Oh, the ink drips . . .

A March 26th Happy Birthday salute to a chosen few who have successfully put pen to paper: Edward Bellamy, Alfred Edward Housman, Robet Frost, Joseph Campbell, Betty MacDonald, Tennessee Williams, Gregory Nunzio Corso, Richard Dawkins, Erica Jong and Bob Woodward.

Edward Bellamy (March 26, 1850 – May 22, 1898), author, famous for his utopian novel set in the year 2000, Looking Backward, published in 1888. His feeling of injustice in the economic system lead him to write Looking Backward: 2000–1887, which influenced many intellectuals and “Bellamy Clubs” sprang up all over the US to discuss the book’s ideas. He died at the age of 48 from tuberculosis.


Alfred Edward Housman (March 26, 1859 – April 30, 1936), poet and scholar, better known as A. E. Housman.

A. E. Housman published his first collection of poetry, A Shropshire Lad, at his own expense in 1896. Despite Alfred Housman's acclaim as a scholar and a poet in his lifetime, he lived as a recluse, rejecting honors and avoiding the public eye.

"The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in, and ready at any instant to fall." - A. E. Housman

When I was one-and-twenty

I heard a wise man say,

"Give crowns and pounds and guineas

But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies

But keep your fancy free."

But I was one-and-twenty,

No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty

I heard him say again,

"The heart out of the bosom

Was never given in vain;

'Tis paid with sighs a plenty

And sold for endless rue."

And I am two-and-twenty,

And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

- A. E. Housman

(When I Was One-and-Twenty)

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963), poet.

Robert Frost's poems are popular and often-quoted. He was honored frequently during his lifetime and received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.

"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words." - Robert Frost

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." - Robert Frost

Trivia: His epitaph reads, "I had a lover's quarrel with the world."

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

- Robert Frost (Fire and Ice)

"I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost (The Road Not Taken)

Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987), mythologist, writer, and lecturer.

"Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls."- Joseph Campbell

"We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about." - Joseph Campbell

"People say that what we're seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive." - Joseph Campbell

Anne Elizabeth Campbell Bard, better known as Betty MacDonald (March 26, 1908 - February 7, 1958), author. Her first book, The Egg and I, rocketed to the top of the national bestseller list in 1945. The book was translated into more than 30 languages and made into a series of popular movies. Betty MacDonald is best known for her book The Egg and I and the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series of children's books.

Thomas Lanier Williams, better known as Tennessee Williams (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983), playwright. Tennessee Williams was awarded four Drama Critic Circle Awards, two Pulitzer Prizes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

He won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for A Streetcar Named Desire (1948) and for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). In addition, The Glass Menagerie (1945) and The Night of the Iguana (1961) received New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. His 1952 play The Rose Tattoo received the Tony Award for best play.

Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001), poet. He was the youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers.

"If you have a choice of two things and can't decide, take both." - Gregory Corso

"If you believe you're a poet, then you're saved."- Gregory Corso

"They, that unnamed "they," they've knocked me down but I got up. I always get up -- and I swear when I went down quite often I took the fall; nothing moves a mountain but itself. They, I've long ago named them me." - Gregory Corso

Clinton Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941), ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science author.
"By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out." - Richard Dawkins

"The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear." - Richard Dawkins

“Isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be part of it?” - Richard Dawkins

Erica Jong (born on March 26, 1942), author. She is best known for her first novel, Fear of Flying (1973). The novel created a sensation with its frank treatment of a woman's sexual desires.

"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." - Erica Jong

"Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads." - Erica Jong

Robert Upshur Woodward (born March 26, 1943), better known as Bob Woodward, investigative reporter and non-fiction author.

"I think that everyone is kind of confused about the information they get from the media and rightly so. I'm confused about the information I get from the media." - Bob Woodward

"The central dilemma in journalism is that you don't know what you don't know." - Bob Woodward


PS: One more Happy Birthday salute to the publisher Condé Montrose Nast (March 26, 1873 – September 19, 1942), founder of Condé Nast Publications.

Bellamy image (1), Housman image (1), Frost image (1), Campbell image (1), MacDonald image (1); Williams image (1), Corso image (1), Dawkins (1), Jong image (1), Woodward image(1)