He was the true Dantescan voice--not honoured enough, and deserving more than I ever gave him.
I had hoped to see him in Venice this year for the Dante commemoration at the Giorgio Cini Foundation--instead: Westminster Abbey. But, later, on his own hearth, a flame tended, a presence felt.
Recollections? let some thesis writer have the satisfaction of 'discovering' whether it was in 1920 or '21 that I went from Excideuil to meet a rucksacked Eliot. Days of walking--conversation? literary? le papier Fayard was then the burning topic. Who is there now for me to share a joke with?
Am I to 'write' about the poet Thomas Stearns Eliot? or my friend 'the Possum'? Let him rest in peace. I can only repeat, but with the urgency of 50 years ago: READ HIM.
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