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336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
“Only bad religions depend on mysteries, just as bad governments depend on secret police. Truth, beauty and goodness are not mysterious, they are the commonest, most obvious, most essential facts of life, like sunlight, air and bread.”
The pictures showed many kinds of people. The ugliest and most comical are Scots, Irish, foreign, poor, servants, rich folk who have been poor until very recently, small men, old unmarried women and Socialists. The Socialists are ugliest, very dirty and hairy with weak chins, and seem to spend their time grumbling to other people at street corners.
“What are Socialists, Duncan?” I asked.
“Fools who think the world should be improved.”
“Why? Is something wrong with it?”
“The Socialists are wrong with it — and my infernal luck.”
“You told me once that luck is a solemn name for ignorance.”
“Do not torture me, Bell.”
“Politics, like filling and emptying cesspools, is filthy work and women should be protected from it.”
was first recorded by Athenian homosexuals who thought women only existed to produce men. It was then adopted by celibate Christian priests who thought sexual delight was the origin of every sin, and women were the source of it. I do not know why the idea is now popular in Britain. Maybe an increase in the size and number of boys' boarding-schools has bred up a professional class who are strangers to female reality.