The Refractory Pupil Of Socrates, Aristippus The

Civilization Is An Active Deposit Which Is Formed By The Combustion Of The Present With The Past. Neither In Countries Without A Present Nor In Those Without A Past Is It To Be Encountered. Proust In Venice, Matisse's Birdcages Overlooking The Flower Market At Nice, Gide On The Seventeenth-century Quais Of Toulon, Lorca In Granada, Picasso By Saint-germain-des-prés: There Lies Civilization And For Me It Can Exist Only Under Those Liberal Regimes In Which The Present Is Alive And Therefore Capable Of Assimilating The Past.

The Headmistress Was An Able Instructress In French And History And We Learned With Her As Fast As Fear Could Teach Us.

It Is Significant Comment On The Victory Of Science Over Magic That Were Someone To Say ‘if I Put This Pill In Your Beer It Will Explode,’ We Might Believe Them; But Were They To Cry ‘if I Pronounce This Spell Over Your Beer It Will Go Flat,’ We Should Remain Incredulous And Paracelsus, The Alchemists, Aleister Crowley And All The Magi Have Lived In Vain. Yet When I Read Science I Turn Magical; When I Study Magic, Scientific.

In Youth The Life Of Reason Is Not In Itself Sufficient; Afterwards The Life Of Emotion, Except For Short Periods, Becomes Unbearable.

There Is Immunity In Reading, Immunity In Formal Society, In Office Routine, In The Company Of Old Friends And In The Giving Of Officious Help To Strangers, But There Is No Sanctuary In One Bed From The Memory Of Another. The Past With Its Anguish Will Break Through Every Defense-line Of Custom And Habit; We Must Sleep And Therefore We Must Dream.