And yet Claire—about whom I intend to write with perfect frankness—is not devoid of insight, although she exaggerates everything.
Claire lives upon the edge of a volcano.
This is her own metaphor, and certainly represents quite accurately the state of emotional jeopardy in which her days are passed—indeed, it would be truer still to say that she lives upon the edge of a hundred volcanoes, so that there can never be a complete absence of eruptions.
She has really undergone a certain amount of suffering in her life, and is, I think, all but entirely unaware that most of it was avoidable.
Her powers of imagination, although in the old days they helped to constitute her charm, are, and always were, in excess of her self-control, her reason, and her education. There are few combinations less calculated to promote contentment in the possessors of them.
She is really incapable now of concentrating upon any but a personal issue. Yet she expresses her opinion, with passionate emphasis, upon a number of points.
“An atheist,” says Claire, frequently, “is a fool. Now an agnostic is not a fool. An agnostic says, humbly, ‘I don’t know.’ But an atheist, who denies the existence of a God, is a fool.”
It is perhaps needless to add that Claire considers herself an agnostic.
She generally speaks in capital letters.
When she dislikes the course of action, as reported in the Times, taken by any politician—and she has a virulent and mutually inconsistent set of dislikes—Claire is apt to remark vivaciously: