Utterly devoid as it was of literary finish or discerning craftsmanship, the book gripped from the start by sheer audacity--by its dominant, insistent, almost brutal and entirely misdirected power.

It was less the story that struck one than the personal equation between the lines, and the impression she brought away from her breathless skimming was that she had encountered the shock of a tremendous masculine force.
Her head fell back upon the cushions, and she lost herself in the vague wonder the book aroused.

Life was there--the life of the flesh, of vivid sensation, of experience that ran hot and swift.

The active principle, so strong in the predestined artist, stirred suddenly in her breast, and she felt the instant of blind terror which comes with the realisation of the fleeting possibilities of earth.

Outside--beyond her--existence in its multitudinous forms, its diversity of colour, swept on like some vast caravan from which she had been detached and set apart.