The Tropic of Serpents

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Public opinion is a fickle thing. Nowadays I am hailed from one end of Scirland to the other as a testament to the intelligence and derring-do of our race; indeed, if I am not the most famous Scirling woman in the world, I daresay I give Her Majesty the Queen a good flight. I would not go so far as to presume I am universally loved, but if any news-sheet sees fit to mention me (as they do not so often anymore, on account of my signal failure to make any new shattering discoveries in the last decade, nor to nearly get myself killed in suitably gruesome fashion), chances are good that mention will be favorable in tone.

It was not always so. Though few are old enough to remember it, and even fewer rude enough to bring the topic up, I was once reviled in the scandal-sheets. But I have no compunctions about washing my dirty linen in public—not when the linen in question is so very old and wrinkled. Some of the errors I was accused of were entirely baseless; others, I confess, were entirely fair, at least insofar as my own opinion may be trusted.

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