(Vladislav Delay, “Toive”, directed by Carolina Melis & Lorenzo Sportiello.)

“Mr. Glowry used to say that his house was no better than a spacious kennel, for everyone in it led the life of a dog. Disappointed both in love and friendship, and looking upon human learning as vanity, he had come to a conclusion that there was but one good thing in the world, videlicet, a good dinner; and this his parsimonious lady seldom suffered him to enjoy: but, one morning, like Sir Leoline in Christabel, ‘he woke and found his lady dead’, and remained a very consolate widower, with one small child.”

(Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, chapter 1, p. 2.)

“[William Carlos Williams] saw all the little magazines, from Others to This Quarter, and before and after them, as one single magazine, ‘a continuous magazine . . . with an absolute freedom of editorial policy and a succession of proprietorships that follows a democratic rule’. Take the little magazine away, he wrote, and a prominent support is cut from under the poet, and for years he may get nothing into print; ‘loose ends are left dangling, men are lost’, he wrote in true sorrow, ‘promises that needed culture, needed protection and wit and courage to back them simply die’.”

(Kay Boyle, p. 173 in Robert McAlmon & Kay Boyle, Being Geniuses Together.)