Wolf’s wits, moving now, in spite of the fumes of smoke and alcohol, with restored clarity, achieved a momentous orientation of many obscure matters. - John Cowper Powys

No I've never read a line of de Sade and never shall. You see my own dominant overpowering maniacal vice was sadism and in Philadelphia (isn't that the right place for such a thing?) I used to borrow from a friend Sadistic Books in French (he had half a library of them!) and carry them off to my lodging where I wd. read them with my knees knocking together & all my pulses going it like mad in a prolonged cerebral fury of crazy unsatisfied satisfaction.

"The meaning of culture" is nothing less than the conduct of life itself, fortified, thickened, made more crafty and subtle, by contact with books and with art.

It was one of those moments when the pre-birth stirrings of a ghastly idea are huddled and swaddled in an ominous silence. Certain thoughts, that have been long nurtured in deep half-conscious brooding, manifest themselves, when they finally emerge into the light, with a horrid tangibility that is like the impact of something physically shocking. And into this warm,