If Someone Tells You He Is Going

Combativeness Was, I Suppose, The Dominant Trait In My Grandmother's Nature. An Aggressive Churchgoer, She Was Quite Without Christian Feeling; The Mercy Of The Lord Jesus Had Never Entered Her Heart. Her Piety Was An Act Of War Against Protestant Ascendancy. ...the Teachings Of The Church Did Not Interest Her, Except As They Were A Rebuke To Others.

... In America ... Children Are Instructed In The Virtues Of The System They Live Under, As Though History Had Achieved A Happy Ending In American Civics.

Every Age Has A Keyhole To Which Its Eye Is Pasted. Spicy Court-memoirs, The Lives Of Gallant Ladies, Recollections Of An Ex-nun, A Monk's Confession, An Atheist's Repentance, True-to-life Accounts Of Prostitution And Bastardy Gave Our Ancestors A Penny Peep Into The Forbidden Room.

Yet Friendship, I Believe, Is Essential To Intellectuals. It Is Probably The Growth Hormone The Mind Requires As It Begins Its Activity Of Producing And Exchanging Ideas. You Can Date The Evolving Life Of A Mind, Like The Age Of A Tree, By The Rings Of Friendship Formed By The Expanding Central Trunk. In The Course Of My History, Not Love Or Marriage So Much As Friendship Has Promoted Growth.

The Return To A Favorite Novel Is Generally Tied Up With Changes In Oneself That Must Be Counted As Improvements, But Have The Feel Of Losses. It Is Like Going Back To A Favorite House, Country, Person; Nothing Is Where It Belongs, Including One's Heart.