Could it be Eden without seasons? Could we emigrate there, if we had enough money? Could, if we ever get there, hire a consultant to teach us how never to lose it? Say Paradise is a garden now in which all things wither, and even the best tended stalk can be ruined by rain, pests, birds, drought. If everything is "sliding under the moon," (Mutabilitie Cantos, Edmund Spenser), what have we but seasons in a green world? I learned this from A. Bartlett Giamatti, in the last classes he taught at Yale before he became President of Yale, and then Baseball Commissioner. Even in those classes on Spenser what he most wanted to talk about was the Boston Red Sox, and the dream, always unfulfilled that they would win a pennant.) It would not be baseball, would it, if the same team won the Series every year? Even if we could hire a coach who could do it, wouldn't it be better if the games were close?
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