It is 1667. England is 16 years past its civil war, in which Charles I was executed. Shakespeare has been dead 50 years, and no Englishman thinks anyone but him wrote those plays. (And nobody cares. Who wrote a play in England mattered none. Who had the manuscript mattered, and what mattered far more was who could see the play. But that is another diary entry.)

In 1664, a poet blinded by time (and possibly glaucoma) will realize the fruits of many nights writing by candlelight, then dictating to anyone who would listen once he could not see the words coming out of the pen. His blindness has probably saved his life, as he'd championed the execution of the previous king, justified divorce and argued for freedom of the press — any one of them a cardinal sin. As a university professor will put things 343 years later, "Oh, let us not execute [this author]; God has punished him by making him blind." But his blindness and his devotion to the losing side in the civil war have made his literary success rather ... difficult.

So today in history, poet John Milton sells Paradise Lost for 10 pounds.

  Just some quotes that will hopefully inspire you as they have inspired me.

    "A little onward lend thy guiding hand..." is the first line of "Samson Agonistes" (1671) by John Milton of Paradise Lost fame, spoken by the blind Samson who eventually pulls down the pillars on the Philistines. (I'll avoid commentary on the Israel/Palestine conflict here, for obvious reasons.)
    Here, though, our concern is with Samson's namesake D. Kyle Sampson, he of the "Elite Eight Fired U.S. Attorneys--March Madness" scandal.
    This diary can only explore so much about former Alberto Gonzales chief-of-staff and counselor Sampson, but here are a few nuggets and frames I can guide you to:

1. "Loveless"

    In the delightful original ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO R. GONZALES ANNOUNCES APPOINTMENT OF THREE SENIOR DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE STAFF, we spy the priceless "Before entering public service, Sampson practiced law at the Salt Lake City law firm of Parr Waddoups Brown Gee & Loveless..." "Loveless" all right; sounds like something out of Dickens' "Bleak House".
    (Or, "Brown Gee, you're doing a heck of a job".)

November ends and now I'm after weaving a memorial for William Styron, who passed away on November 1 this year.

A few dog years ago, I had the dubious and fascinating pleasure to student teach in a class of 60 high school juniors. Our subject was US History and I was allowed to follow a curriculum of topics of my choice through the semester that settled on the years between the Great Depression and the Vietnam War.

"Most books, like their authors, are born to die; of only a few books can it be said that death has no dominion over them; they live, and their influence lives forever."