Wilfred Sheed had an interesting essay on Stafford, collected in Essays in Disguise. Stafford had been his father's secretary at the publishing house Sheed and Word. Sheed senior judged that what ate Lowell was that Stafford became famous before he did.

> both a cheerful sense of the ridiculous and a feeling of profound dismay

https://mymorningmeditations.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/...