... write anecdotes or secret history’, as though the
two things were the same. But by then the word had begun to acquire the
looser sense which it has had ever since––as the Concise Oxford Dictionary
puts ... struck at
the sight of them and cried out to the other ladies in the bath: ‘Come
hither, and see how cruelly the poor English ladies are used by their
husbands. You need boast indeed of the superior ... in
the telling. They take their inspiration from the truth, and then they
build on it.
Does it matter? In the case of vicious stories, a great deal (but then one
doesn’t really want to call them...