Opening at random Lichtenberg’s Aphorisms I note that V has put a mark in the margin beside this: ‘To excuse one’s own failings as being only human nature is, provided one has meant well, every writer’s first duty to himself.’ It is? I flip the pages, seeking more clues to his thoughts about himself. Feel as criminal as if snooping on a diary. A page corner has been folded: under it I read, ‘It is very charming to hear a foreign woman speak our language and make mistakes with her fair lips. Not so in the case of men.’