Written as a ripost to Samuel Constant’s short story Le Mari sentimental, in which the husband is driven to despair and ultimately suicide by his carping wife, Mistress Henly begins with an account of the wife’s reading of the Constant story and how as a reader she links the text of imagination to the realities of her own life.

Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets In mere oppugnancy […]

If all goes well with the lathe and the biscuitry, there will be only a little filing and scraping required to smooth the transitions around the corners.

… the hero reaches his goal not in the realm of reason but in the vision of God and the mystical union with the highest being (without, however, forswearing the use of his rational faculty), one could perhaps rather call it an initiational tale.