Not that, when he sometimes discussed the writing of it with me,
I was in sympathy with it. I was not. We always were truthful to
each other.

But when a giant molds a lump of clay into tremendous masses,
lesser men become confused by the huge contours, the vast
distances, the terrific spaces, the majestic scope of the
ensemble. So I. But he went on about his business.

I do not know what the public may think of "Susan Lenox." I
scarcely know what I think.

It is a terrible book--terrible and true and beautiful.

Under the depths there are unspeakable things that writhe. His
plumb-line touches them and they squirm. He bends his head from
the clouds to do it. Is it worth doing? I don't know.

But this I do know--that within the range of all fiction of all
lands and of all times no character has so overwhelmed me as the
character of Susan Lenox.

She is as real as life and as unreal. She is Life. Hers was the
concentrated nobility of Heaven and Hell. And the divinity of
the one and the tragedy of the other. For she had known
both--this girl--the most pathetic, the most human, the most
honest character ever drawn by an American writer.

In the presence of his last work, so overwhelming, so