L. P. Hartley (5)

(fotografia de Samer Mohdad, "Lion Cubs, Military Instruction for Children, Ain El-Heloueh Palestinian Refugee Camp near Saida", 1989)


"But another world came to my aid - the world of facts. I accumulated facts: facts which existed independently of me, facts which my private wishes could not add to or subtract from. Soon I came to regard these facts as truths, and the only truths I cared to recognize. Pascal would have condemned them as being truth without charity; they contributed little to experience or imagination, but gradually took the place of both. Indeed, the life of facts proved no bad substitute for the facts of life. It did not let me down; on the contrary it upheld me and probably saved my life; for when the first war came my skill in marshalling facts was held to be more important than any service I was likely to perform on the field. So I missed that experience, along with many others, spooning among them. Ted hasn't told me what it was, but he had shown me, he had paid with his life for showing me, and after that I never felt like it" (1)

L. P. Hartley



(1) HARTLEY, L.P. - The Go-Between. 2ªed. Oxford: Heinemann New Windmills, 1985. ISBN 0-435-12299-1. p.280, 281.