"...the soul is only to be opened with the key of reverence."

[The worst fallacy of realism] is the idea that we come nearer to the soul of a human being by climbing over walls and listening at keyholes, whereas the soul is only to be opened with the key of reverence [...] But to imagine that we get nearer to anyone by multiplying those endless personal details which we know in our case to be more misleading than a mask or a cloak, to insist on those kindly frivolities of private life which are more sacred because more fragile than its tragedies, to think that a deep-rooted family joke can be transplanted one whit better than a family curse- this is the deep wrong of realism, realism which is always a kind of snobbery.

-March 21, 1901, Daily News