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By Root 1111 0

from self-detraction to self-praise. It wasn't hard: by temperament I am rather inclined to forming a high opinion of myself than a low. Fulvia had had an invaluable stroke of luck meeting me first; but taking me as a model would expose her to cruel disappointments. Other men she would meet would seem crude, feeble, dull and dumb, after myself. In her innocence she no doubt imagined my good qualities to be fairly common attributes amongst my sex; I must warn her that seeking from others what she had found in me could only lead to disillusionment. I shivered in horror at the thought that after such a happy beginning Fulvia might fall into unworthy hands, who would harm her, maim her, debase her. I hated all of them; and I ended up hating her too because destiny was to snatch her from me condemning her to a degraded future.

One way or another, the passion that had me in its grip was, I suspect, the one I have always heard described as ‘jealousy’, a mental disturbance from which I had imagined circumstances had rendered me immune. Having established that I was jealous, all I could do was behave like a jealous man. I lost my temper with Fulvia, telling her I couldn't stand her being so calm just before we were about to part; I accused her of hardly being able to wait to betray me; I was unkind to her, cruel. But she (no doubt out of inexperience) seemed to find this change in my mood natural and wasn't unduly upset. Very sensibly she advised me not to waste the little time we had left together on pointless recriminations.

Then I knelt at her feet, I begged her to pardon me, not to inveigh too bitterly against me when she had found a companion worthy of her; I hoped for no greater indulgence than to be forgotten. She treated me as though I were mad; she wouldn't let me speak of what had happened between us in anything but the most flattering terms; otherwise, she said, it spoiled the effect.

This served to reassure me as to my image, but then I found myself commiserating with Fulvia over her future destiny: other men were worthless; I should warn her that the fullness she'd known with me wouldn't happen again with anyone else. She answered that she too felt sorry for me, because our happiness came from our being together, once apart we would both lose it; but to preserve it for some time longer we should both immerse ourselves in it totally without imagining we could define it from without.

The conclusion I came to from without, waving my handkerchief to her from the ship as the anchor was raised, was this: the experience that had entirely occupied Fulvia all the time she was with me was not the discovery of myself and not even the discovery of love or of men, but of herself; even in my absence this discovery, once begun, would never cease; I had only been an instrument.

Henry Ford

SPOKESMAN: Mr Ford, I have been entrusted with the task of putting a number … The committee of which I am a member has the pleasure of informing you … Obliged as we are to erect a monument to that celebrity of our century who … The choice of your name, unanimously … For having exercised the greatest influence on the history of mankind … on the very image of man … Having considered your achievements and thought … Who if not Henry Ford has changed the world, made it completely different from what it was before him? Who more than Henry Ford has given form to our way of life? So, we would like the monument to have your approval… We would like you to tell us how you would prefer to be portrayed, against what background …

HENRY FORD: As you see me now … Amongst birds … I had five hundred aviaries like this … I called them bird hotels; the biggest was the housemartin house, with seventy-six apartments; winter and summer if they came to me birds would always find food, shelter and water to drink. I had baskets hung from the trees on wires and filled with bird seed all winter long, and drinking bowls with electric elements so that the water wouldn't freeze. I had artificial nests of various kinds put up in the trees: the wrens prefer swinging