"True to life" Quotes from Famous Books
... The Eugenist, for all I know, would regard the mere existence of Tiny Tim as a sufficient reason for massacring the whole family of Cratchit; but, as a matter of fact, we have here a very good instance of how much more practically true to life is sentiment than cynicism. The poor are not a race or even a type. It is senseless to talk about breeding them; for they are not a breed. They are, in cold fact, what Dickens describes: "a dustbin of individual accidents," of damaged dignity, and often ... — Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... sure that if I had not met you, I could have loved nobody as I love you. Yet it is very likely that I should have loved—sufficiently, as the way of the world goes. It is not a romantic confession, but it is true to life: I do so genuinely like most of my fellow-creatures, and am not happy except where shoulders rub socially:—that is to say, have not until now been happy, except dependently on the company and smiles of others. Now, Beloved, I have none of your company, and have ... — An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... high-class outline pictures the artists have caught the true spirit of Lincoln's humor, and while showing the laughable side of many incidents in his career, they are true to life in the ... — Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... things in scores of novels, and hundreds of actual experiences had told him that they were true to life. Thousands of women, at this solemn afternoon hour, were sitting behind dainty porcelain and silver fittings, with their voices tinkling pleasantly in a cascade of solicitous little questions. Cushat-Prinkly detested the ... — The Toys of Peace • Saki
... a rupture—a rupture which is sometimes violent, sometimes gentle, but which is never altogether good-natured. Then also, as usual in such cases, each went a separate way—the eternal ending, which is always prosaic, because it is true to life. But the one thing that distinguishes Jean's liaison from the usual affair is the truly admirable character of the ... — A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... may seem strange to the Western reader; but it is true to life. The whole of the scene is characteristically Japanese. (2) The invocation Namu Amida Butsu! ("Hail to the Buddha Amitabha!"),—repeated, as a prayer, for ... — In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... real horse, but a particular one. The bourgeois claps his hands exclaiming, "See it is unmistakably old Dobbin, the white spot on his fetlock is there and his tail ragged on the end; and the laborer, I know him at once. How true to life with side whiskers and that ugly cut across the forehead and his hat with the hole in it. The field too is all there, the stones, the weeds, the rows of stubble, nothing slighted. And the action of the light too, what a relief the figures possess, ... — Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... absorbing tale of a great air flight around the world, of adventures in Alaska, Siberia and elsewhere. A true to life picture of what may be accomplished in ... — Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... unusual, the improbable, the highly colored in Charlotte Bronte's books we shall say little. In criticizing works so true to life and nature as these, one should not be hasty. We feel the presence of a seer. Some one once made an objection in Charlotte Bronte's presence to that part of 'Jane Eyre' in which she hears Rochester's voice calling to her ... — Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... with their own country, no roots in the Russian soil. They hardly knew the Russian people, who appeared to them as nothing more than an historic abstraction. They were really cosmopolitan, as a poor makeshift for something better, and Turgenev, in making his hero die on a French barricade, was true to life as ... — Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... seems that critics must know better than me (or should I say "I?"). Perhaps they have reason. Perhaps we shall end in a monotony of grayness like the books these wise men and women praise for "the realism." Or we shall fall down, down, in tragedy?—for that, it seems, can also be true to life; only just the happy things are not true. Yet at present let us live joyously for a little while as in one of those dear books we read in secret at school: books of ... — The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... clue to the time when this was written. It is imperfect: the second verse is not complete in the copy. But is it not true to life so far as earthly hope is concerned? Of "the hope of the gospel" our songstress ... — Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... Rougons' yellow drawing-room and its habitues, and many of the scenes between Pierre Rougon and his wife Felicite, are worthy of the pen of Douglas Jerrold. The whole account, indeed, of the town of Plassans, its customs and its notabilities, is satire of the most effective kind, because it is satire true to life, and never ... — The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... did not see the altogether classic quality of this technique without bitumen, without glazing, without tricks; of this vibrating colour; of this rich paint; of this passionate design so suitable for expressing movement and gestures true to life; of this simple composition where the whole picture is based upon two or three values with the straightforwardness one admires in Rubens, Jordaens ... — The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... before you; of the latter you may say that the artist has striven to paint the soul rather than the body. Well, I think it is fair to call Jane Eyre symbolical. Some of the people depicted are very true to life. The old, comfortable, good-humoured housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax; Bessie the nursemaid; Adele, the little French girl, Mr. Rochester's ward; the two Rivers sisters—they are admirable portraits. But Mr. Rochester, the haughty Baroness Ingram of Ingram Park, Miss Ingram, ... — The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... [FN148] Another instance, and true to life, of the democracy of despotism in which the express and combined will of the people is the only absolute law. Hence Russian autocracy is forced into repeated wars for the possession of Constantinople which, in the ... — The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... him by the lapel, "would you have accepted 'The Alarum of the Soul' if you had believed that the actions and words of the characters were true to life in the parts of the story that ... — Strictly Business • O. Henry
... among the crowd of abject ones, but the insignificant Jew became important when pointed out. If he had bowed, he would have been one more nobody, but his not bowing made him somebody who had to be crushed. The childish burst of passion is very characteristic, and not less true to life is the extension of the anger and thirst for vengeance to 'all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.' They were 'the people of Mordecai,' and that was enough. 'He thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone.' ... — Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 'God Wills It,' by William Stearns Davis. It grips the attention of the reader in the first chapter and holds it till the last.... It is a story of strenuous life, the spirit of which might well be applied in some of our modern Crusades. While true to life in its local coloring, it is sweet and pure, and leaves no after-taste of bitterness. The author's first book, 'A Friend of Caesar,' revealed his power, and 'God Wills It' confirms and deepens the impression made."—Christian ... — A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... mild predecessor, with his dying breath, forgave. The sayings of celestial wisdom have no date; the words that reach us, over two thousand years, out of the darkest hour of gloom the world has ever known, are true to life to-day: "They know not what they do." The blow struck at our dear friend and ruler was as deadly as blind hate could make it; but the blow struck at ... — The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... likely to offer pinchbeck wares to my public consciously. Schomberg is an old member of my company. A very subordinate personage in Lord Jim as far back as the year 1899, he became notably active in a certain short story of mine published in 1902. Here he appears in a still larger part, true to life (I hope), but also true to himself. Only, in this instance, his deeper passions come into play, and thus his grotesque psychology ... — Victory • Joseph Conrad
... my best—indeed my only—friend in this city, when every editor, publisher, and critic has given me the frozen mitt. Of course I know why ... the author of 'Vermin' deserves not, nor wants, their hypocritical help. The book was too true to life to please the bourgeois and yet not ribald enough to tickle the prurient. I had a vile pornographic publisher after me the other day; he said if I would rub up some of the earlier chapters and inject a little more spice he ... — Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... of those unconsciously successful men who are so simply true to life and life's laws that the world joyously meets them halfway. And then too his was ... — Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... akin to &c. (consanguineous) 1 1. approximate, much the same, near, close, something like, sort of, in the ballpark, such like; a show of; mock, pseudo, simulating, representing. exact &c. (true) 494; lifelike, faithful; true to nature, true to life, the very image, the very picture of; for all the world like, comme deux gouttes d'eau[Fr]; as like as two peas in a pod, as like as it can stare; instar omnium[Lat], cast in the same mold, ridiculously ... — Roget's Thesaurus
... only then, when I read them in his pages, that I could enjoy them; when it was I myself who composed them, in my anxiety that they should exactly reproduce what I seemed to have detected in my mind, and in my fear of their not turning out 'true to life,' I had no time to ask myself whether what I was writing would be pleasant to read! But indeed there was no kind of language, no kind of ideas which I really liked, except these. My feverish and unsatisfactory ... — Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... called lecturing an art, and why not? If the hand that paints a picture true to life and pleasing to the eye, is the hand of an artist, why is not the tongue that paints a picture true to life and pleasing to the mind's eye ... — Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... merely for the excitement in the tale, for the effect it has upon their naturally vivid imaginations. If they are led to think, to analyze, their intelligence will quickly call for something more substantial, more nearly true to life. ... — Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... incorrect; for, inasmuch as the story or circumstance of the parable must be simple and indeed common-place, it may be real. There is no fiction in the parables we have thus far studied; the fundamental stories are true to life and the given circumstances are facts of experience. The narrative or incident upon which a parable is constructed may be an actual occurrence or fiction; but, if fictitious, the story must be consistent and probable, with no admixture of the unusual or miraculous. ... — Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... began a discussion in her hearing about books with another gentleman who was staying in the house, and in the course of it he happened to praise "Roderick Random" and "Tom Jones" eloquently. He said they were superior in their own line to anything which the present day has produced. "They are true to life in every particular," he maintained, "and not only to the life of those times, but of all time. In fact, you feel as you read that it is not fiction, but human nature itself that you are studying; and there is an education in ... — The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... pleasant sitting the whole of Mr. FRANK SWINNERTON'S Nocturne (SECKER). I don't quite know (and I don't see how the author can quite know) whether his portraits of pretty self-willed Jenny and plain love-hungry Emmy, the daughters of the superannuated iron-moulder, are true to life, but they are extraordinarily plausible. Not a word or a mood or a move in the inter-play of five characters in four hours of a single night, the two girls and "Pa," and Alf and Keith, the sailor and almost ... — Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, August 1, 1917. • Various
