“Mansfield’s note, then, speaks of more than the universal love triangle. It also sounds out from the now-silent world of the early 20s in Europe and urban America; one in which moral, class…

“There were fishing folk online, and their love of and longing for the boats and the water was palpable and poetic. What little I knew of tug crews from my early life had…

“I am known for walking with my eyes to the ground. This may be taken by some as evidence of my melancholy character. To my Edwardian great-aunts, it would have been evidence of…

“This stark universe forms within as well as without. It is haunted by the consequences of isolation, indifference and exploitation and by specters of fear, failure, self-hate and self-defeat. These remove us from…

“Perhaps, there’s a need to revisit another category of heroism: virtuous action and extraordinary bravery that arises out of something other than adherence to a personal code or ruined chivalric hierarchy, or to…

“I suspect that Walter Benjamin, should he return, shuddering, to our era, would protest the sirens urging us toward the shoals of some epic chimera of greatness or defensive unity. I think he…

“In Christian worship, in the Episcopalian tradition, the Eucharistic Host is received in one’s hands, palms up and together. The gesture in the parking lot seemed as if it were allowing some harbinger…

“It is important to address right now the present political disaster in the United States (as others must also do in Britain, and Poland, and Hungary, and Russia, and many other nations) as…

“The problem is that all the political infighting leading up to the economic future of Britain or to the next US Presidential election fades into insignificance compared to the catastrophic effects of unchecked…

“On the morning I left him for home, we did talk. About Donald Trump. Not at length: Dad tires easily. But the news coverage of Trump had clearly shaken him. The open departures…