this before emotion colours our
better judgment. Let us stop for the time being and let a wager stand."

"A wager?"

"Yes, you know of Pascal and his wager on faith?"

"Vaguely, but I'm tired of this thumb-pressing."

"I know, but hear me out."

"What we wish to establish here," I began, "is the superiority of
experience over imagination, actual events to intellect."

"Precisely," I maintained. "Let each of us do a bibliographical survey
establishing the whereabouts of most authors' inspiration. The Muse as
it were, that is the point whereby a given author is ready to grasp
order from the chaos of eclecticism. Not exhaustively, of course, just
a random selection of say ten and then report back to one another. Each
must promise to abide by the general consensus of the search."

"Such a thing will deteriorate to mere sham, a freshman's guide to the
use of periodical literature, he parodied holding a hand aloft like a
scolding professor."

"It's one step in the direction toward delineating how others reacted
to a similar problem."

"Fair then. We'll try it. But isn't it doomed to a split vote by the
very choice of our authors, we having had some previous contact with
their lives and thus knowing under which force the man propelled his
search?"

"Partially, but we are after the division point, that hiatus in time
whereby each no longer procured experience but began to write. That's
our quest. The movement towards actual writing, why the mood descended
on whom when it did at its precise locus in time."

"Locus?"

"Yes you know locus, in mathematics."

"What have we accomplished," he said turning to me wearily.

Tongue in cheek I replied by his very gestures he was experiencing a
weariness with the thought process and embarking on the need to try the
experience route.

"Sophistry," he cried aloud. "Pure bullshit. But we will let the wager
stand and upon it our friendship, our acquaintanceship all I associate
with the likes of you and yours. And, further, for argument's sake,
argument itself."

"Aye, let all that stand and more. Let's get Faustian about this and
raise the tempo, I nearly implored. One, by virtue of his defeat must
swear off writing for a full three months. He must promise not to
desecrate paper with tainted thought until the ink of this clamour gels
as a sturdy lesson to his peevishness."

"Awkward, but interesting. Continue."

"Nothing more, just this little writing circle shall have