Oriental wisdom
One illiterate couple at the entrance viewed the Bookbang banners with suspicion. 'I don't know what it is,' said the girl, 'but it must be pornographic.' Lord Longford, who was standing within earshot, may have felt that the barbarians were clamouring at the gates. Earlier, John Wells had been explain- ing to him the title of his novel, written with John Fortune, A Melon for Ecstasy, pub-
lished under Lord Longford's imprint of Sidgwick and Jackson and recently reviewed in this paper. Wells ascribed it to an old Persian proverb which runs, 'A woman for duty, a boy for pleasure, but a melon for ecstasy.' A less circumspect, or perhaps less poetic, author, might have apprised Lord Longford of the original rendering from the Chinese ; 'A woman for necessity, a boy for pleasure, but a goat for choice,
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