"My dear -- Madam -- what you call heart does not come into the question at all." Sir John Meredith was sitting slightly behind Lady Cantourne, leaning towards her with a somewhat stiffened replica of his former grace. But he was not looking at her -- and she knew it. They were both watching a group at the other side of the great ballroom. "Sir John Meredith on Heart," said the old lady, with a depth of significance in her voice. "And why not?" "Yes, indeed. Why not?" Sir John smiled with that well-bred cynicism which a new school has not yet succeeded in imitating. They were of the old school, these two; and their worldliness, their cynicism, their conversational attitude, belonged to a bygone period. It was a cleaner period in some ways -- a period devoid of slums. Ours, on the contrary, is an age of slums wherein we all dabble to the detriment of our hands -- mental, literary, and theological...

Author Biography

Hugh Stowell Scott (1862 - 1903) was a prominent English novelist who used the pseudonym Henry Seton Merriman. His most successful novel was The Sowers (1896), which went through thirty UK editions. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, he became an underwriter at Lloyd's of London, but then devoted himself to travel and to writing novels, many of which had great popularity. Scott visited India as a tourist in 1877-78 and set his novel Flotsam (1896) there. He was an enthusiastic traveler, many of his journeys being undertaken with his friend and fellow author Stanley J. Weyman. His first novel, Young Mistley was published anonymously in 1888. His other novels include The Phantom Future, The Slave of the Lamp, From One Generation to Another, The Sowers, In Kedar's Tents, Roden's Corner, Suspense, Dross, Slave of the Lamp, With Edged Tools, Grey Lady, Isle of Unrest, The Velvet Glove, The Vultures, Queen, Barlasch of the Guard and The Last Hope. He worked with great care and his best books held a high place in Victorian fiction.