WITH NO ONE ELSE TO TALK TO

who better than the dilettante to prove the impossibility of a private language ... or a private understanding ... for their failure is what makes the dilettante what he is ... effete ... a touch here and a dab there in a hundred different interests ... and nothing deep ... nothing from found to profound ... all the brilliance stays on the surface and soon is in the past disconnected from the start ... for all those lovely thoughts are purloined letters smuggled into a corner and not let loose from there ... and the author like a parrot on his perch with just a new line every day ... never was a thought he said till it came in a word ... no sentiment no perception till it settled down into a sentence ... no understanding till you told it to another ... the dilettante's dilemma there was no other ... no thought no word no deed that wasn't so because of its part in the discourse ... and our hero on a log in space talking to himself as if it were talk when it had no other purpose with no one else to talk to ... couldn't really speak at all ... just a colorful flash of sound not understanding language is a prayer

mccabe on aquinas chs 12 + 13