When sitting beside the chimney, warming your feet by the fire as you
watch the flames, it is easy to imagine that there may be novel walks to
explore in the neighbourhood; but when you come to look at the map you
find that there is nothing new in the whole countryside.

We are told that ambition means growth. It does not with me. Ortega y
Gasset believes that I am a man who is constitutionally unbribable. I
should not go so far as to say that, but I do say that I do not believe
that I could be bribed in cold blood by the offer of material things. If
Mephistopheles wishes to purchase my soul, he cannot do it with a
decoration or with a title; but if he were to offer me sympathy, and be
a little effusive while he is about it, adding then a touch of
sentiment, I am convinced that he could get away with it quite easily.




LONGING FOR CHANGE


Just as the aim of politicians is to appear constant and consistent,
artists and literary men aspire to change.

Would that the desire of one were as easy of attainment as that of the
other!

To change! To develop! To acquire a second personality which shall be
different from the first! This is given only to men of genius and to
saints. Thus Caesar, Luther, and Saint Ignatius each lived two distinct
lives; or, rather, perhaps, it was one life, with sides that were