feelings, by Abe Lincoln

I. Fragments of the 16th President

Notes to self, by President Lincoln. 

The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for, and against the same thing at the same time.[...]

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.

II. I Will Try Not to Put You in My Novel
Recently finished Mary McCarthy's The Company She Keeps, and I highly recommend this retrospective on her work:

People satirize their friends in their novels all the time, to varying results. It’s safe to say that few people have been thrilled to find out they’re in a novel. But McCarthy seemed to be delivering not her judgment, but God’s. She regarded her novels as impersonal—her feelings were not involved—but that quality was also what made them unforgivable. If she rendered you with lettuce in the teeth, scuffed shoes, questionable taste; if she pinned your personal foibles down; well, it was only because that was how you were.

Honestly, the book was a reminder to me that the current era is like no other time so much as it might be just the 1930s playing themselves to a different tune. Hopefully we avoid any kind of world-changing war, but at least we have McCarthy's take-downs of various social classes. Her own is pretty brutal, though:

Ah, God, it was too sad and awful, the endless hide-and-go-seek game one played with the middle class. If one could only be sure that one did not belong to it, that one was finer, nobler, more aristocratic. The truth was she hated from above, not solidly below, and her proletarian sympathies constituted a sort of snub that she administered to the middle class... Scratch a socialist and you will find a snob.

I think I always want to escape below, rather than above, but every thinker aches to be distinct, I guess, which is an ever-refreshing obstacle to distinction.

III. Artless Self-Promotion
My opinion on a few things can be found this week in an essay I wrote for The Millions about crying while art-ing. It was a pretty personal essay, one Emilie read through and about which I asked for her okay. I don't have a lot to add except that I've become a more casual crier since Annabelle was born. Not the life-halting sort of sobs I talk about in the piece, but the maudlin business that McCarthy, above, is essentially lampooning. I think most commercials are monetary schemes designed by very talented people to warp your desires such that you measure happiness by what isn't yet wrestled to your coffers. I know. I'm a hoot at dinner parties! But just anticipating the shampoo commercials for the Winter Olympics has me worried. Moms sacrifice so much, you guys.

Also, while it's a slightly weird time to engage in the pseudo-jingoistic pantomime that is the Olympics, I will not be intimidated. The Olympics are wonderful (although they should stop bankrupting cities without the proper infrastructure), and will hopefully be a reprieve for anyone following the worst sex abuse scandal in recent history. Sharp turn to the serious, I know, but read the linked piece. Rachel Denhollander deserves all the credit in the world. I'm sure this renders me middle-class beige, but I found her parting shot to Dr. Nassar priceless:

I pray you experience the soul-crushing weight of guilt so you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me — though I extend that to you as well.

IV. That than Which No More Niche Can Be Known

My good friend Bill Coberly and I now have a quarterly podcast. We read big books and talk about them for a long time. First up is The Worst Journey in the World, the whole thing having come about through this newsletter, and my request that *someone* read that exact book with me. Bill said he would, and we decided to record the aftermath (and will do the same for other similarly big books, four times a year, if possible). 

V. Annabelle's Favorite Poem
The poem that garners the most smiles currently is Hopkins's "As Kingfishers Catch Fire." One of my favorites, too. Total coincidence.