And so the novelist puts himself into the book. In the book he is a large, square-shouldered man with tiny eyes. He is one who came to Chicago from a village in Poland and was leader of an orchestra in a theatre. As the orchestra leader the novelist married Virginia Borden and lived in a house with her.
You see the novelist wants to explain himself also. He is a lover and so vividly does he love that he has the courage to love even himself. And so it is the lover that sits writing and the madness of the writer is the madness of the lover. As he writes he is making love. Surely all can understand that!
Because sexual love is the most useful and common type of excitement we are apt to think it necessary to life, when the truth is that it is excitement itself which is life’s essential.—Rebecca West.
Asperities
Mitchell Dawson
Threat
If you should come into my cave
Bringing molded beads of sunlight
For offering—
I would trample your beads