Leaving shortly for another 10-hour bus ride.

Reading last night was pleasant, with a tiny nice crowd, which was good because there were hardly any chairs. I met a man named Thomas Rayfiel who has written an admirable essay on Ivy Compton-Burnett, and I went out for dinner at a restaurant called Rosewater. Jeannie Beaumont, my co-reader, subsequently tasted Jagermeister for the first time. Then I stayed up till 3:30 with my friend Ray. We listened to Merle Haggard drinking songs and reminisced about our chequered past, which I prefer to spell with a q.

Earlier in the day I went to the Pierpont Morgan Library, which had a Blake exhibit. I enjoyed the Blakes, but then I walked into a large velvet-hung book room of the sort that might have been designed by an early 20th-century robber baron, and there, sitting quietly in a corner, was a portrait of John Milton at the age of 10.

Amazing to imagine that Milton was ever age 10.  Yet here he sits, round-faced and serious in his scratchy collar.