... whose life embraced the first eighty years of the fifteenth century, offers in many important respects a contrast to his contemporaries Ghiberti and Donatello, and still more to their immediate followers. He made his art as true to life as it is possible to be, without the rugged realism of Donatello or the somewhat effeminate graces of Ghiberti. The charm of his work is never impaired by scientific mannerism—that stumbling-block ... — Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... Joe and Turveydrop in Bleak House, and Paul Dombey, young as they were, show the beginning of the pubescent change. Most of his characters, however, are so overdrawn and caricatured as to be hardly true to life.[40] ... — Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... many patient Jewish ploughmen, many laborious Jewish blacksmiths, many active Jewish hedgers and ditchers, or even many energetic Jewish hunters and fishermen. In short, the popular impression is tolerably true to life, as popular impressions very often are; though it is not fashionable to say so in these days of democracy and self-determination. Jews do not generally work on the land, or in any of the handicrafts that are akin to the land; but the Zionists ... — The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... alive the tradition of Ireland as a country in which Laughter has frequent occasion to hold both his sides. She surpasses the others in the quality of her comedy, however. Not that she is more comic, but that she is more comprehensively true to life. Mr. Birmingham has given us farce with a salt of reality; Miss Somerville and Miss Ross, practical jokers of literature, turned to reality as upper-class patrons of the comic; but Lady Gregory ... — Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... that Valeria H. Montague's stories are silly and not true to life, so that is no argument," retorted Felicity, who knew more about cooking than about history, and evidently imagined that the Lady Jane Gray was one of ... — The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... story of the springtime is very sweet. The descriptions are true to life, and as I read on and on, I behold the exquisite beauties of your character, for as you so lovingly and simply tell of the birds, the flowers, the brook and the mist enshrouding the lowing kine, you artlessly sound the great ... — Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... like the French," Dan chimed in. "We have no literature at all now. Look at their work compared to ours, how short, crisp, and incisive it is! How true to life! A Frenchman will give you more real life in a hundred pages than our men do ... — The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... the mere man of learning. The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the color perfectly harmonized; it is true to life. On the other hand, the intellectual attainments of the mere man of learning are like a large palette, full of all sorts of colors, which at most are systematically arranged, but devoid ... — The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... characterization and proceeding from the inside first. This variation goes to the extent of distinguishing influences of the soil as well as of social grade and temperament. His northerners speak and act otherwise than those of the south or west, and, in the main, are true to life, despite the author's perceptible satire ... — Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... the actions and setting down the words, I have left the reader to judge my people; for I think many writers must feel as I do, that, if characters are at all true to life, there is just as much uncertainty as to how far they are to blame in any course that they may have taken as there is in the case of our ... — Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... series of stories is that they are absolutely true to life ... the photographic accuracy and minuteness displayed ... — Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... Weathersby you have a purely imaginary character, yet one true to life. A character chuck full of sunshine and rural simplicity. Take him as you find him, and in his experiences you will observe there is a bright side ... — Uncles Josh's Punkin Centre Stories • Cal Stewart
... giant and magician by the name of Beliagog, had granted him his life only upon condition that he would build a marvelous palace in the forest, and adorn it with paintings and sculptures, true to life, and representing all the different stages of his passion for Iseult of Cornwall. When his brother-in-law, therefore, asked why he seemed to find no pleasure in the society of his young wife, Tristan led ... — Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... present day, presenting in a new light the aims and objects of the Nihilists. The story is so vivid and true to life that it might easily be considered a history of political intrigue in Russia, disguised as a novel, while its startling incidents and strange denouement would only confirm the old adage that "truth ... — Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of practical familiarity with 'the institution,' and the sense of truth has inspired his pen in many passages with wonderful power. The terrible