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"Heaven's net is wide but its mesh is fine
from Heaven's net is wide (obviously this is the basis of the title) by Lian Hearn.
It's a really beautiful book (all of hers are) and has lots of lovely quotes; this is the only one I could remember off the top of my head. Apparently it is an ancient proverb.
I really like it because it's really simple, but you can still read it in loads of different ways.
To Dr. Lewis.
Gloucester, April 2.
DOCTOR,
THE pills are good for nothing; I might as well swallow snowballs to cool my reins. I have told you over and over, how hard I am to move; and at this time of day, I ought to know something of my own constitution. Why will you be so positive? Prithee send me another prescription. I am as lame and as much tortured in all my limbs as if I was broke upon the wheel: indeed, I am equally distressed in mind and body. As if I had not plagues enough of my own, those children of my sister are left me for a perpetual source of vexation; what business have people to get children to plague their neighbours? A ridiculous incident that happened yesterday to my niece Liddy, has disordered me in such a manner, that I expect to be laid up with another fit of the gout; perhaps, I may explain myself in my next. I shall set out to-morrow morning for the Hot Well at Bristol, where I am afraid I shall stay longer than I could wish.
{re-read of an old and humourus favourite} quasimodo1
To Sir Watkin Phillips, of Jesus college, Oxon.
Hot-well, April 18.
DEAR PHILLIPS,
I GIVE Mansel credit for his invention, in propagating the report that I had a quarrel with a mountebank’s merry Andrew at Gloucester: but I have too much respect for every appendage of wit, to quarrel even with the lowest buffoonery; and therefore I hope Mansel and I shall always be good friends. I cannot, however, approve of his drowning my poor dog Ponto, on purpose to convert Ovid’s pleonasm into a punning epitaph—deerant quoque Littora Ponto; for, that he threw him into the Isis, when it was so high and impetuous, with no other view than to kill the fleas, is an excuse that will not hold water. But I leave poor Ponto to his fate, and hope Providence will take care to accommodate Mansel with a drier death.
As there is nothing that can be called company at the Well, I am here in a state of absolute rustication. This, however, gives me leisure to observe the singularities in my uncle’s character, which seems to have interested your curiosity. The truth is, his disposition and mine, which, like oil and vinegar, repelled one another at first, have now begun to mix by dint of being beat up together. I was once apt to believe him a complete Cynic; and that nothing but the necessity of his occasions could compel him to get within the pale of society. I am now of another opinion. I think his peevishness arises partly from bodily pain, and partly from a natural excess of mental sensibility; for, I suppose, the mind as well as the body, is in some cases endued with a morbid excess of sensation.
"She had been a comet in the sky, exciting to observe, quick to evaporate." (Joan of Arc: Maid, Myth, and History ~ Timothy Wilson-Smith)
Chapter 4
To Miss Willis, at Gloucester.
Bath, April 26.
MY DEAREST COMPANION,
THE pleasure I received from yours, which came to hand yesterday, is not to be expressed. Love and friendship are, without doubt, charming passions; which absence serves only to heighten and improve. Your kind present of the garnet bracelets, I shall keep as carefully as I preserve my own life; and I beg you will accept, in return, of my heart-housewife, with the tortoiseshell memorandum-book, as a trifling pledge of my unalterable affection.
Bath is to me a new world. All is gaiety, good-humour, and diversion. The eye is continually entertained with the splendour of dress and equipage; and the ear with the sound of coaches, chaises, chairs, and other carriages. The merry bells ring round, from morn till night. Then we are welcomed by the city- waits in our own lodgings: we have music in the Pump-room every morning, cotillons every fore-noon in the rooms, balls twice a week, and concerts every other night, besides private assemblies and parties without number. As soon as we were settled in lodgings, we were visited by the Master of the Ceremonies; a pretty little gentleman, so sweet, so fine, so civil, and polite, that in our country he might pass for the prince of Wales; then he talks so charmingly, both in verse and prose, that you would be delighted to hear him discourse, for you must know he is a great writer, and has got five tragedies ready for the stage. He did us the favour to dine with us, by my uncle’s invitation; and next day ’squired my aunt and me to every part of Bath; which, to be sure, is an earthly paradise. The Square, the Circus, and the Parades, put you in mind of the sumptuous palaces represented in prints and pictures; and the new buildings, such as Princes-row, Harlequin’s-row, Bladud’s-row, and twenty other rows, look like so many enchanted castles, raised on hanging terraces.
