PEOPLE AND THINGS
By HAROLD NICOLSON
WHEN I was a boy I used to be cursed by my masters for what they called my "inveterate habit of defacing books." I remember that at my private school I would cover the margins of my Fabulae Faciles with spirited illustrations of the Defence of Ladysmith or the Battle of Colenso. I pos- sess to this day an edition of the Odes and Epodes in which, opposite " Vixi puellis nuper idoneus," there is a really in- sulting drawing of Horatius Flaccus in his later middle age. Since then, I have abandoned illustration and have confined my defacements to underlining such passages as arouse my admiration or -resentment and to making a personal index on the fly-leaf at the end. This practice I have found to be immensely useful. It enables me with speed to find the references for which I am seeking. And even when I casually pick up some forgotten book, my eye is readily caught by these annotations.
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