The Barbarians Come Out At

It’s Admirable, What You Do, What She Does, But To Me Animal-welfare People Are A Bit Like Christians Of A Certain Kind. Everyone Is So Cheerful And Well-intentioned That After A While You Itch To Go Off And Do Some Raping And Pillaging. Or To Kick A Cat.

There Are Works Of Literature Whose Influence Is Strong But Indirect Because It Is Mediated Through The Whole Of The Culture Rather Than Immediately Through Imitation. Wordsworth Is The Case That Comes To Mind.

I See No Marks Of Wordsworths Style Of Writing Or Style Of Thinking In My Own Work, Yet Wordsworth Is A Constant Presence When I Write About Human Beings And Their Relations To The Natural World.

In A World Of Chance Is There A Better And A Worse? We Yield To A Stranger's Embrace Or Give Ourselves To The Waves; For The Blink Of An Eyelid Our Vigilance Relaxes; We Are Asleep; And When We Awake, We Have Lost The Direction Of Our Lives. What Are These Blinks Of An Eyelid, Against Which The Only Defence Is An Eternal And Inhuman Wakefulness? Might They Not Be The Cracks And Chinks Through Which Another Voice, Other Voices, Speak In Our Lives? By What Right Do We Close Our Ears To Them? (susan Barton)

The End Of Confession Is To Tell The Truth To And For Oneself.