We Fear Something Before We

The Artist One Day Falls Through A Hole In The Brambles, And From That Moment He Is Following The Dark Rapids Of An Underground River Which May Sometimes Flow So Near To The Surface That The Laughing Picnic Parties Are Heard Above.

A Stone Lies In A River; A Piece Of Wood Is Jammed Against It; Dead Leaves, Drifting Logs, And Branches Caked With Mud Collect; Weeds Settle There, And Soon Birds Have Made A Nest And Are Feeding Their Young Among The Blossoming Water Plants. Then The River Rises And The Earth Is Washed Away. The Birds Depart, The Flowers Wither, The Branches Are Dislodged And Drift Downward; No Trace Is Left Of The Floating Island But A Stone Submerged By The Water; - Such Is Our Personality.

The Detective Story Itself Is In A Dilemma. It Is A Vein Which Is In Danger Of Being Worked Out, The Demand Is Constant, The Powers Of Supply Variable, And The Reader, With Each One He Absorbs, Grows A Little More Sophisticated And Harder To Please, While The Novelist, After Each One He Writes, Becomes A Little More Exhausted.

All Charming People Have Something To Conceal, Usually Their Total Dependence On The Appreciation Of Others.

If Montaigne Is A Man In The Prime Of Life Sitting In His Study On A Warm Morning And Putting Down The Sum Of His Experience In His Rich, Sinewy Prose, Then Pascal Is That Same Man Lying Awake In The Small Hours Of The Night When Death Seems Very Close And Every Thought Is Heightened By The Apprehension That It May Be His Last.