Two truths should be said about the art of word embroidery. Firstly, not everything one writes is considered a truth, not even by the writer. Secondly, the act of writing is not always putting into text form something originally fluid yet necessarily ingenious. The rough inner star of the human soul is too bright too be looked at, too hot to be grasped, and the final outcome in the case of Literature is a text and that should be its sole object of analisys. Now bearing in mind these pieces of self-advice, I should use words for that purpose which, from all I have perceived and learnt by watching their behaviour through the hours of my days, seems to fit them most perfectly -- that is, to play.

Yes, to play, and there are a few things I wish to say about the roles naturally assigned to the elements envolved in playing -- not just any playing, I mean, but particularly the playing with words. Among the number of relationships one can playfully establish with a certain set of familiar words, there is that of a lord and his slaves. Poor words are not paid, and they must do as we all tell them to do, even if the lord is not quite educated. They should work and they should please. Not rarely can they be found publicly exposed to shame or maybe subject to torture, just because it is what we felt like doing to them a certain afternoon. Nevertheless not a tear is shed. Also, we use them for entertainment and for commotion, when a word so naive and humble can do nothing but to swell into a sort of fiend or clown through its mere chemical contact with another, an enzyme word, which makes possible the whole pyrotechnic show, designed for our health and relief. This is the best possible relationship between man and word and I must take advantage of it for the improvement of my writing.