Self-love Is An Idolatry. Self-hatred Is A

A Letter Is Not A Dialogue Or Even An Omniscient Exposition. It Is A Fabric Of Surfaces, A Mask, A Form As Well Suited To Affectations As To The Affections. The Letter Is, By Its Natural Shape, Self-justifying; It Is One's Own Evidence, Deposition, A Self-serving Testimony. In A Letter The Writer Holds All The Cards, Controls Everything About Himself And About Those Assertions He Wishes To Make Concerning Events Or The Worth Of Others. For Completely Self-centered Characters, The Letter Form Is A Complex And Rewarding Activity.

Now, My Novel Begins. No, Now I Begin My Novel—and Yet I Cannot Decide Whether To Call Myself I Or She.

Many People Believe Letters The Most Personal And Revealing Form Of Communication. In Them, We Expect To Find The Charmer At His Nap, Slumped, Open-mouthed, Profoundly Himself Without Thought For Appearances. Yet, This Is Not Quite True. Letters Are Above All Useful As A Means Of Expressing The Ideal Self; And No Other Method Of Communication Is Quite So Good For This Purpose. In Conversation, Those Uneasy Eyes Upon You, Those Lips Ready With An Emendation Before You Have Begun To Speak, Are A Powerful Deterrent To Unreality, Even To Hope.

The Future May Be An Enemy. Time Can Turn Happy Days And Nights Into Nothing.

The Language Of The Younger Generation Has The Brutality Of The City And An Assertion Of Threatening Power At Hand, Not To Come. It Is Military, Theatrical, And At Its Most Coherent Probably A Lasting Repudiation Of Empty Courtesy And Bureaucratic Euphemism.