Commentary
According to Mr. Google, I am 3,430 miles from home.
It’s nice to be back in London, though I’m sorry to report that my visit was occasioned by the funeral of an old and dear friend.
(By “old friend” incidentally, I mean that we had been friends a long time, not that he was old.)
Such things—long-distance travel, mortality rendered up close and personal—tend to impart a sense of broader horizons and more meditative perspectives to our appreciation of events.
I think in this context of a beautiful late poem by A. E. Housman.
Towards the end these lines occur:…