If I had to put the recipe for genius into one sentence, that might be it: to have a disinterested obsession with something that matters.

Burke’s admonition–“The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: We ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations”–never seems to have occurred to...

The first and last weakness of his life, before him again. For a moment he felt himself blinded by his own memories; his own remembrances of the wits and wiles of Marian Halcombe that would...