sufferings of an almost white man and slave as here portrayed, his revenge and punishment at the stake, are as moving as they are manifestly true to life. We commend this little pamphlet-poem to every friend of freedom, and sincerely trust that it will attain the large ... — Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... port he begins by pickin' out the most sickly fo'mast hand aboard, mashes him up, and then takes the next invalid. I got a book about that kind of a skipper out of our library down home a spell ago, and the librarian said 'twas awful popular. A strong story, she said, and true to life. Well, 'twas strong—you could pretty nigh smell it—but as for bein' true to life, I had my doubts. I've been to sea, command of a vessel, for a good many years, and sometimes I'd go weeks, whole weeks, without jumpin' up and down on ... — Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... killing of another player he left the stage and secured a commission in the army. He soon turned his attention to the writing of plays, and was responsible in all for eight comedies. He has left us some characters that are very humorous and at the same time true to life, such as Scrub the servant in The Beaux' Stratagem and Sergeant Kite in The Recruiting Officer. His Boniface, the landlord in the former of these two plays, has become the type, as well as the ordinary quasi-facetious nickname, of an innkeeper. He was advancing in his art, for his last ... — The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... beside her, rode a queer-looking little old man, with a long white beard, whose specialty was to eat glass tumblers, or at least chew them up. He also fought on his hands and knees with one of the dogs. His barking, growling and worrying were so true to life that the spectators could scarcely tell which was the dog and which the man. On the back seat was a gypsy fortune teller and a Wild Man, alleged to hail from the jungles of Borneo and to be so dangerous that two armed keepers had to guard him in order to prevent ... — A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... construction is often admirable: as in play of character upon character, in countless opportunities for delightful archness and cruelty in the women, for the display of every comic emotion in the men. He lived in the playhouse, and his characters, true to life though they be, have about them as it were an ideal essence of the boards. With Hazlitt, 'I would rather have seen Mrs. Abington's Millamant than any Rosalind that ever appeared on the stage.' A lover and a constant frequenter of the theatre—albeit the plays he sees bore ... — The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... myself made I saw that Mr. Lucas has some warrant for his statement. There has been only one Oliver Cromwell to say: "Paint me as I am." The rest of us humans prefer to have the wart omitted. If my photograph is true to life I don't want it. I'm going to send it away, and I don't want the folks who get it to think I look like that. If I were a woman and could wear a disguise of cosmetics when sitting for a picture the case might not be quite so ... — Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... and brilliance, but they want the crispness and tone of nature, the drawing also is sometimes defective. These observations equally apply to both these artists. The younger Dubuffe is rising rapidly in the estimation of artists. I have seen some portraits very true to life by Coignet, Roller, Laure, Rouilliard, and Vinchon; one of Sebastiani, by the latter, was quite nature itself. There are several very clever painters of marine subjects, amongst others Gudin and Isabey, and there is not any department which is more encouraged by the King and the government; ... — How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... that the first record was worn and old, the last one, fresh and new; but after examining both tapes under a glass, and seeing how equally clear cut and sharp the impressions all were, they agreed that the extraordinary voice they had heard was practically true to life. ... — The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... well written, so true to life, so instinct with quaint wisdom and quiet humour as to stand apart from the current fiction of the hour. There is a true savour of literature about it.... The story, simple and truthful, is as delightful as the people who figure in it. Mr. Vachell's book is one to get and to read, and, when ... — The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... if ever, have we seen or read anything which approaches the stories in this book for real, true depiction of character of the Southern darkey of the present day. They are full of humor and entertainment, and absolutely true to life both as to the incidents related, and the language used. The latter is so true, in fact, that our compositor who set the type for the book, said that he had never before seen anything ... — The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... possible sister-in-law," answered Albert with a touch of pride, "and the pictures were done by her from sketches I first made myself. They are true to life so far as all details go, only I failed to catch her expressive face in the one that shows a front view ... — Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... purchase a trio of hat-boxes, which, being of fashionable dimensions, would comfortably encircle her body. Fastened together so as to form a tube, covered with red sateen, and supported by scarlet-stockinged legs, the effect would be pleasingly true to life. ... — A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of the D'Urbevilles (published by Messrs. OSGOOD, MCILVAINE & CO.), Mr. THOMAS HARDY has given us a striking work of fiction, bold in design, and elaborate in finish. The characters, with one exception, are as true to life as are his graphic descriptions of nature's own scenery; true that is to the types of such rural life as he professes to represent,—the life led in our Christian country by thousands and thousands of genuine Pagans, superstitious Boeotians, with whom the schoolmaster can do but little, ... — Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 27, 1892 • Various
