Three Letters

I'm sure you understand, without my having to write it, that I

hope this book-product of my imagination and reason, my dreams,

my readings, and my life-will be the best book ever written, full

of the most elegant and clever prose, every word le mot juste, every

word with a double (triple, quadruple?) intention. But if, as Dickens

has it, like begets like, what could this sterile, untilled time of ours

beget but a shrivelled, whimsical character, full of thoughts that

ought never to have existed, thoughts that might arise in a prison,

full of misery and mourning?