No author, I think, is deserving of much censure for vanity if, taking down one of his ten-year-old books, he exclaims: "Great heavens, did I write a… - Ford Madox Ford

I know nothing - nothing in the world - of the hearts of men. I only know that I am alone - horribly alone.

But, even with all her differences, Mrs. Basil did not appear to Lenora to differ so very much from herself. She was truthful, honest and, for the rest, just a woman. And Lenora had a vague sort of idea that, to a man, all women are the same after three weeks of close intercourse.

Is the whole thing a folly and a mockery? Am I no better than a eunuch or is the proper man — the man with the right to existence — a raging stallion forever neighing after his neighbor’s womankind? I don't know. And there is nothing to guide us. And if everything is so nebulous about a matter so elementary as the morals of sex, what is there to guide us in the more subtle morality of all other personal contacts, associations, and activities?