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   1 Ramesh Balsekar
   1 It is not sufficient just to remain calm in the event of catastrophe or emergency. When challenged by adversity
   1 Huang Po
   1 Howard Gardner
   1 Dogen Zenji

NEW FULL DB (2.4M)

   18 Anonymous
   10 Neil Gaiman
   10 Chuck Palahniuk
   9 Ryan Holiday
   6 Richard Bach
   6 F Scott Fitzgerald
   5 William Kent Krueger
   5 Michael A Singer
   5 Leo Tolstoy
   4 Tony Robbins
   4 Stephen Hawking
   4 Neal Shusterman
   4 Nassim Nicholas Taleb
   4 Maya Angelou
   4 John Brooks
   4 Jane Austen
   4 Frederick Lenz
   4 Eudora Welty
   4 Daniel Kahneman
   4 Caroline Leaf

1:It is not sufficient just to remain calm in the event of catastrophe or emergency. When challenged by adversity, charge onwards with co,

2:Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that, in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that.    ~ Dogen Zenji,

3:Who shall foretell the event of a battle, the fall of a footstep? Oracles, visions and prophecies voice but the dreams of the mortal, And 'tis our spirit within is the Pythoness tortured in Delphi. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,

4:Weight of the event and its surface we bear, but the meaning is hidden. Earth sees not; life's clamour deafens the ear of the spirit: Man knows not; least knows the messenger chosen for the summons. Only he listens to the voice of his thoughts, his ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Ilion,

5:The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea that it should be transitory. In one high bound it has overleaped the massive of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the centre of our being. Spontaneously and without effort we have fulfilled the law (towards one person) by loving our neighbour as ourselves. It is an image, a foretaste, of what we must become to all if Love Himself rules in us without a rival. It is even (well used) a preparation for that. ~ C S Lewis,

*** WISDOM TROVE ***

1:The act is judged of by the event. ~ ovid, @wisdomtrove

2:The meaning that you give an event is the event.   ~ deepak-chopra, @wisdomtrove

3:The best form of endurance exercise is the performance of the event. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove

4:I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event. ~ g-k-chesterton, @wisdomtrove

5:It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove

6:When we first met and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. . . . ~ elizabeth-barrett-browning, @wisdomtrove

7:Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event. ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove

8:Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. ~ henri-cartier-bresson, @wisdomtrove

9:Had I succeeded well, I had been reckoned amongst the wise; our minds are so disposed to judge from the event. ~ euripedes, @wisdomtrove

10:Everything that matters to we can work out as expected, in the event that we have the strength to seek after them. ~ walt-disney, @wisdomtrove

11:What men have seen they know; But what shall come hereafter No man before the event can see, Nor what end waits for him. ~ sophocles, @wisdomtrove

12:I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place. ~ winston-churchill, @wisdomtrove

13:Worse still is that mankind - the non-Jewish world - learned nothing from the Holocaust: The event which had no precedent in history, which should be equal to the Revelation at Sinai in significance. ~ elie-wiesel, @wisdomtrove

14:Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that, in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that. ~ dogen, @wisdomtrove

15:Empathy doesn't require that we have the exact same experiences as the person sharing their story with us... Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance. ~ brene-brown, @wisdomtrove

16:The event of falling in love... in one high bound it has overleaped the massive wall of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the centre of our being. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove

17:You say, &

18:In Re-framing, you interpret the event in a positive way. You change your language . Instead if defining it as a problem you re-frame it as a situation . A problem is something that is upsetting and stressful. A situation is something that you simply deal with . ~ brian-tracy, @wisdomtrove

19:There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove

20:It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove

21:In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove

22:In the event of a violent revolution, we would be sorely outnumbered. And when it was all over, the Negro would face the same unchanged conditions, the same squalor and deprivation-the only difference being that his bitterness would be even more intense, his disenchantment even more abject. Thus, in purely practical as well as moral terms, the American Negro has no rational alternative to nonviolence. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove

23:The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. To be sure, theology is always yielding a little to the progress of knowledge, and only a Holy Roller in the mountains of Tennessee would dare to preach today what the popes preached in the Thirteenth Century, but this yielding is always done grudgingly, and thus lingers a good while behind the event. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove

24:What I am in search of is not so much the gratification of a curiosity or a passion for worldly life, but something far less conditional. I do not wish to go out into the world with an insurance policy in my pocket guaranteeing my return in the event of a disappointment, like some cautious traveller who would be content with a brief glimpse of the world. On the contrary, I desire that there should be hazards, difficulties and dangers to face; I am hungry for reality, for tasks and deeds, and also for privation and suffering. ~ hermann-hesse, @wisdomtrove

25:Advance warning of Katrina's path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of His plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of God, they wouldn't have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. And yet, as will come as no surprise to you, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80 percent of Katrina's survivors claim that the event only strengthened their faith in God. ~ sam-harris, @wisdomtrove

26:The system is not intended as a substitute for private savings, pension plans, and insurance protection. It is, rather, intended as the foundation upon which these other forms of protection can be soundly built. Thus, the individual's own work, his planning and his thrift will bring him a higher standard of living upon his retirement, or his family a higher standard of living in the event of his death, than would otherwise be the case. Hence the system both encourages thrift and self-reliance, and helps to prevent destitution in our national life. ~ dwight-eisenhower, @wisdomtrove

27:When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived or that the fact which he relates should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other and according to the superiority which I discover, I pronounce my decision. Always I reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates, then and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion. ~ david-hume, @wisdomtrove

28:True awareness is a state of pure witnessing, without the least attempt to do anything about the event witnessed. Your thoughts and feelings, words and actions may also be a part of the event; you watch all unconcerned in the full light of clarity and understanding. You understand precisely what is going on, because it does not affect you. It may seem to be an attitude of cold aloofness, but it is not really so. Once you are in it, you will find that you love what you see, whatever may beits nature. This choiceless love is the touchstone of awareness. If it is not there, you are merely interested - for some personal reasons. ~ sri-nisargadatta-maharaj, @wisdomtrove

*** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***

1:that the event would ~ Peter Robinson,

2:The Story Is Not the Event ~ Russ Harris,

3:The act is judged of by the event. ~ Ovid,

4:After the event, even a fool is wise. ~ Homer,

5:Even a fool may be wise after the event. ~ Homer,

6:In the event of war, I'm a hostage. ~ Woody Allen,

7:The fear is mother of the event. ~ Viktor E Frankl,

8:Literature is analysis after the event. ~ Doris Lessing,

9:It is easy to be wise after the event. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle,

10:It's always easy to be wise after the event. ~ Kerstin Gier,

11:Live for the event, not the outcome. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach,

12:It is the unforeseeable that creates the event. ~ Georges Braque,

13:Was the anticipation worse than the event itself? At ~ Brandon Mull,

14:The wish precedes the event, the will accompanies it. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein,

15:Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event. ~ George Gissing,

16:The best form of endurance exercise is the performance of the event. ~ Bruce Lee,

17:In Europe we could do it, if we fly as soon as the event is over. ~ Vince McMahon,

18:(O)ne cannot let the event's of one's past murder one's future. ~ Neal Shusterman,

19:Our response to an event is more important than the event itself. ~ Angeles Arrien,

20:If the event must occur, Amor fati (a love of fate) is the response. ~ Ryan Holiday,

21:It's not a competition if one person can't even show up for the event. ~ Nicola Yoon,

22:My body is the intention. My body is the event. My body is the result. ~ Gunter Brus,

23:The hero sees that the event is ancillary: it must follow him. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,

24:I do not wish to help Jeremy Clarkson be amusing in the event of my death. ~ James May,

25:Emerson said, “The soul contains the event that shall befall it. ~ Norman Vincent Peale,

26:Death means nothing to men like me. It's the event that proves them right. ~ Albert Camus,

27:UFC 151 will be remembered as the event Jon Jones and Greg Jackson murdered. ~ Dana White,

28:We make our own symbols, after the event has passed and begun to spoil. ~ Fran oise Sagan,

29:It is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble. ~ Howard Baker,

30:The shorter the event, the more speed and power required, the more warm-up. ~ Kelly Starrett,

31:If there's one thing I can't bear, it's people who are wise during the event. ~ Kenneth Tynan,

32:There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. ~ Ryan Holiday,

33:Command & Query Responsibility Segregation and the Event Sourcing patterns. The ~ Anonymous,

34:In the Gita, the author has cleverly made use of the event to teach great truths. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,

35:expectation of an event creates a much deeper impression … than the event itself.”—de ~ John Brooks,

36:in the event that armed men of any sort enter the building, watch their feet closely. ~ Padgett Powell,

37:Make criticism in good time; don't get into the habit of criticizing only after the event. ~ Mao Zedong,

38:In the event that we don't want to lose the Far East and Siberia, we need a united Europe. ~ Garry Kasparov,

39:In the event, the NLF won the civil war. “Well, it looks like the NLF all the way,” Ames wrote. ~ Anonymous,

40:It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides. ~ Jane Austen,

41:Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation. ~ Charlotte Bront,

42:the event of an evening which had raised such splendid expectations. He had rather hoped that ~ Jane Austen,

43:When we first met and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. . . . ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

44:Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation. ~ Charlotte Bronte,

45:expectation of an event creates a much deeper impression … than the event itself.”—de la Vega.) ~ John Brooks,

46:I agree with the realistic Irishman who said he preferred to prophesy after the event. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton,

47:Nevertheless, Schlieffen decided, in the event of war, to attack France by way of Belgium. ~ Barbara W Tuchman,

48:So that we may not be like the Athenians, who never consulted except after the event done. ~ Francois Rabelais,

49:There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the ~ Ryan Holiday,

50:Often do the spirits stride on before the event; and in today already walks tomorrow. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge,

51:the hospital where he was born must have preserved some record of the event, but Michael didn’t ~ Michael Lewis,

52:Again, the event is the same: Someone messed up. But the evaluation and the outcome are different. ~ Ryan Holiday,

53:FURTHER NOTE: This plan can ONLY go wrong in the event of ants. Ants do NOT like being pissed on. ~ Caitlin Moran,

54:It's not only the event itself, but the way we explain it to ourselves that causes depression. ~ Karen Salmansohn,

55:The expectation of an event creates a much deeper impression … than the event itself.”—de la Vega.) ~ John Brooks,

56:In the event of a plane crash, locate the nearest woman with implants and use her as a flotation device. ~ Various,

57:Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance. ~ Anonymous,

58:(“The expectation of an event creates a much deeper impression … than the event itself.”—de la Vega.) ~ John Brooks,

59:Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance. ~ Bren Brown,

60:The most hateful grief of all human griefs is to have knowledge of a truth, but no power over the event. ~ Herodotus,

61:You can tell people the truth, but they’ll never believe you until the event. Until it’s too late. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

62:Fortunately women have the miraculous ability to change the meaning of their actions after the event. ~ Milan Kundera,

63:The ultimate test of an explanation is whether it would have made the event predictable in advance. ~ Daniel Kahneman,

64:In the event of a plane crash, locate the nearest woman with implants and use her as a flotation device. *** ~ Various,

65:probability of loss of life after a traumatic event can be greater than loss of life during the event. ~ Dave Grossman,

66:Being told that something was going to happen never prepared you for the actuality of the event itself. ~ Robert Storey,

67:It’s always painful being reminded that someone you love is gone, no matter how long after the event. ~ Paul Pilkington,

68:Memory is very important, the memory of each photo taken, flowing at the same speed as the event. ~ Henri Cartier Bresson,

69:Had I succeeded well, I had been reckoned amongst the wise; our minds are so disposed to judge from the event. ~ Euripides,

70:Success is not just dependent on before-the-event reasoning, it is also about after-the-trigger adaptation. ~ Matthew Syed,

71:The thoughts just before the event are like the fortune in the cookie. The fortune's as random as the thought. ~ Adam Ross,

72:The most hateful grief of all human griefs is this, to have knowledge of the truth but no power over the event. ~ Herodotus,

73:I think you learn more from looking at how things occurred and what happened afterward, not just at the event ~ John Turturro,

74:the Pakistan fundraiser was thoroughly inspiring - the event was able to amass 2.3 million smiles for the school ~ Dave Eggers,

75:We overestimate the event and underestimate the process. Every fulfilled dream occurred because of dedication. ~ John C Maxwell,

76:Everything that matters to we can work out as expected, in the event that we have the strength to seek after them. ~ Walt Disney,

77:Stirling formed a de facto private army that would cross picket lines in the event of a Communist coup. Michael ~ Laura Thompson,

78:every time we remembered something, we weren’t remembering the event itself but the last time we’d remembered it. It ~ Karen White,

79:Fear of harm ought to be proportional not merely to the gravity of the harm, but also to the probability of the event. ~ Anonymous,

80:Day to day, I always wear eyeliner on my top lid and mascara. I like to do my own makeup, it depends on the event. ~ Felicity Jones,

81:One does every day and without a second thought, what at another time would be the event of a year, perhaps of a life. ~ Henry Adams,

82:What men have seen they know; But what shall come hereafter No man before the event can see, Nor what end waits for him. ~ Sophocles,

83:I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven. ~ Stephen King,

84:he spoke in terms of the event, rather than blaming the person. I loved people like this, and encountered so very few. ~ Camille Pag n,

85:But he was an adult who possessed other skills that he could fall back on in the event of defeat, and that made him weak. ~ Allie Brosh,

86:The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance. ~ Jesse Jackson Jr,

87:The most hateful grief of all human griefs is this, to have knowledge of the truth but no power over the event. ~ Luis Carlos Montalv n,

88:The public should always be notified as soon as possible in the event of a leak or other emergency at a nuclear facility. ~ Ken Calvert,

89:When you have a project, do it exactly as you see fit; then fit the facts around the event, not the other way around. ~ Robert Sheckley,

90:It is not sufficient just to remain calm in the event of catastrophe or emergency. When challenged by adversity, charge onwards with co,

91:Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events. ~ Robert Penn Warren,

92:Fear of harm ought to be proportional not merely to the gravity of the harm, but also to the probability of the event. ~ Peter L Bernstein,

93:I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better to prophesy after the event has already taken place. ~ Winston S Churchill,

94:Every work turns against its author: the poem will crush the poet, the system the philosopher, the event the man of action. ~ Emil M Cioran,

95:His mother is calling him on the ultrasonic frequency reserved by the government for Jewish mothers in the event of lunch. ~ Michael Chabon,

96:Anything or anyone who falls through the event horizon will soon reach the region of infinite density and the end of time. ~ Stephen Hawking,

97:In the event of a cabin failure, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling, and untangling them will annoy you before you die. ~ Frankie Boyle,

98:people overreact to low-probability outcomes when you discuss the event with them, when you make them aware of it. If ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

99:We overestimate the event and underestimate the process. Every fulfilled dream occurred because of dedication to the process. ~ John C Maxwell,

100:That’s so not your business it almost punches clean past the event horizon of Not Your Business and becomes Your Business again. ~ Amie Kaufman,

101:The act of not discussing or confiding the event with another may be more damaging than having experienced the event per se. ~ James W Pennebaker,

102:The neighbors find the event a great cause for celebration and honor the young man’s parents by giving them gifts of food and money. ~ Sam Harris,

103:I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place. ~ Winston Churchill,

104:Who will ever give counsel, if the counsel be judged by the event, and if it be not found wise, shall therefore be thought wicked? ~ Philip Sidney,

105:I felt that from my end, I should deal with the thing itself, which is the event. I pretty much functioned like the media itself. ~ Garry Winogrand,

106:Usually in life, the prospect of a dreaded event is worse than the event itself, nothing being good or bad but thinking makes it so. ~ Frances Brody,

107:I love theaters. I love the event of going there and seeing a movie with a lot of people. I like the community coming around the story. ~ Willem Dafoe,

108:Many are less fortunate than you' may not be a roof to live under, but it will serve to retire beneath in the event of a shower. ~ Georg C Lichtenberg,

109:It's a lot of fun coming out for a practice round and having the crowd behind you and cheering you on (a few) days before the event. ~ Annika Sorenstam,

110:In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation. ~ Prince Philip,

111:This was how he saw himself: balancing on the event horizon, trying not to get sucked into the black hole, trying to hang on to the light. ~ Carol Anshaw,

112:I believe in anniversaries, that a mood can be repeated even if the event that caused it is trivial or forgotten. In this case, it's neither. ~ Sarah Kane,

113:Many of us, I suppose, see our existences not as lives, but as life-holders, zarfs, waiting for the job, the person, the event to fill it. ~ Tibor Fischer,

114:When we are dealing with death we are constantly being dragged down by the event: Humor diverts our attention and lifts our sagging spirits. ~ Allen Klein,

115:Once you get into the groove of things and in the mood you are usually fine; it is before the event that you get nervous and irritable. ~ John Gallagher Jr,

116:There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. ~ Ryan Holiday,

117:I stifle the urge to go back to the window and assess my competition. But it's not a competition if one person can't even show up for the event. ~ Nicola Yoon,

118:Rather than allowing our response to an even affect our breathing, we can learn instead to let our breathing change our relationship to the event. ~ Cyndi Lee,

119:When two people have decided to go to bed with each other, what passes between them before the event is a matter of form rather than of content. ~ John le Carr,

120:You can care very much about someone without being capable of becoming their primary caregiver in the event of their parents' untimely death. ~ Mallory Ortberg,

121:An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck,

122:There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. That ~ Ryan Holiday,

123:To reflect upon the event horizon is a great deal more awe-inspiring than a burning bush or a wooden statue that weeps or pees or bleeds. ~ Christopher Hitchens,

124:You never realize what the aftereffect of your activities, however in the event that you don't do anything, obviously there will be no outcome. ~ Mahatma Gandhi,

125:I am a spy in the house of me. I report back from the front lines of the battle that is me. I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life. ~ Carrie Fisher,

126:is at hand, and a race of men, perhaps as numerous as all Europe contains, are to receive their portion of freedom from the event of a few months. ~ Thomas Paine,

127:Pretending not to see would, she believes, take her past some point of no return, past the event horizon of hypocrisy into a black hole of solipsism. ~ M R Carey,

128:In the event you bungle elevating your sons or daughters, I do not imagine regardless of what else you are doing nicely issues very considerably. ~ Jackie Kennedy,

129:Source—The element in the logical tree that originally raised the event. OriginalSource—The element in the visual tree that originally raised the event ~ Anonymous,

130:We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self - government. ~ Thomas Jefferson,

131:What men have seen they know;             but what shall come hereafter             no man before the event can see, 1420    nor what end waits for him. ~ Sophocles,

132:To this day, most people think of me as the fastest human. They don't really think me as a long jumper, although that's the event I had more success in. ~ Carl Lewis,

133:The event of creation did not take place so many eons ago, astronomically or biologically speaking. Creation is taking place every moment of our lives. ~ David Suzuki,

134:The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event. ~ Edward Gibbon,

135:We know dates and times and locations and participants but accounts of what happened depend upon the perspective from which the event is viewed. ~ William Kent Krueger,

136:Pretending not to see would, she believes, take her past some point of no return, past the event horizon of hypocrisy into a black hole of solipsism. Christ, ~ M R Carey,

137:commemoration like Christmas and Easter. The event is described only twice in the New Testament. I am now convinced that no single event in the life of Jesus ~ R C Sproul,

138:Guenevere brought me a cookie and a big box of Kleenex. She said that choices can’t be good or bad. There is only the event and the lessons learned from it. ~ Pam Houston,

139:Wether you won the event or not, you can guarantee that you win the aftermath with how you choose to view what happened and create a positive response to it ~ Mark Divine,

140:The liberation of Kuwait in 1991 that seemingly redeemed the military profession was also the event that vaulted Powell to the status of national hero. ~ Andrew J Bacevich,

141:Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it. Everyone desires love but also finds it impossible to believe that he deserves it. ~ James Baldwin,

142:Training is bad for you! Training followed by rest and proper nutrition is good for you and will make you better prepared for the event you are training for. ~ Graeme Obree,

143:Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it. Everyone desires love but also finds it impossible to believe that he deserves it. ~ James A Baldwin,

144:In the event that your feminist activities are discovered, quick diversions include bursting into song, asking him how to fix something in the room and fainting. ~ Reductress,

145:If an earthquake were to engulf England tomorrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event. ~ Douglas William Jerrold,

146:people on average prefer to bet on their own judgment over an equally probable chance event when they consider themselves competent about the event being judged. ~ John Mauldin,

147:When I asked him, fifty-three years after the event, "Mr. Lucas, why did you jump on those grenades?" he did not hesitate with his answer: "To save my buddies. ~ James D Bradley,

148:My grandparents forgave each other with the pragmatism of lovers in a plummeting airplane. There would be ample time for reproach in the event of their survival. ~ Michael Chabon,

149:What you preach and what you celebrate must be one and the same. If they aren't, the event will come off as insincere and phony—and your credibility will suffer. ~ James M Kouzes,

150:I pictured a section of the ladies' auxiliary cookbook for Sudden Death Quick Snacks... Using ingredients one could keep on the pantry shelf in the event of tragedy. ~ Sue Grafton,

151:slowly peel away all the extraneous layers. There are tracks and marks left at every crime scene, like shadows of the event itself. That’s what you have to find. ~ Henning Mankell,

152:The principle of limited liability was implied: shareholders stood to lose only their investment in the company and no other assets in the event that it failed.15 ~ Niall Ferguson,

153:You can tell people the truth, but they'll never believe you until the event. In the meantime, the truth will just piss them off and get you in a lot of trouble. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

154:History is always best written generations after the event, when clouded fact and memory have all fused into what can be accepted as truth, whether it be so or not. ~ Theodore White,

155:There's some evidence that before events of mass trauma, even unpredictable ones, people begin to feel higher anxiety, often expressed in terms specific to the event. ~ Michael Helm,

156:The soul contains the event that shall befall it, for the event is only the actualization of its thoughts; and what we pray to ourselves for is always granted. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson,

157:Making a lot of noise was considered essential for a good wedding, as keeping quiet would have been seen as suggesting that there was something shameful about the event. ~ Jung Chang,

158:And healthy people love honesty. Normalizing truthfulness in your relationships is simply inserting your own realities into the conversation, the meeting, or the event. ~ John Townsend,

159:The first period of excitement, which began with the Dartmouth meeting, was later described by John McCarthy (the event’s main organizer) as the “Look, Ma, no hands!” era. ~ Nick Bostrom,

160:At every level, vital instructions were missing, and the instructions about what to do in the event of discovering that vital instructions were missing, were also missing. ~ Douglas Adams,

161:In historical events great men - so-called - are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connexion with the event itself. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

162:after the event you start predicting the possibility of other outliers happening locally, that is, in the process you were just surprised by, but not elsewhere. After ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

163:Changi for me - of course it's easy to be wise after the event, and to discuss it cleverly after the event - was about as near as you can get to being dead and still be alive. ~ James Clavell,

164:Even if you get run over by a clown car and pissed on by a busload of schoolchildren, it's still your responsibility to interpret the meaning of the event and choose a response. ~ Mark Manson,

165:Even if you get run over by a clown car and pissed on by a busload of schoolchildren, it’s still your responsibility to interpret the meaning of the event and choose a response. ~ Mark Manson,

166:Once you are beyond the event horizon, nothing can prevent you from going into the center of the black hole. You are swallowed up. It’s the point of being “too late.” Society ~ James Altucher,

167:What a tricky and uncomfortable thing is conscience, that nearly always begins to trouble us at the moment of, or after, the event, not before, when it might be of some use. ~ H Rider Haggard,

168:Somewhere deep inside his mind, somewhere beyond the event horizon of rationality, the sheer pressure of insanity had hammered his madness into something harder than diamond. ~ Terry Pratchett,

169:I never got away from the war. Not because I was obsessed with it in those years, but because it was the event of my generation and I started out covering it so I stayed with it. ~ Neil Sheehan,

170:The feeling before and after the event is very important. There are things happening before and after the event. These things are even more important than the event itself. ~ Gueorgui Pinkhassov,

171:You have to be a really talented writer if you're trying to encapsulate a news story with a song and have it live after the event. I don't have the focus to do that, really. ~ Babatunde Adebimpe,

172:The difference between happiness is no-where and happiness is now-here has something to do with the event, and everything to do with how you see the event. Your perception is key. ~ Robert Holden,

173:Top Ramen, my favorite comfort food—because it’s comforting to know that in the event of nuclear fallout, my food has enough MSG and preservatives to out-survive all of mankind. ~ Neal Shusterman,

174:You can tell people the truth, but they'll never believe until the event. Until it's too late. In the meantime, the truth will just piss them off and get you in a lot of trouble ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

175:Bloodlust found free play in recaptured Delhi. Wilson ordered that anyone found with a weapon should be killed, not taken prisoner. In the event, the empty-handed too were slain. ~ Rajmohan Gandhi,

176:I have adhered to my rule of never criticising any measure of war or policy after the event unless I had before expressed publicly or formally my opinion or warning about it. ~ Winston S Churchill,

177:Now, two things happen. One is, people know people, whether that's on Facebook or Twitter. They feel closer to the event. Secondly, people see other people doing something about it. ~ Pete Cashmore,

178:The event testified to within Christianity is evident in a life that has been freed from an idolatrous existence that turns us from the world to an iconic engagement with the world. ~ Peter Rollins,

179:In the event of a victory over Germany by Soviet Russia and England, Bolshevism in Europe would inevitably follow. Under these circumstances I would prefer to see Germany win the war. ~ Pierre Laval,

180:It's airline policy not to imply ownership in the event of a dildo. Use the indefinite article. A dildo. Never your dildo. Never say the dildo accidentally turned itself on. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

181:Without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense of the word is impossible. In order to conduct propaganda there must be some barrier between the public and the event. ~ Walter Lippmann,

182:I don't think that any law enforcement got in trouble for the event in Eugene where police sprayed the tree-sitters who were protesting the cutting of the trees for the parking garage. ~ Marshall Curry,

183:Though I never ordered it, and never wished for it, I have never shed any tears over the event, because I believe that it hastened what we all fought for, the end of the war. ~ William Tecumseh Sherman,

184:AT is the conviction that we need external validation to fill a hole deep inside and that in the event that our own impossible demands are not met, we must drink to fill the hole, ~ J Randy Taraborrelli,

185:Let us not mock God with metaphor, Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence; Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the Faded credulity of earlier ages: Let us walk through the door. ~ John Updike,

186:My bet is you are going to be really refreshingly impressed with it, or by it, which I have to tell you is what I myself was when the woman involved in the event disclosed her heart to me. ~ Gordon Lish,

187:Perhaps he had even seen it coming from the top of the lighthouse, the Event arriving like a kind of wave. And what had manifested? What do I believe manifested? Think of it as a thorn, ~ Jeff VanderMeer,

188:The day after the Manhattan Company inaugurated business on Wall Street, two of its directors, Aaron Burr and John Barker Church, celebrated the event in idiosyncratic fashion: with a duel. ~ Ron Chernow,

189:After the event, of course, a signal is always crystal clear; we can now see what disaster it was signaling…. But before the event it is obscure and pregnant with conflicting meanings.”6 ~ Leonard Mlodinow,

190:The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life's meaning-that event which i may not yet have found but on whose path I seek myself- is not earned by work. ~ Andr Breton,

191:Nostradamus himself confessed that the vague manner in which he wrote his "prophecies" was so that 'they could not possibly be understood until they were interpreted after the event and by it.' ~ James Randi,

192:You can tell peo­ple the truth, but they’ll nev­er be­lieve you un­til the event. Un­til it’s too late. In the mean­time, the truth will just piss them off and get you in a lot of trou­ble. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

193:occurrence—yet the rarer the event, the more confident these “scientists” involved in predicting, modeling, and using PowerPoint in conferences with equations in multicolor background have become. ~ Anonymous,

194:I don't believe in the so-called Olympic spirit. I speak from personal experience. When China hosted the Games, it failed to include the people. The event was constructed without regard for their joy. ~ Ai Weiwei,

195:And Clinton was like that - he saw the whole playing field. He didn't just see the event that he was at or the circumstances of that week or that month. He saw the whole playing field all the time. ~ Dee Dee Myers,

196:Worse still is that mankind - the non-Jewish world - learned nothing from the Holocaust: The event which had no precedent in history, which should be equal to the Revelation at Sinai in significance. ~ Elie Wiesel,

197:It's a huge step forward to realize that the worst thing to happen is never the event, but the event and losing your head. Because then you'll have two problems (one of them unnecessary and post hoc). ~ Ryan Holiday,

198:Let us not mock God with metaphor, Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence; Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the Faded credulity of earlier ages: Let us walk through the door. ~ John Updike,

199:That must be strange, cheating on your wife with a flight attendant. They're in bed and she's says, 'In the event that wife should come home early please notice the location of the nearest emergency exit.' ~ Jay Leno,

200:At his shoulder, Arno Blunt continued staring at Butler. The Fowl bodyguard blinked freely: in the event of confrontation, dry eyeballs would only lessen his advantage. Staring matches were for amateurs. ~ Eoin Colfer,

201:. I could make it vivid and funny, and even exaggerate some of it so that the event became almost mythical, and the people involved seemed larger, and there was a sense of larger significance, of meaning. ~ Anne Lamott,

202:Memory is more of a self-serving dynamic revision machine: you remember the last time you remembered the event, and without realizing it, change the story at every subsequent remembrance. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

203:The Eucharist is not a commemoration in the Protestant sense, but a genuine sacrifice. How should one understand it? As the possibility, given to us, of uniting with the event that exists in eternity. ~ Pavel Florensky,

204:It’s a huge step forward to realize that the worst thing to happen is never the event, but the event and losing your head. Because then you’ll have two problems (one of them unnecessary and post hoc). The ~ Ryan Holiday,

205:Our strategy in dealing with patents in Mono is the same strategy that any other software developer would take. In the event of a patent claim, we will try to find prior art to the claim of the patent. ~ Miguel de Icaza,

206:The event had not even existed until I’d heard the story. It happened this way for each of us, one by one, across the island, a structure suddenly exploding onto the placid empty plain of our history. ~ Shawna Yang Ryan,

207:But if life is what can be called the time you spend preparing for the event, and then dealing with how the event went, then what would you call the event itself? Is that not life? Is that not the best part? ~ Meg Howrey,

208:Dodd-Frank and independent actions of banks go a long way in terms of progress on capital, liquidity, transparency, "living wills" (plans for winding down a bank in the event of a collapse) and resolutions. ~ Jamie Dimon,

209:Hope follows on the heels of Faith. And the white-winged goddess—which is Hope—did not leave her, but prompted her to many little surreptitious acts of preparation in the event of the miracle coming to pass. ~ Kate Chopin,

210:Past events exist, after all, only in memory, which is a form of imagination. The event is real now, but once it’s then, its continuing reality is entirely up to us, dependent on our energy and honesty. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,

211:...it was never the Event - illness, asteroid, nuclear war, whatever - that was the problem. It was what people did after. And people always reduced to their least human denominators when things went bad. ~ Christina Henry,

212:Many people do not distinguish between something that happens to them and their reaction to it. Yet it isn't the event or situation that holds the emotional charge; it's our beliefs that create our response. ~ Chip Conley,

213:We all get damned in our lives, and there are ripple effects. One thing can determine a life, and it's hard to overcome that if the event is really traumatic. Your life is completely condemned by it. ~ Matthias Schoenaerts,

214:Butler is branded a felon, an outlaw, an enemy of Mankind, and so ordered that in the event of his capture, the officer in command of the capturing force do cause him to be immediately executed by hanging. ~ Jefferson Davis,

215:People used to make records, as in the record of an event, the event of people playing music in a room, and now everything's cross-marketing, its about sunglasses and shoes, or guns and drugs that you choose. ~ Ani DiFranco,

216:THE MISCONCEPTION: Predictions about your future are subject to forces beyond your control. THE TRUTH: Just believing a future event will happen can cause it to happen if the event depends on human behavior. ~ David McRaney,

217:We cannot use electric lights and radios and, in the event of illness, avail ourselves of modern medical and clinical means and at the same time believe in the spirit and wonder world of the New Testament. ~ Rudolf Bultmann,

218:What with the pointing and the blue suit, she brought to mind a flight attendant. I expected her to tell me that in the event of an emergency, my brand-new Hecate blazer could be used as a flotation device. ~ Rachel Hawkins,

219:Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that, in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that. ~ Dogen,

220:A memoir is a work of sustained narrative prose controlled by an idea of the self under obligation to lift from the raw material of life a tale that will shape experience, transform the event, deliver wisdom. ~ David Shields,

221:A "name" no longer carries a film. People used to go to the cinema to see a "John Wayne film." And you don't have that thing happening now except in the rock world, which has taken the event out of movies. ~ Elizabeth Taylor,

222:That's the problem with news interviews, you work your tail off to get prominent figures in the news on the radio, but once they've been on, the event passes, the urgency, the issues you talked about evaporate. ~ Bob Edwards,

223:Whatever comes and goes, is not reality. See the event as event only. Then you are vulnerable to reality, no longer armoured against it, as you were when you gave reality to events and experiences. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,

224:Empathy doesn't require that we have the exact same experiences as the person sharing their story with us...Empathy is connecting with the emotion that someone is experiencing, not the event or the circumstance. ~ Brene Brown,

225:Fate then is that necessity by which a certain result will surely be brought to pass according to the natural course of events however we may vary the particular circumstances which precede the event. ~ Charles Sanders Peirce,

226:In the event of atomic war there is a tremendous biological advantage in the so-called undeveloped areas that have a high birth rate and high death rate because, man, they can plow under those mutations. ~ William S Burroughs,

227:Revenge is a dish best eaten cold. The reason for this, of course, is that while you're gleefully anticipating the event, the victim has plenty of time to worry about when, where, and how you're going to strike. ~ Alan Bradley,

228:After the French and Indian War, the British vacillated about whether to swap all of Canada for the island of Guadeloupe; in the event the French toasted their own diplomatic cunning in retaining the sugar island. ~ Ron Chernow,

229:Dozens of nations have agreed to join in monitoring and, if necessary, intercepting and boarding ships on the high seas in the event they are suspected of engaging in one or both of these threatening activities. ~ Frank Gaffney,

230:Fools measure actions, after they are done, by the event; wise men beforehand, by the rules of reason and right. The former look to the end, to judge of the act. Let me look to the act, and leave the end with God. ~ Joseph Hall,

231:The Kugels, Kugel hated to admit, might just have to, in the event of genocide, rely on the kindness of strangers. Mother used to say: I can name six million people who relied on the kindness of strangers. ~ Shalom Auslander,

232:The president has wanted to make it clear and he's made it clear that in the event that North Korea takes action that threatens the United States or our allies, that our response will be overwhelming and effective. ~ Mike Pence,

233:As a pastor, you get invited into the most poignant moments of people's lives. Whether it's a wedding or a funeral or a hospital visit, you get invited into the center of the event, whether or not you know the people. ~ Rob Bell,

234:If I felt, in the event of a royal wedding, inspired to write about people coming together in marriage or civil partnership, I would just be grateful to have an idea for the poem. And if I didn't, I'd ignore it. ~ Carol Ann Duffy,

235:The intervening years are sucked down these acheronian halls like light into a black hole while you helplessly teeter upon the event horizon, where time is measured by the beating of a fly's wing in the stagnant air. ~ Rick Yancey,

236:You can tell people the truth, but they'll never believe you until the event. Until it's too late. In the meantime, the truth will just piss them off and get you in a lot of trouble. So you just walk home. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

237:Because the light is always with us and the hush of an early morning time propitious to plain speech space between the premonition and the event the small lovely realm of the possible. ~ Charles Simic,

238:I can go completely berserk with the makeup, depending on the event. I'm currently in this very mod stage. I wear false lashes and color on my eyelids. I'm really liking shiny eyelids in copper, rose, gold, or silver. ~ Sharon Stone,

239:the event’s star attraction made no sense at all, but Fisher was just getting warmed up. He claimed that one of his runners had been slipped a drugged Coke that caused him to “collapse and become deathly ill, ~ Christopher McDougall,

240:Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that, in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that.    ~ Dogen Zenji,

241:To spur growth, it must be seismic; it must shake you to your core and cause you to fundamentally rethink everything you believe. The higher the level of stress caused by the event, the greater the potential for change. ~ Leigh Sales,

242:The idea of making audiences feel like they matter, that the theatre matters, and that they're a partner in the event—that's what fuels me as a director . . . I believe it's actually radical to think about the audience. ~ Diane Paulus,

243:The situation is that of him who is helpless, cannot act, in the event cannot paint, since he is obliged to paint. The act is of him who, helpless, unable to act, acts, in the event paints, since he is obliged to paint. ~ Samuel Beckett,

244:When I was six, I discovered a terrible truth: I was the only human being on the planet. I was the seed and the sower and I made myself several seconds from the event horizon at the end of time—at the x before time began. ~ Laird Barron,

245:Over the years Woodstock got glorified and romanticised and became the event that symbolised Utopia. It's the last page of our collective memory of the age of innocence. Then things turned ugly and would never be the same again. ~ Ang Lee,

246:The era of the political was one of anomie: crisis, violence, madness and revolution. The era of the trans-political is that of anomaly: an aberration of no consequence, contemporaneous with the event of no consequence. ~ Jean Baudrillard,

247:In the event that my illness worsens, I want to have a guarantee that I can die in a dignified manner. Nowhere in the bible does it say that a person has to stick it out to the decreed end. No one tells us what "decreed" means. ~ Hans Kung,

248:The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them. ~ Jean Cocteau,

249:Emotional connection is crucial to healing. In fact, trauma experts overwhelmingly agree that the best predictor of the impact of any trauma is not the severity of the event, but whether we can seek and take comfort from others. ~ Sue Johnson,

250:People used to make records, as in the record of an event, the event of people playing music in a room Now everything is cross marketing. It's about sunglasses and shoes, or guns and drugs. You choose. ~ Ani DiFranco,

251:Therefore, all these causes-billions of causes-coincided so as to bring about what happened. And consequently none of them was the exclusive cause of the event, but the event had to take place simply because it had to take place. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

252:Who shall foretell the event of a battle, the fall of a footstep? Oracles, visions and prophecies voice but the dreams of the mortal, And ‘tis our spirit within is the Pythoness tortured in Delphi. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Collected Poems, Ilion,

253:Of all the thoughts we think, it's only those that actually manifest themselves that seem significant. But the thoughts just before the event are like the fortune in the cookie. The fortune's as random as the thought." - Nathan Harold ~ Adam Ross,

254:I do enough public speaking that I rarely get nervous in front of crowds anymore, but backstage before the event, I was a nervous wreck. I mean, really nervous — like 'Joel Osteen about to address The Gospel Coalition' kind of nervous. ~ J D Greear,

255:witnessed the event and called it in,” Clarke said. Altschul added, “The guy had just dropped off some friends and was headed home. He was his group’s designated driver. After calling 911, he got off the freeway, parked and waited for ~ Joseph Flynn,

256:She takes care to look at everything that's there, because she's a part of this process. Pretending not to see would, she believes, take her past some point of no return, past the event horizon of hypocrisy into a black hole of solipsism. ~ M R Carey,

257:Treading the soil of the moon, palpating its pebbles, tasting the panic and splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one's stomach the separation from terra... these form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known... ~ Vladimir Nabokov,

258:Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them. For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event happened, that when they were in the wood they had met their dead father and had a game with him. ~ James M Barrie,

259:We need to put your sister in a glass case like Snow White,” Colonel Hamilton said, his arms crossed. He was monitoring the radio chatter from the deck of a gunboat. “With a sign on it that says ‘Break in the event of a zombie apocalypse.’ ~ John Ringo,

260:As far as my end of it, photographing, goes, all I'm interested in is pictures, frankly. I went to events, and it would have been very easy to just illustrate that idea about the relationships between the press and the event, you know. ~ Garry Winogrand,

261:You can get tired of anything, everything turns old, but I want to give people the possibility to share a Vogue party. It is up to the brands to participate to make the event interesting. I am satisfied, but it's important never to stop. ~ Franca Sozzani,

262:Life sucked and then they billed you for it. Kind of like how airlines charged you money before you got on a plane so that in the event they screwed up and killed you, they were already paid, and they wouldn’t have to give you a refund. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,

263:The reverberation often exceeds through silence the sound that sets it off; the reaction occasionally outdoes by way of repose the event that stimulated it; and the past not uncommonly takes a while to happen, and some long time to figure out. ~ Ken Kesey,

264:More than three thousand people showed up at the event, lining up two hours before curtain time. They were not disappointed, at least by the show. Jobs was onstage for three hours, and he again proved to be, in the words of Andrew Pollack ~ Walter Isaacson,

265:My parents would frisk me before family events, and find the book, and lock it in the car. And then be disappointed where, somewhere at the event, I would find a book and sit under a table where nobody could get me and go back into book land. ~ Neil Gaiman,

266:There is no use being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life’s meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself - is not earned by work. ~ Andr Breton,

267:[In the event of war, Americans would] resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe they, at length, become willing to run the risk of being less free. ~ Alexander Hamilton,

268:There is no use being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life’s meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself - is not earned by work. ~ Andre Breton,

269:There were whole secret sections that did their work underground then, and sections of the London tube system were used as part of it. There were also plenty of bunkers and tunnels built for use in the event of an invasion.", FADE by Kailin Gow ~ Kailin Gow,

270:Every shrink knows that it's not the event itself but how you respond to it that tells the story. Take ten assorted individuals, expose them all to the same life trial, and they will each suffuse it with exquisite personal detail and meaning. ~ A S A Harrison,

271:The first was that he drew her earlobe into his mouth and sucked. It didn’t sound like much. Had someone described the event to her she would have been mildly impressed, but not overly so. However, having it actually happen was very different. ~ Susan Mallery,

272:I know from my studies and from my life is that there is no such thing as a true event. We know dates and times and locations and participants but accounts of what happened depend upon the perspective from which the event is viewed. Take ~ William Kent Krueger,

273:In the event of some sort of gathering, if one of the bossy, over bearing, possessive, fur balls has not flipped his switch and attacked some poor young pup in some misguided attempt to protect his woman's virtue, then the night is not yet over. ~ Quinn Loftis,

274:The psychologists Daniel Kahnerman and Amos Tversky have shown when humans estimate the likelihood or frequency of an event, we make that judgment based not on how often the event has actually occurred, but on how vivid the past examples are. ~ Benjamin Graham,

275:You say, 'On the off chance that I had somewhat more, I ought to be exceptionally fulfilled.' You commit an error. On the off chance that you are not content with what you have, you would not be fulfilled in the event that it were multiplied. ~ Charles Spurgeon,

276:The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering with what self-denying, generous friendship ~ Jane Austen,

277:and what I know from my studies and from my life is that there is no such thing as a true event. We know dates and times and locations and participants but accounts of what happened depend upon the perspective from which the event is viewed. ~ William Kent Krueger,

278:Despite streaming, despite the rise of tablets and smartphones - all the implications which in theory would make linear TV less important - live sporting events are extremely powerful. But it's not the event alone - it's also what's surrounding it. ~ Martin Sorrell,

279:God gave the prophecies, not to gratify men's curiosity by enabling them to fore know things, but that after they were fulfilled they might be interpreted by the event, and His own providence, not the interpreters, be thereby manifested to the world. ~ Isaac Newton,

280:Philosophy is not the owl of Minerva that takes flight after history has been realized in order to celebrate its happy ending; rather, philosophy is subjective proposition, desire, and praxis that are applied to the event. ~ Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire.,

281:A friend of mine who works for naval intelligence said an aerial satellite revealed that 1.9 million attended the event in 1995. But if they would have had a rumble at the march the newspapers would have said that 75 million Afro-Americans were there. ~ Dick Gregory,

282:The event of falling in love... in one high bound it has overleaped the massive wall of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the centre of our being. ~ C S Lewis,

283:Most keep their condition secret from all but a few close friends. Interestingly, many of them say the thing they regret most is not their inability to have children but the lack of menstruation, the event they see as a monthly voucher of femaleness. ~ Natalie Angier,

284:I suddenly had an idea of how adults can hold on to a feeling for very long periods of time, long after the event is finished, long after cards have been sent and apologies made and everyone else had moved on. Adults were pack rats of old, useless emotions ~ Reif Larsen,

285:The event is placed at such a distance, and contained, that these images move beyond the context in which they were made, the geographic setting, and so on, and engage the viewer in a one-to-one relationship solely through their physical presence. ~ Jean Marc Bustamante,

286:Make peace with the fact that there will be those who bitch no matter what you do. You might as well do what makes you happy, so at least when you hear the bitching, you'll know that the event they're griping about was exactly the one you wanted. ~ Ariel Meadow Stallings,

287:sometimes when we look forward to an event with great and happy anticipation, the event itself may disappoint or be in import so different from what we have expected that we can say the anticipated event did not occur at all but some other experience. ~ Sena Jeter Naslund,

288:I brought you eyewitness reports about Jesus’ healings and the phenomenon of raising the dead, and you only opened your bag of logical tricks and came up with some threadbare explanation which was far more fantastic than the event it was supposed to explain. ~ Paul L Maier,

289:In photography, the smallest thing can become a big subject, an insignificant human detail can become a leitmotiv. We see and we make seen as a witness to the world around us; the event, in its natural activity, generates an organic rhythm of forms. ~ Henri Cartier Bresson,

290:I think it's a greater risk not to write about 9\11. If you're in my position - a New Yorker who felt the event very deeply and a writer who wants to write about things he feels deeply about - I think it's risky to avoid what's right in front of you. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer,

291:Look at the Bethlehem birth. A king ordered a census. Joseph was forced to travel. Mary, as round as a ladybug, bounced on a donkey's back. The hotel was full. The hour was late. The event was one big hassle. Yet, out of the hassle, hope was born. It still is. ~ Max Lucado,

292:A set is created to make dance the crowd not for listening at home. A electronic set should only be heard in the party and when this party finishes the set shouldn't be heard for nobody, it should only be keeped on the mind of clubbers who were in the event. ~ Richie Hawtin,

293:I just kind of dive in if I think I can create something that will make a difference and then try to get the numbers to stack up after the event. So most of the things I've done I would not have done if I'd have asked the accountants to look at them before. ~ Richard Branson,

294:She realized she'd been thinking for years that she would not truly be pleased until she'd checked off this last achievement on her list, but one of the dangers of such thinking is that the event one hopes for never quite lives up to the expectation. ~ Robert Jackson Bennett,

295:The number of choices you make in the event that you see on stage, those choices are sometimes largely determined by the rehearsal process and the experiments that you go through and the choices that you make in the rehearsal room, not in front of an audience. ~ Ben Kingsley,

296:In Re-framing, you interpret the event in a positive way. You change your language . Instead if defining it as a problem you re-frame it as a situation . A problem is something that is upsetting and stressful. A situation is something that you simply deal with . ~ Brian Tracy,

297:While I love romance novels, I wasn’t the little girl who had always dreamed of her wedding day and what it would be like. In fact, the details of the actual day concerned me very little. I just wanted to get through the event and move on with our lives together. ~ Wendy Owens,

298:I resign," says Velvel. He takes off his glasses, slips them into his pocket, and stands up. He forgot an appointment. He's late for work. His mother is calling him on the ultrasonic frequency reserved by the government for Jewish mothers in the event of lunch. ~ Michael Chabon,

299:For me, as I've said many times, the story is not research. The story is how the characters relate with each other and with the environment... I try to apply my imagination to what could have happened and how a little child could have viewed and processed the event. ~ Uwem Akpan,

300:So, I soberly laid my last plan To extinguish the man. Round his creep-hole, with never a break Ran my fires for his sake; Over-head, did my thunder combine With my under-ground mine: Till I looked from my labour content To enjoy the event. ~ Robert Browning,

301:Imagine, the task force guy says, telling a passenger on arrival that a dildo kept her baggage on the East Coast. Sometimes it’s even a man. It’s airline policy not to imply ownership in the event of a dildo. Use the indefinite article. A dildo. Never your dildo. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

302:The Chinese people have been forced to forget the Tiananmen massacre. There has been no public debate about the event, no official apology. The media aren't allowed to mention it. Still today people are being persecuted and imprisoned for disseminating information about it. ~ Ma Jian,

303:When an unsettling event occurs, pause before reacting. In that pause, ask yourself a single question: What is the outcome I want? Then, instead of reacting to the event, react to the outcome. In other words, stop reacting to the past and start reacting to the future. ~ Peter Bregman,

304:Qhuinn took a step forward, with the intention of stepping in, in the event the Brother locked hands on the SOB’s skinny neck: Someone should probably catch the head before it bounced all over their hosts’ rugs. And the deadweight of the body. Seemed only hospitable. ~ J R Ward,

305:It is not sufficient just to remain calm in the event of catastrophe or emergency. When challenged by adversity, charge onwards with courage and jubilation. This is rising to a higher level. It is like the saying, “The more water there is, the higher the boat rises. ~ Yamamoto Tsunetomo,

306:They did a lot of cleaning in their house, which I considered to be a sign of immoral parenting. The job of parents, as I saw it, was to watch television and step into a child's life only when absolutely necessary, like in the event of a tornado or a potential kidnapping. ~ Haven Kimmel,

307:The psychological distress symptoms of traumatized people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. ~ Judith Lewis Herman,

308:You can relate to them because you are still a human being, within the human community. You share that bond. And that human bond is enough to give rise to a sense of worth and dignity. That bond can become a source of consolation in the event that you lose everything else. ~ Dalai Lama XIV,

309:In the last place, we plead the event, even in the days wherein we live; for the Holy Ghost doth continue to dispense spiritual gifts for gospel administrations in great variety unto those ministers of the gospel who are called unto their office according unto his mind and will. ~ John Owen,

310:After a fashion, they did, mingling the sale of perfumes with anti-Nazi propaganda. In the event, my tirelessly publicised determination to wrest back control of the business neutralised most of the adverse repercussions on me from an unwilling association with their propaganda. ~ Coco Chanel,

311:Because the government is taking practically every penny of profit that the two companies generate to shrink the federal deficit, Fannie and Freddie have not been allowed to rebuild any capital, which could absorb losses in the event of another downturn in the housing market. ~ Bethany McLean,

312:I want to show the event at the very moment it takes place.... My body must be anchored to the ground and seek the best point of view, without any visual taboos. But then, at the heart of the event, my effort is to disappear, I introduce a distance that borders on indifference. ~ Luc Delahaye,

313:The occurrence of any event where the chances are beyond one in ten followed by 50 zeros is an event which we can state with certainty will never happen, no matter how much time is allotted and no matter how many conceivable opportunities could exist for the event to take place. ~ Emile Borel,

314:He had waited a long time for this special December. Now that it was almost upon him, he wasn’t frightened, but he was . . . eager, he decided. He was eager for it to come. And he was excited, certainly. All of the Elevens were excited about the event that would be coming so soon. ~ Lois Lowry,

315:Thus, the "memories" that people reported contained little information about the event they were trying to recall (the speaker's tone of voice) but were greatly influenced by the properties of the retrieval cue that we gave them (the positive or negative facial expression). ~ Daniel L Schacter,

316:There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again. ~ Douglas Adams,

317:If evolution almost always occurs by rapid speciation in small, peripheral isolates, then what should the fossil record look like? We are not likely to detect the event of speciation itself. It happens too fast, in too small a group, isolated too far from the ancestral range. ~ Stephen Jay Gould,

318:I was once almost forced off the stage at a large chain bookstore that shall remain nameless, because she introduced me as Lemony Snicket, and I immediately interrupted her and said, "Oh no, Lemony Snicket isn't here," and then she tried to cancel the event right then and there. ~ Daniel Handler,

319:Misery starts with a person's reactions to someone or something outside of his or herself. In truth, it is not the event or situation or what others are saying or doing that is the problem; it's our reaction that is triggered by what we believe these words and events mean. ~ Terry Cole Whittaker,

320:we broke the complimentary cookie obtained in the lobby into small pieces and flung it over the fence of the Indonesian embassy, thinking that the scheming and warlike Indonesians were probably out at the time, and in the event that the Indonesians had not fed their local squirrels. ~ Rick Moody,

321:I think things that contribute to the destruction of our free-incentive system are wrong. A trend against that free-incentive system is wrong, and should only be temporarily engaged in, in the event that war or something of that kind requires it. Otherwise, it should be reduced. ~ George M Humphrey,

322:I have reached the conviction that the abolition of the death penalty is desirable. Reasons: 1) Irreparability in the event of an error of justice, 2) Detrimental moral influence of the execution procedure on those who, whether directly or indirectly, have to do with the procedure. ~ Albert Einstein,

323:the event had to take place simply because it had to take place. Millions of men, renouncing their human feelings and their reason, had to go from west to east and kill their own kind, just as, several centuries earlier, hordes of men had gone from east to west, killing their own kind. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

324:Weight of the event and its surface we bear, but the meaning is hidden. Earth sees not; life’s clamour deafens the ear of the spirit: Man knows not; least knows the messenger chosen for the summons. Only he listens to the voice of his thoughts, his ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Future Poetry, Ilion,

325:In the event of beauty, a non-self part of my inner space seems to resonate in the colors on the wall, in the sounds pouring into my ears. Hugely amplified, might this resonance actually kill me? “A beautiful way to die” – to be destroyed by vibrations that removed myself from myself. ~ Timothy Morton,

326:The event, in its emergence, poses its own premises, determining that they were the conditions for its realization. This transition is always the result of a salto mortale, which is a creative act in the sense that it gives the preceding links in the chain of events their meaning. ~ Stathis Kouvelakis,

327:...An individual, for example, who is afraid of blushing when he enters a large room and faces many people will actually be more prone to blush under these circumstances. In this context, one might amend the saying "The wish is father to the thought" to "The fear is mother of the event. ~ Viktor E Frankl,

328:I think if I have one message, one thing before I die that most of the world would know, it would be that the event does not determine how to respond to the event. That is a purely personal matter. The way in which we respond will direct and influence the event more than the event itself. ~ Virginia Satir,

329:God is dethroned; and although the incognizant masses are tardy in realizing the event, they feel the icy draught caused by that vacancy. Man enters upon a spiritual ice age; the established churches can no longer provide more than Eskimo huts where their shivering flock huddles together. ~ Arthur Koestler,

330:Why should this girl have crossed Stephen’s path, or indeed Stephen hers, if it came to that matter? Was not the world large enough for them both? Perhaps not — or perhaps the event of their meeting had already been written upon tablets of stone by some wise if relentless recording finger. ~ Radclyffe Hall,

331:I'm sure a handful of people can relate to that experience of having some kind of romantic encounter - the event of love - which they just can't shake. They take it with them, despite their own desire, and it continually haunts them, and there's nothing to be done about it. That's a true rarity. ~ John Maus,

332:Jo? Look at me. I’m about to do something really f**king stupid. When I do this, I need you to remember three words for me. Omni rosae spina.” Thorn “Every rose has its thorn?” Jo “Good, you understand Latin. Yes. Commit those words to memory in the event I lose control. Okay?” Thorn ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,

333:future.The event attracted over 400 participants, comprising around 66 teams from government and private schools operating in various Emirates. The two-day event brought forth diverse nationalities from both Arabic and English medium schools, hence allowing for a sharing of different perspectives. ~ Anonymous,

334:The opening words of the Department of Defense Cyber Strategy pamphlet distributed at the event, reads, "When researchers at the Advanced Research Projects Agency first invented the precursor to the Internet in 1969 ... ." The implicit message in all of this: We helped you. Now, it's payback time. ~ Anonymous,

335:Kugel wondered if in these days of the Internet you would even need a Miep Gies anymore, if you could make it through a genocide these days with just a smartphone and a credit card, and he was hopeful that in the event of another Holocaust, he would have some sort of broadband Internet access. ~ Shalom Auslander,

336:... and people are to march around the church to commemorate the event, Palm Sunday, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem and was greeted with applause and with palms. People thought he had come to overthrow the Romans, but ... no ... he had come to change THEM ... and that led to things turning bad. ~ Garrison Keillor,

337:Mr. Garrison glanced at Daemon, frowning. "It's the fact that the energy was so strong it disrupted a satellite's signal and they weren't able to snap any pictures of the event. Nothing like that has ever happened before." Daemon kept his expression blank. "I guess I'm just that awesome. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,

338:Sometimes, it’s difficult to know if it’s your own feelings or someone else’s. Indigos also feel bombarded with painfully negative energy whenever a world tragedy occurs. Whether it’s shock, anger, or sadness over the event, the Indigo feels it deeply. Not only do Indigos feel all of these energies, ~ Doreen Virtue,

339:Any time we discuss a historical event, we review the facts, and sometimes we argue about what really took place, what was said, what was observed. However, once we agree on the facts (or agree to disagree), we are still left with the most important question we can ask: What is the meaning of the event? ~ R C Sproul,

340:I love that "furious and gorgeous barrage." That helps me see the relation between the introduction and the book's final section, where writing about a fire (and about the attempt to understand the event), also becomes an attempt to understand how writing might get closer to the fire, in so many ways. ~ Laura Mullen,

341:Sometimes you read a passage by a great writer, and you know what he says and how he says it will always be, for you, the only possible way it could be. Less often a painter will describe an event in a way that fits into your interpretation of that event so perfectly that it becomes the event itself. ~ Vincent Price,

342:Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children’s faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter, and it was a happier house for this man’s death! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure. ~ Charles Dickens,

343:A bishop in Gaul could anoint a novitiate with oil from the olive orchards of Greece, bless the event with wine from the vineyards of Italy, and celebrate the sacrament with bread baked with the wheat of Africa while wearing a garment made by Syrian weavers from Chinese silk, all because of the ships. ~ William Rosen,

344:Following the end of the Cold War, there was much discussion concerning the point of NATO. In the event, it was reinvented as a means of reducing Russia's reach on its western frontiers and seeking to isolate it. Its former East European client states were admitted to NATO, as were the Baltic states. ~ Martin Jacques,

345:Long accustomed to the use of European manufactures, [the Cherokee Indians] are as incapable of returning to their habits of skinsand furs as we are, and find their wants the less tolerable as they are occasioned by a war [the American Revolution] the event of which is scarcely interesting to them. ~ Thomas Jefferson,

346:The event happened at noon on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah. That moment was a pivotal episode in world history as Leland Stanford pounded a golden spike with a silver hammer and in an instant ended the isolation of California and the Great West from the eastern half of the United States. ~ Robert J Gordon,

347:The nature of catastrophe is, after all, reasonably unvarying in the way it ruins, destroys, wounds and devastates. But if something can be learned from the event - not least something as profound as the theory of plate tectonics - then it somehow puts the ruination into a much more positive light. ~ Simon Winchester,

348:I’m a teacher of history in a high school in Saint Paul and what I know from my studies and from my life is that there is no such thing as a true event. We know dates and times and locations and participants but accounts of what happened depend upon the perspective from which the event is viewed. ~ William Kent Krueger,

349:The ultimate test of an explanation is whether it would have made the event predictable in advance. No story of Google’s unlikely success will meet that test, because no story can include the myriad of events that would have caused a different outcome. The human mind does not deal well with nonevents. ~ Daniel Kahneman,

350:Surely no rational or realistic person will discount the possibility that [during wartime] the United States might suddenly resort to nuclear weapons. Those who retain the instinct for survival, not to speak of minimal concern for their fellow man, will seek ways to act before rather than after the event. ~ Noam Chomsky,

351:Since our awareness of others is considered our duty, the price we pay when things go wrong is guilt and self-hatred. And things always go wrong. We respond with apologies; we continue to apologize long after the event is forgotten - and even if it had no causal relation to anything we did to begin with. ~ Nancy Chodorow,

352:situation. But notice how Laura drew the story out of her son, letting him take an active role in the storytelling process. She acted primarily as a facilitator, helping get the facts of the event straight. This is how stories empower us to move forward and master the moments when we feel out of control. ~ Daniel J Siegel,

353:Just to show you how far I was from predicting the accident or suspecting that it could occur-even though, except for Dolores Driscoll, who drove the bus, I was surely the person in town closest to the event, the only eyewitness, you might say-at the moment it occurred I was thinking of fucking Risa Walker. ~ Russell Banks,

354:Affection is the environment of the marriage, while sex is an event. Affection is a way of life, a canopy that covers and protects a marriage. It's a direct and convincing expression of care that gives the event of sex a more appropriate context. Most women need affection before sex means much to them. ~ Willard F Harley Jr,

355:I have no doubt that the U.S., even under Trump, will stick to the mutual defense commitment in the NATO treaty in the event of an emergency. Trump described NATO as being obsolete during his election campaign, but he made clear afterward that he considers the alliance to be an indispensable necessity. ~ Jean Claude Juncker,

356:although Ibn Ishaq, al-Tabari, and Ibn Saad did not record the events at Ghadir Khumm, “as far as the authenticity of the event itself is concerned, it has hardly ever been questioned or denied even by the most conservative Sunni authorities, who have themselves recorded it.” Jafri gives details of those records. ~ Anonymous,

357:In the event of defeat,” he wrote in the February 1914 memorandum to Nicholas II, “social revolution in its most extreme form is inevitable.” Durnovó specifically forecast that the gentry’s land would be expropriated and that “Russia will be flung into hopeless anarchy, the issue of which cannot be foreseen. ~ Stephen Kotkin,

358:Stone had thought about dying before , but never in such close proximity to the event. Would his whole life flash before his eyes ? Would it be less painful if he just relaxed and let it happen ? He discovered he could not give in to it ; he would go down fighting with what meager resources he had left. ~ Stuart Woods,

359:[T]hus one should not think that desire is repressed, for the simple reason that the law is what constitutes both desire and the lack on which it is predicated. Where there is desire, the power relation is already present: an illusion, then, to denounce this relation for a repression exerted after the event. ~ Michel Foucault,

360:Non black allies’ were told to ‘refrain from taking up space in all ways possible’ and ‘never be at the centre of anything’ at the event in Toronto on November 25. The Facebook page also advised white demonstrators to ‘refrain from speaking to the media’ and ‘stand behind black folks or between us and the police’.  ~ Anonymous,

361:‎When you meet anyone, treat the event as a holy encounter. It's through others that we either find or love our self. For you see, nothing is accomplished without others. When you eliminate the concept of separation from your thoughts and your behavior, you begin to feel your connection to everything and everyone. ~ Wayne Dyer,

362:Even more horrifying was the “Rwandan Genocide” that witnessed the mass slaughter of nearly one million Rwandan Tutsis in only 100 days, by the Hutu majority government.  The event, following the Burundian president’s airplane being shot down, resulted in the extermination of seventy percent of native Tutsi. ~ Michael C Grumley,

363:As Ariel recounted the events of her dream, two magnificent, batlike wings grew from the backs of her shoulders, stretched as if preparing to fly, then retreated back into their host. The sound heard when the wings disappear is the giggling of Alanna, who watched the event much the same way I did, in rapt wonder. ~ Don A Martinez,

364:Sometimes parents avoid talking about upsetting experiences, thinking that doing so will reinforce their children’s pain or make things worse. Actually, telling the story is often exactly what children need, both to make sense of the event and to move on to a place where they can feel better about what happened. ~ Daniel J Siegel,

365:I realized that my book readings were boring me. I was going to go up there and read a passage and sleepwalk through the whole event and I needed to make it more interesting. I wanted to be running and jumping and do something so that the event would be so exciting. I had to trick myself into having fun every time. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

366:Each one of us has his shining hour in the events of his century. On one occasion it may be Monseigneur of Kent, on another Monseigneur of Lancaster, some other on a previous occasion and yet another on a later, whom the event illumines because of the decisive part he plays in it. Thus is made the history of the world. ~ Maurice Druon,

367:9/11 was just an enormous event in so many senses of the word - I mean, we are still in the "post-9/11 era" and perhaps will be forever? Sometimes it seems like it. It was such a monstrous act of imagination over anything else - the actual fatalities, while awful, were not what distinguished the event from others. ~ Porochista Khakpour,

368:It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God. ~ George Washington,

369:We don't have a choice in how or when our bad days will blindside us. But what we do choose is how we allow them to leave us once they're gone. You can use those moments as a catalyst to spur you on to greater things or you can let it be the event that breaks you and leaves you shattered and forever lost in darkness. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,

370:And so we ought not to fear in love, as in everyday life, the future alone, but even the past, which often comes to life for us only when the future has come and gone - and not only the past which we discover after the event but the past which we have long kept stored within ourselves and suddenly learn how to interpret. ~ Marcel Proust,

371:I’m stupid. Labeling Sometimes I do things that aren’t too smart, but I’m not stupid. It’s your fault we have these marital problems. Blaming I need to look at my part of the problem and look for ways I can make the situation better. Your turn: EVENT: Write out the event that is associated with your thoughts and feelings. ~ Daniel G Amen,

372:He had given her a copy of a recently published paper that held that the power of entropy weakens near the event horizon of a vanishing black hole. The weakening of entropy, by extension, could give rise to the formation of structure, and this could suffice to furnish the unique conditions necessary for the emergence of life. ~ K ji Suzuki,

373:Your health is probably good if you have just been reinstantiated, and is likely to remain good for some time. Most diseases are curable, and in event of an incurable ailment or injury, a new body may be provided--for a fee. (In the event of your murder, you will be furnished with a new body at the expense of your killer.) ~ Charles Stross,

374:... He who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new... partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event. ~ Niccol Machiavelli,

375:To be blunt, I see little evidence to date that major European leaders are willing to wake up to this new reality. In the event of Russian provocation against NATO, which is highly likely soon, it’s very possible that the Atlantic Alliance will unravel completely. Putin may achieve his strategic victory with hardly a shot fired. ~ Anonymous,

376:Just as we find it hard to see beyond the event horizon of a black hole, we also find it difficult to see beyond the event horizon of the historical Singularity. How can we, with our brains each limited to 10^16 to 10^19 cps, imagine what our future civilization in 2099 with its 10^60 cps will be capable of thinking and doing? ~ Ray Kurzweil,

377:When the team zapped the area with high frequency electrical impulses, the woman lost consciousness. She stopped reading and stared blankly into space, she didn't respond to auditory or visual commands and her breathing slowed. As soon as the stimulation stopped, she immediately regained consciousness with no memory of the event. ~ Anonymous,

378:Above his chest hung a set of barbells. I would not have liked to hazard a guess as to how much weight he was lifting, but allow me to assure you, with enough reps, I was quite sure he'd have no trouble heaving Debbie Mancuso out the window in the event of a fire. Which is all a girl really needs out of a boyfriend, if you ask me. ~ Meg Cabot,

379:What do you do in the event that many of the learners in the classroom refuse to speak?’ But before we can address that question, we need to know why: why are some learners unwilling to communicate? There are at least three likely sources of learner reticence: a social-cultural one, a psychological one, and a linguistic one, ~ Scott Thornbury,

380:Treading the soil of the moon, palpating its pebbles, tasting the panic and splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one's stomach the separation from Terra-these form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known . . . this is the only thing I can say about the matter. The utilitarian results do not interest me. ~ Vladimir Nabokov,

381:But if there is one dominant myth about the world, one huge mistake we all make, one blind spot, it is that we all go around assuming the world is much more of a planned place than it is. As a result, again and again we mistake cause for effect; we blame the sailing boat for the wind, or credit the bystander with causing the event. ~ Matt Ridley,

382:life events are opportunities to grow, expand, experience, and develop. In some cases, it seems in retrospect that there was actually this unconscious purpose behind the event, as though our unconscious knew that something important had to be learned and, painful as it was, it was the only way it could be brought into experience. ~ David R Hawkins,

383:The photo had been taken by a member of the Séance & Science Brigade about a week or two before the Event that had created Area X. The photographer had gone missing when the border came down. It remained the only photo of Saul Evans they had, except for some shots from twenty years earlier, well before he’d come to the coast. ~ Jeff VanderMeer,

384:What you lack in any investigation is time. With every passing hour, evidence slips away. Crime scenes are compromised by people and the elements. Things are moved, altered, smeared, shifted. Organisms rot. Wind blows dust and contaminants. Memories change and fade. As you move away from the event, you move away from the solution. ~ Maureen Johnson,

385:Linguistic diversity is integral to the cultural diversity that ensures some humans will survive in the event of one of the periodic global catastrophes. Local indigenous languages hold the keys to to survival because they contain the nouns, the names of the plants, insects, birds and mammals important locally to human survival. ~ Leslie Marmon Silko,

386:In historic events, the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

387:Mandelstam was, one is tempted to say, a modern Orpheus: sent to hell, he never returned, while his widow dodged across one-sixth of the earth's surface, clutching the saucepan with his songs rolled up inside, memorizing them by night in the event they were found by Furies with a search warrant. These are our metamorphoses, our myths. ~ Joseph Brodsky,

388:Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex. ~ Jane Austen,

389:In the event, what actually happened was that citizens, without paying much attention to government at all, went about creating a national culture for themselves. Long before political parties became effective as national, democratic institutions, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians were building the nerve system of a national culture. ~ Mark A Noll,

390:There's the life and there's the consumer event. Everything around us tends to channel our lives toward some final reality in print or on film. Two lovers quarrel in the back of a taxi and a question becomes implicit in the event. Who will write the book and who will play the lovers in the movie? Everything seeks its own heightened version. ~ Don DeLillo,

391:[I]n nature being and nothing, or solid and space, constitute a relationship as inseparable as back and front. In the same way, the formally static character of our words for feelings conceals the fact (or better, the event) that our feelings are directions rather than states, and that in the realm of direction there is no North without South. ~ Alan W Watts,

392:Faith, then, is not a set of beliefs about the world. It is rather found in the loving embrace of the world. Because the actual existing church has reduced the Crucifixion and Resurrection to religious affirmations held by a certain tribe, rather than expressions of a type of life, the event they testify to has been almost completely eclipsed. ~ Peter Rollins,

393:The danger is that executives will become contemptuous of information and stimulus that cannot be reduced to computer logic and computer language. Executives may become blind to everything that is perception (i.e., event) rather than fact (i.e., after the event). The tremendous amount of computer information may thus shut out access to reality. ~ Peter F Drucker,

394:After spending decades studying how people deal with setbacks, psychologist Martin Seligman found that three P's can stunt recovery: (1) personalization - the belief that we are at fault; (2) pervasiveness - the belief that an event will affect all areas of our life; and (3) permanence - the belief that the aftershocks of the event will last forever. ~ Adam Grant,

395:Aleksandrov also saved money by dispensing with the containment building, the thick concrete dome built around almost every reactor in the West, intended to prevent radioactive contamination escaping from the plant in the event of a serious accident—but which, because the RBMK was so enormous, would have doubled the cost of building each unit. ~ Adam Higginbotham,

396:In the event of an oxygen shortage on airplanes, mothers of young children are always reminded to put on their own oxygen mask first, to better assist the children with theirs. The same tactic is necessary on terra firma. There's no way of sustaining our children if we don't first rescue ourselves. I don't call that selfish behavior. I call it love. ~ Joyce Maynard,

397:orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and health of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him. ~ Henry David Thoreau,

398:they made nothing of the administration of the drugs other than the fact that the groans in the cabin stopped; but they did catch some words about "delighted to attend the opening of the body, in the event of a contrary result" that earned Dr Maturin some brooding glances as the two medical men went over the side, for the Otters loved their captain. ~ Patrick O Brian,

399:Transformation almost never occurs in mammals. But bacteria, which live on the rough edges of the biological world, can exchange genes horizontally (to fathom the strangeness of the event, imagine two friends, one blue eyed and one brown eyed, who go out for an evening stroll—and return with altered eye colors, having casually exchanged genes). ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee,

400:The gray butterfly understands so well the event "to be hidden" that, by remaining in the same place, plastered to the trunk of a tree, it covers the whole distance separating it from the "to invigorate" of the black butterfly; it also causes the other event to resonate as individual, within its own individuality as an event, and as a fortuitous case. ~ Gilles Deleuze,

401:Even a logistical network that immediately after the hit gets the killers to a shooting range that records their entrance time; that’s how they construct an alibi and confound the findings in the event of a stub, a test that detects gunpowder residue. The stub is every killer’s worst fear: gunpowder traces can’t be removed and are the most damning evidence. ~ Anonymous,

402:My role relationship to the event will continue to mutate. My relationship to my mother will continue to change as I revise my judgments of her depending on what I learn about her. It goes on. But I feel no less obsessive about my work and no less passionately committed to the life I have now, but I feel poised inside. Which is a good thing to feel at 48. ~ James Ellroy,

403:No matter what happens, a terror attack in London, a terror hammer attack at Notre Dame in Paris, whatever it is, if you want to understand the left's reaction to it, you need to be able to put yourself in their shoes and find a way to blame Trump for it and then to use the event to get rid of or discredit Trump, because that's what all of this is about. ~ Rush Limbaugh,

404:I’m sure your wedding will be the event of the entire season,” she said. “At least it’s not being planned by a half-blind old lady whose favorite word is frivolous.” “I don’t think you’re being fair.” Madalena pretended to chastise Cass. “I’m sure your aunt’s favorite words are proper and decorum. Frivolous is at best a distant third. ~ Fiona Paul,

405:In the event things got worse, and Spinoza gave up the idea of publishing the Ethics, believing that it would create such a cloud of hostility as to obscure, in the minds even of reasonable people, the real meaning of its arguments. Meanwhile, the book was read attentively, and at least one club existed for the express purpose of working through its proofs. ~ Roger Scruton,

406:But here before me was a good man. It struck me that I had yet to hear him say a negative word about another person. Even if he was describing a terrible action, like his father’s inability to care for his family in the way that they needed, he spoke in terms of the event, rather than blaming the person. I loved people like this, and encountered so very few. ~ Camille Pag n,

407:Every funeral may justly be considered as a summons to prepare for that state into which it shows us that we must some time enter; and the summons is more loud and piercing as the event of which it warns us is at less distance. To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; but to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack. ~ Lyndon B Johnson,

408:If you are able to see on a monitor what it's actually going to look like and have that kind of feedback informing your decisions, then you're bringing back a lot of the decision-making process of the designer, the director of photography and the director away from the post-production process and bringing it back into the actual capturing of the event on film. ~ Rick Heinrichs,

409:Another mistake is presenting too much background information, and doing so in the first few pages. Writers should begin their stories with the event that kicks off the story, and then spoon-feed us background information only when it's needed to understand what's going on." [A Conversation with Evan Marshall (Writers Write, September 1999)] ~ Evan Marshall,

410:Only the image of a third person, even a vanished one, entering into his relation with Rosemary was needed to throw him off his balance and send through him waves of pain, misery, desire, desperation. The vividly pictured hand on Rosemary's cheek, the quicker breath, the white excitement of the event viewed from outside, the inviolable secret wamrth within. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald,

411:Only the image of a third person, even a vanished one, entering into his relation with Rosemary was needed to throw him off his balance and send through him waves of pain, misery, desire, desperation. The vividly pictured hand on Rosemary's cheek, the quicker breath, the white excitement of the event viewed from outside, the inviolable secret warmth within. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald,

412:previously been reported. For all three, the association with the Koch brothers' network is likely to provide kindling for their opponents, who have already argued that the Republicans are steered by deep-pocketed conservatives. Audio of the event, held at the St. Regis Monarch Beach resort, was obtained by The Undercurrent and shared exclusively with The Huffington ~ Anonymous,

413:Do not wallow in your mistakes. Do not grovel and prostrate yourself in hopes of forgiveness. We all make mistakes. Apologize and move forward. Do not replay the event in your head. Do not continue to beat yourself up. Do not profusely explain, defend yourself, make excuses or blame. After you apologize, do no more explaining; never explain more than once — ever. ~ Bryant McGill,

414:Inclined to peace by his temper and situation, it was easy for [Augustus] to discover that Rome, in her present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote wars, the undertaking became every day more difficult, the event more doubtful, and the possession more precarious and less beneficial. ~ Edward Gibbon,

415:Because of Jesus’ supposed predestination, God would have had to choose the people who would kill and betray his son, choose the method by which he would be killed (crucifixion), and the time at which the event would occur. Those guilty of killing Jesus would therefore be simply carrying out God’s wishes without the free will to have chosen a path for themselves. ~ David G McAfee,

416:Blessed is the man who, having subdued all his passions, performeth with his active faculties all the functions of life, unconcerned about the event … Be not one whose motive for action is the hope of reward. Perform thy duty, abandon all thought of the consequence, and make the event equal, whether it terminate in good or evil; for such an equality is called yoga. ~ Stephen Cope,

417:I knew, as everyone knows, that the easiest way to attract a crowd is to let it be known that at a given time and a given place some one is going to attempt something that in the event of failure will mean sudden death. That's what attracts us to the man who paints the flagstaff on the tall building, or to the 'human fly' who scales the walls of the same building. ~ Harry Houdini,

418:Like many people whose lives had formed around a particularly painful incident, she had grown used to providing ellipses around the event of her brother's death to keep conversations comfortable. At some point the subconscious logic of this had spread to the rest of her life so that she rarely talked about things she had been deeply affected by. It wasn't hard to do. ~ Mira Jacob,

419:Paradox is an overrated threat. There is...a quality similar to inertia at work. Once an event has occurred, there is an extremely strong tendency for that event to occur. The larger, more significant, or more energetic the event, the more it tends to remain as it originally happened, despite any interference." I frowned. "There's...a law of conservation of history? ~ Jim Butcher,

420:And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you’re less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn’t it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you’ve experienced before? ~ Jonathan Franzen,

421:When I worry about privacy I worry about peer-to-peer invasion of privacy. About the fact that anytime anything of any note happens, there are three arms holding cell phones with cameras in them or video records capturing the event ready to go on the nightly news, if necessary. And I think that does change a lot our sense of what is going on in our neighborhoods. ~ Jonathan Zittrain,

422:And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight-- isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you're less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn't it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you've experienced before? ~ Jonathan Franzen,

423:Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It's absolutely unavoidable. A journalist is someone who looks at the world and the way it works, someone who takes a close look at things every day and reports what she sees, someone who represents the world, the event, for others. She cannot do her work without judging what she sees. ~ Marguerite Duras,

424:Paradox is an overrated threat. There is...a quality similar to inertia at work. Once an event has occurred, there is an extremely strong tendency for that event to occur. The larger, more significant, or more energetic the event, the more it tends to remain as it originally happened, despite any interference." I frowned. "There's...a law of conservation of history? ~ Jim Butcher,

425:Surely the memory of an event cannot pass for the event itself. Nor can the anticipation. There is something exceptional, unique, about the present event, which the previous, or the coming do not have. There is livingness about it, an actuality; it stands out as if illumined. There is the "stamp of reality" on the actual, which the past and future do not have. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj,

426:In the event of a Law Enforcement Breach, a computer would the first thing the LEOs --law enforcement officers --would confiscate. I had a laptop upstairs in plain view, partially for that exact purpose. They were welcome to my Twitter account and my gallery of cute fluffy animals dressed in hilarious Halloween costumes. Nobody thought to check the dead-tree books anymore, ~ Ilona Andrews,

427:Kyoto costs a lot, does nothing to prevent calamity, and pays no compensation in the event of loss. If my insurance broker offered that sort of policy, I would not carry insurance. Instead what my broker offers is a policy that costs a little and pays full compensation in the event of loss. If someone wants to propose that as a policy on global warming, I'm all in favour. ~ Ross McKitrick,

428:Our biggest art forms are film and television, and there hasn't been a great film about 9/11 yet, nor has there been a great television series. Something like The Wire gives us a rich and fully achieved picture of the wasteful, cruel War on Drugs; something like The White Ribbon gives a perspective on World War I that could only have been presented long after the event itself. ~ Teju Cole,

429:there is another source of worth and dignity from which you can relate to other fellow human beings. You can relate to them because you are still a human being, within the human community. You share that bond. And that human bond is enough to give rise to a sense of worth and dignity. That bond can become a source of consolation in the event that you lose everything else. ~ Dalai Lama XIV,

430:I think the simplest way to break the ice is probably to try playing on the same level, to discuss everything in normal life. So, for example, with Katie Holmes, we just spent one hour talking about her daughter. Or with Madonna, when we were working on the event in New York, we spent hours deciding every single aspect together, from the dishes to the flowers to the cards. ~ Frida Giannini,

431:It is a testament to the fundamental honesty of football that Israel, with nothing to play for, overcame Russia in Tel Aviv on Saturday. The sport has its faults, but this basic trust is the reason Wembley holds 80,000 and could take more and the track and field venue for the London Olympics will be reduced after the event to the same capacity as the home of Wigan Athletic. ~ Martin Samuel,

432:Miss Alexia Tarabotti was not enjoying her evening. Private balls were never more than middling amusements for spinsters, and Miss Tarabotti was not the kind of spinster who could garner even that much pleasure from the event. To put the pudding in the puff: she had retreated to the library, her favorite sanctuary in any house, only to happen upon an unexpected vampire. She ~ Gail Carriger,

433:Happiness does not come quickly. It is not conferred by any single event, however exciting or comforting or satisfying the event may be. It cannot be purchased, whatever the allure of the next, the newest, the brightest, the best. Happiness, like Carl Sandburg's fog, "comes on little cat feet," often silently, often without our knowing it, too often without our noticing. ~ Joan D Chittister,

434:But there is another source of worth and dignity from which you can relate to other fellow human beings. You can relate to them because you are still a human being, within the human community. You share that bond. And that human bond is enough to give rise to a sense of worth and dignity. That bond can become a source of consolation in the event that you lose everything else. ~ Dalai Lama XIV,

435:Danny Hislop was not there, nor the artist called Blacklock. Riding between Lymond and the fresh-faced Knight of St John who did not like eagles, Chancellor asked after them. Ludovic d’Harcourt glanced at Lymond without answering. Lymond said, ‘They are undergoing a course of correction. If in the event they are either correct or in the least chastened, I shall be surprised. ~ Dorothy Dunnett,

436:Looking back on the event, I find myself thinking there are three approaches to journalism represented here. One is the "cool" approach of traditional journalism, including network broadcasting in which NPR is no exception. One is the "hot" approach of talk radio, which has since expanded to TV sports networks and now Fox TV. The third is the engaged approach of weblogging. ~ David Doc Searls,

437:As Trump tells it, the idea for his first trip to Moscow came after he found himself seated next to the Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin. This was in autumn 1986; the event was a luncheon held by Leonard Lauder, the businessman son of Estée Lauder. Dubinin’s daughter Natalia “had read about Trump Tower and knew all about it,” Trump said in his 1987 bestseller, The Art of the Deal. ~ Luke Harding,

438:These studies looked at people who had suffered serious adversity—cancer patients, prisoners of war, accident victims, and so forth—and survived. They found that people fell generally into three categories: those who were permanently dispirited by the event, those who got their life back to normal, and those who used the experience as a defining event that made them stronger.53 ~ James C Collins,

439:In historical events great men-so called-are but the labels that serve to give a mane to an event, and like labels, they have the last possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

440:The novel's trick involved re-telling a classic Faery story —young women abducted into another world— using the conventions of realism. One of these conventions was giving the event a precise date. According to the novel, the three women disappeared on February 14th 1900... But Picnic at Hanging Rock is not set in our 1900, in which February 14th fell on a Wednesday, not a Saturday. ~ Mark Fisher,

441:Well, it is generally considered— though not always true— that the wife of a man so honoured is likely also to be worthy of the honour, and so it is accorded her. In the event it is false, and I have known that to be so in more than one circumstance , it is still accorded her in deference to her husband." ~ Stephanie OsbornSherlock Holmes, with respect to aristocratic titles ~ Stephanie Osborn,

442:Now, Reverend Father Abbot asked me to make the following announcements: "First, for the next three days we shall sing the Little Office of Our Lady before Matins, asking her intercession for peace. "Second, general instructions for civil defense in the event of a space-strike or missile-attack alert are available on the table by the entrance. Everybody take one. ~ Walter M Miller Jr,

443:When I was working in Japan, I created a system for ensuring that intelligence data was globally recoverable in the event of a disaster. I was not aware of the scope of mass surveillance. I came across some legal questions when I was creating it. My superiors pushed back and were like, "Well, how are we going to deal with this data?" And I was like, "I didn't even know it existed." ~ Edward Snowden,

444:Once again, my colleague Stephen Hawking has upset the apple cart. The event horizon surrounding a black hole was once though to be an imaginary sphere. But recent theories indicate that it may actually be physical, maybe even a sphere of fire. But I don't trust any of these calculations until we have a full-blown string theory calculation, since Einstein's theory by itself is incomplete. ~ Michio Kaku,

445:The point is that families today are spending their money no more foolishly than their parents did. And yet they're five times more likely to go bankrupt, and three times more likely to lose their homes. Families are going broke on the basics - housing, health insurance, and education. These are the kind of bills that you can't just trim around the edges in the event of a downturn. ~ Amelia Warren Tyagi,

446:Now, now," said Vale in a sickeningly sweet voice reminiscent of a nursery nanny. "I already gave him a drubbing for courting Emmie." Reynaud raised his eyebrows. "You did?" "He did not," Hartley said even as Vale nodded happily. "I threw him down the stairs." Vale pursed his lips and looked skyward. "Not my recollection, but I can see how your memory of the event may've become hazy. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt,

447:The deeper we go in search of causes, the more of them we find, and each cause taken singly or whole series of causes present themselves to us as equally correct in themselves, and equally false in their insignificance in comparison with the enormity of the event, and equally false in their incapacity (without the participation of all other coinciding causes) to produce the event that took place. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

448:None the less, you have my leave, if only that you might ensure your spies are made aware of precisely when her spies make their report, so that they in turn may report to you and you may then report to me. Although what I am to do with such knowledge will no doubt escape me, given that the event initiating these flurries of reporting is none other than the one occurring right now in this room. ~ Steven Erikson,

449:How many black holes have we been up close and personal with?" Kosta countered. "All sorts of odd things happen near the event horizon, from huge tidal forces to variations in time. Personally, I'm voting on it having to do with gravity, either a polarization of the fields themselves or else something related to the time differential." I didn't know physics had become a democracy," Hanan murmered. ~ Timothy Zahn,

450:I’ve found myself leaving an event or a party paralysed with fear because of something that I’ve said, and spent the next couple of days worrying about what people would think of me. Of course, in reality, the hundred or so people who were at the event didn’t spend the hour after I left the party talking about me. Despite what I might believe, I am not the planet around which everyone else orbits. ~ Susan Calman,

451:Whatever may be your desire to accomplish great deeds, the deep silence of pregnancy never comes to you! The event of the day sweeps you along like straws before the wind whilst ye lie under the illusion that ye are chasing the event,-poor fellows! If a man wishes to act the hero on the stage he must not think of forming part of the chorus; he should not even know how the chorus is made up. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

452:Whatever may be your desire to accomplish great deeds, the deep silence of pregnancy never comes to you! The event of the day sweeps you along like straws before the wind whilst ye lie under the illusion that ye are chasing the event,—poor fellows! If a man wishes to act the hero on the stage he must not think of forming part of the chorus; he should not even know how the chorus is made up. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche,

453:The Life Cube Burn is cathartic, fun, exciting, and even reverent. It's a spectacular opportunity to put a sense of finality to the event. And when those thousands of written "wish-sticks" inserted into the Cube from all kinds of people combine with the art and shared messaging from the write boards in a blaze of flame and a column of smoke and ashes, it becomes a communal and very spiritual moment. ~ Scott Cohen,

454:There are some works which the authors must consign unpublished to posterity, however uncertain be the event, however hopeless be the trust. He that writes the history of his own times, if he adhere steadily to truth, will write that which his own times will not easily endure. He must be content to reposite his book till all private passions shall cease, and love and hatred give way to curiosity. ~ Samuel Johnson,

455:back to the time and place of the experience you just recalled and see the scene in your mind’s eye. Now take a few steps back. Move away from the situation to a point where you can now watch the event unfold from a distance and see yourself in the event … As you continue to watch the situation unfold to your distant self, try to understand his/her feelings. Why did he (she) have those feelings? ~ Timothy D Wilson,

456:[T]he ABCP market was built on a fatal flaw: a significant mismatch between the duration of the underlying assets (long-term) and the duration of the paper itself (short-term). While this structure is not unusual -- banks use it all the time -- the crucial difference is that banks have a strong liquidity provider in the event of a problem: the Bank of Canada. The trusts, however, were left in limbo. ~ Paul Halpern,

457:The management of the New York fiscal crisis pioneered the way for neoliberal practices both domestically under Reagan and internationally through the IMF in the 1980s. It established the principle that in the event of a conflict between the integrity of financial institutions and bondholders’ returns, on the one hand, and the well-being of the citizens on the other, the former was to be privileged. ~ David Harvey,

458:How many black holes have we been up close and personal with?" Kosta countered. "All sorts of odd things happen near the event horizon, from huge tidal forces to variations in time. Personally, I'm voting on it having to do with gravity, either a polarization of the fields themselves or else something related to the time differential." I didn't know physics had become a democracy," Hanan murmered. ~ Timothy Zahn,

459:From the First Philippic of Demosthenes, he plucked a passage that summed up his conception of a leader as someone who would not pander to popular whims. “As a general marches at the head of his troops,” so should wise politicians “march at the head of affairs, insomuch that they ought not to wait the event to know what measures to take, but the measures which they have taken ought to produce the event. ~ Ron Chernow,

460:The next time you stand on a beach at night, watching the moon’s bright path across the water, and the conscious of the moon-drawn tides, remember that the moon itself may have been born of a great tidal wave of earthly substance, torn off into space. And remember if the moon was formed in this fashion, the event may have had much to do with shaping the ocean basins and the continents as we know them. ~ Rachel Carson,

461:This research confirms what our patients tell us: that the self can be detached from the body and live a phantom existence on its own. Similarly, Lanius and Frewen, as well as a group of researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands,26 did brain scans on people who dissociated their terror and found that the fear centers of the brain simply shut down as they recalled the event. ~ Bessel A van der Kolk,

462:But nearly three decades earlier, World War I had also been heralded as the event that would break the back of race prejudice. “With thousands of your sons in the camps and in France, out of this conflict you must expect nothing less than the enjoyment of full citizenship rights—the same as are enjoyed by every other citizen,” President Woodrow Wilson, a native Virginian, vowed to American blacks ~ Margot Lee Shetterly,

463:I really did not expect any Grace to answer, for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstances of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachination; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise. ~ Charlotte Bront,

464:refuses to change the event. They believe the sheriff is making up the death threats in an effort to get them to cancel. Evidently, they are either that stupid or just used to death threats. Anyway, the locals are stepping up security in the surrounding buildings. The police presence is already at the maximum the sheriff can deploy. I’ve added the Bureau’s help. A few dog teams have been added at the entry ~ Randall Wood,

465:After years of study, Pennebaker concluded that “the act of not discussing or confiding the event with another may be more damaging than having experienced the event per se.”47 He and his team discovered that when subjects confessed or wrote about their deeply held secrets, their health improved, their number of doctor visits went down, and there were measurable decreases in their stress hormone levels.48 ~ David Eagleman,

466:As I said, gravity slows time down. The stronger the gravity, the slower time passes. So the closer to Earth you are, the slower time goes. If you get close enough to very, very strong gravity, say a black hole, time almost stands still. If you crossed the event horizon of a black hole in a spaceship, you would watch the entire fate of the universe unfold in the seconds before you were sucked into the center. ~ A G Riddle,

467:If an event can be produced by a number n of different causes, the probabilities of the existence of these causes, given the event (prises de l'événement), are to each other as the probabilities of the event, given the causes: and the probability of each cause is equal to the probability of the event, given that cause, divided by the sum of all the probabilities of the event, given each of the causes. ~ Pierre Simon Laplace,

468:In the event of a violent revolution, we would be sorely outnumbered. And when it was all over, the Negro would face the same unchanged conditions, the same squalor and deprivation-the only difference being that his bitterness would be even more intense, his disenchantment even more abject. Thus, in purely practical as well as moral terms, the American Negro has no rational alternative to nonviolence. ~ Martin Luther King Jr,

469:Seed incidents tend to break the mind out of ordinary understanding and create new meanings for the writer, as evidenced by the writers’ descriptions of these events as “touching,” “intriguing,” “puzzling,” “mysterious,” “haunting,” and “overwhelming.” Commenting on a family incident that became the seed for a story, one writer said that the event seemed “full of meanings I couldn’t even begin to grasp. ~ Scott Barry Kaufman,

470:The event is not what you should be working on. You should be working on your response or reaction to an event. You either react to it - that means you become victimized, and you say this thing is happening to you - or you respond to it and say the solution must come through you - that's where you stay focused, not on the rightness, wrongness, fairness of the event, but on the appropriateness of your response. ~ Iyanla Vanzant,

471:It is my bad luck that this has happened to me.' No, you should rather say: 'It is my good luck that, although this has happened to me, I can bear it without pain, neither crushed by the present not fearful of the future.' Because such a thing could have happened to any man, but not every man could have borne it without pain. So why see more misfortune in the event than good fortune in your ability to bear it? ~ Marcus Aurelius,

472:Wars have a way of overriding the days just before them. In the looking back, there is such noise and gravity. But we are conditioned to forget. So thet the war may have importance, yes, but stil... isn't the hidden machinery easier to see in the days leading up to the event. There are arrangements, things to be expedited... and often the edges are apt to lift, briefly, and we see things we were not meant to... ~ Thomas Pynchon,

473:I found a narrow slot in which to leave my vehicle. I had to bash the bumper of an SUV to squeeze into the nook, but I didn’t exactly shed a tear over the event and no, I didn’t leave a note. That’s what they get for parking too close to a fire hydrant, with one wheel on the curb. An asshole who leaves his (or her) vehicle in such a fashion deserves whatever automotive detailing inconvenience comes his (or her) way. ~ Cherie Priest,

474:In the event that Ripley is determined to merely be pretending to provide services for SPYDER while, in actuality, continuing to act in the capacity of a federal agent, then SPYDER shall retaliate in a manner such as, but not limited to, the following: removal of Ripley’s head by force from the rest of his body, extraction of Ripley’s cerebellum via his nasal passages, excessive bludgeoning, or defenestration.” Despite ~ Stuart Gibbs,

475:To me, the highlight of the event is watching a reenactor in a long striped dress sitting alone on a blanket, winding yarn. Absorbed in the task of wrapping strands of wool around her hand, she never looks up. Watching her is so mesmerizing and oddly sacred that it never occurs to me to interrupt her and ask her name or how she got into the yarn-winding reenactment biz, maybe because she isn’t recreating; she is creating. ~ Sarah Vowell,

476:Often when people first hear this part of the Secret they recall events in history where masses of lives were lost, and they find it incomprehensible that so many people could have attracted themselves to the event. By the law of attraction, they had to be on the same frequency as the event. . . .those thoughts of fear, separation, and powerlessness, if persistent, can attract them to being in the wrong place at the wrong time ~ Rhonda Byrne,

477:But all these hints at foreseeing what actually did happen on the French as well as on the Russian side are only conspicuous now because the event has justified them. If the event had not come to pass, these hints would have been forgotten, as thousands and millions of suggestions and supposition are now forgotten that were current at the period, but have been shown by time to be unfounded and so have been consigned to oblivion. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

478:A perfect equality will indeed be produced; that is to say, equal want, equal wretchedness, equal beggary, and on the part of the partitioners, a woeful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. Such is the event of all compulsory equalizations. They pull down what is above. They never raise what is below: and they depress high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the lowest. [Thoughts and Details on Scarcity] ~ Edmund Burke,

479:Every life-threatening and health-endangering crime leaves its mark, but rape, the most brutal personal invasion, the violation of privacy and freedom at every level, reducing its victim to a lump of warm flesh into which someone can thrust his dick, was like being branded with burning metal. Continuously. The echo of the event kept coming back to the victim, not just once in a while, not now and then, but nonstop. Someone ~ Zygmunt Miloszewski,

480:When I received the Nobel Prize, the only big lump sum of money I have ever seen, I had to do something with it. The easiest way to drop this hot potato was to invest it, to buy shares. I knew that World War II was coming and I was afraid that if I had shares which rise in case of war, I would wish for war. So I asked my agent to buy shares which go down in the event of war. This he did. I lost my money and saved my soul. ~ Albert Szent Gyorgyi,

481:Because the core of my personal philosophy is that everything that happens to us benefits us, I was also spared the futility of cursing my bad luck, lamenting the occurrence, or feeling as if I was a victim. The reason I was able to benefit from my accident was because of the way I looked at the event. Not for one instant, then or now, did I think anything other than that this so-called accident was for my total and complete benefit. ~ Anonymous,

482:And then it was the weirdest thing, just liked you’d see in a cartoon.” Daniel jumped in, his wonder at the event he was describing causing him to momentarily forget he was in trouble. “She turned to run, and bang!” Clapping his hands together, he gestured to show what happened. “She ran right smack into a tree and then just sort of slid down the trunk.” He shook his head. “I never thought that sort of thing happened in real life. ~ Nicky Charles,

483:The Escalation programmers come from a completely different background, and the codebase is all STL this, boost that, fill-up-the-property list, dispatch the event, and delegate that. I had been harboring some suspicions that our big codebases might benefit from the application of some more of the various “modern” C++ design patterns, despite seeing other large game codebases suffer under them. I have since recanted that suspicion. ~ John Carmack,

484:A case is made—confronted by Alexander in his response to the commentators—that by the 1990s an “Americanization” of the Holocaust as well as its “Europeanization” had sanctified moral reactions to the event without an adequate self-critical reflection about the West’s imperialistic and colonial policies. Thus the acknowledgment by these nations of a moral universal, necessary to prevent Holocausts, seems somewhat rhetorical. ~ Jeffrey C Alexander,

485:Don't be a perfectionist, because perfectionists often spend too much time on little differences at the margins at the expense of other big, important things. Be an effective imperfectionist. Solutions that broadly work well (e.g., how people should contact each other in the event of crises) are generally better than highly specialized solutions (e.g., how each person should contact each other in the event of every conceivable crisis). ~ Ray Dalio,

486:Is it not High Time for the People of this Country explicitly to declare, whether they will be Freemen or Slaves? It is an important Question which ought to be decided. It concerns us more than any Thing in this Life. The Salvation of our Souls is interested in the Event: For wherever Tyranny is establish'd, Immorality of every Kind comes in like a Torrent. It is in the Interest of Tyrants to reduce the People to Ignorance and Vice. ~ Samuel Adams,

487:The place had enormous possibilities. He realized that at once. The stream, of course, was perfect for sailing toy boats, for skipping stones, and, in the event of failing inspiration, for falling into. Several of the trees appeared to have been specifically designed for climbing, and one huge, white old birch overhanging the stream promised the exhilarating combination of climbing a tree and falling into the water, all at one time. ~ David Eddings,

488:A newspaper publisher. In the late 1800s the United States and Spain were warming up for a war over Cuba, and Hearst sent an illustrator to Cuba to make pictures of the event. When the illustrator got there, he sent a telegram to Hearst saying that as far as he could see, there was no war coming and that he was going home. Hearst sent back that he should stay and said, ‘You furnish the pictures, and I will furnish the war.’ And he did. ~ John Scalzi,

489:Here’s the thing: the lessons you learn best are those you get burned by. Without the scar, there’s no evidence or strong memory. The event didn’t actually happen or imprint itself on your brain—you just trusted those who know better. Adults know what’s safe, so you listen. Over a lifetime, those who listen too much build a habit of trust and conformity. Unfortunately, as time goes on, that habit becomes unbreakable. This is dangerous. ~ Julien Smith,

490:Fifty feet away, five volunteers waited behind a curtain with high-powered rifles, though only four were loaded. The theory was that none of the five would ever know for sure that he killed a man, and this was somehow suppose to assuage his guilt later in life, in the event that he had a change of heart and became burdened. What a crock! There was a long list of volunteers, all eager to put a bullet dead center in another's man's heart. ~ John Grisham,

491:What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him. ~ Henry David Thoreau,

492:Galvanized people can do careless things. It is in the extreme and emotion-laden moments that distance and coolness are most required. I am tempted to howl in rage. It is not my place to do so. My job is to try to dissect the event, place it in context and try to understand what has happened and why. From that, after the rage cools, plans for action can be made. Rage has its place, but actions must be taken with discipline and thought. ~ George Friedman,

493:It is to be emphasized that no matter how many [amplitude] arrows we draw, add, or multiply, our objective is to calculate a single final arrow for the event . Mistakes are often made by physics students at first because they do not keep this important point in mind. They work for so long analyzing events involving a single photon that they begin to think that the arrow is somehow associated with the photon [rather than with the event]. ~ Richard P Feynman,

494:The media reports from the day described the car as the love child of an Aston Martin and a Maserati. In reality, the sedan barely held together. It still had the base structure of a Mercedes CLS, although no one in the press knew that, and some of the body panels and the hood were stuck to the frame with magnets. “They could just slide the hood right off,” said Bruce Leak, a Tesla owner invited to attend the event. “It wasn’t really attached. ~ Ashlee Vance,

495:I do not invent characters. There they are. That's who they are. That's their nature. They talk and they behave the way they want to behave. I don't have a character behaving one way, then a point comes in the play where the person has to either stay or leave. If I had it plotted that the person leaves, then the person leaves. If that's what the person wants to do. I let the person do what the person wants or has to do at the time of the event. ~ Edward Albee,

496:I might ask about the first time a person heard a song that they really responded to, like when I asked Mos Def when he first "got" hip-hop and he went into this memory about how hearing someone rap really affected him. He wasn't simply remembering the event. It was almost like he was occupying that space again. When you can really transport an interview subject like that, your readers can feel it and it helps them to connect with the artist. ~ Anthony DeCurtis,

497:Look, I’d said, say you tell everyone when it is and nothing happens. It’s kind of a slap in the face. Or suppose they throw you a party, Chelsea had replied. Then you don’t know whether they’re doing it sincerely, or if your earlier interaction just guilted them into observing an occasion they’d rather have ignored. But if you don’t tell anyone, and nobody commemorates the event, there’s no reason to feel badly because after all, nobody knew. And ~ Peter Watts,

498:This lukewarm temper arises partly from the fear of adversaries who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event. The result, however, is that whenever the enemies of change make an attack, they do so with all the zeal of partisans, while the others defend themselves so feebly as to endanger both themselves and their cause. ~ Niccol Machiavelli,

499:The sense of security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction, and for this reason it often subsists after such a change in the conditions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent. ~ George Eliot,

500:Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971,” opening on May 17 in one of MoMA’s prestigious sixth-floor galleries, is a major event of the museum’s summer season. On display will be more than 100 vintage works — and in a few cases, as with the burned canvas, facsimiles — that represent the heyday of Ms. Ono’s first career in art, long overshadowed by her better-known image as pop-culture icon and widow of John Lennon. A great deal is riding on the event — for ~ Anonymous,

501:Every work turns against its author: the poem will crush the poet, the system the philosopher, the event the man of action. Destruction awaits anyone who, answering to his vocation and fulfilling it, exerts himself within history; only the man who sacrifices every gift and talent escapes: released from his humanity, he may lodge himself in Being. (...) One always perishes by the self one assumes: to bear a name is to claim an exact mode of collapse. ~ Emil M Cioran,

502:It is, thus, perfectly possible - indeed, it is common - to act on the genuine results of the event, at the same time that the memory manufactures quite another one, an event totally unrelated to the visible and uncontrollable effects in one's life. This may be why we appear to learn absolutely nothing from experience, or may, in other words, account for our incoherence: memory does not require that we reconstitute the event, but that we justify it. ~ James Baldwin,

503:We must point out that in what concerns its material the event is not a miracle. What I mean is that what composes an event is always extracted from a situation, always related back to a singular multiplicity, to its state, to the language that is connected to it, etc. In fact, so as not to succumb to an obscurantist theory of creation ex nihilo, we must accept that an event is nothing but a part of a given situation, nothing but a fragment of being. ~ Alain Badiou,

504:The flare-watch in East Nekhebet had picked up an energy pulse, much brighter than anything seen previously. Briefly, there was the worrying possibility that Delta Pavonis was about to repeat the flare which had wiped out the Amarantin: the vast coronal mass ejection known as the Event. But closer examination revealed that the flare did not originate from the star, but rather from something several light-hours beyond it, on the edge of the system. ~ Alastair Reynolds,

505:Simple accident: a zombie-crewed containership from Southern Kath wrecked in a storm. The containership had been hired to transport a horror from beyond the stars, but the horror broke free and twisted a few hundred miles of Kathic coastline into unearthly geometries before the Coast Guard caught it. Resulting market fluctuations broke the Great Squid. Steve, the priest responsible, was promoted after the event, for exceptional skill managing a crisis, ~ Max Gladstone,

506:I wish he would come!  I wish he would come!” I exclaimed, seized with hypochondriac foreboding.  I had expected his arrival before tea; now it was dark: what could keep him?  Had an accident happened?  The event of last night again recurred to me.  I interpreted it as a warning of disaster.  I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and must now decline. ~ Charlotte Bront,

507:A completed book exists in its entirety, although we humans read it in a time sequence from the beginning to the end. Just as an author does not write the first chapter, and then leave the others to write themselves, So God's creativity is not to seem as uniquely confined to, or even especially invested in, the event of the Big Bang. Rather his creativity has been seen as permeating equally all space and all time: his role as Creator and Sustainer merge. ~ Russell Stannard,

508:We walked and wheeled and trudged past the gates without the eye of the camera to note the grandeur of the event. Without costume. Without photographers. I didn't know it then, but this was what I wished the world would see: bundles of children footing their way across the icy path, the too-young paying no mind to the words at the main gate, the words that arched their way into Auschwitz's sky, and the still-young-but-now-too-old blinking at their meaning. ~ Affinity Konar,

509:It may take seconds for a human sitting in the driver’s seat, possibly distracted by an email or worse, to return to “situational awareness” and safely resume control of the car. Indeed the Google researchers may have already come up against the limits to autonomous driving. There is currently a growing consensus that the “handoff” problem—returning manual control of an autonomous car to a human in the event of an emergency—may not actually be a solvable one. ~ John Markoff,

510:While he wanted a job with the Trump administration, the Mooch specifically wanted one of the jobs that would give him a tax break on the sale of his business. A federal program provides for deferred payment of capital gains in the event of a sale of property to meet ethical requirements. Scaramucci needed a job that would get him a “certificate of divestiture,” which is what an envious Scaramucci knew Gary Cohn had received for the sale of his Goldman stock. ~ Michael Wolff,

511:After a half an hour of inaneness, the chairwoman of the event, Linda Whaley, came to steal Sam, leaving Taylor cruising the room by herself. She wasn’t alone for long. Within a few minutes, three different men had asked if they could buy her a drink. Though she was gracious and appropriately flirty, she’d started drinking the champagne with her left hand as a hint. The ring wasn’t scaring off any potential suitors. A couple wore wide gold bands themselves. Dogs. ~ J T Ellison,

512:And as we glided across the ice toward Fingerbone, we would become aware of the darkness, too close to us, like a presence in a dream. The comfortable yellow lights of the town were then the only comfort there was in the world, and there were not many of them. If every house in Fingerbone were to fall before our eyes, snuffing every light, the event would touch our senses as softly as a shifting among embers, and then the bitter darkness would step nearer. ~ Marilynne Robinson,

513:recruiters wooed interesting candidates they had spotted with a cloak-and-dagger shtick. They would hand out blank envelopes that contained invitations to meet at a specific time and place, usually a bar or restaurant near the event, for an initial interview. The candidates that showed up would discover they were among only a handful of people who been anointed out of all the conference attendees. They were immediately made to feel special and inspired. Like many ~ Ashlee Vance,

514:Rehearse death. To say this is to tell a person to rehearse his freedom. A person who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave...There is but one chain holding us in fetters, and that is our love of life. There is no need to cast this love out altogether, but it does need to be lessened somewhat so that, in the event of circumstances ever demanding this, nothing may stand in the way of our being prepared to do at once what we must do at some time or other. ~ Seneca,

515:Yonatan declared after the event. “I am also thinking about the delegations of young Israelis that are coming to see the history of our people but also are subjected to militaristic and nationalistic brainwashing on a daily basis. Maybe if they see what we wrote here today they will remember that oppression is oppression, occupation is occupation, and crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity, whether they have been committed here in Warsaw or in Gaza. ~ Max Blumenthal,

516:The event itself played over in her mind, and the role she'd taken in the police investigation, the things she'd told them - worse, the thing she hadn't - made the panic so bad sometimes that she could hardly breathe. No matter where she went at Greenacres - inside the house or out in the garden - she felt trapped by what she'd seen and done. The memories where everywhere, they were inescapable; made worse because the event that caused them was utterly inexplicable. ~ Kate Morton,

517:and when Mrs Thatcher came to the college for a scientific symposium Tyson was deputed to take her round the Common Room. This is hung with portraits and photographs of dead fellows, including one of the economist G. D. H. Cole. Tyson planned to take Mrs Thatcher up to it saying, ‘And this, Prime Minister, is a former fellow, G. D. H. Dole.’ Whereupon, with luck, Mrs Thatcher would have had to say, ‘Cole not Dole.’ In the event he did take her round but lost his nerve. ~ Alan Bennett,

518:It is the accumulated pressure of feelings that causes thoughts. One feeling, for instance, can create literally thousands of thoughts over a period of time. Think, for instance, of one painful memory from early life, one terrible regret that has been hidden. Look at all the years and years of thoughts associated with that single event. If we could surrender the underlying painful feeling, all of those thoughts would disappear instantly and we would forget the event. ~ David R Hawkins,

519:Log Message Severity Levels Log messages may just tell you about some mundane event, or they may tell you of some critical event. To help you make sense of the importance of each message, IOS assigns each message a severity level (as noted in the same messages in the preceding page or so). Figure 33-3 shows the severity levels: the lower the number, the more severe the event that caused the message. (Note that the values on the left and center are used in IOS commands.) ~ Wendell Odom,

520:perfect—Cain rose up and slew his brother Abel. For Abel’s sacrifice, an innocent lamb, had found favor with Jehovah. This, Noah said, showed that those who rebel against Jehovah always hate those who obey Him. Abel was also a prophet and warned his brother of his sinful path. Abel paid for his warning with his life. The event also showed a prophet’s fate. The way of Cain, a man of the world, warred against the way of the Spirit of Jehovah, against a man of the spirit. ~ Vaughn Heppner,

521:We shall divert through our own Country a branch of commerce which the European States have thought worthy of the most important struggles and sacrifices, and in the event of peace on terms which have been contemplated by some powers we shall form to the American union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the British Province of Canada and add to the Empire of liberty an extensive and fertile Country thereby converting dangerous Enemies into valuable friends. ~ Thomas Jefferson,

522:It is much easier after the event to sort the relevant from the irrelevant signals. After the event, of course, a signal is always crystal clear; we can now see what disaster it was signaling, since the disaster has occurred. But before the event it is obscure and pregnant with conflicting meanings. It comes to the observer embedded in an atmosphere of “noise,” i.e., in the company of all sorts of information that is useless and irrelevant for predicting the particular disaster. ~ Nate Silver,

523:The associative machinery seeks causes. The difficulty we have with statistical regularities is that they call for a different approach. Instead of focusing on how the event at hand came to be, the statistical view relates it to what could have happened instead. Nothing in particular caused it to be what it is—chance selected it from among its alternatives. Our predilection for causal thinking exposes us to serious mistakes in evaluating the randomness of truly random events. ~ Daniel Kahneman,

524:Boundaries are hard when you want to be liked and when you are a pleaser hell-bent on being easy, fun, and flexible. Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment. When asked to speak at the event, I said yes when I wanted to say no. I put no value on my work or my needs, and the event organizers, in turn, put no value on my work or my needs. ~ Bren Brown,

525:One of the chaperones and parents, Justin Poor Bear, wrote about the event on Sunday in a Facebook post, according to KOTA. “They were getting drunk and around the third quarter they were talking crap to our kids and throwing down beer on some of them, including our staff and students … telling our students to go back to the rez,” Poor Bear wrote. Poor Bear told KOTA he was upset during the incident and was “invited” to “fight about it” by the fans hurling beer from the VIP section. ~ Anonymous,

526:A decisive act is one that is a notch ahead of the movement’s state, and which, breaking with the status quo, gives it access to its own potential. This act can be that of occupying, smashing, attacking, or simply speaking truthfully. The state of the movement is what decides. A thing is revolutionary that actually causes revolutions. While this can only be determined after the event, a certain sensitivity to the situation plus a dose of historical knowledge helps one intuit the matter ~ Anonymous,

527:The experience of beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. The artist's relation to the object of beauty, how the art makes that happen, is a whole other subject. Beauty is an event. Beauty is something that happens. There is no such thing as a beautiful object or a beautiful woman. These things do not come near it - the experience of beauty, the event of beauty. The anxiety about it is what makes it such a central concern of culture and makes us so interested in it. ~ Jonathan Santlofer,

528:It would take another Earthling to explain it to you. Earthlings are the great explainers, explaining why the event is structured as it is, telling how other events may be achieced of avoided. I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. 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,

529:Memory deludes me. I have just remembered something that I completely forgot after it happened. I remembered it again when I was about sixteen, and then I forgot it again. And this morning I remembered not the event itself but the previous recollection, which itself was more than forty years ago, as though an old moon were reflected in a windowpane from which it was reflected in a lake, from where memory draws not the reflection itself, which no longer exists, but only its whitened bones. ~ Amos Oz,

530:Stone tape theory is almost the same as imprint theory. It says that certain natural materials can act like tape recordings and store the energies of the living. According to this theory, an event, usually one that involves a great deal of emotion, can somehow be captured in the stonework surrounding it and then replay like a tape recording in the future. The circumstances of release are usually inconsistent, meaning the stone lets go of the event at certain times and to certain people ~ Zak Bagans,

531:When I was six, I discovered a terrible truth: I was the only human being on the planet. I was the seed and the sower and I made myself several seconds from the event horizon at the end of time - at the x before time began. Indeed, there were six billion other carbon-based sapient life forms moiling in the earth, but none of them were the real McCoy. I'm the real McCoy. The rest? Cardboard props, marionettes, grist for the mill. After I made me, I broke the mold under my heel. ~ Laird Barron,

532:Witness Never trust a witness. By the time a thing is Noticed, it has happened. Some magician’s redirected Our attention to the rabbit. The best life is suspected, Not examined. And never trust reverse. The mourners of the dead Count backward from the date Of the event, rehearsing Its approach, investing Final words with greatest weight, As though weight ever Carried what we meant: As though he could have Told us where he went. ~ Kay Ryan,

533:Memory, or rather experience -- which is the memory of the event plus the wound it has inflicted on you, plus the change which it has wrought in you and which has made you different-- experience is the basic nutrition also for a work of literature (but not only for that), the true source of wealth for every writer (but not only for the writer), and yet the minute it gives shape to a work of literature it withers and dies. The writer, after writing, finds that he is the poorest of men. ~ Italo Calvino,

534:President Reagan was a master communicator. In this particular speech he did a brilliant job moving between the stately role of U.S. President and a national eulogist. The pain of the event was etched on his face. In 4 short minutes, he addressed five different audiences. He spoke to the collective mourners, families of the fallen, NASA employees, school children, and even took a poke at Russia. He communicated comfort and patriotism within a very short timeframe. That's not easy to do. ~ Nancy Duarte,

535:In the event of any action which clearly threatened Polish independence and which the Polish Government accordingly considered it vital to resist with their national forces, His Majesty's Government would feel themselves bound at once to lend the Polish Government all support in their power. They have given the Polish Government an assurance to this effect. I may add that the French Government have authorized me to make it plain that they stand in the same position in this matter. ~ Neville Chamberlain,

536:Laura Vaughan, who set a women’s record at the Hardrock in 1997, the only year she ran it, also was the first person to finish the Wasatch Front 100 for ten consecutive years and the first woman to break 24 hours. That makes her fast. What makes her tough, though—what makes her a bona fide Hardrocker—is that in 1996, nine weeks after giving birth to a son, she ran the Wasatch and breastfed her baby at the aid stations. Her ten-year ring from the event is engraved “Lactating Laura.” Tough? ~ Scott Jurek,

537:Clarity After the event the rockslide realized, in a still diversity of completion, grain and fissure, declivity force of upheaval, whether rain slippage, ice crawl, root explosion or stream erosive undercut: well I said it is a pity: one swath of sight will never be the same: nonetheless, this shambles has relived a bind, a taut of twist, revealing streaks & scores of knowledge now obvious and quiet. ~ Archie Randolph Ammons,

538:The event caused a certain amount of ribaldry and a fair number of sentences depriving men of their grog for playing the God-damned fool, an offense that came under Article Thirty-six 'All other crimes not capital, committed by any person or persons in the fleet, which are not mentioned in this act, or for which no punishment is hereby directed to be inflicted, shall be punished according to the laws and customs in such cases used at sea,' also known as the captain's cloak or cover-all. ~ Patrick O Brian,

539:It's a very erroneous strategy to try to push the Russian opposition to unite. First of all, the opposition is addressing different parts of Russian society that have differing points of view. And besides, a united opposition is a nice big target that the authorities have a much easier time fighting. And besides, resisting an authoritarian regime with an authoritarian opposition merely means that, in the event of victory, you're just doing yet another round of the same old, same old. ~ Mikhail Khodorkovsky,

540:Nato and the UK intelligence services have been put on “high alert” for a cyber attack. Officials from Nato’s cyber defence unit have been meeting with GCHQ, the UK’s electronic spying agency, and other agencies since mid›July to share intelligence assessments and prepare for the event, people familiar with the plans have told the Financial Times. A joint task force is working around the clock to protect the alliance’s global systems and ensure the security of networks at the conference itself. ~ Anonymous,

541:There are two parts to any failure: There is the event itself, with all its attendant disappointment, confusion, and shame, and then there is our reaction to it. It is this second part that we control. Do we become introspective, or do we bury our heads in the sand? Do we make it safe for others to acknowledge and learn from problems, or do we shut down discussion by looking for people to blame? We must remember that failure gives us chances to grow, and we ignore those chances at our own peril. ~ Ed Catmull,

542:Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom," it is a very serious consideration that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event. ~ Samuel Adams,

543:About the last thing I ever wanted in life was a knighthood, and even today some forty years after the event, I find it difficult to come to terms with a life where old and valued friends insist on calling me 'Sir' instead of Don, simply because they think it is protocol. But I have consciously shouldered these burdens because I felt that I was the medium through which cricket could achieve a higher status and gain maximum support from the people, not only in Australia but throughout the world. ~ Donald Bradman,

544:However apparently insignificant the event, whether it be the ring of tobacco ash surrounding the table, the direction from which the wild geese first appeared, or a series of seemingly meaningless human movements, he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off it and must note it all down, since only by doing so could he hope not to vanish one day and fall a silent captive to the infernal arrangement whereby the world decomposes but is at the same time constantly in the process of self-construction. ~ L szl Krasznahorkai,

545:Let us say, as a thought experiment, that someone in a country equipped with doomsday weapons fears attack from another country and strikes preemptively. There would be thousands of years of cultural history and some few decades of personal history behind the decision. Madman though he might be, he would have brought the species to a culmination that humankind had been preparing for eons. To say that a spasm of activity in a region of his brain was crucial to the event would be utterly trivial. ~ Marilynne Robinson,

546:The event concept was sparked from a shared observation amongst these leading lifestyle brands that the economic rebound has spurred greater liquidity into real estate, the stock market is setting new heights and consumers are generally stepping out more for luxury goods and services. After many years of pulling back, it was fun to see guests flirting with temptation, whether that was a new home, a new car, a new look or just to learn more about the trends. Others were happy to take in all the action. ~ Andrea Savage,

547:And when I look at a history book and think of the imaginative effort it has taken to squeeze this oozing world between two boards and typeset, I am astonished. Perhaps the event has an unassailable truth. God saw it. God knows. But I am not God. And so when someone tells me what they heard or saw, I believe them, and I believe their friend who also saw, but not in the same way, and I can put these accounts together and I will not have a seamless wonder but a sandwich laced with mustard of my own. ~ Jeanette Winterson,

548:With every detail imagined, with even envy for the pair's community of misfortune in the vestibule, Dick felt a change taking place within him. Only the image of a third person, even a vanished one, entering into his relation with Rosemary was needed to throw him off his balance and send through him waves of pain, misery, desire, deception. The vividly pictured hand on Rosemary's cheek, the quicker breath, the white excitement of the event viewed from the outside, the inviolable secret warmth within. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald,

549:In what is now known as Bodh Gaya…a Buddhist temple stands beside an ancient pipal, descended from that bodhi tree, or “enlightenment tree,” and I watched the rising of the morning star and came away no wiser than before. But later I wondered if the Tibetan monks were aware that the Bodhi tree was murmuring with gusts of birds, while another large pipal, so close by that it touched the holy tree with many branches, was without life. I make no claim for the event: I simply declare what I saw at Bodh Gaya. ~ Peter Matthiessen,

550:The practical possibilities presented by a machine that could replicate human conversation, both in writing and, eventually, aloud, were intriguing and manifold: Customer service could be made more efficient. Knowledge could be imparted, languages taught. Companionship could be provided. In the event of a catastrophe, medical advice could be broadly and quickly distributed, logistical questions answered. The profitability and practicality of a conversant machine were what brought grant money into the Steiner Lab. ~ Liz Moore,

551:The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. To be sure, theology is always yielding a little to the progress of knowledge, and only a Holy Roller in the mountains of Tennessee would dare to preach today what the popes preached in the Thirteenth Century, but this yielding is always done grudgingly, and thus lingers a good while behind the event. ~ H L Mencken,

552:The fundamental difference between an instinctive response and an emotion is this: An instinctive response is the body’s direct response to some external situation. An emotion, on the other hand, is the body’s response to thought. Indirectly, an emotion can also be a response to an actual situation or event, but it will be a response to the event seen through the filter of a mental interpretation, the future of thought, that is to say, through the mental concepts of good and bad, like and dislike, me and mine. ~ Eckhart Tolle,

553:There is much to do, pulling people away, right up until the Coast Guard comes and orders us to stop. Scott is dead. My cell phone is dead. My mother must think me dead. So it goes. I pick up the papers that have drifted down on the boat and have become plastered there, these relics from great buildings that no longer stand. The first one I grab is an insurance document. Listen: What I tell you here is true. The first line on the first page I pick up, it begins: In the event of damage to the building… So it goes. ~ Hugh Howey,

554:Computer security can simply be protecting your equipment and files from disgruntled employees, spies, and anything that goes bump in the night, but there is much more. Computer security helps ensure that your computers, networks, and peripherals work as expected all the time, and that your data is safe in the event of hard disk crash or a power failure resulting from an electrical storm. Computer security also makes sure no damage is done to your data and that no one is able to read it unless you want them to ~ Bruce Schneier,

555:There were reprints of American editorials. Liberals saw it as a resurgence of social protest and decried the discrimination, poverty, and hunger that had provoked it. Conservative columnists acidly pointed out that hungry people don't steal stereo systems first and called for a crackdown in law enforcement. All of the reasoned editorials sounded hollow in light of the perverse randomness of the event. It was as if only a thin wall of electric lighting protected the great cities of the world from total barbarism. ~ Dan Simmons,

556:There were reprints of American editorials. Liberals saw it as a resurgence of social protest and decried the discrimination, poverty, and hunger that had provoked it. Conservative columnists acidly pointed out that hungry people don’t steal stereo systems first and called for a crackdown in law enforcement. All of the reasoned editorials sounded hollow in light of the perverse randomness of the event. It was as if only a thin wall of electric lighting protected the great cities of the world from total barbarism. ~ Dan Simmons,

557:ETIQUETTE FOR THE GUEST Important things to remember as a guest: • Be punctual, but not early. • Cancel only if there is an emergency. • Offer to help the hostess if help is needed. • Be a good mixer with the other guests. • If there is a theme to the tea, dress according to the theme. It will add a special touch to the event. • Even though you enjoy talking, try not to be the last to leave. • Be sure to say a goodbye to the hostess. • Write a thank you note within 24 hours of the party. ~ Emilie Barnes,

558:From a small spark, kindled in America, a flame has arisen not to be extinguished. Without consuming, like the Ultima Ratio Regum, it winds its progress from nation to nation, and conquers by a silent operation. Man finds himself changed, he scarcely perceives how. He acquires a knowledge of his rights by attending justly to his interest, and discovers in the event that the strength and powers of despotism consist wholly in the fear of resisting it, and that, in order "to be free, it is sufficient that he wills it. ~ Thomas Paine,

559:Nickie was so tired of the Crisis. It had been going on now for months. On TV and the radio, it was all you ever heard about: how Our Side and Their Side had come almost, but not quite, to the point of declaring all-out war. In the last week or so, the radio had started broadcasting frightening instructions every hour: “In the event of a declaration of war or a large-scale terrorist attack, cities will be evacuated in an orderly fashion…. Residents will be directed to safe locations…. Citizens should remain calm…. ~ Jeanne DuPrau,

560:So long as the individual state, despite its official condemnation of war, has to consider the possibility of engaging in war, it must influence and educate its citizens—and its youth in particular—in such a way that they can easily be converted into efficient soldiers in the event of war. Therefore it is compelled not only to cultivate a technical-military training and type of thinking but also to implant a spirit of national vanity in its people in order to secure their inner readiness for the outbreak of war. ~ Albert Einstein,

561:Think of George Washington, putting everything he had into the American Revolution, and then saying, “The event is in the hand of God.” Or Eisenhower, writing to his wife on the eve of the Allied invasion at Sicily: “Everything we could think of have been done, the troops are fit everybody is doing his best. The answer is in the lap of the gods.” These were not guys prone to settling or leaving the details up to other people—but they understood ultimately that what happened would happen. And they’d go from there. It ~ Ryan Holiday,

562:but it was reserved for Augustus to relinquish the ambitious design of subduing the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of moderation into the public councils. Inclined to peace by his temper and situation, it was easy for him to discover that Rome, in her present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote wars, the undertaking became every day more difficult, the event more doubtful, and the possession more precarious, and less beneficial. ~ Edward Gibbon,

563:The point I would make is that the novelist and the historian are seeking the same thing: the truth – not a different truth: the same truth – only they reach it, or try to reach it, by different routes. Whether the event took place in a world now gone to dust, preserved by documents and evaluated by scholarship, or in the imagination, preserved by memory and distilled by the creative process, they both want to tell us how it was: to re-create it, by their separate methods, and make it live again in the world around them. ~ Shelby Foote,

564:For many, what they see on television becomes more true than what they see with their eyes in the external world. But this is not so, for one must never forget that every television and has been edited. The viewer does not see the event. He sees in edited form of the event. It is not the event which is seen, but an edited symbol or an edited image of the event. An aura and illusion of objectivity and truth is built up, which could not be totally the case, even if the people shooting the film were completely neutral. ~ Francis A Schaeffer,

565:Letting off steam makes people angrier, not calmer. Pennebaker discovered that it’s not about steam; it’s about sense making. The people in his studies who used their writing time to vent got no benefit. The people who showed deep insight into the causes and consequences of the event on their first day of writing got no benefit, either: They had already made sense of things. It was the people who made progress across the four days, who showed increasing insight; they were the ones whose health improved over the next year. ~ Jonathan Haidt,

566:The body protects itself, and the same happens in the mind. It occurs sluggishly and imperfectly, a bad job done by indifferent craftsmen, but within minutes an accretion of defence mechanisms starts to form around the trauma, blunting its edges, eventually sealing it away inside scar tissue. Like a sliver of glass buried deep in a cut, the event will never go away, and often a movement will cause it to nudge a nerve ending and burn like fire for a while. However much it hurts when that happens, the last thing you want. ~ Michael Marshall,

567:What I am in search of is not so much the gratification of a curiosity or a passion for worldly life, but something far less conditional. I do not wish to go out into the world with an insurance policy in my pocket guaranteeing my return in the event of a disappointment, like some cautious traveller who would be content with a brief glimpse of the world. On the contrary, I desire that there should be hazards, difficulties and dangers to face; I am hungry for reality, for tasks and deeds, and also for privation and suffering. ~ Hermann Hesse,

568:William: My brother has an appreciation of art, so I imagine the woman he chooses must be beautiful beyond the pale. Once he outgrows his current predilection with painting and accepts his family responsibilities, he'll need a wife who can move throughout society. She must have proper carriage and be a witty conversationalist. She should have excellent bloodlines as well, in the event of offspring. Emma: With the possible exception of a witty conversationalist, I believe you've described all the attributes of a racehorse. ~ Donna MacMeans,

569:It requires something more than personal experience to gain a philosophy or point of view from any specific event. It is the quality of our response to the event and our capacity to enter into the lives of others that help us to make their lives and experiences our own. In my own case my convictions have derived and developed from events in the lives of others as well as from my own experience. What I have seen meted out to others by authority and repression, economic and political, transcends anything I myself may have endured. ~ Emma Goldman,

570:An employee in your company makes a careless mistake that costs you business. This can be exactly what you spend so much time and effort trying to avoid. Or, with a shift in perception, it can be exactly what you were looking for—the chance to pierce through defenses and teach a lesson that can be learned only by experience. A mistake becomes training. Again, the event is the same: Someone messed up. But the evaluation and the outcome are different. With one approach you took advantage; with the other you succumbed to anger or fear. ~ Ryan Holiday,

571:But if time exists only in my head, and I'm the last human being, it will end with my death. The thought cheers me. I may be in a position to murder time. The big net will tear and fall, with its sad contents, into oblivion. I'm owed some gratitude, but no one after my death will know I murdered time. Really these thoughts are quite meaningless. Things happen, and, like millions of people before me, I look for meaning in them, because my vanity will not allow me to admit that the whole meaning of an event lies in the event itself. ~ Marlen Haushofer,

572:Fragility can be measured; risk is not measurable (outside of casinos or the minds of people who call themselves “risk experts”). This provides a solution to what I’ve called the Black Swan problem—the impossibility of calculating the risks of consequential rare events and predicting their occurrence. Sensitivity to harm from volatility is tractable, more so than forecasting the event that would cause the harm. So we propose to stand our current approaches to prediction, prognostication, and risk management on their heads. In ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

573:Storytelling is inherently dangerous. Consider a traumatic event in your life. Think about how you experienced it. Now think about how you told it to someone a year later. Now think about how you told it for the hundredth time. It's not the same thing. Most people think perspective is a good thing: you can figure out characters' arcs, you can apply a moral, you can tell it with understanding and context. But this perspective is a misrepresentation: it's a reconstruction with meaning, and as such bears little resemblance to the event. ~ Charlie Kaufman,

574:What speaks to us, seemingly, is always the big event, the untoward, the extra-ordinary: the front-page splash, the banner headlines....Behind the event there is a scandal, a fissure, a danger, as if life reveals itself only by way of the spectacular, as if what speaks, what is significant, is always abnormal. [But] how should we take account of, question, describe what happens everyday and recurs everyday: the banal, the quotidian, the obvious, the common, the ordinary, the infra-ordinary, the background noise, the habitual? (209-210) ~ Georges Perec,

575:I may be dead tomorrow, I said to myself, but I’m alive now. And I can live deliberately. I’ve paid the price, I’ve done the work, and I have nothing to be ashamed of. “And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you’re less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn’t it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you’ve experienced before? You ~ Jonathan Franzen,

576:Among all the occurrences possible in the universe the a priori probability of any particular one of them verges upon zero. Yet the universe exists; particular events must take place in it, the probability of which (before the event) was infinitesimal. At the present time we have no legitimate grounds for either asserting or denying that life got off to but a single start on earth, and that, as a consequence, before it appeared its chances of occurring were next to nil. ... Destiny is written concurrently with the event, not prior to it. ~ Jacques Monod,

577:Do not blame her for asking what is due to her. Yes, the event is unfortunate but it is but one event in our lives; we can call it a tragedy if we wish. Blaming helps no one; let us take responsibility for it. For nothing in life happens spontaneously: it is the result of past actions. This moment is as it is supposed to be. I am repaying the debt of the past and so are you. We cannot choose the circumstances of our life, but we can make our choices. I have chosen to be true to my clan. My wife has chosen to be true to her role as my ~ Devdutt Pattanaik,

578:Advance warning of Katrina's path was wrested from mute Nature by meteorological calculations and satellite imagery. God told no one of His plans. Had the residents of New Orleans been content to rely on the beneficence of God, they wouldn't have known that a killer hurricane was bearing down upon them until they felt the first gusts of wind on their faces. And yet, as will come as no surprise to you, a poll conducted by The Washington Post found that 80 percent of Katrina's survivors claim that the event only strengthened their faith in God. ~ Sam Harris,

579:Years later, most Americans who lived through the scandal would recall, erroneously, that the iconic photo had ended Hart’s candidacy. The truth was that it didn’t appear until weeks after the fact and had nothing to do with Hart’s aborted campaign. At that moment of shared experience, just before the technological Big Bang that would shatter America’s media into thousands of fragments and audiences, a single photograph still had that kind of power—to become so deeply embedded in the culture that it actually transformed our memory of the event. ~ Matt Bai,

580:S-curves are helpful retrospective visualizations—but they aren’t as effective in real time. An S-curve helps us understand the adoption of a new technology like the smartphone, but it doesn’t allow us to visualize events along the route, since those events are independent variables, and they don’t necessarily build upon each other in the same way that technology advances do. Instead, we need to think in terms of roadblocks and express lanes. The more significant the event, the bigger the block, and the more time it will take to drive around it. ~ Amy Webb,

581:It was not by accident that Miles’s thirtieth birthday came up the week following, while he lingered in quiet ennui by the lakeside. It was the best place to ignore the event, unlike the capital where he was likely to be plagued with acquaintances and relatives, or at least Ivan, ragging him on the topic, or worse, inflicting a party on him. Though Ivan would doubtless be restrained by the knowledge that his turn would be next, in a couple of months. Anyway, Miles would really only be one day older, just like any other day. Right? The ~ Lois McMaster Bujold,

582:Sophisticated human beings were on hand to see this volcano's convulsions, they were able to investigate the event, and they were able to attempt to understand the processes that had caused such dreadful violence...their observations, painstaking and precise as science demanded, collided head-on with a most discomfiting reality: that while in 1883 the world was becoming ever more scientifically advanced, it was in part because of these same advances that its people found themselves in a strangely febrile and delicately balanced condition... ~ Simon Winchester,

583:In regard to the so-called social contract, I have often had occasion to protest that I haven't even seen the contract, much less been asked to consent to it. A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration. I've never received an offer from my rulers, so I certainly have not accepted one; and rather than consideration, I have received nothing but contempt from the rulers, who, notwithstanding the absence of any agreement, have indubitably threatened me with grave harm in the event that I fail to comply with their edicts. ~ Robert Higgs,

584:The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which history has preserved the memory. There was nothing notable in the event which thus set the bells and the bourgeois of Paris in a ferment from early morning. It was neither an assault by the Picards nor the Burgundians, nor a hunt led along in procession, nor a revolt of scholars in the town of Laas, nor an entry of “our much dread lord, monsieur the king,” nor even a pretty hanging of male and female thieves by the courts of Paris. Neither was it the arrival, so frequent in the fifteenth ~ Victor Hugo,

585:Being sucked into a black hole would pretty much be the coolest way to die. It's not like anyone has firsthand experience, and scientists can't decide if you would spend week floating past the event horizon before being torn apart or soar into a kind of maelstrom of particles and be burned alive. I like to think of what it would be like if we were swallowed, just like that. Suddenly none of this would matter. No more worrying about where we're going or what's to become of us or if we'll ever disappoint another person again. All of it-just...gone. ~ Jennifer Niven,

586:Edison pressed on and designed a range of concrete furnishings—bureaus, cupboards, chairs, even a concrete piano—to go with his concrete houses. He promised that soon he would offer, for just $5, a double bed that would never wear out. The entire range was to be unveiled at a cement industry show in New York in 1912. In the event, when the show opened, the Edison stand was bare. No one from the Edison company ever offered an explanation. It was the last anyone ever heard of concrete furniture. As far as is known, Edison never discussed the matter. A ~ Bill Bryson,

587:Table 9.3: Four Ways to Be Anxious 1. In the presence of an existing or imminent external threat, you worry about the event and its implications for your physical and/or psychological well-being 2. When you notice body sensations, you worry about what they might mean for your physical and/or psychological well-being 3. Thoughts and memories may lead to you to worry about your physical and/or psychological well-being 4. Thoughts and memories may result in existential dread, such as worry about leading a meaningful life or the eventuality of death ~ Joseph E LeDoux,

588:It was in fact the ordinary nature of everything preceding the event that prevented me from truly believing it had happened, absorbing it, incorporating it, getting past it. I recognize now there was nothing unusual in this: confronted with sudden disaster we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred, the clear blue sky from which the plane fell, the routine errand that ended on the shoulder with the car in flames, the swings were the children were playing as usual when the rattlesnake struck from the ivy. ~ Joan Didion,

589:Charity is Equal Opportunity. Anyone who wishes to give should be allowed to give. I once came upon an author hosting a charitable event who wouldn't allowed certain authors to participate in the event. Only the authors she wished to be associated with so she can ride on their coattails were allowed to participate. This is not charity. It builds resentment towards the charity she was supposedly representing. She became a NY Times bestselling author because of that association, but is it worth the deceit to get there? - Strong by Kailin Gow on Charities ~ Kailin Gow,

590:When anyone tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself whether it be more probable that this person should either deceive or be deceived or that the fact which he relates should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other and according to the superiority which I discover, I pronounce my decision. Always I reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous than the event which he relates, then and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion. ~ David Hume,

591:The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent. A man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though the roof is beginning to sink; and it is often observable, that the older a man gets, the more difficult it is to him to retain a believing conception of his own death. ~ George Eliot,

592:The system is not intended as a substitute for private savings, pension plans, and insurance protection. It is, rather, intended as the foundation upon which these other forms of protection can be soundly built. Thus, the individual's own work, his planning and his thrift will bring him a higher standard of living upon his retirement, or his family a higher standard of living in the event of his death, than would otherwise be the case. Hence the system both encourages thrift and self-reliance, and helps to prevent destitution in our national life. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower,

593:This writer, who is horribly perspicacious and vigorous, demonstrates the certainty of a great European war, and regards it with the peculiar satisfaction excited by such things in a certain order of mind. His phrases about "dire calamity" and so on mean nothing; the whole tenor of his writing proves that he represents, and consciously, one of the forces which go to bring war about; his part in the business is a fluent irresponsibility, which casts scorn on all who reluct at the "inevitable." Persistent prophecy is a familiar way of assuring the event. ~ George Gissing,

594:The management of the New York fiscal crisis pioneered the way for neoliberal practices both domestically under Reagan and internationally through the IMF (international monetary fund) in the 1980s. It established the principle that in the event of a conflict between the integrity of financial institutions , on one hand , and the well-being of the citizens on the other, the former was to be privileged .it emphasized that the role of the government was to create a good business climate rather than look to the needs and well-being of the popualtion at large. ~ David Harvey,

595:Where are the Hittites? Why does no one find it remarkable that in most world cities today there are Jews but not one single Hittite, even though the Hittites had a great flourishing civilization while the Jews nearby were a weak and obscure people? When one meets a Jew in New York or New Orleans or Paris or Melbourne, it is remarkable that no one considers the event remarkable. What are they doing here? But it is even more remarkble to wonder, if there are Jews here, why are there not Hittites here? Where are the Hittites? Show me one Hittite in New York City. ~ Walker Percy,

596:Words are often almost useless in sentient affairs,” Leto said. Moneo held his breathing to a shallow minimum. The Lord can read thoughts! “Throughout our history,” Leto said, “the most potent use of words has been to round out some transcendental event, giving that event a place in the accepted chronicles, explaining the event in such a way that ever afterward we can use those words and say: “This is what it meant.” Moneo felt beaten down by these words, terrified by unspoken things they might make him think. “That’s how events get lost in history,” Leto said. ~ Frank Herbert,

597:But because me and myself, as you no doubt are well aware, we are going to die, my relation—and yours too—to the event of this text, which otherwise never quite makes it, our relation is that of a structurally posthumous necessity. Suppose, in that case, that I am not alone in my claim to know the idiomatic code (whose notion itself is already contradictory) of this event. What if somewhere, here or there, there are shares in this non-secret’s secret? Even so the scene would not be changed. The accomplices, as you are once again well aware, are also bound to die. ~ Jacques Derrida,

598:What meaning has an hour when that hour is indistinguishable from any other? A new day dawns, another season comes and goes, a year passes and then another, and another, until twenty-three years have slipped into oblivion. Ah, Hezekiah, no wonder you remember your final voyage as if just yesterday you had thrown yourself upon the mercy of the briny deep! The intervening years are sucked down these acheronian halls like light into a black hole while you helplessly teeter upon the event horizon, where time is measured by the beating of a fly’s wing in the stagnant air. ~ Rick Yancey,

599:The event recalled to him the thinking of a horse, which is neither reasoned nor reasoning, but steadfast and untiring against all contrary tides. He knew that a horse, if stubborn enough, was capable of running through prickly wire; it would tangle itself until it was shredded hide to bone before abandoning its determined run. If the roan, like a man, had pondered on and fretted over the difficulty of swimming a half mile to a small island, it most likely would have given up, let the water take it, its churning thoughts working as surely as weights around its legs. ~ Kathleen Kent,

600:My life might have been so different, had I not been known as the girl whose grandmother exploded. And had I not been born in Bad Munstereifel. If we had lived in the city -- well, I"m not saying the event would have gone unnoticed, but the fuss would probably only have lasted a week before public interest moved elsewhere. Besides, in a city you are anonymous; the chances of being picked out as Kristel Kolvenbach's granddaughter would be virtually zero. But in a small town -- well, small towns everywhere are rife with gossip, but in Germany they raise it to an art form. ~ Helen Grant,

601:There is nothing in the nature of a miracle that should render it incredible:;: its credibility depends upon the nature of the evidence by which it is supported. An event of extreme probability will not necessarily command our belief unless upon a sufficiency of proof; and so an event which we may regard as highly improbable may command our belief if it is sustained by sufficient evidence. So that the credibility or incredibility of an event does not rest upon the nature of the event itself, but depends upon the nature and sufficiency of the proof which sustains it. ~ Charles Babbage,

602:How would any of that stop you from keeping your mind calm—reliably sizing up what’s around you—and ready to make good use of whatever happens? So that Judgment can look the event in the eye and say, “This is what you really are, regardless of what you may look like.” While Adaptability adds, “You’re just what I was looking for.” Because to me the present is a chance for the exercise of rational virtue—civic virtue—in short, the art that men share with gods. Both treat whatever happens as wholly natural; not novel or hard to deal with, but familiar and easily handled. ~ Marcus Aurelius,

603:cult of domesticity for the woman was a way of pacifying her with a doctrine of “separate but equal”—giving her work equally as important as the man’s, but separate and different. Inside that “equality” there was the fact that the woman did not choose her mate, and once her marriage took place, her life was determined. One girl wrote in 1791: “The die is about to be cast which will probably determine the future happiness or misery of my life. . . . I have always anticipated the event with a degree of solemnity almost equal to that which will terminate my present existence. ~ Howard Zinn,

604:The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying of a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is ~ Thomas Paine,

605:Adding to the military might of the four ships were members of the relatively new United States Marine Corps, reactivated by President Adams with the birth of the U.S. Navy in 1798. Skilled combatants, the Marines were invaluable during boarding actions and landing expeditions, and they also served to protect a ship’s officers in the event of a mutiny by the crew. The fighters had a reputation for being bold, fearless men—though sometimes a little brash and reckless. Their presence would be invaluable should any of Dale’s ships encounter pirates or need protection on land. ~ Brian Kilmeade,

606:Adding to the military might of the four ships were members of the relatively new United States Marine Corps, reactivated by President Adams with the birth of the U.S. Navy in 1798. Skilled combatants, the Marines were invaluable during boarding actions and landing expeditions, and they also served to protect a ship’s officers in the event of a mutiny by the crew. The fighters had a reputation for being bold, fearless men—though sometimes a little brash and reckless. Their presence would be invaluable should any of Dale’s ships encounter pirates or need protection on land. Once ~ Brian Kilmeade,

607:Here we are able to reach a major conclusion of this study. None of these major figures who constituted the inner circle of Jesus would have become or remained followers of Jesus after the crucifixion if there was no resurrection and no resurrection appearances of Jesus. The church, in the persons of its earliest major leaders, was constituted by the event of the resurrection, coupled with the Pentecost event! The stories of these figures, especially their post-Easter stories, are the validation of this fact. There would be no church without the risen and appearing Jesus. ~ Ben Witherington III,

608:A little while ago I visited Omaha Beach for the second time in my life. In the intervening 26 years, nearly 20,000 tides had come and gone and little remains visible of the greatest military landing in man's history of endless warring. What's to be seen is mostly in a superb museum and a panoramic cemetery. The cemetery memorializes with dignity and grandeur the event and the dead, and moves one deeply. Before they die less precipitously and/or in lesser purpose, Americans who can should visit World War II's Normandy Beach. Such seeing and remembering helps a man's perspective. ~ Malcolm Forbes,

609:On October 29 the connection was ready to be made. The event was appropriately casual. It had none of the drama of the “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” that had occurred on the moon a few weeks earlier, with a half billion people watching on television. Instead it was an undergraduate named Charley Kline, under the eye of Crocker and Cerf, who put on a telephone headset to coordinate with a researcher at SRI while typing in a login sequence that he hoped would allow his terminal at UCLA to connect through the network to the computer 354 miles away in Palo Alto. ~ Walter Isaacson,

610:I also need to make sure you two both know how this ends. When you come in, if the choice is between me or her, you chose her. You always choose her.” I will always choose her. I cracked my knuckles. “I can’t do this unless I know in the end, no matter how this fucking shit plays out, that she’ll at least make it out whole,” I said. Looking back toward the houseboat, Jake nodded. “Agreed.” “No problem,” Bear said. “In the event you don’t make it out though, I’ll take real good care of your girl for you.” “Jake,” I said. “If I don’t come out of this, shoot that motherfucker in the head. ~ T M Frazier,

611:I stared at him for an indeterminable amount of time, waiting for him to take it back or clarify that he was referring to the dried and candied food date not the event date or for someone to wake me up from this bizarro perpendicular universe. Finally I said, about ten decibels too loudly, “YES!” In actuality, I yelled it. I yelled the word yes. Quinn let out a breath. “Good.” “YES, I’LL GO OUT ON A DATE WITH YOU, QUINN SULLIVAN, TO A PLACE WHERE WE HAVE DINNER.” I couldn’t stop the shouted words. I was having an out-of-body experience, which, for some reason, made me shout my sentence. He ~ Penny Reid,

612:the participants in the public debate risk being driven less by reasoned arguments than by what catches the mood of the moment. The immediate focus is pounded daily into the public consciousness by advocates whose status is generated by the ability to dramatize. Participants at public demonstrations are rarely assembled around a specific program. Rather, many seek the uplift of a moment of exaltation, treating their role in the event primarily as participation in an emotional experience. These attitudes reflect in part the complexity of defining an identity in the age of social media. ~ Henry Kissinger,

613:We must believe that "emotion recollected in tranquillity" is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not "recollected" and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is "tranquil" only in that it is a passive attending upon the event. ~ T S Eliot,

614:I have long believed that it is only right and appropriate that before one sleeps with someone, one should be able—if called upon to do so—to make them a proper omelet in the morning. Surely that kind of civility and selflessness would be both good manners and good for the world. Perhaps omelet skills should be learned at the same time you learn to fuck. Perhaps there should be an unspoken agreement that in the event of loss of virginity, the more experienced of the partners should, afterward, make the other an omelet—passing along the skill at an important and presumably memorable moment. ~ Anthony Bourdain,

615:The hope you feel when you are in love is not necessarily for anything in particular. Love brings something inside you to life. Perhaps it is just the full dimensionality of your own capacity to feel that returns. In this state you think no impediment can be large enough to interrupt your passion. The feeling spills beyond the object of your love to color the whole world. The mood is not unlike the mood of revolutionaries in the first blush of victory, at the dawn of hope. Anything seems possible. And in the event of failure, it will be this taste of possibility that makes disillusion bitter. ~ Susan Griffin,

616:And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight–isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you're less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn't it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you've ever experienced before? You see things more clearly and you KNOW that you're seeing them more clearly. And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is every talking about. Moments like this. ~ Jonathan Franzen,

617:The recorder consisted of a biochip smaller than the head of a pin implanted into the hippocampus and nanosensors embedded throughout the body. Normally, the system lay dormant. But as soon as it detected severe deviations from the norm in various brain activity parameters - indicative of the stress caused by imminent death or great danger - the black-box would automatically contact the police and record the short-term memory in the hippocampus via molecular scanning. In the event of death, about one to two minutes of memories preceding the cessation of brain activity could be decrypted from the black box. ~ Bao Shu,

618:And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn't that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you're less fearful and less anxious and generally stronger as a result: isn't it amazing that a completely invisible thing in your head can feel realer than anything you've experienced before? You see things more clearly and you know that you're seeing them more clearly. And it comes to you that this is what it means to love life, this is all anybody who talks seriously about God is ever talking about. Moments like this. ~ Jonathan Franzen,

619:The whole country PTSDed after the 9-11 tragedy. As you all know, trauma leaves people more easily led. People in the United States have yet to learn about mind control, and therefore could not safeguard themselves from traumatic effects. In the event someone did think to look into mind control, the Freedom of Information Act was immediately revoked and 100,000 documents on MK Ultra reclassified. Of course, Cathy and I had already obtained copies during the few months they were declassified, which we make conveniently available on CD Rom15 everywhere we go in an effort to raise awareness of mind control. ~ Cathy O Brien,

620:The energy from that event is stored and released at any given moment, resulting in a playback just like a tape recording. The spirit usually acts out the event with no regard to the living in its presence. It’s similar to imprint theory in that it explains residual hauntings, but differs in the material that stores the energy. Imprint theory states our energies are stored on the fabric of the universe, which is composed of time and space by a process that we have yet to figure out. Stone tape theory states that certain types of rock store the energy of significant emotional and traumatic events inside them. ~ Zak Bagans,

621:Because of its concrete content, sense-certainty immediately appears as the richest kind of knowledge, indeed a knowledge of infinite wealth for which no bounds can be found, either when we reach out into space and time in which it is dispersed, or when we take a bit of this wealth, and by division enter into it. Moreover, sense-certainty appears to be the truest knowledge ... but, in the event, this very certainty proves itself to be the most abstract and poorest truth. All that it says about what it knows is just that it is; and its truth contains nothing but the sheer being of the thing. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,

622:The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea that it should be transitory. In one high bound it has overleaped the massive of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the centre of our being. Spontaneously and without effort we have fulfilled the law (towards one person) by loving our neighbour as ourselves. It is an image, a foretaste, of what we must become to all if Love Himself rules in us without a rival. It is even (well used) a preparation for that. ~ C S Lewis,

623:In the event of total freedom, the desire to dominate rules just as tyrannically as it does with centrally-planned economies. Freedom gave us capitalism, which has come to mean bosses ordering workers about. Workers aren’t free; they are chained by their biological needs. Where is their freedom? Oh, the freedom of mobility? They can quit their jobs and work elsewhere? They can switch from one slave-owner to another? The capitalist vision ignores the capitalist reality, which is that bosses tells workers what to do under pain of death by starvation. Tell me that is freedom some more. Tell me another good one. ~ Robert Peate,

624:The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea that it should be transitory. In one high bound it has overleaped the massive of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the centre of our being. Spontaneously and without effort we have fulfilled the law (towards one person) by loving our neighbour as ourselves. It is an image, a foretaste, of what we must become to all if Love Himself rules in us without a rival. It is even (well used) a preparation for that. ~ C S Lewis,

625:tart by having an open trunk to a car with lots of anti slip pads along the floor with about ten to fifteen boxes of various sizes to put into the area. try having to configure them in as well as trying to make sure nothing is broke while placing these boxes the cars trunk states to look like a tetris game. when the cars out of room then you try the back seat as well as any open space available. but you also have to take into account who is going to the event as well and if you place certain objects such as a fake cake with points on top of the cupcake box with a flappy lid that can barely stay upright as it is. ~ J S Scott,

626:In a penetrating insight, Bauckham writes that belief in the story of salvation “also breaks the cycle by which the oppressed become oppressors in their turn.”47 In the Old Testament the Israelites are constantly warned not to oppress immigrants and racial outsiders “because you were foreigners in Egypt” (Leviticus 19:33–34). The memory of their salvation from slavery not by their own power but by God’s grace was to radically undermine their natural human inclination to domination. But, Bauckham writes, “the cross is the event in which the cycle [of the oppressed becoming oppressor] is definitively broken. ~ Timothy J Keller,

627:That theory will be blown when she’s conferring with the event security, wearing an earpiece and holstering a firearm under her business suit. Or if she perceives a threat and pulls a gun, because she—and no offense, sweetheart—looks awful trigger-happy.” She set her forearms on the table. “You have no idea how true that statement is. But right now the person I’d be gunning for most is you, sweetheart.” Then she smiled. Holy shit. The smile completely transformed her face—but Devin wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing because the grin straddled the line between sexy and evil. ~ Lorelei James,

628:I know what you’re thinking, Miss Gladstone.” She doubted it. “You’re incredulous. How could a woman of your standing possibly ascend to such a rank? I can’t deny you’ll find yourself outclassed and un-befriended among the ladies of the peerage, but you will no doubt be consoled with the material advantages. A lavish home, generous lines of credit at all the best shops, a large settlement in the event of my death. You may pay calls, go shopping. Engage in some charitable work, if you must. Your days will be yours to do whatever you wish.” His voice darkened. “Your nights, however, will belong to me. ~ Tessa Dare,

629:We don't have a choice in how or when our bad days will blindside us. But what we do choose is how we allow them to leave us once they're gone. You can use those moments as a catalyst to spur you on to greater things or you can let it be the event that breaks you and leaves you shattered and forever lost in darkness. That, my friend, is the curse of free will. You can blame it all on fate and the universe, but in the end you alone decide if you're going to lie down and let hell take you under, or if you're going to stand strong in defiance of it all with your middle finger raised. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon Caleb ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,

630:The Los Angeles parade would begin in Griffith Park, where a large crowd would assemble and the speeches would be given. Every politician of consequence would be there. There was no way they would miss a chance to publicly praise the troops and honor those who had lost their lives in service. Some of the tributes would be sincere and heartfelt, and some less so. But participating in the event, vowing undying support for the U.S. military, was an absolute must to maintain political viability. It was okay to vote to cut funds for veterans' healthcare, but don't dare miss a chance to jump on the Memorial Day bandwagon. ~ David Rosenfelt,

631:Throughout our research, we were continually reminded of the “hardiness” research studies done by the International Committee for the Study of Victimization. These studies looked at people who had suffered serious adversity—cancer patients, prisoners of war, accident victims, and so forth—and survived. They found that people fell generally into three categories: those who were permanently dispirited by the event, those who got their life back to normal, and those who used the experience as a defining event that made them stronger.53 The good-to-great companies were like those in the third group, with the “hardiness factor. ~ James C Collins,

632:or he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new. This lukewarm temper arises partly from the fear of adversaries who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who will never admit the merit of anything new, until they have seen it proved by the event. The result, however, is that whenever the enemies of change make an attack, they do so with all the zeal of partisans, while the others defend themselves so feebly as to endanger both themselves and their cause. ~ Niccol Machiavelli,

633:THE FORT DE ROMAINVILLE glowers over the eastern suburbs of Paris. A brutal stone giant, by 1941 it had been made into another Nazi vision of hell. Built in the 1830s on a low hill, the hulking bastion was part of the defensive ring constructed around Paris to protect the city from foreign attack, but it also held troops who could be deployed in the event of popular insurrection—a bloated, moated, impregnable monstrosity. For the Nazis, the ancient fort served a similar psychological purpose—as a hostage camp, a place of interrogation, torture, and summary execution, and a visible symbol of intimidation, inescapable in every way. ~ Ben Macintyre,

634:Returning to Deuteronomy 32 and going back a few more verses in context, we read of a reality-changing incident that occurred at Babel:   Deut. 32:8-9 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.   The reference to the creation of nations through the division of mankind and fixing of the borders of nations is clearly a reference to the event of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11 and the dispersion of the peoples into the 70 nations listed in Genesis 10. ~ Brian Godawa,

635:Like, Well, there you go. Or, It is what it is. And, Well, what can you do? I suppose these one-offs are less idiotic than they seem on the surface. They're all a way of saying the same thing, that shit happens and you have to deal with it. You can try to ignore it, wait for it to go away. Maybe that works, but sometimes the knot won't untie itself and your attention is required. A thing you never expected, could not have predicted, suddenly becomes the foremost event in your life and no amount of wishing it away will work. In some cases, the event is small and the ramifications manageable. In my case, it affected everything. Forever. ~ Matthew Iden,

636:It's not that I'm being shy. It's just that -- well, for one, I don't even remember the event. It's a blank: a white slate, a black hole. I have vague images, half-impressions: of being, or having been -- or, more precisely, being about to be -- hit; blue light; railings; lights of other colours; being held above some kind of tray or bed. But who's to say that these are genuine memories? Who's to say my traumatized mind didn't just make them up, or pull them out from somewhere else, some other slot, and stick them there to plug the gap -- the crater -- that the accident had blown? Minds are versatile and wily things. Real chancers. ~ Tom McCarthy,

637:One of psychologist Martin Seligman’s early research projects involved giving students one of two assignments— they could do a good deed or they could give themselves a treat. He asked them to rate their happiness at the time and a week later. When the event occurred, the students who had done a good deed reported higher happiness scores. And a week later, these students felt even happier when they remembered their good deed than did the students who had indulged themselves. Seligman discovered that not only is philanthropic action more fun than doing something defined as pleasurable, but also that it has longer-lasting effects on happiness. ~ Mary Pipher,

638:Sometimes you go through things that seem huge at the time, like a mysterious glowing cloud devouring your entire community. While they are happening, they feel like the only thing that matters, and you can hardly imagine that there’s a world out there that might have anything else going on. And then the Glow Cloud moves on, and you move on, and the event is behind you. And you may find, as time passes, that you remember it less and less. Or absolutely not at all, in my case. And you are left with nothing but a powerful wonder at the fleeting nature of even the most important moments in life, and the faint but pretty smell of vanilla. Finally ~ Joseph Fink,

639:The media are the equivalent of yesterday's scientists, for today's scientists have seen that when they conduct an experiment they are part of it and influence results by their very being; the media can create a story, a scandal, an event, but behave as if they have nothing to do with it, as if the event or the reputation were a spontaneous happening and they haven't influenced the result, or invented it all in the first place. 'The general interest in ... continues and is growing.' Of course it is, since the journalists are fanning the flames, permitting themselves fits of moral indignation, excitement, concern. Meanwhile the public marvel at them. ~ Doris Lessing,

640:The president called upon the Marine emergency evacuation helicopter that the White House Military Office had stationed nearby in the event of a surprise Soviet nuclear attack. The flight across Narragansett Bay lasted just six minutes, as opposed to the hour Eisenhower would have spent on the ferry—and the helicopter, piloted by Virgil Olson, was nearly triple the size of the Bell Ranger passenger-wise. This, Eisenhower decided, was a much better option. Since the Air Force didn’t possess the large transport helicopters Eisenhower desired, the Marine Corps took over the presidential helicopter fleet. Within two months—lightning speed in government ~ Garrett M Graff,

641:I cannot forgive myself for what I did. It has long been one of my strictest principles not to interfere with the life of any individual, let alone attempt to shorten it. If an exception were to be made, Dr. Helvitius would surely qualify. It might be argued that, having neither scruples nor conscience, he had no claim upon the conscience of someone else—least of all, his intended victims. But that is a question to be resolved by a judgment higher than mine. In the event, my responsibility toward Vesper outweighed every other consideration. I can state in all honesty: I meant only to wound him. I cannot forgive myself—for missing the villain completely. ~ Lloyd Alexander,

642:Somewhere in the universe two black holes collide — as heavy as stars, as small as cities, literally black (the complete absence of light) holes (empty hollows). Tethered by gravity, in their final seconds together the black holes course through thousands of revolutions about their eventual point of contact, churning up space and time until they crash and merge into one bigger black hole, an event more powerful than any since the origin of the universe, outputting more than a trillion times the power of a billion Suns. The black holes collide in complete darkness. None of the energy exploding from the collision comes out as light. No telescope will ever see the event. ~ Janna Levin,

643:But it must be seen that the term 'catastrophe' has this 'catastrophic' meaning of the end and annihilation only in a linear vision of accumulation and productive finality that the system imposes on us. Etymologically, the term only signifies the curvature, the winding down to the bottom of a cycle leading to what can be called the 'horizon of the event,' to the horizon of meaning, beyond which we cannot go. Beyond it, nothing takes place that has meaning for us - but it suffices to exceed this ultimatum of meaning in order that catastrophe itself no longer appear as the last, nihilistic day of reckoning, such as it functions in our current collective fantasy. ~ Jean Baudrillard,

644:Try the following experiment. Go to the airport and ask travelers en route to some remote destination how much they would pay for an insurance policy paying, say, a million tugrits (the currency of Mongolia) if they died during the trip (for any reason).Then ask another collection of travelers how much they would pay for insurance that pays the same in the event of death from a terrorist act (and only a terrorist act). Guess which one would command a higher price? Odds are that people would rather pay for the second policy (although the former includes death from terrorism). The psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky figured this out several decades ago. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

645:There's the life and there's the consumer event. Everything around us tends to channel our lives toward some final reality in print or on film. Two lovers quarrel in the back of a taxi and a question becomes implicit in the event. Who will write the book and who will play the lovers in the movie? Everything seeks its own heightened version. Or put it this way. Nothing happens until it's consumed. Or put it this way. Nature has given way to aura. A man cuts himself shaving and someone is signed up to write the biography of the cut. All the material in every life is channeled into the glow. Here I am in your lens. Already I see myself differently. Twice over or once removed. ~ Don DeLillo,

646:His posturing for independence came to its logical climax when in 1966 he ordered all foreign troops out of France, arguing that in the event of war, he would not let French soldiers bow to American command as they had been forced to do in World War Two. The way de Gaulle announced his new policy has gone down in history. Apparently the Général phoned the American President, Lyndon Johnson, to tell him that France was opting out of NATO, and that consequently all American military personnel had to be removed from French soil. Taking part in the conference call was Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State, and Johnson told Rusk to reply: ‘Does that include those buried in it? ~ Stephen Clarke,

647:the concurrence of innumerable circumstances was needed without any one of which the event could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power—the soldiers who fired, or transported provisions and guns—should consent to carry out the will of these weak individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number of diverse and complex causes. We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not understand). The more we try to explain such events in history reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to us. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

648:Publicity in itself, of whatever nature, connotes a disturbance of the natural equilibrium of a man. Under normal circumstances, the name a human being bears is no more than the band is to a cigar: a means of identification, a superficial, almost unimportant thing that is only loosely related to the real subject, the true ego. In the event of a success the name begins to swell, so to say. It loosens itself from the human being that bears it and becomes a power in itself, a force, an independent thing, an article of commerce, a capital asset; and psychologically again with strong reaction it becomes a force which tends to influence, to dominate, to transform the person who bears it. ~ Stefan Zweig,

649:The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a raw cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house was most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak turn of intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and requested that her silver watch might be delivered over to her sister (2 Tuppintock’s Gardens, Liggs’s Walk, Clapham Rise), in the event of anything happening to her from the damp. Streaker, the housemaid, feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The Odd Girl, who had never been in the country, alone was pleased, and made arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside the scullery window, and rearing an oak. ~ Charles Dickens,

650:I am Mrs. Poulteney. I have come to take up residence. Kindly inform your Master." "His Infinitude has been informed of your decease, ma'am. His angels have already sung a Jubilate in celebration of the event." "That is most proper and kind of Him." And the worthy lady, pluming and swelling, made to sweep into the imposing white hall she saw beyond the butler's head. But the man did not move aside. Instead, he rather impertinently jangled some keys he chanced to have in his hand. "My man! Make way. I am she. Mrs. Poulteney of Lyme Regis." "Formerly of Lyme Regis, ma'am. And now of a much more tropical abode." With that, the brutal flunkey slammed the door in her face. ~ John Fowles,

651:In this way we consumed the newt whom we had come to know as Hans; Hans was an educated and intelligent animal with a special talent for scientific work; it had worked in Dr. Hinkel’s department as a laboratory assistant and could even be trusted with delicate chemical analyses. We would spend entire evenings talking with Hans who enjoyed boundless curiosity. It became unfortunately necessary to dispose of Hans after he became blind after my experiments with trepanation. Hans’s meat was dark and with a slight flavour of mushrooms, but left no unpleasant effects. There is no doubt that in the event of need arising from war it would be possible to use newt meat as a cheap substitute for beef.] ~ Karel apek,

652:Rothschild houses had capital in excess of £35 million on the eve of the First World War, all of it family money; it was the job of the partners to manage this huge portfolio. A large part of it they held in the form of European government bonds, the most secure form of investment and also the kind of security the Rothschilds knew best, since they had long been the principal underwriters for new bond issues on the London market. They, more than anyone, stood to lose in the event of a European war, not least because such a war would almost certainly divide the three houses, pitting Paris and perhaps also London against Vienna. Yet the outbreak of war caught them almost entirely by surprise. ~ Niall Ferguson,

653:Another mistaken notion connected with the law of large numbers is the idea that an event is more or less likely to occur because it has or has not happened recently. The idea that the odds of an event with a fixed probability increase or decrease depending on recent occurrences of the event is called the gambler's fallacy. For example, if Kerrich landed, say, 44 heads in the first 100 tosses, the coin would not develop a bias towards the tails in order to catch up! That's what is at the root of such ideas as "her luck has run out" and "He is due." That does not happen. For what it's worth, a good streak doesn't jinx you, and a bad one, unfortunately , does not mean better luck is in store. ~ Leonard Mlodinow,

654:Every morning brings us news of the globe, and yet we are poor in noteworthy stories. This is because no event comes to us without being already shot through with explanation. In other words, by now almost nothing that happens benefits storytelling; almost everything benefits information. Actually, it is half the art of storytelling to keep a story free from explanation as one reproduces it. . . . The most extraordinary things, marvelous things, are related with the greatest accuracy, but the psychological connection of the event is not forced on the reader. It is left up to him to interpret things the way he understands them, and thus the narrative achieves an amplitude that information lacks. ~ Walter Benjamin,

655:The girl looked at her so sharply that Ripley was taken aback. The assurance in Newt’s eyes bespoke a hardness that was anything but childish. Her tone was flat, neutral. ‘I don’t want you for a friend.’ Ripley tried to conceal her surprise. ‘Why not?’ ‘Because you’ll be gone soon, like the others. Like everybody.’ She gazed down at the doll head. ‘Casey’s okay. She’ll stay with me. But you’ll go away. You’ll be dead and you’ll leave me alone.’ There was no anger in that childish declamation, no sense of accusation or betrayal. It was delivered coolly and with complete assurance, as though the event had already occurred. It was not a prediction, but rather a statement of fact soon to take place. ~ Alan Dean Foster,

656:Forestalling pleasure is an inventive technique for getting double the juice from half the fruit. Indeed, some events are more pleasurable to imagine than to experience (most of us can recall an instance in which we made love with a desirable partner or ate a wickedly rich dessert, only to find that the act was better contemplated than consummated), and in these cases people may decide to delay the event forever. For instance, volunteers in one study were asked to imagine themselves requesting a date with a person on whom they had a major crush, and those who had had the most elaborate and delicious fantasies about approaching their heartthrob were least likely to do so over the next few months. ~ Daniel Todd Gilbert,

657:Xxxvi When we met first and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. Could it mean To last, a love set pendulous between Sorrow and sorrow ? Nay, I rather thrilled, Distrusting every light that seemed to gild The onward path, and feared to overlean A finger even. And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . . Lest these enclasped hands should never hold, This mutual kiss drop down between us both As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold. And Love, be false ! if he, to keep one oath, Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

658:disputing about those already made. I therefore never answered M. Nollet, and the event gave me no cause to repent my silence; for my friend M. le Roy, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, took up my cause and refuted him; my book was translated into the Italian, German, and Latin languages; and the doctrine it contain'd was by degrees universally adopted by the philosophers of Europe, in preference to that of the abbe; so that he lived to see himself the last of his sect, except Monsieur B----, of Paris, his eleve and immediate disciple. What gave my book the more sudden and general celebrity, was the success of one of its proposed experiments, made by Messrs. Dalibard and De Lor at Marly, for drawing ~ Benjamin Franklin,

659:Altering connections in a way that strengthens the efficiency of a neuronal circuit over the long term was the first kind of neuroplasticity to be discovered. Plasticity must be a response to experience; after all, the only thing the brain can know and register about some perception is the pattern of neural activity it induces. This neural representation of the event somehow induces physical changes in the brain at the level of neurons and their synapses. These physical changes “allow the representation of the event to be stored and subsequently recalled,” says Tim Bliss of the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill, England. In a very real sense, these physical changes are the memory. ~ Jeffrey M Schwartz,

660:There you are," Hale told his mother when he found her. "Oh, darling, do you know Michael Calloway? His mother is the event chair. We've just been arguing over whether he is going to let me outbid him for this gorgeous antique clock," Mrs. Hale said, but her son didn't care. "Sorry," Hale told the man in the tux with the small bits of sweat gathering at his brow. "I need her," he said, pulling his mother from the table and toward the bank of elevators on the far sie of the room, the ones that appeared to be operational. "Mom, I need you to come with me," "But, darling," the woman protested, "its Swiss!" The elevator dinged and Hale pushed her inside it. "Sorry, Dad will meet you downstairs. ~ Ally Carter,

661:In my land, in the event of a divorce, the mother has the right to retain her children if they are still suckling. But in most cases, a mother maintains custody of daughters until a girl child reaches puberty. In the case of male children, the boy should be allowed to remain with his mother until he is seven. When he reaches his seventh birthday, he is supposed to have the option to choose between his mother or father. Generally it is accepted that the father have his sons at age seven. A son must go with his father at the age of puberty, regardless of the child's wishes. Often, in the case of male children, many fathers will not allow the mother to retain custody of a son, no matter what the age of the child. ~ Jean Sasson,

662:Sonnet Xxxvi When we met first and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. Could it mean To last, a love set pendulous between Sorrow and sorrow ? Nay, I rather thrilled, Distrusting every light that seemed to gild The onward path, and feared to overlean A finger even. And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . . Lest these enclasped hands should never hold, This mutual kiss drop down between us both As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold. And Love, be false ! if he, to keep one oath, Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

663:Atrox Fabulinus, the Roman Rabelais, once broke off the account of his hero Raphaelus in the act of opening a giant goose egg to fry it in an iron skillet of six yards' span. Fabulinus interrupted the action with these words: “Here it becomes necessary to pause for a moment and to recount to you the history of the world up to this point.” After Fabulinus had given the history of the world up to that point, he took up the action of Raphaelus once more. It happened that the giant goose egg contained a nubile young girl. This revelation would have been startling to a reader who had not just read the history of the world up to that point; which history—being Fabulinian in its treatment—prepared him for the event. ~ R A Lafferty,

664:What distinguishes the various kinds of fears is the combination and amount of the raw materials involved. What ties together all instances of fear is the awareness that a threat to well-being is present or is soon very likely to occur. In short, in order to be felt as fear, components of a nonconscious defensive motivational state have to invade and become a presence98 in conscious awareness. This can only happen in organisms that have the capacity to both be aware of brain representations of internal and external events and to know in a personal, autobiographical sense that the event is happening to them—someone has to be home in the brain in order to feel fear when the defensive state knocks on the door.99 ~ Joseph E LeDoux,

665:Under the stress of the event, we felt, each man’s true nature was revealed. The impression we had of each candidate’s character was as direct and compelling as the color of the sky.” He had had no trouble identifying which men would make good officers and which would not. “We were quite willing to declare, ‘This one will never make it,’ ‘That fellow is rather mediocre,’ or ‘He will be a star.’” The problem came when he’d tested his predictions against the outcomes—how the various candidates had actually performed in officer training. His predictions were worthless. And yet, because it was the army and he had a job to do, he kept on making them; and because he was Danny, he noted that he still felt confident about them. ~ Michael Lewis,

666:Sonnet Xxxvi: When We Met First When we met first and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. Could it mean To last, a love set pendulous between Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled, Distrusting every light that seemed to gild The onward path, and feared to overlean A finger even. And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed A still renewable fear ... O love, O troth ... Lest these enclasped hands should never hold, This mutual kiss drop down between us both As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold. And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath, Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

667:As for him who envies or even fears us (and envied and feared great powers must always be), and who on this account wishes Syracuse to be humbled to teach us a lesson, but would still have her survive in the interest of his own security, the wish that he indulges is not humanly possible. A man can control his own desires but he cannot likewise control circumstances; and in the event of his calculations proving mistaken, he may live to bewail his own misfortune, and wish to be again envying my prosperity. An idle wish, if he now sacrifice us and refuse to take his share of perils which are the same in reality, though not in name, for him as for us; what is nominally the preservation of our power being really his own salvation. ~ Thucydides,

668:Me, while I'm heading west, asleep at Mach 0.83, or 455 miles an hour, or true airspeed, the FBI is bomb-squading my suitcase on a vacated runway back in Dulles. Nine out of ten times, the security task force guy says, the vibration is an electric razor. The other time, it's a vibrating dildo. Imagine, the task force guy says, telling a passenger on arrival that a dildo kept her baggage on the East Coast. Sometimes it's even a man. It's airline policy not to imply ownership in the event of a dildo. Use the indefinite article. A dildo. Never your dildo. Never say the dildo accidentally turned itself on. A dildo activated itself and created an emergency situation that required the evacuating of your baggage. ~ Chuck Palahniuk,

669:The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own father or mother. ~ Douglas Adams,

670:Despite the risk, I don’t think it would be wise to cancel the festival,” he said, and would have left it at that had I not pursued a justification. “The Hytanicans are on edge, but there are still several days until the event. Word of the compensation we provided will spread, tempers will cool and excitement over the festival will set in. If we shut down the celebration, the people will feel twice wronged, and I’ll again be the most hated individual in the province. I’m the one they will blame.” Narian was accustomed--as accustomed as one could be--to being disliked, but he didn’t want to lose the small bit of progress we had made toward redeeming his character. I wondered if this was in part because our marriage hung in the balance. ~ Cayla Kluver,

671:Now put down only what you actually had to do in the event.” “What I had to do?” “Right. Because there are no such things as shoulds and woulds in the universe.” “There aren’t?” I’m starting to suspect Keith a bit. For someone in Anxiety Management, he’s giving me an exercise that is fairly confusing and anxiety-provoking. “No,” he says. “There are only things that could have turned out differently. You don’t have any shoulds or woulds in your life, see? You only have things that could have gone a different way.” “Ah.” “You never know what truly would have happened if you had done your shoulds and woulds. Your life might have turned out worse, isn’t that possible?” “I don’t see how it’s really possible, seeing as I’m on the phone with you. ~ Ned Vizzini,

672:The de-spiritualization of asceticisms is probably the event in the current intellectual history of mankind that is the most comprehensive and, because of its large scale, the hardest to perceive, yet at once the most palpable and atmospherically powerful. Its counterpart is the informalization of spirituality - accompanied by its commercialization in the corresponding subcultures. The threshold values for these two tendencies provide the intellectual landmarks for the twentieth century: the first tendency is represented by sport, which has become a metaphor for achievement as such, and the second by popular music, that devotio postmoderna which covers the lives of contemporary individuals with unpredictable flashes of inner emergency. ~ Peter Sloterdijk,

673:Shakespeare has no heroes; his scenes are occupied only by men, who act and speak as the reader thinks that he should himself have spoken or acted on the same occasion: Even where the agency is supernatural the dialogue is level with life. Other writers disguise the most natural passions and most frequent incidents: so that he who contemplates them in the book will not know them in the world: Shakespeare approximates the remote, and familiarizes the wonderful; the event which he represents will not happen, but if it were possible, its effects would be probably such as he has assigned; and it may be said, that he has not only shewn human nature as it acts in real exigences, but as it would be found in trials, to which it cannot be exposed. ~ Samuel Johnson,

674:But the evidence collated by the Central Bank of Ireland once the crisis was finally resolved in November 1970 showed quite the opposite. Their review of the closure concluded not only that “the Irish economy continued to function for a reasonably long period of time with its main clearing banks closed for business,” but that “the level of economic activity continued to increase” over the period.37 Both before and after the event, it seemed unbelievable—but somehow, it had worked: for six and a half months, in one of the then thirty wealthiest economies in the world, “a highly personalized credit system without any definite time horizon for the eventual clearance of debits and credits substituted for the existing institutionalized banking system. ~ Anonymous,

675:First memory: a man at the back door is saying, I have real bad news, sweat is dripping off his face, Garbert's been shot, noise from my mother, I run to her room behind her, I'm jumping on the canopied bed while she cries, she's pulling out drawers looking for a handkerchief, Now, he's all right, the man say, they think, patting her shoulder, I'm jumping higher, I'm not allowed, they think he saved old man Mayes, the bed slats dislodge and the mattress collapses. My mother lunges for me. Many traveled to Reidsville for the event, but my family did not witness Willis Barnes's electrocution, From kindergarten through high school, Donette, the murderer's daughter, was in my class. We played together at recess. Sometimes she'd spit on me. ~ Frances Mayes,

676:Q. Do you feel that based upon whatever information you may have accumulated about the case from any source whatsoever that you have already formed an opinion in your mind as to the guilt or innocence of this defendant? A. I would think—yeah, I would think that she was guilty, yeah. Q. You feel that she’s guilty? A. Yes. Q. And let me ask you another question. In the event that you might be selected to serve as a juror in this case, do you feel that you could sit and listen to the evidence and judge it impartially, apply the law the judge gives you, set aside this opinion that you have already formed? A. Yes, I probably could. Q. And then still judge impartially whether she’s guilty or innocent? A. Yeah. Depending on the evidence and all that. ~ Assata Shakur,

677:The phenomenon moon-in-the-water is likened to human experience. The water is the subject, and the moon the object. When there is no water, there is no moon-in-the-water, and likewise when there is no moon. But when the moon rises the water does not wait to receive its image, and when even the tiniest drop of water is poured out the moon does not wait to cast its reflection. For the moon does not intend to cast its reflection, and the water does not receive its image on purpose. The event is caused as much by the water as by the moon, and as the water manifests the brightness of the moon, the moon manifests the clarity of the water. Another poem in the Zenrin Kushu says: Trees show the bodily form of the wind; Waves give vital energy to the moon.g ~ Alan W Watts,

678:Imagine taking a test knowing the answer. While we know that history flows forward, it is difficult to realize that we envision it backward. Why is it so? We will discuss the point in Chapter 11 but here is a possible explanation: Our minds are not quite designed to understand how the world works, but, rather, to get out of trouble rapidly and have progeny. If they were made for us to understand things, then we would have a machine in it that would run the past history as in a VCR, with a correct chronology, and it would slow us down so much that we would have trouble operating. Psychologists call this overestimation of what one knew at the time of the event due to subsequent information the hindsight bias, the “I knew it all along” effect. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

679:The sense of security more frequently springs from habit than from conviction, and for this reason it often subsists after such a change in the conditions as might have been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse of time during which a given event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent. A man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt by an accident as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though the roof is beginning to sink; and it is often observable that, the older a man gets, the more difficult it is to him to retain a believing conception of his own death. ~ George Eliot,

680:When McFaul was applying for a Rhodes Scholarship, his interviewer took note that McFaul, along with an intelligent and rambunctious classmate named Susan Rice, had helped lead the anti-apartheid movement on the Stanford campus. They occupied a building, campaigned for divestment. Among McFaul’s academic interests was the range of liberation movements in post-colonial Africa: Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. How did McFaul reconcile his desire to study at Oxford on a Rhodes, the interviewer inquired, with the fact that its benefactor, Cecil Rhodes, had been a pillar of white supremacy? What would he do with such “blood money”? “I will use it to bring down the regime,” McFaul said. In the event, both he and Rice won the blood money and went to Oxford. ~ Anonymous,

681:Rave emerged spontaneously, neither planned or designed. It was a genuine grass roots phenomenon, egalitarian and welcoming. Thousands danced in fields all through the night, out under the moon, in order to achieve a trance-like, ecstatic state. It was a form of communion and it was pagan as fuck. Needless to say, it couldn't last. The press and the government, appalled by such non-violent having-of-a-good-time, moved quickly to crush it. Ultimately, though, they weren't quick enough. Rave grew too big too quickly, and it attracted the attention of those who felt they could make money from such events. Once this happened and the superstar DJs and the superclubs arrived, the focus shifted from the raw crowd back to the event itself. Rave's spell was broken. ~ J M R Higgs,

682:There is no greater torture than being forced to watch as your love, your reason for living, breathing, and existing, sinks into oblivion. Your heart stops no matter how you try to get to her, she just gets farther and farther away." ~ Quinn LoftisFane from 'Beyond the Vail' "Attention shoppers, just a brief announcement, crazy ass werewolf on isle three. Those with abundance of testosterone, don't touch their lady merchandise and you might walk out of here intact." ~ Quinn LoftisJen from 'Fate and Fury'. "In the event of some sort of gathering, if one of the bossy, overbearing, possessive fur balls has not flipped his switch and attacked some poor young pup in some misguided attempt to protect his woman's virtue, then the night is not over. ~ Quinn Loftis,

683:This beautiful thought, of 'dying close by that which one loves', expressed in a hundred different ways, was followed by a sonnet in which it was found that the soul, separated, after atrocious torments, from the frail body in which it dwelt for twenty-three years, and impelled by that instinct for happiness natural to all that has once existed, would not reascend to heaven to mingle with angelic choirs as soon as it was set free, and in the event of the awful judgment according it forgiveness for its sins, but, happier after death than it had been in life, it would go a few steps from the prison where it had lamented for so long, to be reunited with all that it had loved in the world. And thus, the sonnet's last line went. I shall have found my paradise on earth. ~ Stendhal,

684:Hindsight is always superior to foresight. When the accident investigation committee reviews the event that contributed to the problem, they know what actually happened, so it is easy for them to pick out which information was relevant, which was not. This is retrospective decision making. But when the incident was taking place, the people were probably overwhelmed with far too much irrelevant information and probably not a lot of relevant information. How were they to know which to attend to and which to ignore? Most of the time, experienced operators get things right. The one time they fail, the retrospective analysis is apt to condemn them for missing the obvious. Well, during the event, nothing may be obvious. I return to this topic later in the chapter. ~ Donald A Norman,

685:Sonnet 36 - When We Met First And Loved, I Did Not Build XXXVI When we met first and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. Could it mean To last, a love set pendulous between Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled, Distrusting every light that seemed to gild The onward path, and feared to overlean A finger even. And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . . Lest these enclasped hands should never hold, This mutual kiss drop down between us both As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold. And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath, Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

686:Trump did not enjoy his own inauguration. He had hoped for a big blowout. Tom Barrack, the would-be showman—in addition to Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, he had bought Miramax Pictures from Disney with the actor Rob Lowe—may have declined the chief of staff job, but, as part of his shadow involvement with his friend’s White House, he stepped up to raise the money for the inaugural and to create an event that—seemingly quite at odds with the new president’s character, and with Steve Bannon’s wish for a no-frills populist inauguration—he promised would have a “soft sensuality” and “poetic cadence.” But Trump, imploring friends to use their influence to nail some of the A-level stars who were snubbing the event, started to get angry and hurt that stars were determined to embarrass him. ~ Michael Wolff,

687:Finally, we close this section with the following from the January 25, 2013, final rule: Covered entities and business associates that implement the specified technologies and methodologies with respect to protected health information are not required to provide notifications in the event of a breach of such information—that is, the information is not considered “unsecured” in such cases.58 We encourage covered entities and business associates to take advantage of the safe harbor provision of the breach notification rule by encrypting limited data sets and other protected health information pursuant to the Guidance. … If protected health information is encrypted pursuant to this guidance, then no breach notification is required following an impermissible use or disclosure of the information.”59 ~ Anonymous,

688:From my perspective, those who were actively laying the groundwork for implementing the New World Order through mind conditioning of the masses made no distinction between Democratic and Republican parties. Their aspirations were international in proportion, not American.1 Members were often drawn from, among other elitist groups, the Council on Foreign Relations. Like George Bush, Bill Clinton was an active member of the CFR, as well as a Yale Skull and Bones graduate. Based on numerous conversations I overheard, Clinton was being groomed and prepared to fill the role of President under the guise of Democrat in the event that the American people became discouraged with Republican leaders. This was further evidenced by the extent of Clinton's New World Order knowledge and professed loyalties. ~ Cathy O Brien,

689:Nothing outside of you can ever make you feel something. Those emotions (anger, frustration, upset) live in you. Want proof? Have you ever been happily driving your car when someone wants to cut into your lane and you pleasantly oblige? Now, can you also remember a time when someone cut in front of you and you honked, screamed and acted like the poster child for road rage? In the latter experience, chances are you were already upset. You had anger and frustration in you, sitting just below the surface. The event itself doesn’t cause the upset—it merely is a trigger that justifies what’s already happening in you and waiting to get out. So when you blame other people for what you’re feeling, you disempower yourself. You’re operating from confusion and making yourself the victim of those around you. ~ Marie Forleo,

690:Her body swelled and stilled. There would be a moment when she would breathe for the last time. An exhalation. There would be that moment, her prize of air, her still lake, her sweet boat floating away away, her body warping wood, swale and heavy, a sinking thing. He sat beside her, a helpless observer, his only power in witness, some bleak ability to watch and record the event in his own brain, which sent the order to his lungs to breathe with her while she still breathed, channels rising, sparks of interior electrical connection fading with the mind's fool hope that it could create some kind of measurable response, to provide some worth of warmth. Her body beside his, swell and still. He thought of her still. He thought of holding her absolutely still. He loved, he loved her. He loved her, still. ~ Amelia Gray,

691:to stand for “periphery.” It is hard to ignore the ubiquity of pi in nature. Pi is obvious in the disks of the moon and the sun. The double helix of DNA revolves around pi. Pi hides in the rainbow and sits in the pupil of the eye, and when a raindrop falls into water, pi emerges in the spreading rings. Pi can be found in waves and spectra of all kinds, and therefore pi occurs in colors and music, in earthquakes, in surf. Pi is everywhere in superstrings, the hypothetical loops of energy that may vibrate in many dimensions, forming the essence of matter. Pi occurs naturally in tables of death, in what is known as a Gaussian distribution of deaths in a population. That is, when a person dies, the event “feels” the Ludolphian number. It is one of the great mysteries why nature seems to know mathematics. ~ Richard Preston,

692:But in the Underworld these things may be accepted only after great inner battle. Death, in fact. Death of your hopes for this relationship, of your understanding of your own motivations in relationship, of your ability in life – so far – to create or find what you want. This is because you are usually dealing with not just a single instance – whether it be a relationship, an illness, depression or other difficulty – but a pattern, and often a whole lifetime’s pattern. Sometimes it is even a generational pattern. In the Underworld you have to change not just on the surface level – this instance of the event – but all the way through, down to the core. In the Underworld you get to rewrite your own pattern. This can take a while. It can look messy. It is usually deeply distressing, revelatory and freeing. ~ Jane Meredith,

693:When we experience a sad event it is natural to react to it with pain. The first arrow is the event. Our prolonged reactions to the event are the second arrows. It is natural to need time to recover. But we made it harder for ourselves when we second guess ourselves and feel guilty or ashamed. Instead we can work with and modify these emotions from the second arrow. We can have both the courage to accept our suffering and the skills to move beyond it. We can pardon ourselves and all those around us. This may be the most important thing - that we learn to grant ourselves mercy. That we forgive ourselves, that we accept our pain, mistakes, and vulnerability, and somehow manage to love ourselves and our own lives. ...And it is only when we grant ourselves mercy that we can extend this mercy to others. ~ Mary Pipher,

694:that younger people are so used to text-based communications, where they have time to gather their thoughts and precisely plan what they are going to say, that they are losing their ability to have spontaneous conversation. She argues that the muscles in our brain that help us with spontaneous conversation are getting less exercise in the text-filled world, so our skills are declining. When we did the large focus group where we split the room by generation—kids on the left, parents on the right—a strange thing happened. Before the show started, we noticed that the parents’ side of the room was full of chatter. People were talking to one another and asking how they had ended up at the event and getting to know people. On the kids’ side, everyone was buried in their phones and not talking to anyone around them. ~ Aziz Ansari,

695:Do you want to get over this?” This is her contract that will be used over and over again to remind her that SHE wanted to change and she was willing to pay the price. There is great power in the victim identity. Instructors and other students go out of their way to be accommodating and gentle. The survivor can often get out of any drill or derail the entire class by admitting her discomfort. This sentence allows the instructor to point it out when this happens, to point out that the benefits of victim status must be given up to outgrow the victim status. This is hard, but critical. The subtle power in the victim status often seems like the only good thing and the only survival tool to come out of the event. Many are reluctant, very reluctant, to give up a useful “victim identity” for a possible stronger self. ~ Rory Miller,

696:What happens when the depth of the text is thought to be swallowed up in a rational approach like this is an externalization and objectification of faith. Here the words are analyzed, contextualized, and grasped by those who are not necessarily taken up by the depth of the event housed within them. Like someone who analyzes a parable without ever touching upon its transformative power, a purely academic understanding of the text, however brilliant, will always be a (mis)understanding. To believe that the words are the Word reduces the text to what can be named, described, and transcribed. To treat it in this way means that we approach the Word as a thing that stands before us to be examined, poked, prodded, and played with. The Word of God, in this reading, thus refers to something, some thing, some set of things. ~ Peter Rollins,

697:The Bremen German literature conference was highly eventful. Pelletier, backed by Morini and Espinoza, went on the attack like Napoleon at Jena, assaulting the unsuspecting German Archimboldi scholars, and the downed flags of Pohl, Schwarz, and Borchmeyer were soon routed to the cafés and taverns of Bremen. The young German professors participating in the event were bewildered at first and then took the side of Pelletier and his friends, albeit cautiously. The audience, consisting mostly of university students who had traveled from Göttingen by train or in vans, was also won over by Pelletier’s fiery and uncompromising interpretations, throwing caution to the winds and enthusiastically yielding to the festive, Dionysian vision of ultimate carnival (or penultimate carnival) exegesis upheld by Pelletier and Espinoza. ~ Roberto Bola o,

698:Idea means execution. Feeling becomes action. I don't know why people find this idea so hard to get. I mean, you can throw any two people together, it doesn't mean they'll fall in love. Everyone knows this. No one quite understands how it works. It's just those people, where they are in their lives, how circumstance throw them together. Sure, it's happened before, but never quite in that way. Maybe they seem to come together all wrong. Maybe they've loved others. Maybe they don't always do right by each other... but it's still there, the love. The event. And no one would dare criticize it just because it's common, it's a little asymmetrical, and anyone can do it. It is unique. It is theirs. It is beautiful. They have made something that had been made a million times before and has also never existed before that moment. ~ Maureen Johnson,

699:How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the event, A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward, I do not know Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;' Sith I have cause and will and strength and means To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me: Witness this army of such mass and charge Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd ~ William Shakespeare,

700:The big color television set was on, glowing eerily over the bottles of rye and bourbon, and that was how I happened to witness the event. I saw the two padded figures take their first steps in that airless world, bouncing like toys over the landscape, driving a golf cart through the dust, planting a flag in the eye of what had once been the goddess of love and lunacy. Radiant Diana, I thought, image of what is dark within us. Then the president spoke. In a solemn, deadpan voice he declared this to be the greatest event since the creation of man. The old-timers at the bar laughed when they heard this, and I believe I managed to crack a smile or two myself. But for all the absurdity of that remark, there was one thing no one could challenge: since the day he was expelled from Paradise, Adam had never been this far from home. ~ Paul Auster,

701:Idea meets execution. Feeling becomes action. I don't know why people find this idea so hard to get. I mean, you can throw any two people together, it doesn't mean they'll fall in love. Everyone knows this. No one quite understands how it works. It's just those people, where they are in their lives, how circumstance throws them together. Sure, it's happened before, but never quite in that way. Maybe they seem to come together all wrong. Maybe they've loved others. Maybe they don't always do right by each other...but it's still there, the love. The event. And no one would dare criticize it just because it's common, it's a little asymmetrical, and anyone can do it. It is unique. It is theirs. It is beautiful. They have made something that has been made a million times before and has also never existed before that moment. ~ Maureen Johnson,

702:A historian has to do with the results of an event, the artist with the fact of the event. A historian, describing a battle, says: the left flank of such-and-such army was moved against such-and-such village, cut down the enemy, but was forced to retreat; then the cavalry, going into the attack, overthrew . . . and so on. The historian cannot speak otherwise. And yet these words have no meaning for an artist and do not even touch upon the event itself. The artist, using his own experience, or letters, memoirs, and accounts, derives for himself an image of the event that took place, and quite often (in a battle for example) the conclusion which the historian allows himself to draw about the activity of such-and-such army turns out to be the opposite of the artist’s conclusion.5 Despite that, though, Tolstoy also notes that ~ Christopher R Beha,

703:Remember what I told you on the phone, that I found out the truth about the grant that was paying all my expenses?” she asked. Leta nodded. “Well, it wasn’t a grant that was paying for my education and living expenses.” She took a harsh breath. “It was Tate.” Leta scowled. “Are you sure?” “I’m very sure.” She glanced at the older woman. “I found out in the middle of Senator Matt Holden’s political fund-raiser, and I lost my temper. I poured crab bisque all over your son and there were television cameras covering the event.” She turned her wounded eyes toward the dancers. “I was devastated when I found out I’m nothing more than a charity case to him.” “That isn’t true,” Leta said gently, but a little remotely. “You know Tate’s very fond of you.” “Yes. Very fond, the way a guardian is fond of a ward. He owned me. ~ Diana Palmer,

704:In the philosophy of mind - as, indeed, in more important matters - [the twentieth century] has been a less than fully satisfactory century. We pretty much wasted the first half, so it seems to me, in a neurotic and obsessive preoccupation with refuting Cartesian skepticism about other minds. In the event, it didn't matter that the skeptics weren't refuted since there turned out not to be any. The only philosophers who really were doubtful about the existence of other minds were relentless anti-Cartesians like Wittgenstein, Dewey, Ryle, Quine and Rorty, and they were equally doubtful about the existence of their own. What we got for our efforts was mostly decades of behaviorism and the persistent bad habit of trying to run epistemological or semantic arguments for metaphysical conclusions. The end of this, I fear, is still not with us. ~ Jerry A Fodor,

705:Signs imply ways of living, possibilities of existence, they are the symptoms of an overflowing (jaillissante) or exhausted (épuisée) life. But an artist cannot be content with an exhausted life, nor with a personal life. One does not write with one's ego, one's memory, and one's illnesses. In the act of writing there's an attempt to make life something more personal, to liberate life from what imprisons it...There is a profound link between signs, the event, life, and vitalism. It is the power of nonorganic life, that which can be found in a line of a drawing, a line of writing, a line of music. It is organisms that die, not life. There is no work of art that does not indicate an opening for life, a path between the cracks. Everything I have written has been vitalistic, at least I hope so, and constitutes a theory of signs and the event. ~ Gilles Deleuze,

706:She thought that she had realized all that was in her soul to realize in the event, and when at length the time came to put on her veil, leave the bedroom she had shared with her husband, leave their home, and go down to see him for the first time since his death and to see the long day through, which would cover him out of sight for the duration of this world, she thought that she was firm and ready. She had refused to "try on" her veil; the mere thought of approving or disapproving it before a mirror was obscene; so now when she came to the mirror and drew it down across her face to go, she saw herself for the first time since her husband's death. Without either desiring to see her face, or caring how it looked, she saw that it had changed; through the deep, clear veil her gray eyes watched her gray eyes watch her through the deep, clear veil. ~ James Agee,

707:Nineteenth-century liberalism had assumed that man was a rational being who operated naturally according to his own best interests, so that in the end, what was reasonable would prevail. On this principle liberals defended extension of the suffrage toward the goal of one man, one vote. But a rise in literacy and in the right to vote, as the event proved, did nothing to increase common sense in politics. The mob that is moved by waving the bloody shirt, that decides elections in response to slogans—Free Silver, Hang the Kaiser, Two Cars in Every Garage—is not exhibiting any greater political sense than Marie Antoinette, who said, “Let them eat cake,” or Caligula, who made his horse a consul. The common man proved no wiser than the decadent aristocrat. He has not shown in public affairs the innate wisdom which democracy presumed he possessed. ~ Barbara W Tuchman,

708:Some men have been virtuous blindly, others have speculated fantastically, and others have been shrewd to bad purposes; but you, sir, I am sure, will give under your hand, nothing but what is at the same moment, wise, practical and good, your account of yourself (for I suppose the parallel I am drawing for Dr. Franklin, will hold not only in point of character, but of private history) will show that you are ashamed of no origin; a thing the more important, as you prove how little necessary all origin is to happiness, virtue, or greatness. As no end likewise happens without a means, so we shall find, sir, that even you yourself framed a plan by which you became considerable; but at the same time we may see that though the event is flattering, the means are as simple as wisdom could make them; that is, depending upon nature, virtue, thought and habit. ~ Anonymous,

709:Combat, like anything in life, has inherent layers of complexities. Simplifying as much as possible is crucial to success. When plans and orders are too complicated, people may not understand them. And when things go wrong, and they inevitably do go wrong, complexity compounds issues that can spiral out of control into total disaster. Plans and orders must be communicated in a manner that is simple, clear, and concise. Everyone that is part of the mission must know and understand his or her role in the mission and what to do in the event of likely contingencies. As a leader, it doesn’t matter how well you feel you have presented the information or communicated an order, plan, tactic, or strategy. If your team doesn’t get it, you have not kept things simple and you have failed. You must brief to ensure the lowest common denominator on the team understands. ~ Jocko Willink,

710:The ABCD Model Rational emotive therapy is all about the ABCDs. This simple acronym describes an effective, easy-to-remember framework for recognizing and changing irrational ideas. Here are the basics: A is for activating. These are the red-flag events that trigger your anger. They could be almost anything, such as someone spills a drink or your spouse forgets to pay a bill. B is for belief. Here, belief is a catchall term for how you think about or appraise the activating event. C is for consequence. This refers to emotional consequences in particular. These are the feelings you experience as a result of how you interpreted the event. D is for dispute. This is when you examine your beliefs and expectations (B) regarding the activating event (A). Are they unrealistic or irrational? Is there a more constructive and emotionally agreeable way of looking at things? ~ Anonymous,

711:…it’s come over me clear that the last two or three years that in a group killing of a man, in a mobbing, the event reaches a point where all rationale is gone; such a term as “anarchist” and “traitor” or “Boche” or “Englander Schwein” disappears and they babble hysterically only one or two epithets, in our language usually a tenor of “Son of a Bitch” with a bass of “Cocksucker”. Since some of the finest blood of the human family goes this way poets and painters have a right to try to employ it or at least not kid themselves about what actually happened at Golgotha. Since I’ve talked with men who were in the trenches and since I’ve seen race riots I am suspicious that the sponge of vinegar on the spear is a faked legend and what probably happened, if the historicity of Jesus is ever established, is that they cut off his genital organ and stuck it in his mouth…. ~ Carl Sandburg,

712:The major players in the Philby story were invariably wise after the event. Spies, even more than most people, invent the past to cover up mistakes. The Philby case has probably attracted more retrospective conspiracy theories than any other in the history of espionage: Dick White of MI6 was running a ruse to trap him; Nicholas Elliott was secretly jousting with him; James Angleton suspected him and set Miles Copeland to spy on him; Philby’s fellow journalists (another tribe adept at misremembering the past) later claimed that they had always seen something fishy in his behavior. Even Eleanor, his wife, would later look back and claim to have discovered clues to his real nature. No one likes to admit they have been utterly conned. The truth was simpler, as it almost always is: Philby was spying on everyone, and no one was spying on him, because he fooled them all. ~ Ben Macintyre,

713:The United States military officially began using canines in World War I and by World War II more than four hundred scout dogs were taking part in combat patrols, finding and hunting the enemy. After Pearl Harbor, a group of dog breeders formed “Dogs for Defense,” with the goal of building a well-trained canine force in the event America went to war. Come Korea, roughly 1,500 canines performed guard duty with the Army while others joined patrols. During Vietnam, with its close-quarters combat in treacherous terrain and tropical climes, dogs were once again called into action: around four thousand joined patrols to hunt for weapons and enemies, and served duty on army bases, especially at night when soldiers were most vulnerable to attack. But many of the dogs that served alongside U.S. soldiers never made it home; some were euthanized and others abandoned in ~ Gayle Tzemach Lemmon,

714:The lowest animal forms had no nervous systems, still less a cerebrum; yet no one would venture to deny them the capacity for responding to stimuli. One could suspend life; not merely particular sense-organs, not only nervous reactions, but life itself. One could temporarily suspend the irritability to sensation of every form of living matter in the plant as well as in the animal kingdom; one could narcotize ova and spermatozoa with chloroform, chloral hydrate, or morphine. Consciousness, then, was simply a function of matter organized into life; a function that in higher manifestations turned upon its avatar and became an effort to explore and explain the phenomenon it displayed—a hopeful-hopeless project of life to achieve self-knowledge, nature in recoil—and vainly, in the event, since she cannot be resolved in knowledge, nor life, when all is said, listen to itself. ~ Thomas Mann,

715:Much has been made of an alleged distinction between revelation as propositional and revelation as personal. Since God is himself a person, so some say, revelation cannot be propositional (or at least, not primarily so). Revelation is God making himself known, the event of disclosing his person to other persons. But Packer is certainly correct in pointing out that this distinction should not be pressed too far. He notes: Personal friendship between God and man, grows just as human friendships do—namely, through talking; and talking means making informative statements, and informative statements are propositions. . . . [Indeed] to say that revelation is non-propositional is actually to depersonalize it. . . . To maintain that we may know God without God actually speaking to us in words is really to deny that God is personal, or at any rate that knowing Him is a truly personal relationship.7 ~ Anonymous,

716:Drift. Down through deltas of former girlfriends, degrees of confirmation of girlfriendhood, personal sightings of Rez or Lo together with whichever woman in whatever public place, each account illuminated with the importance the event had held for whoever had posted it. This being for Laney the most peculiar aspect of this data, the perspective in which these two loomed. Human in every detail but then not so. Everything scrupulously, fanatically accurate, probably, but always assembled around the hollow armature of celebrity. He could see celebrity here, not like Kathy’s idea of a primal substance, but as a paradoxical quality inherent in the substance of the world. He saw that the quantity of data accumulated here by the band’s fans was much greater than everything the band themselves had ever generated. And their actual art, the music and the videos, was the merest fragment of that. ~ William Gibson,

717:A few seconds more and the Negress will sing. It seems inevitable, so strong is the necessity of this music: nothing can interrupt it, nothing which comes from this time in which the world has fallen; it will stop by itself, as if by order. If I love this beautiful voice it is especially because of that: it is neither for its fulness nor its sadness, rather because it is the event for which so many notes have been preparing, from so far away, dying that it might be born. And yet I am troubled; it would take so little to make the record stop: a broken spring, the whim of Cousin Adolphe. How strange it is, how moving, that this hardness should be so fragile. Nothing can interrupt it yet it can break it. The last chord has died away. In the brief silence which follows I feel strongly that there is, that SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED. Silence. "SOME OF THESE DAYS YOU'LL MISS ME HONEY ~ Jean Paul Sartre,

718:I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but who is obviously calm, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to reenter and be riven. An acrobat after spinning through the air in a mockery of flight stands erect on his perch and mockingly takes his bow as if what he is being applauded for was easy for him and cost him nothing, although meanwhile he is covered with sweat and his smile is edged with a relief chilling to think about; he is indulging in a show-business style; he is pretending to be superhuman. I am bored with that and with here it has brought us. I admire the authority of being on one's knees in front of the event. - Innocence, from My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead ~ Harold Brodkey,

719:In the event of a change in cabin pressure, the flight attendant on the video was saying, you put your oxygen mask on first, pulling the cord, and then you helped others in your party who needed your assistance. The video showed a nice-looking dad tugging the oxygen mask over his own face, his placid daughter sitting quietly beside him, breathing bad air. What kind of idiot came up with that rule? The didn't understand human nature at all. She imagined the compartment filling slowly with smoke and Noah beside her, gasping. Did they really think that she could straighten the mask on her own face and breathe in clean air while her asthmatic son struggled to take a breath? The assumption was that she and her child were two different entities with seperate hearts and lungs and minds. They didn't realise that when your child was gasping for air, you felt your own breath trapped in your chest. ~ Sharon Guskin,

720:Prayer is based on the remote possibility that someone is actually listening; but so is a lot of conversation. If the former seems far-fetched, consider the latter: even if someone is listening to your story, and really hearing, that person will disappear from existence in the blink of a cosmic eye, so why bother to tell this perhaps illusory and possibly un-listening person something he or she is unlikely to truly understand, just before the two of you blip back out of existence? We like to talk to people who answer us, intelligently if possible, but we do talk without needing response or expecting comprehension. Sometimes, the event is the word, the act of speaking. Once we pull that apart a bit, the action of talking becomes more important than the question of whether the talking is working-because we know, going in, that the talking is not working. That said, one might as well pray. ~ Jennifer Michael Hecht,

721:If you’ve ever studied mortal age cartoons, you’ll remember this one. A coyote was always plotting the demise of a smirking long-necked bird. The coyote never succeeded; instead, his plans always backfired. He would blow up, or get shot, or splat from a ridiculous height. And it was funny. Because no matter how deadly his failure, he was always back in the next scene, as if there were a revival center just beyond the edge of the animation cell. I’ve seen human foibles that have resulted in temporary maiming or momentary loss of life. People stumble into manholes, are hit by falling objects, trip into the paths of speeding vehicles. And when it happens, people laugh, because no matter how gruesome the event, that person, just like the coyote, will be back in a day or two, as good as new, and no worse—or wiser—for the wear. Immortality has turned us all into cartoons. ~ Neal Shusterman,

722:THE NEXT day, the President and I announced a new small business lending initiative in the East Room. After I laid out the details in my usual colorless fashion, the President said he wanted to take a moment to discuss his outrage about the AIG bonuses. “I’ve asked Secretary Geithner to use [our] leverage and pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole,” he said. “I want everybody to be clear that Secretary Geithner has been on the case.” I read a draft of those remarks the morning of the event, and I wasn’t pleased. We didn’t think we could claw back the bonuses that had already been obligated, and even if we could modestly reduce future payouts, raising public expectations seemed unwise. I thought the President should stay as far away from the issue as possible. I didn’t see the need to remind everyone that I was “on the case,” either. But the country ~ Timothy F Geithner,

723:A most obstinate misconception associated with the gospel of Jesus Christ is that the gospel is welcome in this world. The conviction endemic among church folk persists that, if problems of misapprehension and misrepresentation are overcome and the gospel can be heard in its own integrity, the gospel will be found attractive by people, become popular and even be a success of some sort. This idea is curious and ironical because it is bluntly contradicted in Scripture, and in the experience of the continuing biblical witness in history from the event of Pentecost unto the present moment. During Jesus' earthly ministry, no one in His family and not a single one of the disciples accepted Him, believed His vocation or loved the gospel He bespoke and embodies. Since the rubrics of success, power, or gain are impertinent to the gospel, the witness of the saints looks foolish where it is most exemplary. ~ William Stringfellow,

724:Just so," said Bariano with equanimity. "But let me cite you a parable, or, if you prefer, a paradox. Assume that you are lying in bed asleep. Your dreaming brings you into the company of an alluring woman who starts to make exciting suggestions. At this moment a large dirty pet animal clambers upon the bed and sprawls its hairy bulk beside you with its tail draped over your forehead. You move restlessly in your sleep and in so doing press your face against one of its organs. In your dream it seems that the beautiful woman is kissing you with warm moist lips, causing a delightful sensation. You are thrilled and exalted! Then you wake up and discover the truth of the contact, and you are displeased. Now then: consider carefully! Should you enjoy the rapture of the dream? Or, after beating the animal, should you huddle cheerlessly in the dark brooding upon the event? Arguments can be developed in either direction. ~ Jack Vance,

725:Phelps and Hirst surveyed several hundred people about their September 11 recollections over a period of ten years, observing the subjects’ memories deteriorate even as the subjects exhibited no clue that their deeply felt stories were morphing. All the participants whom Phelps and Hirst surveyed had formed a flashbulb memory of the 9/11 attacks. It turned out that most of the forgetting, which was manifested in errors of either omission or commission, occurred in the first year after the event. The deviations ranged from simple tweaks to wholesale revisions, and even in the case of extreme changes, the subjects were unaware that they were deconstructing and reconstructing what seemed, to them, a very stable story. Researchers believe that the act of repeating a narrative somehow contaminates it, meaning that nowhere in our brains do any permanent, unmarred memories reside, no matter how much it may feel that way. ~ Lauren Slater,

726:We can act to deal with the consequences of the earthquake and tsunami, but the disaster was only faintly political in the economics and indifference...the relief will be very political, in who gives how much (Bush offering 15 million, then 35 million under pressure, the cost of his inauguration and then 350 million under strong international pressure)...but the event itself transcends politics, the realm of things we cause and can work to prevent. We cannot wish that human beings were not subject to the forces of nature, including the mortality... we cannot wish for the seas to dry up, that the waves grow still, that the tectonic plates ceast to exist, that nature ceases to be beyond our abilities to predict and control... But the terms of that nature include such catastrophe and suffering, which leaves us with sorrow as not a problem to be solved but a fact. And it leaves us with compassion as the work we will never finish ~ Rebecca Solnit,

727:It is not beside the point to note that, in the thought which will inspire our revolutions, the supreme good does not, in reality, coincide with existence, but with an arbitrary facsimile. The entire history of mankind is, in any case, nothing but a prolonged fight to the death for the conquest of universal prestige and absolute power. It is, in its essence, imperialist. We are far from the gentle savage of the eighteenth century and from the Social Contract. In the sound and fury of the passing centuries, each separate consciousness, to ensure its own existence, must henceforth desire the death of others. Moreover, this relentless tragedy is absurd, since, in the event of one consciousness being destroyed, the victorious consciousness is not recognized as such, in that it cannot be victorious in the eyes of something that no longer exists. In fact, it is here the philosophy of appearances reaches its limits. ~ Albert Camus,

728:I also need to make sure you two both know how this ends. When you come in, if the choice is between me or her, you chose her. You always choose her.” I will always choose her. I cracked my knuckles. “I can’t do this unless I know in the end, no matter how this fucking shit plays out, that she’ll at least make it out whole,” I said. Looking back toward the houseboat, Jake nodded. “Agreed.” “No problem,” Bear said. “In the event you don’t make it out though, I’ll take real good care of your girl for you.” “Jake,” I said. “If I don’t come out of this, shoot that motherfucker in the head.” I stood and started walking toward the houseboat. “10-4,” Jake answered. “What the fuck?” Bear shoved my shoulder. “You can’t say that kind of shit to him, man. He’ll take you fucking seriously.” “That was fucked up, Boss Man. Jake wouldn’t know sarcasm if it bit him on his Dexter ass,” Preppy chimed in. “Good. Cause I wasn’t fucking joking,” I said. “It’s ~ T M Frazier,

729:Q. And have you heard about this case? A. Yes, I have. Q. From what source may you have heard about the case? A. Newspapers. Q. And have you discussed it with other people? A. Occasionally. Q. And based upon whatever you may have heard from any source whatsoever, do you feel that you have already in your own mind formed an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of this defendant? A. Well, to be perfectly honest, I think I would be a little biased. Q. Let me ask you another question. In the event that you were to be chosen to serve, do you feel that you could sit and listen to all the evidence in the case and then judge it fairly and impartially and apply the law that the judge gives to you and put aside completely any previous opinions or conceptions or ideas about anything in the case and then do you believe that you could render a fair verdict as to the guilt or innocence of this defendant? A. I think I could. Q. Do you believe that you could? A. I think so. ~ Assata Shakur,

730:It is because people realized that identification is causing so much trouble that they immediately started giving you an antidote – “detachment.” The moment you detach yourself, your ability to experience life is also gone. Where there is no involvement, there is no life. Life cannot be experienced unless there is involvement – the deeper the involvement, the deeper the experience of life. However small the event may be, however small a piece of life may be, if you are deeply involved, it is a great experience for you. Nothing dramatic or spectacular needs to happen in your life. If you are deeply involved with the simplest aspect of your life, you will see every aspect of your life is spectacular. But why is so much detachment being taught everywhere? It is because of the fear of entanglement. It is from this fear that detachment is always being propagated. If you detach yourself from life, you are avoiding life. You are here to experience life, not to avoid life. ~ Sadguru,

731:And yet the debate was highly informative—if you turned the sound off. The event was broadcast with a split screen so that each presidential candidate was visible while the other candidate was talking. The talk was insipid, but the expressions on the candidates’ faces were fascinating. Trump was serious of mien. He concentrated intently on what Hillary was saying. Sometimes there was a little twitch of annoyance; sometimes, a small frown of disagreement. But mostly he looked deeply thoughtful. (Where he got that look is anyone’s guess. Maybe he purchased it at the same strange haberdashery where Hillary buys her Hillary costume.) Clinton is supposed to be the one with the deep thoughts. But there she was thoughtlessly making rude grimaces whenever Trump was speaking. Mom always said, “You shouldn’t make faces—your face may get stuck that way.” Hillary’s face got stuck that way. She spent the whole evening with a wipe-that-look-off-your-face look on her face. She ~ P J O Rourke,

