I long to immerse myself in something in the same way that Proust immersed himself in Ruskin. It is possible that Proust could only have written Remembrance of Things Past by means of such immersion. He spent years translating Ruskin into French. Ruskin’s thoughts and language style became his own to use. Melville might only have written Moby Dick because he immersed himself in Shakespeare. Who would I pick to immerse myself in? How to choose from among the constellation of writers that I love? Should it be Emerson? Ruskin? Melville? Tolkien? Proust? Can I spend a year on each writer? Such an experiment might lead nowhere. Or it might deliver me to the promised land.