Secrecy involves a tension which, at the moment of revelation, finds its release.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The end of secrecy would be the end of the novel - especially the English novel. The English novel requires social secrecy, personal secrecy.
In all secrets there is a kind of guilt, however beautiful or joyful they may be, or for what good end they may be set to serve. Secrecy means evasion, and evasion means a problem to the moral mind.
Secrecy is thus, so to speak, a transition stadium between being and not-being.
Secrecy sets barriers between men, but at the same time offers the seductive temptation to break through the barriers by gossip or confession.
A secret is not something unrevealed, but something told privately, in a whisper.
Leaks are not the problem; they are the symptom. They reveal a disconnect between what people want and need to know and what they actually do know. The greater the secrecy, the more likely a leak.
Then I realized that secrecy is actually to the detriment of my own peace of mind and self, and that I could still sustain my belief in privacy and be authentic and transparent at the same time. It was a pretty revelatory moment, and there's been a liberating force that's come from it.
Anything that's secret, clandestine, loaded with such a supercargo of speculation, misinformation, disinformation and, for that matter, accurate revelations, creates an appetite.
The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.
The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy.