A community of vices is a closer and more direct bond between human beings than a community of virtues. - Francis Marion Crawford

It is easier to bear suffering when one clearly understands all its causes, and distinguishes just how great a part of it is inevitable and how great a part may be avoided or mitigated.

Why must a novel-writer be either a “realist” or a “romantist”? And, if the latter, why “romanticist” any more than “realisticist”? Why should a good novel not combine romance and reality in just proportions? Is there any reason to suppose that the one element must necessarily shut out the other?

A novel is a marketable commodity, of the class collectively termed “luxuries,” as not contributing directly to the support of life or the maintenance of health. It is of the class "artistic luxuries" because it does not appeal to any of the three material senses — touch, taste, smell; and it is of the class "intellectual artistic luxuries,” because it is not judged by the superior senses — sight and hearing.