{quasimodo1}
Victor-Lévy Beaulieu, Don Quichotte de la démanche
It's part of a nightmare, horrible images...
"Steven was furious, he was holding the pig by it's ears and hitting it with his head. "Steven! Steven!" Abel was shouting. The pig was letting his ears be twisted and even seemed to enjoy it, corkscrewing it's tail and showing with grace his humid sexual organ."
My translation.
"Human speech is like a cracked tin kettle on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars"
Madame Bovery, Gustave Flaubert
"but I remember I preferred the soldier to a philosopher at the time; a preference which life has only confirmed. One was a man, and the other was either more--or less."
Youth - Joseph Conrad
Before I was born, she had gone such lengths in the way of flirting with a recruiting officer, that her reputation was a little singed. She afterwards made advances to the curate of the parish, who dropped some distant hints about the next presentation to the living, which was in her brother’s gift; but finding that was already promised to another, he flew off at a tangent; and Mrs. Tabby, in revenge, found means to deprive him of his cure. Her next lover was lieutenant of a man of war, a relation of the family, who did not understand the refinements of the passion, and expressed no aversion to grapple with cousin Tabby in the way of marriage; but before matters could be properly adjusted, he went out on a cruise, and was killed in an engagement with a French frigate. Our aunt, though baffled so often, did not yet despair. She laid all her snares for Dr. Lewis, who is the fidus Achates of my uncle. She even fell sick upon the occasion, and prevailed with Matt to interpose in her behalf with his friend; but the Doctor, being a shy ****, would not be caught with chaff, and flatly rejected the proposal: so that Mrs. Tabitha was content to exert her patience once more, after having endeavoured in vain to effect a rupture betwixt the two friends; and now she thinks proper to be very civil to Lewis, who is become necessary to her in the way of his profession.
{excerpt from Chapter 5}
I start reading .I start to read Shakespearian drama.The first book i got for reading is Julius Caesar.Brutus is my favorite character.
Nothing can be destroyed, except by a cause external to itself.
Things are naturally contrary, that is, cannot exist in the same object, insofar as one is capable of destroying the other.
Everything, insofar as it is in itself, endeavors to persist in its own being.
The endeavor, wherewith everything endeavors to persist in its own being, is nothing else but the actual essence of the thing in question.
from The Road to Inner Freedom
Baruch Spinoza
Edited and with an introduction by
Dagobert D. Runes
Chapter 10
To Dr. Lewis,
London, June 2.
YES, Doctor, I have seen the British Museum; which is a noble collection, and even stupendous, if we consider it was made by a private man, a physician, who was obliged to make his own fortune at the same time: but great as the collection is, it would appear more striking if it was arranged in one spacious saloon, instead of being divided into different apartments, which it does not entirely fill. I could wish the series of medals was connected, and the whole of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms completed, by adding to each, at the public expence, those articles that are wanting. It would likewise be a great improvement, with respect to the library, if the deficiences were made up, by purchasing all the books of character that are not to be found already in the collection. They might be classed in centuries, according to the dates of their publication, and catalogues printed of them and the manuscripts, for the information of those that want to consult, or compile from such authorities. I could also wish, for the honour of the nation, that there was a complete apparatus for a course of mathematics, mechanics, and experimental philosophy; and a good salary settled upon an able professor, who should give regular lectures on these subjects.
But this is all idle speculation, which will never be reduced to practice. Considering the temper of the times, it is a wonder to see any institution whatsoever established, for the benefit of the public. The spirit of party is risen to a kind of phrenzy, unknown to former ages, or rather degenerated to a total extinction of honesty and candour. You know I have observed, for some time, that the public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation: every rancorous knave, every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half a crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing" - Macbeth
"Don't trust a horse in the field, or your wife in your house." ("The Kreutzer Sonata," Leo Tolstoy)
"...the Ten Commandments seem to be used only in order to pass the priest's examination, and even then are not regarded as very important, not nearly so much as the rule for the use of ut* in conditional sentences." *In order that (Latin). ("The Kreutzer Sonata," Leo Tolstoy)
"It is a marvelous thing how full of illusion is the notion that beauty is an advantage. A beautiful woman says all sorts of foolishness, you listen and you don't hear any foolishness, but what you hear seems to you wisdom itself. She says and does vulgar things, and to you it seems lovely. Even when she does not say stupid or vulgar things, but is simply beautiful, you are convinced that she is miraculously wise and moral." ("The Kreutzer Sonata," Leo Tolstoy)
Chapter 12
To Sir Watkin Phillips, Bart. of Jesus college, Oxon.
London, June 10.
DEAR PHILLIPS,
IN my last, I mentioned my having spent an evening with a society of authors, who seemed to be jealous and afraid of one another. My uncle was not at all surprised to hear me say I was disappointed in their conversation. ‘A man may be very entertaining and instructive upon paper (said he), and exceedingly dull in common discourse. I have observed, that those who shine most in private company, are but secondary stars in the constellation of genius. A small stock of ideas is more easily managed and sooner displayed, than a great quantity crowded together. There is very seldom and thing extraordinary in the appearance and address of a good writer; whereas a dull author generally distinguishes himself by some oddity or extravagance. For this reason, I fancy that an assembly of Grubs must be very diverting.’
My curiosity being excited by this hint, I consulted my friend Dick Ivy, who undertook to gratify it the very next day, which was Sunday last. He carried me to dine with S—, whom you and I have long known by his writings. He lives in the skirts of the town, and every Sunday his house is open to all unfortunate brothers of the quill, whom he treats with beef, pudding, and potatoes, port, punch, and Calvert’s entire butt beer. He has fixed upon the first day of the week for the exercise of his hospitality, because some of his guests could not enjoy it on any other, for reasons that I need not explain. I was civilly received in a plain, yet decent habitation, which opened backwards into a very pleasant garden, kept in excellent order; and, indeed, I saw none of the outward signs of authorship, either in the house or the landlord, who is one of those few writers of the age that stand upon their own foundation, without patronage, and above dependence. If there was nothing characteristic in the entertainer, the company made ample amends for his want of singularity.
He is a women.
She had prayed for the moon to rise. But now she found thehalf-light of the incipient moon more terrifying then darkness.The world was now peopled with vague, fantastic figures that dissolved under her steady gaze and then formed again in new shapes.
Yam stood for manliness and he who could feed his family on yams from one harvest to another was a very great man indeed.
In the end Okonkwo threw the Cat.
- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Chapter 13
To Sir Watkin Phillips, of Jesus college, Oxon.
London, June 10.
DEAR PHILLIPS,
THE moment I received your letter, I began to execute your commission. With the assistance of mine host at the Bull and Gate, I discovered the place to which your fugitive valet had retreated, and taxed him with his dishonesty. The fellow was in manifest confusion at sight of me, but he denied the charge with great confidence, till I told him, that if he would give up the watch, which was a family piece, he might keep the money and the clothes, and go to the devil his own way, at his leisure; but if he rejected this proposal, I would deliver him forthwith to the constable, whom I had provided for that purpose, and he would carry him before the justice without further delay. After some hesitation, he desired to speak with me in the next room, where he produced the watch, with all its appendages, and I have delivered it to our landlord, to be sent you by the first safe conveyance. So much for business.
I shall grow vain, upon your saying you find entertainment in my letters; barren, as they certainly are, of incident and importance, because your amusement must arise, not from the matter, but from the manner, which you know is all my own. Animated, therefore, by the approbation of a person, whose nice taste and consummate judgment I can no longer doubt, I will chearfully proceed with our memoirs. As it is determined we shall set out next week for Yorkshire, I went to-day in the forenoon with my uncle to see a carriage, belonging to a coach-maker in our neighbourhood. Turning down a narrow lane, behind Long-acre, we perceived a crowd of people standing at a door; which, it seems, opened into a kind of a methodist meeting, and were informed, that a footman was then holding forth to the congregation within. Curious to see this phaenomenon, we squeezed into the place with much difficulty; and who should this preacher be, but the identical Humphry Clinker. He had finished his sermon, and given out a psalm, the first stave of which he sung with peculiar graces. But if we were astonished to see Clinker in the pulpit, we were altogether confounded at finding all the females of our family among the audience. There was lady Griskin, Mrs. Tabitha Bramble, Mrs. Winifred Jenkins, my sister Liddy, and Mr. Barton, and all of them joined in the psalmody, with strong marks of devotion
"Ask an experienced coquette who has set herself the task of entrapping a man, which she would prefer to risk: being detected in falsehood, cruelty, even immortality, in the presence of the onewhom she is trying to entice, or to appear before him in a badly made or unbecomig gown,---and everytime she would choose the first."
("The Kreutzer Sonata," Leo Tolstoy)
Chapter 15
To Sir Watkin Phillips, Bart. of Jesus college, Oxon.
Harrigate, June 23.
DEAR PHILLIPS,
THE very day after I wrote my last, Clinker was set at liberty. As Martin had foretold, the accuser was himself committed for a robbery, upon unquestionable evidence. He had been for some time in the snares of the thief-taking society; who, resenting his presumption in attempting to incroach upon their monopoly of impeachment, had him taken up and committed to Newgate, on the deposition of an accomplice, who has been admitted as evidence for the king. The postilion being upon record as an old offender, the chief justice made no scruple of admitting Clinker to bail, when he perused the affidavit of Mr. Mead, importing that the said Clinker was not the person that robbed him on Blackheath; and honest Humphry was discharged. When he came home, he expressed great eagerness to pay his respects to his master, and here his clocution failed him, but his silence was pathetic; he fell down at his feet, and embraced his knees, shedding a flood of tears, which my uncle did not see without emotion. He took snuff in some confusion; and, putting his hand in his pocket, gave him his blessing in something more substantial than words. ‘Clinker (said he), I am so well convinced, both of your honesty and courage, that I am resolved to make you my life-guard-man on the highway.’
He was accordingly provided with a case of pistols, and a carbine to be slung a-cross his shoulders; and every other preparation being made, we set out last Thursday, at seven in the morning; my uncle, with the three women in the coach; Humphry, well mounted on a black gelding bought for his use; myself a- horseback, attended by my new valet, Mr. Dutton, an exceeding coxcomb, fresh from his travels, whom I have taken upon trial. The fellow wears a solitaire, uses paint, and takes rappee with all the grimace of a French marquis. At present, however, he is in a riding-dress, jack-boots, leather breeches, a scarlet waistcoat with gold binding, a laced hat, a hanger, a French posting-whip in his hand, and his hair en queue.
Then they came upon it from a turn in the road and they stopped and stood with the salt wind blowing in their hair where they’d lowered the hoods of their coats to listen. Out there was the gray beach with the slow combers rolling dull and leaden and the distant sound of it…He looked at the boy. He could see the disappointment in his face. I’m sorry it’s not blue, he said. That’s okay, said the boy.
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
Chapter 17
To Sir Watkin Phillips, Bart. of Jesus college, Oxon.
Newcastle upon Tyne, July 10.
DEAR WATT,
WE made a precipitate retreat from Scarborough, owing to the excessive delicacy of our ’squire, who cannot bear the thoughts of being praetereuntium digito monstratus.
One morning while he was bathing in the sea, his man Clinker took it in his head that his master was in danger of drowning; and, in this conceit, plunging into the water, he lugged him out naked on the beach, and almost pulled off his ear in the operation. You may guess how this atchievement was relished by Mr. Bramble, who is impatient, irascible, and has the most extravagant ideas of decency and decorum in the oeconomy of his own person. In the first ebullition of his choler, he knocked Clinker down with his fist; but he afterwards made him amends for this outrage, and, in order to avoid the further notice of the people, among whom this incident had made him remarkable, he resolved to leave Scarborough next day.
We set out accordingly over the moors, by the way of Whitby, and began our journey betimes, in hopes of reaching Stockton that night; but in this hope we were disappointed. In the afternoon, crossing a deep gutter, made by a torrent, the coach was so hard strained, that one of the irons, which connect the frame, snapt, and the leather sling on the same side, cracked in the middle. The shock was so great, that my sister Liddy struck her head against Mrs. Tabitha’s nose with such violence that the blood flowed; and Win Jenkins was darted through a small window, in that part of the carriage next the horses, where she stuck like a bawd in the pillory, till she was released by the hand of Mr. Bramble. We were eight miles distant from any place where we could be supplied with chaises, and it was impossible to proceed with the coach, until the damage should be repaired. In this dilemma, we discovered a black-smith’s forge on the edge of a small common, about half a mile from the scene of our disaster, and thither the postilions made shift to draw the carriage slowly, while the company walked a-foot; but we found the blacksmith had been dead some days; and his wife, who had been lately delivered, was deprived of her senses, under the care of a nurse, hired by the parish. We were exceedingly mortified at this disappointment, which, however, was surmounted by the help of Humphry Clinker, who is a surprising compound of genius and simplicity. Finding the tools of the defunct, together with some coals in the smithy, he unscrewed the damaged iron in a twinkling, and, kindling a fire, united the broken pieces with equal dexterity and dispatch. While he was at work upon this operation, the poor woman in the straw, struck with the well- known sound of the hammer and anvil, started up, and, notwithstanding all the nurse’s efforts, came running into the smithy, where, throwing her arms about Clinker’s neck, ‘Ah, Jacob! (cried she) how could you leave me in such a condition?’
Chapter 19
To Dr. Lewis.
Edr. July 18.
DEAR LEWIS,
THAT part of Scotland contiguous to Berwick, nature seems to have intended as a barrier between two hostile nations It is a brown desert of considerable extent, that produces nothing but heath and fern; and what rendered it the more dreary when we passed, there was a thick fog that hindered us from seeing above twenty yards from the carriage. My sister began to make wry faces, and use her smelling-bottle; Liddy looked blank, and Mrs. Jenkins dejected; but in a few hours these clouds were dissipated; the sea appeared upon our right, and on the left the mountains retired a little, leaving an agreeable plain betwixt them and the beach; but, what surprised us all, this plain, to the extent of several miles, was covered with as fine wheat as ever I saw in the most fertile parts of South Britain. This plentiful crop is raised in the open field, without any inclosure, or other manure than the alga marina, or sea-weed, which abounds on this coast; a circumstance which shews that the soil and climate are favourable; but that agriculture in this country is not yet brought to that perfection which it has attained in England. Inclosures would not only keep the grounds warm, and the several fields distinct, but would also protect the crop from the high winds, which are so frequent in this part of the island.
Everyone watching over his shoulder, Free French plotting revenge on Vichy traitors, Lublin Communists drawing beads on Varsovian shadow-ministers, ELAS Greeks stalking royalists, unrepatriable dreamers of all languages hoping through will, fists, prayer to bring back kings, republics, pretenders, summer anarchisms that perished before the first crops were in... some dying wretchedly, nameless, under ice-and-snow surfaces of bomb craters out in the East End not to be found till spring, some chronically drunk or opiated for getting through the day's reverses, most somehow losing, losing what souls they had, less and less able to trust, seized in the game's unending chatter, its daily self-criticism, its demands for total attention...
From Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
"We've just spent a Saturday morning - Kathleen, her mother and me - helping out at a Mile of Pennies in King's Square for the Junior NSPCC. I'm more than happy to help out - banking up good will and good deeds with the Lamb, for although He is meek and mild He is also (inexplicably) part of the trio that can consign you to the Inferno."
from Behing the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Chapter 22
To Miss Laetitia Willis, at Gloucester.
Glasgow, Sept. 7.
MY DEAREST LETTY,
NEVER did poor prisoner long for deliverance, more than I have longed for an opportunity to disburthen my cares into your friendly bosom; and the occasion which now presents itself, is little less than miraculous. Honest Saunders Macawly, the travelling Scotchman, who goes every year to Wales, is now at Glasgow, buying goods, and coming to pay his respects to our family, has undertaken to deliver this letter into your own hand. We have been six weeks in Scotland, and seen the principal towns of the kingdom, where we have been treated with great civility. The people are very courteous; and the country being exceedingly romantic, suits my turn and inclinations. I contracted some friendships at Edinburgh, which is a large and lofty city, full of gay company; and, in particular, commenced an intimate correspondence with one miss R—t—n, an amiable young lady of my own age, whose charms seemed to soften, and even to subdue the stubborn heart of my brother Jery; but he no sooner left the place than he relapsed into his former insensibility. I feel, however, that this indifference is not the family constitution. I never admitted but one idea of love, and that has taken such root in my heart, as to be equally proof against all the pulls of discretion, and the frosts of neglect.
2. Humphry Clinker as satire
“Satire”:
Dr Johnson: “a poem [or prose] in which wickedness or folly is censured”;
John Dryden: “the purpose of satire is the amendment of wickedness or folly”.
An active MORAL purpose: presupposes the engagement of this text in the society around it, which it is trying to change, to reform, or at least to criticise.
{comments on Tobias Smollett's Humphrey Clinker from this link: http://www.englit.ed.ac.uk/studying/...hryclinker.htm
is ON a breakdown of traditional distinctions of rank or status in British society (in Bath and London) as a result of huge flow of wealth into Britain as a result of colonial trade and the wars that have been fought to expand it:
All these absurdities arise from the general tide of luxury, which hath overspread the nation, and swept all away, even the very dregs of the people. Every upstart of fortune, harnessed in the trappings of the mode, presents himself at Bath, as the very focus of observation—Clerks and factors from the East Indies, loaded with the spoil of plundered provinces; planters, negro-drivers, and hucksters, from our American plantations, enriched they know not how; agents, commissaries, and contractors, who have fattened, in two successive wars, on the blood of the nation; usurers, brokers, and jobbers of every kind; men of low birth, and no breeding, have found themselves suddenly translated into a state of affluence, unknown to former ages; and no wonder that their brains should be intoxicated with pride, vanity and presumption . . . [A]ll of them hurry here to Bath, because here, without any further qualification, they can mingle with the princes and nobles of the land.
. . .[T]his will ever be the case, till the streams that swell this irresistible torrent of folly and extravagance, shall either be exhausted, or turned into other channels . . .
(Matt Bramble, Bath, April 23)
happens THROUGH a lack of any PHYSICAL gap between Bramble and the world around him. Bramble is physically CONTINUOUS with the society he criticises: he is in pain because it is decaying: he is sick because it is sick.
I think his peevishness arises partly from bodily pain, and partly from a natural excess of mental sensibility; for, I suppose, the mind as well as the body, is in some cases endued with a morbid excess of sensation.
(Jery, Bristol, April 18)
I find my spirits and my health affect each other reciprocally—that is to say, every thing that discomposes my mind, produces a correspondent disorder in my body . . .
(Bramble, London, June 14)
is summed up in the image of the divisions between bodies dissolving in the waters of the spa at Bath, like the divisions between ranks dissolving in the “flood” of wealth from colonies:
. . . [W]e know not what sores may be running into the water while we are bathing, and what sort of matter we may thus imbibe . . .
I can't help suspecting, that there is, or may be, some regurgitation from the bath into the cistern of the pump. In that case, what a delicate beveridge is every day quaffed by the drinkers; medicated with the sweat and dirt, and dandriff; and the abominable discharges of various kinds, from twenty different diseased bodies, parboiling in the kettle below . . .
(Matt Bramble, Bath, April 28)
3. Matthew Bramble in Scotland
Bramble enjoys physical recovery on arrival in Scotland. Why?
To make Scotland look good. Generally represented here as a site of the traditional social hierarchies, of intact sentimental bonds between masters and servants, being eroded in the south.
Scots unpopular in mid-eighteenth century England as a result of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745–6, and an unpopular Scottish Prime Minister (the U.K.’s first), Lord Bute: Smollett ran a pro-Bute newspaper. Horace Walpole: “a party novel, written by the profligate hireling Smollett, to vindicate the Scots.”
See also proven loyalty to Britain of Lismahago in contrast to toleration of a known French spy by the fashionable set in London: “Britain”, a common British identity, emerging from shared project of Empire: a good effect of the empire discovered in contact with Scots, to counteract the bad effects encountered in England.
But in Scotland the physical continuity of Bramble with the society around him also broken.
In England, one of the aspects of modernity satirised is modern science’s calling into question the naturalness of our spontaneous responses to things:
. . . that he himself (the doctor) when he happened to be low-spirited, or fatigued with business, found immediate relief and uncommon satisfaction from hanging over the stale contents of a close-stool, while his servant stirred it about under his nose . . . In short, he used many learned arguments to persuade his audience out of their senses; and from stench made a transition to filth, which he affirmed was also a mistaken idea, in as much as objects so called, were no other than certain modifications of matter, consisting in the same principles that enter into the composition of all created essences, whatever they may be . . .
(Jery, Bristol, April 18)
In this Smollett echoes Swift’s similar ridicule of trying to put nature in reverse:
His employment from his first coming into the Academy was an operation to reduce human excrement to its original food, by separating the several parts, removing the tincture which it receives from the gall, making the odour exhale, and scumming off the saliva. He had a weekly allowance from the Society of a vessel filled with human ordure, about the bigness of a Bristol barrel.
(Gulliver's Travels III.v)
But in Edinburgh, attitudes to excrement are NOT used by Bramble in this way as a measure of the corruption of a society. The custom of emptying chamber-pots into the street at night he classes as
—A practice to which I can by no means be reconciled; for notwithstanding all the care that is taken by their scavengers to remove this nuisance every morning by break of day, enough still remains to offend the eyes, as well as other organs of those whom use has not hardened against all delicacy of sensation.
The inhabitants seem insensible to these impressions, and are apt to imagine the disgust that we avow is little better than affectation; but they ought to have some compassion for strangers, who have not been used to this kind of sufferance . . .
(Bramble, Edinburgh, July 18)
That is, as part of a set of customs, specific to the society in which Bramble finds himself. He is no longer the satirist, continuous with the society around him: he has become instead a detached (sociological) observer of that society, understood as a coherent, knowable, whole, from which he stands apart.
Bramble and Jery’s letters discuss both the distinct nature of Scottish Law, education, and religion, and the modernisation of Scotland with the rise of Glasgow as a commercial centre, agricultural improvement, industry, and colonisation.
But also using the CATEGORIES of Enlightenment historiography to understand this change. E.g. Highland society is based
on something prior to the feudal system, about which the writers of this age have made such a pother, as if it was a new discovery, like the Copernican system. Every peculiarity of policy, custom, and even temperament, is affectedly traced to this origin . . . The connection between the clans and their chiefs is, without all doubt, patriarchal.
(Bramble, Sept 6.)
The feudal system marks that stage of human history, prior to the commercial stage, when the economy is based on agriculture and the power on the ownership of land, with the whole culture and legal systems that go with this; the patriarchal system marks the stage before this, when production is based on herding animals (a pastoral economy). These categories, these distinctions, are straight out of the Scottish speculative historians such as Adam Ferguson and William Robertson.
Chapter 25
To Sir Watkin Phillips, Bart. at Oxon.
Oct. 3.
DEAR KNIGHT,
I BELIEVE there is something mischievous in my disposition, for nothing diverts me so much as to see certain characters tormented with false terrors. We last night lodged at the house of sir Thomas Bullford, an old friend of my uncle, a jolly fellow, of moderate intellects, who, in spite of the gout, which hath lamed him, is resolved to be merry to the last; and mirth he has a particular knack in extracting from his guests, let their humour be never so caustic or refractory. Besides our company, there was in the house a fat- headed justice of the peace, called Frogmore, and a country practitioner in surgery, who seemed to be our landlord’s chief companion and confidant. We found the knight sitting on a couch, with his crutches by his side, and his feet supported on cushions; but he received us with a hearty welcome, and seemed greatly rejoiced at our arrival. After tea we were entertained with a sonata on the harpsichord by lady Bullford, who sung and played to admiration; but sir Thomas seemed to be a little asinine in the article of ears, though he affected to be in raptures, and begged his wife to favour us with an arietta of her own composing. This arietta, however, she no sooner began to perform, than he and the justice fell asleep; but the moment she ceased playing, the knight waked snorting, and exclaimed, ‘O cara! what d’ ye think, gentlemen? Will you talk any more of your Pargolesi and your Corelli?’ At the same time, he thrust his tongue in one cheek, and leered with one eye at the doctor and me, who sat on his left hand. He concluded the pantomime with a loud laugh, which he could command at all times extempore. Notwithstanding his disorder, he did not do penance at supper, nor did he ever refuse his glass when the toast went round, but rather encouraged a quick circulation, both by precept and example.
Chapter 26
To Sir Watkin Phillips, Bart. of Jesus college, Oxon.
Oct. 4.
DEAR WATKIN,
I YESTERDAY met with an incident which I believe you will own to be very surprising. As I stood with Liddy at the window of the inn where we had lodged, who should pass by but Wilson a-horseback! I could not be mistaken in the person, for I had a full view of him as he advanced; I plainly perceived by my sister’s confusion that she recognized him at the same time. I was equally astonished and incensed at his appearance, which I could not but interpret into an insult, or something worse. I ran out at the gate, and seeing him turn the corner of the street, I dispatched my servant to observe his motions, but the fellow was too late to bring me that satisfaction. He told me, however, that there was an inn, called the Red Lion, at that end of the town, where he supposed the horseman alighted, but that he would not inquire without further orders. I sent him back immediately to know what strangers were in the house, and he returned with a report that there was one Mr. Wilson lately arrived. In consequence of this information I charged him with a note directed to that gentlemen, desiring him to meet me in half an hour in a certain field at the town’s end, with a case of pistols, in order to decide the difference which could not be determined at our last rencounter: but I did not think proper to subscribe the billet. My man assured me he had delivered it into his own hand; and, that having read it, he declared he would wait upon the gentleman at the place and time appointed.
This comes from Ch. Forty-Six of The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler (1903) in which Ernest has evoked
a bit of a "sensation" at the University over an essay he'd
written with the angle that Greek dramatists were under-rated.
The speaker is Overton, the book's narrator:
"[T]his was his one idea (I feel sure he had caught more than half of it from other people), and now he had not another thing left to write about. . ."
". . .He did not understand that if he waited and listened and observed, another idea of some kind would probably occur to him someday, and that the development of this would in turn suggest still further ones. He did not yet know that the very worst way of getting hold of ideas is to go hunting expressly after them. The way to get them is to study something of which one is fond, and to note down whatever crosses one's mind in reference to it, either during study or relaxation, in a little notebook kept always in the waistcoat pocket, but it took him a long time to find out, for this is not the kind of thing that is taught at schools and universities.
"Nor yet did he know that ideas, no less than the living beings in whose minds they arise, must be begotten by parents not very unlike themselves, the most original still differing but slightly from the parents that have given rise to them. Life is like a fugue, everything must grow out of the subject and there must be nothing new. Nor, again, did he see how hard it is to say where one idea ends and another begins, nor yet how closely this is parallelled in the difficulty of saying where a life begins or ends or an action or indeed anything, there being a unity
in spite of infinite multitude, and an infinite multitude in spite of unity. He thought that ideas came into clever people's heads by a kind of spontaneous germination, without parentage in the thoughts of others or the course of observation; for as yet he believed in genius, of which he well knew he had none, if it was the fine frenzied thing he thought it was."
From World Enough and Time by Robert Warren, Ch. 9, pg. 323
"Ah, that is the thing to fear, not the lie the world tells as a lie, but the lie the world holds as its truth."
This memoir by Gunter Grass is a revelation; the writer of "The Tin Drum" speaks of his life in Germany both before and after the war. From the first chapter entitled "Skins Beneath the Skin"..."Memory likes to play hide-and-seek, to crawl away. It tends to hold forth, to dress up, often needlessly. Memory contradicts itself; pedant that it is, it will have its way. When pestered with questions, memory is like an onion that wishes to be peeled so we can read what is laid bare letter by letter. It is seldom unambiguous and often in mirror-writing or otherwise disquised."
Interesting quote Quasimodo; so true it is.
Dark Muse, that is good quote from you, also.
Afraid that is as far back as I read tonight...too tired to read them all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AdoreroDio
I have read only until the part where Okonwo decided to follow the tribe's command and killed the boy (Ikemefuna).
"Envy and Arrogance and Avarice, Are the three sparks that have all hearts enkindled." (Canto VI, lines 74-75) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation.
"Lost are we, and are only so far punished, That without hope we live on in desire." (Canto IV, lines 41-42) Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation.
"He (Adam) learned Spanish words for food and pleasure, and he learned that when people are very poor they still have something to give and the impulse to give it. He developed a love for poor people he could not have conceived if he had not been poor himself. And by now he was an expert tramp, using humility as a working principle." (Chapter 7 from "East of Eden")
"The books are junk, the paint peels, the cellar stinks, the teachers call you nigger, and the windows fall in on your heads." p. 33
Jonathan Kozol, Death At An Early Age
From chapter 2, "Encapsulations"....."One word evokes the other: Schulden, Schuld, debts, guilt. Two words so close and so deeply rooted in the soil of the German language. But while debts can be mitigated by installment payments, long-term as they may be (witness my mother's clientele), guilt--whether proven, presumed, or consealed--remains, ticking on and on, and holds its place, even on journeys to nowwhere".
from "Encapsulations", ..."But because so many kept silent, the temptation to great to discount one's own silence, or to compensate for it by invoking the general guilt, or to speak about oneself all but abstractly, in the third person: he was, saw, had, said, he kept silent...and what's more, silent within, where there is plenty of room for hide and seek."
All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.
Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
^like that quote^
"I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody."
J.D. Salinger-Franny and Zooey
She completely avoided the trap of sentimentality in writing about animals. Though her pets were obviously close favourites, she recorded their deaths or misadventures coolly in her journal. And she seems to have had a special affection for the memory of her great-grandfather Abraham Crompton, who used to pick snails off an ivy-covered wall in his garden and eat them alive.
Beatrix Potter: the ironist in arcadia
secret gardens,humphrey carpenter