“Look around,” she said, with a gesture around the Far East Suite. “Look at everything in plain sight. The bed, the table, every object you see has likely been in the world longer than us, and they’ll still be in the world when we’re gone. It is the things that have a history, L. Compared to them we are ghosts.”
She smiled at me, and then like a ghost she vanished, just as I was smiling back. She had never been there, of course, but it made me feel better to talk to her, even though I did not like it when she called me L.
-- Shouldn’t You Be in School?
****
As I’ve mentioned, I don’t enjoy being called by my first name unless I ask someone to do so. Even when I was very young, I preferred to be called “Mr. Snicket” or even “Master Snicket,” a term some people use for young boys which has the additional advantage of making the person saying it sound like a servant.
-- Poison for Breakfast