“... that it seemed to have always been there. The Country and the City (1973) has none of the magic of Empson’s book on the pastoral; it relies on a measured tread where Empson goes in for startling arabesques; yet it reaches out for one of the grand permanences of European thought, highlighting a central dialectic both in ...”

“... does one end and the other begin? One of the most authentic moments occurs in 94, a sonnet which Empson computed to have 4096 ‘possible movements of thought’ (he was also a mathematician so he must be right). The poem could be addressed to the Machiavellian Prince Hal: They that have power to hurt, and will do none, That do not do the thing they most do ...”

“... in London. Contact with Hale eventually resumed. In 1927 he told a friend (a fellow American, William Force Stead): ‘I had a letter from a girl in Boston this morning whom I have not seen or heard from for years and years. It brought back something to me that I had not known for a long time.’ In October 1930 she came to tea in London. Vivien liked her ...”