"Veronica," I said, "the time has come to reveal to you a secret:
literature is not always a safe guide to life."
"You mean--" said Veronica.
"I mean," I said, "that the writer of books is, generally speaking,
an exceptionally moral man. That is what leads him astray: he is
too good. This world does not come up to his ideas. It is not the
world as he would have made it himself. To satisfy his craving for
morality he sets to work to make a world of his own. It is not this
world. It is not a bit like this world. In a world as it should be,
Veronica, you would undoubtedly have been blown up--if not
altogether, at all events partially. What you have to do, Veronica,
is, with a full heart, to praise Heaven that this is not a perfect
world. If it were I doubt very much, Veronica, your being here.
That you are here happy and thriving proves that all is not as it
should be. The bull of this world, feeling he wants to toss
somebody, does not sit upon himself, so to speak, till the wicked
child comes by. He takes the first child that turns up, and thanks
God for it. A hundred to one it is the best child for miles around.
The bull does not care. He spoils that pattern child. He'd spoil a
bishop, feeling as he does that morning. Your little friend in the
velvet suit who did get himself blown up, at all events as regards
the suit-- Which of you was it that thought of that gunpowder, you or
he?"
Veronica claimed that the inspiration had been hers.
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