Numbers

… Most of the characters in Daily Rituals are either ‘numbers’ – numb-ers, that is – or ‘revvers’. Patricia Highsmith was an extreme number. She would hit the vodka before starting work, ‘not to perk her up’, her biographer Andrew Wilson noted, ‘but to reduce her energy levels, which veered toward the manic’. She also surrounded herself with pet snails, in the hope that some of the slowness would rub off. Herman Melville was a number too, but did it with cows: before starting work he would feed his cow a pumpkin – he lived on a 160-acre farm in Massachusetts – ‘for it’s a pleasant sight to see a cow move her jaws – she does it so mildly & with great sanctity.’