Touch and Go

Men who are somebody, not men who are something. Men who HAPPEN to be bishops or co-respondents, women who happen to be chaste, just as they happen to freckle, because it's one of their innumerable odd qualities. Even men who happen, by the way, to have long noses. But not noses on two legs, not burly pairs of gaiters, stuffed and voluble, not white meringues of chastity, not incarnations of co-respondence. Not proletariats, petitioners, president's, noses, bits of fluff. Heavens, what an assortment of bits! And aren't we sick of them! People, I say. And after all, it's saying something. It's harder to be a human being than to be a president or a bit of fluff. You can be a president, or a bit of fluff, or even a nose, by clockwork. Given a role, a PART, you can play it by clockwork. But you can't have a clockwork human being.