Perhaps I am confounding vanity and exhibitionism with a spurious philanthropy
when I argue that the publication of letters, diaries, confessions of all kinds,
and the most private of documents is essential to the flourishing, perhaps even
to the survival of our culture or of such culture as we have. This notion 
derives immediately from my perusal of the exchange of Matthiessens and Cheneys
correspondence, published as Rat and the Devil by their friend Louis Hyde.
The rarity, if not uniqueness of such friendships makes the publicatikon of 
these documents especially valuable, because what we learn of them comes to
constitute a portion of the world of our imagination. The argument that matters
such as these should be private is wrong. Our lives consist in what we remember
what we think, what we imagine, a wealth that should not be constrained or
limited by inappropriate considerations of privacy. Speaking out, revealing
ones personality, disclosing the fabric of ones life, is an obligation of
citizenship far more fundamental than marching in the parade or casting ones
vote. More later.