10 Writers known by their double initial

1. A A Milne (Alan Alexander)
2. C S Lewis (Clive Staples)
3. G K Chesterton (Gilbert Keith)
4. H G Wells (Herbert George)
5. P G Wodehouse (Pelham Grenville)
6. T S Eliot (Thomas Stearns)
7. P L Travers (Pamela Lyndon)
8. P D James(Phyllis Doris)
9. V S Naipaul (Vidiadhar Surajprasad)
10. W H Auden (Wystan Hugh)

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10 Poets named Thomas

1.Thomas Chatterton Almighty Framer of the Skies! O let our pure devotion rise, Like Incense in thy Sight!

2. Thomas Hardy And ghosts then keep their distance; and I know some liberty.

3. Thomas Gray The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

4. Sir Thomas Wyatt Farewell love and all thy laws forever; Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.

5. Thomas Moore 'Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone

6. Thomas Blackburn The unleavened man did not cry out Or turn his face away; through such men in a turnip field What is it that you say?

7. Thomas Nashe Adieu, farewell, earth’s bliss; This world uncertain is; Fond are life’s lustful joys; Death proves them all but toys

8. T S Eliot Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity, He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.

9. Thomas Traherne In all Things, all Things service do to all: And thus a Sand is Endless, though most small. And every Thing is truly Infinite, In its Relation deep and exquisite.

10. Thomas Hood I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn.

Burnt Norton coincidence

I long ago learned that coincidences are common. They can still be very striking. I began my day today with Sinclair Ferguson's book on sanctification Devoted to God. In the opening chapter he quotes T S Eliot's line at the opening of Burnt Norton, one of his Four Quartets. It goes

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future

And time future contained in time past.

As I got ready to go out I popped the radio on as I did. It was Melvyn Bragg (who I passed on the street yesterday in Hampstead as it happens - on more coincidence) and In our time. The subject was T S Eliot which did not make me twig at first but then one of the experts quoted the very lines I had read shortly before

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction 
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.

You can read the whole thing here.

Down and out in Paris and London

Cassowary Colorizations, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

I first came across George Orwell in school and have read 1984 and Animal Farm and some of his essays. I recently picked up and read his mainly factual account of poverty first in Paris then in London, which first appeared in 1933 and was Orwell's first full length work. I love his lean style. He's very journalistic. The book has the distinction of having been rejected by T S Eliot.

While in Paris he is on the breadline working as a plongeur in hotels. In London he is a fully fledged tramp for 30 days. The two halves are not a neat join and the Paris section is probably more interesting. Apparently the supposed order of events is fictional.

The book reminded me a little of W H Davies' Autobiography of a Supertramp but when I checked that came out some 15 years before. Davies did review it favourably. Orwell mentions Jack London in the book and was apparently an admirer of hiss People of the Abyss about life in London's east end, which came out in 1903.

The book is interesting for opening the door on other worlds and the many anecdotes it contains. The thought that some people are wholly occupied simply with feeding themselves, working and sleeping is sobering. Perhaps some of us have too much time on our hands.