When it was decided to reissue J. Saunders Redding’s famous little book in a paperback edition, we wrote to Mr. Redding at Hampton Institute, where he teaches English, to ask if he wished to update the book or perhaps write a new introduction. In due course an answer arrived from Nigeria, where Mr. Redding is presently lecturing and traveling, telling us to go ahead with whatever updating we would think important to the text. We went over the book carefully. It is true, some things have changed: Mr. Redding is a little older, his sons have grown into young men, his father died last year, at the age of ninety-two—but except for those things we found that, unfortunately, no updating was needed.

“By the way, have I ever told you——”

“Enough of the truth?” she asked.

“There is never enough of the truth,” the Colonel said. “There is only more and more.”