THE AUTHOR'S PURPOSE
When I think of my many false measurements that have resulted, after much anguish, in decent symmetries, I find the whole case a theme for the philosopher. The little ideas one wouldn't have treated save for the design of keeping them small, the developed situation that one would never with malice prepense have undertaken, the long stories that had thoroughly meant to be short, the short subjects that had underhandedly plotted to be long, the hypocrisy of modest beginnings, the audacity of misplaced middles, the triumph of intentions never entertained—with these patches, as I look about, I see my experience paved: an experience to which nothing is wanting save some grasp of its final lesson.
Occasionally it may happen that the central idea comes in a sort of miraculous flash, an inspiration, a dream, such as was the case with Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: "In the small hours of one morning," says Mrs. Stevenson, "I was awakened by cries of horror from Louis.
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