his pages and to see my own youthful impressions reflected and
crystallized with the brilliance of genius in his stupendous mind.

Remember I, who write, am not thirty years old.

As a young man without experience I sometimes asked myself if some
spirit from another order of beings than my own had not been slipped
into my human carcase. It seemed to me that none with whom I came in
contact was built on, or near, my own pattern, for I had only met
one person as yet--my mother--who did not suffer from the malady of
a bad conscience. My father and his friends wallowed in this
complaint. They declared themselves openly to be miserable sinners
and apparently held that the one respectable attitude for humanity
at large. "Safety" was the only state to seek; "danger" the only
condition to avoid. A very cowardice of curs are the Cornish!

I soon found, however, that history abounded in great figures who
had thought and acted otherwise; and presently, in the light thrown
from the theatre of the past, I recognized myself for what I was.

In what is comprehended under the general and vague term of "crime,"
everything depends upon the values of the individual performer; and
again and again do we find that a criminal has struck before
counting the cost to himself, or considering the unsleeping
detectives, hidden in his own faulty heart and brain, who will
sooner or later discover and denounce him.

The man of conscience, the man capable of remorse, the man who
murders at the prompting of a temper uncontrolled--such will swiftly
learn that however well the deed is done, a thousand baffling