I have been very miserable since - miserable not for an hour but for months on end - but I can still feel that hour's misery in its perfect desolatio… - Robertson Davies

It was from him I learned that the stage is too coarse a medium for the works of the supreme poet; Shakespeare's depths can only be plumbed in the solitude of the study. So I used to shut myself up and plumb away for hours, and I acquired such aptitude that for a time there was a belief that I might pipe Shakespeare into young minds of the rest of my days, as a full-fledged academic plumber.

There's the satisfaction of Eng-Lang-and-Lit; somebody else has said everything for you, and said it better.

Anna, who has always been devout, knows well that Despair is a mortal sin, and now she knows that it is a luxury, as well.