On Rediscovering Eudora Welty

An amazing new rediscovery: Haven't read Ms Welty for years and years not since I was in school. Once I copied out a paragraph of hers that pleased me so much.

And then a few days ago, at the Marshall library, I saw this nice fat book of Welty collected short stories which I brought home. I read a bit, and saw, ah, this is a splendid writer, so I looked for the paragraph I had saved thirty years ago, and found it in "The Death of the Traveling Salesman." Here it is:

"But he wanted to leap up, to say to her, I have been sick and I found out then, only then, how lonely I am. Is it too late? My heart puts up a struggle inside me, and you may have heard it, protesting against emptiness....It should be full, he would rush on to tell her, thinking of his heart now as a deep lake, it should be holding love like other hearts. It should be flooded with love. There would be a warm spring day....Come and stand in my heart, whoever you are, and a whole river would cover your feet and rise higher and take your knees in whirlpools, and draw you down to itself, your whole body, your heart too."

All her work sparkles with a flowing fountain of words. Lively, well chosen, beautiful, active words. To read them is to feel comforted. Good for her. Good for me.