I must admit that reading the 500 pages of this book was a real struggle and perhaps I shouldn't have persisted. Hugh Walpole was considered the world's foremost author in his day, and hence this novel was included in the Modern Library series. I did enjoy reading Rogue Herries a few years ago, a grand novel in it's day groping back to the great Victorian novellistic tradition creating a character as passionate and wild as Heathcliff, but Fortitude is not of that stature and best be forgotten. ( )