This is what makes magic so difficult: The magician must sell people a lie even as they know they're being lied to. Unless the illusion feels more real than the truth, there is no magic.

"Do you know," he said, "you interest me immensely? You think, then, that we do not understand the real nature of evil?"

"No, I don't think we do. We over-estimate it and we under-estimate it. We take the very numerous infractions of our social 'bye-laws'--the very necessary and very proper regulations which keep the human company together--and we get frightened at the prevalence of 'sin' and 'evil.' But this is really nonsense. Take theft, for example. Have you any horror at the thought of Robin Hood, of the Highland caterans of the seventeenth century, of the moss-troopers, of the company promoters of our day?

"Then, on the other hand, we underrate evil. We attach such an enormous importance to the 'sin' of meddling with our pockets (and our wives) that we have quite forgotten the awfulness of real sin."

"And what is sin?" said Cotgrave.

"I think I must reply to your question by another. What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?

"Well, these examples may give you some notion of what sin really is."

[...] so she left it to him to start a fresh subject.

He did so, courteously enough, by asking how the new novel was getting on.

"It's gone sticky."

"What's happened to it?"

This involved a full rehearsal of the plot of Death 'twixt Wind and Water. It was a complicated story, and the punt had covered a good deal of water before she reached the solution.

"There's nothing fundamentally wrong with that," said he; and proceeded to offer a few suggestions about detail.

"How intelligent you are, Peter. You're quite right. Of course that would be the best way to get over the clock difficulty. But why does the whole story sound so dead and alive?"

"If you ask me," said Wimsey, "it's Wilfrid. I know he marries the girl -- but must he be such a mutt? Why does he go and pocket the evidence and tell all those unnecessary lies?"

"Because he thinks the girl's done it."

"Yes -- but why should he? He's dotingly in love with her -- he thinks she's absolutely the cat's pajamas -- and yet, merely because he finds her handerkerchief in the bedroom, he is instantly convinced, on evidence that wouldn't hang a dog, that she not only is Winchester's mistress but has also murdered him in a peculiarly diabolical way. That may be one way to love, but--"

"But, you would like to point out, it isn't yours -- and in fact, it wasn't yours."

There it was again -- the old resentment, and the impulse to hit back savagely for the pleasure of seeing him wince.

"No," he said, "I was considering the problem impersonally."

"Academically, in fact."

"Yes -- please.... From a purely constructional point of view, I don't feel that Wilfrid's behavior is sufficiently accounted for."

"Well," said Harriet, recovering her poise, "academically speaking, I admit that Wilfrid is the world's worst goop. But if he doesn't conceal the handkerchief, where's my plot?"

"Couldn't you make Wilfrid one of those morbidly conscientious people, who have been brought up to think that anything pleasant must be wrong -- so that, if he wants to believe the girl an angel of light she is, for that very reason, all the more likely to be guilty. Give him a puritanical father and a hell-fire religion."

"Peter, that's an idea."

"He has, you see, a gloomy conviction that love is sinful in itself, and that he can only purge himself by taking the young woman's sins upon him and wallowing in vicarious suffering.... He'd still be a goop, and a pathological goop, but he would be a bit more consistent."

"Yes -- he'd be interesting. But if I give Wilfrid all those violent and lifelike feelings, he'll throw the whole book out of balance."

"You would have to abandon the jigsaw kind of story and write a book about human beings for a change."

"I'm afraid to try that, Peter. It might go too near the bone."

"It might be the wisest thing you could do."

"Write it out and get rid of it?"

"Yes."

"I'll think about that. It would hurt like hell."

"What would that matter, if it made a good book?"

CAMILLA: You sir, should unmask.

STRANGER: Indeed?

CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.

STRANGER: I wear no mask.

CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask!

-The King in Yellow: Act 1-Scene 2d.

