Excellence Does Not Require Perfection.

No Sovereign, No Court, No Personal Loyalty, No Aristocracy, No Church, No Clergy, No Army, No Diplomatic Service, No Country Gentlemen, No Palaces, No Castles, Nor Manors, Nor Old Country-houses, Nor Parsonages, Nor Thatched Cottages Nor Ivied Ruins No Cathedrals, Nor Abbeys, Nor Little Norman Churches No Great Universities Nor Public Schools -- No Oxford, Nor Eton, Nor Harrow No Literature, No Novels, No Museums, No Pictures, No Political Society, No Sporting Class -- No Epsom Nor Ascot Some Such List As That Might Be Drawn Up Of The Absent Things In American Life.

The Story Had Held Us, Round The Fire, Sufficiently Breathless, But Except The Obvious Remark That It Was Gruesome, As, On Christmas Eve In An Old House, A Strange Tale Should Essentially Be . . .

Every Governmental Institution Has Been A Standing Testimony To The Harmonic Destiny Of Society, A Standing Proof That The Life Of Man Is Destined For Peace And Amity, Instead Of Disorder And Contention.

I've Struck Up A Tremendous Intimacy With Conte Alberto, And We Literally Can't Live Without Each Other. He Is The First Object My Eyes Greet In The Morning, And The Last At Night.

The Advantage, The Luxury, As Well As The Torment And Responsibility Of The Novelist, Is That There Is No Limit To What He May Attempt As An Executant - No Limit To His Possible Experiments, Efforts, Discoveries, Successes.