A Middling Talent Makes For A More

A Letter Is A Barrier, A Reprieve, A Charm Against The World, An Almost Infallible Method Of Acting At A Distance.

The Sin Of Pride May Be A Small Or A Great Thing In Someone's Life, And Hurt Vanity A Passing Pinprick, Or A Self-destroying Or Ever Murderous Obsession.

We Are Such Inward Secret Creatures, That Inwardness The Most Amazing Thing About Us, Even More Amazing Than Our Reason. But We Cannot Just Walk Into The Cavern And Look Around. Most Of What We Think We Know About Our Minds Is Pseudo-knowledge. We Are All Such Shocking Poseurs, So Good At Inflating The Importance Of What We Think We Value.

I Live, I Live, With An Absolutely Continuous Sense Of Failure. I Am Always Defeated, Always. Every Book Is The Wreck Of A Perfect Idea. The Years Pass And One Has Only One Life. If One Has A Thing At All One Must Do It And Keep On And On And On Trying To Do It Better.

Trains Induce Such Terrible Anxiety. They Image The Possibility Of Total And Irrevocable Failure. They Are Also Dirty, Rackety, Packed With Strangers, An Object Lesson In The Foul Contingency Of Life: The Talkative Fellow-traveller, The Possibility Of Children.