732:There are all sorts of families," Tom's grandmother had remarked, and over the following few weeks Tom became part of the Casson family, as Micheal and Sarah and Derek-from-the-camp had done before him. He immediately discovered that being a member of the family was very different from being a welcome friend. If you were a Casson family member, for example, and Eve drifted in from the shed asking, "Food? Any ideas? Or shall we not bother?" then you either joined in the search of the kitchen cupboards or counted the money in the housekeeping jam jar and calculated how many pizzas you could afford. Also, if you were a family member you took care of Rose, helped with homework (Saffron and Sarah were very strict about homework), unloaded the washing machine, learned to fold up Sarah's wheelchair, hunted for car keys, and kept up the hopeful theory that in the event of a crisis Bill Casson would disengage himself from his artistic life in London and rush home to help. ~ Hilary McKay,

733:About the "don't put all your eggs in one basket'' quote and someone saying "but I like this basket!" In a culture that often advises you to have a backup plan just in case your dreams don't work out, it is counterintuitive to put all your eggs in one basket. But in planning for the "just in case" scenario, sometimes you spread yourself too thin and don't put enough energy (eggs) into the one dream (basket) you really want. Too many baskets can water down your efforts and keep you from engaging in any one endeavor. It is often fear that keeps you from committing yourself fully to the thing you want most. Whether it is a relationship, a job, or a business venture, anything worth having is worth giving your all. In the event that you put all your eggs in one basket and that basket is lost, trust that you have the ability and faith to use the wisdom gained to rebuild and start again. You are resilient. And if you have to start over, you can do it. ~ Valorie Burton,

734:Indeed, as I interviewed all twenty-four of the guests, this issue and sound problems came up all but three times. Of this small sample, nearly nine out of ten of the first-time guests did not return because they struggled with either the sound or lighting in the worship service. As I conducted hundreds of consultations over the next three decades, I heard many first-time guests mention the issues of light and sound. And while it’s not a challenge in all churches, the issue was sufficiently pervasive to deem it important. Sound and lighting. Color me surprised. In the event you are wondering why guests are hesitant to mention their problems with sound and lighting, I asked them. And they told me clearly. There were two common responses. First, they felt petty by mentioning it. Here is my best recollection of the words from my first interview with Linda. “I hate even saying it,” she began. “But I just have trouble worshipping when it’s so dark I can’t even see my Bible. ~ Thom S Rainer,

735:But all over-expression, whether by journalists, poets, novelists, or clergymen, is bad for the language, bad for the mind; and by over-expression, I mean the use of words running beyond the sincere feeling of writer or speaker or beyond what the event will sanely carry. From time to time a crusade is preached against it from the text: ‘The cat was on the mat.’ Some Victorian scribe, we must suppose, once wrote: ‘Stretching herself with feline grace and emitting those sounds immemorially connected with satisfaction, Grimalkin lay on a rug whose richly variegated pattern spoke eloquently of the Orient and all the wonders of the Arabian Nights.’ And an exasperated reader annotated the margin with the shorter version of the absorbing event. How the late Georgian scribe will express the occurrence we do not yet know. Thus, perhaps: ‘What there is of cat is cat is what of cat there lying cat is what on what of mat laying cat.’ The reader will probably the margin with ‘Some cat! ~ John Galsworthy,

736:The activity of a commander-in-chief does not at all resemble the activity we imagine to ourselves when we sit at ease in our studies examining some campaign on the map, with a certain number of troops on this and that side in a certain known locality, and begin our plans from some given moment. A commander-in-chief is never dealing with the beginning of any event—the position from which we always contemplate it. The commander-in-chief is always in the midst of a series of shifting events and so he never can at any moment consider the whole import of an event that is occurring. Moment by moment the event is imperceptibly shaping itself, and at every moment of this continuous, uninterrupted shaping of events the commander-in-chief is in the midst of a most complex play of intrigues, worries, contingencies, authorities, projects, counsels, threats, and deceptions and is continually obliged to reply to innumerable questions addressed to him, which constantly conflict with one another. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

737:There's a theory about déja vu." "I don't want to hear it." "Why do we think these things happened before? Simple. They did happen before, in our minds, as visions of the future. Because these are precognitions, we can't fit the material into our system of consciousness as it is now structured. This is basically supernatural stuff. We're seeing into the future but haven't learned how to process the experience. So it stays hidden until the precognition comes true, until we come face to face with the event. Now we are free to remember it, to experience it as familiar material." "Why are so many people having these episodes now?" "Because death is in the air," he said gently. "It is liberating suppressed material. It is getting us closer to things we haven't learned about ourselves. Most of us have probably seen our own death but haven't known how to make the material surface. Maybe when we die, the first thing we'll say is, 'I know this feeling. I was here before. ~ Don DeLillo,

738:The missile crisis "was the most dangerous moment in human history," Arthur Schlesinger commented in October 2002 at a conference in Havana on the fortieth anniversary of the crisis, attended by a number of those who witnessed it from within as it unfolded. Desision-makers at the time undoubtedly understood that the fate of the world was in their hands. Nevertheless, attendees at the conference may have been shocked by some of the revelations. They were informed that in October 1962 the world was "one word away" from nuclear war. "A guy named Arkhipov saved the world," said Thomas Blanton of the National Security Archive in Washington, which helped organize the event. He was referring to Vasil Arkhipov, a Soviet submarine officer blocked an order to fire nuclear-armed toredoes in October 27, at the tensest moment of the crisis, when te submarines were under attack bu US destroyers, A devastating response would have been a near certainty, leading a major war. Pg 74, Penguin Publication ~ Noam Chomsky,

739:If I burst into a house and yell to all assembled, “Put on the kettle!” I have uttered an imperative English sentence, but some will probably infer that I would like to have a cup of tea or other hot beverage, while another may further surmise that I feel myself at home here, and may in fact be the occupant of this house. Yet another person present, a monoglot Hungarian, may infer only that I speak English, and so does whomever I am addressing (well, it sounds like English to her), while somebody really in the know will be instantly informed that I have decided after all to steam open that sealed envelope and surreptitiously read the letter inside in spite of the fact that it isn’t addressed to me; a crime is about to be committed. What semantic information can be gleaned from the event depends on what information the gleaner already has accumulated. Learning that somebody speaks English can be a valuable update to your world knowledge, a design improvement that may someday pay big dividends. ~ Daniel C Dennett,

740:What is talkativeness? It is the result of doing away with the vital distinction between talking and keeping silent. Only some one who knows how to remain essentially silent can really talk--and act essentially. Silence is the essence of inwardness, of the inner life. Mere gossip anticipates real talk, and to express what is still in thought weakens action by forestalling it. But some one who can really talk, because he knows how to remain silent, will not talk about a variety of things but about one thing only, and he will know when to talk and when to remain silent. Where mere scope is concerned, talkativeness wins the day, it jabbers on incessantly about everything and nothing...In a passionate age great events (for they correspond to each other) give people something to talk about. And when the event is over, and silence follows, there is still something to remember and to think about while one remains silent. But talkativeness is afraid of the silence which reveals its emptiness. ~ S ren Kierkegaard,

741:But I don’t know what my side is, he thought, as he went back to his chair by the window. The Liberation, of course, yes, but what is the Liberation? Not an ideal, the freedom of the enslaved. Not now. Never again. Since the Uprising, the Liberation is an army, a political body, a great number of people and leaders and would-be leaders, ambitions and greed clogging hopes and strength, a clumsy amateur semi-government lurching from violence to compromise, ever more complicated, never again to know the beautiful simplicity of the ideal, the pure idea of liberty. And that's what i wanted, what i worked for, all these years. To muddle the nobly simple structure of the hierarchy of caste by infecting it with the idea of justice. And then to confuse the nobly simple structure of the ideal of human equality by trying to make it real. The monolithic lie frays out into a thousand incompatible truth, and that's what i wanted. But i am caught in the insanity, the stupidity, the meaningless brutality of the event. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,

742:While making the prototype for the event, Hollman experienced the full spectrum of highs and lows that came with working for Musk. The engineer had lost his regular glasses weeks earlier when they slipped off his face and fell down a flame duct at the Texas test site. Hollman had since made do by wearing an old pair of prescription safety glasses,fn5 but they too were ruined when he scratched the lenses while trying to duck under an engine at the SpaceX factory. Without a spare moment to visit an optometrist, Hollman started to feel his sanity fray. The long hours, the scratch, the publicity stunt—they were all too much. He vented about this in the factory one night, unaware that Musk stood nearby and could hear everything. Two hours later, Mary Beth Brown appeared with an appointment card to see a Lasik eye surgery specialist. When Hollman visited the doctor, he discovered that Musk had already agreed to pay for the surgery. “Elon can be very demanding, but he’ll make sure the obstacles in your way are removed, ~ Ashlee Vance,

743:But it is the event horizon around a black hole where the Tull-Toks claim the greatest books are to be found. When a Tull-Tok is tired of browsing through the endless universal library, she drifts toward a black hole. As she accelerates toward the point of no return, the streaming gamma rays and x-rays unveil more and more of the ultimate mystery for which all the other books are but glosses. The book reveals itself to be ever more complex, more nuanced, and just as she is about to be overwhelmed by the immensity of the book she is reading, she realizes with a start that time has slowed down to standstill, and she will have eternity to read it as she falls forever towards a center that she will never reach. Finally, a book has triumphed over time. Of course, no Tull-Tok has ever returned from such a journey, and many dismiss their discussion of reading black holes as pure myth. Indeed, many consider the Tull-Toks to be nothing more than illiterate frauds who rely on mysticism to disguise their ignorance. ~ Ken Liu,

744:SOULS are like wax waiting for a seal. By themselves they have no special identity. Their destiny is to be softened and prepared in this life, by God’s will, to receive, at their death, the seal of their own degree of likeness to God in Christ. And this is what it means, among other things, to be judged by Christ. The wax that has melted in God’s will can easily receive the stamp of its identity, the truth of what it was meant to be. But the wax that is hard and dry and brittle and without love will not take the seal: for the hard seal, descending upon it, grinds it to powder. Therefore if you spend your life trying to escape from the heat of the fire that is meant to soften and prepare you to become your true self, and if you try to keep your substance from melting in the fire—as if your true identity were to be hard wax—the seal will fall upon you at last and crush you. You will not be able to take your own true name and countenance, and you will be destroyed by the event that was meant to be your fulfillment. ~ Thomas Merton,

745:We learned some things anyway," I said. "Didn't we, Brett?" Like how nice it is to skate with Sean and how he's the perfect height for me. "Until we got a little on the frozen side. Then it wasn't so fun." "Kirsten, you never wear enough clothes," Gretchen said. "Oh, really?" Sean smiled at me, as if that fact weren't necessarily a bad characteristic to have. "Actually, I did notice that when she ran outside in her pajamas the other morning." "And then she wonders why she's never warm enough," Gretchen said. "What do you think? Maybe she's cold-blooded. Does that mean she's cold-hearted, too?" "Oh, yeah. In fact, not only am I cold and unfeeling, I'm a reptile, basically. Thanks, Gretch." "Well, you did fall through the ice when you were two," she reminded me—not that I had any memory of the event, just of this story being told every year at about the time everyone was asking, "Is the lake frozen yet?" I was like the poster child for waiting for a deep freeze before venturing onto questionable ice. ~ Catherine Clark,

746:After arriving at Burning Man, Musk, a regular at the event, and his family went through their standard routines. They set up camp and prepped their art car for a drive. This year, they had cut the roof off a small car, elevated the steering wheel, shifted it to the right so that it was placed near the middle of the vehicle, and replaced the seats with a couch. Musk took a lot of pleasure in driving the funky creation.“ Elon likes to see the rawness of people there,” said Bill Lee, his longtime friend. “It’s his version of camping. He wants to go and drive the art cars and see installations and the great light shows. He dances a lot.” Musk put on a display of strength and determination at the event as well. There was a wooden pole perhaps thirty feet high with a dancing platform at the top. Dozens of people tried and failed to climb it, and then Musk gave it a go. “His technique was very awkward, and he should not have succeeded,” said Lyndon. “But he hugged it and just inched up and inched up until he reached the top. ~ Ashlee Vance,

747:long have you been hiding in there struggling to keep it all together? Any time anything goes wrong in the protective model you built about yourself, you defend and rationalize in order to get it back together. Your mind does not stop struggling until you’ve processed the event or somehow made it go away. People feel their very existence is at stake, and they will fight and argue until they get control back. This is all because we have attempted to build solidity where there is none. Now we have to fight to keep it together. The problem is, there is no way out that way. There is no peace and there is no winning in that struggle. You were told not to build your house upon sand. Well, this is the ultimate sand. In fact, you built your house in empty space. If you continue to cling to what you built, you will have to continually and perpetually defend yourself. You will have to keep everybody and everything straight in order to reconcile your conceptual model with reality. It’s a constant struggle to keep it together. ~ Michael A Singer,

748:Death Of Little Boys When little boys grown patient at last, weary, Surrender their eyes immeasurably to the night, The event will rage terrific as the sea; Their bodies fill a crumbling room with light. Then you will touch at the bedside, torn in two, Gold curls now deftly intricate with gray As the windowpane extends a fear to you From one peeled aster drenched with the wind all day. And over his chest the covers in the ultimate dream Will mount to the teeth, ascend the eyes, press back The locks while round his sturdy belly gleam Suspended breaths, white spars above the wreck: Till all the guests, come in to look, turn down Their palms, and delirium assails the cliff Of Norway where you ponder, and your little town Reels like a sailor drunk in a rotten skiff. The bleak sunshine shrieks its chipped music then Out to the milkweed amid the fields of wheat. There is a calm for you where men and women Unroll the chill precision of moving feet. ~ Allen Tate,

749:They way one does research into nonexistent history is to tell the story and find out what happened. I believe this isn't very different from what historians of the so-called real world do. Even if we are present at some historic event, so we comprehend it - can we even remember it - until we can tell it as a story? And for events in times or places outside our own experience, we have nothing to go on but the stories other people tell us. Past events exist, after all, only in memory, which is a form of imagination. The event is real now, but once it's then, its continuing reality is entirely up to us, dependent on our energy and honesty. If we let it drop from memory, only imagination can restore the least glimmer of it. If we lie about the past, forcing it to tell a story we want it to tell, to mean what we want it to mean, it loses its reality, becomes a fake. To bring the past along with us through time in the hold-alls of myth and history is a heavy undertaking; but as Lao Tzu says, wise people march along with the baggage wagons. ~ Ursula K Le Guin,

750:Chapter 51 In Atlanta, the day had gone mostly as Elliott had expected. The stock market crash had rattled everyone. It was a cloud that hung over the euphoria of Black Friday. The most difficult part of his plan had been convincing the other five families to pool their money with his for the purchases, which together added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. They had begun by renting two twenty-six-foot U-Haul trucks. They drove them to Costco and filled them with survival necessities. It was mostly food; Elliott planned to be near a freshwater source if worst came to worst. Next, they purchased two high-end RVs. The price was exorbitant, but they carried a thirty-day money-back guarantee, and they only had to make a down payment—the remainder was financed. Elliott had assured his neighbors that within thirty days, they would either be incredibly glad to have the two homes on wheels—or they’d have their money back. Now he sat in his study, watching the news, waiting for the event he believed would come. He hoped he was wrong. DAY 7 900,000,000 Infected 180,000 Dead ~ A G Riddle,

751:The Bangkok Comfort Zone - that strip running between Patpong, Soi Cowboy and Nana - was a huge bank of ice, thick as a glacier. Only you had to be around years and years to see and feel the deep chill, and by the time you had it was too late, the glacier had already dragged you under. Then you could never escape the gravity of the place that pulled them back from all over the world. Comfort Zone ice like a narcotic made you feel invincible. Zone veterans lived inside a solid block of ice. Zone workers, who were teenagers in chronological years, were soon aged inside the ice. The night ice crystals formed a thick fog over the Zone veterans and workers, creating an ice bridge; these ice people knew they could no longer live outside the Comfort Zone. They looked as normal as anyone else on the street because no one can see the ice, it's carried inside, around the heart. Calvino had gone through the event horizon of the Comfort Zone, and lived in the Zone's ice age for so long that it had become a habit. Addiction, baby. He had become Zone dead like the others ~ Christopher G Moore,

752:I know, your profession is hard and full of things that contradict you, and I foresaw your lament and knew that it would come. Now that it has come, there is nothing I can say to reassure you, I can only suggest that perhaps all professions are like that, filled with demands, filled with hostility toward the individual, saturated as it were with the hatred of those who find themselves mute and sullen in an insipid duty. The situation you must live in now is not more heavily burdened with conventions, prejudices, and false ideas than all the other situations, and if there are some that pretend to offer a greater freedom, there is nevertheless note that is, in itself, vast and spacious and connected to the important Things that the truest kind of life consists of. Only the individual who is solitary is placed under the deepest laws like a Thing, and when he walks out into the rising dawn or looks out into the event-filled evening and when he feels what is happening there, all situations drop from him as if from a dead man, though he stands in the midst of pure life. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke,

753:God loves Port William as it is... Why else should He want it to be better than it is? All my life I had heard preachers quoting John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish by have everlasting life." They would preach on the second part of the verse, to show the easiness of being saved ("only believe"). Where I hung now was the first part. If God loved the world even before the event at Bethlehem, that meant He loved it as it was, with all its faults. That would be Hell itself, in part. He would be like a father with a wayward child, whom He can't help and can't forget. But it would be even worse than that, for He would also know the wayward child and the course of its waywardness and its suffering. That His love contains all the world does not show that the world does not matter, or that He and we do not suffer it unto death; it shows that the world is Hell only in part. But His love can contain it only by compassion and mercy, which, if not Hell entirely, would be at least a crucifixion. ~ Wendell Berry,

754:The single eye of his machine collects the event: this fragile body, which, shed of clothes, is now like a dark sapling whipped about in the wind. The tire is flung around the boy. He is losing consciousness but revives with sudden panic when he is doused with petrol. From the distance, two traffic officers, the ones they call Yellow Fever, watch. The splashing liquid is lighter than water, it is fragrant, it drips off him, beads in his woolly hair. He glistens. The begging stops. He stops begging and he is not yet lit. The whites of his eyes are bright as lamps. And then only the last thing, which is soon supplied. The fire catches with a loud gust, and the crowd gasps and inches back. The boy dances furiously but, hemmed down by the tire, quickly goes prone, and still. The most vivid moment in the fire’s life passes, and its color dulls and fizzes out. The crowd, chattering and sighing, momentarily sated, melts away. The man with the digicam lowers his machine. He, too, disappears. Traffic quickly reconstitutes around the charred pile. The air smells of rubber, meat, and exhaust. ~ Teju Cole,

755:Well, I think it's possible to love someone and still be curious about someone else. And I think you should be able to act on that impulse without impunity. But in our society, where monogamy rules despite all the evidence that it doesn't work, a person is demonized for wanting to break from that traditional model of relationships. I think you can love someone, truly love someone, and still be drawn to someone else. Enough to want to kiss that other person, just to see what it would be like. Or maybe to help confirm that what you've got is better than what else is out there. Because isn't the desire alone a form of betrayal? So what further harm does it do to put those thoughts into action? Ideally, you would be able just to go back to the person you love after you've kissed that other person and discovered it wasn't as interesting as you thought it would be, which I would imagine would be the case most of the time. And in the event that itis unexpectedly amazing, isn't it better to have experienced that moment of bliss rather than imagine what it could have been like? ~ Megan McCafferty,

756:You no longer watch TV, it is TV that watches you (live),” or again: “You are no longer listening to Don’t Panic, it is Don’t Panic that is listening to you”—a switch from the panoptic mechanism of surveillance (Discipline and Punish [Surveiller et punir]) to a system of deterrence, in which the distinction between the passive and the active is abolished. There is no longer any imperative of submission to the model, or to the gaze “YOU are the model!” “YOU are the majority!” Such is the watershed of a hyperreal sociality, in which the real is confused with the model, as in the statistical operation, or with the medium. …Such is the last stage of the social relation, ours, which is no longer one of persuasion (the classical age of propaganda, of ideology, of publicity, etc.) but one of deterrence: “YOU are information, you are the social, you are the event, you are involved, you have the word, etc.” An about-face through which it becomes impossible to locate one instance of the model, of power, of the gaze, of the medium itself, because you are always already on the other side. ~ Jean Baudrillard,

757:Generally he knew by instinct the likely length of an investigation, but on this occasion he did not: as he fought to get his breath he suddenly saw himself as others must see him, and he was struck by the impossibility of his task. The event of the boy's death was not simple because it was not unique and if he traced it backwards, running the time slowly in the opposite direction (but did it have a direction?), it became no clearer. The chain of causality might extend as far back as the boy's birth, in a particular place and on a particular date, or even further into the darkness beyond that. And what of the murderer, for what sequence of events had drawn him to wander by this old church? All these events were random and yet connected, part of a pattern so large that it remained inexplicable. He might, then, have to invent a past from the evidence available - and, in that case, would not the future also be an invention? It was as if he were staring at one of those puzzle drawings in which foreground and background create entirely different images: you could not look at such a thing for long. ~ Peter Ackroyd,

758:This change in communication may have some side effects, though. In her book Alone Together, MIT social psychologist Sherry Turkle convincingly makes the case that younger people are so used to text-based communications, where they have time to gather their thoughts and precisely plan what they are going to say, that they are losing their ability to have spontaneous conversation. She argues that the muscles in our brain that help us with spontaneous conversation are getting less exercise in the text-filled world, so our skills are declining. When we did the large focus group where we split the room by generation—kids on the left, parents on the right—a strange thing happened. Before the show started, we noticed that the parents’ side of the room was full of chatter. People were talking to one another and asking how they had ended up at the event and getting to know people. On the kids’ side, everyone was buried in their phones and not talking to anyone around them. It made me wonder whether our ability and desire to interact with strangers is another muscle that risks atrophy in the smartphone world. You ~ Aziz Ansari,

759:Wretched am I, says one, that this has befallen me. Nay, say you, happy I, who, tho’ this has befallen me, can still remain without sorrow, neither broken by the present, nor dreading the future. The like might have befallen any one; but every one could not have remained thus undejected. Why should the event be called a misfortune, rather than this strength of mind a felicity? But, can you call that a misfortune, to a man, which does not frustrate the intention of his nature? Can that frustrate the intention of it, or hinder it to attain its end, which is not contrary to the will or purpose of his nature; What is this will or purpose? Sure you have learned it. Doth this event hinder you to be just, magnanimous, temperate, prudent, cautious of rash assent, free from error, possessed of a sense of honour and modesty, and of true liberty; or from meriting those other characters, which whoever enjoys, hath all his nature requires, as its proper perfection? And then, upon every occasion of sorrow, remember the maxim, that this event is not a misfortune, but the bearing it courageously is a great felicity. ~ Marcus Aurelius,

760:The last statement reveals more than may appear at first glance: it indicates that Greenspan's mistake was to expect that the lending institutions' enlightened self-interest would make them act more responsibly, more ethically, in order to avoid short-term self-propelling cycles of wild speculation which, sooner or later, burst like a bubble. In other words, his mistake concerned not the facts, the objective economic data or mechanisms; it concerned rather the ethical attitudes generated by market speculation—in particular the premise that market processes will spontaneously generate responsibility and trust, since it is in the long-term self-interest of the participants themselves to act thusly. Clearly, Greenspan's error was not only and not simply one of overestimating the rationality of market agents—that is, their ability to resist the temptation of making wild speculative gains. What he forgot to include in the equation was the financial speculators' quite rational expectation that the risks would be worth taking, since, in the event of a financial collapse, they could count on the state to cover their losses. ~ Slavoj i ek,

761:Remember that this is the first of four days of writing. In today’s writing, your goal is to write about your deepest thoughts and feelings about the trauma or emotional upheaval that has been influencing your life the most. In your writing, really let go and explore this event and how it has affected you. Today, it may be beneficial to simply write about the event itself, how you felt when it was occurring, and how you feel now. As you write about this upheaval, you might begin to tie it to other parts of your life. For example, how is it related to your childhood and your relationships with your parents and close family? How is the event connected to those people you have most loved, feared, or been angry with? How is this upheaval related to your current life — your friends and family, your work, and your place in life? And above all, how is this event related to who you have been in the past, who you would like to be in the future, and who you are now? In today’s writing, it is particularly important that you really let go and examine your deepest emotions and thoughts surrounding this upheaval in your life. ~ James W Pennebaker,

762:Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the classic series Little House, lived that idea, facing some of the toughest and unwelcoming elements on the planet: harsh and unyielding soil, Indian territory, Kansas prairies, and the humid backwoods of Florida. Not afraid, not jaded—because she saw it all as an adventure. Everywhere was a chance to do something new, to persevere with cheery pioneer spirit whatever fate befell her and her husband. That isn’t to say she saw the world through delusional rose-colored glasses. Instead, she simply chose to see each situation for what it could be—accompanied by hard work and a little upbeat spirit. Others make the opposite choice. As for us, we face things that are not nearly as intimidating, and then we promptly decide we’re screwed. This is how obstacles become obstacles. In other words, through our perception of events, we are complicit in the creation—as well as the destruction—of every one of our obstacles. There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means. That’s a thought that changes everything, doesn’t it? ~ Ryan Holiday,

763:Fortunately, psychologists have discovered that when our sense of belonging extends to the whole human community rather than stopping at the boundaries of our own social groups, conflict is dramatically lessened. As long as we recognize that we are interconnected rather than distinct entities, understanding and forgiveness can be extended to oneself and others with fewer barriers in between. One study illustrates this point quite well. Jewish college students were asked about their willingness to forgive modern-day Germans for what happened in the Holocaust. The study had two conditions—either the Holocaust was described as an event in which Germans behaved aggressively toward Jews, or as an event in which humans behaved aggressively toward other humans. The Jewish participants were more willing to forgive modern-day Germans when the event was described as occurring between humans rather than distinct social groups, and they also saw Germans as more similar to themselves in this condition. By simply shifting our frame of reference from distinctiveness to similarity with others, we can dramatically alter our perceptions and emotional reactions. ~ Kristin Neff,

764:All is now ready for the most important event in human history. It is an event planned even before the creation of the world. It is the keeping of a promise made to Abraham over 2000 years earlier. It is the fulfillment of a host of prophecies regarding a Messiah who would come to establish his kingdom. Most importantly, it is the beginning of a dynamically new relationship between God and man. The event is the coming of the Savior of the world, the Messiah—or, as referred to in the Greek, the Christ. This Christ is not to be just another world leader, as Cyrus, Alexander, or Caesar. He is not to be just another great man of God, as Abraham, Moses, or David. He is to be God himself in human flesh! The Lord of heaven is to become a servant of the earth. God, who has previously made himself known through a nation and a law, is now to reveal himself in the most personal way possible—in the form of a man. Until now God’s blessings have been reserved mostly for a chosen people, but now they are to become available to all people in every generation. Who is this Christ, this Messiah? His name is Jesus. His symbolic name, Immanuel (meaning “God with us”), ~ Anonymous,

765:Turning, she smiled with genuine affection at Lord Marchman and offered him her hand through the open window of the coach. “Thank you,” she said shyly but with great sincerity, “for being all the things you are, my lord.” His face scarlet with pleasure at her compliment, John Marchman stepped back and watched her coach pull out of his drive. He watched it until the horses turned onto the road, then he slowly walked back toward the house and went into his study. Sitting down at his desk, he looked at the note he’d written her uncle and idly drummed his fingers upon his desk, recalling her disturbing answer when he asked if she’d dissuaded old Belhaven from pressing his suit. “I think I have,” she’d said. And then John made his decision. Feeling rather like an absurd knight in shining armor rushing to save an unwilling damsel in the event of future distress, he took out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote out a new message to her uncle. As it always happened the moment courtship was involved, Lord Marchman lost his ability to be articulate. His note read: If Belhaven asks for her, please advise me of it. I think I want her first. ~ Judith McNaught,

766:threat condition state. Although Sheepdogs operate in “yellow,” they’re prepared to escalate to “orange” or “red” in a moment’s notice. Though the warrior trains for violence and can withstand the psychological impact of violence, he/ she abhors violence. Identifying and diffusing a threat is the largest segment of the Unbeatable Mind warrior training. Only when all else fails will the warrior engage in a violence to end the threat. When this happens, he/he terrifies their opponent with an offensive mind. Exercise Think about a violent and vicious animal - wolverine, lion, or bear. Sit in silence and begin your breath control. Count backwards from 100. At 50, invoke the image and psychological energy of your chosen animal. Feel the animal’s ferocious attack energy. Feel the animal’s emotions as it seeks to protect its offspring. Imagine yourself fighting a violent criminal with the same psychic animal. Now, practice turning this energy on and off, like a light switch. Repeat this exercise daily for a month. This will cultivate an offensive mind-set and provide an enormous amount of psychological energy to be used in the event of a violent encounter. ~ Mark Divine,

767:The Initiation UNDER the flaming wings of cherubim I moved toward that high altar. O, the hour! And the light waxed intenser, and the dim Low edges of the hills and the grey sea Were caught and captur’d by the present Power, My sureties and my witnesses to be. Then the light drew me in. Ah, perfect pain! Ah, infinite moment of accomplishment! Thou terror of pure joy, with neither wane Nor waxing, but long silence and sharp air As womb-forsaking babes breathe. Hush! the event Let him who wrought Love’s marvellous things declare. Shall I who fear’d not joy, fear grief at all? I on whose mouth Life laid his sudden lips Tremble at Death’s weak kiss, and not recall That sundering from the flesh, the flight from time, The judgements stern, the clear apocalypse, The lightnings, and the Presences sublime. How came I back to earth? I know not how, Nor what hands led me, nor what words were said. Now all things are made mine,—joy, sorrow; now I know my purpose deep, and can refrain; I walk among the living, not the dead; My sight is purged; I love and pity men. ~ Edward Dowden,

768:The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which history has preserved the memory. There was nothing notable in the event which thus set the bells and the bourgeois of Paris in a ferment from early morning. It was neither an assault by the Picards nor the Burgundians, nor a hunt led along in procession, nor a revolt of scholars in the town of Laas, nor an entry of “our much dread lord, monsieur the king,” nor even a pretty hanging of male and female thieves by the courts of Paris. Neither was it the arrival, so frequent in the fifteenth century, of some plumed and bedizened embassy. It was barely two days since the last cavalcade of that nature, that of the Flemish ambassadors charged with concluding the marriage between the dauphin and Marguerite of Flanders, had made its entry into Paris, to the great annoyance of M. lé Cardinal de Bourbon, who, for the sake of pleasing the king, had been obliged to assume an amiable mien towards this whole rustic rabble of Flemish burgomasters, and to regale them at his Hôtel de Bourbon, with a very “pretty morality, allegorical satire, and farce,” while a driving rain drenched the magnificent tapestries at his door. ~ Victor Hugo,

769:Poincare was equally specific: 'It may be surprising to see emotional sensibility invoked a propos of mathematical demonstrations which, it would seem, can interest only the intellect. This would be to forget the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the harmony of numbers and forms, of geometric elegance. This is a true aesthetic feeling that all real mathematicians know. The useful combinations [of ideas] are precisely the most beautiful, I mean those best able to charm this special sensibility.' Max Planck, the father of quantum theory wrote in his autobiography that the pioneer scientist must have 'a vivid intuitive imagination for new ideas not generated by deduction, but by artistically creative imagination.' The quotations could be continued indefinitely, yet I cannot recall any explicit statement to the contrary by any eminent mathematician or physicist. Here, then, is the apparent paradox. A branch of knowledge which operates predominantly with abstract symbols, whose entire rationale and credo are objectivity, verifiability, logicality, turns out to be dependent on mental processes which are subjective, irrational, and verifiable only after the event. ~ Arthur Koestler,

770:A memory is least accurate when most reflected upon, and most accurate when least pondered. Together, those two facts make eyewitness testimony basically worthless. This isn’t what most people believe. Psychologists Dan Simons and Christopher Chabris published a study in 2011 revealing that 63 percent of those surveyed in the United States believe memory works like a video camera, and another 48 percent believe memories are permanent. An additional 37 percent said that eyewitness testimony was reliable enough to be the only evidence necessary to convict someone accused of a crime. Those are seriously shocking facts to a psychologist or a neuroscientist, because none of those things is true. You don’t record everything you see, nor do you notice everything that comes into your mind. The only things that make it past the ears and eyes are those things to which you attend. Memories are not recordings. The moment your first kiss was over, the memory of it began to decay. Each time you recall it, the event is reformed in your mind anew and differently, influenced by your current condition and by all the wisdom you’ve acquired since and all the erroneous details you’ve added. ~ David McRaney,

771:The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveler’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations while you are actually traveling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father. Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later editions of the book all the pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term “Future Perfect” has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be. ~ Douglas Adams,

772:virus, a single newspaper headline in Philadelphia saying “Don’t Go to Any Parades; for the Love of God Cancel Your Stupid Parade” could have saved hundreds of lives. It would have done a lot more than those telling people, “Don’t Get Scared!” Telling people that things are fine is not the same as making them fine. This failure is in the past. Journalists and editors had their reasons. Risking jail time is no joke. But learning from this breakdown in truth-telling is important because the fourth estate can’t fail again. We are fortunate today to have organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization that track how diseases are progressing and report these findings. In the event of an outbreak similar to the Spanish flu, they will be wonderful resources. I hope we’ll be similarly lucky to have journalists who will be able to share necessary information with the public. The public is at its strongest when it is well informed. Despite Lippmann’s claims to the contrary, we are smart, and we are good, and we are always stronger when we work together. If there is a next time, it would be very much to our benefit to remember that. ~ Jennifer Wright,

773:Poppy Hathaway,” he whispered as if it were a magical incantation. He had seen her from a distance on two occasions, once when she had been entering a carriage at the front of the hotel, and once at a ball held at the Rutledge. Harry hadn’t attended the event, but he had watched for a few minutes from a vantage point at an upper floor balcony. Despite her fine-spun beauty and mahogany hair, he hadn’t spared her a second thought. Meeting her in person, however, had been a revelation. Harry began to lower himself into a chair and noted the shredded velvet and clumps of stuffing left by the ferret. A reluctant smile curved his lips as he moved to take the other chair. Poppy. How artless she had been, chatting casually about astrolabes and Franciscan monks as she had browsed among his treasures. She had thrown out words in bright clusters, as if she were scattering confetti. She had radiated a kind of cheery astuteness that should have been annoying, but instead it had given him unexpected pleasure. There was something about her, something . . . it was what the French called esprit, a liveliness of mind and spirit. And that face . . . innocent and knowing, and open. He wanted her. ~ Lisa Kleypas,

774:The experience of freely willed action is quite separate from physical causality. Although it is your hand that picks up the salt, you do not think of the event in terms of a chain of physical causation. You experience it as caused by a decision that a disembodied you made, because you wanted to add salt to your food. Many people find it natural to describe their soul as the source and the cause of their actions. The psychologist Paul Bloom, writing in The Atlantic in 2005, presented the provocative claim that our inborn readiness to separate physical and intentional causality explains the near universality of religious beliefs. He observes that “we perceive the world of objects as essentially separate from the world of minds, making it possible for us to envision soulless bodies and bodiless souls.” The two modes of causation that we are set to perceive make it natural for us to accept the two central beliefs of many religions: an immaterial divinity is the ultimate cause of the physical world, and immortal souls temporarily control our bodies while we live and leave them behind as we die. In Bloom’s view, the two concepts of causality were shaped separately by evolutionary forces, ~ Daniel Kahneman,

775:Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally believed to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petrie dish of melodrama and distortion. I remember well, for instance, the blind animal terror which ensued when some townie set off the civil defense sirens as a joke. Someone said it was a nuclear attack; TV and radio reception, never good there in the mountains, happened to be particularly bad that night, and in the ensuing stampede for the telephones the switchboard shorted out, plunging the school into a violent and almost unimaginable panic. Cars collided in the parking lot. People sceamed, wept, gave away t heir possessions, huddled in small groups for comfort and warmth. Some hippies barricaded themselves in the Science Building, in the lone bomb shelter, and refused to let anyone in who didn't know the world to "Sugar Magnolia." Factions formed, leaders rose from the chaos. Though the world, in fact, was not destroyed, everyone had a marvelous time and people spoke fondly of the event for years afterward. ~ Donna Tartt,

776:Poppy Hathaway," he whispered as if it were a magical incantation. He had seen her from a distance on two occasions, once when she had been entering a carriage at the front of the hotel, and once at a ball held at the Rutledge. Harry hadn't attended the event, but he had watched for a few minutes from a vantage point at an upper floor balcony. Despite her fine-spun beauty and mahogany hair, he hadn't spared her a second thought. Meeting her in person, however, had been a revelation. Harry began to lower himself into a chair and noted the shredded velvet and clumps of stuffing left by the ferret. A reluctant smile curved his lips as he moved to take the other chair. Poppy. How artless she had been, chatting casually about astrolabes and Franciscan monks as she had browsed among his treasures. She had thrown out words in bright clusters, as if she were scattering confetti. She had radiated a kind of cheery astuteness that should have been annoying, but instead it have given him unexpected pleasure. There was something about her, something... it was what the French called esprit, a liveliness of mind and spirit. And that face... innocent and knowing, and open. He wanted her. ~ Lisa Kleypas,

777:My dearest Emma," said he, "for dearest you will always be, whatever the event of this hour's conversation, my dearest, most beloved Emma -- tell me at once. Say 'No,' if it is to be said." She could really say nothing. "You are silent," he cried, with great animation; "absolutely silent! at present I ask no more." Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most prominent feeling. "I cannot make speeches, Emma," he soon resumed; and in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing. "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it. Bear with the truths I would tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have been a very indifferent lover. But you understand me. Yes, you see, you understand my feelings and will return them if you can. At present, I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice. ~ Jane Austen,

778:Bon Voyage Child of a line accurst And old as Troy, Bringer of best and worst In wild alloy— Light, like a linnet first, He sang for joy. Thrall to the gilded ease Of every day, Mocker of all degrees And always gay, Child of the Cyclades And of Broadway— Laughing and half divine The boy began, Drunk with a woodland wine Thessalian: But there was rue to twine The pipes of Pan. Therefore he skipped and flew The more along, Vivid and always new And always wrong, Knowing his only clew A siren song. Careless of each and all He gave and spent: Feast or a funeral He laughed and went, Laughing to be so small In the event. Told of his own deceit By many a tongue, Flayed for his long defeat By being young, 75 Lured by the fateful sweet Of songs unsung— Knowing it in his heart, But knowing not The secret of an art That few forgot, He played the twinkling part That was his lot. And when the twinkle died, As twinkles do, He pushed himself aside And out of view: Out with the wind and tide, Before we knew. ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,

779:I asked Carl to go to the event with me, and he agreed. We rented him a tuxedo, and he looked very handsome in it, if a little uncomfortable. The tuxedo was only the beginning of a miserable evening for Carl. Everywhere we went there were crowds of people, including photographers, and everybody made a big fuss over us. Carl sat through the ceremony and patiently waited afterward while I shook hands and accepted congratulations from a throng of music-industry people. I thought he was really handsome in his tux, but you could tell by the look on his face it suited him like a sock on a rooster. He didn’t say much all evening long, but on the way home, he took off his tuxedo jacket and tie and then even his shirt. I’ll never forget the way he looked sitting there in the car with his suspenders across his bare chest. Finally, he turned to me and said calmly, “Honey, I love you and I will support you in your career any way that I can. I know it’s a big part of you and you wouldn’t be the same person if you didn’t do it. But the limelight’s just not for me. I’ll be there at home waiting for you, but I am not going to any more of these wingdings.” He has been a wingdingless man of his word ever since. ~ Dolly Parton,

780:Such is the state of things in England, and it is well that it should be realised by all of us; but it must not be supposed for a moment that I am afraid of it. I lament it deeply, because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls; but I have no fear at all that it really can do aught of serious harm to the Word of God, to Holy Church, to our Almighty King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Faithful and True, or to His Vicar on earth. Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear for it any new trial now. So far is certain; on the other hand, what is uncertain, and in these great contests commonly is uncertain, and what is commonly a great surprise, when it is witnessed, is the particular mode by which, in the event, Providence rescues and saves His elect inheritance. Sometimes our enemy is turned into a friend; sometimes he is despoiled of that special virulence of evil which was so threatening; sometimes he falls to pieces of himself; sometimes he does just so much as is beneficial, and then is removed. Commonly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God. ~ John Henry Newman,

781:Such is the state of things in England, and it is well that it should be realised by all of us; but it must not be supposed for a moment that I am afraid of it. I lament it deeply, because I foresee that it may be the ruin of many souls; but I have no fear at all that it really can do aught of serious harm to the Word of God, to Holy Church, to our Almighty King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Faithful and True, or to His Vicar on earth. Christianity has been too often in what seemed deadly peril, that we should fear for it any new trial now. So far is certain; on the other hand, what is uncertain, and in these great contests commonly is uncertain, and what is commonly a great surprise, when it is witnessed, is the particular mode by which, in the event, Providence rescues and saves His elect inheritance. Sometimes our enemy is turned into a friend; sometimes he is despoiled of that special virulence of evil which was so threatening; sometimes he falls to pieces of himself; sometimes he does just so much as is beneficial, and then is removed. Commonly the Church has nothing more to do than to go on in her own proper duties, in confidence and peace; to stand still and to see the salvation of God. ~ Saint John Henry Newman,

782:It could be that it’s not the stone itself, but the water molecules inside the stone that record and store the energies of the living. Some research has shown that ordinary water molecules may be able to store memories and may even be able to pass on those memories to other water molecules. Water is a building block of life that has been shown to store the properties of other materials imprinted on it. Some homeopathic medicines under extreme agitation have been shown to “remember” the properties of other chemicals even after those chemicals have been removed from the water (look up the work of immunologist Professor Jacques Benveniste). The theory here is that extreme emotional events can imprint themselves on nearby water molecules and then be released as the water evaporates. But if that were true then why would the memory stay for decades and even centuries after the event? The answer (theoretically) is that the original molecules continually pass their imprinted memories to neighboring molecules. With each copy the memory becomes less clear and distinct the same way copying a videotape makes each copy fade. The water may also evaporate completely, which would cause the imprinted memories to disappear as well. ~ Zak Bagans,

783:Mr. Benedict’s amusement sent him right off to sleep, for he had a condition called narcolepsy that caused him to nod off at unexpected moments. These episodes occurred most often when he experienced strong emotion, and especially when he was laughing. His assistants (who were also, as it happened, his adopted daughters) did what they could to protect him—he could hardly take two steps without Rhonda or Number Two shadowing him watchfully in case he should fall asleep and topple over—and Mr. Benedict guarded against such incidents himself by always wearing a green plaid suit, which he had discovered long ago to have a calming effect. Nevertheless, the occasional bout of sudden sleep was inevitable, and as a result Mr. Benedict’s thick white hair was perpetually tousled, and his face, as often as not, was unevenly shaven and marked with razor nicks. (Unfortunately nothing was more comical, Mr. Benedict said, than the sight of himself in the shaving mirror, where his bright green eyes and long, lumpy nose—together with a false white beard of shaving lather—put him in mind of Santa Claus.) He also wore spectacles of the sturdiest variety, the better to protect against shattering in the event of a fall. But as ~ Trenton Lee Stewart,

784:Once beyond school age, individuals were all expected to carry out two functions: to contribute to production and to take part in military operations. The whole system was based on the “Four Military Lines.” The key tenets were “arm the entire people,” “fortify the entire nation,” “build a nation of military leaders,” and “complete military modernization.” So various militias were formed. When I grew too old for the Youth League, I had no choice but to join one of these militias. In my case, it was the Laborers’ and Farmers’ Red Army. I enlisted when I graduated from high school and embarked on a period of training. The training was professional enough. We learned how to dig trenches and fight to protect our position. We were well trained as snipers. Groups of individuals who were used to working together were formed into military units. The idea was that, in the event of a crisis, the units could be mobilized very quickly. We had exercises twice a year, at the hottest and the coldest time of year. We’d do things like climb a mountain or dig trenches out of the frozen ground. Right from the start, the one thing I kept asking myself was this: What was with the party’s obsession with militarizing the entire nation? ~ Masaji Ishikawa,

785:These ways we have to settle. Moving house. I hate packing: collecting myself up, pulling myself apart. Stripping the body of the house: the walls, the floors, the shelves. Then I arrive, an empty house. It looks like a shell. How I love unpacking. Taking things out, putting things around, arranging myself all over the walls. I move around, trying to distribute myself evenly around the rooms. I concentrate on the kitchen. The familiar smell of spices fills the air. I allow the cumin to spill, and then gather it up again. I feel flung back somewhere else. I am never sure where the smell of spices takes me, as it had followed me everywhere. Each smell that gathers returns me somewhere; I am not always sure where that somewhere is. Sometimes the return is welcome, sometimes not. Sometimes it is tears or laughter that makes me realize that I have been pulled to another place and another time. Such memories can involve a recognition of how one's body already feels, coming after the event. The surprise when we find ourselves moved in this way or that. So we ask the question, later, and it often seems too late: what is it that has led me away from the present, to another place and another time? How is it that I have arrived here or there? ~ Sara Ahmed,

786:In 1973, Jan Erik Olsson walked into a small bank in Stockholm, Sweden, brandishing a gun, wounding a police officer, and taking three women and one man hostage. During negotiations, Olsson demanded money, a getaway vehicle, and that his friend Clark Olofsson, a man with a long criminal history, be brought to the bank. The police allowed Olofsson to join his friend and together they held the four hostages captive in a bank vault for six days. During their captivity, the hostages at times were attached to snare traps around their necks, likely to kill them in the event that the police attempted to storm the bank. The hostages grew increasingly afraid and hostile toward the authorities trying to win their release and even actively resisted various rescue attempts. Afterward they refused to testify against their captors, and several continued to stay in contact with the hostage takers, who were sent to prison. Their resistance to outside help and their loyalty toward their captors was puzzling, and psychologists began to study the phenomenon in this and other hostage situations. The expression of positive feelings toward the captor and negative feelings toward those on the outside trying to win their release became known as Stockholm syndrome. ~ Rachel Lloyd,

787:This book is an essay in what is derogatorily called "literary economics," as opposed to mathematical economics, econometrics, or (embracing them both) the "new economic history." A man does what he can, and in the more elegant - one is tempted to say "fancier" - techniques I am, as one who received his formation in the 1930s, untutored. A colleague has offered to provide a mathematical model to decorate the work. It might be useful to some readers, but not to me. Catastrophe mathematics, dealing with such events as falling off a height, is a new branch of the discipline, I am told, which has yet to demonstrate its rigor or usefulness. I had better wait. Econometricians among my friends tell me that rare events such as panics cannot be dealt with by the normal techniques of regression, but have to be introduced exogenously as "dummy variables." The real choice open to me was whether to follow relatively simple statistical procedures, with an abundance of charts and tables, or not. In the event, I decided against it. For those who yearn for numbers, standard series on bank reserves, foreign trade, commodity prices, money supply, security prices, rate of interest, and the like are fairly readily available in the historical statistics. ~ Charles P Kindleberger,

788:20)   He has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife/partner. 21)   He believes others are out to get him. He believes that those around his wife/partner dislike him and encourage her to leave. 22)   He resists change and is described as inflexible, unwilling to compromise. 23)   He identifies with or compares himself to violent people in films, news stories, fiction, or history. He characterizes the violence of others as justified. 24)   He suffers mood swings or is sullen, angry, or depressed. 25)   He consistently blames others for problems of his own making; he refuses to take responsibility for the results of his actions. 26)   He refers to weapons as instruments of power, control, or revenge. 27)   Weapons are a substantial part of his persona; he has a gun or he talks about, jokes about, reads about, or collects weapons. 28)   He uses “male privilege” as a justification for his conduct (treats her like a servant, makes all the big decisions, acts like the “master of the house”). 29)   He experienced or witnessed violence as a child. 30)   His wife/partner fears he will injure or kill her. She has discussed this with others or has made plans to be carried out in the event of her death (e.g., designating someone to care for children). ~ Gavin de Becker,

789:I was once asked in one of those meetings to express my views on the stock market. I stated, not without a modicum of pomp, that I believed that the market would go slightly up over the next week with a high probability. How high? “About 70%.” Clearly, that was a very strong opinion. But then someone interjected,“But, Nassim, you just boasted being short a very large quantity of SP500 futures, making a bet that the market would go down. What made you change your mind?” “I did not change my mind! I have a lot of faith in my bet! [Audience laughing.] As a matter of fact I now feel like selling even more!”The other employees in the room seemed utterly confused. “Are you bullish or are you bearish?” I was asked by the strategist. I replied that I could not understand the words bullish and bearish outside of their purely zoological consideration. Just as with events A and B in the preceding example, my opinion was that the market was more likely to go up (“I would be bullish”), but that it was preferable to short it (“I would be bearish”), because, in the event of its going down, it could go down a lot. Suddenly, the few traders in the room understood my opinion and started voicing similar opinions. And I was not forced to come back to the following discussion. ~ Anonymous,

790:His message delivered, Gabriel departed, leaving the chosen Virgin of Nazareth to ponder over her wondrous experience. Mary's promised Son was to be "The Only Begotten" of the Father in the flesh; so it had been both positively and abundantly predicted. True, the event was unprecedented; true also it has never been paralleled; but that the virgin birth would be unique was as truly essential to the fulfilment of prophecy as that it should occur at all. That Child to be born of Mary was begotten of Elohim, the Eternal Father, not in violation of natural law but in accordance with a higher manifestation thereof; and, the offspring from that association of supreme sanctity, celestial Sireship, and pure though mortal maternity, was of right to be called the "Son of the Highest." In His nature would be combined the powers of Godhood with the capacity and possibilities of mortality; and this through the ordinary operation of the fundamental law of heredity, declared of God, demonstrated by science, and admitted by philosophy, that living beings shall propagate—after their kind. The Child Jesus was to inherit the physical, mental, and spiritual traits, tendencies, and powers that characterized His parents—one immortal and glorified—God, the other human—woman. ~ James E Talmage,

791:HM Belmarsh prison, or Hellmarsh as the inmates call it, is a category A prison situated in the South East of London. The prison service manual states that Category A prisoners are: “Those whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public or national security. Offenses that may result in consideration for Category A or Restricted Status include: Attempted murder, Manslaughter, Wounding with intent, Rape, Indecent assault, Robbery or conspiracy to rob (with firearms), Firearms offences, Importing or supplying Class A controlled drugs, Possessing or supplying explosives, Offenses connected with terrorism and Offeses under the Official Secrets Act.” In other words, Belmarsh prison is filled with some very bad people. But there is nothing to worry about. Belmarsh is a state of the art facility. High walls, well-trained guards and a system of electronically controlled Mag-locks that secure every door on every cell. Even in the event of an EMP or similar power outage there is a hardened back up battery that keeps the cells secure. The batteries last for sixteen hours. Or until 10:00 am in the morning. It is now 10:01 am. Belmarsh houses approximately eight hundred and eighty inmates. Or, to put it more correctly - Belmarsh used to hold eight hundred and eighty inmates. ~ Craig Zerf,

792:And although better coverage of the outbreak’s evolution in the press couldn’t have stopped the influenza virus, a single newspaper headline in Philadelphia saying “Don’t Go to Any Parades; for the Love of God Cancel Your Stupid Parade” could have saved hundreds of lives. It would have done a lot more than those telling people, “Don’t Get Scared!” Telling people that things are fine is not the same as making them fine. This failure is in the past. Journalists and editors had their reasons. Risking jail time is no joke. But learning from this breakdown in truth-telling is important because the fourth estate can’t fail again. We are fortunate today to have organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization that track how diseases are progressing and report these findings. In the event of an outbreak similar to the Spanish flu, they will be wonderful resources. I hope we’ll be similarly lucky to have journalists who will be able to share necessary information with the public. The public is at its strongest when it is well informed. Despite Lippmann’s claims to the contrary, we are smart, and we are good, and we are always stronger when we work together. If there is a next time, it would be very much to our benefit to remember that. ~ Jennifer Wright,

793:Kerr found that a spinning black hole would not collapse into a pointlike star, as Schwarzschild assumed, but would collapse into a spinning ring. Anyone unfortunate enough to hit the ring would perish; but someone falling into the ring would not die, but would actually fall through. But instead of winding up on the other side of the ring, he or she would pass through the Einstein-Rosen Bridge and wind up in another universe. In other words, the spinning black hole is the rim of Alice's Looking Glass. If he or she were to move around the spinning ring a second time, he or she would enter yet another universe. In fact, repeated entry into the spinning ring would put a person in different parallel universes, much like hitting the "up" button on an elevator. In principle, there could be an infinite number of universes, each stacked on top of each other. "Pass through this magic ring and-presto!-you're in a completely different universe where radius and mass are negative!" Kerr wrote. There is an important catch, however. Black holes are examples of "nontransversable wormholes"; that is, passing through the event horizon is a one-way trip. Once you pass through the event horizon and the Kerr ring, you cannot go backward through the ring and out through the event horizon. ~ Michio Kaku,

794:There is a simple realization from which all personal improvement and growth emerges. This is the realization that we, individually, are responsible for everything in our lives, no matter the external circumstances. We don’t always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond. Whether we consciously recognize it or not, we are always responsible for our experiences. It’s impossible not to be. Choosing to not consciously interpret events in our lives is still an interpretation of the events of our lives. Choosing to not respond to the events in our lives is still a response to the events in our lives. Even if you get run over by a clown car and pissed on by a busload of schoolchildren, it’s still your responsibility to interpret the meaning of the event and choose a response. Whether we like it or not, we are always taking an active role in what’s occurring to and within us. We are always interpreting the meaning of every moment and every occurrence. We are always choosing the values by which we live and the metrics by which we measure everything that happens to us. Often the same event can be good or bad, depending on the metric we choose to use. The point is, we are always choosing, whether we recognize it or not. ~ Mark Manson,

795:It nevertheless remains true that, in most countries for which long-run data are available, stocks have out-performed bonds – by a factor of roughly five over the twentieth century.9 This can scarcely surprise us. Bonds, as we saw in Chapter 2, are no more than promises by governments to pay interest and ultimately repay principal over a specified period of time. Either through default or through currency depreciation, many governments have failed to honour those promises. By contrast, a share is a portion of the capital of a profit-making corporation. If the company succeeds in its undertakings, there will not only be dividends, but also a significant probability of capital appreciation. There are of course risks, too. The returns on stocks are less predictable and more volatile than the returns on bonds and bills. There is a significantly higher probability that the average corporation will go bankrupt and cease to exist than that the average sovereign state will disappear. In the event of a corporate bankruptcy, the holders of bonds and other forms of debt will be satisfied first; the equity holders may end up with nothing. For these reasons, economists see the superior returns on stocks as capturing an ‘equity risk premium’ – though clearly in some cases this has been a risk well worth taking. ~ Niall Ferguson,

796:While Alpha Males are often gifted with superior physical attributes—size, strength, speed, good looks—selected by evolution over the eons by the strongest surviving and, essentially, getting all the girls, the Beta Male gene has survived not by meeting and overcoming adversity, but by anticipating and avoiding it. That is, when the Alpha Males were out charging after mastodons, the Beta Males could imagine in advance that attacking what was essentially an angry, woolly bulldozer with a pointy stick might be a losing proposition, so they hung back at camp to console the grieving widows. When Alpha Males set out to conquer neighboring tribes, to count coups and take heads, Beta Males could see in advance that in the event of a victory, the influx of female slaves was going to leave a surplus of mateless women cast out for younger trophy models, with nothing to do but salt down the heads and file the uncounted coups, and some would find solace in the arms of any Beta Male smart enough to survive. In the case of defeat, well, there was that widows thing again. The Beta Male is seldom the strongest or the fastest, but because he can anticipate danger, he far outnumbers his Alpha Male competition. The world is led by Alpha Males, but the machinery of the world turns on the bearings of the Beta Male. ~ Christopher Moore,

797:Welcome onboard the USIC shuttle service to Oasis. Please give your full attention to the safety demonstration even if you are a frequent flyer. The seatbelt is fastened and unfastened as shown. No seatbelt on your seat? Hey, live with it. . . . In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen will be provided. It will be pumped straight into the mouth of the pilot. The rest of you just hold your breath and sit tight. . . . In the event of a collision, low-level lighting will guide you to an exit, where you will be sucked instantly to your death. Please remember that the nearest usable planet may be three billion miles behind you. . . . This craft is equipped with one emergency escape pod: one at the front, none in the middle and none at the rear. There’s room for the pilot and five really hot chicks. . . . Take your high heels off, girls, before using the escape pod. Hell, take it all off. Blow on my tube if it fails to inflate. There is a light and a whistle for attracting attention, but don’t worry, I’ll get around to all of you in turn. Please consult the instruction card that shows you the position you must adopt if you hear the command ‘suck, suck.’ We recommend you keep your head down at all times. . . . We appreciate that you had no choice of airlines today, and so we would like to thank you for choosing USIC. ~ Michel Faber,

798:The Bushman When the merchant lies down, he can scarce go to sleep For thinking of his merchandise upon the fatal deep; His ships may be cast away or taken in a war, So him alone we'll envy not, who true bushmen are. Who true bushmen are, So him alone we'll envy not, who true bushmen are! When the soldier lies down, his mind is full of thought O'er seeking that promotion which so long he has sought; He fain would gain repose for mortal wound or scar, So him also we'll envy not, who true bushmen are. When the sailor lies down, his mind he must prepare To rouse out in a minute if the wind should prove unfair. His voyage may be stopped for the want of a spar, So him also we'll envy not, who true bushmen are. When the bushman lies down, his mind is free from care, He knows his stock will furnish him with meat, wear and tear. Should all commerce be ended in the event of a war, Then bread and beef won't fail us boys, who true bushmen are. Then fill, fill your glasses, a toast I'll give you, then, To you who call yourselves true-hearted men. Here's a health to the soldier and e'en the jolly tar, And may they always meet as good friends as we bushmen are. Who true bushmen are, And may they always meet as good friends as we bushmen are. ~ Banjo Paterson,

799:Well, was it especially necessary for people to be impassioned, carried away by hatred or love, for example; or did the exterior aspect of the event have to be great, I mean—what you could see of it. . . .” “Both . . . it all depended,” she answers ungraciously. “And the perfect moments? Where do they come in?” “They came afterwards. First there are annunciatory signs. Then the privileged situation, slowly, majestically, comes into people’s lives. Then the question whether you want to make a perfect moment out of it.” “Yes,” I say, “I understand. In each one of these privileged situations there are certain acts which have to be done, certain attitudes to be taken, words which must be said—and other attitudes, other words are strictly prohibited. Is that it?” “I suppose so. . . .” “In fact, then, the situation is the material: it demands exploitation.” “That’s it,” she says. “First you had to be plunged into something exceptional and feel as though you were putting it in order. If all those conditions had been realized, the moment would have been perfect.” “In fact, it was a sort of work of art.” “You’ve already said that,” she says with irritation. “No: it was . . . a duty. You had to transform privileged situations into perfect moments. It was a moral question. Yes, you can laugh if you like: it was moral. ~ Jean Paul Sartre,

800:(The term “sheep-dipped” appears in The New York Times version of the Pentagon Papers without clarification. It is an intricate Army-devised process by which a man who is in the service as a full career soldier or officer agrees to go through all the legal and official motions of resigning from the service. Then, rather than actually being released, his records are pulled from the Army personnel files and transferred to a special Army intelligence file. Substitute but nonetheless real-appearing records are then processed, and the man “leaves” the service. He is encouraged to write to friends and give a cover reason why he got out. He goes to his bank and charge card services and changes his status to civilian, and does the hundreds of other official and personal things that any man would do if he really had gotten out of the service. Meanwhile, his real Army records are kept in secrecy, but not forgotten. If his contemporaries get promoted, he gets promoted. All of the things that can be done for his hidden records to keep him even with his peers are done. Some very real problems arise in the event he gets killed or captured as a prisoner. There are problems with insurance and with benefits his wife would receive had he remained in the service. At this point, sheep-dipping gets really complicated, and each case is handled quite separately.) ~ L Fletcher Prouty,

801:It's not the concept of marriage I have a problem with. I'd like to get married too. A couple times. It's the actual wedding that pisses me off. The problem is that everyone who gets married seems to think that they are the first person in the entire universe to do it, and that the year leading up to the event revolves entirely around them. You have to throw them showers, bachelorette weekends, buy a bridesmaid dress, and then buy a ticket to some godforsaken town wherever they decide to drag you. If you're really unlucky, they'll ask you to recite a poem at their wedding. That's just what I want to do- monitor my drinking until I'm done with my public service announcement. And what do we get out of it, you ask? A dry piece of chicken and a roll in the hay with their hillbilly cousin. I could get that at home, thanks. Then they have the audacity to go shopping and pick out their own gifts. I want to know who the first person was who said this was okay. After spending all that money on a bachelorette weekend, a shower, and often a flight across the country, they expect you to go to Williams Sonoma or Pottery Barn and do research? Then they send you a thank-you note applauding you for such a thoughtful gift. They're the one who picked it out! I always want to remind the person that absolutely no thought went into typing in a name and having a salad bowl come up. ~ Chelsea Handler,

802:It was in fact the ordinary nature of everything preceding the event that prevented me from truly believing it had happened, absorbing it, incorporating it, getting past it. I recognize now that there was nothing unusual in this: confronted with sudden disaster we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred, the clear blue sky from which the plane fell, the routine errand that ended on the shoulder with the car in flames, the swings where the children were playing as usual when the rattlesnake struck from the ivy. "He was on his way home from work — happy, successful, healthy — and then, gone," I read in the account of a psychiatric nurse whose husband was killed in a highway accident. In 1966 I happened to interview many people who had been living in Honolulu on the morning of December 7, 1941; without exception, these people began their accounts of Pearl Harbor by telling me what an "ordinary Sunday morning" it had been. "It was just an ordinary beautiful September day," people still say when asked to describe the morning in New York when American Airlines 11 and United Airlines 175 got flown into the World Trade towers. Even the report of the 9/11 Commission opened on this insistently premonitory and yet still dumbstruck narrative note: "Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States. ~ Joan Didion,

803:The happiest thing for me about this day’s race was that I was able, on a personal level, to truly enjoy the event. The overall time I posted wasn’t anything to brag about, and I made a lot of little mistakes along the way. But I did give it my best, and I felt a nice, tangible afterglow. I also think I’ve improved in a lot of areas since the previous race, which is an important point to consider. In a triathlon the transition from one event to the next is difficult, and experience counts for everything. Through experience you learn how to compensate for your physical shortcomings. To put it another way, learning from experience is what makes the triathlon so much fun. Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren’t involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It’s precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive—or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself. If things go well, that is. ~ Haruki Murakami,

804:Once we know the outcome of something, that knowledge skews our perception of what we thought before we knew the outcome: that’s hindsight bias. Baruch Fischhoff was the first to document the phenomenon in a set of elegant experiments. One had people estimate the likelihood of major world events at the time of Fischhoff’s research—Will Nixon personally meet with Mao?—then recall their estimate after the event did or did not happen. Knowing the outcome consistently slanted the estimate, even when people tried not to let it sway their judgment. The effect can be subtle, but it can also be quite big. In 1988, when the Soviet Union was implementing major reforms that had people wondering about its future, I asked experts to estimate how likely it was that the Communist Party would lose its monopoly on power in the Soviet Union in the next five years. In 1991 the world watched in shock as the Soviet Union disintegrated. So in 1992–93 I returned to the experts, reminded them of the question in 1988, and asked them to recall their estimates. On average, the experts recalled a number 31 percentage points higher than the correct figure. So an expert who thought there was only a 10% chance might remember herself thinking there was a 40% or 50% chance. There was even a case in which an expert who pegged the probability at 20% recalled it as 70%—which illustrates why hindsight bias is sometimes known as the “I knew it all along” effect. ~ Philip E Tetlock,

805:The encounter put me in the mood to shop...Babette and the kids followed me into the elevator, into the shops set along the tiers, through the emporiums and the department stores, puzzled but excited by my desire to buy. When I could not decide between two shirts, they encouraged me to buy both. When I said I was hungry they fed me pretzels, beer, souvlaki. The two girls scouted ahead, spotting things they thought I might want or need, running back to get me, to clutch my arms, to plead with me to follow. The...y were my guides to endless well-being...My family gloried in the event. I was one of them, shopping, at last. They gave me advice, badgered clerks on my behalf...We moved from store to store, rejecting not only items in certain departments, not only entire departments but whole stores, mammoth corporations that did not strike our fancy for one reason or another. There was always another store, three floors, eight floors...I shopped with reckless abandon. I shopped for immediate needs and distant contingencies. I shopped for its own sake, looking and touching, inspecting merchandise I had no intention of buying, then buying it...I began to grow in value and self-regard. I filled myself out, found new aspects of myself, located a person I'd forgotten existed. Brightness settled around me. I traded money for goods. The more money I spent, the less important it seemed. I was bigger than these sums. These sums poured off my skin like so much rain ~ Don DeLillo,

806:Good values are 1) reality-based, 2) socially constructive, and 3) immediate and controllable. Bad values are 1) superstitious, 2) socially destructive, and 3) not immediate or controllable. Honesty is a good value because it’s something you have complete control over, it reflects reality, and it benefits others (even if it’s sometimes unpleasant). Popularity, on the other hand, is a bad value. If that’s your value, and if your metric is being the most popular guy/girl at the dance party, much of what happens will be out of your control: you don’t know who else will be at the event, and you probably won’t know who half those people are. Second, the value/metric isn’t based on reality: you may feel popular or unpopular, when in fact you have no fucking clue what anybody else really thinks about you. (Side Note: As a rule, people who are terrified of what others think about them are actually terrified of all the shitty things they think about themselves being reflected back at them.) Some examples of good, healthy values: honesty, innovation, vulnerability, standing up for oneself, standing up for others, self-respect, curiosity, charity, humility, creativity. Some examples of bad, unhealthy values: dominance through manipulation or violence, indiscriminate fucking, feeling good all the time, always being the center of attention, not being alone, being liked by everybody, being rich for the sake of being rich, sacrificing small animals to the pagan gods. ~ Mark Manson,

807:But in 2009, even as the British track cycling team was preparing for the London Olympics, Brailsford embarked upon a new challenge. He created a road cycling team, Team Sky, while continuing to oversee the track team. On the day the new outfit was announced to the world, Brailsford also announced that they would win the Tour de France within five years. Most people laughed at this aspiration. One commentator said: “Brailsford has set himself up for an almighty fall.” But in 2012, two years ahead of schedule, Bradley Wiggins became the first-ever British rider to win the event. The following year, Team Sky triumphed again when Chris Froome, another Brit, won the general classification. It was widely acclaimed as one of the most extraordinary feats in British sporting history. How did it happen? How did Brailsford conquer not one cycling discipline, but two? These were the questions I asked him over dinner at the team’s small hotel after the tour of the facilities. His answer was clear: “It is about marginal gains,” he said. “The approach comes from the idea that if you break down a big goal into small parts, and then improve on each of them, you will deliver a huge increase when you put them all together.” It sounds simple, but as a philosophy, marginal gains has become one of the hottest concepts not just in sports, but beyond. It has formed the basis of business conferences, and seminars and has even been debated in the armed forces. Many British sports now employ a director of marginal gains. ~ Matthew Syed,

808:There are nations of Europe where an inhabitant considers himself a kind of colonist, indifferent to the destiny of the place that he inhabits. The greatest changes come about in his country without his concurrence; he does not even know precisely what has taken place; he suspects; he has heard the event recounted by chance. Even more, the fortune of his village, the policing of his street, the fate of his church and of his presbytery do not touch him; he thinks that all these things do not concern him in any fashion and that they belong to a powerful foreigner called the government. For himself, he enjoys these goods as a tenant, without a spirit of ownership and without ideas of any improvement whatsoever. This disinterest in himself goes so far that if his own security or that of his children is finally compromised, instead of occupying himself with removing the danger, he crosses his arms to wait for the nation as a whole to come to his aid. Yet this man, although he has made such a complete sacrifice of his free will, likes obedience no more than any other. He submits, it is true, at the pleasure of a clerk; but it pleases him to defy the law like a defeated enemy, as soon as force is withdrawn. Thus one sees him swinging constantly between servitude and license. When nations have arrived at this point, they must modify their laws and their mores or they perish, for the source of public virtues is almost dried up; one still finds subjects in them, but one no longer sees citizens. I ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

809:I remember standing against the bar in Budapest’s airport with a couple of workmates, some chaps from McLaren too, waiting for our homeward flight to be called after the ’92 race weekend. The chap behind the counter was doing the exact same thing: halving and squeezing oranges. Funny how these things spark memories. It was an exceedingly hot afternoon that day, and I remember seeing James Hunt walk through the door with Murray Walker. We were waiting for the same flight, a charter to London; I think pretty much the whole of the paddock’s British contingent was on it. Murray looked perfectly normal . . . like Murray really . . . open-necked shirt, briefcase, what have you; but James was wearing nothing but a pair of red shorts. He carried a ticket, a passport and a packet of cigarettes. That was it. There wasn’t even a pair of flip-flops to spoil the perfect minimalist look. The thing that really made the event stick in my mind, though, was that James was absolutely at ease with himself, perfectly comfortable. This was real for him, no stunt or affectation designed to impress or shock, this was genuine: James Hunt, former world champion driver, current commentator for the BBC; work done for the day . . . going home. Take me, leave me; do what you bloody well want, just don’t give me a hard time about your own petty hang-ups. He became a hero of mine that day. Sadly, his heart gave out the following summer and that was that. He was only forty-five. Mind you, he’d certainly packed a lot of living into those years. ~ Steve Matchett,

810:Does it occur to you that if he set his mind to it, Steve could be a truly excellent supervillain?” Clint said into the comm unit, not bothering with any sort of segue. He knew very well who it was. “We have a contingency plan in place for that,” Coulson said without missing a beat. In the background, Steve said, “Wait, what?” “Oh, c'mon.” Stark sounded seriously insulted. “If anyone here is going to go the black leather and weather control ray route, it's gonna be me, let's not even kid ourselves.” “Every active SHIELD employee has a wallet card instructing them what to do in the event you go supervillain, Stark. It's standard equipment.” A beat of silence. “What?” Tony asked. “I got one,” Bruce said. “Want to see it?” “If you show it to him, it'll defeat the purpose of having a plan,” Natasha said. “And I like this plan, it's a good plan, I do not want to go through them trying to come up with something else.” “Yes, I want to see it,” Tony said. “Thor, did you get a card?” “Verily. Their plan is most sound. I believe we will be able to subdue you with great swiftness, before you have much chance to hurt yourself or others. The damage to property will, of course, be massive, but such things are to be expected.” “What the hell? You will not be able to subdue me quickly. Screw you, I am wily and brilliant.” “I didn't get one,” Steve said, and there was a loud sound of no one being surprised. “It's not a good idea to warn the bait that-” Clint started... ~ Scifigrl47,

