We'd Forgive Most Things If We Knew

With A Novel, Which Takes Perhaps Years To Write, The Author Is Not The Same Man He Was At The End Of The Book As He Was At The Beginning. It Is Not Only That His Characters Have Developed-he Has Developed With Them, And This Nearly Always Gives A Sense Of Roughness To The Work: A Novel Can Seldom Have The Sense Of Perfection Which You Find In Chekhov's Story, The Lady With The Dog.

An Autobiography Is Only 'a Sort Of Life' - It May Contain Less Errors Of Fact Than A Biography, But It Is Of Necessity Even More Selective: It Begins Later And It Ends Prematurely.

My Fellow Journalists Called Themselves Correspondents; I Preferred The Title Of Reporter. I Wrote What I Saw. I Took No Action -- Even An Opinion Is A Kind Of Action.

I Could Have Waited Years, Now That I Knew The End Of The Story. I Was Cold And Wet And Very Happy. I Could Even Look With Charity Towards The Altar And The Figure Dangling There. She Loves Us Both, I Thought, But If There Is To Be A Conflict Between An Image And A Man, I Know Who Will Win. I Could Put My Hand On Her Thigh Or My Mouth On Her Breast; He Was Imprisoned Behind The Altar And Couldn't Move To Plead His Cause.

We Are All Of Us Resigned To Death: It's Life We Aren't Resigned To.