this vein annihilates distance; it continues the personal gossip, the
intimate communion, that has been interrupted by separation; it preserves
one's presence in absence. It cannot be too simple, too commonplace, too
colloquial. Its familiarity is not its weakness, but its supreme virtue. If
it attempts to be orderly and stately and elaborate, it may be a good
essay, but it will certainly be a bad letter.




ON READING IN BED


Among the few legacies that my father left me was a great talent for
sleeping. I think I can say, without boasting, that in a sleeping match I
could do as well as any man. I can sleep long, I can sleep often, and I can
sleep sound. When I put my head on the pillow I pass into a fathomless
peace where no dreams come, and about eight hours later I emerge to
consciousness, as though I have come up from the deeps of infinity.

That is my normal way, but occasionally I have periods of wakefulness in
the middle of the night. My sleep is then divided into two chapters, and
between the chapters there is a slab of unmitigated dreariness. It is my
hour of pessimism. The tide has ebbed, the water is dead-low, and there is
a vista of endless mud. It is then that this tragi-comedy of life touches
bottom, and I see the heavens all hung with black. I despair of humanity, I
despair of the war, I despair of myself. There is not one gleam of light in
all the sad landscape, and the abyss seems waiting at my feet to swallow me
up with everything that I cherish. It is no use saying to this demon of the
darkness that I know he is a humbug, a mere Dismal Jemmy of the brain, who