...the dizzying vividness of the images of places and people that the letters have unlocked. Images so vivid… — David Mitchell

"And if you threaten my reputation, oh well, I'll have to ruin yours!"

I hear my father-in-law's response[...] "Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!"

Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?

Books don't offer real escape but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.