First Impressions

Sometimes it's the first impression that turns out to be the correct one:

"I can proudly claim that I do know the date of my first pilgrimage to Jerusalem; partly because it was a year after the close of the Great War, and partly because when my publishers suggested my going to the Holy Land, it sounded to me like going to the moon. It was the first of my long journeys through a country still imperilled and under arms; it involved crossing the desert at night in something like a cattle-truck; and parts even of the Promised Land had some of the qualities of a lunar landscape. One incident in that wilderness still stands out in my memory for some strange reason; there is no need to recur here to Palestinian politics; but I was wandering about in the wilderness in a car with a zealous little Zionist; he seemed at first almost monomaniac, of the sort who answers the statement, 'It's a fine day,' with the eager reply, 'Oh, yes, the climate is perfect for our project.' But I came to sympathise with his romance; and when he said, 'It's a lovely land; I should like to put the Song of Solomon in my pocket and wander about,' I knew that, Jew or Gentile, mad or sane, we two were of the same sort." (Autobiography, G.K. Chesterton, 1936, p 284)

PS: You might also enjoy my 11/2/12 post Listen Up, Guys...]