A most scandalous, ill-natured rumour has just reached me, and I write, dear Fanny, to warn you against giving the least credit to it, should it spread into the country. Depend upon it, there is some mistake, and that a day or two will clear it up; at any rate, that Henry is blameless, and in spite of a moment's etourderie, thinks of nobody but you. Say not a word of it; hear nothing, surmise nothing, whisper nothing till I write again. I am sure it will be all hushed up, and nothing proved but Rushworth's folly. If they are gone, I would lay my life they are only gone to Mansfield Park, and Julia with them. But why would not you let us come for you? I wish you may not repent it.Yours, etc.

Even more harrowing than the first chapters of a novel are the last, for Mr Earbrass anyway. The characters have one and all become thoroughly tiresome, as though he had been trapped at the same party with them since the day before; neglected sections of the plot loom on ever hand, waiting to be disposed of; his verbs seem to have withered away and his adjectives to be proliferating past control. Furthermore, at this stage he inevitably gets insomnia. Even rereading The Truffle Plantation (his first novel) does not induce sleep. In the blue horror of dawn the vines in the carpet appear likely to begin twining up his ankles.

Vowels were compressed and extended so that cucumber became "cowcumber," yellow "yaller," gold "goold," and spoil rhymed with mile. Stresses fell on unexpected syllables, such as bal-cony instead of bal-cony and con-template.

The guests were lined up on all sides and we tried in vain to make our way through the crowd. Then the Queen entered from another room, followed by ladies-in-waiting, beautiful as the Pleiades, three of the Princesses and a young page, the son of a lord, who carried her long train so that it would not drag on the floor. There must have been 1000 guests. The ladies wore 'hoop' skirts... Some wore Phoenix-like feathers in their hair; others wore jewels . . .

The Queen stood on the Royal dais while the ladies brought their daughters forward to be presented individually by the Deputy Master of Ceremonies. Their names and titles were announced as the Queen spoke to each one . . . I learned that young ladies are not presented to the Queen before they reach the age of 17, and that, until they have had that honour, they do not go out in society or attend dinner parties and receptions. No member of a family touched by scandal is received at Court.

A 'dinner' lasts for four hours, from six o'clock until ten o'clock.

A 'ball' is a large gathering attended by the nobility. It begins late in the evening, at ten o'clock, and lasts until five o'clock in the morning -- seven hours are spent dancing! Three or four musicians play instruments which resemble the kamancheh. When the music begins, each gentleman asks a lady if she wishes to dance; if she says no, he asks another.

Another kind of entertainment is called 'music', which may also mean singing. This also lasts for four hours [10 p.m. to 2 a.m.]. Guests are invited to hear a distinguished musician; and when he appears they become silent out of respect . . .

An 'assembly' is a form of entertainment which I have told my faithful friend Sir Gore Ouseley I think could well be done away with -- and he agrees! This lasts or six hours [10 p.m. to 4 a.m.] and resembles nothing so much as the crowd at a ladies' hammam or the great gathering of souls at the Last Judgement.

There is one other form of entertainment, which the English call 'breakfast'; this means the morning meal. Guests present themselves at their host's table, partake of some food, and return home.

Night and day, it seems, the English think only of pleasure.

We long, it seems, for documented proof of the occult, the sense that one is privy to an actual, possibly paranormal event captured on film. Photography can provide us with something to see: it is an elaborate filmic extension of telling a ghost story with "witnesses" and, better yet, technological evidence. The real myth is that the camera cannot lie.

"And you know damn well that when you write, a scene is no damn good, it's not valid unless it moves the action. Everything must move forward; you must at every point move forward. You've got to move that story. Man, get that story off its ass and keep it going! And too many writers, I'm afraid, fall in love with a scene that is not moving anything, and they keep it anyway. I think it's a mistake to do that." (Tangent #6, Winter 1977)

"Look at me," said Miss Havisham. "You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?"

I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended in the answer "No."

But Mrs. Pocket was at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of the baby's having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the foot-guards) of Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply externally or to take as a tonic.