811:Saying It To Keep It From Happening” Some departure from the norm Will occur as time grows more open about it. The consensus gradually changed; nobody Lies about it any more. Rust dark pouring Over the body, changing it without decay— People with too many things on their minds, but we live In the interstices, between a vacant stare and the ceiling, Our lives remind us. Finally this is consciousness And the other livers of it get off at the same stop. How careless. Yet in the end each of us Is seen to have traveled the same distance—it’s time That counts, and how deeply you have invested in it, Crossing the street of an event, as though coming out of it were The same as making it happen. You’re not sorry, Of course, especially if this was the way it had to happen, Yet would like an exacter share, something about time That only a clock can tell you: how it feels, not what it means. It is a long field, and we know only the far end of it, Not the part we presumably had to go through to get there. If it isn’t enough, take the idea Inherent in the day, armloads of wheat and flowers Lying around flat on handtrucks, if maybe it means more In pertaining to you, yet what is is what happens in the end As though you cared. The event combined with Beams leading up to it for the look of force adapted to the wiser Usages of age, but it’s both there And not there, like washing or sawdust in the sunlight, At the back of the mind, where we live now. ~ John Ashbery,

812:No. Knox got to his feet. I’ll go get her myself. He quickly ended the business call, uncaring that he’d been rude. Opening his office door, Knox indicated for Levi to follow him. “Tanner just contacted me,” said Knox. “Apparently Harper —” He cut off as a she-demon rounded the corner and came to a halt in front of him. Belinda smiled. “Oh, Knox, I was hoping to catch you.” For fuck’s sake. “What can I do for you, Miss Thacker?” Her smile dimmed at his impatient tone. “It’s about the appetizers for the event.” “I told you I want Harper to decide these things.” Belinda’s mouth flattened. “She doesn’t find any of my suggestions suitable.” “Then they’re not suitable.” Simple. “Knox —” “Miss Thacker, I didn’t invite you to call me by my first name.” Her cheeks reddened. “I gave you my orders when I hired you. They were not complicated. I specified all the details of the event that I wished to be left for Harper to decide.” “She wants steak and potato wedges on sticks!” Belinda took a deep breath and lowered her eyes. “I apologize for my outburst.” Steak and potato wedges on sticks? echoed Levi, a smile in his telepathic voice. That actually sounds pretty good. “Do you remember the all-important order I gave you before sending you Harper’s way, Miss Thacker?” She swallowed. “Yes.” “What was it?” Belinda met his gaze. “You told me to give her whatever she wants.” “Then do it. Now I have somewhere I need to be…” She straightened her blazer. “Thank you for your time, Mr Thorne,” she said stiffly. ~ Suzanne Wright,

813:Dearest April, When I met you, I immediately felt like the sun rose and set in your eyes. I went to bed thinking about you at night, and I woke up with you on my mind in the morning. We had some really good times, didn’t we? I relished the long walks we took. I looked forward to seeing you at night and sleeping with you in my arms. Then I got the diagnosis. I found out that I was sick, and when I needed you to be there for me, you fucked my best friend. You weren’t there to hold my hand through chemo. You weren’t there to help me get to and from doctors’ appointments. You weren’t there when I was so sick I couldn’t hold my head up. You were with him. You were under him and on top of him and with him instead of me. I asked my brothers to give you this letter in the event of my death, so if you’re reading this, I’m gone. I’ve lived out my days, and even though you’ve moved on, I need to tell you how I feel. A good man might want to ease your conscience. A good man might want to give you some peace. But good wasn’t important to you. I fucking hate you. I hate that you’re breathing. I hate that you’re alive. I hate that you’re able to laugh and that you’re going to go on and procreate and make more sorry-ass human beings just like yourself. I hope that your heart leaped when you got this letter. Final words of love from me. Hahahahahaha! I am dead, so I can say whatever I want. And what I want to say is: I fucking hate you. I hope you get exactly what you deserve in life. With the utmost hatred and disdain, Matthew Reed PS – I still hate you. ~ Tammy Falkner,

814:The [Tiananmen] Gate was built during the Ming Dynasty and used by Emperors for making public appearances and proclamations. The Gate, like Tiananmen Square, has always been a major point of focus in the political history of China. If you climb up to the balcony, you can stand on the spot from which, on October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao proclamied the founding of the People's Republic of China. The spot is clearly marked, and there is an exhibition of photographs of the event clustered around it. The view across the immensity of Tiananmen Square here is extraordinary. It is like looking across a plain from the side of a mountain. In political terms the view is more astounding yet, encompassing as it does a nation that comprises almost one-quarter of the population of this planet. All of the history of China is symbolically focused here, at this very point, and it is hard, as you stand there, not to be transfixed by the power of it. It is hard, also, not to be profoundly moved by the vision of the peasant from Shaoshan who seized that power in the name of the people and whom the people still revere, in spite of the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution, as the father of their nation. And while we were standing on this spot, the spot where Mao stood when he proclaimed the founding of the Peoples Republic of China, the music we were having played at us by the public address system was first "Viva España", and then the "Theme from Hawaii Five-O." It was hard to avoid the feeling that somebody, somewhere, was missing the point. I couldn't even be sure it wasn't me. ~ Douglas Adams,

815:You’ll need a dress,” I tell her and wait for the objection I know is coming. “I have dresses,” she replies, but tiny lines of concern mar her forehead and I’ve been with enough women to know what’s going through her head. Does she have the right dress for this? How fancy is the event? What will everyone else be wearing? Add to that—she can’t have the budget for a dress. She’s fresh out of college and on a teacher’s salary, both of which tell me it isn’t likely she has an appropriate dress hanging in her closet. Shit, this entire scheme is pure genius, I think, as I make a mental note to cancel the date I had lined up for this wedding when I get home. This is a formal event. We’ll pick up a dress this weekend.” She gives me a dirty look. “What do you mean we’ll pick up a dress this weekend?” “I mean shopping. I’ll pick you up at ten on Saturday.” “I can find a dress by myself,” she says firmly. “Please. You were wearing pants with donuts on them the second time I saw you. If you can even call those things pants.” Fucking leggings left nothing to the imagination. And I’ve done a lot of imagining. Mostly involving her legs wrapped around my hips. “Half my family is going to be there. I’ll pick out the dress.” I could give a fuck about the dress. I want to spend time with her that she thinks isn’t a date, so she’ll relax and be herself. “Well, that was rude,” she deadpans. I shrug. “Besides, you’re doing me a favor,” I remind her, “so the dress is on me.” “Whatever,” she agrees sullenly. “You’re welcome,” I reply. ~ Jana Aston,

816:Ram finally stood up and said in a voice that was clear and soothing, ‘Know this, Ayodhya is not mine to give or Bharata’s to take; Ayodhya is the responsibility of the Raghu clan, not our property. It will be injustice if the kings of the Raghu clan do not keep their word, it will be injustice if the wishes of Kaikeyi are not fulfilled. My father promised to fulfil her wishes and he is obliged to fulfil them, as am I. Do not blame her for asking what is due to her. Yes, the event is unfortunate but it is but one event in our lives; we can call it a tragedy if we wish. Blaming helps no one; let us take responsibility for it. For nothing in life happens spontaneously: it is the result of past actions. This moment is as it is supposed to be. I am repaying the debt of the past and so are you. We cannot choose the circumstances of our life, but we can make our choices. I have chosen to be true to my clan. My wife has chosen to be true to her role as my wife. My brother has chosen to be true to his feelings. Allow us our choices. Come to terms with our decisions. You are angry not with the queen or her son, or the king, you are angry that life has not turned out the way you thought it would. In a moment, the world you so took for granted has collapsed. Expand your mind and understand that the pain comes from your assumptions and expectations. Choose love over hate, by accepting the fears and fragilities of humanity that lead to situations such as these. This moment is the outcome of some curse, or maybe it is a boon in waiting. Who knows? Varuna has a thousand eyes, Indra a hundred, you and I, only two. ~ Devdutt Pattanaik,

817:The Nation of Islam is the best known Black Muslim group, though its actual numbers may be no more than 100,000. However, many blacks who are not, themselves, Muslims have great respect for the group’s leader, Louis Farrakhan. Users of the Internet arm of Black Entertainment Television, BET.com, chose him as the black “person of the year” for 2005. Mr. Farrakhan was elected over Oprah Winfrey, then-Senator Barack Obama, Robert L. Johnson, who started BET, and the victims of Hurricane Katrina. “An overwhelming percentage of our users agreed that Minister Farrakhan made the most positive impact on the Black community over the past year,” explained a BET spokesman. What did Mr. Farrakhan do to deserve that honor? He received heavy news coverage twice that year. Once was when he promoted the theory that whites blew up the New Orleans levees to destroy black neighborhoods. The other was when he organized a “Millions More Movement” on the National Mall to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Million Man March. On that occasion, Michael Muhammad, National Youth Minister for the Nation of Islam declaimed: “We want to say to our young brothers of the Crips and the Bloods that we are one family. The real enemy doesn’t wear blue, but white, even when he’s butt naked.” Ayinde Baptiste of the Nation of Islam added: “We are at war here in America. . . . We need soldiers now. We need black male soldiers, we need black feminist soldiers, we need Crips and Bloods soldiers . . . soldiers in the prisons, soldiers in the streets.” The Congressional Black Caucus endorsed the event, and five black congressmen attended it. ~ Jared Taylor,

818:The clear transmission of facts and evidence becomes irrelevant in the hyperemotional space of social media. Facts come from a world external to ourselves—namely, reality. Actually, that’s the whole point. But in the social media world, they are either meaningless or threatening to the self we’re constructing and protecting. The world can’t help but degrade into “It’s all about me.” Deluged with information filtered through the lens of popular self, our internal monitoring causes the world to shrink: Did the news make me feel bad? Turn it off. Did that comment upset me? Blast the messenger. Did that criticism hurt me? Get depressed or strike back. This is the tragedy of self-reference where, instead of responding to information from the external environment to create an orderly system of relationships, the narrow band of information obsessively processed creates isolation, stress, and self-defense.6 Focused internally, the outside world where facts reside doesn’t have meaning. Our communication with one another via the Web generates extreme reactions. Think about how small events take over the Internet because people get upset from a photo and minimal information. There doesn’t have to be any basis in fact or any understanding of more complex reasons for why this event happened. People see the visual, comment on it, and viral hysteria takes over. Even when more context is given later that could help people understand the event, it doesn’t change their minds. People go back to scanning and posting, and soon there is another misperceived event to get hysterical about. One commentator calls this “infectious insanity.”7 ~ Margaret J Wheatley,

819:Still others assert that they have grown enormously as a result of their traumatic experience, discovering a maturity and strength of character that they didn’t know they had—for example, reporting having found “a growth and a freedom to…give fuller expression to my feelings or to assert myself.” A new and more positive perspective is a common theme among those enduring traumas or loss, a renewed appreciation of the preciousness of life and a sense that one must live more fully in the present. For example, one bereaved person rediscovered that “having your health and living life to the fullest is a real blessing. I appreciate my family, friends, nature, life in general. I see a goodness in people.”12 A woman survivor of a traumatic plane crash described her experience afterward: “When I got home, the sky was brighter. I paid attention to the texture of sidewalks. It was like being in a movie.”13 Construing benefit in negative events can influence your physical health as well as your happiness, a remarkable demonstration of the power of mind over body. For example, in one study researchers interviewed men who had had heart attacks between the ages of thirty and sixty.14 Those who perceived benefits in the event seven weeks after it happened—for example, believing that they had grown and matured as a result, or revalued home life, or resolved to create less hectic schedules for themselves—were less likely to have recurrences and more likely to be healthy eight years later. In contrast, those who blamed their heart attacks on other people or on their own emotions (e.g., having been too stressed) were now in poorer health. ~ Sonja Lyubomirsky,

820:There were two brothers and a sister. And they had heard from the sky, or from the winds, that Jesus Christ had been born and had grown to manhood. There were portents and dreams that told them about him. Finally the two brothers started for Jerusalem, leaving their sister at home in this place. And they arrived on the day of the crucifixion, so they only saw him dead. And these two brothers from this pass in the Georgian mountains were heartbroken, and they begged a piece of the body-cloth of Jesus, and they brought it home to their sister. She was grief-stricken by the crucifixion, and she clutched the cloth, and fell sick and died of sorrow, and her dead hand held the cloth against her heart. Then the brothers tried to release the cloth, but her hand held firm and they could not get it away from her. And so she was buried with the cloth still held in her hand. She was buried right in this place where the church now stands. And almost immediately a plant grew out of the grave and became a giant tree. After a number of years it was desired to build a church in this place to commemorate the event. And woodsmen came and tried to cut the tree, but their axes flew to pieces against its trunk. Everyone tried to cut the tree, and they couldn't make a dent in it. Finally two angels came and cut the tree, and the church was built over the spot. The dark woman pointed to a curious tent-like structure of clay inside the church, and this is where the grave was, she said, and this is where the tree stood. And under the clay tent undoubtedly was the body of the holy woman, still clutching the piece of the cloth that had been worn by Jesus. ~ John Steinbeck,

821:This place where she worked certainly didn't make it look as if she continued to believe her calling was to change the course of American history. The building's rusted fire escape would just come down, just come loose from its moorings and crash onto the street, if anyone stepped on it - a fire escape whose function was not to save lives in the event of a fire but to uselessly hang there testifying to the immense loneliness inherent to living. For him it was stripped of any other meaning - no meaning could make better use of that building. Yes, alone we are, deeply alone, and always, in store for us, a layer of loneliness even deeper. There is nothing we can do to dispose of that. No, loneliness shouldn't surprise us, as astonishing to experience it as it may be. You can try turning yourself inside out, but all you are then is inside out and lonely instead of inside in and lonely. My stupid, stupid Merry dear, stupider even than your stupid father, not even blowing up buildings helps. It's lonely if there are buildings and it's lonely if there are no buildings. There is no protest to be lodged against loneliness - not all the bombing campaigns in history have made a dent in it. The most lethat of manmade explosives can't touch it. Stand in awe not of Communism, my idiot child, but of ordinary, everyday loneliness. On May Day go out and march with your friends to its greater glory, the superpower of superpowers, the force that overwhelms all. Put your money on it, bet on it, worship it - bow down in submission not to Karl Marx, my stuttering, angry, idiot child, not to Ho Chi-Minh and Mao Tse-tung - bow down to the great god of Loneliness! ~ Philip Roth,

822:One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can't cope with. There is no problem with changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end. The major problem is simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be descibed differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is futher complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations while you are actually traveling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father. Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later aditions of the book all pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term "Future Perfect" has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be. ~ Douglas Adams,

823:The big question in cosmology in the early 1960s was did the universe have a beginning? Many scientists were instinctively opposed to the idea, because they felt that a point of creation would be a place where science broke down. One would have to appeal to religion and the hand of God to determine how the universe would start off. This was clearly a fundamental question, and it was just what I needed to complete my PhD thesis. Roger Penrose had shown that once a dying star had contracted to a certain radius, there would inevitably be a singularity, that is a point where space and time came to an end. Surely, I thought, we already knew that nothing could prevent a massive cold star from collapsing under its own gravity until it reached a singularity of infinite density. I realised that similar arguments could be applied to the expansion of the universe. In this case, I could prove there were singularities where space–time had a beginning. A eureka moment came in 1970, a few days after the birth of my daughter, Lucy. While getting into bed one evening, which my disability made a slow process, I realised that I could apply to black holes the casual structure theory I had developed for singularity theorems. If general relativity is correct and the energy density is positive, the surface area of the event horizon—the boundary of a black hole—has the property that it always increases when additional matter or radiation falls into it. Moreover, if two black holes collide and merge to form a single black hole, the area of the event horizon around the resulting black hole is greater than the sum of the areas of the event horizons around the original black holes. ~ Stephen Hawking,

824:For certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and piety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousand-fold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he refused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Rome's rival; and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And he was not mistaken: the event proved how wisely he had spoken. For when Carthage was destroyed, and the Roman republic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a crowd of disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the prosperous condition of things. First concord was weakened, and destroyed by fierce and bloody seditions; then followed, by a concatenation of baleful causes, civil wars, which brought in their train such massacres, such bloodshed, such lawless and cruel proscription and plunder, that those Romans who, in the days of their virtue, had expected injury only at the hands of their enemies, now that their virtue was lost, suffered greater cruelties at the hands of their fellow-citizens. The lust of rule, which with other vices existed among the Romans in more unmitigated intensity than among any other people, after it had taken possession of the more powerful few, subdued under its yoke the rest, worn and wearied. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo,

825:The Difference Your Life Can Make He who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins. James 5:20 One of the Christian's greatest deterrents from sin is the life of another Christian. Some Christians maintain that it is none of their business if another chooses to sin. They are convinced that they are being judgmental if they respond to someone in sin. The world persuades them not to get involved, but this inaction prevents them from being an effective intercessor. As Christians we are aware that sin brings death (Rom. 6:23). Sin kills relationships, dismantles marriages, stifles joy, and destroys peace. When we see someone wander from the truth into error, how should we respond? When Jesus saw sin, it broke His heart. He wept over entire cities as He saw them rejecting the truth (Matt. 23:37–39). He prayed fervently for His disciples to be strong when they were tempted (John 17). He warned those who were heading toward spiritual failure (Matt. 26:20–25, 34). Jesus was even willing to die to save people from their sins because He knew the devastation that sin causes. Jesus never stood idle as those around Him were led astray by their sin. He always took an active role in turning them back to God. “Minding your own business” will save you some discomfort, but it will not help a brother or sister who needs to return to the Lord. If you are truly aware of the grave consequences for those who continue in sin, you will be moved to weep even as Jesus wept. Pray fervently for your friend. That will safeguard your motives and prepare you to minister to him. Be alert, in the event that God asks you to confront your friend. If you do so, be loving and gentle lest you, too, be tempted (Gal. 6:1). ~ Henry T Blackaby,

826:The Valley Of Baca PSALM LXXXIV. A brackish lake is there with bitter pools Anigh its margin, brushed by heavy trees. A piping wind the narrow valley cools, Fretting the willows and the cypresses. Gray skies above, and in the gloomy space An awful presence hath its dwelling-place. I saw a youth pass down that vale of tears; His head was circled with a crown of thorn, His form was bowed as by the weight of years, His wayworn feet by stones were cut and torn. His eyes were such as have beheld the sword Of terror of the angel of the Lord. He passed, and clouds and shadows and thick haze Fell and encompassed him. I might not see What hand upheld him in those dismal ways, Wherethrough he staggered with his misery. The creeping mists that trooped and spread around, The smitten head and writhing form enwound. Then slow and gradual but sure they rose, Those clinging vapors blotting out the sky. The youth had fallen not, his viewless foes Discomfited, had left the victory Unto the heart that fainted not nor failed, But from the hill-tops its salvation hailed. I looked at him in dread lest I should see, The anguish of the struggle in his eyes; And lo, great peace was there! Triumphantly The sunshine crowned him from the sacred skies. 'From strength to strength he goes,' he leaves beneath The valley of the shadow and of death. 'Thrice blest who passing through that vale of Tears, Makes it a well,'-and draws life-nourishment 265 From those death-bitter drops. No grief, no fears Assail him further, he may scorn the event. For naught hath power to swerve the steadfast soul Within that valley broken and made whole. ~ Emma Lazarus,

827:Regression effects are ubiquitous, and so are misguided causal stories to explain them. A well-known example is the “Sports Illustrated jinx,” the claim that an athlete whose picture appears on the cover of the magazine is doomed to perform poorly the following season. Overconfidence and the pressure of meeting high expectations are often offered as explanations. But there is a simpler account of the jinx: an athlete who gets to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated must have performed exceptionally well in the preceding season, probably with the assistance of a nudge from luck—and luck is fickle. I happened to watch the men’s ski jump event in the Winter Olympics while Amos and I were writing an article about intuitive prediction. Each athlete has two jumps in the event, and the results are combined for the final score. I was startled to hear the sportscaster’s comments while athletes were preparing for their second jump: “Norway had a great first jump; he will be tense, hoping to protect his lead and will probably do worse” or “Sweden had a bad first jump and now he knows he has nothing to lose and will be relaxed, which should help him do better.” The commentator had obviously detected regression to the mean and had invented a causal story for which there was no evidence. The story itself could even be true. Perhaps if we measured the athletes’ pulse before each jump we might find that they are indeed more relaxed after a bad first jump. And perhaps not. The point to remember is that the change from the first to the second jump does not need a causal explanation. It is a mathematically inevitable consequence of the fact that luck played a role in the outcome of the first jump. Not a very satisfactory story—we would all prefer a causal account—but that is all there is. ~ Daniel Kahneman,

828:While white mob violence against African Americans was an obsession in the South, it was not limited to that region. White supremacy was and is an American reality. Whites lynched blacks in nearly every state, including New York, Minnesota, and California. Wherever blacks were present in significant numbers, the threat of being lynched was always real. Blacks had to “watch their step,” no matter where they were in America. A black man could be walking down the road, minding his business, and his life could suddenly change by meeting a white man or a group of white men or boys who on a whim decided to have some fun with a Negro; and this could happen in Mississippi or New York, Arkansas, or Illinois. By the 1890s, lynching fever gripped the South, spreading like cholera, as white communities made blacks their primary target, and torture their focus. Burning the black victim slowly for hours was the chief method of torture. Lynching became a white media spectacle, in which prominent newspapers, like the Atlanta Constitution, announced to the public the place, date, and time of the expected hanging and burning of black victims. Often as many as ten to twenty thousand men, women, and children attended the event. It was a family affair, a ritual celebration of white supremacy, where women and children were often given the first opportunity to torture black victims—burning black flesh and cutting off genitals, fingers, toes, and ears as souvenirs. Postcards were made from the photographs taken of black victims with white lynchers and onlookers smiling as they struck a pose for the camera. They were sold for ten to twenty-five cents to members of the crowd, who then mailed them to relatives and friends, often with a note saying something like this: “This is the barbeque we had last night.”[17] ~ James H Cone,

829:All airplanes must carry two black boxes, one of which records instructions sent to all on-board electronic systems. The other is a cockpit voice recorder, enabling investigators to get into the minds of the pilots in the moments leading up to an accident. Instead of concealing failure, or skirting around it, aviation has a system where failure is data rich. In the event of an accident, investigators, who are independent of the airlines, the pilots’ union, and the regulators, are given full rein to explore the wreckage and to interrogate all other evidence. Mistakes are not stigmatized, but regarded as learning opportunities. The interested parties are given every reason to cooperate, since the evidence compiled by the accident investigation branch is inadmissible in court proceedings. This increases the likelihood of full disclosure. In the aftermath of the investigation the report is made available to everyone. Airlines have a legal responsibility to implement the recommendations. Every pilot in the world has free access to the data. This practice enables everyone—rather than just a single crew, or a single airline, or a single nation—to learn from the mistake. This turbocharges the power of learning. As Eleanor Roosevelt put it: “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” And it is not just accidents that drive learning; so, too, do “small” errors. When pilots experience a near miss with another aircraft, or have been flying at the wrong altitude, they file a report. Providing that it is submitted within ten days, pilots enjoy immunity. Many planes are also fitted with data systems that automatically send reports when parameters have been exceeded. Once again, these reports are de-identified by the time they proceed through the report sequence.* ~ Matthew Syed,

830:Let us return to the distinction between Thalesian and Aristotelian for a minute and look at evolution from the following point of view. The frequency, i.e., how often someone is right is largely irrelevant in the real world, but alas, one needs to be a practitioner, not a talker, to figure it out. On paper, the frequency of being right matters, but only on paper—typically, fragile payoffs have little (sometimes no) upside, and antifragile payoffs have little downside. This means that one makes pennies to lose dollars in the fragile case; makes dollars to lose pennies in the antifragile one. So the antifragile can lose for a long time with impunity, so long as he happens to be right once; for the fragile, a single loss can be terminal. Accordingly if you were betting on the downfall of, say, a portfolio of financial institutions because of their fragilities, it would have cost you pennies over the years preceding their eventual demise in 2008, as Nero and Tony did. (Note again that taking the other side of fragility makes you antifragile.) You were wrong for years, right for a moment, losing small, winning big, so vastly more successful than the other way (actually the other way would be bust). So you would have made the Thekels like Thales because betting against the fragile is antifragile. But someone who had merely “predicted” the event with just words would have been called by the journalists “wrong for years,” “wrong most of the time,” etc. Should we keep tally of opinion makers’ “right” and “wrong,” the proportion does not matter, as we need to include consequences. And given that this is impossible, we are now in a quandary. Look at it again, the way we looked at entrepreneurs. They are usually wrong and make “mistakes”—plenty of mistakes. They are convex. So what counts is the payoff from success. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,

831:the device had the property of transresistance and should have a name similar to devices such as the thermistor and varistor, Pierce proposed transistor. Exclaimed Brattain, “That’s it!” The naming process still had to go through a formal poll of all the other engineers, but transistor easily won the election over five other options.35 On June 30, 1948, the press gathered in the auditorium of Bell Labs’ old building on West Street in Manhattan. The event featured Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain as a group, and it was moderated by the director of research, Ralph Bown, dressed in a somber suit and colorful bow tie. He emphasized that the invention sprang from a combination of collaborative teamwork and individual brilliance: “Scientific research is coming more and more to be recognized as a group or teamwork job. . . . What we have for you today represents a fine example of teamwork, of brilliant individual contributions, and of the value of basic research in an industrial framework.”36 That precisely described the mix that had become the formula for innovation in the digital age. The New York Times buried the story on page 46 as the last item in its “News of Radio” column, after a note about an upcoming broadcast of an organ concert. But Time made it the lead story of its science section, with the headline “Little Brain Cell.” Bell Labs enforced the rule that Shockley be in every publicity photo along with Bardeen and Brattain. The most famous one shows the three of them in Brattain’s lab. Just as it was about to be taken, Shockley sat down in Brattain’s chair, as if it were his desk and microscope, and became the focal point of the photo. Years later Bardeen would describe Brattain’s lingering dismay and his resentment of Shockley: “Boy, Walter hates this picture. . . . That’s Walter’s equipment and our experiment, ~ Walter Isaacson,

832:A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and because firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the case against a miracle is—just because it is a miracle—as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined to be. Why is it more than merely probable that all men must die, that lead cannot when not supported remain suspended in the air, that fire consumes wood and is extinguished by water, unless it is that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and for things to go differently there would have to be a violation of those laws, or in other words a miracle? Nothing is counted as a miracle if it ever happens in the common course of nature. When a man who seems to be in good health suddenly dies, this isn't a miracle; because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet often been observed to happen. But a dead man’s coming to life would be a miracle, because that has never been observed in any age or country. So there must be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, because otherwise the event wouldn't count as a ‘miracle’. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, we have here a direct and full proof against the existence of any miracle, just because it’s a miracle; and such a proof can’t be destroyed or the miracle made credible except by an opposite proof that is even stronger. This clearly leads us to a general maxim that deserves of our attention: No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle unless it is of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact that it tries to establish. And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the stronger one only gives us an assurance suitable to the force that remains to it after the force needed to cancel the other has been subtracted. ~ David Hume,

833:[from Some words about 'War and Peace'] For a historian considering the achievement of a certain aim, there are heroes; for the artist treating of a man's relation to all sides of life there cannot and should not be heroes, but there should be men. [...] The historian has to deal with the results of an event, the artist with the fact of the event. An historian in describing a battle says: 'The left flank of such and such an army was advanced to attack such and such a village and drove out the enemy, but was compelled to retire; then the cavalry, which was sent to attack, overthrew...' and so on. But these words have no meaning for the artist and do not actually touch on the event itself. Either from his own experience, or from the letters, memoirs, and accounts, the artist realizes a certain event to himself, and very often (to take the example of a battle) the deductions the historian permits himself to make as to the activity of such and such armies prove to be the very opposite of the artist's deductions. The difference of the results arrived at is also to be explained by the sources from which the two draw their information. For the historian (to keep to the case of a battle) the chief source is found in the reports of the commanding officers and the commander-in-chief. The artist can draw nothing from such sources; they tell him nothing and explain nothing to him. More than that: the artist turns away from them as he finds inevitable falsehood in them. To say nothing of the fact that after any battle the two sides nearly always describe it in quite contradictory ways, in every description of a battle there is a necessary lie, resulting from the need of describing in a few words the actions of thousands of men spread over several miles, and subject to most violent moral excitement under the influence of fear, shame and death. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

834:In the moment all is dear to me, dear that in this logic there is no redemption, the city itself being the highest form of madness and each and every part, organic or inorganic, an expression of this same madness. I feel absurdly and humbly great, not as megalomaniac, but as human spore, as the dead sponge of life swollen to saturation. I no longer look into the eyes of the woman I hold in my arms but I swim through, head and arms and legs, and I see that behind the sockets of the eyes there is a region unexplored, the world of futurity, and here there is no logic whatever, just the still germination of events unbroken by night and day, by yesterday and tomorrow. The eye, accustomed to concentration on points in space, now concentrates on points in time; the eye sees forward and backward at will. The eye which was the I of the self no longer exists; this selfless eye neither reveals nor illuminates. It travels along the line of the horizon, a ceaseless, uninformed voyager. Trying to retain the lost body I grew in logic as the city, a point digit in the anatomy of perfection. I grew beyond my own death, spiritually bright and hard. I was divided into endless yesterdays, endless tomorrows, resting only on the cusp of the event, a wall with many windows, but the house gone. I must shatter the walls and windows, the last shell of the lost body, if I am to rejoin the present. That is why I no longer look into the eyes or through the eyes, but by the legerdemain of will swim through the eyes, head and arms and legs to explore the curve of vision. I see around myself as the mother who bore me once saw round the comers of time. I have broken the wall created by birth and the line of voyage is round and unbroken, even as the navel. No form, no image, no architecture, only concentric flights of sheer madness. I am the arrow of the dream's substantiality. I verify by flight. I nullify by dropping to earth. ~ Henry Miller,

835:The ORDINARY RESPONSE TO ATROCITIES is to banish them from consciousness. Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable. Atrocities, however, refuse to be buried. Equally as powerful as the desire to deny atrocities is the conviction that denial does not work. Folk wisdom is filled with ghosts who refuse to rest in their graves until their stories are told. Murder will out. Remembering and telling the truth about terrible events are prerequisites both for the restoration of the social order and for the healing of individual victims. The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma. People who have survived atrocities often tell their stories in a highly emotional, contradictory, and fragmented manner that undermines their credibility and thereby serves the twin imperatives of truth-telling and secrecy. When the truth is finally recognized, survivors can begin their recovery. But far too often secrecy prevails, and the story of the traumatic event surfaces not as a verbal narrative but as a symptom. The psychological distress symptoms of traumatized people simultaneously call attention to the existence of an unspeakable secret and deflect attention from it. This is most apparent in the way traumatized people alternate between feeling numb and reliving the event. The dialectic of trauma gives rise to complicated, sometimes uncanny alterations of consciousness, which George Orwell, one of the committed truth-tellers of our century, called "doublethink," and which mental health professionals, searching for calm, precise language, call "dissociation." It results in protean, dramatic, and often bizarre symptoms of hysteria which Freud recognized a century ago as disguised communications about sexual abuse in childhood. . . . ~ Judith Lewis Herman,

836:After an injunction had been judicially intimated to me by this Holy Office, to the effect that I must altogether abandon the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center of the world, and moves, and that I must not hold, defend, or teach in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing, the said false doctrine, and after it had been notified to me that the said doctrine was contrary to Holy Scripture — I wrote and printed a book in which I discuss this new doctrine already condemned, and adduce arguments of great cogency in its favor, without presenting any solution of these, and for this reason I have been pronounced by the Holy Office to be vehemently suspected of heresy, that is to say, of having held and believed that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable, and that the earth is not the center and moves: Therefore, desiring to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of all faithful Christians, this vehement suspicion, justly conceived against me, with sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the aforesaid errors and heresies, and generally every other error, heresy, and sect whatsoever contrary to the said Holy Church, and I swear that in the future I will never again say or assert, verbally or in writing, anything that might furnish occasion for a similar suspicion regarding me; but that should I know any heretic, or person suspected of heresy, I will denounce him to this Holy Office, or to the Inquisitor or Ordinary of the place where I may be. Further, I swear and promise to fulfill and observe in their integrity all penances that have been, or that shall be, imposed upon me by this Holy Office. And, in the event of my contravening, any of these my promises and oaths, I submit myself to all the pains and penalties imposed and promulgated in the sacred canons and other constitutions, general and particular, against such delinquents. ~ Galileo Galilei,

837:As Wheeler explained at the time, “Nature at the quantum level is not a machine that goes its inexorable way. Instead what answer we get depends on the question we put, the experiment we arrange, the registering device we choose. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening.” Posing an example, he set up a fascinating mind-experiment. Utilizing the fact that a strong mass or gravity warps space-time, he imagined a small, distant light source like a quasar, whose bits of light must traverse the vicinity of a foreground massive galaxy en route to our eyes. If the geometry is correct—if the distant quasar, the intermediate massive galaxy, and our Earth are all on a perfectly straight line—each photon’s path will be warped to pass either above or below that galaxy. (The photon cannot go straight through the foreground galaxy because the galaxy’s mass has altered the actual geometry of space-time so that the shortest “highway” from the quasar to Earth is no longer a seemingly straight line. In any case, the material in the foreground galaxy would block the quasar’s light from penetrating it, even if it tried to travel that way.) Then it will continue for billions of more years before reaching our telescopes here on Earth (see Figure 8-4). If they really had a 50/50 chance of taking either route, which path did each photon traverse? Wheeler’s conclusion: The event, billions of years ago, didn’t really happen until we observe it today. Only now will a particular photon pass above or below the foreground galaxy billions of years ago. In other words, the past isn’t something that has already irrevocably occurred. Rather, long-ago events depend on the present observer. Until they’re observed at this moment, the events didn’t really unfold, but lurked in a blurry probabilistic state, all ready to become an actual “past” occurrence only upon our current observation. This astonishing possibility is called retrocausality. ~ Robert Lanza,

838:As the discoverer and principal excavator of Murray Springs, [...] Haynes deserves credit for drawing attention to a very curious aspect of the site--a distinct dark layer of soil draped 'like a shrink-wrap,' as Allen West puts it, over the top of the Clovis remains and of the extinct megafauna--including Eloise. Haynes has identified this 'black mat' (his term) not only at Murray Springs but at dozens of other sites across North America, and was the first to acknowledge its clear and obvious association with the Late Pleistocene Extinction Event. he speaks of the 'remarkable circumstances' surrounding the event, the abrupt die-off on a continental scale of all large mammals 'immediately before deposition of the ... black mat,' and the total absence thereafter of 'mammoth, mastodon, horse, camel, dire wold, American lion, tapir and other [megafauna], as well as Clovis people.' Haynes notes also that 'The basal black mat contact marks a major climate change from the warm dry climate of the terminal Allerod to the glacially cold Younger Dryas.' From roughly 18,000 years ago, and for several thousand years thereafter, global temperatures had been slowly but steadily rising and the ice sheets melting. Our ancestors would have had reason to hope that earth's long winter was at last coming to an end and that a new era of congenial climate beckoned. This process of warming became particularly pronounced after about 14,500 years ago. Then suddenly, around 12,800 years ago, the direction of climate change reversed and the world turned dramatically, instantly cold--as cold as it had been at the peak of the Ice Age many thousands of years earlier. This deep freeze--the mysterious epoch now known as the Younger Dryas--lasted for approximately 1,200 years until 11,600 years ago, at which point the climate flipped again, global temperatures shot up rapidly, the remnant ice sheets melted and collapsed into the oceans, and the world became as warm as it is today. ~ Graham Hancock,

839:Logotherapy bases its technique called “paradoxical intention” on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes. In German I described paradoxical intention as early as 1939.11 In this approach the phobic patient is invited to intend, even if only for a moment, precisely that which he fears. Let me recall a case. A young physician consulted me because of his fear of perspiring. Whenever he expected an outbreak of perspiration, this anticipatory anxiety was enough to precipitate excessive sweating. In order to cut this circle formation I advised the patient, in the event that sweating should recur, to resolve deliberately to show people how much he could sweat. A week later he returned to report that whenever he met anyone who triggered his anticipatory anxiety, he said to himself, “I only sweated out a quart before, but now I’m going to pour at least ten quarts!” The result was that, after suffering from his phobia for four years, he was able, after a single session, to free himself permanently of it within one week. The reader will note that this procedure consists of a reversal of the patient’s attitude, inasmuch as his fear is replaced by a paradoxical wish. By this treatment, the wind is taken out of the sails of the anxiety. Such a procedure, however, must make use of the specifically human capacity for self-detachment inherent in a sense of humor. This basic capacity to detach one from oneself is actualized whenever the logotherapeutic technique called paradoxical intention is applied. At the same time, the patient is enabled to put himself at a distance from his own neurosis. A statement consistent with this is found in Gordon W. Allport’s book, The Individual and His Religion: “The neurotic who learns to laugh at himself may be on the way to self-management, perhaps to cure.”12 Paradoxical intention is the empirical validation and clinical application of Allport’s statement. ~ Viktor E Frankl,

840:Mercury And The Elephant As Merc'ry travell'd thro' a Wood, (Whose Errands are more Fleet than Good) An Elephant before him lay, That much encumber'd had the Way: The Messenger, who's still in haste, Wou'd fain have bow'd, and so have past; When up arose th' unweildy Brute, And wou'd repeat a late Dispute, In which (he said) he'd gain'd the Prize From a wild Boar of monstrous Size: But Fame (quoth he) with all her Tongues, Who Lawyers, Ladies, Soldiers wrongs, Has, to my Disadvantage, told An Action throughly Bright and Bold; Has said, that I foul Play had us'd, And with my Weight th' Opposer bruis'd; Had laid my Trunk about his Brawn, Before his Tushes cou'd be drawn; Had stunn'd him with a hideous Roar, And twenty-thousand Scandals more: But I defy the Talk of Men, Or Voice of Brutes in ev'ry Den; Th' impartial Skies are all my Care, And how it stands Recorded there. Amongst you Gods, pray, What is thought? Quoth Mercury–Then have you Fought! Solicitous thus shou'd I be For what's said of my Verse and Me; Or shou'd my Friends Excuses frame, And beg the Criticks not to blame (Since from a Female Hand it came) Defects in Judgment, or in Wit; They'd but reply - Then has she Writ! Our Vanity we more betray, 94 In asking what the World will say, Than if, in trivial Things like these, We wait on the Event with ease; Nor make long Prefaces, to show What Men are not concern'd to know: For still untouch'd how we succeed, 'Tis for themselves, not us, they Read; Whilst that proceeding to requite, We own (who in the Muse delight) 'Tis for our Selves, not them, we Write. Betray'd by Solitude to try Amusements, which the Prosp'rous fly; And only to the Press repair, To fix our scatter'd Papers there; Tho' whilst our Labours are preserv'd, The Printers may, indeed, be starv'd. ~ Anne Kingsmill Finch,

841:Psychologists have devised some ingenious ways to help unpack the human "now." Consider how we run those jerky movie frames together into a smooth and continuous stream. This is known as the "phi phenomenon." The essence of phi shows up in experiments in a darkened room where two small spots are briefly lit in quick succession, at slightly separated locations. What the subjects report seeing is not a succession of spots, but a single spot moving continuously back and forth. Typically, the spots are illuminated for 150 milliseconds separated by an interval of fifty milliseconds. Evidently the brain somehow "fills in" the fifty-millisecond gap. Presumably this "hallucination" or embellishment occurs after the event, because until the second light flashes the subject cannot know the light is "supposed" to move. This hints that the human now is not simultaneous with the visual stimulus, but a bit delayed, allowing time for the brain to reconstruct a plausible fiction of what has happened a few milliseconds before. In a fascinating refinement of the experiment, the first spot is colored red, the second green. This clearly presents the brain with a problem. How will it join together the two discontinuous experiences—red spot, green spot—smoothly? By blending the colors seamlessly into one another? Or something else? In fact, subjects report seeing the spot change color abruptly in the middle of the imagined trajectory, and are even able to indicate exactly where using a pointer. This result leaves us wondering how the subject can apparently experience the "correct" color sensation before the green spot lights up. Is it a type of precognition? Commenting on this eerie phenomenon, the philosopher Nelson Goodman wrote suggestively: "The intervening motion is produced retrospectively, built only after the second flash occurs and projected backwards in time." In his book ,

842:What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish? There are some nations in Europe whose inhabitants think of themselves in a sense as colonists, indifferent to the fate of the place they live in. The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved. They are so divorced from their own interests that even when their own security and that of their children is finally compromised, they do not seek to avert the danger themselves but cross their arms and wait for the nation as a whole to come to their aid. Yet as utterly as they sacrifice their own free will, they are no fonder of obedience than anyone else. They submit, it is true, to the whims of a clerk, but no sooner is force removed than they are glad to defy the law as a defeated enemy. Thus one finds them ever wavering between servitude and license. When a nation has reached this point, it must either change its laws and mores or perish, for the well of public virtue has run dry: in such a place one no longer finds citizens but only subjects. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville,

843:Employing the NLP Fast Phobia Cure The NLP Fast Phobia Cure allows you to re-experience a trauma or phobia without experiencing the emotional content of the event or having to face the trigger that normally sets off the phobic response. You need to ensure that you work on this process in an environment where you know yourself to be completely safe, in the presence of another person who can help to keep you grounded if you begin to panic. This process ensures that you examine an experience while you’re doubly dissociated from the memory, creating a separation between you (in the now) and the emotions of a trauma or a phobic response. In the following list, the double dissociation is done through having you watch yourself in a cinema (dissociation), while watching yourself on a cinema screen (double dissociation) (you can find more on dissociation in Chapter 10): 1. Identify when you have a phobic response to a stimulus or a traumatic or unpleasant memory that you want to overcome. 2. Remember that you were safe before and are safe after the unpleasant experience. 3. Imagine yourself sitting in the cinema, watching yourself on a small, black-and-white screen. 4. Now imagine floating out of the ‘you’ that’s sitting in the cinema seat and into the projection booth. 5. You can now see yourself in the projection booth, watching yourself in the seat, watching the film of you on the screen. 6. Run the film in black and white, on the very tiny screen, starting before you experienced the memory you want to overcome and running it through until after the experience when you were safe. 7. Now freeze the film or turn the screen completely white. 8. Float out of the projection booth, out of the seat, and into the end of the film. 9. Run the film backwards very quickly, in a matter of a second or two, in full colour, as if you’re experiencing the film, right back to the beginning, when you were safe. 10. You can repeat steps 8 and 9 until you’re comfortable with the experience. 11. Now go into the future and test an imaginary time when you may have experienced the phobic response ~ Anonymous,

844:The suspicion that certain ancient authorities possessed good knowledge of the real shape of the Atlantic and its islands, and of the lands on both sides of it, must also arise from any objective reading of Plato's world-famous account of Atlantis. [...], this story is set around 11,600 years ago -- a date that coincides with a peak episode of global flooding at the end of the Ice Age. The story tells us that 'the island of Atlantis was swallowed up by the sea and vanished', that this took place in 'a single dreadful day and night' and that the event was accompanied by earthquakes and floods that were experienced as far away as the eastern Mediterranean. But of more immediate interest to us here is what Plato has to say about the geographical situation in the Atlantic immediately before the flood that destroyed Atlantis: 'In those days the Atlantic was navigable. There was an island opposite the strait [the Strait of Gibraltar] which you [the Greeks] call the Pillars of Heracles, an island larger than Libya and Asia combined; from it travellers could in those days reach the other islands, and from them the whole opposite continent which surrounds what can truly be called the ocean. For the sea within the strait we are talking about [i.e. the Mediterranean] is like a lake with a narrow entrance; the outer ocean is the real ocean and the land which entirely surrounds it is properly termed continent ... On this land of Atlantis had arisen a powerful and remarkable dynasty of kings who ruled the whole island; and many other islands as well, and parts of the continent ...' Whether or not one believes than an island called Atlantis ever existed in the Atlantic Ocean, Plato's clear references to an 'opposite continent' on the far side of it are geographical knowledge out of place in time. It is hard to read in these references anything other than an allusion to the Americas, and yet historians assure us that the Americas were unknown in Plato's time and remained 'undiscovered' (except for a few inconsequential Viking voyages) until Colombus in 1492. ~ Graham Hancock,

845:The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription. This could not be otherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (on whom the event seemed to depend) should be carried out, the concurrence of innumerable circumstances was needed without any one of which the event could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in whose hands lay the real power- the soldiers who fired, or transported provisions and guns should consent to carry out the will of these weak individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number of diverse and complex causes. We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not understand). The more we try to explain such events in history reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to us. Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance. There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life, which is the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental hive life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him. Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. A deed done is irrevocable, and its result coinciding in time with the actions of millions of other men assumes an historic significance. The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with and the more power he has over others, the more evident is the predestination and inevitability of his every action. ‘The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord.’ A king is history’s slave. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

846:Pasa Thalassa Thalassa “The sea is everywhere the sea.” Gone—faded out of the story, the sea-faring friend I remember? Gone for a decade, they say: never a word or a sign. Gone with his hard red face that only his laughter could wrinkle, Down where men go to be still, by the old way of the sea. Never again will he come, with rings in his ears like a pirate, Back to be living and seen, here with his roses and vines; Here where the tenants are shadows and echoes of years uneventful, Memory meets the event, told from afar by the sea. Smoke that floated and rolled in the twilight away from the chimney Floats and rolls no more. Wheeling and falling, instead, Down with a twittering flash go the smooth and inscrutable swallows, Down to the place made theirs by the cold work of the sea. Roses have had their day, and the dusk is on yarrow and wormwood— Dusk that is over the grass, drenched with memorial dew; Trellises lie like bones in a ruin that once was a garden, Swallows have lingered and ceased, shadows and echoes are all. II Where is he lying to-night, as I turn away down to the valley, Down where the lamps of men tell me the streets are alive? Where shall I ask, and of whom, in the town or on land or on water, News of a time and a place buried alike and with him? Few now remain who may care, nor may they be wiser for caring, Where or what manner the doom, whether by day or by night; Whether in Indian deeps or on flood-laden fields of Atlantis, Or by the roaring Horn, shrouded in silence he lies. Few now remain who return by the weed-weary path to his cottage, 229 Drawn by the scene as it was—met by the chill and the change; Few are alive who report, and few are alive who remember, More of him now than a name carved somewhere on the sea. “Where is he lying?” I ask, and the lights in the valley are nearer; Down to the streets I go, down to the murmur of men. Down to the roar of the sea in a ship may be well for another— Down where he lies to-night, silent, and under the storms. ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,

847:The second letter was sealed plainly, with no crest. I flung myself onto my pillows, broke the seal impatiently, and read: My Dear Countess: You say you would prefer discourse to gifts. I am yours to command. I will confess my hesitancy was due largely to my own confusion. It seems, from my vantage anyway, that you are surrounded by people in whom you could confide and from whom you could obtain excellent advice. Your turning to a faceless stranger for both could be ascribed to a taste for the idiosyncratic if not to mere caprice. I winced and dropped the paper to the table. “Well, I asked for the truth,” I muttered, and picked it up again. But I am willing to serve as foil, if foil you require. Judging from what you reported of your conversation with your lady of high rank, the insights you requested are these: First, with regard to her hint that someone else in power lied about rendering assistance at a crucial moment the year previous, you will not see either contender for power with any clarity until you ascertain which of them is telling the truth. Second, she wishes to attach you to her cause. From my limited understanding of said lady, I suspect she would not so bestir herself unless she believed you to be in, at least potentially, a position of influence. There was no signature, no closing. I read it through three times, then folded it carefully and fitted it inside one of my books. Pulling a fresh sheet of paper before me, I wrote: Dear Unknown: The only foil--actually, fool--here is me, which isn’t any pleasure to write. But I don’t want to talk about my past mistakes, I just want to learn to avoid making the same or like ones in future. Your advice about the event of last year (an escape) I thought of already and have begun my investigation. As for this putative position of power, it’s just that. I expect you’re being confused by my proximity to power--my brother being friend to the possible king and my living here in the Residence. But believe me, no one could possibly be more ignorant or less influential than I. With a sense of relief I folded that letter up, sealed it, and gave it to Mora to send along the usual route. Then I went gratefully to sleep. ~ Sherwood Smith,

848:The attack on 9/11 was a localized event, affecting only a relatively small number of Americans. As indicated earlier, the general threat of terrorism, even factoring in the large death toll on that tragic day, produces a statistically insignificant threat to the average person’s life. People across the country, however, were gripped with fear. And because we are an object-oriented people, most felt the need to project that fear onto something. Some people stopped flying in airplanes, worried about a repeat attack—and for years afterward, air travel always dipped on the anniversary of 9/11.4 Of course, this was and is an irrational fear; it is safer to travel by plane than by car. According to the National Safety Council, in 2010 there were over 22,000 passenger deaths involving automobiles, while no one died in scheduled airline travel that year.5 Nevertheless, Congress responded by rushing through the USA PATRIOT Act six weeks after 9/11—a 240-plus page bill that was previously written, not available to the public prior to the vote, and barely available to the elected officials in Congress, none of whom read it through before casting their votes.6 Two weeks previous to the bill’s passage, President Bush had announced the establishment of the Office of Homeland Security to “develop and coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks.” He explained that “[t]he Office will coordinate the executive branch’s efforts to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States.”7 The office’s efforts culminated in the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) one year later as a result of the Homeland Security Act of 2002. This law consolidated executive branch organizations related to “homeland security” into a single Cabinet department; twenty-two total agencies became part of this new apparatus. The government, responding to the outcry from a fearful citizenry, was eager to “do something.” All of this (and much, much more), affecting all Americans, because of a localized event materially affecting only a few. But while the event directly impacted only a small percentage of the population, its impact was felt throughout the entire country. ~ Connor Boyack,

849:I’d met Madison, as I’ve already mentioned, two months earlier, in Budapest. I’d been at a conference. She’d been there with some girlfriends. We’d got talking in the hotel bar. An anthropologist, she’d said; that’s … exotic. Not at all, I’d replied; I work for an incorporated business, in a basement. Yes, she said, but … But what? I asked. Dances, and masks, and feathers, she eventually responded: that’s the essence of your work, isn’t it? I mean, even if you’re writing a report on workplace etiquette, or how to motivate employees or whatever, you’re seeing it all through a lens of rituals, and rites, and stuff. It must make the everyday all primitive and strange—no? I saw what she was getting at; but she was wrong. For anthropologists, even the exotic’s not exotic, let alone the everyday. In his key volume Tristes Tropiques, Claude Lévi-Strauss, the twentieth century’s most brilliant ethnographer, describes pacing the streets, all draped with new electric cable, of Lahore’s Old Town sometime in the nineteen-fifties, trying to piece together, long after the event, a vanished purity—of local colour, texture, custom, life in general—from nothing but leftovers and debris. He goes on to describe being struck by the same impression when he lived among the Amazonian Nambikwara tribe: the sense of having come “too late”—although he knows, from having read a previous account of life among the Nambikwara, that the anthropologist (that account’s author) who came here fifty years earlier, before the rubber-traders and the telegraph, was struck by that impression also; and knows as well that the anthropologist who, inspired by the account that Lévi-Strauss will himself write of this trip, shall come back in fifty more will be struck by it too, and wish—if only!—that he could have been here fifty years ago (that is, now, or, rather, then) to see what he, Lévi-Strauss, saw, or failed to see. This leads him to identify a “double-bind” to which all anthropologists, and anthropology itself, are, by their very nature, prey: the “purity” they crave is no more than a state in which all frames of comprehension, of interpretation and analysis, are lacking; once these are brought to bear, the mystery that drew the anthropologist towards his subject in the first place vanishes. I explained this to her; and she seemed, despite the fact that she was drunk, to understand what I was saying. Wow, she murmured; that’s kind of fucked. 2.8 When I arrived at Madison’s, we had sex. Afterwards, ~ Tom McCarthy,

850:The president fundamentally wants to be liked” was Katie Walsh’s analysis. “He just fundamentally needs to be liked so badly that it’s always … everything is a struggle for him.” This translated into a constant need to win something—anything. Equally important, it was essential that he look like a winner. Of course, trying to win without consideration, plan, or clear goals had, in the course of the administration’s first nine months, resulted in almost nothing but losses. At the same time, confounding all political logic, that lack of a plan, that impulsivity, that apparent joie de guerre, had helped create the disruptiveness that seemed to so joyously shatter the status quo for so many. But now, Bannon thought, that novelty was finally wearing off. For Bannon, the Strange-Moore race had been a test of the Trump cult of personality. Certainly Trump continued to believe that people were following him, that he was the movement—and that his support was worth 8 to 10 points in any race. Bannon had decided to test this thesis and to do it as dramatically as possible. All told, the Senate Republican leadership and others spent $ 32 million on Strange’s campaign, while Moore’s campaign spent $ 2 million. Trump, though aware of Strange’s deep polling deficit, had agreed to extend his support in a personal trip. But his appearance in Huntsville, Alabama, on September 22, before a Trump-size crowd, was a political flatliner. It was a full-on Trump speech, ninety minutes of rambling and improvisation—the wall would be built (now it was a see-through wall), Russian interference in the U.S. election was a hoax, he would fire anybody on his cabinet who supported Moore. But, while his base turned out en masse, still drawn to Trump the novelty, his cheerleading for Luther Strange drew at best a muted response. As the crowd became restless, the event threatened to become a hopeless embarrassment. Reading his audience and desperate to find a way out, Trump suddenly threw out a line about Colin Kaepernick taking to his knee while the national anthem played at a National Football League game. The line got a standing ovation. The president thereupon promptly abandoned Luther Strange for the rest of the speech. Likewise, for the next week he continued to whip the NFL. Pay no attention to Strange’s resounding defeat five days after the event in Huntsville. Ignore the size and scale of Trump’s rejection and the Moore-Bannon triumph, with its hint of new disruptions to come. Now Trump had a new topic, and a winning one: the Knee. ~ Michael Wolff,

851:While you were gone, I began planning for the return of our Harvest Festival. Rava doesn’t want the event held. She told me to call it off.” “I know,” he wryly acknowledged. “She made me aware of your activities and her decision when I arrived.” “And?” “She won’t yield. She’s already sent word to the High Priestess.” I nodded, then asked, my voice barely audible, “And what do you say?” “I say…” He reached for my hands, determination building in his intense blue eyes. “I say we proceed with the festival until and unless the High Priestess comes here herself and brings it to a halt. Political fires aren’t interesting without kindling.” I smiled, and he took me into his arms, lightly kissing me. “At least we don’t have anything to worry about tonight,” I murmured as we lay down next to each other. “I always worry.” “Really? I wouldn’t have thought of you as the worrying kind.” “I worry when I cannot act,” he mused, drawing me close, and I felt life and strength flowing into me, warming me from head to toe. “I can handle heaven and hell, but not limbo.” “I thought you had no religion in Cokyri. How do you know about heaven and hell?” “We don’t practice religion, but we have education. I probably know more about your faith than you do.” I placed a hand on his chest and pushed myself up to look at him in mock umbrage. “Then tell me how our wedding will proceed.” “That I don’t know,” he said with a grin. “I suspect Hytanica’s marital traditions and rites would fill a volume more than double the rest of our history texts put together.” “You’re ridiculous!” I lightly smothered him with a pillow, then nestled upon his chest, content and ready for sleep. At some point in the night, I woke and looked over to see Narian staring at the ceiling. “What are you doing?” I asked, stifling a yawn. “Thinking.” “Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking about?” “Candidates for my new second-in-command. I have a feeling your Harvest Festival is going to bring matters to the breaking point between us and Rava. If things go our way and the High Priestess removes her, I intend to be the one to name her replacement.” “And this cannot wait until morning?” I asked, even though I knew how he would respond. “I believe in being prepared.” I nodded and closed my eyes. Anticipating, planning, developing strategies and counter strategies, was another ingrained aspect of Narian’s nature. As I drifted back to sleep, I wondered for how many contingencies he was prepared that I knew nothing about. ~ Cayla Kluver,

852:1 You said ‘The world is going back to Paganism’. Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes, And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes, Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem. Hestia’s fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands Tended it. By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. At the hour Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush Arose (it is the mark of freemen’s children) as they trooped, Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance. Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods, Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men, Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing. Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions; Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears … You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop. 2 Or did you mean another kind of heathenry? Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth, Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm. Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound; But the bond wil1 break, the Beast run free. The weary gods, Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand, Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them; For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last, And every man of decent blood is on the losing side. Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits Who walked back into burning houses to die with men, Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim. Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs; You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune). ~ C S Lewis,

853:But there were problems. After the movie came out I couldn’t go to a tournament without being surrounded by fans asking for autographs. Instead of focusing on chess positions, I was pulled into the image of myself as a celebrity. Since childhood I had treasured the sublime study of chess, the swim through ever-deepening layers of complexity. I could spend hours at a chessboard and stand up from the experience on fire with insight about chess, basketball, the ocean, psychology, love, art. The game was exhilarating and also spiritually calming. It centered me. Chess was my friend. Then, suddenly, the game became alien and disquieting. I recall one tournament in Las Vegas: I was a young International Master in a field of a thousand competitors including twenty-six strong Grandmasters from around the world. As an up-and-coming player, I had huge respect for the great sages around me. I had studied their masterpieces for hundreds of hours and was awed by the artistry of these men. Before first-round play began I was seated at my board, deep in thought about my opening preparation, when the public address system announced that the subject of Searching for Bobby Fischer was at the event. A tournament director placed a poster of the movie next to my table, and immediately a sea of fans surged around the ropes separating the top boards from the audience. As the games progressed, when I rose to clear my mind young girls gave me their phone numbers and asked me to autograph their stomachs or legs. This might sound like a dream for a seventeen-year-old boy, and I won’t deny enjoying the attention, but professionally it was a nightmare. My game began to unravel. I caught myself thinking about how I looked thinking instead of losing myself in thought. The Grandmasters, my elders, were ignored and scowled at me. Some of them treated me like a pariah. I had won eight national championships and had more fans, public support and recognition than I could dream of, but none of this was helping my search for excellence, let alone for happiness. At a young age I came to know that there is something profoundly hollow about the nature of fame. I had spent my life devoted to artistic growth and was used to the sweaty-palmed sense of contentment one gets after many hours of intense reflection. This peaceful feeling had nothing to do with external adulation, and I yearned for a return to that innocent, fertile time. I missed just being a student of the game, but there was no escaping the spotlight. I found myself dreading chess, miserable before leaving for tournaments. I played without inspiration and was invited to appear on television shows. I smiled. ~ Josh Waitzkin,

854:Cliche Came Out Of Its Cage You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'. Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes, And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes, Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem. Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands Tended it By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. at the hour Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped, Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance. Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods, Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men, Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing. Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions; Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears ... You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop. Or did you mean another kind of heathenry? Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth, Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm. Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound; But the bond wil1 break, the Beast run free. The weary gods, Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand, Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them; For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong 24 Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last, And every man of decent blood is on the losing side. Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits Who walked back into burning houses to die with men, Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim. Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs; You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune). ~ Clive Staples Lewis,

855:Catching my breath, I lean against the front of the car and focus on the individual blades of grass hedging my flip-flop, trying not to throw up or pass out or both. In the far distance, a vehicle approaches-the first one to witness the scene of our accident. A million explanations run through my mind, but I can’t imagine a single scenario that would solve all-or any-of our issues right now. None of us can risk going to the hospital. Mom technically doesn’t qualify as human, so I’m sure we’d get a pretty interesting diagnosis. Rachel is technically supposed to be deceased as of the last ten years or so, and while she probably has a plethora of fake IDs, she’s still antsy around cops, which will surely be called to the hospital in the event of a gunshot wound, even if it is just in the foot. And let’s not forget that Mom and Rachel are new handcuff buddies. There just isn’t an explanation for any of this. That’s when I decide I’m not the one who should do the talking. After all, I didn’t kidnap anyone. I didn’t shoot anyone. And I certainly didn’t handcuff myself to the person who shot me. Besides, both Mom and Rachel are obviously much more skilled at deception then I’ll ever be. “If someone pulls over to help us, one of you is explaining all this,” I inform them. “You’ll probably want to figure it out fast, because here comes a car.” But the car comes and goes without even slowing. In fact, a lot of cars come and go, and if the situation weren’t so strange and if I weren’t so thankful that they didn’t actually stop, I’d be forced to reexamine what the world is coming to, not helping strangers in an accident. Then it occurs to me that maybe the passerby don’t realize it’s the scene of an accident. Mom’s car is in the ditch, but the ditch might be steep enough to hide it. It’s possible that no one can even see Rachel and Mom from the side of the road. Still, I am standing at the front of Rachel’s car. An innocent-looking teenage girl just loitering for fun in the middle of nowhere and no one cares to stop? Seriously? Just as I decide that people suck, a vehicle coming from the opposite direction slows and pulls up a few feet behind us. It’s not a good Samaritan traveler pulling over to see what he or she can do to inadvertently complicate things. It’s not an ambulance. It’s not a state trooper. If only we could be so lucky. But, nope, it’s way worse. Because it’s Galen’s SUV. From where I stand, I can see him looking at me from behind the wheel. His face is stricken and tried and relieved and pained. I want to want to want to believe the look in his eyes right now. The look that clearly says he’s found what he’s looking for, in more ways than one. ~ Anna Banks,

856:The traditional Roman wedding was a splendid affair designed to dramatize the bride’s transfer from the protection of her father’s household gods to those of her husband. Originally, this literally meant that she passed from the authority of her father to her husband, but at the end of the Republic women achieved a greater degree of independence, and the bride remained formally in the care of a guardian from her blood family. In the event of financial and other disagreements, this meant that her interests were more easily protected. Divorce was easy, frequent and often consensual, although husbands were obliged to repay their wives’ dowries. The bride was dressed at home in a white tunic, gathered by a special belt which her husband would later have to untie. Over this she wore a flame-colored veil. Her hair was carefully dressed with pads of artificial hair into six tufts and held together by ribbons. The groom went to her father’s house and, taking her right hand in his, confirmed his vow of fidelity. An animal (usually a ewe or a pig) was sacrificed in the atrium or a nearby shrine and an Augur was appointed to examine the entrails and declare the auspices favorable. The couple exchanged vows after this and the marriage was complete. A wedding banquet, attended by the two families, concluded with a ritual attempt to drag the bride from her mother’s arms in a pretended abduction. A procession was then formed which led the bride to her husband’s house, holding the symbols of housewifely duty, a spindle and distaff. She took the hand of a child whose parents were living, while another child, waving a hawthorn torch, walked in front to clear the way. All those in the procession laughed and made obscene jokes at the happy couple’s expense. When the bride arrived at her new home, she smeared the front door with oil and lard and decorated it with strands of wool. Her husband, who had already arrived, was waiting inside and asked for her praenomen or first name. Because Roman women did not have one and were called only by their family name, she replied in a set phrase: “Wherever you are Caius, I will be Caia.” She was then lifted over the threshold. The husband undid the girdle of his wife’s tunic, at which point the guests discreetly withdrew. On the following morning she dressed in the traditional costume of married women and made a sacrifice to her new household gods. By the late Republic this complicated ritual had lost its appeal for sophisticated Romans and could be replaced by a much simpler ceremony, much as today many people marry in a registry office. The man asked the woman if she wished to become the mistress of a household (materfamilias), to which she answered yes. In turn, she asked him if he wished to become paterfamilias, and on his saying he did the couple became husband and wife. ~ Anthony Everitt,

857:I saw a banner hanging next to city hall in downtown Philadelphia that read, "Kill them all, and let God sort them out." A bumper sticker read, "God will judge evildoers; we just have to get them to him." I saw a T-shirt on a soldier that said, "US Air Force... we don't die; we just go to hell to regroup." Others were less dramatic- red, white, and blue billboards saying, "God bless our troops." "God Bless America" became a marketing strategy. One store hung an ad in their window that said, "God bless America--$1 burgers." Patriotism was everywhere, including in our altars and church buildings. In the aftermath of September 11th, most Christian bookstores had a section with books on the event, calendars, devotionals, buttons, all decorated in the colors of America, draped in stars and stripes, and sprinkled with golden eagles. This burst of nationalism reveals the deep longing we all have for community, a natural thirst for intimacy... September 11th shattered the self-sufficient, autonomous individual, and we saw a country of broken fragile people who longed for community- for people to cry with, be angry with, to suffer with. People did not want to be alone in their sorrow, rage, and fear. But what happened after September 11th broke my heart. Conservative Christians rallies around the drums of war. Liberal Christian took to the streets. The cross was smothered by the flag and trampled under the feet of angry protesters. The church community was lost, so the many hungry seekers found community in the civic religion of American patriotism. People were hurting and crying out for healing, for salvation in the best sense of the word, as in the salve with which you dress a wound. A people longing for a savior placed their faith in the fragile hands of human logic and military strength, which have always let us down. They have always fallen short of the glory of God. ...The tragedy of the church's reaction to September 11th is not that we rallied around the families in New York and D.C. but that our love simply reflected the borders and allegiances of the world. We mourned the deaths of each soldier, as we should, but we did not feel the same anger and pain for each Iraqi death, or for the folks abused in the Abu Ghraib prison incident. We got farther and farther from Jesus' vision, which extends beyond our rational love and the boundaries we have established. There is no doubt that we must mourn those lives on September 11th. We must mourn the lives of the soldiers. But with the same passion and outrage, we must mourn the lives of every Iraqi who is lost. They are just as precious, no more, no less. In our rebirth, every life lost in Iraq is just as tragic as a life lost in New York or D.C. And the lives of the thirty thousand children who die of starvation each day is like six September 11ths every single day, a silent tsunami that happens every week. ~ Shane Claiborne,

858:Since my visit to the Hermitage, I had become more aware of the four figures, two women and two men, who stood around the luminous space where the father welcomed his returning son. Their way of looking leaves you wondering how they think or feel about what they are watching. These bystanders, or observers, allow for all sorts of interpretations. As I reflect on my own journey, I become more and more aware of how long I have played the role of observer. For years I had instructed students on the different aspects of the spiritual life, trying to help them see the importance of living it. But had I, myself, really ever dared to step into the center, kneel down, and let myself be held by a forgiving God? The simple fact of being able to express an opinion, to set up an argument, to defend a position, and to clarify a vision has given me, and gives me still, a sense of control. And, generally, I feel much safer in experiencing a sense of control over an undefinable situation than in taking the risk of letting that situation control me. Certainly there were many hours of prayer, many days and months of retreat, and countless conversations with spiritual directors, but I had never fully given up the role of bystander. Even though there has been in me a lifelong desire to be an insider looking out, I nevertheless kept choosing over and over again the position of the outsider looking in. Sometimes this looking-in was a curious looking-in, sometimes a jealous looking-in, sometimes an anxious looking-in, and, once in a while, even a loving looking-in. But giving up the somewhat safe position of the critical observer seemed like a great leap into totally unknown territory. I so much wanted to keep some control over my spiritual journey, to be able to predict at least a part of the outcome, that relinquishing the security of the observer for the vulnerability of the returning son seemed close to impossible. Teaching students, passing on the many explanations given over the centuries to the words and actions of Jesus, and showing them the many spiritual journeys that people have chosen in the past seemed very much like taking the position of one of the four figures surrounding the divine embrace. The two women standing behind the father at different distances the seated man staring into space and looking at no one in particular, and the tall man standing erect and looking critically at the event on the platform in front of him--they all represent different ways of not getting involved. There is indifference, curiosity, daydreaming, and attentive observation; there is staring, gazing, watching, and looking; there is standing in the background, leaning against an arch, sitting with arms crossed, and standing with hands gripping each other. Every one of these inner and outward postures are all too familiar with me. Some are more comfortable than others, but all of them are ways of not getting directly involved," (pp. 12-13). ~ Henri J M Nouwen,

859:You are a hater of activity in life; quite right, for before there can be any meaning in activity, life must have continuity, and this your life lacks. You occupy yourself with your studies, that is true, you are even industrious. But it is only for your own sake and is done with as little teleology as possible. Otherwise you are unoccupied; like those workers in the Gospel, you stand idle in the marketplace (Matthew 20:3). You stick your hands in your pockets and observe life. Then you rest in despair, nothing occupies you, you don’t step aside for anything: “if someone were to throw a tile down from the roof I wouldn’t get out of the way.” You are like someone dying, you die daily, not in the profound, serious sense in which one usually takes that word, but life has lost its reality and “you always reckon your lifetime from one day’s notice to quit to the next”. You let everything pass you by, it makes no impression, but then suddenly something comes which grips you, an idea, a situation, a smile from a young girl, and then you are “in touch”; for just as on some occasions you are not in touch, so at others you are in touch and of service in every way. Wherever something is going on you are “in touch”. You conduct your life as it is your custom to behave in a crowd, you “work your way into the thickest of it, trying if possible to be forced up above the others so as to be able to lie on top of them”; if you manage to get up there you “make yourself as comfortable as possible”, and this is also the way you let yourself be carried along through life. But when the crowd disperses, when the event is over, you stand once more at the street corner and look at the world. A dying person possesses, as you know, a supernatural energy, and so too with you. If there is an idea to be thought through, a work to be read through, a plan to be carried out, a little adventure to be experienced - yes, a hat to be bought, you take hold of the matter with an immense energy. According to circumstance, you work on untiringly for a day, for a month; you are happy in the assurance that you still have the same abundance of strength as before, you take no rest, “no Satan can keep up with you”. If you work together with others, you work them into the ground. But then when the month or, what you always consider the maximum, the six months have gone, you break off and say, “and that’s the end of the story”. You retire and leave it all to the other party, or if you have been working alone you talk to no one about what you were doing. You then pretend to yourself and others that you have lost the desire and flatter yourself with the vain thought that you could have kept working with the same intensity if that is what you desired. But that is an immense deception. You would have succeeded in finishing it, as most others, if you had patiently willed it so, but you would have found out at the same time that it needs a kind of perseverance quite different from yours. ~ S ren Kierkegaard,

860:MY DEAR MISS BROOKE,—I have your guardian's permission to address you on a subject than which I have none more at heart. I am not, I trust, mistaken in the recognition of some deeper correspondence than that of date in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had arisen contemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with you. For in the first hour of meeting you, I had an impression of your eminent and perhaps exclusive fitness to supply that need (connected, I may say, with such activity of the affections as even the preoccupations of a work too special to be abdicated could not uninterruptedly dissimulate); and each succeeding opportunity for observation has given the impression an added depth by convincing me more emphatically of that fitness which I had preconceived, and thus evoking more decisively those affections to which I have but now referred. Our conversations have, I think, made sufficiently clear to you the tenor of my life and purposes: a tenor unsuited, I am aware, to the commoner order of minds. But I have discerned in you an elevation of thought and a capability of devotedness, which I had hitherto not conceived to be compatible either with the early bloom of youth or with those graces of sex that may be said at once to win and to confer distinction when combined, as they notably are in you, with the mental qualities above indicated. It was, I confess, beyond my hope to meet with this rare combination of elements both solid and attractive, adapted to supply aid in graver labors and to cast a charm over vacant hours; and but for the event of my introduction to you (which, let me again say, I trust not to be superficially coincident with foreshadowing needs, but providentially related thereto as stages towards the completion of a life's plan), I should presumably have gone on to the last without any attempt to lighten my solitariness by a matrimonial union. Such, my dear Miss Brooke, is the accurate statement of my feelings; and I rely on your kind indulgence in venturing now to ask you how far your own are of a nature to confirm my happy presentiment. To be accepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian of your welfare, I should regard as the highest of providential gifts. In return I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted, and the faithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, has no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find records such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame. I await the expression of your sentiments with an anxiety which it would be the part of wisdom (were it possible) to divert by a more arduous labor than usual. But in this order of experience I am still young, and in looking forward to an unfavorable possibility I cannot but feel that resignation to solitude will be more difficult after the temporary illumination of hope. In any case, I shall remain,     Yours with sincere devotion,      EDWARD CASAUBON ~ George Eliot,

861:The electronics effort faced even greater challenges. To launch that category, David Risher tapped a Dartmouth alum named Chris Payne who had previously worked on Amazon’s DVD store. Like Miller, Payne had to plead with suppliers—in this case, Asian consumer-electronics companies like Sony, Toshiba, and Samsung. He quickly hit a wall. The Japanese electronics giants viewed Internet sellers like Amazon as sketchy discounters. They also had big-box stores like Best Buy and Circuit City whispering in their ears and asking them to take a pass on Amazon. There were middlemen distributors, like Ingram Electronics, but they offered a limited selection. Bezos deployed Doerr to talk to Howard Stringer at Sony America, but he got nowhere. So Payne had to turn to the secondary distributors—jobbers that exist in an unsanctioned, though not illegal, gray market. Randy Miller, a retail finance director who came to Amazon from Eddie Bauer, equates it to buying from the trunk of someone’s car in a dark alley. “It was not a sustainable inventory model, but if you are desperate to have particular products on your site or in your store, you do what you need to do,” he says. Buying through these murky middlemen got Payne and his fledgling electronics team part of the way toward stocking Amazon’s virtual shelves. But Bezos was unimpressed with the selection and grumpily compared it to shopping in a Russian supermarket during the years of Communist rule. It would take Amazon years to generate enough sales to sway the big Asian brands. For now, the electronics store was sparely furnished. Bezos had asked to see $100 million in electronics sales for the 1999 holiday season; Payne and his crew got about two-thirds of the way there. Amazon officially announced the new toy and electronics stores that summer, and in September, the company held a press event at the Sheraton in midtown Manhattan to promote the new categories. Someone had the idea that the tables in the conference room at the Sheraton should have piles of merchandise representing all the new categories, to reinforce the idea of broad selection. Bezos loved it, but when he walked into the room the night before the event, he threw a tantrum: he didn’t think the piles were large enough. “Do you want to hand this business to our competitors?” he barked into his cell phone at his underlings. “This is pathetic!” Harrison Miller, Chris Payne, and their colleagues fanned out that night across Manhattan to various stores, splurging on random products and stuffing them in the trunks of taxicabs. Miller spent a thousand dollars alone at a Toys “R” Us in Herald Square. Payne maxed out his personal credit card and had to call his wife in Seattle to tell her not to use the card for a few days. The piles of products were eventually large enough to satisfy Bezos, but the episode was an early warning. To satisfy customers and their own demanding boss during the upcoming holiday, Amazon executives were going to have to substitute artifice and improvisation for truly comprehensive selection. ~ Brad Stone,

862:When a man seats before his eyes the bronze face of his helmet and steps off from the line of departure, he divides himself, as he divides his ‘ticket,’ in two parts. One part he leaves behind. That part which takes delight in his children, which lifts his voice in the chorus, which clasps his wife to him in the sweet darkness of their bed. “That half of him, the best part, a man sets aside and leaves behind. He banishes from his heart all feelings of tenderness and mercy, all compassion and kindness, all thought or concept of the enemy as a man, a human being like himself. He marches into battle bearing only the second portion of himself, the baser measure, that half which knows slaughter and butchery and turns the blind eye to quarter. He could not fight at all if he did not do this.” The men listened, silent and solemn. Leonidas at that time was fifty-five years old. He had fought in more than two score battles, since he was twenty; wounds as ancient as thirty years stood forth, lurid upon his shoulders and calves, on his neck and across his steel-colored beard. “Then this man returns, alive, out of the slaughter. He hears his name called and comes forward to take his ticket. He reclaims that part of himself which he had earlier set aside. “This is a holy moment. A sacramental moment. A moment in which a man feels the gods as close as his own breath. “What unknowable mercy has spared us this day? What clemency of the divine has turned the enemy’s spear one handbreadth from our throat and driven it fatally into the breast of the beloved comrade at our side? Why are we still here above the earth, we who are no better, no braver, who reverenced heaven no more than these our brothers whom the gods have dispatched to hell? “When a man joins the two pieces of his ticket and sees them weld in union together, he feels that part of him, the part that knows love and mercy and compassion, come flooding back over him. This is what unstrings his knees. “What else can a man feel at that moment than the most grave and profound thanksgiving to the gods who, for reasons unknowable, have spared his life this day? Tomorrow their whim may alter. Next week, next year. But this day the sun still shines upon him, he feels its warmth upon his shoulders, he beholds about him the faces of his comrades whom he loves and he rejoices in their deliverance and his own.” Leonidas paused now, in the center of the space left open for him by the troops. “I have ordered pursuit of the foe ceased. I have commanded an end to the slaughter of these whom today we called our enemies. Let them return to their homes. Let them embrace their wives and children. Let them, like us, weep tears of salvation and burn thank-offerings to the gods. “Let no one of us forget or misapprehend the reason we fought other Greeks here today. Not to conquer or enslave them, our brothers, but to make them allies against a greater enemy. By persuasion, we hoped. By coercion, in the event. But no matter, they are our allies now and we will treat them as such from this moment. “The Persian! ~ Steven Pressfield,

863:If brute force wouldn't suffice, however, there was always the famous Viking cunning. The fleet was put to anchor and under a flag of truce some Vikings approached the gate. Their leader, they claimed, was dying and wished to be baptized as a Christian. As proof, they had brought along the ailing Hastein on a litter, groaning and sweating.  The request presented a moral dilemma for the Italians. As Christians they could hardly turn away a dying penitent, but they didn't trust the Vikings and expected a trick. The local count, in consultation with the bishop, warily decided to admit Hastein, but made sure that he was heavily guarded. A detachment of soldiers was sent to collect Hastein and a small retinue while the rest of the Vikings waited outside.  Despite the misgivings, the people of Luna flocked to see the curiosity of a dreaded barbarian peacefully inside their city. The Vikings were on their best behavior as they were escorted to the cathedral, remaining silent and respectful. Throughout the service, which probably lasted a few hours, Hastein was a picture of reverence and weakness, a dying man who had finally seen the light. The bishop performed the baptism, and the count stood in as godfather, christening Hastein with a new name. When the rite had concluded, the Vikings respectfully picked up the litter and carried their stricken leader back to the ships.  That night, a Viking messenger reappeared at the gates, and after thanking the count for allowing the baptism, sadly informed him that Hastein had died. Before he expired, however, he had asked to be given a funeral mass and to be buried in the holy ground of the cathedral cemetery.  The next day a solemn procession of fifty Vikings, each dressed in long robes of mourning, entered the city carrying Hastein's corpse on a bier. Virtually all the inhabitants of the city had turned out to witness the event, joining the cavalcade all the way to the cathedral. The bishop, surrounded by a crowd of monks and priests bearing candles, blessed the coffin with holy water, and led the entire procession inside.  As the bishop launched into the funerary Mass, reminding all good Christians to look forward to the day of resurrection, the coffin lid was abruptly thrown to the ground and a very much alive Hastein leapt out. As he cut down the bishop, his men threw off their cloaks and drew their weapons. A few ran to bar the doors, the rest set about slaughtering the congregation.  At the same time – perhaps alerted by the tolling bell – Bjorn Ironside led the remaining Vikings into the city and they fanned out, looking for treasure. The plundering lasted for the entire day. Portable goods were loaded onto the ships, the younger citizens were spared to be sold as slaves, and the rest were killed. Finally, when night began to fall, Hastein called off the attack. Since nothing more could fit on their ships, they set fire to the city and sailed away.97 For the next two years, the Norsemen criss-crossed the Mediterranean, raiding both the African and European coasts. There are even rumors that they tried to sack Alexandria in Egypt, but were apparently unable to take it by force or stealth. ~ Lars Brownworth,

864:Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried - "My heart will break!" What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief - I wept. "Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it will pass," said the calm Madame Beck. To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and briefly - "Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving. "Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial muscles all quivering as he spoke. "But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly rejoined her kinsman - "Sortez d'ici!" "I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she threatened pertinaciously. "Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez à l'instant!" He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt. "What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent - a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character." "You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face, and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends; in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what I see; it must have and give solace. Leave me!" This time, in the "leave me" there was an intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second. The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more myself - re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death. "It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he. "It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said. ~ Charlotte Bront,

865:Coup D'Etat I’m comfortable with your confronting me hurling, albeit politely, the epic query haunting your ‘tolerance’ and a fever to my soul. It’s frankly a relief decoding the cryptic cause of my exile in the context of considering your phobia. So here, the facts: boys of my generation marching in front of our tanks to eat into the landmines. Women not unlike my mother buried neck-deep for transgression before having their heads smashed with rocks. Your tongue has already tried obfuscations avoiding the ‘sensitive’ appellation; I put our minds at (some) ease by offering the term ‘Muslim’, and using direct monosyllables to terminate the confluence of innuendo: “What went wrong?” I briefly catalogue the points of my suppressed pride: Persian poets, those geniuses; Islamic civilisation an absolute paragon of the Middle Ages. ‘We’ achieved so much: algebra, alchemy, Alhambra Aviccena, Omar Khayam, Rumi and Andalusia and now beheaded journalists, banished feminists persecuted writers and pulverised regimes. What did go wrong? You don’t require my noting British divide-and-conquer, Russian missiles 15 US uranium-depleted and cluster bombs; and let’s please avoid Israel. So I propose a date: 19 August 1953; and the place, Tehran. The event the calculated abortion of the incipient democracy of my native land. You know about the coup that crushed our future, engineered by the CIA with the mullahs’ collusion and our king’s utter complicity? You’re right dismissing my narration as apologia for a nation’s impotence. Why didn’t my grandparents oppose the US-backed generals in the streets of Tehran on the day our chosen Prime Minister Mosaddegh was toppled? Where were our prodigious poets and philosophers when Eisenhower’s operatives signalled to venal clerics and commanded the junta? Here, more facts: hurt by the grotesque perfidy Iranians of my parents’ generation mounted a Revolution against the coup’s beneficiary the Shah; then the Islamic Republic; Sharia law; war with the US protégé Saddam; and now terrorism, terror against terrorism, and the terrors of a nuclear war between Iran and, yes, Israel. You find my discourse cogent yet, or predictably tendentious? A history lecture in need of an addendum of objectivity? You’ve finally terminated the small talk, tightened your grimace. I repeat my own morose 16 volition to locate an answer. Yes, we will otherwise be prey to perennial fears and contemporaneous wars. What went wrong with noble hopes, ‘religion of peace’ and all the bridge-building and culture-crossing? The soulfulness of Sufi poets and the magic of Scheherazade’s stories. I feel your disappointment. A romantic quest narrative crusading knights vs. ardent Saracens instead of Cold War intrigue and Third World servitude. I grant something went wrong all those years ago, and continues to afflict. Things will keep going wrong. But what would I know. I’m only traumatised and feverish by the event’s effects, forced into perpetual exile. I’ve only survived. What do you think? ~ Ali Alizadeh,

866:To the extent that propaganda is based on current news, it cannot permit time for thought or reflection. A man caught up in the news must remain on the surface of the event; be is carried along in the current, and can at no time take a respite to judge and appreciate; he can never stop to reflect. There is never any awareness -- of himself, of his condition, of his society -- for the man who lives by current events. Such a man never stops to investigate any one point, any more than he will tie together a series of news events. We already have mentioned man's inability to consider several facts or events simultaneously and to make a synthesis of them in order to face or to oppose them. One thought drives away another; old facts are chased by new ones. Under these conditions there can be no thought. And, in fact, modern man does not think about current problems; he feels them. He reacts, but be does not understand them any more than he takes responsibility for them. He is even less capable of spotting any inconsistency between successive facts; man's capacity to forget is unlimited. This is one of the most important and useful points for the propagandist, who can always be sure that a particular propaganda theme, statement, or event will be forgotten within a few weeks. Moreover, there is a spontaneous defensive reaction in the individual against an excess of information and -- to the extent that he clings (unconsciously) to the unity of his own person -- against inconsistencies. The best defense here is to forget the preceding event. In so doing, man denies his own continuity; to the same extent that he lives on the surface of events and makes today's events his life by obliterating yesterday's news, he refuses to see the contradictions in his own life and condemns himself to a life of successive moments, discontinuous and fragmented. This situation makes the "current-events man" a ready target for propaganda. Indeed, such a man is highly sensitive to the influence of present-day currents; lacking landmarks, he follows all currents. He is unstable because he runs after what happened today; he relates to the event, and therefore cannot resist any impulse coming from that event. Because he is immersed in current affairs, this man has a psychological weakness that puts him at the mercy of the propagandist. No confrontation ever occurs between the event and the truth; no relationship ever exists between the event and the person. Real information never concerns such a person. What could be more striking, more distressing, more decisive than the splitting of the atom, apart from the bomb itself? And yet this great development is kept in the background, behind the fleeting and spectacular result of some catastrophe or sports event because that is the superficial news the average man wants. Propaganda addresses itself to that man; like him, it can relate only to the most superficial aspect of a spectacular event, which alone can interest man and lead him to make a certain decision or adopt a certain attitude. But here we must make an important qualification. The news event may be a real fact, existing objectively, or it may be only an item of information, the dissemination of a supposed fact. What makes it news is its dissemination, not its objective reality. ~ Jacques Ellul,

867:When he got out of the car to do his business, my mother stared straight ahead. But I turned to watch. There was always something wild and charismatically uncaring about my father’s demeanor in these moments, some mysterious abandonment of his frowning and cogitative state that already meant a lot to me, even though at that age I understood almost nothing about him. Paulie had long ago stopped whispering 'perv' to me for observing him as he relieved himself. She of course, kept her head n her novels. I remember that it was cold that day, and windy but that the sky had been cut from the crackling blue gem field of a late midwestern April. Outside the car, as other families sped past my father stepped to the leeward side of the open door then leaning back from the waist and at the same time forward the ankles. His penis poked out from his zipper for this part, Bernie always stood up at the rear window. My father paused fo a moment rocking slightly while a few indistinct words played on his lips. Then just before his stream stared he tiled back his head as if there were a code written in the sky that allowed the event to begin. This was the moment I waited for, the movement seemed to be a marker of his own private devotion as though despite his unshakable atheism and despite his sour, entirely analytic approach to every affair of life, he nonetheless felt the need to acknowledge the heavens in the regard to this particular function of the body. I don't know perhaps I sensed that he simply enjoyed it in a deep way that I did. It was possible I already recognized that the eye narrowing depth of his physical delight in that moment was relative to that paucity of other delights in his life. But in any case the prayerful uplifting of his cranium always seemed to democratize him for me, to make him for a few minutes at least, a regular man. Bernie let out a bark. ‘’Is he done?’’ asked my mother. I opened my window. ‘’Almost.’’ In fact he was still in the midst. My father peed like a horse. His urine lowed in one great sweeping dream that started suddenly and stopped just as suddenly, a single, winking arc of shimmering clarity that endured for a prodigious interval and then disappeared in an instant, as though the outflow were a solid object—and arch of glittering ice or a thick band of silver—and not (as it actually approximated) a parabolic, dynamically averaged graph of the interesting functions of gravity, air resistance, and initial velocity on a non-viscous fluid, produced and exhibited by a man who’d just consumed more than a gallon of midwestern beer. The flow was as clear as water. When it struck the edge of the gravel shoulder, the sound was like a bed-sheet being ripped. Beneath this high reverberation, he let out a protracted appreciative whistle that culminated in a tunneled gasp, his lips flapping at the close like a trumpeters. In the tiny topsoil, a gap appeared, a wisp entirely unashamed. Bernie bumped about in the cargo bay. My father moved up close to peer through the windshield, zipping his trousers and smiling through the glass at my mother. I realized that the yellow that should have been in his urine was unmistakable now in his eyes. ‘’Thank goodness,’’ my mother said when the car door closed again. ‘’I was getting a little bored in here. ~ Ethan Canin,

868:1)    The woman has intuitive feelings that she is at risk. 2)    At the inception of the relationship, the man accelerated the pace, prematurely placing on the agenda such things as commitment, living together, and marriage. 3)    He resolves conflict with intimidation, bullying, and violence. 4)    He is verbally abusive. 5)    He uses threats and intimidation as instruments of control or abuse. This includes threats to harm physically, to defame, to embarrass, to restrict freedom, to disclose secrets, to cut off support, to abandon, and to commit suicide. 6)    He breaks or strikes things in anger. He uses symbolic violence (tearing a wedding photo, marring a face in a photo, etc.). 7)    He has battered in prior relationships. 8)    He uses alcohol or drugs with adverse affects (memory loss, hostility, cruelty). 9)    He cites alcohol or drugs as an excuse or explanation for hostile or violent conduct (“That was the booze talking, not me; I got so drunk I was crazy”). 10)   His history includes police encounters for behavioral offenses (threats, stalking, assault, battery). 11)   There has been more than one incident of violent behavior (including vandalism, breaking things, throwing things). 12)   He uses money to control the activities, purchase, and behavior of his wife/partner. 13)   He becomes jealous of anyone or anything that takes her time away from the relationship; he keeps her on a “tight leash,” requires her to account for her time. 14)   He refuses to accept rejection. 15)   He expects the relationship to go on forever, perhaps using phrases like “together for life;” “always;” “no matter what.” 16)   He projects extreme emotions onto others (hate, love, jealousy, commitment) even when there is no evidence that would lead a reasonable person to perceive them. 17)   He minimizes incidents of abuse. 18)   He spends a disproportionate amount of time talking about his wife/partner and derives much of his identity from being her husband, lover, etc. 19)   He tries to enlist his wife’s friends or relatives in a campaign to keep or recover the relationship. 20)   He has inappropriately surveilled or followed his wife/partner. 21)   He believes others are out to get him. He believes that those around his wife/partner dislike him and encourage her to leave. 22)   He resists change and is described as inflexible, unwilling to compromise. 23)   He identifies with or compares himself to violent people in films, news stories, fiction, or history. He characterizes the violence of others as justified. 24)   He suffers mood swings or is sullen, angry, or depressed. 25)   He consistently blames others for problems of his own making; he refuses to take responsibility for the results of his actions. 26)   He refers to weapons as instruments of power, control, or revenge. 27)   Weapons are a substantial part of his persona; he has a gun or he talks about, jokes about, reads about, or collects weapons. 28)   He uses “male privilege” as a justification for his conduct (treats her like a servant, makes all the big decisions, acts like the “master of the house”). 29)   He experienced or witnessed violence as a child. 30)   His wife/partner fears he will injure or kill her. She has discussed this with others or has made plans to be carried out in the event of her death (e.g., designating someone to care for children). ~ Gavin de Becker,

869:Prelude The only space I’ve inhabited has been my self. Ask me where one street intersects with another hereabouts and I couldn’t tell you. Ask me their names and I’d say Never heard of them. I wouldn’t exactly get lost if you blindfolded and spun me around three times a kilometre from here. All I could say though when the blindfold was taken off and I was asked where I was would be Manly. Not the one I learnt by heart as a child, or the other I knew as a young man its main street full of good and varied shops. It would be the one I call the rotisserie with its food shop souvenirs food shop souvenirs all the way from the wharf to Ocean Beach in summer another kind of rotisserie with the black coffee coloured bodies and the bare breasts inviting more than hot stares. But that’s the South Steyne end we’re in the section somewhere back from that portion of the lengthy beach called North Steyne about its middle flavoured by some surfers and cultivators of skincancers. It has plenty of pleasant trees left pines figs and gums most too old and large for their own good. 31 But the only thing that shades Q’cliff beach at 3pm is a 14 storey block of units not a plot of pines as they did 50 years ago. I was nearly drowned there when I was sixteen one year before the WW2’s ending. Sucked out and under by a rip I was upheld and tossed on a shoreward wave by 2 young lifesavers as true to their title as I was to cowards. I never swam in the waves again or body surfed. That terrible stranglehold of green coils and black depths fascinated like a cosmic anaconda from the distance of the beach no closer. I’d walk the shore to see the women’s bodies and watch their minds trying to keep up with them sexist and suicidal at seventeen at nineteen saved by a fate worse than death by two of them at loose ends with and without husbands. By then a poet but just as I didn’t know where I was geographically I didn’t know more than four flowers from the others three trees from the rest. Reading Keats and Shakespeare shamed as much as gave me joy. I couldn’t even tell what a piece of cake tasted like. In fact I avoided that word and the first person singular almost from the start. I fussed about with what I saw and tried to reinvent it. After writing about practically 32 nothing but love for several years I tried to write about anything but it for another 50. But it squeezed itself in and I know as much about it as the streets trees flowers ocean and all around me that’s next to nothing until I met you and then I started Oh so slowly to set about learning something of it from you by you with you and finally got it into my system and out onto paper once and for all but even then it was over 30 years after the event of events and of course illegal in its intent but by then I had learnt to lose fears of that kind and poured out my small amounts of passion into thimblefuls of additives to otherwise almost impersonal poems and finally before too late opened what was left of the floodgates rinsing our landscape known once and for all. ~ Bruce Beaver,

870:You speak as if you envied him." "And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy." Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if possible. She made her plan; she would speak of something totally different—the children in Brunswick Square; and she only waited for breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying, "You will not ask me what is the point of envy.—You are determined, I see, to have no curiosity.—You are wise—but I cannot be wise. Emma, I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the next moment." "Oh! then, don't speak it, don't speak it," she eagerly cried. "Take a little time, consider, do not commit yourself." "Thank you," said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not another syllable followed. Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in her—perhaps to consult her;—cost her what it would, she would listen. She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it; she might give just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence, relieve him from that state of indecision, which must be more intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his.—They had reached the house. "You are going in, I suppose?" said he. "No,"—replied Emma—quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which he still spoke—"I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not gone." And, after proceeding a few steps, she added—"I stopped you ungraciously, just now, Mr. Knightley, and, I am afraid, gave you pain.—But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplation—as a friend, indeed, you may command me.—I will hear whatever you like. I will tell you exactly what I think." "As a friend!"—repeated Mr. Knightley.—"Emma, that I fear is a word—No, I have no wish—Stay, yes, why should I hesitate?—I have gone too far already for concealment.—Emma, I accept your offer—Extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to you as a friend.—Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?" He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression of his eyes overpowered her. "My dearest Emma," said he, "for dearest you will always be, whatever the event of this hour's conversation, my dearest, most beloved Emma—tell me at once. Say 'No,' if it is to be said."—She could really say nothing.—"You are silent," he cried, with great animation; "absolutely silent! at present I ask no more." Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most prominent feeling. "I cannot make speeches, Emma:" he soon resumed; and in a tone of such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably convincing.—"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am.—You hear nothing but truth from me.—I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.—Bear with the truths I would tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have been a very indifferent lover.—But you understand me.—Yes, you see, you understand my feelings—and will return them if you can. At present, I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice. ~ Jane Austen,

871:There's folly in her stride that's the rumor justified by lies I've seen her up close beneath the sheets and sometime during the summer she was mine for a few sweet months in the fall and parts of December ((( To get to the heart of this unsolvable equation, one must first become familiar with the physical, emotional, and immaterial makeup as to what constitutes both war and peace. ))) I found her looking through a window the same window I'd been looking through She smiled and her eyes never faltered this folly was a crime ((( The very essence of war is destructive, though throughout the years utilized as a means of creating peace, such an equation might seem paradoxical to the untrained eye. Some might say using evil to defeat evil is counterproductive, and gives more meaning to the word “futile”. Others, like Edmund Burke, would argue that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing.” ))) She had an identity I could identify with something my fingertips could caress in the night ((( There is such a limitless landscape within the mind, no two minds are alike. And this is why as a race we will forever be at war with each other. What constitutes peace is in the mind of the beholder. ))) Have you heard the argument? This displacement of men and women and women and men the minds we all have the beliefs we all share Slipping inside of us thoughts and religions and bodies all bare ((( “Without darkness, there can be no light,” he once said. To demonstrate this theory, during one of his seminars he held a piece of white chalk and drew a line down the center of a blackboard. Explaining that without the blackness of the board, the white line would be invisible. ))) When she left she kissed with eyes open I knew this because I'd done the same Sometimes we saw eye to eye like that Very briefly, she considered an apotheosis a synthesis a rendering of her folly into solidarity ((( To believe that a world-wide lay down of arms is possible, however, is the delusion of the pacifist; the dream of the optimist; and the joke of the realist. Diplomacy only goes so far, and in spite of our efforts to fight with words- there are times when drawing swords of a very different nature are surely called for. ))) Experiencing the subsequent sunrise inhaling and drinking breaking mirrors and regurgitating just to start again all in all I was just another gash in the bark ((( Plato once said: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Perhaps the death of us all is called for in this time of emotional desperation. War is a product of the mind; only with the death of such will come the end of the bloodshed. Though this may be a fairly realistic view of such an issue, perhaps there is an optimistic outlook on the horizon. Not every sword is double edged, but every coin is double sided. ))) Leaving town and throwing shit out the window drinking boroughs and borrowing spare change I glimpsed the rear view mirror stole a glimpse really I've believed in looking back for a while it helps to have one last view a reminder in case one ever decides to rebel in the event the self regresses and makes the declaration of devastation once more ((( Thus, if we wish to eliminate the threat of war today- complete human annihilation may be called for. ))) ~ Dave Matthes,

872:There once was a female snake that roamed around a small village in the countryside of Egypt. She was commonly seen by villagers with her small baby as they grazed around the trees. One day, several men noticed the mother snake was searching back and forth throughout the village in a frenzy — without her young. Apparently, her baby had slithered off on its own to play while she was out looking for food. Yet the mother snake went on looking for her baby for days because it still hadn't returned back to her. So one day, one of the elder women in the village caught sight of the big snake climbing on top of their water supply — an open clay jug harvesting all the village's water. The snake latched its teeth on the big jug's opening and sprayed its venom into it. The woman who witnessed the event was mentally handicapped, so when she went to warn the other villagers, nobody really understood what she was saying. And when she approached the jug to try to knock it over, she was reprimanded by her two brothers and they locked her away in her room. Then early the next day, the mother snake returned to the village after a long evening searching for her baby. The children villagers quickly surrounded her while clapping and singing because she had finally found her baby. And as the mother snake watched the children rejoice in the reunion with her child, she suddenly took off straight for the water supply — leaving behind her baby with the villagers' children. Before an old man could gather some water to make some tea, she hissed in his direction, forcing him to step back as she immediately wrapped herself around the jug and squeezed it super hard. When the jug broke burst into a hundred fragments, she slithered away to gather her child and return to the safety of her hole. Many people reading this true story may not understand that the same feelings we are capable of having, snakes have too. Thinking the villagers killed her baby, the mother snake sought out revenge by poisoning the water to destroy those she thought had hurt her child. But when she found her baby and saw the villagers' children, her guilt and protective instincts urged her to save them before other mothers would be forced to experience the pain and grief of losing a child. Animals have hearts and minds too. They are capable of love, hatred, jealousy, revenge, hunger, fear, joy, and caring for their own and others. We look at animals as if they are inferior because they are savage and not civilized, but in truth, we are the ones who are not being civil by drawing a thick line between us and them — us and nature. A wild animal's life is very straightforward. They spend their time searching and gathering food, mating, building homes, and meditating and playing with their loved ones. They enjoy the simplicity of life without any of our technological gadgetry, materialism, mass consumption, wastefulness, superficiality, mindless wars, excessive greed and hatred. While we get excited by the vibrations coming from our TV sets, headphones and car stereos, they get stimulated by the vibrations of nature. So, just because animals may lack the sophisticated minds to create the technology we do or make brick homes and highways like us, does not mean their connections to the etheric world isn't more sophisticated than anything we could ever imagine. That means they are more spiritual, reflective, cosmic, and tuned into alternate universes beyond what our eyes can see. So in other words, animals are more advanced than us. They have the simple beauty we lack and the spiritual contentment we may never achieve. ~ Suzy Kassem,

873:Isn’t this the weekend of Xander Eckhart’s party?” “Yes.” Jordan held her breath in a silent plea. Don’t ask if I’m bringing anyone. Don’t ask if I’m bringing anyone. “So are you bringing anyone?” Melinda asked. Foiled. Having realized there was a distinct possibility the subject would come up, Jordan had spent some time running through potential answers to this very question. She had decided that being casual was the best approach. “Oh, there’s this guy I met a few days ago, and I was thinking about asking him.” She shrugged. “Or maybe I’ll just go by myself, who knows.” Melinda put down her forkful of gnocchi, zoning in on this like a heat-seeking missile to its target. “What guy you met a few days ago? And why is this the first we’re hearing of him?” “Because I just met him a few days ago.” Corinne rubbed her hands together, eager for the details. “So? Tell us. How’d you meet him?” “What does he do?” Melinda asked. “Nice, Melinda. You’re so shallow.” Corinne turned back to Jordan. “Is he hot?” Of course, Jordan had known there would be questions. The three of them had been friends since college and still saw each other regularly despite busy schedules, and this was what they did. Before Corinne had gotten married, they talked about her now-husband, Charles. The same was true of Melinda and her soon-to-be-fiancé, Pete. So Jordan knew that she, in turn, was expected to give up the goods in similar circumstances. But she also knew that she really didn’t want to lie to her friends. With that in mind, she’d come up with a backup plan in the event the conversation went this way. Having no choice, she resorted to the strategy she had used in sticky situations ever since she was five years old, when she’d set her Western Barbie’s hair on fire while trying to give her a suntan on the family-room lamp. Blame it on Kyle. I’d like to thank the Academy . . . “Sure, I’ll tell you all about this new guy. We met the other day and he’s . . . um . . .” She paused, then ran her hands through her hair and exhaled dramatically. “Sorry. Do you mind if we talk about this later? After seeing Kyle today with the bruise on his face, I feel guilty rattling on about Xander’s party. Like I’m not taking my brother’s incarceration seriously enough.” She bit her lip, feeling guilty about the lie. So sorry, girls. But this has to stay my secret for now. Her diversion worked like a charm. Perhaps one of the few benefits of having a convicted felon of a brother known as the Twitter Terrorist was that she would never lack for non sequiturs in extracting herself from unwanted conversation. Corinne reached out and squeezed her hand. “No one has stood by Kyle’s side more than you, Jordan. But we understand. We can talk about this some other time. And try not to worry—Kyle can handle himself. He’s a big boy.” “Oh, he definitely is that,” Melinda said with a gleam in her eye. Jordan smiled. “Thanks, Corinne.” She turned to Melinda, thoroughly skeeved out. “And, eww—Kyle?” Melinda shrugged matter-of-factly. “To you, he’s your brother. But to the rest of the female population, he has a certain appeal. I’ll leave it at that.” “He used to fart in our Mr. Turtle pool and call it a ‘Jacuzzi.’ How’s that for appeal?” “Ah . . . the lifestyles of the rich and famous,” Corinne said with a grin. “And on that note, my secret fantasies about Kyle Rhodes now thoroughly destroyed, I move that we put a temporary hold on any further discussions related to the less fair of the sexes,” Melinda said. “I second that,” Jordan said, and the three women clinked their glasses in agreement ~ Julie James,

874:Thanks again to Alan Butler's work, this time I was able to inspect the work of Hesiod in connection with the Phaistos Disc for being calendrical, and now I view it through the lens of ancient Egypt by projecting it directly onto the circular zodiac of Dendera. Hesiod has used three different references to the days in his work: (the first ..); (the middle ..); and (.. of the month). With this system which he had used, I linked the "first" references to the zodiac's portals on the East; the "middle" references to the Fullmoon days of the month which are located on the zodiac's western portals; and the "of the month" references to the zodiac's days which are located right after passing by and finishing the rotation beyond the eastern portals. Therefore, Hesiod has recognized Egypt's month's count of days (And tell your slaves the thirtieth is the month's best-suited day). He has also explicitly identified the beginning of the Equinox and Solstice portals on the zodiac based on the zodiac's anticlockwise orientation while emphasizing the more prominent role of the Summer Solstice in the calendar system (The first and fourth and seventh days are holy days to men, the eighth and ninth as well). Hesiod has also issued a warning against, Apophis, the snake demon (But shun the fifth day, fifth days are both difficult and dread). Hesiod has recognized Egypt's royal-cosmic copulation event that takes place at the culmination of the Summer Solstice (The first ninth, though, for human beings, is harmless, quite benign for planting and for being born; indeed, it's very fine For men and women both; this day is never bad all through) Hesiod has identified the exact position of the newly born infant boy on the zodiac (For planting vines the middle sixth is uncongenial but good for the birth of males) and also established the Minoan bull's head rhyton connection with Egypt (The middle fourth, which is a day to soothe and gently tame the sheep and curved-horned), (Open a jar on the middle fourth),(And on the fourth the long and narrow boats can be begun). Hesiod gave Osiris' role in the ancient Egyptian agrarian Theology to men (two Days of the waxing month stand out for tasks men have to do, the eleventh and the twelfth) and pointed out the right location of the boar on the zodiac (Geld your boar on the eighth of the month) and counted on top of these days the days of the mule which comes afterward (on the twelfth day of the month [geld] the long-laboring mule) - since the reference to the mule in the historical text comes right after that of the boar's and both are grouped together conceptually with the act of gelding. He has also identified the role of Isis for resurrecting Osiris after the Summer Solstice event (On the fourth day of the month bring back a wife to your abode) and even referred to the two female figures on the zodiac and identified them as, Demeter and Persephone, the two mythical Greek queens (Upon the middle seventh throw Demeter's holy grain) where we see them along with the reference to Poseidon (i.e. fishes and water) right next to them as the account exists in the Greek mythology. Even more, Hesiod knows when the sequence of the boats' appearances begins on the zodiac (And on the fourth the long and narrow boats can be begun). Astonishingly enough, he mentions the solar eclipse when the Moon fully blocks the Sun (the third ninth's best of all, though this is known by few) and also glorifies sunrise and warns from sunset on that same day (Again, few know the after-twentieth day of the month is best ..) and identifies the event's dangerous location on the west (.. at dawn and that it worsens when the sun sinks in the west). ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim,

875:This story created a sensation when it was first told. It appeared in the papers and many big Physicists and Natural Philosophers were, at least so they thought, able to explain the phenomenon. I shall narrate the event and also tell the reader what explanation was given, and let him draw his own conclusions. This was what happened. A friend of mine, a clerk in the same office as myself, was an amateur photographer; let us call him Jones. Jones had a half plate Sanderson camera with a Ross lens and a Thornton Picard behind lens shutter, with pneumatic release. The plate in question was a Wrattens ordinary, developed with Ilford Pyro Soda developer prepared at home. All these particulars I give for the benefit of the more technical reader. Mr. Smith, another clerk in our office, invited Mr. Jones to take a likeness of his wife and sister-in-law. This sister-in-law was the wife of Mr. Smith's elder brother, who was also a Government servant, then on leave. The idea of the photograph was of the sister-in-law. Jones was a keen photographer himself. He had photographed every body in the office including the peons and sweepers, and had even supplied every sitter of his with copies of his handiwork. So he most willingly consented, and anxiously waited for the Sunday on which the photograph was to be taken. Early on Sunday morning, Jones went to the Smiths'. The arrangement of light in the verandah was such that a photograph could only be taken after midday; and so he stayed there to breakfast. At about one in the afternoon all arrangements were complete and the two ladies, Mrs. Smiths, were made to sit in two cane chairs and after long and careful focussing, and moving the camera about for an hour, Jones was satisfied at last and an exposure was made. Mr. Jones was sure that the plate was all right; and so, a second plate was not exposed although in the usual course of things this should have been done. He wrapped up his things and went home promising to develop the plate the same night and bring a copy of the photograph the next day to the office. The next day, which was a Monday, Jones came to the office very early, and I was the first person to meet him. "Well, Mr. Photographer," I asked "what success?" "I got the picture all right," said Jones, unwrapping an unmounted picture and handing it over to me "most funny, don't you think so?" "No, I don't ... I think it is all right, at any rate I did not expect anything better from you ...", I said. "No," said Jones "the funny thing is that only two ladies sat ..." "Quite right," I said "the third stood in the middle." "There was no third lady at all there ...", said Jones. "Then you imagined she was there, and there we find her ..." "I tell you, there were only two ladies there when I exposed" insisted Jones. He was looking awfully worried. "Do you want me to believe that there were only two persons when the plate was exposed and three when it was developed?" I asked. "That is exactly what has happened," said Jones. "Then it must be the most wonderful developer you used, or was it that this was the second exposure given to the same plate?" "The developer is the one which I have been using for the last three years, and the plate, the one I charged on Saturday night out of a new box that I had purchased only on Saturday afternoon." A number of other clerks had come up in the meantime, and were taking great interest in the picture and in Jones' statement. It is only right that a description of the picture be given here for the benefit of the reader. I wish I could reproduce the original picture too, but that for certain reasons is impossible. When the plate was actually exposed there were only two ladies, both of whom were sitting in cane chairs. When the plate was developed it was found that there was in the picture a figure, that of a lady, standing in the middle. She wore a broad-edged dhoti (the reader should not forget that all the characters are Indians), only the upper half of her ~ Anonymous,

876:Unchopping a Tree. Start with the leaves, the small twigs, and the nests that have been shaken, ripped, or broken off by the fall; these must be gathered and attached once again to their respective places. It is not arduous work, unless major limbs have been smashed or mutilated. If the fall was carefully and correctly planned, the chances of anything of the kind happening will have been reduced. Again, much depends upon the size, age, shape, and species of the tree. Still, you will be lucky if you can get through this stages without having to use machinery. Even in the best of circumstances it is a labor that will make you wish often that you had won the favor of the universe of ants, the empire of mice, or at least a local tribe of squirrels, and could enlist their labors and their talents. But no, they leave you to it. They have learned, with time. This is men's work. It goes without saying that if the tree was hollow in whole or in part, and contained old nests of bird or mammal or insect, or hoards of nuts or such structures as wasps or bees build for their survival, the contents will have to repaired where necessary, and reassembled, insofar as possible, in their original order, including the shells of nuts already opened. With spider's webs you must simply do the best you can. We do not have the spider's weaving equipment, nor any substitute for the leaf's living bond with its point of attachment and nourishment. It is even harder to simulate the latter when the leaves have once become dry — as they are bound to do, for this is not the labor of a moment. Also it hardly needs saying that this the time fro repairing any neighboring trees or bushes or other growth that might have been damaged by the fall. The same rules apply. Where neighboring trees were of the same species it is difficult not to waste time conveying a detached leaf back to the wrong tree. Practice, practice. Put your hope in that. Now the tackle must be put into place, or the scaffolding, depending on the surroundings and the dimension of the tree. It is ticklish work. Almost always it involves, in itself, further damage to the area, which will have to be corrected later. But, as you've heard, it can't be helped. And care now is likely to save you considerable trouble later. Be careful to grind nothing into the ground. At last the time comes for the erecting of the trunk. By now it will scarcely be necessary to remind you of the delicacy of this huge skeleton. Every motion of the tackle, every slightly upward heave of the trunk, the branches, their elaborately reassembled panoply of leaves (now dead) will draw from you an involuntary gasp. You will watch for a lead or a twig to be snapped off yet again. You will listen for the nuts to shift in the hollow limb and you will hear whether they are indeed falling into place or are spilling in disorder — in which case, or in the event of anything else of the kind — operations will have to cease, of course, while you correct the matter. The raising itself is no small enterprise, from the moment when the chains tighten around the old bandages until the boles hands vertical above the stump, splinter above splinter. How the final straightening of the splinters themselves can take place (the preliminary work is best done while the wood is still green and soft, but at times when the splinters are not badly twisted most of the straightening is left until now, when the torn ends are face to face with each other). When the splinters are perfectly complementary the appropriate fixative is applied. Again we have no duplicate of the original substance. Ours is extremely strong, but it is rigid. It is limited to surfaces, and there is no play in it. However the core is not the part of the trunk that conducted life from the roots up to the branches and back again. It was relatively inert. The fixative for this part is not the same as the one for the outer layers and the bark, and if either of these is involved ~ W S Merwin,

877:The King And The Shepherd Through ev'ry Age some Tyrant Passion reigns: Now Love prevails, and now Ambition gains Reason's lost Throne, and sov'reign Rule maintains. Tho' beyond Love's, Ambition's Empire goes; For who feels Love, Ambition also knows, And proudly still aspires to be possest Of Her, he thinks superior to the rest. As cou'd be prov'd, but that our plainer Task Do's no such Toil, or Definitions ask; But to be so rehears'd, as first 'twas told, When such old Stories pleas'd in Days of old. A King, observing how a Shepherd's Skill Improv'd his Flocks, and did the Pastures fill, That equal Care th' assaulted did defend, And the secur'd and grazing Part attend, Approves the Conduct, and from Sheep and Curs Transfers the Sway, and changed his Wool to Furrs. Lord-Keeper now, as rightly he divides His just Decrees, and speedily decides; When his sole Neighbor, whilst he watch'd the Fold, A Hermit poor, in Contemplation old, Hastes to his Ear, with safe, but lost Advice, Tells him such Heights are levell'd in a trice, Preferments treach'rous, and her Paths of Ice: And that already sure 't had turn'd his Brain, Who thought a Prince's Favour to retain. Nor seem'd unlike, in this mistaken Rank, The sightless Wretch, who froze upon a Bank A Serpent found, which for a Staff he took, And us'd as such (his own but lately broke) Thanking the Fates, who thus his Loss supply'd, Nor marking one, that with amazement cry'd, Throw quickly from thy Hand that sleeping Ill; A Serpent 'tis, that when awak'd will kill. A Serpent this! th' uncaution'd Fool replies: 150 A Staff it feels, nor shall my want of Eyes Make me believe, I have no Senses left, And thro' thy Malice be of this bereft; Which Fortune to my Hand has kindly sent To guide my Steps, and stumbling to prevent. No Staff, the Man proceeds; but to thy harm A Snake 'twill prove: The Viper, now grown warm Confirm'd it soon, and fasten'd on his Arm. Thus wilt thou find, Shepherd believe it true, Some Ill, that shall this seeming Good ensue; Thousand Distastes, t' allay thy envy'd Gains, Unthought of, on the parcimonious Plains. So prov'd the Event, and Whisp'rers now defame The candid Judge, and his Proceedings blame. By Wrongs, they say, a Palace he erects, The Good oppresses, and the Bad protects. To view this Seat the King himself prepares, Where no Magnificence or Pomp appears, But Moderation, free from each Extream, Whilst Moderation is the Builder's Theme. Asham'd yet still the Sycophants persist, That Wealth he had conceal'd within a Chest, Which but attended some convenient Day, To face the Sun, and brighter Beams display. The Chest unbarr'd, no radiant Gems they find, No secret Sums to foreign Banks design'd, But humble Marks of an obscure Recess, Emblems of Care, and Instruments of Peace; The Hook, the Scrip, and for unblam'd Delight The merry Bagpipe, which, ere fall of Night, Cou'd sympathizing Birds to tuneful Notes invite. Welcome ye Monuments of former Joys! Welcome! to bless again your Master's Eyes, And draw from Courts, th' instructed Shepherd cries. No more dear Relicks! we no more will part, You shall my Hands employ, who now revive my Heart. No Emulations, nor corrupted Times Shall falsely blacken, or seduce to Crimes Him, whom your honest Industry can please, Who on the barren Down can sing from inward Ease. 151 How's this! the Monarch something mov'd rejoins. With such low Thoughts, and Freedom from Designs, What made thee leave a Life so fondly priz'd, To be in Crouds, or envy'd, or despis'd? Forgive me, Sir, and Humane Frailty see, The Swain replies, in my past State and Me; All peaceful that, to which I vow return. But who alas! (tho' mine at length I mourn) Was e'er without the Curse of some Ambition born. ~ Anne Kingsmill Finch,

878:The Mackaiad Mackay's hot wrath to Bonynge, direful spring Of blows unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing That wrath which hurled to Hellman's office floor Two heroes, mutually smeared with gore, Whose hair in handfuls marked the dire debate, And riven coat-tails testified their hate. Sing, muse, what first their indignation fired, What words augmented it, by whom inspired. First, the great Bonynge comes upon the scene And asks the favor of the British Queen. Suppliant he stands and urges all his claim: His wealth, his portly person and his name, His habitation in the setting sun, As child of nature; and his suit he won. No more the Sovereign, wearied with his plea, From slumber's chain her faculties can free. Low and more low the royal eyelids creep, She gives the assenting nod and falls asleep. Straightway the Bonynges all invade the Court And telegraph the news to every port. Beneath the seas, red-hot, the tidings fly, The cables crinkle and the fishes fry! The world, awaking like a startled bat, Exclaims: 'A Bonynge? What the devil's that?' Mackay, meanwhile, to envy all attent, Untaught to spare, unable to relent, Walks in our town on needles and on pins, And in a mean, revengeful spirit-grins! Sing, muse, what next to break the peace occurred What act uncivil, what unfriendly word? The god of Bosh ascending from his pool, Where since creation he has played the fool, Clove the blue slush, as other gods the sky, And, waiting but a moment's space to dry, Touched Bonynge with his finger-tip. 'O son,' He said, 'alike of nature and a gun, Knowest not Mackay's insufferable sin? 509 Hast thou not heard that he doth stand and grin? Arise! assert thy manhood, and attest The uncommercial spirit in thy breast. Avenge thine honor, for by Jove I swear Thou shalt not else be my peculiar care!' He spake, and ere his worshiper could kneel Had dived into his slush pool, head and heel. Full of the god and to revenges nerved, And conscious of a will that never swerved, Bonynge set sail: the world beyond the wave As gladly took him as the other gave. New York received him, but a shudder ran Through all the western coast, which knew the man; And science said that the seismic action Was owing to an asteroid's impaction. O goddess, sing what Bonynge next essayed. Did he unscabbard the avenging blade, The long spear brandish and porrect the shield, Havoc the town and devastate the field? His sacred thirst for blood did he allay By halving the unfortunate Mackay? Small were the profit and the joy to him To hew a base-born person, limb from limb. Let vulgar souls to low revenge incline, That of diviner spirits is divine. Bonynge at noonday stood in public places And (with regard to the Mackays) made faces! Before those formidable frowns and scowls The dogs fled, tail-tucked, with affrighted howls, And horses, terrified, with flying feet O'erthrew the apple-stands along the street, Involving the metropolis in vast Financial ruin! Man himself, aghast, Retreated east and west and north and south Before the menace of that twisted mouth, Till Jove, in answer to their prayers, sent Night To veil the dreadful visage from their sight! Such were the causes of the horrid strife The mother-wrongs which nourished it to life. O, for a quill from an archangel's wing! 510 O, for a voice that's adequate to sing The splendor and the terror of the fray, The scattered hair, the coat-tails all astray, The parted collars and the gouts of gore Reeking and smoking on the banker's floor, The interlocking limbs, embraces dire, Revolving bodies and deranged attire! Vain, vain the trial: 'tis vouchsafed to none To sing two millionaires rolled into one! My hand and pen their offices refuse, And hoarse and hoarser grows the weary muse. Alone remains, to tell of the event, Abandoned, lost and variously rent, The Bonynge nethermost habiliment. ~ Ambrose Bierce,

879:Cinderella You always read about it: the plumber with the twelve children who wins the Irish Sweepstakes. From toilets to riches. That story. Or the nursemaid, some luscious sweet from Denmark who captures the oldest son's heart. from diapers to Dior. That story. Or a milkman who serves the wealthy, eggs, cream, butter, yogurt, milk, the white truck like an ambulance who goes into real estate and makes a pile. From homogenized to martinis at lunch. Or the charwoman who is on the bus when it cracks up and collects enough from the insurance. From mops to Bonwit Teller. That story. Once the wife of a rich man was on her deathbed and she said to her daughter Cinderella: Be devout. Be good. Then I will smile down from heaven in the seam of a cloud. The man took another wife who had two daughters, pretty enough but with hearts like blackjacks. Cinderella was their maid. She slept on the sooty hearth each night and walked around looking like Al Jolson. Her father brought presents home from town, jewels and gowns for the other women but the twig of a tree for Cinderella. 42 She planted that twig on her mother's grave and it grew to a tree where a white dove sat. Whenever she wished for anything the dove would dropp it like an egg upon the ground. The bird is important, my dears, so heed him. Next came the ball, as you all know. It was a marriage market. The prince was looking for a wife. All but Cinderella were preparing and gussying up for the event. Cinderella begged to go too. Her stepmother threw a dish of lentils into the cinders and said: Pick them up in an hour and you shall go. The white dove brought all his friends; all the warm wings of the fatherland came, and picked up the lentils in a jiffy. No, Cinderella, said the stepmother, you have no clothes and cannot dance. That's the way with stepmothers. Cinderella went to the tree at the grave and cried forth like a gospel singer: Mama! Mama! My turtledove, send me to the prince's ball! The bird dropped down a golden dress and delicate little slippers. Rather a large package for a simple bird. So she went. Which is no surprise. Her stepmother and sisters didn't recognize her without her cinder face and the prince took her hand on the spot and danced with no other the whole day. As nightfall came she thought she'd better get home. The prince walked her home and she disappeared into the pigeon house and although the prince took an axe and broke it open she was gone. Back to her cinders. These events repeated themselves for three days. However on the third day the prince 43 covered the palace steps with cobbler's wax and Cinderella's gold shoe stuck upon it. Now he would find whom the shoe fit and find his strange dancing girl for keeps. He went to their house and the two sisters were delighted because they had lovely feet. The eldest went into a room to try the slipper on but her big toe got in the way so she simply sliced it off and put on the slipper. The prince rode away with her until the white dove told him to look at the blood pouring forth. That is the way with amputations. They just don't heal up like a wish. The other sister cut off her heel but the blood told as blood will. The prince was getting tired. He began to feel like a shoe salesman. But he gave it one last try. This time Cinderella fit into the shoe like a love letter into its envelope. At the wedding ceremony the two sisters came to curry favor and the white dove pecked their eyes out. Two hollow spots were left like soup spoons. Cinderella and the prince lived, they say, happily ever after, like two dolls in a museum case never bothered by diapers or dust, never arguing over the timing of an egg, never telling the same story twice, never getting a middle-aged spread, their darling smiles pasted on for eternity. Regular Bobbsey Twins. That story. ~ Anne Sexton,

880:Corsons Inlet I went for a walk over the dunes again this morning to the sea, then turned right along the surf rounded a naked headland and returned along the inlet shore: it was muggy sunny, the wind from the sea steady and high, crisp in the running sand, some breakthroughs of sun but after a bit continuous overcast: the walk liberating, I was released from forms, from the perpendiculars, straight lines, blocks, boxes, binds of thought into the hues, shadings, rises, flowing bends and blends of sight: I allow myself eddies of meaning: yield to a direction of significance running like a stream through the geography of my work: you can find in my sayings swerves of action like the inlet's cutting edge: there are dunes of motion, organizations of grass, white sandy paths of remembrance in the overall wandering of mirroring mind: 12 but Overall is beyond me: is the sum of these events I cannot draw, the ledger I cannot keep, the accounting beyond the account: in nature there are few sharp lines: there are areas of primrose more or less dispersed; disorderly orders of bayberry; between the rows of dunes, irregular swamps of reeds, though not reeds alone, but grass, bayberry, yarrow, all ... predominantly reeds: I have reached no conclusions, have erected no boundaries, shutting out and shutting in, separating inside from outside: I have drawn no lines: as manifold events of sand change the dune's shape that will not be the same shape tomorrow, so I am willing to go along, to accept the becoming thought, to stake off no beginnings or ends, establish no walls: by transitions the land falls from grassy dunes to creek to undercreek: but there are no lines, though change in that transition is clear as any sharpness: but "sharpness" spread out, allowed to occur over a wider range than mental lines can keep: the moon was full last night: today, low tide was low: 13 black shoals of mussels exposed to the risk of air and, earlier, of sun, waved in and out with the waterline, waterline inexact, caught always in the event of change: a young mottled gull stood free on the shoals and ate to vomiting: another gull, squawking possession, cracked a crab, picked out the entrails, swallowed the soft-shelled legs, a ruddy turnstone running in to snatch leftover bits: risk is full: every living thing in siege: the demand is life, to keep life: the small white blacklegged egret, how beautiful, quietly stalks and spears the shallows, darts to shore to stab—what? I couldn't see against the black mudflats—a frightened fiddler crab? the news to my left over the dunes and reeds and bayberry clumps was fall: thousands of tree swallows gathering for flight: an order held in constant change: a congregation rich with entropy: nevertheless, separable, noticeable as one event, not chaos: preparations for flight from winter, cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, wings rifling the green clumps, beaks at the bayberries a perception full of wind, flight, curve, sound: the possibility of rule as the sum of rulelessness: the "field" of action with moving, incalculable center: in the smaller view, order tight with shape: 14 blue tiny flowers on a leafless weed: carapace of crab: snail shell: pulsations of order in the bellies of minnows: orders swallowed, broken down, transferred through membranes to strengthen larger orders: but in the large view, no lines or changeless shapes: the working in and out, together and against, of millions of events: this, so that I make no form of formlessness: orders as summaries, as outcomes of actions override or in some way result, not predictably (seeing me gain the top of a dune, the swallows could take flight—some other fields of bayberry could enter fall berryless) and there is serenity: no arranged terror: no forcing of image, plan, or thought: no propaganda, no humbling of reality to precept: terror pervades but is not arranged, all possibilities of escape open: no route shut, except in the sudden loss of all routes: I see narrow orders, limited tightness, but will not run to that easy victory: still around the looser, wider forces work: I will try to fasten into order enlarging grasps of disorder, widening scope, but enjoying the freedom that Scope eludes my grasp, that there is no finality of vision, that I have perceived nothing completely, that tomorrow a new walk is a new walk. 15 ~ Archie Randolph Ammons,

881:Poets with whom I learned my trade. Companions of the Cheshire Cheese, Here's an old story I've remade, Imagining 'twould better please Your cars than stories now in fashion, Though you may think I waste my breath Pretending that there can be passion That has more life in it than death, And though at bottling of your wine Old wholesome Goban had no say; The moral's yours because it's mine. When cups went round at close of day Is not that how good stories run? The gods were sitting at the board In their great house at Slievenamon. They sang a drowsy song, Or snored, For all were full of wine and meat. The smoky torches made a glare On metal Goban 'd hammered at, On old deep silver rolling there Or on some still unemptied cup That he, when frenzy stirred his thews, Had hammered out on mountain top To hold the sacred stuff he brews That only gods may buy of him. Now from that juice that made them wise All those had lifted up the dim Imaginations of their eyes, For one that was like woman made Before their sleepy eyelids ran And trembling with her passion said, 'Come out and dig for a dead man, Who's burrowing Somewhere in the ground And mock him to his face and then Hollo him on with horse and hound, For he is the worst of all dead men.' We should be dazed and terror-struck, If we but saw in dreams that room, Those wine-drenched eyes, and curse our luck That emptied all our days to come. I knew a woman none could please, Because she dreamed when but a child Of men and women made like these; And after, when her blood ran wild, Had ravelled her own story out, And said, 'In two or in three years I needs must marry some poor lout,' And having said it, burst in tears. Since, tavern comrades, you have died, Maybe your images have stood, Mere bone and muscle thrown aside, Before that roomful or as good. You had to face your ends when young - 'Twas wine or women, or some curse - But never made a poorer song That you might have a heavier purse, Nor gave loud service to a cause That you might have a troop of friends, You kept the Muses' sterner laws, And unrepenting faced your ends, And therefore earned the right - and yet Dowson and Johnson most I praise - To troop with those the world's forgot, And copy their proud steady gaze. 'The Danish troop was driven out Between the dawn and dusk,' she said; 'Although the event was long in doubt. Although the King of Ireland's dead And half the kings, before sundown All was accomplished.            'When this day Murrough, the King of Ireland's son, Foot after foot was giving way, He and his best troops back to back Had perished there, but the Danes ran, Stricken with panic from the attack, The shouting of an unseen man; And being thankful Murrough found, Led by a footsole dipped in blood That had made prints upon the ground, Where by old thorn-trees that man stood; And though when he gazed here and there, He had but gazed on thorn-trees, spoke, "Who is the friend that seems but air And yet could give so fine a stroke?" Thereon a young man met his eye, Who said, "Because she held me in Her love, and would not have me die, Rock-nurtured Aoife took a pin, And pushing it into my shirt, Promised that for a pin's sake No man should see to do me hurt; But there it's gone; I will not take The fortune that had been my shame Seeing, King's son, what wounds you have." 'Twas roundly spoke, but when night came He had betrayed me to his grave, For he and the King's son were dead. I'd promised him two hundred years, And when for all I'd done or said And these immortal eyes shed tears He claimed his country's need was most, I'd saved his life, yet for the sake Of a new friend he has turned a ghost. What does he cate if my heart break? I call for spade and horse and hound That we may harry him.' Thereon She cast herself upon the ground And rent her clothes and made her moan: 'Why are they faithless when their might Is from the holy shades that rove The grey rock and the windy light? Why should the faithfullest heart most love The bitter sweetness of false faces? Why must the lasting love what passes, Why are the gods by men betrayed?' But thereon every god stood up With a slow smile and without sound, And Stretching forth his arm and cup To where she moaned upon the ground, Suddenly drenched her to the skin; And she with Goban's wine adrip, No more remembering what had been. Stared at the gods with laughing lip. I have kept my faith, though faith was tried, To that rock-born, rock-wandering foot, And the world's altered since you died, And I am in no good repute With the loud host before the sea, That think sword-strokes were better meant Than lover's music let that be, So that the wandering foot's content. ~ William Butler Yeats, The Grey Rock ,

882:I. Christ God who savest man, save most Of men Count Gismond who saved me! Count Gauthier, when he chose his post, Chose time and place and company To suit it; when he struck at length My honour, 'twas with all his strength. II. And doubtlessly ere he could draw All points to one, he must have schemed! That miserable morning saw Few half so happy as I seemed, While being dressed in queen's array To give our tourney prize away. III. I thought they loved me, did me grace To please themselves; 'twas all their deed; God makes, or fair or foul, our face; If showing mine so caused to bleed My cousins' hearts, they should have dropped A word, and straight the play had stopped. IV. They, too, so beauteous! Each a queen By virtue of her brow and breast; Not needing to be crowned, I mean, As I do. E'en when I was dressed, Had either of them spoke, instead Of glancing sideways with still head! V. But no: they let me laugh, and sing My birthday song quite through, adjust The last rose in my garland, fling A last look on the mirror, trust My arms to each an arm of theirs, And so descend the castle-stairs- VI. And come out on the morning-troop Of merry friends who kissed my cheek, And called me queen, and made me stoop Under the canopy-(a streak That pierced it, of the outside sun, Powdered with gold its gloom's soft dun)- VII. And they could let me take my state And foolish throne amid applause Of all come there to celebrate My queen's-day-Oh I think the cause Of much was, they forgot no crowd Makes up for parents in their shroud! VIII. However that be, all eyes were bent Upon me, when my cousins cast Theirs down; 'twas time I should present The victor's crown, but there, 'twill last No long time the old mist again Blinds me as then it did. How vain! IX, See! Gismond's at the gate, in talk With his two boys: I can proceed. Well, at that moment, who should stalk Forth boldly-to my face, indeed- But Gauthier, and he thundered ``Stay!'' And all stayed. ``Bring no crowns, I say! X. ``Bring torches! Wind the penance-sheet ``About her! Let her shun the chaste, ``Or lay herself before their feet! ``Shall she whose body I embraced ``A night long, queen it in the day? ``For honour's sake no crowns, I say!'' XI. I? What I answered? As I live, I never fancied such a thing As answer possible to give. What says the body when they spring Some monstrous torture-engine's whole Strength on it? No more says the soul. XII. Till out strode Gismond; then I knew That I was saved. I never met His face before, but, at first view, I felt quite sure that God had set Himself to Satan; who would spend A minute's mistrust on the end? XIII. He strode to Gauthier, in his throat Gave him the lie, then struck his mouth With one back-handed blow that wrote In blood men's verdict there. North, South, East, West, I looked. The lie was dead, And damned, and truth stood up instead. XIV. This glads me most, that I enjoyed The heart of the joy, with my content In watching Gismond unalloyed By any doubt of the event: God took that on him-I was bid Watch Gismond for my part: I did. XV. Did I not watch him while he let His armourer just brace his greaves, Rivet his hauberk, on the fret The while! His foot my memory leaves No least stamp out, nor how anon He pulled his ringing gauntlets on. XVI. And e'en before the trumpet's sound Was finished, prone lay the false knight, Prone as his lie, upon the ground: Gismond flew at him, used no sleight O' the sword, but open-breasted drove, Cleaving till out the truth he clove. XVII. Which done, he dragged him to my feet And said ``Here die, but end thy breath ``In full confession, lest thou fleet ``From my first, to God's second death! ``Say, hast thou lied?'' And, ``I have lied ``To God and her,'' he said, and died. XVIII. Then Gismond, kneeling to me, asked -What safe my heart holds, though no word Could I repeat now, if I tasked My powers forever, to a third Dear even as you are. Pass the rest Until I sank upon his breast. XIX. Over my head his arm he flung Against the world; and scarce I felt His sword (that dripped by me and swung) A little shifted in its belt: For he began to say the while How South our home lay many a mile. XX. So 'mid the shouting multitude We two walked forth to never more Return. My cousins have pursued Their life, untroubled as before I vexed them. Gauthier's dwelling-place God lighten! May his soul find grace! XXI. Our elder boy has got the clear Great brow; tho' when his brother's black Full eye slows scorn, it . . . Gismond here? And have you brought my tercel* back? I just was telling Adela How many birds it struck since May. * A male of the peregrine falcon. ~ Robert Browning, Aix In Provence ,

883:The world's great age begins anew,    The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew    Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. A brighter Hellas rears its mountains    From waves serener far; A new Peneus rolls his fountains    Against the morning star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. A loftier Argo cleaves the main,    Fraught with a later prize; Another Orpheus sings again,    And loves, and weeps, and dies. A new Ulysses leaves once more Calypso for his native shore. Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,    If earth Death's scroll must be! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy    Which dawns upon the free: Although a subtler Sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew. Another Athens shall arise,    And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,    The splendour of its prime; And leave, if nought so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give. Saturn and Love their long repose    Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose,    Than many unsubdu'd: Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, But votive tears and symbol flowers. Oh cease! must hate and death return?    Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn    Of bitter prophecy. The world is weary of the past, Oh might it die or rest at last! NOTES Form: ababcc Composition Date: 1821 1060. Written at Pisa in the autumn of 1821 and published in 1822, Hellas is a "lyrical drama" treating of the contemporary struggle for freedom in Greece and dedicated to Prince Mavrocordato, whom Shelley met in exile at Pisa and who had returned to Greece in June 1821 to take part in the revolution against the Turks. Shelley writes in a Preface: "The Persae of Aeschylus afforded me the first model of my conception, although the decision of the glorious contest now waging in Greece being yet suspended forbids a catastrophe parallel to the return of Xerxes and the desolation of the Persians. I have, therefore, contented myself with exhibiting a series of lyric pictures ... [suggesting] the final triumph of the Greek cause as a portion of the cause of civilization and social improvement." The action takes place in the palace of the Turkish king, where he receives reports on the progress of the war from messengers and prophecies of doom from visionary visitors. The last news, however, is of a Turkish victory, to the dismay of the Greek slaves who act as chorus throughout the play. "The final chorus," according to Shelley's note, "is indistinct and obscure, as the event of the living drama whose arrival it foretells. Prophecies of wars, and rumours of wars, etc., may safely be made by poet or prophet in any age, but to anticipate however darkly a period of regeneration and happiness is a more hazardous exercise of the faculty which bards possess or feign. It will remind the reader 'magno nec proximus intervallo' of Isaiah and Virgil, whose ardent spirits overleaping the actual reign of evil which we endure and bewail, already saw the possible and perhaps approaching state of society in which the 'lion shall lie down with the lamb,' and 'omnis feret omnia tellus.' Let these great names be my authority and excuse." The world's great age: the "annus magnus" at the end of which, according to an idea of the ancients, all the heavenly bodies would return to their original positions, and when, in consequence, the history of the world would begin to repeat itself. 1068. Peneus: a river in Thessaly. 1070. Tempe: the vale through which Peneus flows. 1071. Cyclads: a group of islands in the Aegean. 1072. Argo: the vessel which bore Jason on his search for the Golden Fleece. 1072-77. See Virgil, Eclogue IV: Another Tiphys shall new seas explore; Another Argo land the chiefs upon th'Iberian shore; Another Helen other wars create, And great Achilles urge the Trojan fate (Dryden's translation). 1074. Orpheus. For the stories of Orpheus--his entrancing music, the loss of his wife Eurydice and his ultimate failure to recover her from the underworld, and his death at the hands of Maenads (worshippers of Dionysus)--see Ovid's Metamorphoses. Calypso: a sorceress on whose island Ulysses remained for seven years on the way home from Troy to Ithaca. 1080. Laian rage. Laius was King of Thebes, father of Oedipus, and head of a house whose horrors were a favourite theme of Greek tragedy. 1082. Sphinx: a monster who sat on the roadside at Thebes and slew all who could not solve a riddle it proposed. 1090-93. Shelley's note reads (in part): "Saturn and Love were among the deities of a real or imaginary state of innocence and happiness. All those who fell, or the Gods of Greece, Asia and Egypt; the One who rose, or Jesus Christ . . .; and the many unsubdued, or the monstrous objects of the idolatry of China, India, the Antarctic islands, and the native tribes of America...." ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Chorus from Hellas ,

884:English version by Kunzang Tenzin HOMAGE TO ARYAMANJUSRI! Homage to the destroyer of demonic power! The wind lashes calm waters into rollers and breakers; The king makes multifarious forms out of unity, Seeing many faces of this one Archer, Saraha. The cross-eyed fool sees one lamp as two; The vision and the viewer are one, You broken, brittle mind! Many lamps are lit in the house, But the blind are still in darkness; Sahaja is all-pervasive But the fool cannot see what is under his nose. Just as many rivers are one in the ocean All half-truths are swallowed by the one truth; The effulgence of the sun illuminates all dark corners. Clouds draw water from the ocean to fall as rain on the earth And there is neither increase nor decrease; Just so, reality remains unaltered like the pure sky. Replete with the Buddha's perfections Sahaja is the one essential nature; Beings are born into it and pass into it, Yet there is neither existence nor non-existence in it. Forsaking bliss the fool roams abroad, Hoping for mundane pleasure; Your mouth is full of honey now, Swallow it while you may! Fools attempt to avoid their suffering, The wise enact their pain. Drink the cup of sky-nectar While others hunger for outward appearances. Flies eat filth, spurning the fragrance of sandalwood; Man lost to nirvana furthers his own confusion, Thirsting for the coarse and vulgar. The rain water filling an ox's hoof-print Evaporates when the sun shines; The imperfections of a perfect mind, All are dissolved in perfection. Salt sea water absorbed by clouds turns sweet; The venom of passionate reaction In a strong and selfless mind becomes elixir. The unutterable is free of pain; Non-meditation gives true pleasure. Though we fear the dragon's roar Rain falls from the clouds to ripen the harvest. The nature of beginning and end is here and now, And the first does not exist without the last; The rational fool conceptualising the inconceivable Separates emptiness from compassion. The bee knows from birth That flowers are the source of honey; How can the fool know That samsara and nirvana are one? Facing himself in a mirror The fool sees an alien form; The mind with truth forgotten Serves untruth's outward sham. Flowers' fragrance is intangible Yet its reality pervades the air, Just as mandala circles are informed By a formless presence. Still water stung by an icy wind Freezes hard in starched and jagged shapes; In an emotional mind agitated by critical concepts The unformed becomes hard and intractable. Mind immaculate by nature is untouched By samsara and nirvana's mud; But just like a jewel lost in a swamp Though it retains its lustre it does not shine. As mental sloth increases pure awareness diminishes; As mental sloth increases suffering also grows. Shoots sprout from the seed and leaves from the branches. Separating unity from multiplicity in the mind The light grows dim and we wander in the lower realms; Who is more deserving of pity than he Who walks into fire with his eyes wide open? Obsessed with the joys of sexual embrace The fool believes he knows ultimate truth; He is like someone who stands at his door And, flirting, talks about sex. The wind stirs in the House of Emptiness Exciting delusions of emotional pleasure; Fallen from celestial space, stung, The tormented yogin faints away. Like a brahmin taking rice and butter Offering sacrifice to the flame, He who visualises material things as celestial ambrosia Deludes himself that a dream is ultimate reality. Enlightening the House of Brahma in the fontanelle Stroking the uvala in wanton delight, Confused, believing binding pleasure to be spiritual release, The vain fools calls himself a yogin. Teaching that virtue is irrelevant to intrinsic awareness, He mistakes the lock for the key; Ignorant of the true nature of the gem The fool calls green glass emerald. His mind takes brass for gold, Momentary peak experience for reality accomplished; Clinging to the joy of ephemeral dreams He calls his short-thrift life Eternal Bliss. With a discursive understanding of the symbol EVAM, Creating four seals through an analysis of the moment, He labels his peak experience sahaja: He is clinging to a reflection mistaken for the mirror. Like befuddled deer leaping into a mirage of water Deluded fools in their ignorance cling to outer forms And with their thirst unslaked, bound and confined, They idealise their prison, pretending happiness. The relatively real is free of intellectual constructs, And ultimately real mind, active or quiescent, is no-mind, And this is the supreme,the highest of the high, immaculate; Friends, know this sacred high! In mind absorbed in samadhi that is concept-free, Passion is immaculately pure; Like a lotus rooted in the slime of a lake bottom, This sublime reality is untouched by the pollution of existence. Make solid your vision of all things as visionary dream And you attain transcendence, Instantaneous realisation and equanimity; A strong mind binding the demons of darkness Beyond thought your own spontaneous nature is accomplished. Appearances have never ceased to be their original radiance, And unformed, form never had a substantial nature to be grasped; It is a continuum of unique meditation, In an inactive, stainless, meditative mind that is no-mind. Thus the I is intellect, mind and mind-forms, I the world, all seemingly alien show, I the infinite variety of vision-viewer, I the desire, the anger, the mental sloth - And bodhicitta. Now there is a lamp lit in spiritual darkness Healing the splits riven by the intellect So that all mental defilements are erased. Who can define the nature of detachment? It cannot be denied nor yet affirmed, And ungraspable it is inconceivable. Through conceptualisation fools are bound, While concept-free there is immaculate sahaja. The concepts of unity and multiplicity do not bring integration; Only through awareness do sentient beings reach freedom. Cognition of radiance is strong meditation; Abide in a calm, quiescent mind. Reaching the joy swollen land Powers of seeing expand, And there is joy and laughter; Even chasing objects there is no separation. From joy, buds of pure pleasure emerge, Bursting into blooms of supreme pleasure, And so long as outflow is contained Unutterable bliss will surely mature. What, where and by whom are nothing, Yet the entire event is imperative. Whether love and attachment or desirelessness The form of the event is emptiness. Like pigs we wallow in this sensual mire But what can stain our pearly mind? Nothing can ever contaminate it, And by nothing can we ever be bound. ~ Saraha, The Royal Song of Saraha (Dohakosa) ,

