September 2011
5 posts
“…Hence most of his writings exhibit the sluttish magnificence of a Russian...”
– Thomas Babington Macaulay, on John Dryden. From Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1854) Taken from Poisoned Pens, a collection of literary invective edited by Gary Dexter.
AT ALMOST ONE 0’CLOCK I entered the lobby of the building where I worked and turned toward the escalators, carrying a black Penguin paperback and a small white CVS bag, its receipt stapled over the top. The escalators rose toward the mezzanine, where my office was. They were the free-standing kind: a pair of integral signs swooping upward between the two floors they served without struts or...