Excerpt from Houses of Glass: A Philosophical Roma

In endeavouring to frame in fiction a little of the philosophy of every day life, I would crave the reader's indulgence upon the methods I have employed.

In a task of this kind, I felt that I could best serve the cause, not by startling events and striking characters, but by a closer analysis of those conditions and occurrences, which form the warp and woof of life.

Believing, that truth after all, is stranger than fiction, I have not gone afield for highly coloured heroes and villains, but have taken characters from real life - men and women, with all their faults and imperfections.

Venturing thus on the uncertain sea of public opinion, I have no guiding star but my own conscience, no compass but my own experience, and no excuse but the importance of my theme.

From the cradle to the grave there is no step fraught with such momentous consequences to ourselves and to posterity, as the joining of our hands in holy wedlock. In these days of divorce, when incompatibility of temperament and dissimilarity of religious faith are legitimate pleas for the severing of sacred ties, it behoves us to cultivate more fully the spirit of benevolence and charity. The frequency with which "lack of affinity" is brought forward, points clearly to the duty of investigating the magnetic relations of the sexes.

We cannot surely show greater respect for the laws of society than by endeavouring to harmonize them with the laws of nature.

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