It Is Shaming Sometimes How

The End Of Secrecy Would Be The End Of The Novel - Especially The English Novel. The English Novel Requires Social Secrecy, Personal Secrecy.

Who You Get, And How It Works Out - There's So Much Luck Involved, As Well As The Million Branching Consequences Of Your Conscious Choice Of A Mate, That No One And No Amount Of Talking Can Untangle It If It Turns Out Unhappily.

I Was The Basest Of Readers. All I Wanted Was My Own World, And Myself In It, Given Back To Me In Artful Shapes And Accessible Form.

For Children, Childhood Is Timeless. It Is Always The Present. Everything Is In The Present Tense. Of Course, They Have Memories. Of Course, Time Shifts A Little For Them And Christmas Comes Round In The End. But They Don't Feel It. Today Is What They Feel, And When They Say 'when I Grow Up,' There Is Always An Edge Of Disbelief - How Could They Ever Be Other Than What They Are?

This Commonplace Cycle Of Falling Asleep And Waking, In Darkness, Under Private Cover, With Another Creature, A Pale Soft Tender Mammal, Putting Faces Together In A Ritual Of Affection, Briefly Settled In The Eternal Necessities Of Warmth, Comfort, Safety, Crossing Limbs To Draw Nearer - A Simple Daily Consolation, Almost Too Obvious, Easy To Forget By Daylight.