The other night at music, the dobro player began an instrumental, 'The End of the World' (Oswald Kirby, Fred Rose). His wife played her guitar behind him, then a mandolin joined in and then the fiddle. I sat there with my eyes closed and just listened. It became a thing of beauty, dense, lonesome, visceral.

I'm posting this above the line but it is not only music that occasions such response. I used to hike in wild country a great deal and sometimes I could only weep at the vista before me.

Or sometimes it is a scene between a parent and child or one between two lovers...

The strange thing is that I have never cried easily. To me there is no such thing as "Having a good cry" - it has always given me a headache and a hollow heart.