Doesn't the devil live forever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see any person wearing mourning for the devil? - Herman Melville

Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeve of my frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.

But the might-have-been is but boggy ground to build upon.

The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction can not so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges...