Now, The Essence, The Very

Newspapermen Learn To Call A Murderer "an Alleged Murderer" And The King Of England "the Alleged King Of England" In Order To Avoid Libel Suits.

The Victorians Needed Parody. Without It Their Literature Would Have Been A Rank And Weedy Growth, Over-watered With Tears.

The Writing Of Solid, Instructive Stuff Fortified By Facts And Figures Is Easy Enough. There Is No Trouble In Writing A Scientific Treatise On The Folk-lore Of Central China, Or A Statistical Enquiry Into The Declining Population Of Prince Edward Island. But To Write Something Out Of One's Own Mind, Worth Reading For Its Own Sake, Is An Arduous Contrivance Only To Be Achieved In Fortunate Moments, Few And Far In Between. Personally, I Would Sooner Have Written Alice In Wonderland Than The Whole Encyclopedia Britannica.

I've Seen Lifelong Friends Drift Apart Over Golf Just Because One Could Play Better, But The Other Counted Better.

Modern Critics, Who Refuse To Let A Plain Thing Alone, Have Now Started A Theory That Cervantes's Work Is A Vast Piece Of "symbolism." If So, Cervantes Didn't Know It Himself And Nobody Thought Of It For Three Hundred Years. He Meant It As A Satire Upon The Silly Romances Of Chivalry.