{Thirty-Five Owls}

XVI

May 17th, 1957

Gellert,

I'm afraid he's a little out of the infantile Dark Lord stage. We may be into skulking and temperamental early adolescence, a phase of Dark development I know well from my time with you. Unfortunately he has no friend to spend that troubled time with, and I have stretched this hapless metaphor to its snapping point.

As for the choice you mention--it weighs on me heavily, yes. My Pensieve has been invaluable. And--at times my heart proves difficult to untangle as well.

One can think almost endlessly on that question, that of Muggles. Though they've answered some of your wonders themselves--the further you look into Muggle artistic criticism, the more you realize that there are valid criteria for judging creative output beyond its practical-magical usefulness. I'm enclosing a text that's been particularly helpful with that, if also dry. One thing I've found particularly difficult to realize, as a wizard, that to a Muggle a life of the mind does, in fact, entail losing any ability to affect reality directly. Yet, for that, it is often surprising how many of them choose such a life, and those who don't, who choose professions of battle and labor where they can change physical reality through their own natural means, are generally considered to be a second class. I'd heard it proposed that they're unconsciously mimicking wizarding society. I think perhaps the cause and effect there is off.

But, I beg your pardon, I ramble. This topic has been my pet hobby as of late. And, as you've pointed out, I have a Dark Lord to attend to.

Albus

[enclosure: Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism]