83.
Ridge and Mrs. Olyphant were out on the sun deck -- she reading the news on her iPad. 
   "Oh, Christopher Hitchens has died," she said. 
   Ridge: "He didn't like T. S. Eliot. But for all the wrong reasons. He reminded me a bit of Orwell: a man who could only read a book from a political angle. Charles Dickens, not a good Marxist. Of course with Hitchens it was, Graham Greene, just another Marxist. Don't need him." 
   "Why didn't Hitchens like Eliot, his anti-Semitism?" 
   "He just didn't think The Waste Land was good poetry. I have to admit that it isn't poetry that many people have memorized. I will show you fear in a handful of dust is a paraphrase. In Michigan we liked to joke about April being the cruelest month. There it is completely accurate. Not so much in Georgia."
   "But Eliot was so influential. Surely, all of the poets and novelists who were reading him and responding to what he wrote weren't wrong to appreciate him." 
   "We would have to ask the Hitch, and he's dead. Of course, there are any number of things not to like about Eliot's poetry. The way it is always focused on providing salvation for his people humble people like he's some kind of poetic Uriah Heep. He was the great writer making a 'raid on the inarticulate,' he was the articulate artist, don't you know. We are just the "general mess of imprecision of feeling, undisciplined squads of emotion.' And now under conditions for poets that seem so very unpropitious. It truly chokes you up."
   Cole: "Don't be an envious douchebag, Ridge." 
   "What do you mean, Mr. Cole?" Mrs. Olyphant asked.
   "Ridge is trying to show you he hasn't lost the common touch. He's not a snob. There is no hierarchy of men. There are no great books or great ideas. It's just one big flat egalitarian plain." 
   "I take it you think that is not true, Mr. Cole?" 
   "I think it's crap and should be flushed with the bilge. Eliot was articulate. He had a gift and he worked hard at saying something. Faulting him for that is how we ended up with plainspeaking dunces like W." 
   "Mr. Cole raises and interesting point." 
   "Because something is interesting does not make it correct or expedient," Ridge said.  
  

82.
The ant wants
To see with those eyes
To walk with those legs
To be forever an ant.
To never be an ain't.

81.

"My generation had the Truth." 

"Oh cursed spite that ever you were born to set it right." 

"What's that mean, my young cynical friend?"

"I'm not young. I just didn't worship the sun." 

"We stood for something"

"You ran for something. Rushing fools." 

"Better than you brats."

"Because we could imagine complexity?"

"Right and wrong aren't that complicated." 

"It can be. What is truth without understanding?" 

"Mr. Ridge. This is jesuitical sophistry."

"In certain circumstances."

"Hahaha!""Mrs. Kellington, your set had intuition. But can you always trust it?"

"When the cause is right, Ridge."

"The cause may be just, but the means is never easy."  

80.
"There are some cruel wretches on this cruise."
"What did you do to her, Ridge?"
"Nothing. Was nice to her."
"That was your first mistake. The wounded always seek to wound the kindhearted. Makes me almost glad we're headed straight for the maelstrom."
"There's no such thing as karma but at least no one gets out alive."

80. "There are some cruel wretches on this cruise."
"What did you do to her, Ridge?" 
"Nothing. Was nice to her?"
"That was your first mistake. The wounded always seek to wound the kind. Makes me almost glad we're heading straight for the maelstrom."
"There's no such thing as karma, but at least no one get's out alive."  

79.
You can hurt me
But you can't desert me
We're stuck on this wreck together.
After I saved you
And gave you all I had.
And I nursed you
Go ahead and curse me
Or worse deny the changing weather.
I threw you the life line.
That jacket was mine.
Those rations are mine.
The captain's given the sign
I think after this wave we're going down forever.
I was your mate.
You returned loyalty with hate
Slit my throat in my sleep
To survive the deep
But after this wave we're going down forever.

79.

Ridge: "Don't weep for me, Gaugamela."