`Among Those Whom I Love'

Tributes, as Lincoln understood, are best when brief. David, my youngest son, turns eight today and shares his birthday with W.H. Auden, who turns one hundred and four. In “Notes on the Comic,” collected in The Dyer’s Hand (1962), Auden writes:

“Among those I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.”