When Men Ask Me How

I Am Writing A Play Which I Probably Will Not Finish Until The End Of November. I Am Writing It With Considerable Pleasure, Though I Sin Frightfully Against The Conventions Of The Stage. It Is A Comedy With Three Female Parts, Six Male, Four Acts, A Landscape (view Of The Lake), Lots Of Talk On Literature, Little Action And Tons Of Love.

I Will Begin With What In My Opinion Is Your Lack Of Restraint. You Are Like A Spectator In A Theatre Who Expresses His Enthusiasm So Unrestrainedly That He Prevents Himself And Others From Hearing. That Lack Of Restraint Is Particularly Noticeable In The Descriptions Of Nature With Which You Interrupt Dialogues; When One Reads Them, These Descriptions, One Wishes They Were More Compact, Shorter, Say Two Or Three Lines.

While You're Playing Cards With A Regular Guy Or Having A Bite To Eat With Him, He Seems A Peaceable, Good-humoured And Not Entirely Dense Person. But Just Begin A Conversation With Him About Something Inedible, Politics Or Science, For Instance, And He Ends Up In A Deadend Or Starts In On Such An Obtuse And Base Philosophy That You Can Only Wave Your Hand And Leave.

The World Perishes Not From Bandits And Fires, But From Hatred, Hostility, And All These Petty Squabbles.

The Air Of One's Native Country Is The Most Healthy Air.