137. 13 February 2000 [ES] (Bacon)

previously unpublished; © the estate of eric sams and beatrice cazac (Mrs. Mathew’s letters)

Dear Hayat,

   many thanks for the Bacon piece, which I've read with interest and (let's face it) amazement - the latter occasioned, as ever, by the astonishing anti-Baconian stances adopted by those antagonists, compared to which contortions the position adopted by Ajax analogously defying the lightning seems positively easy-going. I can't at all understand how anyone could dislodge Bacon from his towering as the Father of Induction (in my philosophy, a wholly rational proceeding) - still less why anyone would wish to try.

   The perpetrator would have to be someone like Alastair McIntosh (accent of the tosh) whose sporran seems seriously short of bawbees. Its amazing to me that McIntosh, of whom no person on this planet has ever heard, should denigrate, or seek to denigrate, the lordly and justly famed Bacon. The desire of the moth for the star is comprehensible enough, but the desire of the moth to pull the star down and smother it (so, however, that the moth is retained - I'm writing under the influence of the Times crossword here) is seriously bizarre. Who arethese poor demented people? Anyhow, I think you've done a great job in pinning them down (very salutary for moths): so more power to your writer's elbow, so to speak.

   Farewell for now,

   love as ever,

   yours Eric