THE SCENE: When everyone starts believing every word you say, there’s a real temptation see how far you can push their credulity, even when you’re a famous philosopher like Sir Thomas Moore.
THE TEXT: Sir Thomas Moore’s discourse was extraordinarily facetious. Riding one night, upon the sudden, he crossed himself with a great cross, crying out, “Jesu Maria! Do you not see that prodigious dragon in the sky?”
They all looked up, and one did not see it, nor the tother did not see it. At length one had spied it, and at last they all had spied. Whereas there was no such phantom; only he imposed on their fantasies.
– Brief Lives, John Aubrey, 17th Century AD
