Ernest Bramah

“ She could endure—nay, treasure—a Raoul reduced by valour to the mere truncation of a man, his features battered beyond recognition, but not one who, before her eyes, is slowly and insidiously passing into the identity of a despised and rejected suitor.
Besides, and here I am bound to confess Célestine touches on possibilities too delicate for my insular pen to probe; where, she demands, is the thing to end? Raoul is brave, rash and obviously unlucky. Jean is, one must admit even though one admits it with a shrug, plucky, devoted to his friend, and practically inexhaustible. ”

“ Any woman—certainly any Frenchwoman—will understand and will tender her a silent and respectful sympathy.
It is quite true that once more, in the calm atmosphere of her domestic round, Célestine's heart has begun to soften towards the absent warrior, but she is practical enough to be warned by experience. ”

“ The possibilities of operative surgery are, as we begin to see, illimitable. The war, at this critical point in the interlaced destinies of these three hapless beings, scarcely beyond its third year, is declared by the majority to be only just beginning, and while some predict a seven years' course for it, others, with just as formidable an artillery of argument, place its continuance at seventy times seven. Soon there must come a point at which Raoul will have become rather more Jean than Raoul and thenceforward he will, after each operation, become Jeanified with increasing momentum. ”