Matt Hughes

The commerciants of Olkney were renowned for their egalitarian spirit, judging rich and poor alike solely by the weight of their purses.

“We are all used, all users. With luck, the final tally approximates a balance in our favor. But I think you are one of those who calls the proverbial glass half empty, while I prefer to call it half full.”

“No,” said Filidor, “in truth, I have never given these matters much thought. I am one who quaffs the glass empty and calls for it to be refilled.”

I cannot comment on your beliefs. What appears self-evident to one person may seem to another observer to be entirely the product of an idiosyncratic bent.

“We all use the world, and are used by it,” he said, after a moment. “Some of us are more aware than others of using and being used. It is our fortune to have fewer illusions.”

The direct approach is not always the wisest strategy, as those who have fallen off mountains can testify.

Things are as they were meant to be.

“But it was arranged so by you and me.”

Then we are instruments of fate.

“Knowing instruments,” said Filidor.

How does that make a difference?

Assigning blame is a fixation of an ineffective mind.

Filidor was becoming more and more convinced that he had recently been inhabiting a reality that was at sharp variance to the rest of the world’s.

Filidor marveled at the intransigence of adolescence, not remembering that he had possessed an abundance of the same quality not many years since.

Life is a hopeless rear guard action against an overwhelming foe; still how can we not admire those who battle on regardless?

“From within such a calcified culture, no change can be generated; the impetus for reform must arise from without. Hence, the external threat posed by Hunan Diath.”

“Who does not exist,” said Filidor.

“Who need not exist,” said Gaskarth, “so long as the idea can do its work.”

“What is your theory?” my assistant asked, but again I declined to answer. A mistaken theory that never went farther than its originator’s mind does not count as an error.