885:The Battle Of Harlaw--Evergreen Version Frae Dunidier as I cam throuch, Doun by the hill of Banochie, Allangst the lands of Garioch. Grit pitie was to heir and se The noys and dulesum hermonie, That evir that dreiry day did daw! Cryand the corynoch on hie, Alas! alas! for the Harlaw. I marvlit what the matter meant; All folks were in a fiery fariy: I wist nocht wha was fae or freind, Yet quietly I did me carrie. But sen the days of auld King Hairy, Sic slauchter was not hard nor sene, And thair I had nae tyme to tairy, For bissiness in Aberdene. Thus as I walkit on the way, To Inverury as I went, I met a man, and bad him stay, Requeisting him to mak me quaint Of the beginning and the event That happenit thair at the Harlaw; Then he entreited me to tak tent, And he the truth sould to me schaw. Grit Donald of the Ysles did claim Unto the lands of Ross sum richt, And to the governour he came, Them for to haif, gif that he micht, Wha saw his interest was but slicht, And thairfore answerit with disdain. He hastit hame baith day and nicht, And sent nae bodward back again. But Donald richt impatient Of that answer Duke Robert gaif, He vow'd to God Omniyotent, 190 All the hale lands of Ross to half, Or ells be graithed in his graif: He wald not quat his richt for nocht, Nor be abusit like a slaif; That bargin sould be deirly bocht. Then haistylie he did command That all his weir-men should convene; Ilk an well harnisit frae hand, To melt and heir what he did mein. He waxit wrath and vowit tein; Sweirand he wald surpryse the North, Subdew the brugh of Aberdene, Mearns, Angus, and all Fyfe to Forth. Thus with the weir-men of the yles, Wha war ay at his bidding bown, With money maid, with forss and wyls, Richt far and neir, baith up and doun, Throw mount and muir, frae town to town, Allangst the lands of Ross he roars, And all obey'd at his bandown, Evin frae the North to Suthren shoars. Then all the countrie men did yield; For nae resistans durst they mak, Nor offer batill in the feild, Be forss of arms to beir him bak. Syne they resolvit all and spak, That best it was for thair behoif, They sould him for thair chiftain tak, Believing weil he did them luve. Then he a proclamation maid, All men to meet at Inverness, Throw Murray land to mak a raid, Frae Arthursyre unto Spey-ness. And further mair, he sent express, To schaw his collours and ensenzie, To all and sindry, mair and less, Throchout the bounds of Byne and Enzie. 191 And then throw fair Strathbogie land His purpose was for to pursew, And whatsoevir durst gainstand, That race they should full sairly rew. Then he bad all his men be trew, And him defend by forss and slicht, And promist them rewardis anew, And mak them men of mekle micht. Without resistans, as he said, Throw all these parts he stoutly past, Where sum war wae, and sum war glaid, But Garioch was all agast. Throw all these feilds be sped him fast, For sic a sicht was never sene; And then, forsuith, he langd at last To se the bruch of Aberdene. To hinder this prowd enterprise, The stout and michty Erl of Marr With all his men in arms did ryse, Even frae Curgarf to Craigyvar: And down the syde of Don richt far, Angus and Mearns did all convene To fecht, or Donald came sae nar The ryall bruch of Aberdene. And thus the martial Erle of Marr Marcht with his men in richt array; Befoir his enemis was aware, His banner bauldly did display. For weil enewch they kent the way, And all their semblance well they saw: Without all dangir or delay, Come haistily to the Harlaw. With him the braif Lord Ogilvy, Of Angus sheriff principall, The constable of gude Dunde, The vanguard led before them all. Suppose in number they war small, Thay first richt bauldlie did pursew, 192 And maid thair faes befor them fall, Wha then that race did sairly rew. And then the worthy Lord Salton, The strong undoubted Laird of Drum, The stalwart Laird of Lawristone, With ilk thair forces all and sum. Panmuir with all his men, did cum, The provost of braif Aberdene, With trumpets and with tuick of drum, Came schortly in thair armour schene. These with the Earle of Marr came on, In the reir-ward richt orderlie, Thair enemies to sett upon; In awfull manner hardilie, Togither vowit to live and die, Since they had marchit mony mylis, For to suppress the tyrannie Of douted Donald of the Ysles. But he, in number ten to ane, Right subtile alang did ryde, With Malcomtosch, and fell Maclean, With all thair power at thair syde; Presumeand on their strenth and pryde, Without all feir or ony aw, Richt bauldie battil did abyde, Hard by the town of fair Harlaw. The armies met, the trumpet sounds, The dandring drums alloud did touk, Baith armies byding on the bounds, Till ane of them the feild sould bruik. Nae help was thairfor, nane wald jouk, Ferss was the fecht on ilka syde, And on the ground lay mony a bouk Of them that thair did battil byd. With doutsum victorie they dealt, The bludy battil lastit lang; Each man fits nibours forss thair felt, 193 The weakest aft-tymes gat the wrang: Thair was nae mowis thair them amang, Naithing was hard but heavy knocks, That eccho mad a dulefull sang, Thairto resounding frae the rocks. But Donalds men at last gaif back, For they war all out of array: The Earl of Marris men throw them brak, Pursewing shairply in thair way, Thair enemys to tak or slay, Be dynt of forss to gar them yield; Wha war richt blyth to win away, And sae for feirdness tint the feild. Then Donald fled, and that full fast, To mountains hich for all his micht; For he and his war all agast, And ran till they war out of sicht; And sae of Ross he lost his richt, Thocht mony men with hem he brocht; Towards the yles fled day and nicht, And all he wan was deirlie bocht. This is (quod he) the richt report Of all that I did heir and knaw; Thocht my discourse be sumthing schort, Tak this to be a richt suthe saw: Contrairie God and the kings law, Thair was spilt mekle Christian blude, Into the battil of Harlaw: This is the sum, sae I conclude. But yet a bonnie while abide, And I sall mak thee cleirly ken What slaughter was on ilkay syde, Of Lowland and of Highland men, Wha for thair awin haif evir bene; These lazie lowns micht weil be spared, Chased like deers into their dens, And gat their wages for reward. 194 Malcomtosh, of the clan heid-cheif, Macklean with his grit hauchty heid, With all thair succour and relief, War dulefully dung to the deid; And now we are freid of thair feid, They will not lang to cum again; Thousands with them, without remeid, On Donald's syd, that day war slain. And on the uther syde war lost, Into the feild that dismal day, Chief men of worth, of mekle cost, To be lamentit sair for ay. The Lord Saltoun of Rothemay, A man of micht and mekle main; Grit dolour was for his decay, That sae unhappylie was slain. Of the best men amang them was The gracious gude Lord Ogilvy, The sheriff-principal of Angus, Renownit for truth and equitie, For faith and magnanimitie; He had few fallows in the field, Yet fell by fatall destinie, For he naeways wad grant to yield. Sir James Scrimgeor of Duddap, knicht, Grit constabill of fair Dunde, Unto the dulefull deith was dicht; The kingis cheif bannerman was he, A valiant man of chevalrie, Whose predecessors wan that place At Spey, with gude King William frie 'Gainst Murray, and Macduncan's race. Gude Sir Allexander Irving, The much renowit laird of Drum, Nane in his days was bettir sene When they war semblit all and sum. To praise him we sould not be dumm, For valour, witt, and worthyness; 195 To end his days he ther did cum Whose ransom is remeidyless. And thair the knicht of Lawriston Was slain into his armour schene, And gude Sir Robert Davidson, Wha provost was of Aberdene: The knicht of Panmure, as was sene, A mortall man in armour bricht, Sir Thomas Murray, stout and kene, Left to the warld thair last gude nicht. Thair was not sen King Keneths days Sic strange intestine crewel stryf In Scotland sene, as ilk man says, Whare mony liklie lost thair lyfe; Whilk maid divorce twene man and wyfe, And mony childrene fatherless, Whilk in this realme has bene full ryfe: Lord help these lands, our wrangs redress. In July, on Saint James his even, That four and twenty dismall day, Twelve hundred, ten score and eleven Of theirs sen Chryst, the suthe to say, Men will remember, as they may, When thus the ventie they knaw, And mony a ane may murn for ay, The brim battil of the Harlaw. ~ Andrew Lang,

886:directed many of his own productions, and according to ancient critics, he is said to have brought the Furies onstage in so realistic a manner that women miscarried in the audience. Although ~ Aeschylus is said to have written over ninety plays, only seven have survived. His first extant work, The Suppliants, reveals a young ~ Aeschylus still struggling with the problems of choral drama. The tale revolves around the fifty daughers of Danaus who seek refuge in Argos from the attentions of the fifty sons of Aegyptus. His second extant drama, The Persians, recounts the battle of Salamis--in which ~ Aeschylus and his brother actually fought--and deals primarily with the reception of the news at the imperial court. This play contains the first "ghost scene" of extant drama. In his third surviving play, Prometheus Bound, ~ Aeschylus tackles the myth of Prometheus, the world's first humanitarian. As the play begins, the titan is being fastened against his will to a peak in the Caucasian mountains for giving mankind the gift of fire without the consent of the gods. Prometheus knows Zeus is destined to fall. In fact, he holds the secret of the Olympian's doom--a certain woman that will be his undoing--but Prometheus will not reveal her name. Even amid the fire from heaven that is hurled at him in a frightening climax, Prometheus remains fearless and silent. In Seven Against Thebes, ~ Aeschylus deals with themes of patricide and incest. He was not, however, willing to settle for the conventional explanation of the "family curse". Instead, ~ Aeschylus delved deeper, suggesting that heredity is nothing more than a predisposition--that the true cause of such "acts of wickedness" is ambition, greed, and a lack of moral fortitude. Thus, eliminating the gods as an excuse for wickedness, ~ Aeschylus demanded that men take responsibility for their actions. The Oresteia, a trilogy, was performed in 458 BC, less than two years before ~ Aeschylus ' death. Once again, he dealt with the tragedy of a royal house, a "hereditary curse" which began in a dim, legendary world in which Tantalus was cast into the pit of Tartarus for revealing to mankind the secrets of the gods. This situation paralleled events in ~ Aeschylus ' own life. He was reportedly charged with "impiety" for revealing the Eleusinian mysteries--the secret rites of the city of his birth--to outsiders. It is likely, however, that these charges were politically motivated, and he was not convicted. Legend has it that ~ Aeschylus met his death when an eagle mistook his bald head for a rock and dropped a tortoise on it. Whatever the cause of his death, his life laid the groundwork the dramatic arts would need to flourish, and by the time of his death, there were two notable successors ready to take his place-- ~ Aeschylus claims at lines 1026-7 that he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." ~ Aeschylus goes on to say at lines 1039ff. that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous. Influence outside of Greek Culture ~ Aeschylus 's works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus at Oxford University) draws attention to Wagner's reverence of ~ Aeschylus . Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and ~ Aeschylus . The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that the influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and ~ Aeschylus 's Oresteia. A critic of his book however, while not denying that Wagner read and respected ~ Aeschylus , has described his arguments as unreasonable and forced. Sir J. T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his ~ Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that ~ Aeschylus , along with Sophocles, have played a major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing href=" During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of ~ Aeschylus on the night of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death to the crowd. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at the murder of his brother, President John F. Kennedy and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon, said: "My favorite poet was ~ Aeschylus . He once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The speech is considered to be Kennedy's finest. The quotation from ~ Aeschylus was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination A Prayer For Artemis STROPHE IV Though Zeus plan all things right, Yet is his heart's desire full hard to trace; Nathless in every place Brightly it gleameth, e'en in darkest night, Fraught with black fate to man's speech-gifted race. ANTISTROPHE IV Steadfast, ne'er thrown in fight, The deed in brow of Zeus to ripeness brought; For wrapt in shadowy night, Tangled, unscanned by mortal sight, Extend the pathways of his secret thought. STROPHE V From towering hopes mortals he hurleth prone To utter doom; but for their fall No force arrayeth he; for all That gods devise is without effort wrought. A mindful Spirit aloft on holy throne By inborn energy achieves his thought. ANTISTROPHE V But let him mortal insolence behold:-How with proud contumacy rife, Wantons the stem in lusty life My marriage craving;--frenzy over-bold, Spur ever-pricking, goads them on to fate, By ruin taught their folly all too late. STROPHE VI Thus I complain, in piteous strain, Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill I pour, yet breathing vital air. Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer! Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand; While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil. ANTISTROPHE VI My nuptial right in Heaven's pure sight Pollution were, death-laden, rude; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Alas for sorrow's murky brood! Where will this billow hurl me? Where? Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer; Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand, While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil. STROPHE VII The oar indeed and home with sails Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, Staunch to the wave, from spear-storm free, Have to this shore escorted me, Nor so far blame I destiny. But may the all-seeing Father send In fitting time propitious end; So our dread Mother's mighty brood, The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me, Unwedded, unsubdued! ANTISTROPHE VII Meeting my will with will divine, Daughter of Zeus, who here dost hold Steadfast thy sacred shrine,-Me, Artemis unstained, behold, Do thou, who sovereign might dost wield, Virgin thyself, a virgin shield; So our dread Mother's mighty brood The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me, Unwedded, unsubdued! ~ Aeschylus,

887:I WHEN the pine tosses its cones To the song of its waterfall tones, Who speeds to the woodland walks? To birds and trees who talks? Csar of his leafy Rome, There the poet is at home. He goes to the river-side, Not hook nor line hath he; He stands in the meadows wide, Nor gun nor scythe to see. Sure some god his eye enchants: What he knows nobody wants. In the wood he travels glad, Without better fortune had, Melancholy without bad. Knowledge this man prizes best Seems fantastic to the rest: Pondering shadows, colors, clouds, Grass-buds and caterpillar-shrouds, Boughs on which the wild bees settle, Tints that spot the violet's petal, Why Nature loves the number five, And why the star-form she repeats: Lover of all things alive, Wonderer at all he meets, Wonderer chiefly at himself, Who can tell him what he is? Or how meet in human elf Coming and past eternities? 2 And such I knew, a forest seer, A minstrel of the natural year, Foreteller of the vernal ides, Wise harbinger of spheres and tides, A lover true, who knew by heart Each joy the mountain dales impart; It seemed that Nature could not raise A plant in any secret place, In quaking bog, on snowy hill, Beneath the grass that shades the rill, Under the snow, between the rocks, In damp fields known to bird and fox. But he would come in the very hour It opened in its virgin bower, As if a sunbeam showed the place, And tell its long-descended race. It seemed as if the breezes brought him, It seemed as if the sparrows taught him; As if by secret sight he knew Where, in far fields, the orchis grew. Many haps fall in the field Seldom seen by wishful eyes, But all her shows did Nature yield, To please and win this pilgrim wise. He saw the partridge drum in the woods; He heard the woodcock's evening hymn; He found the tawny thrushes' broods; And the shy hawk did wait for him; What others did at distance hear, And guessed within the thicket's gloom, Was shown to this philosopher, And at his bidding seemed to come. 3 In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberers' gang Where from a hundred lakes young rivers sprang; He trod the unplanted forest floor, whereon The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone; Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear, And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker. He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, The slight Linna hang its twin-born heads, And blessed the monument of the man of flowers, Which breathes his sweet fame'through the northern bowers. He heard, when in the grove, at intervals, With sudden roar the aged pine-tree falls, One crash, the death-hymn of the perfect tree, Declares the close of its green century. Low lies the plant to whose creation went Sweet influence from every element; Whose living towers the years conspired to build, Whose giddy top the morning loved to gild. Through these green tents, by eldest Nature dressed, He roamed, content alike with man and beast. Where darkness found him he lay glad at night; There the red morning touched him with its light. Three moons his great heart him a hermit made, So long he roved at will the boundless shade. The timid it concerns to ask their way, And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray, To make no step until the event is known, And ills to come as evils past bemoan. Not so the wise; no coward watch he keeps To spy what danger on his pathway creeps; Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth,his hall the azure dome; Where his clear spirit leads him, there's his road By God's own light illumined and foreshowed. 4 'T was one of the charmd days When the genius of God doth flow; The wind may alter twenty ways, A tempest cannot blow; It may blow north, it still is warm; Or south, it still is clear; Or east, it smells like a clover-farm; Or west, no thunder fear. The musing peasant, lowly great, Beside the forest water sate; The rope-like pine-roots crosswise grown Composed the network of his throne; The wide lake, edged with sand and grass, Was burnished to a floor of glass, Painted with shadows green and proud Of the tree and of the cloud. He was the heart of all the scene; On him the sun looked more serene; To hill and cloud his face was known, It seemed the likeness of their own; They knew by secret sympathy The public child of earth and sky. 'You ask,' he said,'what guide Me through trackless thickets led, Through thick-stemmed woodlands rough and wide. I found the water's bed. The watercourses were my guide; I travelled grateful by their side, Or through their channel dry; They led me through the thicket damp, Through brake and fern, the beavers' camp, Through beds of granite cut my road, And their resistless friendship showed. The falling waters led me, The foodful waters fed me, And brought me to the lowest land Unerring to the ocean sand. The moss upon the forest bark Was pole-star when the night was dark; The purple berries in the wood Supplied me necessary food; For Nature ever faithful is To such as trust her faithfulness. When the forest shall mislead me, When the night and morning lie, When sea and land refuse to feed me, 'T will be time enough to die; Then will yet my mother yield A pillow in her greenest field, Nor the June flowers scorn to cover The clay of their departed lover.' II As sunbeams stream through liberal space And nothing jostle or displace, So waved the pine-tree through my thought And fanned the dreams it never brought. 'Whether is better, the gift or the donor? Come to me,' Quoth the pine-tree, 'I am the giver of honor. My garden is the cloven rock, And my manure the snow; And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock, In summer's scorching glow. He is great who can live by me: The rough and bearded forester Is better than the lord; God fills the scrip and canister, Sin piles the loaded board. The lord is the peasant that was, The peasant the lord that shall be; The lord is hay, the peasant grass, One dry, and one the living tree. Who liveth by the ragged pine Foundeth a heroic line; Who liveth in the palace hall Waneth fast and spendeth all. He goes to my savage haunts, With his chariot and his care; My twilight realm he disenchants, And finds his prison there. 'What prizes the town and the tower? Only what the pine-tree yields; Sinew that subdued the fields; The wild-eyed boy, who in the woods Chants his hymn to hills and floods, Whom the city's poisoning spleen Made not pale, or fat, or lean; Whom the rain and the wind purgeth, Whom the dawn and the day-star urgeth, In whose cheek the rose-leaf blusheth, In whose feet the lion rusheth, Iron arms, and iron mould, That know not fear, fatigue, or cold. I give my rafters to his boat, My billets to his boiler's throat, And I will swim the ancient sea To float my child to victory, And grant to dwellers with the pine Dominion o'er the palm and vine. Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend, Unnerves his strength, invites his end. Cut a bough from my parent stem, And dip it in thy porcelain vase; A little while each russet gem Will swell and rise with wonted grace; But when it seeks enlarged supplies, The orphan of the forest dies. Whoso walks in solitude And inhabiteth the wood, Choosing light, wave, rock and bird, Before the money-loving herd, Into that forester shall pass, From these companions, power and grace. Clean shall he be, without, within, From the old adhering sin, All ill dissolving in the light Of his triumphant piercing sight: Not vain, sour, nor frivolous; Not mad, athirst, nor garrulous; Grave, chaste, contented, though retired, And of all other men desired. On him the light of star and moon Shall fall with purer radiance down; All constellations of the sky Shed their virtue through his eye. Him Nature giveth for defence His formidable innocence; The mounting sap, the shells, the sea, All spheres, all stones, his helpers be; He shall meet the speeding year, Without wailing, without fear; He shall be happy in his love, Like to like shall joyful prove; He shall be happy whilst he wooes, Muse-born, a daughter of the Muse. But if with gold she bind her hair, And deck her breast with diamond, Take off thine eyes, thy heart forbear, Though thou lie alone on the ground. ' Heed the old oracles, Ponder my spells; Song wakes in my pinnacles When the wind swells. Soundeth the prophetic wind, The shadows shake on the rock behind, And the countless leaves of the pine are strings Tuned to the lay the wood-god sings. Hearken! Hearken! If thou wouldst know the mystic song Chanted when the sphere was young. Aloft, abroad, the pan swells; O wise man! hear'st thou half it tells? O wise man! hear'st thou the least part? 'T is the chronicle of art. To the open ear it sings Sweet the genesis of things, Of tendency through endless ages, Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages, Of rounded worlds, of space and time, Of the old flood's subsiding slime, Of chemic matter, force and form, Of poles and powers, cold, wet, and warm: The rushing metamorphosis Dissolving all that fixture is, Melts things that be to things that seem, And solid nature to a dream. O, listen to the undersong, The ever old, the ever young; And, far within those cadent pauses, The chorus of the ancient Causes! Delights the dreadful Destiny To fling his voice into the tree, And shock thy weak ear with a note Breathed from the everlasting throat. In music he repeats the pang Whence the fair flock of Nature sprang. O mortal! thy ears are stones; These echoes are laden with tones Which only the pure can hear; Thou canst not catch what they recite Of Fate and Will, of Want and Right, Of man to come, of human life, Of Death and Fortune, Growth and Strife.' Once again the pine-tree sung: ' Speak not thy speech my boughs among: Put off thy years, wash in the breeze; My hours are peaceful centuries. Talk no more with feeble tongue; No more the fool of space and time, Come weave with mine a nobler rhyme. Only thy Americans Can read thy line, can meet thy glance, But the runes that I rehearse Understands the universe; The least breath my boughs which tossed Brings again the Pentecost; To every soul resounding clear In a voice of solemn cheer, "Am I not thine? Are not these thine?" And they reply, "Forever mine!" My branches speak Italian, English, German, Basque, Castilian, Mountain speech to Highlanders, Ocean tongues to islanders, To Fin and Lap and swart Malay, To each his bosom-secret say. 'Come learn with me the fatal song Which knits the world in music strong, Come lift thine eyes to lofty rhymes, Of things with things, of times with times, Primal chimes of sun and shade, Of sound and echo, man and maid, The land reflected in the flood, Body with shadow still pursued. For Nature beats in perfect tune, And rounds with rhyme her every rune, Whether she work in land or sea, Or hide underground her alchemy. Thou canst not wave thy staff in air, Or dip thy paddle in the lake, But it carves the bow of beauty there, And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake. The wood is wiser far than thou; The wood and wave each other know Not unrelated, unaffied, But to each thought and thing allied, Is perfect Nature's every part, Rooted in the mighty Heart. But thou, poor child! unbound, unrhymed, Whence camest thou, misplaced, mistimed, Whence, O thou orphan and defrauded? Is thy land peeled, thy realm marauded? Who thee divorced, deceived and left? Thee of thy faith who hath bereft, And torn the ensigns from thy brow, And sunk the immortal eye so low? Thy cheek too white, thy form too slender, Thy gait too slow, thy habits tender For royal man;they thee confess An exile from the wilderness, The hills where health with health agrees, And the wise soul expels disease. Hark! in thy ear I will tell the sign By which thy hurt thou may'st divine. 'When thou shalt climb the mountain cliff, Or see the wide shore from thy skiff, To thee the horizon shall express But emptiness on emptiness; There lives no man of Nature's worth In the circle of the earth; And to thine eye the vast skies fall, Dire and satirical, On clucking hens and prating fools, On thieves, on drudges and on dolls. And thou shalt say to the Most High, "Godhead! all this astronomy, And fate and practice and invention, Strong art and beautiful pretension, This radiant pomp of sun and star, Throes that were, and worlds that are, Behold! were in vain and in vain; It cannot be,I will look again. Surely now will the curtain rise, And earth's fit tenant me surprise; But the curtain doth not rise, And Nature has miscarried wholly Into failure, into folly." 'Alas! thine is the bankruptcy, Blessed Nature so to see. Come, lay thee in my soothing shade, And heal the hurts which sin has made. I see thee in the crowd alone; I will be thy companion. Quit thy friends as the dead in doom, And build to them a final tomb; Let the starred shade that nightly falls Still celebrate their funerals, And the bell of beetle and of bee Knell their melodious memory. Behind thee leave thy merchandise, Thy churches and thy charities; And leave thy peacock wit behind; Enough for thee the primal mind That flows in streams, that breathes in wind: Leave all thy pedant lore apart; God hid the whole world in thy heart. Love shuns the sage, the child it crowns, Gives all to them who all renounce. The rain comes when the wind calls; The river knows the way to the sea; Without a pilot it runs and falls, Blessing all lands with its charity; The sea tosses and foams to find Its way up to the cloud and wind; The shadow sits close to the flying ball; The date fails not on the palm-tree tall; And thou,go burn thy wormy pages, Shalt outsee seers, and outwit sages. Oft didst thou thread the woods in vain To find what bird had piped the strain: Seek not, and the little eremite Flies gayly forth and sings in sight. 'Hearken once more! I will tell thee the mundane lore. Older am I than thy numbers wot, Change I may, but I pass not. Hitherto all things fast abide, And anchored in the tempest ride. Trenchant time behoves to hurry All to yean and all to bury: All the forms are fugitive, But the substances survive. Ever fresh the broad creation, A divine improvisation, From the heart of God proceeds, A single will, a million deeds. Once slept the world an egg of stone, And pulse, and sound, and light was none; And God said, "Throb!" and there was motion And the vast mass became vast ocean. Onward and on, the eternal Pan, Who layeth the world's incessant plan, Halteth never in one shape, But forever doth escape, Like wave or flame, into new forms Of gem, and air, of plants, and worms. I, that to-day am a pine, Yesterday was a bundle of grass. He is free and libertine, Pouring of his power the wine To every age, to every race;. Unto every race and age He emptieth the beverage; Unto each, and unto all, Maker and original. The world is the ring of his spells, And the play of his miracles. As he giveth to all to drink, Thus or thus they are and think. With one drop sheds form and feature; With the next a special nature; The third adds heat's indulgent spark; The fourth gives light which eats the dark; Into the fifth himself he flings, And conscious Law is King of kings. As the bee through the garden ranges, From world to world the godhead changes; As the sheep go feeding in the waste, From form to form He maketh haste; This vault which glows immense with light Is the inn where he lodges for a night. What reeks such Traveller if the bowers Which bloom and fade like meadow flowers A bunch of fragrant lilies be, Or the stars of eternity? Alike to him the better, the worse, The glowing angel, the outcast corse. Thou metest him by centuries, And lo! he passes like the breeze; Thou seek'st in globe and galaxy, He hides in pure transparency; Thou askest in fountains and in fires, He is the essence that inquires. He is the axis of the star; He is the sparkle of the spar; He is the heart of every creature; He is the meaning of each feature; And his mind is the sky. Than all it holds more deep, more high.' by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Woodnotes ,

888:Scene.Up the Hill-side, inside the Shrub-house. Luca's wife, Ottima, and her paramour, the German Sebald. Sebald [sings] Let the watching lids wink! Day's a-blaze with eyes, think! Deep into the night, drink! Ottima Night? Such may be your Rhine-land nights perhaps; But this blood-red beam through the shutter's chink We call such light, the morning: let us see! Mind how you grope your way, though! How these tall Naked geraniums straggle! Push the lattice Behind that frame!Nay, do I bid you?Sebald, It shakes the dust down on me! Why, of course The slide-bolt catches. Well, are you content, Or must I find you something else to spoil? Kiss and be friends, my Sebald! Is 't full morning? Oh, don't speak then! Sebald.            Ay, thus it used to be. Ever your house was, I remember, shut Till mid-day; I observed that, as I strolled On mornings through the vale here; country girls Were noisy, washing garments in the brook, Hinds drove the slow white oxen up the hills: But no, your house was mute, would ope no eye. And wisely: you were plotting one thing there, Nature, another outside. I looked up Rough white wood shutters, rusty iron bars, Silent as death, blind in a flood of light. Oh, I remember!and the peasants laughed And said, "The old man sleeps with the young wife." This house was his, this chair, this windowhis. Ottima Ah, the clear morning! I can see St. Mark's; That black streak is the belfry. Stop: Vicenza Should lie . . . there's Padua, plain enough, that blue! Look o'er my shoulder, follow my finger! Sebald                      Morning? It seems to me a night with a sun added. Where's dew, where's freshness? That bruised plant, I bruised In getting through the lattice yestereve, Droops as it did. See, here's my elbow's mark I' the dust o' the sill. Ottima              Oh, shut the lattice, pray!              Sebald Let me lean out. I cannot scent blood here, Foul as the morn may be.              There, shut the world out! How do you feel now, Ottima? There, curse The world and all outside! Let us throw off This mask: how do you bear yourself? Let's out With all of it. Ottima         Best never speak of it.         Sebald Best speak again and yet again of it, Till words cease to be more than words. "His blood," For instancelet those two words mean "His blood" And nothing more. Notice, I'll say them now, "His blood." Ottima       Assuredly if I repented The deed Sebald      Repent? Who should repent, or why? What puts that in your head? Did I once say That I repented? Ottima          No, I said the deed . . .          Sebald "The deed" and "the event"just now it was "Our passion's fruit"the devil take such cant! Say, once and always, Luca was a wittol, I am his cut-throat, you are . . . Ottima                   Here's the wine; I brought it when we left the house above, And glasses toowine of both sorts. Black? White then? Sebald But am not I his cut-throat? What are you? Ottima There trudges on his business from the Duomo Benet the Capuchin, with his brown hood And bare feet; always in one place at church, Close under the stone wall by the south entry. I used to take him for a brown cold piece Of the wall's self, as out of it he rose To let me passat first, I say, I used: Now, so has that dumb figure fastened on me, I rather should account the plastered wall A piece of him, so chilly does it strike. This, Sebald? Sebald        No, the white winethe white wine! Well, Ottima, I promised no new year Should rise on us the ancient shameful way; Nor does it rise. Pour on! To your black eyes! Do you remember last damned New Year's day? Ottima You brought those foreign prints. We looked at them Over the wine and fruit. I had to scheme To get him from the fire. Nothing but saying His own set wants the proof-mark, roused him up To hunt them out. Sebald          'Faith, he is not alive To fondle you before my face. Ottima                Do you Fondle me then! Who means to take your life For that, my Sebald? Sebald            Hark you, Ottima! One thing to guard against. We'll not make much One of the otherthat is, not make more Parade of warmth, childish officious coil, Than yesterday: as if, sweet, I supposed Proof upon proof were needed now, now first, To show I love youyes, still love youlove you In spite of Luca and what's come to him Sure sign we had him ever in our thoughts, White sneering old reproachful face and all! We'll even quarrel, love, at times, as if We still could lose each other, were not tied By this: conceive you? Ottima            Love!            Sebald                Not tied so sure. Because though I was wrought upon, have struck His insolence back into himam I So surely yours?therefore forever yours? Ottima Love, to be wise, (one counsel pays another) Should we havemonths ago, when first we loved, For instance that May morning we two stole Under the green ascent of sycamores If we had come upon a thing like that Suddenly . . . Sebald        "A thing"there again"a thing!"        Ottima Then, Venus' body, had we come upon My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered corpse Within there, at his couch-foot, covered close Would you have pored upon it? Why persist In poring now upon it? For't is here As much as there in the deserted house: You cannot rid your eyes of it. For me, Now he is dead I hate him worse: I hate . . . Dare you stay here? I would go back and hold His two dead hands, and say, "I hate you worse, "Luca, than . . ." Sebald          Off, offtake your hands off mine, 'T is the hot eveningoff! oh, morning is it? Ottima There's one thing must be done; you know what thing. Come in and help to carry. We may sleep Anywhere in the whole wide house to-night. Sebald What would come, think you, if we let him lie Just as he is? Let him lie there until The angels take him! He is turned by this Off from his face beside, as you will see. Ottima This dusty pane might serve for looking glass. Three, fourfour grey hairs! Is it so you said A plait of hair should wave across my neck? Nothis way. Sebald        Ottima, I would give your neck, Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts of yours, That this were undone! Killing! Kill the world, So Luca lives again!ay, lives to sputter His fulsome dotage on youyes, and feign Surprise that I return at eve to sup, When all the morning I was loitering here Bid me despatch my business and begone. I would . . . Ottima        See!        Sebald          No, I'll finish. Do you think I fear to speak the bare truth once for all? All we have talked of, is, at bottom, fine To suffer; there's a recompense in guilt; One must be venturous and fortunate: What is one young for, else? In age we'll sigh O'er the wild reckless wicked days flown over; Still, we have lived: the vice was in its place. But to have eaten Luca's bread, have worn His clothes, have felt his money swell my purse Do lovers in romances sin that way? Why, I was starving when I used to call And teach you music, starving while you plucked me These flowers to smell! Ottima             My poor lost friend!             Sebald                        He gave me Life, nothing less: what if he did reproach My perfidy, and threaten, and do more Had he no right? What was to wonder at? He sat by us at table quietly: Why must you lean across till our cheeks touched? Could he do less than make pretence to strike? 'T is not the crime's sakeI'd commit ten crimes Greater, to have this crime wiped out, undone! And youO how feel you? Feel you for me? Ottima Well then, I love you better now than ever, And best (look at me while I speak to you) Best for the crime; nor do I grieve, in truth, This mask, this simulated ignorance, This affectation of simplicity, Falls off our crime; this naked crime of ours May not now be looked over: look it down! Great? let it be great; but the joys it brought, Pay they or no its price? Come: they or it! Speak not! The past, would you give up the past Such as it is, pleasure and crime together? Give up that noon I owned my love for you? The garden's silence: even the single bee Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopped, And where he hid you only could surmise By some campanula chalice set a-swing. Who stammered"Yes, I love you?" Sebald                  And I drew Back; put far back your face with both my hands Lest you should grow too full of meyour face So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body! Ottima And when I ventured to receive you here, Made you steal hither in the mornings Sebald                      When I used to look up 'neath the shrub-house here, Till the red fire on its glazed windows spread To a yellow haze? Ottima          Ahmy sign was, the sun Inflamed the sere side of yon chestnut-tree Nipped by the first frost. Sebald               You would always laugh At my wet boots: I had to stride thro' grass Over my ankles. Ottima         Then our crowning night!         Sebald The July night? Ottima         The day of it too, Sebald! When heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heat, Its black-blue canopy suffered descend Close on us both, to weigh down each to each, And smother up all life except our life. So lay we till the storm came. Sebald                 How it came!                 Ottima Buried in woods we lay, you recollect; Swift ran the searching tempest overhead; And ever and anon some bright white shaft Burned thro' the pine-tree roof, here burned and there, As if God's messenger thro' the close wood screen Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture, Feeling for guilty thee and me: then broke The thunder like a whole sea overhead Sebald Yes! Ottima While I stretched myself upon you, hands To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and shook All my locks loose, and covered you with them You, Sebald, the same you! Sebald               Slower, Ottima!               Ottima And as we lay Sebald         Less vehemently! Love me! Forgive me! Take not words, mere words, to heart! Your breath is worse than wine! Breathe slow, speak slow! Do not lean on me! Ottima          Sebald, as we lay, Rising and falling only with our pants, Who said, "Let death come now! 'T is right to die! "Right to be punished! Nought completes such bliss "But woe!" Who said that? Sebald              How did we ever rise? Was't that we slept? Why did it end? Ottima                    I felt you Taper into a point the ruffled ends Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips. My hair is fallen now: knot it again! Sebald I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now and now! This way? Will you forgive mebe once more My great queen? Ottima         Bind it thrice about my brow; Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress, Magnificent in sin. Say that! Sebald                I crown you My great white queen, my spirit's arbitress, Magnificent . . . [From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing The year's at the spring And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hill-side's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven All's right with the world! [Pippa passes] Sebald God's in his heaven! Do you hear that? Who spoke? You, you spoke! Ottima         Ohthat little ragged girl! She must have rested on the step: we give them But this one holiday the whole year round. Did you ever see our silk-millstheir inside? There are ten silk-mills now belong to you. She stoops to pick my double heartsease . . . Sh! She does not hear: call you out louder! Sebald                      Leave me! Go, get your clothes ondress those shoulders! Ottima                          Sebald?                          Sebald Wipe off that paint! I hate you. Ottima                  Miserable!                  Sebald My God, and she is emptied of it now! Outright now!how miraculously gone All of the gracehad she not strange grace once? Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes, No purpose holds the features up together, Only the cloven brow and puckered chin Stay in their places: and the very hair, That seemed to have a sort of life in it, Drops, a dead web! Ottima          Speak to menot of me!          Sebald That round great full-orbed face, where not an angle Broke the delicious indolenceall broken! Ottima To menot of me! Ungrateful, perjured cheat! A coward too: but ingrate's worse than all. Beggarmy slavea fawning, cringing lie! Leave me! Betray me! I can see your drift! A lie that walks and eats and drinks! Sebald                     My God! Those morbid olive faultless shoulder-blades I should have known there was no blood beneath! Ottima You hate me then? You hate me then? Sebald                    To think She would succeed in her absurd attempt, And fascinate by sinning, show herself Superiorguilt from its excess superior To innocence! That little peasant's voice Has righted all again. Though I be lost, I know which is the better, never fear, Of vice or virtue, purity or lust, Nature or trick! I see what I have done, Entirely now! Oh I am proud to feel Such tormentslet the world take credit thence I, having done my deed, pay too its price! I hate, hatecurse you! God's in his heaven! Ottima                          Me! Me! no, no, Sebald, not yourselfkill me Mine is the whole crime. Do but kill methen Yourselfthenpresentlyfirst hear me speak! I always meant to kill myselfwait, you! Lean on my breastnot as a breast; don't love me The more because you lean on me, my own Heart's Sebald! There, there, both deaths presently! Sebald My brain is drowned nowquite drowned: all I feel Is . . . is, at swift-recurring intervals, A hurry-down within me, as of waters Loosened to smother up some ghastly pit: There they gowhirls from a black fiery sea! Ottima Not meto him, O God, be merciful! Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from the hill-side to Orcana. Foreign Students of painting and sculpture, from Venice, assembled opposite the house of Jules, a young French statuary, at Possagno. 1st Student Attention! My own post is beneath this window, but the pomegranate clump yonder will hide three or four of you with a little squeezing, and Schramm and his pipe must lie flat in the balcony. Four, five who's a defaulter? We want everybody, for Jules must not be suffered to hurt his bride when the jest's found out. 2nd Student All here! Only our poet's awaynever having much meant to be present, moonstrike him! The airs of that fellow, that Giovacchino! He was in violent love with himself, and had a fair prospect of thriving in his suit, so unmolested was it,when suddenly a woman falls in love with him, too; and out of pure jealousy he takes himself off to Trieste, immortal poem and all: whereto is this prophetical epitaph appended already, as Bluphocks assures me,"Here a mammoth-poem lies, Fouled to death by butterflies." His own fault, the simpleton! Instead of cramp couplets, each like a knife in your entrails, he should write, says Bluphocks, both classically and intelligibly. sculapius, an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs: Hebe's plaisterOne strip Cools your lip. Phoebus' emulsion One bottle Clears your throttle. Mercury's bolusOne box Cures . . . 3rd Student Subside, my fine fellow! If the marriage was over by ten o'clock, Jules will certainly be here in a minute with his bride. 2nd Student Good!only, so should the poet's muse have been universally acceptable, says Bluphocks, et canibus nostris . . . and Delia not better known to our literary dogs than the boy Giovacchino! 1st Student To the point, now. Where's Gottlieb, the new-comer? Oh,listen, Gottlieb, to what has called down this piece of friendly vengeance on Jules, of which we now assemble to witness the winding-up. We are all agreed, all in a tale, observe, when Jules shall burst out on us in a fury by and by: I am spokesmanthe verses that are to undeceive Jules bear my name of Lutwyche but each professes himself alike insulted by this strutting stone-squarer, who came alone from Paris to Munich, and thence with a crowd of us to Venice and Possagno here, but proceeds in a day or two alone againoh, alone indubitably!to Rome and Florence. He, forsooth, take up his portion with these dissolute, brutalized, heartless bunglers!so he was heard to call us all: now, is Schramm brutalized, I should like to know? Am I heartless? Gottlieb Why, somewhat heartless; for, suppose Jules a coxcomb as much as you choose, still, for this mere coxcombry, you will have brushed offwhat do folks style it?the bloom of his life. Is it too late to alter? These love-letters now, you call hisI can't laugh at them. 4th Student Because you never read the sham letters of our inditing which drew forth these. Gottlieb His discovery of the truth will be frightful. 4th Student That's the joke. But you should have joined us at the beginning: there's no doubt he loves the girlloves a model he might hire by the hour! Gottlieb See here! "He has been accustomed," he writes, "to have Canova's women about him, in stone, "and the world's women beside him, in flesh; these "being as much below, as those above, his soul's aspi- "ration: but now he is to have the reality." There you laugh again! I say, you wipe off the very dew of his youth. 1st Student Schramm! (Take the pipe out of his mouth, somebody!) Will Jules lose the bloom of his youth? Schramm Nothing worth keeping is ever lost in this world: look at a blossomit drops presently, having done its service and lasted its time; but fruits succeed, and where would be the blossom's place could it continue? As well affirm that your eye is no longer in your body, because its earliest favourite, whatever it may have first loved to look on, is dead and done with as that any affection is lost to the soul when its first object, whatever happened first to satisfy it, is superseded in due course. Keep but ever looking, whether with the body's eye or the mind's, and you will soon find something to look on! Has a man done wondering at women?there follow men, dead and alive, to wonder at. Has he done wondering at men?there's God to wonder at: and the faculty of wonder may be, at the same time, old and tired enough with respect to its first object, and yet young and fresh sufficiently, so far as concerns its novel one. Thus . . . 1st Student Put Schramm's pipe into his mouth again! There, you see! Well, this Jules . . . a wretched fribble oh, I watched his disportings at Possagno, the other day! Canova's galleryyou know: there he marches first resolvedly past great works by the dozen without vouchsafing an eye: all at once he stops full at thePsiche-fanciulla cannot pass that old acquaintance without a nod of encouragement"In your new place, beauty? Then behave yourself as well here as at Munich I see you!" Next he posts himself deliberately before the unfinished Piet for half an hour without moving, till up he starts of a sudden, and thrusts his very nose intoI say, intothe group; by which gesture you are informed that precisely the sole point he had not fully mastered in Canova's practice was a certain method of using the drill in the articulation of the knee-jointand that, likewise, has he mastered at length! Good-bye, therefore, to poor Canovawhose gallery no longer needs detain his successor Jules, the predestinated novel thinker in marble! 5th Student Tell him about the women: go on to the women! 1st Student Why, on that matter he could never be supercilious enough. How should we be other (he said) than the poor devils you see, with those debasing habits we cherish? He was not to wallow in that mire, at least: he would wait, and love only at the proper time, and meanwhile put up with the Psiche-fanciulla. Now, I happened to hear of a young Greekreal Greek girl at Malamocco; a true Islander, do you see, with Alciphron's "hair like sea-moss"Schramm knows!white and quiet as an apparition, and fourteen years old at farthest, a daughter of Natalia, so she swearsthat hag Natalia, who helps us to models at three lire an hour. We selected this girl for the heroine of our jest. So first, Jules received a scented lettersomebody had seen his Tydeus at the Academy, and my picture was nothing to it: a profound admirer bade him perseverewould make herself known to him ere long. (Paolina, my little friend of the Fenice, transcribes divinely.) And in due time, the mysterious correspondent gave certain hints of her peculiar charmsthe pale cheeks, the black hairwhatever, in short, had struck us in our Malamocco model: we retained her name, tooPhene, which is, by interpretation, sea-eagle. Now, think of Jules finding himself distinguished from the herd of us by such a creature! In his very first answer he proposed marrying his monitress: and fancy us over these letters, two, three times a day, to receive and despatch! I concocted the main of it: relations were in the waysecrecy must be observedin fine, would he wed her on trust, and only speak to her when they were indissolubly united? St stHere they come! 6th Student Both of them! Heaven's love, speak softly, speak within yourselves! 5th Student Look at the bridegroom! Half his hair in storm and half in calm,patted down over the left temple,like a frothy cup one blows on to cool it: and the same old blouse that he murders the marble in. 2nd Student Not a rich vest like yours, Hannibal Scratchy!rich, that your face may the better set it off. 6th Student And the bride! Yes, sure enough, our Phene! Should you have known her in her clothes? How magnificently pale! Gottlieb She does not also take it for earnest, I hope? 1st Student Oh, Natalia's concern, that is! We settle with Natalia. 6th Student She does not speakhas evidently let out no word. The only thing is, will she equally remember the rest of her lesson, and repeat correctly all those verses which are to break the secret to Jules? Gottlieb How he gazes on her! Pitypity! 1st Student They go in: now, silence! You three, not nearer the window, mind, than that pomegranate: just where the little girl, who a few minutes ago passed us singing, is seated! ~ Robert Browning, Pippa Passes - Part I - Morning ,

889:Scene. Constantinople; the house of a Greek Conjurer. 1521. Paracelsus. Paracelsus. Over the waters in the vaporous West The sun goes down as in a sphere of gold Behind the arm of the city, which between, With all that length of domes and minarets, Athwart the splendour, black and crooked runs Like a Turk verse along a scimitar. There lie, sullen memorial, and no more Possess my aching sight! 'T is done at last. Strangeand the juggles of a sallow cheat Have won me to this act! 'T is as yon cloud Should voyage unwrecked o'er many a mountain-top And break upon a molehill. I have dared Come to a pause with knowledge; scan for once The heights already reached, without regard To the extent above; fairly compute All I have clearly gained; for once excluding A brilliant future to supply and perfect All half-gains and conjectures and crude hopes: And all because a fortune-teller wills His credulous seekers should inscribe thus much Their previous life's attainment, in his roll, Before his promised secret, as he vaunts, Make up the sum: and here amid the scrawled Uncouth recordings of the dupes of this Old arch-genethliac, lie my life's results! A few blurred characters suffice to note A stranger wandered long through many lands And reaped the fruit he coveted in a few Discoveries, as appended here and there, The fragmentary produce of much toil, In a dim heap, fact and surmise together Confusedly massed as when acquired; he was Intent on gain to come too much to stay And scrutinize the little gained: the whole Slipt in the blank space 'twixt an idiot's gibber And a mad lover's dittythere it lies. And yet those blottings chronicle a life A whole life, and my life! Nothing to do, No problem for the fancy, but a life Spent and decided, wasted past retrieve Or worthy beyond peer. Stay, what does this Remembrancer set down concerning "life"? "'Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream,' "It is the echo of time; and he whose heart "Beat first beneath a human heart, whose speech "Was copied from a human tongue, can never "Recall when he was living yet knew not this. "Nevertheless long seasons pass o'er him "Till some one hour's experience shows what nothing, "It seemed, could clearer show; and ever after, "An altered brow and eye and gait and speech "Attest that now he knows the adage true "'Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty dream.'" Ay, my brave chronicler, and this same hour As well as any: now, let my time be! Now! I can go no farther; well or ill, 'T is done. I must desist and take my chance. I cannot keep on the stretch: 't is no back-shrinking For let but some assurance beam, some close To my toil grow visible, and I proceed At any price, though closing it, I die. Else, here I pause. The old Greek's prophecy Is like to turn out true: "I shall not quit "His chamber till I know what I desire!" Was it the light wind sang it o'er the sea? An end, a rest! strange how the notion, once Encountered, gathers strength by moments! Rest! Where has it kept so long? this throbbing brow To cease, this beating heart to cease, all cruel And gnawing thoughts to cease! To dare let down My strung, so high-strung brain, to dare unnerve My harassed o'ertasked frame, to know my place, My portion, my reward, even my failure, Assigned, made sure for ever! To lose myself Among the common creatures of the world, To draw some gain from having been a man, Neither to hope nor fear, to live at length! Even in failure, rest! But rest in truth And power and recompense . . . I hoped that once! What, sunk insensibly so deep? Has all Been undergone for this? This the request My labour qualified me to present With no fear of refusal? Had I gone Slightingly through my task, and so judged fit To moderate my hopes; nay, were it now My sole concern to exculpate myself, End things or mend them,why, I could not choose A humbler mood to wait for the event! No, no, there needs not this; no, after all, At worst I have performed my share of the task The rest is God's concern; mine, merely this, To know that I have obstinately held By my own work. The mortal whose brave foot Has trod, unscathed, the temple-court so far That he descries at length the shrine of shrines, Must let no sneering of the demons' eyes, Whom he could pass unquailing, fasten now Upon him, fairly past their power; no, no He must not stagger, faint, fall down at last, Having a charm to baffle them; behold, He bares his front: a mortal ventures thus Serene amid the echoes, beams and glooms! If he be priest henceforth, if he wake up The god of the place to ban and blast him there, Both well! What's failure or success to me? I have subdued my life to the one purpose Whereto I ordained it; there alone I spy, No doubt, that way I may be satisfied. Yes, well have I subdued my life! beyond The obligation of my strictest vow, The contemplation of my wildest bond, Which gave my nature freely up, in truth, But in its actual state, consenting fully All passionate impulses its soil was formed To rear, should wither; but foreseeing not The tract, doomed to perpetual barrenness, Would seem one day, remembered as it was, Beside the parched sand-waste which now it is, Already strewn with faint blooms, viewless then. I ne'er engaged to root up loves so frail I felt them not; yet now, 't is very plain Some soft spots had their birth in me at first, If not love, say, like love: there was a time When yet this wolfish hunger after knowledge Set not remorselessly love's claims aside. This heart was human once, or why recall Einsiedeln, now, and Wrzburg which the Mayne Forsakes her course to fold as with an arm? And Festusmy poor Festus, with his praise And counsel and grave fearswhere is he now With the sweet maiden, long ago his bride? I surely loved themthat last night, at least, When we . . . gone! gone! the better. I am saved The sad review of an ambitious youth Choked by vile lusts, unnoticed in their birth, But let grow up and wind around a will Till action was destroyed. No, I have gone Purging my path successively of aught Wearing the distant likeness of such lusts. I have made life consist of one idea: Ere that was master, up till that was born, I bear a memory of a pleasant life Whose small events I treasure; till one morn I ran o'er the seven little grassy fields, Startling the flocks of nameless birds, to tell Poor Festus, leaping all the while for joy, To leave all trouble for my future plans, Since I had just determined to become The greatest and most glorious man on earth. And since that morn all life has been forgotten; All is one day, one only step between The outset and the end: one tyrant all- Absorbing aim fills up the interspace, One vast unbroken chain of thought, kept up Through a career apparently adverse To its existence: life, death, light and shadow, The shows of the world, were bare receptacles Or indices of truth to be wrung thence, Not ministers of sorrow or delight: A wondrous natural robe in which she went. For some one truth would dimly beacon me From mountains rough with pines, and flit and wink O'er dazzling wastes of frozen snow, and tremble Into assured light in some branching mine Where ripens, swathed in fire, the liquid gold And all the beauty, all the wonder fell On either side the truth, as its mere robe; I see the robe nowthen I saw the form. So far, then, I have voyaged with success, So much is good, then, in this working sea Which parts me from that happy strip of land: But o'er that happy strip a sun shone, too! And fainter gleams it as the waves grow rough, And still more faint as the sea widens; last I sicken on a dead gulf streaked with light From its own putrefying depths alone. Then, God was pledged to take me by the hand; Now, any miserable juggle can bid My pride depart. All is alike at length: God may take pleasure in confounding pride By hiding secrets with the scorned and base I am here, in short: so little have I paused Throughout! I never glanced behind to know If I had kept my primal light from wane, And thus insensibly amwhat I am! Oh, bitter; very bitter!              And more bitter, To fear a deeper curse, an inner ruin, Plague beneath plague, the last turning the first To light beside its darkness. Let me weep My youth and its brave hopes, all dead and gone, In tears which burn! Would I were sure to win Some startling secret in their stead, a tincture Of force to flush old age with youth, or breed Gold, or imprison moonbeams till they change To opal shafts!only that, hurling it Indignant back, I might convince myself My aims remained supreme and pure as ever! Even now, why not desire, for mankind's sake, That if I fail, some fault may be the cause, That, though I sink, another may succeed? O God, the despicable heart of us! Shut out this hideous mockery from my heart! 'T was politic in you, Aureole, to reject Single rewards, and ask them in the lump; At all events, once launched, to hold straight on: For now' t is all or nothing. Mighty profit Your gains will bring if they stop short of such Full consummation! As a man, you had A certain share of strength; and that is gone Already in the getting these you boast. Do not they seem to laugh, as who should say "Great master, we are here indeed, dragged forth "To light; this hast thou done: be glad! Now, seek "The strength to use which thou hast spent in getting!" And yet't is much, surely't is very much, Thus to have emptied youth of all its gifts, To feed a fire meant to hold out till morn Arrived with inexhaustible light; and lo, I have heaped up my last, and day dawns not! And I am left with grey hair, faded hands, And furrowed brow. Ha, have I, after all, Mistaken the wild nursling of my breast? Knowledge it seemed, and power, and recompense! Was she who glided through my room of nights, Who laid my head on her soft knees and smoothed The damp locks,whose sly soothings just began When my sick spirit craved repose awhile God! was I fighting sleep off for death's sake? God! Thou art mind! Unto the master-mind Mind should be precious. Spare my mind alone! All else I will endure; if, as I stand Here, with my gains, thy thunder smite me down, I bow me; 't is thy will, thy righteous will; I o'erpass life's restrictions, and I die; And if no trace of my career remain Save a thin corpse at pleasure of the wind In these bright chambers level with the air, See thou to it! But if my spirit fail, My once proud spirit forsake me at the last, Hast thou done well by me? So do not thou! Crush not my mind, dear God, though I be crushed! Hold me before the frequence of thy seraphs And say"I crushed him, lest he should disturb "My law. Men must not know their strength: behold "Weak and alone, how he had raised himself!" But if delusions trouble me, and thou, Not seldom felt with rapture in thy help Throughout my toils and wanderings, dost intend To work man's welfare through my weak endeavour, To crown my mortal forehead with a beam From thine own blinding crown, to smile, and guide This puny hand and let the work so wrought Be styled my work,hear me! I covet not An influx of new power, an angel's soul: It were no marvel thenbut I have reached Thus far, a man; let me conclude, a man! Give but one hour of my first energy, Of that invincible faith, but only one! That I may cover with an eagle-glance The truths I have, and spy some certain way To mould them, and completing them, possess! Yet God is good: I started sure of that, And why dispute it now? I'll not believe But some undoubted warning long ere this Had reached me: a fire-labarum was not deemed Too much for the old founder of these walls. Then, if my life has not been natural, It has been monstrous: yet, till late, my course So ardently engrossed me, that delight, A pausing and reflecting joy,'t is plain, Could find no place in it. True, I am worn; But who clothes summer, who is life itself? God, that created all things, can renew! And then, though after-life to please me now Must have no likeness to the past, what hinders Reward from springing out of toil, as changed As bursts the flower from earth and root and stalk? What use were punishment, unless some sin Be first detected? let me know that first! No man could ever offend as I have done . . . [A voice from within.] I hear a voice, perchance I heard Long ago, but all too low, So that scarce a care it stirred If the voice were real or no: I heard it in my youth when first The waters of my life outburst: But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear That voice, still low, but fatal-clear As if all poets, God ever meant Should save the world, and therefore lent Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused To do his work, or lightly used Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavour, So, mourn cast off by him for ever, As if these leaned in airy ring To take me; this the song they sing. "Lost, lost! yet come, With our wan troop make thy home. Come, come! for we Will not breathe, so much as breathe Reproach to thee, Knowing what thou sink'st beneath. So sank we in those old years, We who bid thee, come! thou last Who, living yet, hast life o'erpast. And altogether we, thy peers, Will pardon crave for thee, the last Whose trial is done, whose lot is cast With those who watch but work no more, Who gaze on life but live no more. Yet we trusted thou shouldst speak The message which our lips, too weak, Refused to utter,shouldst redeem Our fault: such trust, and all a dream! Yet we chose thee a birthplace Where the richness ran to flowers: Couldst not sing one song for grace? Not make one blossom man's and ours? Must one more recreant to his race Die with unexerted powers, And join us, leaving as he found The world, he was to loosen, bound? Anguish! ever and for ever; Still beginning, ending never. Yet, lost and last one, come! How couldst understand, alas, What our pale ghosts strove to say, As their shades did glance and pass Before thee night and day? Thou wast blind as we were dumb: Once more, therefore, come, O come! How should we clothe, how arm the spirit Shall next thy post of life inherit How guard him from thy speedy ruin? Tell us of thy sad undoing Here, where we sit, ever pursuing Our weary task, ever renewing Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave Our powers, and man they could not save!" Aprile enters. Aprile. Ha, ha! our king that wouldst be, here at last? Art thou the poet who shall save the world? Thy hand to mine! Stay, fix thine eyes on mine! Thou wouldst be king? Still fix thine eyes on mine! Paracelsus. Ha, ha! why crouchest not? Am I not king? So torture is not wholly unavailing! Have my fierce spasms compelled thee from thy lair? Art thou the sage I only seemed to be, Myself of after-time, my very self With sight a little clearer, strength more firm, Who robes him in my robe and grasps my crown For just a fault, a weakness, a neglect? I scarcely trusted God with the surmise That such might come, and thou didst hear the while! Aprile. Thine eyes are lustreless to mine; my hair Is soft, nay silken soft: to talk with thee Flushes my cheek, and thou art ashy-pale. Truly, thou hast laboured, hast withstood her lips, The siren's! Yes, 't is like thou hast attained! Tell me, dear master, wherefore now thou comest? I thought thy solemn songs would have their meed In after-time; that I should hear the earth Exult in thee and echo with thy praise, While I was laid forgotten in my grave. Paracelsus. Ah fiend, I know thee, I am not thy dupe! Thou art ordained to follow in my track, Reaping my sowing, as I scorned to reap The harvest sown by sages passed away. Thou art the sober searcher, cautious striver, As if, except through me, thou hast searched or striven! Ay, tell the world! Degrade me after all, To an aspirant after fame, not truth To all but envy of thy fate, be sure! Aprile. Nay, sing them to me; I shall envy not: Thou shalt be king! Sing thou, and I will sit Beside, and call deep silence for thy songs, And worship thee, as I had ne'er been meant To fill thy throne: but none shall ever know! Sing to me; for already thy wild eyes Unlock my heart-strings, as some crystal-shaft Reveals by some chance blaze its parent fount After long time: so thou reveal'st my soul. All will flash forth at last, with thee to hear! Paracelsus. (His secret! I shall get his secretfool!) I am he that aspired to know: and thou? Aprile. I would love infinitely, and be loved! Paracelsus. Poor slave! I am thy king indeed. Aprile.                  Thou deem'st Thatborn a spirit, dowered even as thou, Born for thy fatebecause I could not curb My yearnings to possess at once the full Enjoyment, but neglected all the means Of realizing even the frailest joy, Gathering no fragments to appease my want, Yet nursing up that want till thus I die Thou deem'st I cannot trace thy safe sure march O'er perils that o'erwhelm me, triumphing, Neglecting nought below for aught above, Despising nothing and ensuring all Nor that I could (my time to come again) Lead thus my spirit securely as thine own. Listen, and thou shalt see I know thee well. I would love infinitely . . . Ah, lost! lost! Oh ye who armed me at such cost, How shall I look on all of ye With your gifts even yet on me? Paracelsus. (Ah, 't is some moonstruck creature after all! Such fond fools as are like to haunt this den: They spread contagion, doubtless: yet he seemed To echo one foreboding of my heart So truly, that . . . no matter! How he stands With eve's last sunbeam staying on his hair Which turns to it as if they were akin: And those clear smiling eyes of saddest blue Nearly set free, so far they rise above The painful fruitless striving of the brow And enforced knowledge of the lips, firm-set In slow despondency's eternal sigh! Has he, too, missed life's end, and learned the cause?) I charge thee, by thy fealty, be calm! Tell me what thou wouldst be, and what I am. Aprile. I would love infinitely, and be loved. First: I would carve in stone, or cast in brass, The forms of earth. No ancient hunter lifted Up to the gods by his renown, no nymph Supposed the sweet soul of a woodland tree Or sapphirine spirit of a twilight star, Should be too hard for me; no shepherd-king Regal for his white locks; no youth who stands Silent and very calm amid the throng, His right hand ever hid beneath his robe Until the tyrant pass; no lawgiver, No swan-soft woman rubbed with lucid oils Given by a god for love of hertoo hard! Every passion sprung from man, conceived by man, Would I express and clothe it in its right form, Or blend with others struggling in one form, Or show repressed by an ungainly form. Oh, if you marvelled at some mighty spirit With a fit frame to execute its will Even unconsciously to work its will You should be moved no less beside some strong Rare spirit, fettered to a stubborn body, Endeavouring to subdue it and inform it With its own splendour! All this I would do: And I would say, this done, "His sprites created, "God grants to each a sphere to be its world, "Appointed with the various objects needed "To satisfy its own peculiar want; "So, I create a world for these my shapes "Fit to sustain their beauty and their strength!" And, at the word, I would contrive and paint Woods, valleys, rocks and plains, dells, sands and wastes, Lakes which, when morn breaks on their quivering bed, Blaze like a wyvern flying round the sun, And ocean isles so small, the dog-fish tracking A dead whale, who should find them, would swim thrice Around them, and fare onwardall to hold The offspring of my brain. Nor these alone: Bronze labyrinth, palace, pyramid and crypt, Baths, galleries, courts, temples and terraces, Marts, theatres and wharfsall filled with men, Men everywhere! And this performed in turn, When those who looked on, pined to hear the hopes And fears and hates and loves which moved the crowd, I would throw down the pencil as the chisel, And I would speak; no thought which ever stirred A human breast should be untold; all passions, All soft emotions, from the turbulent stir Within a heart fed with desires like mine, To the last comfort shutting the tired lids Of him who sleeps the sultry noon away Beneath the tent-tree by the wayside well: And this in language as the need should be, Now poured at once forth in a burning flow, Now piled up in a grand array of words. This done, to perfect and consummate all, Even as a luminous haze links star to star, I would supply all chasms with music, breathing Mysterious motions of the soul, no way To be defined save in strange melodies. Last, having thus revealed all I could love, Having received all love bestowed on it, I would die: preserving so throughout my course God full on me, as I was full on men: He would approve my prayer, "I have gone through "The loveliness of life; create for me "If not for men, or take me to thyself, "Eternal, infinite love!"              If thou hast ne'er Conceived this mighty aim, this full desire, Thou hast not passed my trial, and thou art No king of mine. Paracelsus.          Ah me!          Aprile.            But thou art here! Thou didst not gaze like me upon that end Till thine own powers for compassing the bliss Were blind with glory; nor grow mad to grasp At once the prize long patient toil should claim, Nor spurn all granted short of that. And I Would do as thou, a second time: nay, listen! Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great, Our time so brief, 't is clear if we refuse The means so limited, the tools so rude To execute our purpose, life will fleet, And we shall fade, and leave our task undone. We will be wise in time: what though our work Be fashioned in despite of their ill-service, Be crippled every way? 'T were little praise Did full resources wait on our goodwill At every turn. Let all be as it is. Some say the earth is even so contrived That tree and flower, a vesture gay, conceal A bare and skeleton framework. Had we means Answering to our mind! But now I seem Wrecked on a savage isle: how rear thereon My palace? Branching palms the props shall be, Fruit glossy mingling; gems are for the East; Who heeds them? I can pass them. Serpents' scales, And painted birds' down, furs and fishes' skins Must help me; and a little here and there Is all I can aspire to: still my art Shall show its birth was in a gentler clime. "Had I green jars of malachite, this way "I'd range them: where those sea-shells glisten above, "Cressets should hang, by right: this way we set "The purple carpets, as these mats are laid, "Woven of fern and rush and blossoming flag." Or if, by fortune, some completer grace Be spared to me, some fragment, some slight sample Of the prouder workmanship my own home boasts, Some trifle little heeded there, but here The place's one perfectionwith what joy Would I enshrine the relic, cheerfully Foregoing all the marvels out of reach! Could I retain one strain of all the psalm Of the angels, one word of the fiat of God, To let my followers know what such things are! I would adventure nobly for their sakes: When nights were still, and still the moaning sea And far away I could descry the land Whence I departed, whither I return, I would dispart the waves, and stand once more At home, and load my bark, and hasten back, And fling my gains to them, worthless or true. "Friends," I would say, "I went far, far for them, "Past the high rocks the haunt of doves, the mounds "Of red earth from whose sides strange trees grow out, "Past tracts of milk-white minute blinding sand, "Till, by a mighty moon, I tremblingly "Gathered these magic herbs, berry and bud, "In haste, not pausing to reject the weeds, "But happy plucking them at any price. "To me, who have seen them bloom in their own soil, "They are scarce lovely: plait and wear them, you! "And guess, from what they are, the springs that fed them, "The stars that sparkled o'er them, night by night, "The snakes that travelled far to sip their dew!" Thus for my higher loves; and thus even weakness Would win me honour. But not these alone Should claim my care; for common life, its wants And ways, would I set forth in beauteous hues: The lowest hind should not possess a hope, A fear, but I'd be by him, saying better Than he his own heart's language. I would live For ever in the thoughts I thus explored, As a discoverer's memory is attached To all he finds; they should be mine henceforth, Imbued with me, though free to all before: For clay, once cast into my soul's rich mine, Should come up crusted o'er with gems. Nor this Would need a meaner spirit, than the first; Nay, 't would be but the selfsame spirit, clothed In humbler guise, but still the selfsame spirit: As one spring wind unbinds the mountain snow And comforts violets in their hermitage. But, master, poet, who hast done all this, How didst thou'scape the ruin whelming me? Didst thou, when nerving thee to this attempt, Ne'er range thy mind's extent, as some wide hall, Dazzled by shapes that filled its length with light, Shapes clustered there to rule thee, not obey, That will not wait thy summons, will not rise Singly, nor when thy practised eye and hand Can well transfer their loveliness, but crowd By thee for ever, bright to thy despair? Didst thou ne'er gaze on each by turns, and ne'er Resolve to single out one, though the rest Should vanish, and to give that one, entire In beauty, to the world; forgetting, so, Its peers, whose number baffles mortal power? And, this determined, wast thou ne'er seduced By memories and regrets and passionate love, To glance once more farewell? and did their eyes Fasten thee, brighter and more bright, until Thou couldst but stagger back unto their feet, And laugh that man's applause or welfare ever Could tempt thee to forsake them? Or when years Had passed and still their love possessed thee wholly, When from without some murmur startled thee Of darkling mortals famished for one ray Of thy so-hoarded luxury of light, Didst thou ne'er strive even yet to break those spells And prove thou couldst recover and fulfil Thy early mission, long ago renounced, And to that end, select some shape once more? And did not mist-like influences, thick films, Faint memories of the rest that charmed so long Thine eyes, float fast, confuse thee, bear thee off, As whirling snow-drifts blind a man who treads A mountain ridge, with guiding spear, through storm? Say, though I fell, I had excuse to fall; Say, I was tempted sorely: say but this, Dear lord, Aprile's lord! Paracelsus.              Clasp me not thus, Aprile! That the truth should reach me thus! We are weak dust. Nay, clasp not or I faint! Aprile. My king! and envious thoughts could outrage thee? Lo, I forget my ruin, and rejoice In thy success, as thou! Let our God's praise Go bravely through the world at last! What care Through me or thee? I feel thy breath. Why, tears? Tears in the darkness, and from thee to me? Paracelsus. Love me henceforth, Aprile, while I learn To love; and, merciful God, forgive us both! We wake at length from weary dreams; but both Have slept in fairy-land: though dark and drear Appears the world before us, we no less Wake with our wrists and ankles jewelled still. I too have sought to know as thou to love Excluding love as thou refusedst knowledge. Still thou hast beauty and I, power. We wake: What penance canst devise for both of us? Aprile. I hear thee faintly. The thick darkness! Even Thine eyes are hid. 'T is as I knew: I speak, And now I die. But I have seen thy face! O poet, think of me, and sing of me! But to have seen thee and to die so soon! Paracelsus. Die not, Aprile! We must never part. Are we not halves of one dissevered world, Whom this strange chance unites once more? Part? never! Till thou the lover, know; and I, the knower, Loveuntil both are saved. Aprile, hear! We will accept our gains, and use themnow! God, he will die upon my breast! Aprile! Aprile. To speak but once, and die! yet by his side. Hush! hush!      Ha! go you ever girt about With phantoms, powers? I have created such, But these seem real as I. Paracelsus.              Whom can you see Through the accursed darkness? Aprile.                 Stay; I know, I know them: who should know them well as I? White brows, lit up with glory; poets all! Paracelsus. Let him but live, and I have my reward! Aprile. Yes; I see now. God is the perfect poet, Who in his person acts his own creations. Had you but told me this at first! Hush! hush! Paracelsus. Live! for my sake, because of my great sin, To help my brain, oppressed by these wild words And their deep import. Live! 't is not too late. I have a quiet home for us, and friends. Michal shall smile on you. Hear you? Lean thus, And breathe my breath. I shall not lose one word Of all your speech, one little word, Aprile! Aprile. No, no. Crown me? I am not one of you! 'T is he, the king, you seek. I am not one. Paracelsus. Thy spirit, at least, Aprile! Let me love! I have attained, and now I may depart. ~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part II - Paracelsus Attains ,

