""Europe is the Less. . . "
It is sad to hear that Dick Francis has died. I've never been able to plow through a single one of his books, but to quote from one of John Donne's most famous pieces:
With Sallinger and Francis, and others who have died this year so far, the literary world is the less. Not because there are not legions ready to fill to the holes in the ranks, but because there is no one who will be the same--there never is, nor can there ever be.
from "Devotions upon Emergent Ocassions XVII"
John Donne
No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
With Sallinger and Francis, and others who have died this year so far, the literary world is the less. Not because there are not legions ready to fill to the holes in the ranks, but because there is no one who will be the same--there never is, nor can there ever be.
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