Having run out of library books and remembering Norm's sensible question -- "So if you say you have nothing to read, what are all these books here on the shelves for?" -- last night for the first time in many years I pulled out "The Prisoner of Zenda" and what a comfy evening it does make. I open a page for you at random. 

The narrator is a young Englishman who looks exactly like the king who is imprisoned in a dungeon in the castle of Zenda and is supposed to marry the princess who just sent that rose, and -- oh, never mind, just read:

- - - - -

…I bowed my head to meet my hands, and crushed the rose between my fingers and my lips.  I felt his hand on my shoulder, and his voice sounded husky as he whispered low in my ear:

'Before God, you're the finest Elphberg of them all. But I have eaten of the king's bread, and I am the king's servant. Come, we will go to Zenda!'

And I looked up and caught him by the hand. And the eyes of both of us were wet… - - - -

Writers today just can’t do it. They haven't got it Here.