Hunger Allows No Choice.

If It Really Was Queen Elizabeth Who Demanded To See Falstaff In A Comedy, Then She Showed Herself A Very Perceptive Critic. But Even In The Merry Wives Of Windsor, Falstaff Has Not And Could Not Have Found His True Home Because Shakespeare Was Only A Poet. For That He Was To Wait Nearly Two Hundred Years Till Verdi Wrote His Last Opera. Falstaff Is Not The Only Case Of A Character Whose True Home Is The World Of Music; Others Are Tristan, Isolde And Don Giovanni.

An Honest Self-portrait Is Extremely Rare Because A Man Who Has Reached The Degree Of Self-consciousness Presupposed By The Desire To Paint His Own Portrait Has Almost Always Also Developed An Ego-consciousness Which Paints Himself Painting Himself, And Introduces Artificial Highlights And Dramatic Shadows.

Poetry Might Be Defined As The Clear Expression Of Mixed Feelings.

Into This Neutral Air Where Blind Skyscrapers Use Their Full Height To Proclaim The Strength Of Collective Man, Each Language Pours Its Vain Competitive Excuse.

One Of The Troubles Of Our Times Is That We Are All, I Think, Precocious As Personalities And Backward As Characters.