To talk nonsense, or poetry, or the dash between the two, in a tone of profound sincerity, and to enunciate solemn discordances with received opinion so seriously as to convey the impression of a spiritual insight, is the peculiar gift by which monomaniacs, having first persuaded themselves, contrive to influence their neighbours, and through them to make conquest of a good half of the world, for good or for ill.

to investigate an unsolved murder

I promised him I would meet him there, and I will not let him down.

Out under the trees, some rangers had found enough duff and dry wood to start a fire beneath a slanting ridge of slate.