Sometimes W. thinks he should make a study of my life. He wants to take notes, to sketch a kind of physiognomy of thought. He would reduce my life, the profusion of my life, to a few simple principles and thereby show what I am to the world.
But why bother? It should be clear to anyone with any sense. Nothing is hidden, in my case, and perhaps it's not even that noteworthy.
But then, too, W. says, a context is needed – a critical introduction, as you get in the new edition of a classic work of literature. My idiocy needs to be explained, W. says. It needs to be set back into its time, its social and political history if its true extent is to be gauged. It needs a border drawn around it, a frame and an explanatory plaque.
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