He relates what a writer he admires but has never met said about critics never agreeing, and that writer's report of Yeats saying he never writes for the reader but only sets down what his character tells him — as Shakespeare was educated by his own characters.

Neville mentions having read the joke that Shakespeare wrote Psalm 46 and hid himself in it as the 46th words from each end, and the claim that Rufus, living in the 16th century, said the psalm inspired his hymn.