Echoes of Hamlet.

I wrote a lengthy post today about the furore currently raging in Britain over the design of our new passport. I wrote it, edited it, and then saved it for further editing and posting later. When later came it seemed turgid, so I discarded it.

I decided to fall back on the other post I was considering making. That one was much lighter, more frivolous, and maybe even a little humorous. The problem was that I couldn’t remember what it was about.

But last night I watched an adaptation of an MR James ghost story on YouTube. The leading character was an eccentric Oxbridge professor whose social connection with those around him was remote to say the least. He was not at all self-obsessed, but he was profoundly self-absorbed. He had a line which I liked:

I should prefer to say that there are more things in philosophy than are dreamt of in heaven and earth.

He remembered it later while sitting alone on the windswept dunes fringing the North Sea, and chuckled. I knew him well.