Anecdotal Evidence

“Night-train noises, muffled and low, / nights when the Northern Limited left.” I first read Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio (1919) i...

A pink violet is growing in the front yard, not planted by us but likely the offspring of a seed carried by the wind. For a native Northerne...

The common word I can least imagine my father ever uttering, at least as supplied by his threadbare lexicon and in the presence of family, i...

Asked why wit was so characteristic of British writing, at least as of 1998, the novelist Penelope Fitzgerald replied :   “Wit means self-...

A friend wrote first thing Wednesday morning telling me Norman Podhoretz had died at age ninety-five. It was like hearing the last sequoia h...

“It is in order to help the young who are entering on careers, and those of all ages who desire to extend those delights and spiritual devel...

In a conversation with a well-read friend I had a disturbing realization: my love of American literature is rather constricted. I feel almos...