Writing about people when one is alone under an electric lamp, and thinking about people when one stands watching the rain in the dark streets, are two different diversions. When one writes under an electric lamp one pompously marshals ideas; one remembers the things people say and do and believe in, and slowly these things replace people in one's mind. One thinks (in the calm of one's study): "So-and-so is a Puritan ... he is viciously afraid of anything which will disturb the idealized version of himself in which he believes--and wants other people to believe...." Yes, one thinks So-and-so is this and So-and-so is that. And it all seems very simple. People focus into clearly outlined ideas--definitions. And one can sit back and belabor them, hamstring them, pull their noses, expose their absurdities and derive a deal of satisfaction from the process. Iconoclasm is easy and warming under an electric light in one's study. But in the rain at night, in the dark street staring at darkened windows, watching the curious reflections in the pavements--it is different in the rain. The night mutters and whispers. "People," one thinks, "tired, silent people sleeping in the dark." Ideas do not come so easily or so clearly. The ennobling angers which are the emotion of superiority in the iconoclast do not rise so spontaneously. And one does not say "People are this and people are that...." No, one pauses and stares at the dark chatter of the rain and a curious silence saddens one's mind. Life is apart from ideas. And the things that people say and believe in and for which they die and in behalf of which they invent laws and codes--these have nothing to do with the insides of people. Puritan, hypocrite, criminal, dolt--these are paper-thin masks. It is diverting to rip them in the calm of one's study. Life that warms the trees into green in the summer, that sends birds circling through the air, that spreads a tender, passionate glow over even the most barren wastes--people are but one of its almost too many children. The dark, the rain, the lights, people asleep in bed, the wind, the snow that will fall tomorrow, the ice, flowers, sunlight, country roads, pavements and stars--all these are the same. Through all of them life sends its intimate and sacred breath. One becomes aware of such curious facts in the rain at night and one's iconoclasm, like a broken umbrella, hangs useless from one's hand. Tomorrow these people who are now asleep will be stirring, giving vent to outrageous ideas, championing incredulous banalities, prostrating themselves before imbecile superstitions. Tomorrow they will rise and begin forthwith to lie, quibble, cheat, steal, fourflush and kill, each and all inspired by the solacing monomania that every one of their words and gestures is a credible variant of perfection. Yes, tomorrow they will be as they were yesterday.