There are a variety of possible emotional reactions to text. I’ve been thinking about that and what the contents of those various categories would say about a person.  So there are the books that make us mad, the ones that bore, the ones that make us chuckle, and downright snort with delight, but there are also the ones that obsess us and the ones that make us deeply envious.  Personally, I find those last two the most interesting.

Comparing lists might be just as illustrative as the Meyers-Briggs Type Inventory. (I’m an INTP, for those who know what that means.)

I suppose the trigger for this post was the discovery (in TLS) of a poem that caused me a deep pang of OMG I wish I could write like that

This is a poem by Mick Imlah about Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery which has the first line “I’m not suggesting he was Oscar Wilde.” You can read the full text here and here.

This is the next to last stanza and the one that went through all my civilized defenses and made me want to weep with envy.

Stick to the questions. So I ran them through,
scraping my cane along the sweep of gravel:
Do you regret your ministry was not
a longer one – though so much was achieved?
– or, Was it the splits within your own party,
or the Irish crisis, more, that brought you down –
no – that we should blame the more for your
untimely exit? (“Neither. The truth is,
I had to get out sharp, I was seeing things”) –
And in retirement, what . . .
When in breezed
his amazing daughter. “How d’ye do!
I’m Peggy Crewe – You must be – Modicum . . .”
– offered her hand, and gave me such a smile
I think I said, Indeed I was – I watched
the daisies on her dress – she held her smile;
and as her hand withdrew, I was wondering
at the way this being shone in her station,
whose grace was almost natural, almost
the real thing; and, how I would be the first
to fall in behind her lead or standard –