β
Every man carries within him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.
A parlor game for a wet afternoon β imaging the mirrors of oneβs friends. A has a huge pier glass, gilded and baroque, B a discreet little pocket mirror in a pigskin case with his initials stamped on the back; whenever one looks at C, he is in the act of throwing his mirror away but, if one looks in his pocket or up his sleeve, one always finds another, like an extra ace.
β
β
W.H. Auden (The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays)