Possibly hyperbolic, but 7 March appears to be an auspicious date in the calendar of literary birthdays. So a happy birthday to those writers whose success we admire and envy. In alphabetical order …
Andrea Levy
Bret Easton Ellis
E L James
Piers Paul Reid
Robert Harris
William Boyd
And the header? It’s a line from the beginning of Wordsworth’s The French Revolution, As It Appeared To Enthusiasts At Its Commencement (1804).
OH! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven! Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance! …
South of Watford 