Mr. Bredon had been a week with Pym's Publicity, and had learnt a number of things. He learned the average number of words that can be crammed into four inches of copy; that Mr. Armstrong's fancy could be caught by an elaborately-drawn lay-out, whereas Mr. Hankin looked on art-work as waste of a copy-writer's time; that the word "pure" was dangerous, because if lightly used, it laid the client open to prosecution by the Government inspectors, whereas the words "highest quality," "finest ingredients," "packed under the best condidtions" had no legal meaning, and were therefore safe; that the expression "giving work to umpteen thousand British employees in our model works at so-and-so" was not by any means the same thing as "British made throughout"; that the north of England liked its butter and margarine salted, whereas the south preferred it fresh; that the Morning Star would not accept any advertisements containing the word "cure," though there was no objection to such expressions as "relieve" or "ameliorate," and that, further, any commodity that professed to "cure" anything might find itself compelled to register as a patent medicine and use an expensive stamp; that the most convincing copy was always written with the tongue in the cheek, a genuine conviction of the commodity's worth producing--for some reason--poverty and flatness of style; that if, by the most far-fetched stretch of ingenuity, an indecent meaning could be read into a headline, that was the meaning that the great British Public would infallibly read into it; that the great aim and object of the studio artist was to crowd out the advertisement and that, conversely, the copy-writer was a designing villain whose ambition was to cram the space with verbiage and leave no room for the sketch; that the lay-out man, a meek ass between two burdens, spent a miserable life trying to reconcile these opposing parties; and further, that all departments alike united in hatred of the client, who persisted in spoiling good lay-outs by cluttering them up with coupons, free-gift offers, lists of local agents and realistic portraists of hideous and uninteresting cartons, to the detriment of his own interests and the annoyance of everybody concerned.

Each of us is called upon to take a stand. So in these days ahead, as we examine ourselves and each other, our works, our fears, our differences, our sisterhood and survivals, I urge you to tackle what is most difficult for us all, self-scrutiny of our complacencies, the idea that since each of us believes she is on the side of right, she need not examine her position.

The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.

As we made our way uptown I attempted to breathe deeply and remain calm. I assessed the back of the driver’s head and wondered, in case we hit more traffic, how good he’d be at delivering a baby. He was a clean-cut young man. Every one of his well-groomed hairs positively trembled with anxiety. He was trying so hard to not to look behind him and see if I had befouled his tawny leather seats with any baby-related messes. He was a good boy and deserved better than this. Between contractions, I gazed tenderly at his neck.

-Eat
-Apply to more jobs -- as I do every night, Brain
-Look askance at an editing test

-Eat
-Read Gaudy Night
-Look askance at an editing test

Miss Hillyard lost patience.

"The fact is, though you will never admit it, that everybody in this place has an inferiority complex about married women and children. For all your talk about careers and independence, you all believe in your hearts that we ought to abase ourselves before any woman who has fulfilled her animal functions."

"That is absolute nonsense," said the Bursar.

"It is natural, I suppose, to feel that married women lead a fuller life," began Miss Lydgate.

"And a more useful one," retorted Miss Hillyard. "Look at the fuss that's made over 'Shrewsbury grandchildren'! Look how delighted you all are when old students get married! As if you were saying 'Aha! education doesn't unfit us for real life after all!' And when a really brilliant scholar throws away all her prospects to marry a curate, you say perfunctorily, 'What a pity! But of course her own life must come first.'"

"I've never said such a thing," cried the Dean indignantly. "I always say they're perfect fools to marry."

"I shouldn't mind," said Miss Hillyard, unheeding, "if you said openly that intellectual interests were only a second-best; but you pretend them first in theory and are ashamed of them in practice."

"There's no need to get so heated about it," said Miss Barton, breaking in upon the angry protest of Miss Pyke. "After all, some of us may have deliberately chosen not to marry. And, if you will forgive my saying so--"

At this ominous phrase, always the prelude to something quite unforgivable, Harriet and the Dean broke hastily into the discussion.