Sublime

you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise.

That Thomas had worked for the Chronicle since 1976 was easily established, as was the fact that he’d published three brief novels since that date. Out of a sense of delicacy Carleton never mentioned that he owned all three of these, and found them elegant and elliptical, couched in prose that had the cadence of the King James Bible, and concerned

lank

“My heart is on fire; but my eyes are as cold as ashes.”

Make them forget there’s such a thing as flesh. Your business is to paint the souls of men — Man’s soul, and it’s a fire, smoke … no, it’s not … It’s vapour done up like a new-born babe — (In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth)

A moment later, wearing a corn-colored jacket over green velour pants and an orange-and-green-plaid tie, Jack Ashkenazy came in, followed by George Deasey, who, as ever, appeared to be in a testy mood. He was, as Anapol had mentioned, a graduate of Columbia, class of 1912. Over the course of his career, George Debevoise Deasey had published symboli

‘You’re our longest-serving contributor,’ said Carleton, flinching at the bang. ‘Our most admired. Indeed I should say our most popular.’ I’m beginning to speak like him, he thought: Thomas Hart is catching, that’s the trouble. ‘I’ve often heard it said that it’s a consolation – that’s the general feeling, as I said to the board – to wake on Thursd

He staggered along up Union Street past the old Grammar School a beautiful ornate property and now a satellite campus of Preston Polytechnic. During the hot summer it had witnessed a college student sit-in protest, the building occupied on an organized twenty-four hour schedule and even now as Bob trudged by, the ancient exterior was still littered

bacchanalia