"If I could tell you, I would.

But it's an enormous canvas.

I could give you no idea--" The furrow deepened between his brows--"If I told you the scheme you would get about the same dramatic impression as if you read, say, the letter R, in a dictionary.

I'm putting into this novel," he flickered his fingers in front of me--"everything that ever happened in human life." I regarded him in some wonder.
"My dear fellow," said I, "you can't compress a Liebig's Extract of Existence between the covers of a six-shilling novel." "I can," said he, "I can!" He thumped my writing table, so that all the loose brass and glass on it rattled.

"And by God! I'm going to do it." "But, my dearest friend," I expostulated, "this is absurd.