A Report to an Academy––––––––
* * * *
ESTEEMED GENTLEMEN of the Academy!
I feel honored by your invitation to present the academy with a report on my former life as an ape.
I am afraid, however, that I will be unable to comply with your request. It is now some five years that I have been separated from apedom-a short time according to the calendar, perhaps, but an eternity when you have to gallop through it the way I did. And even though I was accompanied, at least for parts of the way, by fine human beings, good counsel, orchestral music and applause, my journey was in essence a solitary one, for the accompaniment-to stick with the metaphor-kept far away from the barricade. This achievement would have been impossible if I had desired to cling to my origins, to the memory of my youth.