... True to life, our author furnishes the "great man," and the "odd habits," and the miserable years of "glorious" endurance. "Dorothea looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of Mr. Casaubon's mind, seeing reflected there every quality she herself brought." They exchanged experiences—he ... — The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... is true to life. It has been enacted and re-enacted in every one of the older communities ... — The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... the lives of all classes of the society of his day. When we look at them we live again in eighteenth-century London, and walk in streets known to fame though now destroyed, thronged with men and women, true to life. ... — The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... reader's taste should be offended by finding the tragic and comic elements in too close proximity I trust that he will bear in remembrance that "such is life," and that the writer who would be true to life ... — Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... my friend, Professor E. H. Palmer, translated this into Arabic, and promised me that it should be sung in the East. It is not much of a poem, even for a boy, but there is one touch true to life in it—which is the cursing. This must have come to me by revelation; and in after years in Cairo I never heard a native address another as "Afrit! Ya-hinzeer—wa Yahud—yin uldeen ak?"—"curse your religion!"—but I thought how ... — Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... "Miss Muffet," bowl in hand, ran away from an immense black spider, which waggled its long legs in a way so life-like that some of the children shook in their little shoes. The beggars who came to town were out in full force, "rags, tags, and velvet gowns," quite true to life. "Boy Blue" rubbed his eyes, with hay sticking in his hair, and tooted on a tin horn as if bound to get the cows out of the corn. Molly, with a long-handled frying-pan, made a capital "Queen," in a tucked-up gown, checked apron, and high crown, to good ... — Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... critic may wince and make faces over lapses from taste, and protest against a literary style which cannot be defended from any point of view; yet there is Mary in flesh and blood, and there is Caskoden, a veritable prig of a good fellow—there, indeed, are all the dramatis personae, not merely true to life, ... — When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... a love story, simple, tender and pretty as one would care to read. The action throughout is brisk and pleasing; the characters, it is apparent at once, are as true to life as though the author had known them all personally. Simple in all its situations, the story is worked up in that touching and quaint strain which never grows wearisome, no matter how often the lights and shadows of love are introduced. It rings true, and does not ... — Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... strengthened the notion that he belonged to the arts or to the professions. He might have been sitting before a canvas instead of a desk and holding a brush instead of a pen: the picture would have been true to life. Or truer yet, he might have taken his place with the grave group of students in the Lesson ... — Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... Paper of Tobacco,"[63] we extract the following humorous description of Yankee cigar smokers, which to a certain extent is true to life, but like most of the articles descriptive of American life by English Authors, who travel in America and write a book afterwards, it ... — Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... Sheppard's book lies in the fact that she is so true to life that we tire of the goodness and beauty, and long for a rogue to keep us company and break the pall of a ... — Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... not a great object in view. However, I do not intend this book to be more than a collection of notes that will be useful to me when I begin my novel. The novel is to be the work of my life, and I mean to use every talent I may have to make it unique and true to life. I think the New Woman novel is a thing of the past, and that the time has now come for a story of the old sort, yet written with a fidelity to life such as has never been attempted by the old novelists. A painter ... — Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... of Socrates in 399 disgusted Plato; democracy apparently was as intolerant as any other form of political creed. His writings are in a sense a vindication of the honesty of his master, although the picture he draws of him is not so true to life as that of Xenophon. The dialogues fall into two well-marked classes; in the earlier the method and inspiration is definitely Socratic, but in the later Socrates is a mere peg on which Plato hung his ... — Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... predatory type, I should think," she replied. "I'll bet it's true to life—the artist is too much of a fool to have created that expression," Stefan went on. "Jove, I should like to meet her, shouldn't you?" ... — The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... tell you the story of the mistake you made," she continued, as Trent, his hands clasped between his knees, still looked at her enigmatically. "You will have to believe it, Mr. Trent; it is so utterly true to life, with its confusions and hidden things and cross-purposes and perfectly natural mistakes that nobody thinks twice about taking for facts. Please understand that I don't blame you in the least, and never did, for jumping to the conclusion you did. You knew that I had no love for my husband, ... — The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley |