I don’t need it either but I’ve ordered it anyway, my friend says. It’s from King Lear, the ageing monarch’s response to his ungrateful daughter’s assertion that he doesn’t need his own retinue. Reason means logic, restraint, endurance. Reason is not the answer to pain, grief, sorrow, longing, hope or joy. Emotion doesn’t go away when we call it unreasonable, which is good, because – as Cordelia in King Lear eventually, fatefully, teaches us – among many unreasonable human qualities is love.

Source: The Irish Times February 23, 2026 06:01 UTC