The Coward: A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863 Page 8
Carlton Brand read through this precious document without speaking--adocument not worse in motive than all other anonymous communications, anyone of which should subject the perpetrator, if discovered, to cropped earsand slitted tongue,--but worse than all others of its evil kind in theatrocity of its surrounding circumstances, as the reader will have nodifficulty in believing when a little additional light is shed upon thepersonality of the writer by the chapters immediately following.