On February 15, 2013, many on Earth were watching for news of the approach of an asteroid labeled 2012 DA14. Suddenly, those watchers – and millions of others around the globe – were startled by news of a superbolide, or super bright meteor, above the region of Chelyabinsk in Russia.

But drawing from my pants an old Hoover flag left over from my father's failed youth, I see I lack the least smudge of a penny to pay salvation's cover charge … with. So I begin circling the block drunkenly, in a holding pattern, …

The reason why I did not publish this book till the end of the last sessions of parliament was, because I did not care to interfere with more momentous affairs.

The stories did not seem to me to touch life. They were plainly intended to have a bracing moral effect, and perhaps had this result for the people at whom they were aimed. They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.