“Last night the English Opera House was burnt down — a magnificent fire.” 

Charles Greville

All the gentility of London was there
from Princess Esterhazy’s ball and all
the clubs; gentlemen in their fur cloaks, pumps,
and velvet waistcoats mixed with objects like

the sans-culottes in the French Revolution —
men and women half-dressed, covered with rags
and dirt, some with nightcaps or handkerchief
round their heads — then the soldiers, the firemen,

and the engines, and the new police running
and bustling, clearing the way, clattering
along, with that intense interest and restless
curiosity, which received fresh stimulus

at every renewed burst of the flames as
they rose in a shower of sparks like gold dust.

(From The Greville Memoirs, January 1830)

I dreamt of you again last night. 
And when I woke up it was as if 
you had died afresh. I read 
all your letters this afternoon.

I feel as if we had collected all 
our wheat into a barn to make bread 
and beer for the rest of our lives 
and now our barn has been burnt down 

and we stand on a cold winter morning 
looking at the charred ruins. For this 
little room was the gleanings of our life. 
All our happiness was over this fire 

and with these books. Voltaire blessing us 
with up-raised hand on the wall. No one 
to talk to about my pleasures. I write in 
an empty book. I cry in an empty room.

(Dora Carrington’s diary, February 1932)

Two feet of snow fell last evening.  
It lies in largest masses on the flat 

fronded branches of firs and the mounded 
close foliage of the live-oaks, and it 

bends and welds together the tassels 
of the pines. The ouzel heeds not the roar 

of avalanches, the heavy masses 
of snow from banks and trees, and the constant 

upspringing of pines. He would not cease 
singing or feeding for an earthquake. 

(From John Muir’s journal, February 1873)