Untimely Death and Manuscript Culture – A Quote

Abraham Rattner, In the Valley of the Dry Bones (study for „Ezekiel“), chinese ink, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Abraham Rattner, 1981

The aftermath of the defeat of Dunkirk with victims among his acquaintances makes Nicholas Jenkins ponder:

The potential biographies of those who die young possess the mystic dignity of a headless statue, the poetry of enigmatic passages in an unfinished or mutilated manuscript, unburdened with contrived or banal ending.

in: Anthony Powell; The Valley of Bones. Penguin Ed. 1968. P. 178.