What influenced my decision most were the obscure promptings of that pagan residuum of awe and wonder which lurks still at the bottom of our old humanity.
"Victory" was the last word I had written in peace-time.

It was the last literary thought which had occurred to me before the doors of the Temple of Janus flying open with a crash shook the minds, the hearts, the consciences of men all over the world.

Such coincidence could not be treated lightly.

And I made up my mind to let the word stand, in the same hopeful spirit in which some simple citizen of Old Rome would have "accepted the Omen." The second point on which I wish to offer a remark is the existence (in the novel) of a person named Schomberg.
That I believe him to be true goes without saying.

I am not likely to offer pinchbeck wares to my public consciously.