The last time I saw Walker Percy, who lived across Lake Pontchartrain in Covington, a giant storm was rolling in over the bridge—the longest bridge in the world—that I would be driving on to get back home. We looked out at the gathering storm and he said, “Delery, the next half hour is going to be good for your soul.”

Because fear is good for the soul? The way despair can make you notice things more? That is the whole point of everything—to notice things more. But I don’t know exactly what he meant, as I suspect his comment had a religious connotation; he was a zealous Catholic convert. Good for the soul like the bracing fear of the wrath of God? Or when you think you are lost, salvation is near?