"You are unacquainted with the man before you. The inferences which you have drawn, with regard to my designs, and my conduct, are a tissue of destructive errors. You, like others, are blind to the most momentous consequences of your own actions. You talk of imparting consolation. You boast the benificence of your intentions. You set yourself to do me a benefit. What are the effects of your misguided zeal, and random efforts? They have brought my life to a miserable close. They have shrouded the last scene of it in blood. They have put the seal on my perdition."

-Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Huntly, or Memoirs of a Sleepwalker (1799)