Sand

"Vice never sees its own ugliness- if it did, it would be frightened by its own image. Shakespeare's Iago, who behaves in a way that's true to his nature, sounds false because he is forced by our dramatic conventions to unmask himself, to himself be the one to lay bare the secrets of his complex and crooked heart. In reality, man seldom tramples his conscience under foot so casually; he turns it this way and that, pushes and pulls at it, twists it out of shape, and when he has distorted it, made it flabby and shapeless, worn it out, he then keeps it at his side like an indulgent master whom he pretends to fear, consult, and obey but who in reality gives in to his every whim or desire."


December 8, 1996