Over the darkened stores are stone and wooden flat buildings. Here, too,
the lights have gone out. People sleep. The rain falls. The gleaming
pavements amuse themselves with reflections.
I have an hour to wait. From the musty smelling hallway where I stand the
scene is like an old print--an old London print--that I have always meant
to buy and put in a frame but have never found.
* * * * *
Writing about people when one is alone under an electric lamp, and
thinking about people when one stands watching the rain in the dark
streets, are two different diversions. When one writes under an electric
lamp one pompously marshals ideas; one remembers the things people say and
do and believe in, and slowly these things replace people in one's mind.
One thinks (in the calm of one's study): "So-and-so is a Puritan ... he is
viciously afraid of anything which will disturb the idealized version of
himself in which he believes--and wants other people to believe...." Yes,
one thinks So-and-so is this and So-and-so is that. And it all seems very
simple. People focus into clearly outlined ideas--definitions. And one can
sit back and belabor them, hamstring them, pull their noses, expose their
absurdities and derive a deal of satisfaction from the process.
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