‘I never pay my insurance policy,’ Moreland said, ‘without envisaging the documents going through the hands of Aubrey Beardsley and Kafka, before being laid on the desk of Wallace Stevens’
– from Hearing Secret Harmonies, the 12th novel in the sequence A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell.
He left out Ives!
This is the last of the books in A Dance, which I have been enjoying thoroughly. More Powell quotes here and here.
You might enjoy the anthology of short stories, “The Amount to Carry” (Picador, 2003) by writer (and, as it happens, composer) Carter Scholtz, the title story of which connects Kafka, Wallace Stevens and Charles Ives at an insurance conference.
Wonderful! Thanks so much for the tip!