

I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of work of fiction should be to tell a story.

But I am a just man, even to my enemy - and I will acknowledge, beforehand, that they are cleverer brains than I thought them

Habits of literary composition are perfectly familiar to me. One of the rarest of all the intellectual accomplishments that a man can possess is the grand faculty of arranging his ideas. Immense privilege! I possess it. Do you?

Where is the woman who has ever really torn from her heart the image that has been once fixed in it by a true love? Books tell us that such unearthly creatures have existed - but what does our own experiences say in answer to books?

This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.

The horrid mystery hanging over us in this house gets into my head like liquor, and makes me wild.