Murder! Surely murder--" "Not when treated as an art.

De Quincey wrote an essay on the subject.
If you'd read it, you'd know better than to mix up artistic murder with the commonplace assassinations of the ordinary burglar.

You might just as well say that Beethoven is the same sort of person as the Italian organ-grinder who plays abominable tunes under your window, in the hope of your giving him twopence to go away." "Nothing you've said so far," said the Major, "convinces me in the least that your identification of the lady is certain, or even likely to be right." "I knew you'd be sceptical.

You always are sceptical about anything the least out of the common; so while I was shaving this morning I arranged the evidence in such a way that you can't possibly escape from it.

In the first place, there are the portraits.