When They Finished Laughing They Were On

It Doesn't Matter If I'm Only To Be Gone Four Days, As In This Case; I Take Six Months' Supply Of Reading Material Everywhere. Anyone Who Needs Further Explication Of This Eccentricity Can Find It Usefully Set Out In The First Pages Of W. Somerset Maugham's Story "the Book-bag.

At Least I Was True. My Intellectual Abilities Gave Me A Release, And An Excuse. I Shunned Company Because I Preferred Books; And The Dreams I Confided To My Father Were Of Becoming A Scholar In Good Earnest, And Going To University. It Was Unheard-of Several Shocked Governesses Were Only Too Quick To Tell Me, When I Spoke A Little Too Boldly -- But My Father Nodded And Smiled And Said, 'we'll See.' Since I Believed My Father Could Do Anything -- Except Of Course Make Me Pretty -- I Worked And Studied With Passionate Dedication, Lived In Hope, And Avoided Society And Mirrors.

It Wasn't So Long Ago When All The So-called Scientists Said That Humans Were Intelligent And That Animals Weren't, Humans Were The Solitary Unchallenged Masters Of The Globe And Probably The Universe And The Only Question Was Whether We Were Handling Our Mastery Well. (no. Next Question.)

Betrayal Would Be A Different Sort Of Sick.

I Long For Another Human Face Just As I Fear It.