I think my easiness with the idea of a writer’s intentions must have grown through all those decades working as a psychoanalyst. Though I’m sure the gift was there long before any formal training began. But there it is. It happens all the time, every day of the week. Someone gazing across at me, the stars shining in her eyes, as she breathes: ‘Gosh, Dr Bowman, how well you read my mind.....’ On that other point. The Oxford Dictionery defines *affectation* as - b) an ‘ostentatious fondness for, or display of,’ And *religiosity* as - b) ‘affected or excessive religiousness’. These definitions may not coincide with your particular ideas, Jim, but is your problem. For most of the English speaking world these are the simple meanings. The words conveyed well enough that awful feeling of: ‘Look at me, Ma, I’m being mystical....’ which, for me at least, permeates the endless anguishings of the Glass family. And yes, Kari, I have written quite a lot. Even a couple of books. And I simply never had the feeling that any of my readers had discovered a meaning hitherto unknown to myself. The ignorant slobs often seemed to miss the point. But I felt that was more my failing than theirs. Human beings are in the main unbelievably stupid & it takes a great writer working at the top of his form to get anything at all into their thick heads. (Australians excepted, of course.) Scottie B.