There was once a man who became famous throughout the realm for his wit. He played with words, leavening them into the lightest of souffles such that they tripped off the tongue of the players, or wrought them dark and hard as people read of the corruption of innocence. He became a byword for world weary cynicism and any man might quail upon whom the writer turned his tongue.

Yet in his other works, this apostle of abandon and philosopher of despair told tales of the purest innocence, with not a hint of irony nor a soupcon of cynicism; tales of the purest, self-sacrificial goodness, tales to make the hardest man cry and the bitterest woman weep.

Which was the real man? Read them and weep, weep tears of a joy so sharp it hurts.