He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.

Autumn wins you best by this its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.

It's art that pushes against psychological and social expectations that tries to transform decay into something generative that is replicative in a baroque way that isn't about progress and wants to - as Walt Whitman put it - 'contain multitudes.'

In a decaying society art if it is truthful must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.

Writers may be disreputable incorrigible early to decay or late to bloom but they dare to go it alone.