26 August
26 August
26 August 1920
2 Portland Villas, Hampstead - London
'Then the train rattled among the housetops and among the ragged sides of houses torn down to make way for it, and over the swarming streets and under the fruitful earth ... A little more, and again it roared across the river, a great rocket: spurning the watery turnings and doublings with ineffable contempt, and going straight to its end, as Father Time goes to his. To whom it is no matter what living waters run high or low, reflect the heavenly lights and darknesses, produce their little growth of weeds and flowers, turn here, turn there, are noisy or still, are troubled or at rest, for their course has one sure termination, though their sources and devices are many.
Then a carriage ride succeeded, near the solemn river, stealing away by night, as all things steal away, by night and by day, so quietly yielding to the attraction of the loadstone rock Eternity ...' (Our Mutual Friend.)
Dickens on Death. It's always the same gesture. What does it imply? [KM Notebooks, undated]