Opening paragraphs...........

     "On an autumn morning of the year 1800, the Reverend
Abiel Holmes, aged thirty-six, handsome, widowed, and
lonely, sat down in his study near Harvard Square in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, to begin the writing of his new
book.  It was his fourth book; it was to be called American
Annals, and the very contemplation of it caused its author's
blood to run faster."
-Catherine Drinker Bowen, Yankee From Olympus: Justice
Holmes and His Family