Publisher's Synopsis
Had it been otherwise; had I been the subject of this curious atavistic tendency, I should surely have been led to believe that from the simple gem whose name I have used to give a tide to this chronicle, some subtle influence exhaled whereby the whole course of my life was directed into new channels. But I do not believe anything of the kind; and therefore, though it did actually happen that the appearance of the Cat's Eye was coincident with a radical change in the course and manner of my life, and even, as it seemed, with my very personality; and though with the Cat's Eye the unfolding of the new life seemed constantly associated; still I would have it understood that I use the name merely as a label to docket together a succession of events that form a consistent and natural group.