At midnight the would-be ascetic
announced:
"This is the time to give up my
home and seek for God. Ah, who has
held me so long in delusion here?"
God whispered, "I," but the ears
of the man were stopped.
With a baby asleep at her breast
lay his wife, peacefully sleeping on
one side of the bed.
The man said, "Who are ye that
have fooled me so long?"
The voice said again, "They are
God," but he heard it not.
The baby cried out in its dream,
nestling close to its mother.
God commanded, "Stop, fool, leave
not thy home," but still he heard not.
God sighed and complained, "Why
does my servant wander to seek me,
forsaking me?"
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Chekhov's The Lady With The Dog
"And what was there to tell? Was it love that he felt? Had there been anything exquisite, poetic, anything instructive or even amusing about his relations with Anna Sergeyvena"
"owing to some strange, possibly quite accidental chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting, essential, everything about which he was sincere and never deceived himself, everything that composed the kernel of his life, went on in secret, while everything that was false in him, everything that composed the husk in which he hid himself, and the truth which was in him was on the on the surface"
"He began to judge others by himself, no longer believing what he saw, and always assuming that the real, the only interesting life of every individual goes on as under cover of night, secretly. Every individual existence revolves around mystery, and perhaps that is the chief reason that all cultivated individuals insisted so strongly on the respect due to personal secrets"
"She wept from emotion, from her bitter consciousness of the sadness of their life; they could only see one another in secret, hiding from people, as if they were thieves. Was not their life a broken one?"
"It was quite obvious to him that this love of theirs would not soon come to an end, and that no one could say when this end would be. Anna Sergeyevna loved him ever more fondly, worshipped him, and there would have been no point in telling her that one day it must end. Indeed, she would not have believed him."
"Why did she love him so? Women had always believed him different from what he really was, had loved him not himself but the man their imagination pictured him, a man they had sought for eagerly all their lives. And afterwards when they discovered their mistake, they went on loving him just the same. And not one of them had ever been happy with him. Time had passed, he had met one woman after another, become intimate with each, parted with each, but had never loved. There had been all sorts of things between them, but never love"
"owing to some strange, possibly quite accidental chain of circumstances, everything that was important, interesting, essential, everything about which he was sincere and never deceived himself, everything that composed the kernel of his life, went on in secret, while everything that was false in him, everything that composed the husk in which he hid himself, and the truth which was in him was on the on the surface"
"He began to judge others by himself, no longer believing what he saw, and always assuming that the real, the only interesting life of every individual goes on as under cover of night, secretly. Every individual existence revolves around mystery, and perhaps that is the chief reason that all cultivated individuals insisted so strongly on the respect due to personal secrets"
"She wept from emotion, from her bitter consciousness of the sadness of their life; they could only see one another in secret, hiding from people, as if they were thieves. Was not their life a broken one?"
"It was quite obvious to him that this love of theirs would not soon come to an end, and that no one could say when this end would be. Anna Sergeyevna loved him ever more fondly, worshipped him, and there would have been no point in telling her that one day it must end. Indeed, she would not have believed him."
"Why did she love him so? Women had always believed him different from what he really was, had loved him not himself but the man their imagination pictured him, a man they had sought for eagerly all their lives. And afterwards when they discovered their mistake, they went on loving him just the same. And not one of them had ever been happy with him. Time had passed, he had met one woman after another, become intimate with each, parted with each, but had never loved. There had been all sorts of things between them, but never love"
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Jack London; The Call of the Wild, To Build A Fire, and White Fang
"He did not know why, but he felt oppressed by the vague sense of impending calamity"
"He was beaten (he knew that) ; but he was not broken"
"There was nothing the matter with them, except that they were dead tired. It was not the dead-tiredness that comes through brief and excessive effort, from which recovery is a matter of hours; but it was the dead-tiredness that comes through the slow and prolonged strength drainage of months of toil. There was no power of recuperation left, no reserve strength to call upon. It had been all used, the last least bit of it"
"It was a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himself by looking at his watch"
"It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life"
"The business of love was at hand- even a sterner and crueler business than that of food getting"
"He was beaten (he knew that) ; but he was not broken"
"There was nothing the matter with them, except that they were dead tired. It was not the dead-tiredness that comes through brief and excessive effort, from which recovery is a matter of hours; but it was the dead-tiredness that comes through the slow and prolonged strength drainage of months of toil. There was no power of recuperation left, no reserve strength to call upon. It had been all used, the last least bit of it"
"It was a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himself by looking at his watch"
"It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life"
"The business of love was at hand- even a sterner and crueler business than that of food getting"
The Great Gatsby
"He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand."
"possessed by intense life"
"And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy"
"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired"
"You always look so cool"
"The Affair that couldn't be measured"
"Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on"
"So we beat on, beats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"
"possessed by intense life"
"And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy"
"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired"
"You always look so cool"
"The Affair that couldn't be measured"
"Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on"
"So we beat on, beats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"
So That's Who I Remind Me Of by Ogden Nash
When I consider men of golden talents,
I’m delighted, in my introverted way,
To discover, as I’m drawing up the balance,
How much we have in common, I and they.
Like Burns, I have a weakness for the bottle,
Like Shakespeare, little Latin and less Greek;
I bite my fingernails like Aristotle;
Like Thackeray, I have a snobbish streak.
I’m afflicted with the vanity of Byron,
I’ve inherited the spitefulness of Pope;
Like Petrarch, I’m a sucker for a siren,
Like Milton, I’ve a tendency to mope.
My spelling is suggestive of a Chaucer;
Like Johnson, well, I do not wish to die
(I also drink my coffee from the saucer);
And if Goldsmith was a parrot, so am I.
Like Villon, I have debits by the carload,
Like Swinburne, I’m afraid I need a nurse;
By my dicing is Christopher out-Marlowed,
And I dream as much as Coleridge, only worse.
In comparison with men of golden talents,
I am all a man of talent ought to be;
I resemble every genius in his vice, however heinous—
Yet I write so much like me.
I’m delighted, in my introverted way,
To discover, as I’m drawing up the balance,
How much we have in common, I and they.
Like Burns, I have a weakness for the bottle,
Like Shakespeare, little Latin and less Greek;
I bite my fingernails like Aristotle;
Like Thackeray, I have a snobbish streak.
I’m afflicted with the vanity of Byron,
I’ve inherited the spitefulness of Pope;
Like Petrarch, I’m a sucker for a siren,
Like Milton, I’ve a tendency to mope.
My spelling is suggestive of a Chaucer;
Like Johnson, well, I do not wish to die
(I also drink my coffee from the saucer);
And if Goldsmith was a parrot, so am I.
Like Villon, I have debits by the carload,
Like Swinburne, I’m afraid I need a nurse;
By my dicing is Christopher out-Marlowed,
And I dream as much as Coleridge, only worse.
In comparison with men of golden talents,
I am all a man of talent ought to be;
I resemble every genius in his vice, however heinous—
Yet I write so much like me.
By Henriette Posner
If I should die tomorrow,
No care have I,
For yesterday
I saw the sun, the moon, the stars
And felt the snow, the wind, the rain.
If I should die tomorrow,
No care have I.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
From the pen of a dear friend:
The brevity and fraility of happiness amazes me. Happiness is never permanent. It comes in moments, like rain drops that come and then crumble. It comes in a smile, a gaze, a breeze...In the rays of the sun, in laughter, in tears. In memories, in dreams, in knowledge, and in power. Happiness is fabricated. It's created and destroyed in the mind of who beholds it. So someone tell me why we keep on trying to create happiness for others? Is it because our own happiness can be demolished so easily by the simple discontentment in another? A frown, a crease in the fore head, a gleam in the eyes, and that inexplicable and excruciatingly tangible sense you feel when those you care for are unhappy. It lingers in the air and seeps into you, creating nothing but an abyss, some dull ache where that happiness was. Why do we allow multiple webs to bind our limbs? Why do we smile, why do we embrace, why do we even communicate when our individualistic and allegedly specific emotions are so intertwined with others?
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me
"A learner with the simplest, a teacher of the thoughtfullest,
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of season,
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
A farmer, merchant, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest."
-16
"But they are not the Me myself'
-4
"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not on is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth"
-32
"My left hand hooking you round the waist, My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road. Not I, nor any one else can travel that road for you, you must travel it for yourself. It is not far, it is within reach, Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know, Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land"
-46
"I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles"
-52
A novice beginning yet experient of myriads of season,
Of every hue and caste am I, of every rank and religion,
A farmer, merchant, artist, gentleman, sailor, quaker,
Prisoner, fancy-man, rowdy, lawyer, physician, priest."
-16
"But they are not the Me myself'
-4
"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not on is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth"
-32
"My left hand hooking you round the waist, My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road. Not I, nor any one else can travel that road for you, you must travel it for yourself. It is not far, it is within reach, Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know, Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land"
-46
"I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles"
-52
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