EBOOK Well-Beloved

The peninsula carved by Time out of a single stone, whereon most of the   following scenes are laid, has been for centuries immemorial the home of   a curious and well-nigh distinct people, cherishing strange beliefs   and singular customs, now for the most part obsolescent. Fancies, like   certain soft-wooded plants which cannot bear the silent inland frosts,   but thrive by the sea in the roughest of weather, seem to grow up   naturally here, in particular amongst those natives who have no active   concern in the labours of the &'Isle.&' Hence it is a spot apt to generate   a type of personage like the character imperfectly sketched in these   pages-a native of natives-whom some may choose to call a fantast (if   they honour him with their consideration so far), but whom others may   see only as one that gave objective continuity and a name to a delicate   dream which in a vaguer form is more or less common to all men, and is   by no means new to Platonic philosophers