When You Travel Your First

History ... With Its Long, Leisurely, Gentlemanly Labors, The Books Arriving By Post, The Cards To Be Kept And Filed, The Sections To Be Copied, The Documents To Be Checked, Is The Ideal Pursuit For The New England Mind.

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.

Sentences In Which I Have Tried For A Certain Light Tone -- Many Of Those Have To Do With Events, Upheavals, Destructions That Caused Me To Weep Like A Child.

How Certain Human Beings Are Able To Create Works Of Art Is A Mystery, And Why They Should Wish To Do So, At A Great Cost To Themselves Usually, Is Another Mystery. Works Are Not Created By One's Life; Every Life Is Rich In Material.

Since Films And Television Have Staged Everything Imaginable Before It Happens, A True Event, Taking Place In The Real World, Brings To Mind The Landscape Of Films.