Before we come to any theoretic or logical beginnings I am content to allow for that personal equation; I have always been more inclined to believe the ruck of hard-working people than to believe that special and troublesome literary class to which I belong.

I prefer even the fancies and prejudices of the people who see life from the inside to the clearest demonstrations of the people who see life from the outside.

I would always trust the old wives' fables against the old maids' facts.

As long as wit is mother wit it can be as wild as it pleases.
Now, I have to put together a general position, and I pretend to no training in such things.

I propose to do it, therefore, by writing down one after another the three or four fundamental ideas which I have found for myself, pretty much in the way that I found them.