“One of the hardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put upon the powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity for explanations of every natural act.”
“Sensitive and even resentful, I tried to make my novel answer all this nonsense. A thing the novel tried to say was that in the matter of human character the people of such an out-of-the-way midland village were as estimable as any others anywhere. . . . This, in my sensitive young fervor, was my emotional tribute to the land of my birth.”
