One afternoon after he left for work, she found a passage circled in his well-worn copy of Schopenhauer: In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theater before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin. It is a blessing that we do not know what is really going to happen. Yeah! She gave up the crosswords and delved into The World As Will and Idea. This Schopenhauer was a genius! Why hadn’t anyone told her? She was a reader, she had waded through some philosophy in her time—you just couldn’t make any sense out of it. The problem was the terminology! She was a crossword ace, but words like eschatology—hey! Yet Schopenhauer got right into the heart of all the important things. The things that really mattered. With Schopenhauer she could take long excursions from the grim specter of impending death. In Schopenhauer, particularly in his aphorisms and reflections, she found an absolute satisfaction, for Schopenhauer spoke the truth and the rest of the world was disseminating lies!