the more important worrying thing. Novels. It was extraordinary that he should. …
“I don’t care for novels. … I can’t see what they are about. They seem to be an endless fuss about nothing.”
“That may apply in certain cases. But it is a too extreme statement.”
“It is extreme. Why not? How can a statement be too extreme if it is true?”
“I cannot express an opinion on English novelistic writings. But of Tolstoy it is certainly not true. No ; it is not in general true that in fictional representations there is no actuality. I have read with my first English teacher in Moscow a story of your Myne-Reade. There was in this story a Scotch captain who remained for me most typical British. He was very fine this chap. This presentation here made me the more want what I have want always since a boy; to come to England.” Was Mayne Reade a novelist? Those boys’ stories were glorious. But they were about the sea; and the fifth form … “a noble three-bladed knife, minus the blades.” …