One Of The Many Pleasures Of Old

It Was A Somber Place, Haunted By Old Jokes And Lost Laughter. Life, As I Discovered, Holds No More Wretched Occupation Than Trying To Make The English Laugh.

The Media Have, Indeed, Provided The Devil With Perhaps The Greatest Opportunity Accorded Him Since Adam And Eve Were Turned Out Of The Garden Of Eden.

One Of The Great Weaknesses Of The Progressive, As Distinct From The Religious, Mind, Is That It Has No Awareness Of Truth As Such; Only Of Truth In Terms Of Enlightened Expediency. The Contrast Is Well Exemplified In Two Exact Contemporaries - Simone Weil And Simone De Beauvoir; Both Highly Intelligent And Earnestly Disposed. In All The Fearful Moral Dilemmas Of Our Time, Simone Weil Never Once Went Astray, Whereas Simone De Beauvoir, With I Am Sure The Best Of Intentions, Has Found Herself Aligned With Apologists For Some Of The Most Monstrous Barbarities And Falsehoods Of History.

Everything Tolstoy Wrote Is Precious, But I Found This Final Statement Of The Truth About Life As He Had Come To Understand It Particularly Beautiful And Moving. 'that Is What I Have Wanted To Say To You, My Brothers. Before I Died.' So He Concludes, Giving One A Vivid Sense Of The Old Man, Pen In Hand And Bent Over The Paper, His Forehead Wrinkled Into A Look Of Puzzlement Very Characteristic Of Him, As Though He Were Perpetually Wondering How Others Could Fail To See What Was To Him So Clear - That The Law Of Love Explained All Mysteries And Invalidated All Other Laws.

I Think That Harold Macmillan Is A Very Intelligent Man, Who, As So Often Happens In Politics, Achieved Supreme Power Too Late.