Ooo la la!
I wonder what my 23-year-old self would make of my current existence?
I got a little consolation from Yeats. (Better and better isn't it?) Not for me these days those "dying generations at their song." I'm off for "monuments of unaging intellect": e.g. Milton.
Really, it could be worse.
Yeats tonight also helped a little with my continuing literary rejections. See: "Against Unworthy Praise."
It starts like this:
O HEART, be at peace, because
Nor knave nor dolt can break
What's not for their applause,
Even Yeats wanted applause! He felt shabby about it and manages in this poem to talk himself around. Luckily for him, and the English-reading world, he had a muse who got booed offstage and didn't apparently care.
[...] what her dreaming gave
Earned slander, ingratitude,
From self-same dolt and knave;
Aye, and worse wrong than these.
Yet she, singing upon her road,
Half lion, half child, is at peace.
You tell 'em Bill!
Not that I think of literary agents who have had said "no thanks" to me as dolts and knaves. (Well, maybe the ones who include helpful tips on how to write in their canned responses). I'll leave that to the judgment of future generations.
Wink wink.
