27 JULY 1951, Page 18

"I Couldn't Care Less

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SIR,—Mr. Harold Nicolson does well to castigate the current phrase "I couldn't care less." Is not this that subtlest of the seven deadly sins known of old as accidie, and variously translated 'as sloth, torpor, indifference ? The dictionary gives its derivation succinctly as "from the Greek a, not ; kedos, care." In Dante's Purgatorio the souls of the indifferent are purged of their torpor on the fourth terrace, where a crowd of them rush past in the moonlight. "We are so filled," they say to Dante, "with desire to keep moving that we cannot rest ; pardon us then if thou take our penance for discourtesy." May it be that the craze of our day for speed is perhaps a symbolic act of penance ?—Yours

loppa, Midlothian.