"To expect an author to talk as he writes is ridiculous; or even if he did you would find fault with him as a pedant."

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Certain I am that every author who has written a book with earnest forethought and fondly cherished designs will bear testimony to the fact that much which he meant to convey has never been guessed at in any review of his work; and many a delicate beauty of thought, on which he principally valued himself, remains, like the statue of Isis, an image of truth from which no hand lifts the veil.

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton