A novel with undoubted weaknesses, it is nevertheless a considerable achievement for a 22 year - George Gissing

For the man sound in body and serene in mind there is no such thing as bad weather, every day has its beauty and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.

This writer, who is horribly perspicacious and vigorous, demonstrates the certainty of a great European war, and regards it with the peculiar satisfaction excited by such things in a certain order of mind. His phrases about "dire calamity" and so on mean nothing; the whole tenor of his writing proves that he represents, and consciously, one of the forces which go to bring war about; his part in the business is a fluent irresponsibility, which casts scorn on all who reluct at the "inevitable." Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event.

Hear-break is a very old-fashioned disorder, associated with poverty of the brain.