I still can't find the passage in Proust about lamenting the loss of a loved one in anticipation. It might not actually exist. However, while reading Shakespeare's sonnets the other day, I did happen to come upon this:
64
When I have seen by time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometimes lofty towers I see down razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the wat'ry main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded, to decay,
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate:
That time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
If Shakespeare can get weepy over the future loss of his fair youth, I don't see why I can't pre-mourn my dog.
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