``There is non-fiction and non non-fiction,'' I said. ``Speaking of nonism: the other day, in a story about a sit-down demonstration, the Paris Herald Tribune wrote,' The non violence became noisier'. And then Eichmann was quoted as saying, in non English, that Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jews was nonsense.''

``If we cannot tell evil, horror, and insanity from nonsense, what is the future of humor and comedy?'' Moreland asked, grimly.

``Cryptic,'' I said. ``They require, for existence, a brave spirit and a high heart, and where do you find these? In our present era of Science and Angst, the heart has been downgraded, to use one of our popular retrogressive verbs.''

``I know what you mean,'' Moreland sighed. ``Last year your Tennessee Williams told our Dilys Powell, in a television program, that it is the task of the playwright to throw light into the dark corners of the human heart. Like almost everybody else, he confused the heart, both as organ and as symbol, with the disturbed psyche, the deranged glands, and the jumpy central nervous system. I'm not pleading for the heart that leaps up when it beholds a rainbow in the sky, or for the heart that with rapture fills and dances with the daffodils. The sentimental pure heart of Galahad is gone with the knightly years, but I still believe in the heart of the George Meredith character that was not made of the stuff that breaks.''