Back in my novel-reading days ... to which I will probably not return until I glide (or somebody pushes me) into retirement ... I kept company with an author named John O'Hara, who wrote about the "social set" living in the mythical town of Gibbsville, Pennsylvania. Critics have suggested that O'Hara's signature novel was one of his earliest. Oddly enough, it begins with a 14-line quote from W. Somerset Maugham. Listen:

There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions. In a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said: "Master, just now when I was in the marketplace, I was jostled by a woman in the crowd. When I turned, I saw that it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. So lend me your horse and I …