Gossip, Or, As We Gossips Like To

While You Are Living, Part Of You Has Slipped Away To The Cemetery.

History ... With Its Long, Leisurely, Gentlemanly Labors, The Books Arriving By Post, The Cards To Be Kept And Filed, The Sections To Be Copied, The Documents To Be Checked, Is The Ideal Pursuit For The New England Mind.

Flattery Is A Challenge. The Proper Turning Away From It, Undercutting, Diminishing It Without Offense Or Vehemence, Is A Social Grace Sweeter Even Than The Swift Determination To Keep Ahead In The Race Of Hospitality.

The Language Of The Younger Generation Has The Brutality Of The City And An Assertion Of Threatening Power At Hand, Not To Come. It Is Military, Theatrical, And At Its Most Coherent Probably A Lasting Repudiation Of Empty Courtesy And Bureaucratic Euphemism.

Now, My Novel Begins. No, Now I Begin My Novel—and Yet I Cannot Decide Whether To Call Myself I Or She.