“You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many.”

— Ford Madox Ford , book The Good Soldier

Part One, Ch. I (p. 5)
The Good Soldier (1915)
Context: You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads.

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Ford Madox Ford 20

English writer and publisher 1873–1939

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