(Sort of a mistake)
This post, as it was published here by me in error and stayed up here for about 24 hours, was a clone of the Qana post that follows. I would have taken it down completely but it attracted what I think was quite a sweet (if off-topic) comment.
(Also, the other Qana post had some bad mistypings and a couple of HTML coding errors. I shall now go and try to correct them This is the problem of trying to blog through uncertain wifi connections and while hurrying, e.g. at airports.)
My Dearest Helena,
No one can, and no one should, impute to your character the smelly indignity of poltroonery. On May 3, 2006, at 10:41PM, you were bold enough to rigorously denounce Mister Christopher Hitchens as a bibulous and crapulous sciolist; thereby expressing, for all posterity to perceive, your striking originality as a thinker and a writer. I hope you won't mind if I emulate your style, and unleash a string of bon ton bon mots against an adversary of my own.
On the point about Mr. Hitchens being a mediocrity by any rational metric, I have to say that I agree completely. Christopher is a defective and dreadful writer, and you, Helena, are a luminous literary lapidary. Mr. Hitchens could never, for example, have authored this:
"Yes, for a long time Chris Hitchens did have a glib facility with words, though I wouldn't go as far as to describe him as ever having been, "one of our great men of letters". Juan overdoes the lapsarian aspect of Chris's career trajectory quite a bit there."
Breezy. And a colossal galumph away from the mediocre.
Your brilliance, Helena, is ever an inspiration.
Convivially,
A College Freshman following the paths of Colossi.