Quam dilecta!

You'll pardon, I hope, my low output as of late. (I won't apologize for it, anyway.) I have been thinking about several things — Montaigne and friendship, the pleasures of Indian summer, the nature of consciousness (with a nod to Andrew Bird) — but am not yet prepared to expatiate upon any of these themes. I shall, however, refer you to several other things worth reading.

• Philip Larkin: "An Arundel Tomb"
  
• Jason Peters: Curiosity Killed the Keg: A Tribute
  One can read lots of tiresome articles of socio-political claptrap by conservative Christians; sometimes that sort of thing shews up on FPR. But Peters, though he could quite fairly be called "conservative" and "Christian", manages again and again to write things that are actually worthwhile. In this particular treatise — O Theophilus — he makes several very good and entirely accurate points, among them observations about booze, O'Connor, and contemporary Protestant hymnody.
  
• I have had Coverdale's version of Psalm 84 in my head for a while, now. (I suppose this is mostly due to the Vaughan Williams setting.) Its palpable desire for God is quite arresting, I think.
  

  O how amiable are thy dwellings, thou Lord of hosts! My soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, even thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will be alway praising thee.