T IS ELUSIVE

"From error to error, one discovers the entire truth."
  - Sigmund Freud





Fright usually gives grey hairs, but it had made the hair of the ghost of Sigmund Freud darker.

He cupped his bearded chin in one hand.  "So now we arrive at the Letter T.  What occurred to you when I spoke that letter?"

I said, "Truth."

Sigmund Freud mused, "From error to error, one discovers the entire truth."

Mark Twain snorted,

"We are always hearing of people who are around seeking after the Truth. 

I have never seen a permanent specimen. I think he has never lived. 

But I have seen several entirely sincere people who thought they were permanent. 

Seekers after the Truth. 

They sought diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect honesty and nicely adjusted judgment- 

until they believed that without doubt or question they had found the Truth. 

That was the end of the search. 

The man spent the rest of his hunting up shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather."

Freud said, "I continued all my life to expand my knowledge of the truth lurking in the psyches of the bruised."

 Twain smiled sourly, 

"I have not professionally dealt in truth. 

Many when they come to die have spent all the truth that was in them, and enter the next world as paupers. 

I have saved up enough to make an astonishment here."

Freud frowned,

"Do not misunderstand me, Twain.  

We often believe, not on the basis of argument, but upon the basis of desire.  I have striven mightily to avoid that snare."

Mark snorted as he tipped his head to the ghost of Emily Dickinson as she passed.  

"Careful there, Saw-Brains.  No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of a lady."

Freud gave Mark a look that suggested to me I should have said, "Temper."