That is my coinage. I sometimes write as if in a debating club, letting a nice phrase form on the page and then seeing if it actually says something defensible. I can hear Johnson’s tutor saying “strike it out” loudly at the back of my skull, but I can’t kill all my darlings.

I don’t dislike the Romantics, just the way their view of the world and how to react to it has become an exclusive one. There’s not much shuddering at the prospect of one’s imminent destruction when surrounded by hopping bunnies, but there is a sense of forces beyond one’s ken, of wonder, which doesn’t fit any of the standard pidgeonholes.

Struan

“The experience of the acutely uncanny without any trace of the sublime”: I like that very much — is that your own formulation?

Mike