Don't you think
it would be interesting if you really could read the story of your life—written
perfectly truthfully by an omniscient author? And suppose you could only read
it on this condition: that you would never forget it, but would have to go
through life knowing ahead of time exactly how everything you did would turn
out, and foreseeing to the exact hour the time when you would die. How many
people do you suppose would have the courage to read it then? or how many could
suppress their curiosity sufficiently to escape from reading it, even at the
price of having to live without hope and without surprises?