Hugh: Memoirs of a Brother by A.C. Benson

As to Hugh's books, I will here say a few words about them, because they were a marked part of himself; he put much skill and care into making them, and took fully as much rapture away. When he was writing a book, he was like a man galloping across country in a fresh sunny morning, and shouting aloud for joy. But I do not intend to make what is called an appreciation of them, and indeed am little competent to do so. I do not know the conventions of the art or the conditions of it. "Oh, I see," said a critical friend to me not long ago in much disgust, "you read a novel for the ideas and the people and the story." "What do you read it for?" I said. "Why, to see how it is done, of course," he replied. Personally I have never read a book in my life to see how it is done, and what interests me, apart from the book, is the person behind it -- and that is very elementary. Moreover, I have a particular dislike of all historical novels.

Fact is interesting and imagination is interesting; but I do not care for webs of imagination hung on pegs of fact.