I read in the NY Times this morning that David Foster Wallace has killed himself. I remember reading his Harper's essay about going on a Caribbean cruise and being strangely impressed. It was like reliving the clever, self-referential sarcasm of my college friends but distilled into intelligent prose. I liked it but I didn't like it. In myself I call this attitude "the sin of snottiness," and I hate it even more than "the sin of clingy distress," though both are hard to suppress.

And now his writing style seems dreadfully like a preview for hopelessness. How could he have set up his wife to find him hanging?

The Holy Ghost

John Donne

O Holy Ghost, whose temple I

Am, but of mudde walls, and condensed dust,

And being sacrilegiously

Halfe wasted with youths fires, of pride and lust,

Must with new stormes be weatherbeat;

Double in my heart thy flame,

Which let devout sad teares intend; and let

(Though this glasse lanthorne, flesh, do suffer maime)

Fire, Sacrifice, Priest, Altar be the same.