H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ I lived innocently, I lived in a kind of dream. Men filled me with a kind of horror, when they looked at me in the streets I shuddered; I shudder still, and I wonder why God ever made such a blind and cruel thing as man. ”

“ I know now, oh, I know well why an animal crawls away and hides itself to die: though I am only twenty-three I know more about death than those Egyptians who have been shut up in pyramids alone with him for a thousand years. ”

“ There were Sinclairs in the time of King Charles who were great people at Court—you must accept the statement, for I cannot write much about this family of mine, the very thought of it fills me with a kind of horror. What would all those men with long flowing hair, those women with patches on their faces,—what would they say if they could see me, the last of their race, and could know what I have been? ”