890:Guinevere Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat There in the holy house at Almesbury Weeping, none with her save a little maid, A novice: one low light betwixt them burned Blurred by the creeping mist, for all abroad, Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full, The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face, Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still. For hither had she fled, her cause of flight Sir Modred; he that like a subtle beast Lay couchant with his eyes upon the throne, Ready to spring, waiting a chance: for this He chilled the popular praises of the King With silent smiles of slow disparagement; And tampered with the Lords of the White Horse, Heathen, the brood by Hengist left; and sought To make disruption in the Table Round Of Arthur, and to splinter it into feuds Serving his traitorous end; and all his aims Were sharpened by strong hate for Lancelot. For thus it chanced one morn when all the court, Green-suited, but with plumes that mocked the may, Had been, their wont, a-maying and returned, That Modred still in green, all ear and eye, Climbed to the high top of the garden-wall To spy some secret scandal if he might, And saw the Queen who sat betwixt her best Enid, and lissome Vivien, of her court The wiliest and the worst; and more than this He saw not, for Sir Lancelot passing by Spied where he couched, and as the gardener's hand Picks from the colewort a green caterpillar, So from the high wall and the flowering grove Of grasses Lancelot plucked him by the heel, And cast him as a worm upon the way; But when he knew the Prince though marred with dust, He, reverencing king's blood in a bad man, 171 Made such excuses as he might, and these Full knightly without scorn; for in those days No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn; But, if a man were halt or hunched, in him By those whom God had made full-limbed and tall, Scorn was allowed as part of his defect, And he was answered softly by the King And all his Table. So Sir Lancelot holp To raise the Prince, who rising twice or thrice Full sharply smote his knees, and smiled, and went: But, ever after, the small violence done Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long A little bitter pool about a stone On the bare coast. But when Sir Lancelot told This matter to the Queen, at first she laughed Lightly, to think of Modred's dusty fall, Then shuddered, as the village wife who cries `I shudder, some one steps across my grave;' Then laughed again, but faintlier, for indeed She half-foresaw that he, the subtle beast, Would track her guilt until he found, and hers Would be for evermore a name of scorn. Henceforward rarely could she front in hall, Or elsewhere, Modred's narrow foxy face, Heart-hiding smile, and gray persistent eye: Henceforward too, the Powers that tend the soul, To help it from the death that cannot die, And save it even in extremes, began To vex and plague her. Many a time for hours, Beside the placid breathings of the King, In the dead night, grim faces came and went Before her, or a vague spiritual fear-Like to some doubtful noise of creaking doors, Heard by the watcher in a haunted house, That keeps the rust of murder on the walls-Held her awake: or if she slept, she dreamed An awful dream; for then she seemed to stand On some vast plain before a setting sun, And from the sun there swiftly made at her 172 A ghastly something, and its shadow flew Before it, till it touched her, and she turned-When lo! her own, that broadening from her feet, And blackening, swallowed all the land, and in it Far cities burnt, and with a cry she woke. And all this trouble did not pass but grew; Till even the clear face of the guileless King, And trustful courtesies of household life, Became her bane; and at the last she said, `O Lancelot, get thee hence to thine own land, For if thou tarry we shall meet again, And if we meet again, some evil chance Will make the smouldering scandal break and blaze Before the people, and our lord the King.' And Lancelot ever promised, but remained, And still they met and met. Again she said, `O Lancelot, if thou love me get thee hence.' And then they were agreed upon a night (When the good King should not be there) to meet And part for ever. Vivien, lurking, heard. She told Sir Modred. Passion-pale they met And greeted. Hands in hands, and eye to eye, Low on the border of her couch they sat Stammering and staring. It was their last hour, A madness of farewells. And Modred brought His creatures to the basement of the tower For testimony; and crying with full voice `Traitor, come out, ye are trapt at last,' aroused Lancelot, who rushing outward lionlike Leapt on him, and hurled him headlong, and he fell Stunned, and his creatures took and bare him off, And all was still: then she, `The end is come, And I am shamed for ever;' and he said, `Mine be the shame; mine was the sin: but rise, And fly to my strong castle overseas: There will I hide thee, till my life shall end, There hold thee with my life against the world.' She answered, `Lancelot, wilt thou hold me so? Nay, friend, for we have taken our farewells. Would God that thou couldst hide me from myself! Mine is the shame, for I was wife, and thou Unwedded: yet rise now, and let us fly, 173 For I will draw me into sanctuary, And bide my doom.' So Lancelot got her horse, Set her thereon, and mounted on his own, And then they rode to the divided way, There kissed, and parted weeping: for he past, Love-loyal to the least wish of the Queen, Back to his land; but she to Almesbury Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald, And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan: And in herself she moaned `Too late, too late!' Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn, A blot in heaven, the Raven, flying high, Croaked, and she thought, `He spies a field of death; For now the Heathen of the Northern Sea, Lured by the crimes and frailties of the court, Begin to slay the folk, and spoil the land.' And when she came to Almesbury she spake There to the nuns, and said, `Mine enemies Pursue me, but, O peaceful Sisterhood, Receive, and yield me sanctuary, nor ask Her name to whom ye yield it, till her time To tell you:' and her beauty, grace and power, Wrought as a charm upon them, and they spared To ask it. So the stately Queen abode For many a week, unknown, among the nuns; Nor with them mixed, nor told her name, nor sought, Wrapt in her grief, for housel or for shrift, But communed only with the little maid, Who pleased her with a babbling heedlessness Which often lured her from herself; but now, This night, a rumour wildly blown about Came, that Sir Modred had usurped the realm, And leagued him with the heathen, while the King Was waging war on Lancelot: then she thought, `With what a hate the people and the King Must hate me,' and bowed down upon her hands Silent, until the little maid, who brooked No silence, brake it, uttering, `Late! so late! 174 What hour, I wonder, now?' and when she drew No answer, by and by began to hum An air the nuns had taught her; `Late, so late!' Which when she heard, the Queen looked up, and said, `O maiden, if indeed ye list to sing, Sing, and unbind my heart that I may weep.' Whereat full willingly sang the little maid. `Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. `No light had we: for that we do repent; And learning this, the bridegroom will relent. Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now. `No light: so late! and dark and chill the night! O let us in, that we may find the light! Too late, too late: ye cannot enter now. `Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet? O let us in, though late, to kiss his feet! No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now.' So sang the novice, while full passionately, Her head upon her hands, remembering Her thought when first she came, wept the sad Queen. Then said the little novice prattling to her, `O pray you, noble lady, weep no more; But let my words, the words of one so small, Who knowing nothing knows but to obey, And if I do not there is penance given-Comfort your sorrows; for they do not flow From evil done; right sure am I of that, Who see your tender grace and stateliness. But weigh your sorrows with our lord the King's, And weighing find them less; for gone is he To wage grim war against Sir Lancelot there, Round that strong castle where he holds the Queen; And Modred whom he left in charge of all, The traitor--Ah sweet lady, the King's grief For his own self, and his own Queen, and realm, 175 Must needs be thrice as great as any of ours. For me, I thank the saints, I am not great. For if there ever come a grief to me I cry my cry in silence, and have done. None knows it, and my tears have brought me good: But even were the griefs of little ones As great as those of great ones, yet this grief Is added to the griefs the great must bear, That howsoever much they may desire Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud: As even here they talk at Almesbury About the good King and his wicked Queen, And were I such a King with such a Queen, Well might I wish to veil her wickedness, But were I such a King, it could not be.' Then to her own sad heart muttered the Queen, `Will the child kill me with her innocent talk?' But openly she answered, `Must not I, If this false traitor have displaced his lord, Grieve with the common grief of all the realm?' `Yea,' said the maid, `this is all woman's grief, That SHE is woman, whose disloyal life Hath wrought confusion in the Table Round Which good King Arthur founded, years ago, With signs and miracles and wonders, there At Camelot, ere the coming of the Queen.' Then thought the Queen within herself again, `Will the child kill me with her foolish prate?' But openly she spake and said to her, `O little maid, shut in by nunnery walls, What canst thou know of Kings and Tables Round, Or what of signs and wonders, but the signs And simple miracles of thy nunnery?' To whom the little novice garrulously, `Yea, but I know: the land was full of signs And wonders ere the coming of the Queen. So said my father, and himself was knight Of the great Table--at the founding of it; 176 And rode thereto from Lyonnesse, and he said That as he rode, an hour or maybe twain After the sunset, down the coast, he heard Strange music, and he paused, and turning--there, All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse, Each with a beacon-star upon his head, And with a wild sea-light about his feet, He saw them--headland after headland flame Far on into the rich heart of the west: And in the light the white mermaiden swam, And strong man-breasted things stood from the sea, And sent a deep sea-voice through all the land, To which the little elves of chasm and cleft Made answer, sounding like a distant horn. So said my father--yea, and furthermore, Next morning, while he past the dim-lit woods, Himself beheld three spirits mad with joy Come dashing down on a tall wayside flower, That shook beneath them, as the thistle shakes When three gray linnets wrangle for the seed: And still at evenings on before his horse The flickering fairy-circle wheeled and broke Flying, and linked again, and wheeled and broke Flying, for all the land was full of life. And when at last he came to Camelot, A wreath of airy dancers hand-in-hand Swung round the lighted lantern of the hall; And in the hall itself was such a feast As never man had dreamed; for every knight Had whatsoever meat he longed for served By hands unseen; and even as he said Down in the cellars merry bloated things Shouldered the spigot, straddling on the butts While the wine ran: so glad were spirits and men Before the coming of the sinful Queen.' Then spake the Queen and somewhat bitterly, `Were they so glad? ill prophets were they all, Spirits and men: could none of them foresee, Not even thy wise father with his signs And wonders, what has fallen upon the realm?' 177 To whom the novice garrulously again, `Yea, one, a bard; of whom my father said, Full many a noble war-song had he sung, Even in the presence of an enemy's fleet, Between the steep cliff and the coming wave; And many a mystic lay of life and death Had chanted on the smoky mountain-tops, When round him bent the spirits of the hills With all their dewy hair blown back like flame: So said my father--and that night the bard Sang Arthur's glorious wars, and sang the King As wellnigh more than man, and railed at those Who called him the false son of Gorlos: For there was no man knew from whence he came; But after tempest, when the long wave broke All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos, There came a day as still as heaven, and then They found a naked child upon the sands Of dark Tintagil by the Cornish sea; And that was Arthur; and they fostered him Till he by miracle was approven King: And that his grave should be a mystery From all men, like his birth; and could he find A woman in her womanhood as great As he was in his manhood, then, he sang, The twain together well might change the world. But even in the middle of his song He faltered, and his hand fell from the harp, And pale he turned, and reeled, and would have fallen, But that they stayed him up; nor would he tell His vision; but what doubt that he foresaw This evil work of Lancelot and the Queen?' Then thought the Queen, `Lo! they have set her on, Our simple-seeming Abbess and her nuns, To play upon me,' and bowed her head nor spake. Whereat the novice crying, with clasped hands, Shame on her own garrulity garrulously, Said the good nuns would check her gadding tongue Full often, `and, sweet lady, if I seem To vex an ear too sad to listen to me, Unmannerly, with prattling and the tales 178 Which my good father told me, check me too Nor let me shame my father's memory, one Of noblest manners, though himself would say Sir Lancelot had the noblest; and he died, Killed in a tilt, come next, five summers back, And left me; but of others who remain, And of the two first-famed for courtesy-And pray you check me if I ask amissBut pray you, which had noblest, while you moved Among them, Lancelot or our lord the King?' Then the pale Queen looked up and answered her, `Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight, Was gracious to all ladies, and the same In open battle or the tilting-field Forbore his own advantage, and the King In open battle or the tilting-field Forbore his own advantage, and these two Were the most nobly-mannered men of all; For manners are not idle, but the fruit Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.' `Yea,' said the maid, `be manners such fair fruit?' Then Lancelot's needs must be a thousand-fold Less noble, being, as all rumour runs, The most disloyal friend in all the world.' To which a mournful answer made the Queen: `O closed about by narrowing nunnery-walls, What knowest thou of the world, and all its lights And shadows, all the wealth and all the woe? If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight, Were for one hour less noble than himself, Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire, And weep for her that drew him to his doom.' `Yea,' said the little novice, `I pray for both; But I should all as soon believe that his, Sir Lancelot's, were as noble as the King's, As I could think, sweet lady, yours would be Such as they are, were you the sinful Queen.' 179 So she, like many another babbler, hurt Whom she would soothe, and harmed where she would heal; For here a sudden flush of wrathful heat Fired all the pale face of the Queen, who cried, `Such as thou art be never maiden more For ever! thou their tool, set on to plague And play upon, and harry me, petty spy And traitress.' When that storm of anger brake From Guinevere, aghast the maiden rose, White as her veil, and stood before the Queen As tremulously as foam upon the beach Stands in a wind, ready to break and fly, And when the Queen had added `Get thee hence,' Fled frighted. Then that other left alone Sighed, and began to gather heart again, Saying in herself, `The simple, fearful child Meant nothing, but my own too-fearful guilt, Simpler than any child, betrays itself. But help me, heaven, for surely I repent. For what is true repentance but in thought-Not even in inmost thought to think again The sins that made the past so pleasant to us: And I have sworn never to see him more, To see him more.' And even in saying this, Her memory from old habit of the mind Went slipping back upon the golden days In which she saw him first, when Lancelot came, Reputed the best knight and goodliest man, Ambassador, to lead her to his lord Arthur, and led her forth, and far ahead Of his and her retinue moving, they, Rapt in sweet talk or lively, all on love And sport and tilts and pleasure, (for the time Was maytime, and as yet no sin was dreamed,) Rode under groves that looked a paradise Of blossom, over sheets of hyacinth That seemed the heavens upbreaking through the earth, And on from hill to hill, and every day Beheld at noon in some delicious dale The silk pavilions of King Arthur raised 180 For brief repast or afternoon repose By couriers gone before; and on again, Till yet once more ere set of sun they saw The Dragon of the great Pendragonship, That crowned the state pavilion of the King, Blaze by the rushing brook or silent well. But when the Queen immersed in such a trance, And moving through the past unconsciously, Came to that point where first she saw the King Ride toward her from the city, sighed to find Her journey done, glanced at him, thought him cold, High, self-contained, and passionless, not like him, `Not like my Lancelot'--while she brooded thus And grew half-guilty in her thoughts again, There rode an armd warrior to the doors. A murmuring whisper through the nunnery ran, Then on a sudden a cry, `The King.' She sat Stiff-stricken, listening; but when armd feet Through the long gallery from the outer doors Rang coming, prone from off her seat she fell, And grovelled with her face against the floor: There with her milkwhite arms and shadowy hair She made her face a darkness from the King: And in the darkness heard his armd feet Pause by her; then came silence, then a voice, Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost's Denouncing judgment, but though changed, the King's: `Liest thou here so low, the child of one I honoured, happy, dead before thy shame? Well is it that no child is born of thee. The children born of thee are sword and fire, Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws, The craft of kindred and the Godless hosts Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea; Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my right arm, The mightiest of my knights, abode with me, Have everywhere about this land of Christ In twelve great battles ruining overthrown. And knowest thou now from whence I come--from him From waging bitter war with him: and he, 181 That did not shun to smite me in worse way, Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left, He spared to lift his hand against the King Who made him knight: but many a knight was slain; And many more, and all his kith and kin Clave to him, and abode in his own land. And many more when Modred raised revolt, Forgetful of their troth and fealty, clave To Modred, and a remnant stays with me. And of this remnant will I leave a part, True men who love me still, for whom I live, To guard thee in the wild hour coming on, Lest but a hair of this low head be harmed. Fear not: thou shalt be guarded till my death. Howbeit I know, if ancient prophecies Have erred not, that I march to meet my doom. Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me, That I the King should greatly care to live; For thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life. Bear with me for the last time while I show, Even for thy sake, the sin which thou hast sinned. For when the Roman left us, and their law Relaxed its hold upon us, and the ways Were filled with rapine, here and there a deed Of prowess done redressed a random wrong. But I was first of all the kings who drew The knighthood-errant of this realm and all The realms together under me, their Head, In that fair Order of my Table Round, A glorious company, the flower of men, To serve as model for the mighty world, And be the fair beginning of a time. I made them lay their hands in mine and swear To reverence the King, as if he were Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, To honour his own word as if his God's, To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And worship her by years of noble deeds, 182 Until they won her; for indeed I knew Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and amiable words And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man. And all this throve before I wedded thee, Believing, "lo mine helpmate, one to feel My purpose and rejoicing in my joy." Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot; Then came the sin of Tristram and Isolt; Then others, following these my mightiest knights, And drawing foul ensample from fair names, Sinned also, till the loathsome opposite Of all my heart had destined did obtain, And all through thee! so that this life of mine I guard as God's high gift from scathe and wrong, Not greatly care to lose; but rather think How sad it were for Arthur, should he live, To sit once more within his lonely hall, And miss the wonted number of my knights, And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds As in the golden days before thy sin. For which of us, who might be left, could speak Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at thee? And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk Thy shadow still would glide from room to room, And I should evermore be vext with thee In hanging robe or vacant ornament, Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair. For think not, though thou wouldst not love thy lord, Thy lord hast wholly lost his love for thee. I am not made of so slight elements. Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame. I hold that man the worst of public foes Who either for his own or children's sake, To save his blood from scandal, lets the wife Whom he knows false, abide and rule the house: For being through his cowardice allowed Her station, taken everywhere for pure, She like a new disease, unknown to men, 183 Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd, Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young. Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns! Better the King's waste hearth and aching heart Than thou reseated in thy place of light, The mockery of my people, and their bane.' He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet. Far off a solitary trumpet blew. Then waiting by the doors the warhorse neighed At a friend's voice, and he spake again: `Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes, I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere, I, whose vast pity almost makes me die To see thee, laying there thy golden head, My pride in happier summers, at my feet. The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law, The doom of treason and the flaming death, (When first I learnt thee hidden here) is past. The pang--which while I weighed thy heart with one Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee, Made my tears burn--is also past--in part. And all is past, the sin is sinned, and I, Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest. But how to take last leave of all I loved? O golden hair, with which I used to play Not knowing! O imperial-moulded form, And beauty such as never woman wore, Until it became a kingdom's curse with thee-I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine, But Lancelot's: nay, they never were the King's. I cannot take thy hand: that too is flesh, And in the flesh thou hast sinned; and mine own flesh, Here looking down on thine polluted, cries "I loathe thee:" yet not less, O Guinevere, For I was ever virgin save for thee, My love through flesh hath wrought into my life 184 So far, that my doom is, I love thee still. Let no man dream but that I love thee still. Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul, And so thou lean on our fair father Christ, Hereafter in that world where all are pure We two may meet before high God, and thou Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know I am thine husband--not a smaller soul, Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that, I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence. Through the thick night I hear the trumpet blow: They summon me their King to lead mine hosts Far down to that great battle in the west, Where I must strike against the man they call My sister's son--no kin of mine, who leagues With Lords of the White Horse, heathen, and knights, Traitors--and strike him dead, and meet myself Death, or I know not what mysterious doom. And thou remaining here wilt learn the event; But hither shall I never come again, Never lie by thy side; see thee no more-Farewell!' And while she grovelled at his feet, She felt the King's breath wander o'er her neck, And in the darkness o'er her fallen head, Perceived the waving of his hands that blest. Then, listening till those armd steps were gone, Rose the pale Queen, and in her anguish found The casement: `peradventure,' so she thought, `If I might see his face, and not be seen.' And lo, he sat on horseback at the door! And near him the sad nuns with each a light Stood, and he gave them charge about the Queen, To guard and foster her for evermore. And while he spake to these his helm was lowered, To which for crest the golden dragon clung Of Britain; so she did not see the face, Which then was as an angel's, but she saw, Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights, The Dragon of the great Pendragonship 185 Blaze, making all the night a steam of fire. And even then he turned; and more and more The moony vapour rolling round the King, Who seemed the phantom of a Giant in it, Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray And grayer, till himself became as mist Before her, moving ghostlike to his doom. Then she stretched out her arms and cried aloud `Oh Arthur!' there her voice brake suddenly, Then--as a stream that spouting from a cliff Fails in mid air, but gathering at the base Re-makes itself, and flashes down the vale-Went on in passionate utterance: `Gone--my lord! Gone through my sin to slay and to be slain! And he forgave me, and I could not speak. Farewell? I should have answered his farewell. His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King, My own true lord! how dare I call him mine? The shadow of another cleaves to me, And makes me one pollution: he, the King, Called me polluted: shall I kill myself? What help in that? I cannot kill my sin, If soul be soul; nor can I kill my shame; No, nor by living can I live it down. The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months The months will add themselves and make the years, The years will roll into the centuries, And mine will ever be a name of scorn. I must not dwell on that defeat of fame. Let the world be; that is but of the world. What else? what hope? I think there was a hope, Except he mocked me when he spake of hope; His hope he called it; but he never mocks, For mockery is the fume of little hearts. And blessd be the King, who hath forgiven My wickedness to him, and left me hope That in mine own heart I can live down sin And be his mate hereafter in the heavens Before high God. Ah great and gentle lord, 186 Who wast, as is the conscience of a saint Among his warring senses, to thy knights-To whom my false voluptuous pride, that took Full easily all impressions from below, Would not look up, or half-despised the height To which I would not or I could not climb-I thought I could not breathe in that fine air That pure severity of perfect light-I yearned for warmth and colour which I found In Lancelot--now I see thee what thou art, Thou art the highest and most human too, Not Lancelot, nor another. Is there none Will tell the King I love him though so late? Now--ere he goes to the great Battle? none: Myself must tell him in that purer life, But now it were too daring. Ah my God, What might I not have made of thy fair world, Had I but loved thy highest creature here? It was my duty to have loved the highest: It surely was my profit had I known: It would have been my pleasure had I seen. We needs must love the highest when we see it, Not Lancelot, nor another.' Here her hand Grasped, made her vail her eyes: she looked and saw The novice, weeping, suppliant, and said to her, `Yea, little maid, for am I not forgiven?' Then glancing up beheld the holy nuns All round her, weeping; and her heart was loosed Within her, and she wept with these and said, `Ye know me then, that wicked one, who broke The vast design and purpose of the King. O shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls, Meek maidens, from the voices crying "shame." I must not scorn myself: he loves me still. Let no one dream but that he loves me still. So let me, if you do not shudder at me, Nor shun to call me sister, dwell with you; Wear black and white, and be a nun like you, Fast with your fasts, not feasting with your feasts; 187 Grieve with your griefs, not grieving at your joys, But not rejoicing; mingle with your rites; Pray and be prayed for; lie before your shrines; Do each low office of your holy house; Walk your dim cloister, and distribute dole To poor sick people, richer in His eyes Who ransomed us, and haler too than I; And treat their loathsome hurts and heal mine own; And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer The sombre close of that voluptuous day, Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King.' She said: they took her to themselves; and she Still hoping, fearing `is it yet too late?' Dwelt with them, till in time their Abbess died. Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life, And for the power of ministration in her, And likewise for the high rank she had borne, Was chosen Abbess, there, an Abbess, lived For three brief years, and there, an Abbess, past To where beyond these voices there is peace. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

891:TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF HOMER. I. Sing, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove, The Herald-child, king of Arcadia And all its pastoral hills, whom in sweet love Having been interwoven, modest May Bore Heavens dread Supreme. An antique grove Shadowed the cavern where the lovers lay In the deep night, unseen by Gods or Men, And white-armed Juno slumbered sweetly then. II. Now, when the joy of Jove had its fulfilling, And Heavens tenth moon chronicled her relief, She gave to light a babe all babes excelling, A schemer subtle beyond all belief; A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing, A night-watching, and door-waylaying thief, Who mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve, And other glorious actions to achieve. III. The babe was born at the first peep of day; He began playing on the lyre at noon, And the same evening did he steal away Apollos herds;the fourth day of the moon On which him bore the venerable May, From her immortal limbs he leaped full soon, Nor long could in the sacred cradle keep, But out to seek Apollos herds would creep. IV. Out of the lofty cavern wandering He found a tortoise, and cried out--'A treasure!' (For Mercury first made the tortoise sing) The beast before the portal at his leisure The flowery herbage was depasturing, Moving his feet in a deliberate measure Over the turf. Joves profitable son Eying him laughed, and laughing thus begun:-- V. A useful godsend are you to me now, King of the dance, companion of the feast, Lovely in all your nature! Welcome, you Excellent plaything! Where, sweet mountain-beast, Got you that speckled shell? Thus much I know, You must come home with me and be my guest; You will give joy to me, and I will do All that is in my power to honour you. VI. Better to be at home than out of door, So come with me; and though it has been said That you alive defend from magic power, I know you will sing sweetly when youre dead. Thus having spoken, the quaint infant bore, Lifting it from the grass on which it fed And grasping it in his delighted hold, His treasured prize into the cavern old. VII. Then scooping with a chisel of gray steel, He bored the life and soul out of the beast.-- Not swifter a swift thought of woe or weal Darts through the tumult of a human breast Which thronging cares annoynot swifter wheel The flashes of its torture and unrest Out of the dizzy eyesthan Maias son All that he did devise hath featly done. VIII. ... And through the tortoises hard stony skin At proper distances small holes he made, And fastened the cut stems of reeds within, And with a piece of leather overlaid The open space and fixed the cubits in, Fitting the bridge to both, and stretched oer all Symphonious cords of sheep-gut rhythmical. IX. When he had wrought the lovely instrument, He tried the chords, and made division meet, Preluding with the plectrum, and there went Up from beneath his hand a tumult sweet Of mighty sounds, and from his lips he sent A strain of unpremeditated wit Joyous and wild and wanton--such you may Hear among revellers on a holiday. X. He sung how Jove and May of the bright sandal Dallied in love not quite legitimate; And his own birth, still scoffing at the scandal, And naming his own name, did celebrate; His mothers cave and servant maids he planned all In plastic verse, her household stuff and state, Perennial pot, trippet, and brazen pan,-- But singing, he conceived another plan. XI. ... Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat, He in his sacred crib deposited The hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet Rushed with great leaps up to the mountains head, Revolving in his mind some subtle feat Of thievish craft, such as a swindler might Devise in the lone season of dun night. XII. Lo! the great Sun under the oceans bed has Driven steeds and chariot--the child meanwhile strode Oer the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows, Where the immortal oxen of the God Are pastured in the flowering unmown meadows, And safely stalled in a remote abode.-- The archer Argicide, elate and proud, Drove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud. XIII. He drove them wandering oer the sandy way, But, being ever mindful of his craft, Backward and forward drove he them astray, So that the tracks which seemed before, were aft; His sandals then he threw to the ocean spray, And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft Of tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs, And bound them in a lump with withy twigs. XIV. And on his feet he tied these sandals light, The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight, Like a man hastening on some distant way, He from Pierias mountain bent his flight; But an old man perceived the infant pass Down green Onchestus heaped like beds with grass. XV. The old man stood dressing his sunny vine: Halloo! old fellow with the crooked shoulder! You grub those stumps? before they will bear wine Methinks even you must grow a little older: Attend, I pray, to this advice of mine, As you would scape what might appal a bolder-- Seeing, see not--and hearing, hear not--and-- If you have understanding--understand. XVI. So saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast; Oer shadowy mountain and resounding dell, And flower-paven plains, great Hermes passed; Till the black night divine, which favouring fell Around his steps, grew gray, and morning fast Wakened the world to work, and from her cell Sea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime Into her watch-tower just began to climb. XVII. Now to Alpheus he had driven all The broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun; They came unwearied to the lofty stall And to the water-troughs which ever run Through the fresh fields--and when with rushgrass tall, Lotus and all sweet herbage, every one Had pastured been, the great God made them move Towards the stall in a collected drove. XVIII. A mighty pile of wood the God then heaped, And having soon conceived the mystery Of fire, from two smooth laurel branches stripped The bark, and rubbed them in his palms;--on high Suddenly forth the burning vapour leaped And the divine child saw delightedly.-- Mercury first found out for human weal Tinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint and steel. XIX. And fine dry logs and roots innumerous He gathered in a delve upon the ground-- And kindled themand instantaneous The strength of the fierce flame was breathed around: And whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus Wrapped the great pile with glare and roaring sound, Hermes dragged forth two heifers, lowing loud, Close to the firesuch might was in the God. XX. And on the earth upon their backs he threw The panting beasts, and rolled them oer and oer, And bored their lives out. Without more ado He cut up fat and flesh, and down before The fire, on spits of wood he placed the two, Toasting their flesh and ribs, and all the gore Pursed in the bowels; and while this was done He stretched their hides over a craggy stone. XXI. We mortals let an ox grow old, and then Cut it up after long consideration,-- But joyous-minded Hermes from the glen Drew the fat spoils to the more open station Of a flat smooth space, and portioned them; and when He had by lot assigned to each a ration Of the twelve Gods, his mind became aware Of all the joys which in religion are. XXII. For the sweet savour of the roasted meat Tempted him though immortal. Natheless He checked his haughty will and did not eat, Though what it cost him words can scarce express, And every wish to put such morsels sweet Down his most sacred throat, he did repress; But soon within the lofty portalled stall He placed the fat and flesh and bones and all. XXIII. And every trace of the fresh butchery And cooking, the God soon made disappear, As if it all had vanished through the sky; He burned the hoofs and horns and head and hair,-- The insatiate fire devoured them hungrily;-- And when he saw that everything was clear, He quenched the coal, and trampled the black dust, And in the stream his bloody sandals tossed. XXIV. All night he worked in the serene moonshine-- But when the light of day was spread abroad He sought his natal mountain-peaks divine. On his long wandering, neither Man nor God Had met him, since he killed Apollos kine, Nor house-dog had barked at him on his road; Now he obliquely through the keyhole passed, Like a thin mist, or an autumnal blast. XXV. Right through the temple of the spacious cave He went with soft light feetas if his tread Fell not on earth; no sound their falling gave; Then to his cradle he crept quick, and spread The swaddling-clothes about him; and the knave Lay playing with the covering of the bed With his left hand about his knees--the right Held his beloved tortoise-lyre tight. XXVI. There he lay innocent as a new-born child, As gossips say; but though he was a God, The Goddess, his fair mother, unbeguiled, Knew all that he had done being abroad: Whence come you, and from what adventure wild, You cunning rogue, and where have you abode All the long night, clothed in your impudence? What have you done since you departed hence? XXVII. Apollo soon will pass within this gate And bind your tender body in a chain Inextricably tight, and fast as fate, Unless you can delude the God again, Even when within his arms--ah, runagate! A pretty torment both for Gods and Men Your father made when he made you!--Dear mother, Replied sly Hermes, wherefore scold and bother? XXVIII. As if I were like other babes as old, And understood nothing of what is what; And cared at all to hear my mother scold. I in my subtle brain a scheme have got, Which whilst the sacred stars round Heaven are rolled Will profit you and me--nor shall our lot Be as you counsel, without gifts or food, To spend our lives in this obscure abode. XXIX. But we will leave this shadow-peopled cave And live among the Gods, and pass each day In high communion, sharing what they have Of profuse wealth and unexhausted prey; And from the portion which my father gave To Phoebus, I will snatch my share away, Which if my father will not--natheless I, Who am the king of robbers, can but try. XXX. And, if Latonas son should find me out, Ill countermine him by a deeper plan; Ill pierce the Pythian temple-walls, though stout, And sack the fane of everything I can-- Caldrons and tripods of great worth no doubt, Each golden cup and polished brazen pan, 235 All the wrought tapestries and garments gay.-- So they together talked;--meanwhile the Day XXXI. Aethereal born arose out of the flood Of flowing Ocean, bearing light to men. Apollo passed toward the sacred wood, Which from the inmost depths of its green glen Echoes the voice of Neptune,--and there stood On the same spot in green Onchestus then That same old animal, the vine-dresser, Who was employed hedging his vineyard there. XXXII. Latonas glorious Son began:--I pray Tell, ancient hedger of Onchestus green, Whether a drove of kine has passed this way, All heifers with crooked horns? for they have been Stolen from the herd in high Pieria, Where a black bull was fed apart, between Two woody mountains in a neighbouring glen, And four fierce dogs watched there, unanimous as men. XXXIII. And what is strange, the author of this theft Has stolen the fatted heifers every one, But the four dogs and the black bull are left:-- Stolen they were last night at set of sun, Of their soft beds and their sweet food bereft.-- Now tell me, man born ere the world begun, Have you seen any one pass with the cows?-- To whom the man of overhanging brows: XXXIV. My friend, it would require no common skill Justly to speak of everything I see: On various purposes of good or ill Many pass by my vineyard,--and to me Tis difficult to know the invisible Thoughts, which in all those many minds may be:-- Thus much alone I certainly can say, I tilled these vines till the decline of day, XXXV. And then I thought I saw, but dare not speak With certainty of such a wondrous thing, A child, who could not have been born a week, Those fair-horned cattle closely following, And in his hand he held a polished stick: And, as on purpose, he walked wavering From one side to the other of the road, And with his face opposed the steps he trod. XXXVI. Apollo hearing this, passed quickly on-- No winged omen could have shown more clear That the deceiver was his fathers son. So the God wraps a purple atmosphere Around his shoulders, and like fire is gone To famous Pylos, seeking his kine there, And found their track and his, yet hardly cold, And criedWhat wonder do mine eyes behold! XXXVII. Here are the footsteps of the horned herd Turned back towards their fields of asphodel;-- But THESE are not the tracks of beast or bird, Gray wolf, or bear, or lion of the dell, Or maned Centaur--sand was never stirred By man or woman thus! Inexplicable! Who with unwearied feet could eer impress The sand with such enormous vestiges? XXXVIII. That was most strange--but this is stranger still! Thus having said, Phoebus impetuously Sought high Cyllenes forest-cinctured hill, And the deep cavern where dark shadows lie, And where the ambrosial nymph with happy will Bore the Saturnians love-child, Mercury-- And a delightful odour from the dew Of the hill pastures, at his coming, flew. XXXIX. And Phoebus stooped under the craggy roof Arched over the dark cavern:--Maias child Perceived that he came angry, far aloof, About the cows of which he had been beguiled; And over him the fine and fragrant woof Of his ambrosial swaddling-clothes he piled-- As among fire-brands lies a burning spark Covered, beneath the ashes cold and dark. XL. There, like an infant who had sucked his fill And now was newly washed and put to bed, Awake, but courting sleep with weary will, And gathered in a lump, hands, feet, and head, He lay, and his beloved tortoise still He grasped and held under his shoulder-blade. Phoebus the lovely mountain-goddess knew, Not less her subtle, swindling baby, who XLI. Lay swathed in his sly wiles. Round every crook Of the ample cavern, for his kine, Apollo Looked sharp; and when he saw them not, he took The glittering key, and opened three great hollow Recesses in the rock--where many a nook Was filled with the sweet food immortals swallow, And mighty heaps of silver and of gold Were piled within--a wonder to behold! XLII. And white and silver robes, all overwrought With cunning workmanship of tracery sweet-- Except among the Gods there can be nought In the wide world to be compared with it. Latonas offspring, after having sought His herds in every corner, thus did greet Great Hermes:--Little cradled rogue, declare Of my illustrious heifers, where they are! XLIII. Speak quickly! or a quarrel between us Must rise, and the event will be, that I Shall hurl you into dismal Tartarus, In fiery gloom to dwell eternally; Nor shall your father nor your mother loose The bars of that black dungeonutterly You shall be cast out from the light of day, To rule the ghosts of men, unblessed as they. XLIV. To whom thus Hermes slily answered:--Son Of great Latona, what a speech is this! Why come you here to ask me what is done With the wild oxen which it seems you miss? I have not seen them, nor from any one Have heard a word of the whole business; If you should promise an immense reward, I could not tell more than you now have heard. XLV. An ox-stealer should be both tall and strong, And I am but a little new-born thing, Who, yet at least, can think of nothing wrong:-- My business is to suck, and sleep, and fling The cradle-clothes about me all day long,-- Or half asleep, hear my sweet mother sing, And to be washed in water clean and warm, And hushed and kissed and kept secure from harm. XLVI. O, let not eer this quarrel be averred! The astounded Gods would laugh at you, if eer You should allege a story so absurd As that a new-born infant forth could fare Out of his home after a savage herd. I was born yesterday--my small feet are Too tender for the roads so hard and rough:-- And if you think that this is not enough, XLVII. I swear a great oath, by my fathers head, That I stole not your cows, and that I know Of no one else, who might, or could, or did.-- Whatever things cows are, I do not know, For I have only heard the name.--This said He winked as fast as could be, and his brow Was wrinkled, and a whistle loud gave he, Like one who hears some strange absurdity. XLVIII. Apollo gently smiled and said:--Ay, ay,-- You cunning little rascal, you will bore Many a rich mans house, and your array Of thieves will lay their siege before his door, Silent as night, in night; and many a day In the wild glens rough shepherds will deplore That you or yours, having an appetite, Met with their cattle, comrade of the night! XLIX. And this among the Gods shall be your gift, To be considered as the lord of those Who swindle, house-break, sheep-steal, and shop-lift;-- But now if you would not your last sleep doze; Crawl out!--Thus saying, Phoebus did uplift The subtle infant in his swaddling clothes, And in his arms, according to his wont, A scheme devised the illustrious Argiphont. L. ... ... And sneezed and shuddered--Phoebus on the grass Him threw, and whilst all that he had designed He did perform--eager although to pass, Apollo darted from his mighty mind Towards the subtle babe the following scoff:-- Do not imagine this will get you off, LI. You little swaddled child of Jove and May! And seized him:--By this omen I shall trace My noble herds, and you shall lead the way.-- Cyllenian Hermes from the grassy place, Like one in earnest haste to get away, Rose, and with hands lifted towards his face Round both his ears up from his shoulders drew His swaddling clothes, andWhat mean you to do LII. With me, you unkind God?--said Mercury: Is it about these cows you tease me so? I wish the race of cows were perished!--I Stole not your cows--I do not even know What things cows are. Alas! I well may sigh That since I came into this world of woe, I should have ever heard the name of one-- But I appeal to the Saturnians throne. LIII. Thus Phoebus and the vagrant Mercury Talked without coming to an explanation, With adverse purpose. As for Phoebus, he Sought not revenge, but only information, And Hermes tried with lies and roguery To cheat Apollo.--But when no evasion Served--for the cunning one his match had found-- He paced on first over the sandy ground. LIV. ... He of the Silver Bow the child of Jove Followed behind, till to their heavenly Sire Came both his children, beautiful as Love, And from his equal balance did require A judgement in the cause wherein they strove. Oer odorous Olympus and its snows A murmuring tumult as they came arose,-- LV. And from the folded depths of the great Hill, While Hermes and Apollo reverent stood Before Joves throne, the indestructible Immortals rushed in mighty multitude; And whilst their seats in order due they fill, The lofty Thunderer in a careless mood To Phoebus said:Whence drive you this sweet prey, This herald-baby, born but yesterday?-- LVI. A most important subject, trifler, this To lay before the Gods!--Nay, Father, nay, When you have understood the business, Say not that I alone am fond of prey. I found this little boy in a recess Under Cyllenes mountains far away-- A manifest and most apparent thief, A scandalmonger beyond all belief. LVII. I never saw his like either in Heaven Or upon earth for knavery or craft:-- Out of the field my cattle yester-even, By the low shore on which the loud sea laughed, He right down to the river-ford had driven; And mere astonishment would make you daft To see the double kind of footsteps strange He has impressed wherever he did range. LVIII. The cattles track on the black dust, full well Is evident, as if they went towards The place from which they came--that asphodel Meadow, in which I feed my many herds,-- HIS steps were most incomprehensible-- I know not how I can describe in words Those trackshe could have gone along the sands Neither upon his feet nor on his hands;-- LIX. He must have had some other stranger mode Of moving on: those vestiges immense, Far as I traced them on the sandy road, Seemed like the trail of oak-toppings:--but thence No mark nor track denoting where they trod The hard ground gave:but, working at his fence, A mortal hedger saw him as he passed To Pylos, with the cows, in fiery haste. LX. I found that in the dark he quietly Had sacrificed some cows, and before light Had thrown the ashes all dispersedly About the roadthen, still as gloomy night, Had crept into his cradle, either eye Rubbing, and cogitating some new sleight. No eagle could have seen him as he lay Hid in his cavern from the peering day. LXI. I taxed him with the fact, when he averred Most solemnly that he did neither see Nor even had in any manner heard Of my lost cows, whatever things cows be; Nor could he tell, though offered a reward, Not even who could tell of them to me. So speaking, Phoebus sate; and Hermes then Addressed the Supreme Lord of Gods and Men:-- LXII. Great Father, you know clearly beforehand That all which I shall say to you is sooth; I am a most veracious person, and Totally unacquainted with untruth. At sunrise Phoebus came, but with no band Of Gods to bear him witness, in great wrath, To my abode, seeking his heifers there, And saying that I must show him where they are, LXIII. Or he would hurl me down the dark abyss. I know that every Apollonian limb Is clothed with speed and might and manliness, As a green bank with flowersbut unlike him I was born yesterday, and you may guess He well knew this when he indulged the whim Of bullying a poor little new-born thing That slept, and never thought of cow-driving. LXIV. Am I like a strong fellow who steals kine? Believe me, dearest Father--such you are-- This driving of the herds is none of mine; Across my threshold did I wander neer, So may I thrive! I reverence the divine Sun and the Gods, and I love you, and care Even for this hard accuser--who must know I am as innocent as they or you. LXV. I swear by these most gloriously-wrought portals (It is, you will allow, an oath of might) Through which the multitude of the Immortals Pass and repass forever, day and night, Devising schemes for the affairs of mortals-- I am guiltless; and I will requite, Although mine enemy be great and strong, His cruel threat--do thou defend the young! LXVI. So speaking, the Cyllenian Argiphont Winked, as if now his adversary was fitted: And Jupiter, according to his wont, Laughed heartily to hear the subtle-witted Infant give such a plausible account, And every word a lie. But he remitted Judgement at presentand his exhortation Was, to compose the affair by arbitration. LXVII. And they by mighty Jupiter were bidden To go forth with a single purpose both, Neither the other chiding nor yet chidden: And Mercury with innocence and truth To lead the way, and show where he had hidden The mighty heifers.--Hermes, nothing loth, Obeyed the Aegis-bearers willfor he Is able to persuade all easily. LXVIII. These lovely children of Heavens highest Lord Hastened to Pylos and the pastures wide And lofty stalls by the Alphean ford, Where wealth in the mute night is multiplied With silent growth. Whilst Hermes drove the herd Out of the stony cavern, Phoebus spied The hides of those the little babe had slain, Stretched on the precipice above the plain. LXIX. How was it possible, then Phoebus said, That you, a little child, born yesterday, A thing on mothers milk and kisses fed, Could two prodigious heifers ever flay? Even I myself may well hereafter dread Your prowess, offspring of Cyllenian May, When you grow strong and tall.--He spoke, and bound Stiff withy bands the infants wrists around. LXX. He might as well have bound the oxen wild; The withy bands, though starkly interknit, Fell at the feet of the immortal child, Loosened by some device of his quick wit. Phoebus perceived himself again beguiled, And staredwhile Hermes sought some hole or pit, Looking askance and winking fast as thought, Where he might hide himself and not be caught. LXXI. Sudden he changed his plan, and with strange skill Subdued the strong Latonian, by the might Of winning music, to his mightier will; His left hand held the lyre, and in his right The plectrum struck the chordsunconquerable Up from beneath his hand in circling flight The gathering music roseand sweet as Love The penetrating notes did live and move LXXII. Within the heart of great Apollo--he Listened with all his soul, and laughed for pleasure. Close to his side stood harping fearlessly The unabashed boy; and to the measure Of the sweet lyre, there followed loud and free His joyous voice; for he unlocked the treasure Of his deep song, illustrating the birth Of the bright Gods, and the dark desert Earth: LXXIII. And how to the Immortals every one A portion was assigned of all that is; But chief Mnemosyne did Maias son Clothe in the light of his loud melodies;-- And, as each God was born or had begun, He in their order due and fit degrees Sung of his birth and beingand did move Apollo to unutterable love. LXXIV. These words were winged with his swift delight: You heifer-stealing schemer, well do you Deserve that fifty oxen should requite Such minstrelsies as I have heard even now. Comrade of feasts, little contriving wight, One of your secrets I would gladly know, Whether the glorious power you now show forth Was folded up within you at your birth, LXXV. Or whether mortal taught or God inspired The power of unpremeditated song? Many divinest sounds have I admired, The Olympian Gods and mortal men among; But such a strain of wondrous, strange, untired, And soul-awakening music, sweet and strong, Yet did I never hear except from thee, Offspring of May, impostor Mercury! LXXVI. What Muse, what skill, what unimagined use, What exercise of subtlest art, has given Thy songs such power?--for those who hear may choose From three, the choicest of the gifts of Heaven, Delight, and love, and sleep,--sweet sleep, whose dews Are sweeter than the balmy tears of even:-- And I, who speak this praise, am that Apollo Whom the Olympian Muses ever follow: LXXVII. And their delight is dance, and the blithe noise Of song and overflowing poesy; And sweet, even as desire, the liquid voice Of pipes, that fills the clear air thrillingly; But never did my inmost soul rejoice In this dear work of youthful revelry As now. I wonder at thee, son of Jove; Thy harpings and thy song are soft as love. LXXVIII. Now since thou hast, although so very small, Science of arts so glorious, thus I swear,-- And let this cornel javelin, keen and tall, Witness between us what I promise here,-- That I will lead thee to the Olympian Hall, Honoured and mighty, with thy mother dear, And many glorious gifts in joy will give thee, And even at the end will neer deceive thee. LXXIX. To whom thus Mercury with prudent speech:-- Wisely hast thou inquired of my skill: I envy thee no thing I know to teach Even this day:for both in word and will I would be gentle with thee; thou canst reach All things in thy wise spirit, and thy sill Is highest in Heaven among the sons of Jove, Who loves thee in the fulness of his love. LXXX. The Counsellor Supreme has given to thee Divinest gifts, out of the amplitude Of his profuse exhaustless treasury; By thee, tis said, the depths are understood Of his far voice; by thee the mystery Of all oracular fates,and the dread mood Of the diviner is breathed up; even I-- A childperceive thy might and majesty. LXXXI. Thou canst seek out and compass all that wit Can find or teach;--yet since thou wilt, come take The lyre--be mine the glory giving it-- Strike the sweet chords, and sing aloud, and wake Thy joyous pleasure out of many a fit Of tranced sound--and with fleet fingers make Thy liquid-voiced comrade talk with thee,-- It can talk measured music eloquently. LXXXII. Then bear it boldly to the revel loud, Love-wakening dance, or feast of solemn state, A joy by night or day--for those endowed With art and wisdom who interrogate It teaches, babbling in delightful mood All things which make the spirit most elate, Soothing the mind with sweet familiar play, Chasing the heavy shadows of dismay. LXXXIII. To those who are unskilled in its sweet tongue, Though they should question most impetuously Its hidden soul, it gossips something wrong-- Some senseless and impertinent reply. But thou who art as wise as thou art strong Canst compass all that thou desirest. I Present thee with this music-flowing shell, Knowing thou canst interrogate it well. LXXXIV. And let us two henceforth together feed, On this green mountain-slope and pastoral plain, The herds in litigation -- they will breed Quickly enough to recompense our pain, If to the bulls and cows we take good heed;-- And thou, though somewhat over fond of gain, Grudge me not half the profit.Having spoke, The shell he proffered, and Apollo took; LXXXV. And gave him in return the glittering lash, Installing him as herdsman;--from the look Of Mercury then laughed a joyous flash. And then Apollo with the plectrum strook The chords, and from beneath his hands a crash Of mighty sounds rushed up, whose music shook The soul with sweetness, and like an adept His sweeter voice a just accordance kept. LXXXVI. The herd went wandering oer the divine mead, Whilst these most beautiful Sons of Jupiter Won their swift way up to the snowy head Of white Olympus, with the joyous lyre Soothing their journey; and their father dread Gathered them both into familiar Affection sweet,and then, and now, and ever, Hermes must love Him of the Golden Quiver, LXXXVII. To whom he gave the lyre that sweetly sounded, Which skilfully he held and played thereon. He piped the while, and far and wide rebounded The echo of his pipings; every one Of the Olympians sat with joy astounded; While he conceived another piece of fun, One of his old trickswhich the God of Day Perceiving, said:I fear thee, Son of May;-- LXXXVIII. I fear thee and thy sly chameleon spirit, Lest thou should steal my lyre and crooked bow; This glory and power thou dost from Jove inherit, To teach all craft upon the earth below; Thieves love and worship theeit is thy merit To make all mortal business ebb and flow By roguery:now, Hermes, if you dare By sacred Styx a mighty oath to swear LXXXIX. That you will never rob me, you will do A thing extremely pleasing to my heart. Then Mercury swore by the Stygian dew, That he would never steal his bow or dart, Or lay his hands on what to him was due, Or ever would employ his powerful art Against his Pythian fane. Then Phoebus swore There was no God or Man whom he loved more. XC. And I will give thee as a good-will token, The beautiful wand of wealth and happiness; A perfect three-leaved rod of gold unbroken, Whose magic will thy footsteps ever bless; And whatsoever by Joves voice is spoken Of earthly or divine from its recess, It, like a loving soul, to thee will speak, And more than this, do thou forbear to seek. XCI. For, dearest child, the divinations high Which thou requirest, tis unlawful ever That thou, or any other deity Should understandand vain were the endeavour; For they are hidden in Joves mind, and I, In trust of them, have sworn that I would never Betray the counsels of Joves inmost will To any Godthe oath was terrible. XCII. Then, golden-wanded brother, ask me not To speak the fates by Jupiter designed; But be it mine to tell their various lot To the unnumbered tribes of human-kind. Let good to these, and ill to those be wrought As I dispensebut he who comes consigned By voice and wings of perfect augury To my great shrine, shall find avail in me. XCIII. Him will I not deceive, but will assist; But he who comes relying on such birds As chatter vainly, who would strain and twist The purpose of the Gods with idle words, And deems their knowledge light, he shall have missed His roadwhilst I among my other hoards His gifts deposit. Yet, O son of May, I have another wondrous thing to say. XCIV. There are three Fates, three virgin Sisters, who Rejoicing in their wind-outspeeding wings, Their heads with flour snowed over white and new, Sit in a vale round which Parnassus flings Its circling skirtsfrom these I have learned true Vaticinations of remotest things. My father cared not. Whilst they search out dooms, They sit apart and feed on honeycombs. XCV. They, having eaten the fresh honey, grow Drunk with divine enthusiasm, and utter With earnest willingness the truth they know; But if deprived of that sweet food, they mutter All plausible delusions;--these to you I give;--if you inquire, they will not stutter; Delight your own soul with them:--any man You would instruct may profit if he can. XCVI. Take these and the fierce oxen, Maias child-- Oer many a horse and toil-enduring mule, Oer jagged-jawed lions, and the wild White-tusked boars, oer all, by field or pool, Of cattle which the mighty Mother mild Nourishes in her bosom, thou shalt rule-- Thou dost alone the veil from death uplift-- Thou givest notyet this is a great gift. XCVII. Thus King Apollo loved the child of May In truth, and Jove covered their love with joy. Hermes with Gods and Men even from that day Mingled, and wrought the latter much annoy, And little profit, going far astray Through the dun night. Farewell, delightful Boy, Of Jove and Maia sprung,never by me, Nor thou, nor other songs, shall unremembered be Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824. This alone of the Translations is included in the Harvard manuscript book. Fragments of the drafts of this and the other Hymns of Homer exist among the Boscombe manuscripts (Forman). ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hymn To Mercury ,

892: Book III: The Book of the Assembly But as the nation beset betwixt doom and a shameful surrender Waited mute for a voice that could lead and a heart to encourage, Up in the silence deep Laocoon rose up, far-heard, Heard by the gods in their calm and heard by men in their passion Cloud-haired, clad in mystic red, flamboyant, sombre, Priams son Laocoon, fate-darkened seer of Apollo. As when the soul of the Ocean arises rapt in the dawning And mid the rocks and the foam uplifting the voice of its musings Opens the chant of its turbulent harmonies, so rose the far-borne Voice of Laocoon soaring mid columns of Ilions glories, Claiming the earth and the heavens for the field of its confident rumour. Trojans, deny your hearts to the easeful flutings of Hades! Live, O nation! he thundered forth and Troys streets and her pillars Sent back their fierce response. Restored to her leonine spirits Ilion rose in her agora filling the heavens with shoutings, Bearing a name to the throne of Zeus in her mortal defiance. As when a sullen calm of the heavens discourages living, Nature and man feel the pain of the lightnings repressed in their bosoms, Dangerous and dull is the air, then suddenly strong from the anguish Zeus of the thunders starts into glories releasing his storm-voice, Earth exults in the kiss of the rain and the life-giving laughters, So from the silence broke forth the thunder of Troya arising; Fiercely she turned from prudence and wisdom and turned back to greatness Casting her voice to the heavens from the depths of her fathomless spirit. Raised by those clamours, triumphant once more on this scene of his greatness, Tool of the gods, but he deemed of his strength as a leader in Nature, Took for his own a voice that was given and dreamed that he fashioned Fate that fashions us all, Laocoon stood mid the shouting Leaned on the calm of an ancient pillar. In eyes self-consuming Kindled the flame of the prophet that blinds at once and illumines; Quivering thought-besieged lips and shaken locks of the lion, Lifted his gaze the storm-led enthusiast. Then as the shouting Tired of itself at last disappeared in the bosom of silence, Image 1 Image 2 Once more he started erect and his voice oer the hearts of his hearers Swept like Oceans impatient cry when it calls from its surges, Ocean loud with a thought sublime in its measureless marching, Each man felt his heart like foam in the rushing of waters. Ilion is vanquished then! she abases her grandiose spirit Mortal found in the end to the gods and the Greeks and Antenor, And when a barbarous chieftains menace and insolent mercy Bring here their pride to insult the columned spirit of Ilus, Trojans have sat and feared! For a man has arisen and spoken, One whom the gods in their anger have hired. Since the Argive prevailed not, Armed with his strength and his numbers, in Troya they sought for her slayer, Gathered their wiles in a voice and they chose a man famous and honoured, Summoned Ate to aid and corrupted the heart of Antenor. Flute of the breath of the Hell-witch, always he scatters among you Doubt, affliction and weakness chilling the hearts of the fighters, Always his voice with its cadenced and subtle possession for evil Breaks the constant will and maims the impulse heroic. Therefore while yet her heroes fight and her arms are unconquered, Troy in your hearts is defeated! The souls of your Fathers have heard you Dallying, shamefast, with vileness, lured by the call of dishonour. Such is the power Zeus gave to the wingd words of a mortal! Foiled in his will, disowned by the years that stride on for ever, Yet in the frenzy cold of his greed and his fallen ambition Doom from heaven he calls down on his countrymen, Trojan abuses Troy, his country, extolling her enemies, blessing her slayers. Such are the gods Antenor has made in his hearts own image That if one evil man have not way for his greed and his longing Cities are doomed and kings must be slain and a nation must perish! But from the mind of the free and the brave I will answer thy bodings, Gold-hungry raven of Troy who croakst from thy nest at her princes. Only one doom irreparable treads down the soul of a nation, Only one downfall endures; tis the ruin of greatness and virtue, Mourning when Freedom departs from the life and the heart of a people, Into her room comes creeping the mind of the slave and it poisons Manhood and joy and the voice to lying is trained and subjection Easy feels to the neck of man who is next to the godheads. Not of the fire am I terrified, not of the sword and its slaying; Vileness of men appals me, baseness I fear and its voices. What can man suffer direr or worse than enslaved from a victor Boons to accept, to take safety and ease from the foe and the stranger, Fallen from the virtue stern that heaven permits to a mortal? Death is not keener than this nor the slaughter of friends and our dear ones. Out and alas! earths greatest are earth and they fail in the testing, Conquered by sorrow and doubt, fates hammerers, fires of her furnace. God in their souls they renounce and submit to their clay and its promptings. Else could the heart of Troy have recoiled from the loom of the shadow Cast by Achilles spear or shrunk at the sound of his car-wheels? Now he has graven an oath austere in his spirit unpliant Victor at last to constrain in his stride the walls of Apollo Burning Troy ere he sleeps. Tis the vow of a high-crested nature; Shall it break ramparted Troy? Yea, the soul of a man too is mighty More than the stone and the mortar! Troy had a soul once, O Trojans, Firm as her god-built ramparts. When by the spears overtaken, Strong Sarpedon fell and Zeus averted his visage, Xanthus red to the sea ran sobbing with bodies of Trojans, When in the day of the silence of heaven the far-glancing helmet Ceased from the ways of the fight, and panic slew with Achilles Hosts who were left unshepherded pale at the fall of their greatest, Godlike Troy lived on. Do we speak mid a citys ruins? Lo! she confronts her heavens as when Tros and Laomedon ruled her. All now is changed, these mutter and sigh to you, all now is ended; Strength has renounced you, Fate has finished the thread of her spinning. Hector is dead, he walks in the shadows; Troilus fights not; Resting his curls on the asphodel he has forgotten his country: Strong Sarpedon lies in Bellerophons city sleeping: Memnon is slain and the blood of Rhesus has dried on the Troad: All of the giant Asius sums in a handful of ashes. Grievous are these things; our hearts still keep all the pain of them treasured, Hard though they grow by use and iron caskets of sorrow. Hear me yet, O fainters in wisdom snared by your pathos, Know this iron world we live in where Hell casts its shadow. Blood and grief are the ransom of men for the joys of their transience, For we are mortals bound in our strength and beset in our labour. This is our human destiny; every moment of living Toil and loss have gained in the constant siege of our bodies. Men must sow earth with their hearts and their tears that their country may prosper; Earth who bore and devours us that life may be born from our remnants. Then shall the Sacrifice gather its fruits when the war-shout is silent, Nor shall the blood be in vain that our mother has felt on her bosom Nor shall the seed of the mighty fail where Death is the sower. Still from the loins of the mother eternal are heroes engendered, Still Deiphobus shouts in the war-front trampling the Argives, Strong Aeneas far-borne voice is heard from our ramparts, Paris hands are swift and his feet in the chases of Ares. Lo, when deserted we fight by Asias soon-wearied peoples, Men ingrate who enjoyed the protection and loathed the protector, Heaven has sent us replacing a continent Penthesilea! Low has the heart of Achaia sunk since it shook at her war-cry. Ajax has bit at the dust; it is all he shall have of the Troad; Tall Meriones lies and measures his portion of booty. Who is the fighter in Ilion thrills not rejoicing to hearken Even her name on unwarlike lips, much more in the mellay Shout of the daughter of battles, armipotent Penthesilea? If there were none but these only, if hosts came not surging behind them, Young men burning-eyed to outdare all the deeds of their elders, Each in his beauty a Troilus, each in his valour a Hector, Yet were the measures poised in the equal balance of Ares. Who then compels you, O people unconquered, to sink down abjuring All that was Troy? For O, if she yield, let her use not ever One of her titles! shame not the shades of Teucer and Ilus, Soil not Tros! Are you awed by the strength of the swift-foot Achilles? Is it a sweeter lure in the cadenced voice of Antenor? Or are you weary of Time and the endless roar of the battle? Wearier still are the Greeks! their eyes look out oer the waters Nor with the flight of their spears is the wing of their hopes towards Troya. Dull are their hearts; they sink from the war-cry and turn from the spear-stroke Sullenly dragging backwards, desiring the paths of the Ocean, Dreaming of hearths that are far and the children growing to manhood Who are small infant faces still in the thoughts of their fathers. Therefore these call you to yield lest they wake and behold in the dawn-light All Poseidon whitening lean to the west in his waters Thick with the sails of the Greeks departing beaten to Hellas. Who is it calls? Antenor the statesman, Antenor the patriot, Thus who loves his country and worships the soil of his fathers! Which of you loves like him Troya? which of the children of heroes Yearns for the touch of a yoke on his neck and desires the aggressor? If there be any so made by the gods in the nation of Ilus, Leaving this city which freemen have founded, freemen have dwelt in, Far on the beach let him make his couch in the tents of Achilles, Not in this mighty Ilion, not with this lioness fighting, Guarding the lair of her young and roaring back at her hunters. We who are souls descended from Ilus and seeds of his making, Other-hearted shall march from our gates to answer Achilles. What! shall this ancient Ilion welcome the day of the conquered? She who was head of the world, shall she live in the guard of the Hellene Cherished as slavegirls are, who are taken in war, by their captors? Europe shall walk in our streets with the pride and the gait of the victor? Greeks shall enter our homes and prey on our mothers and daughters? This Antenor desires and this Ucalegon favours. Traitors! whether tis cowardice drives or the sceptic of virtue, Cold-blooded age, or gold insatiably tempts from its coffers Pleading for safety from foreign hands and the sack and the plunder. Leave them, my brothers! spare the baffled hypocrites! Failure Sharpest shall torture their hearts when they know that still you are Trojans. Silence, O reason of man! for a voice from the gods has been uttered! Dardanans, hearken the sound divine that comes to you mounting Out of the solemn ravines from the mystic seat on the tripod! Phoebus, the master of Truth, has promised the earth to our peoples. Children of Zeus, rejoice! for the Olympian brows have nodded Regal over the world. In earths rhythm of shadow and sunlight Storm is the dance of the locks of the God assenting to greatness, Zeus who with secret compulsion orders the ways of our nature; Veiled in events he lives and working disguised in the mortal Builds our strength by pain, and an empire is born out of ruins. Then if the tempest be loud and the thunderbolt leaping incessant Shatters the roof, if the lintels flame at last and each cornice Shrieks with the pain of the blast, if the very pillars totter, Keep yet your faith in Zeus, hold fast to the word of Apollo. Not by a little pain and not by a temperate labour Trained is the nation chosen by Zeus for a dateless dominion. Long must it labour rolled in the foam of the fathomless surges, Often neighbour with death and ere Ares grow firm to its banners Feel on the pride of its Capitol tread of the triumphing victor, Hear the barbarian knock at its gates or the neighbouring foeman Glad of the transient smile of his fortune suffer insulting; They, the nation eternal, brook their taunts who must perish! Heaviest toils they must bear; they must wrestle with Fate and her Titans, And when some leader returns from the battle sole of his thousands Crushed by the hammers of God, yet never despair of their country. Dread not the ruin, fear not the storm-blast, yield not, O Trojans. Zeus shall rebuild. Death ends not our days, the fire shall not triumph. Death? I have faced it. Fire? I have watched it climb in my vision Over the timeless domes and over the rooftops of Priam; But I have looked beyond and have seen the smile of Apollo. After her glorious centuries, after her world-wide triumphs, If near her ramparts outnumbered she fights, by the nations forsaken, Lonely again on her hill, by her streams, and her meadows and beaches, Once where she revelled, shake to the tramp of her countless invaders, Testings are these from the god. For Fate severe like a mother Teaches our wills by disaster and strikes down the props that would weaken, Fate and the Thought on high that is wiser than yearnings of mortals. Troy has arisen before, but from ashes, not shame, not surrender! Souls that are true to themselves are immortal; the soulless for ever Lingers helpless in Hades a shade among shades disappointed. Now is the god in my bosom mighty compelling me, Trojans, Now I release what my spirit has kept and it saw in its vision; Nor will be silent for gibe of the cynic or sneer of the traitor. Troy shall triumph! Hear, O ye peoples, the word of Apollo. Hear it and tremble, O Greece, in thy youth and the dawn of thy future; Rather forget while thou canst, but the gods in their hour shall remind thee. Tremble, O nations of Asia, false to the greatness within you. Troy shall surge back on your realms with the sword and the yoke of the victor. Troy shall triumph! Though nations conspire and gods lead her foemen, Fate that is born of the spirit is greater than they and will shield her. Foemen shall help her with war; her defeats shall be victorys moulders. Walls that restrain shall be rent; she shall rise out of sessions unsettled. Oceans shall be her walls at the end and the desert her limit; Indus shall send to her envoys; her eyes shall look northward from Thule. She shall enring all the coasts with her strength like the kingly Poseidon, She shall oervault all the lands with her rule like the limitless azure. Ceasing from speech Laocoon, girt with the shouts of a nation, Lapsed on his seat like one seized and abandoned and weakened; nor ended Only in iron applause, but throughout with a stormy approval Ares broke from the hearts of his people in ominous thunder. Savage and dire was the sound like a wild beasts tracked out and hunted, Wounded, yet trusting to tear out the entrails live of its hunters, Savage and cruel and threatening doom to the foe and opponent. Yet when the shouting sank at last, Ucalegon rose up Trembling with age and with wrath and in accents hurried and piping Faltered a senile fierceness forth on the maddened assembly. Ah, it is even so far that you dare, O you children of Priam, Favourites vile of a people sent mad by the gods, and thou risest, Dark Laocoon, prating of heroes and spurning as cowards, Smiting for traitors the aged and wise who were grey when they spawned thee! Imp of destruction, mane of mischief! Ah, spur us with courage, Thou who hast never prevailed against even the feeblest Achaian. Rather twice hast thou raced in the rout to the ramparts for shelter, Leading the panic, and shrieked as thou ranst to the foemen for mercy Who were a mile behind thee, O matchless and wonderful racer. Safely counsel to others the pride and the firmness of heroes. Thou wilt not die in the battle! For even swiftest Achilles Could not oertake thee, I ween, nor wind-footed Penthesilea. Mask of a prophet, heart of a coward, tongue of a trickster, Timeless Ilion thou alone ruinest, helped by the Furies. I, Ucalegon, first will rend off the mask from thee, traitor. For I believe thee suborned by the cynic wiles of Odysseus And thou conspirest to sack this Troy with the greed of the Cretan. Hasting unstayed he pursued like a brook that scolds amid pebbles, Voicing angers shrill; for the people astonished were silent. Long he pursued not; a shouting broke from that stupor of fury, Men sprang pale to their feet and hurled out menaces lethal; All that assembly swayed like a forest swept by the stormwind. Obstinate, straining his age-dimmed eyes Ucalegon, trembling Worse yet with anger, clamoured feebly back at the people, Whelmed in their roar. Unheard was his voice like a swimmer in surges Lost, yet he spoke. But the anger grew in the throats of the people Lion-voiced, hurting the heart with sound and daunting the nature, Till from some stalwart hand a javelin whistling and vibrant Missing the silvered head of the senator rang disappointed Out on the distant wall of a house by the side of the market. Not even then would the old man hush or yield to the tempest. Wagging his hoary beard and shifting his aged eyeballs, Tossing his hands he stood; but Antenor seized him and Aetor, Dragged him down on his seat though he strove, and chid him and silenced, Cease, O friend, for the gods have won. It were easier piping High with thy aged treble to alter the rage of the Ocean Than to oerbear this people stirred by Laocoon. Leave now Effort unhelpful, wrap thy days in a mantle of silence; Give to the gods their will and dry-eyed wait for the ending. So now the old men ceased from their strife with the gods and with Troya; Cowed by the storm of the peoples wrath they desisted from hoping. But though the roar long swelled, like the sea when the winds have subsided, One man yet rose up unafraid and beckoned for silence, Not of the aged, but ripe in his look and ruddy of visage, Stalwart and bluff and short-limbed, Halamus son of Antenor. Forward he stood from the press and the people fell silent and listened, For he was ever first in the mellay and loved by the fighters. He with a smile began: Come, friends, debate is soon ended If there is right but of lungs and you argue with javelins. Wisdom Rather pray for her aid in this dangerous hour of your fortunes. Not to exalt Laocoon, too much praising his swiftness, Trojans, I rise; for some are born brave with the spear in the war-car, Others bold with the tongue, nor equal gifts unto all men Zeus has decreed who guides his world in a round that is devious Carried this way and that like a ship that is tossed on the waters. Why should we rail then at one who is lame by the force of Cronion? Not by his will is he lame; he would race, if he could, with the swiftest. Yet is the halt man no runner, nor, friends, must you rise up and slay me, If I should say of this priest, he is neither Sarpedon nor Hector. Then, if my father whom once you honoured, ancient Antenor, Hugs to him Argive gold which I see not, his son in his mansion, Me too accusest thou, prophet Laocoon? Friends, you have watched me Sometimes fight. Did you see with my houses allies how I gambolled, Changed, when with sportive spear I was tickling the ribs of my Argives, Nudges of friendly counsel inviting to entry in Troya? Men, these are visions of lackbrains; men, these are myths of the market. Let us have done with them, brothers and friends; hate only the Hellene. Prophet, I bow to the oracles. Wise are the gods in their silence, Wise when they speak; but their speech is other than ours and their wisdom Hard for a mortal mind to hold and not madden or wander; But for myself I see only the truth as a soldier who battles Judging the strength of his foes and the chances of iron encounter. Few are our armies, many the Greeks, and we waste in the combat Bound to our numbers, they by the ocean hemmed from their kinsmen, We by our fortunes, waves of the gods that are harder to master, They like a rock that is chipped, but we like a mist that disperses. Then if Achilles, bound by an oath, bring peace to us, healing, Bring to us respite, help, though bought at a price, yet full-measured, Strengths of the North at our side and safety assured from the Achaian, For he is true though a Greek, will you shun this mighty advantage? Peace at least we shall have, though gold we lose and much glory; Peace we will use for our strength to brea the in, our wounds to recover, Teaching Time to prepare for happier wars in the future. Pause ere you fling from you life; you are mortals, not gods in your glory. Not for submission to new ally or to ancient foeman Peace these desire; for who would exchange wide death for subjection? Who would submit to a yoke? Or who shall rule Trojans in Troya? Swords are there still at our sides, there are warriors hearts in our bosoms. Peace your senators welcome, not servitude, breathing they ask for. But if for war you pronounce, if a noble death you have chosen, That I approve. What fitter end for this warlike nation, Knowing that empires at last must sink and perish all cities, Than to preserve to the end posteritys praise and its greatness Ceasing in clangour of arms and a citys flames for our death-pyre? Choose then with open eyes what the dread gods offer to Troya. Hope not now Hector is dead and Sarpedon, Asia inconstant, We but a handful, Troy can prevail over Greece and Achilles. Play not with dreams in this hour, but sternly, like men and not children, Choose with a noble and serious greatness fates fit for Troya. Stark we will fight till buried we fall under Ilions ruins, Or, unappeased, we will curb our strength for the hope of the future. Not without praise of his friends and assent of the thoughtfuller Trojans, Halamus spoke and ceased. But now in the Ilian forum Bright, of the sungod a ray, and even before he had spoken Sending the joy of his brilliance into the hearts of his hearers, Paris arose. Not applauded his rising, but each man towards him Eagerly turned as if feeling that all before which was spoken Were but a prelude and this was the note he has waited for always. Sweet was his voice like a harps, when it chants of war, and its cadence Softened with touches of music thoughts that were hard to be suffered, Sweet like a string that is lightly struck, but it penetrates wholly. Calm with the greatness you hold from your sires by the right of your nature I too would have you decide before Heaven in the strength of your spirits, Not to the past and its memories moored like the thoughts of Antenor Hating the vivid march of the present, nor towards the future Panting through dreams like my brother Laocoon vexed by Apollo. Dead is the past; the void has possessed it; its drama is ended, Finished its music. The future is dim and remote from our knowledge; Silent it lies on the knees of the gods in their luminous stillness. But to our gaze Gods light is a darkness, His plan is a chaos. Who shall foretell the event of a battle, the fall of a footstep? Oracles, visions and prophecies voice but the dreams of the mortal, And tis our spirit within is the Pythoness tortured in Delphi. Heavenly voices to us are a silence, those colours a whiteness. Neither the thought of the statesman prevails nor the dream of the prophet, Whether one cry, Thus devise and thy heart shall be given its wanting, Vainly the other, The heavens have spoken; hear then their message. Who can point out the way of the gods and the path of their travel, Who shall impose on them bounds and an orbit? The winds have their treading, They can be followed and seized, not the gods when they move towards their purpose. They are not bound by our deeds and our thinkings. Sin exalted Seizes secure on the thrones of the world for her glorious portion, Down to the bottomless pit the good man is thrust in his virtue. Leave to the gods their godhead and, mortal, turn to thy labour; Take what thou canst from the hour that is thine and be fearless in spirit; This is the greatness of man and the joy of his stay in the sunlight. Now whether over the waste of Poseidon the ships of the Argives Empty and sad shall return or sacred Ilion perish, Priam be slain and for ever cease this imperial nation, These things the gods are strong to conceal from the hopings of mortals. Neither Antenor knows nor Laocoon. Only of one thing Man can be sure, the will in his heart and his strength in his purpose: This too is Fate and this too the gods, nor the meanest in Heaven. Paris keeps what he seized from Time and from Fate while unconquered Life speeds warm through his veins and his heart is assured of the sunlight. After tis cold, none heeds, none hinders. Not for the dead man Earth and her wars and her cares, her joys and her gracious concessions, Whether for ever he sleeps in the chambers of Nature unmindful Or into wideness wakes like a dreamer called from his visions. Ilion in flames I choose, not fallen from the heights of her spirit. Great and free has she lived since they raised her twixt billow and mountain, Great let her end; let her offer her freedom to fire, not the Hellene. She was not founded by mortals; gods erected her ramparts, Lifted her piles to the sky, a seat not for slaves but the mighty. All men marvelled at Troy; by her deeds and her spirit they knew her Even from afar, as the lion is known by his roar and his preying. Sole she lived royal and fell, erect in her leonine nature. So, O her children, still let her live unquelled in her purpose Either to stand with your feet on the world oppressing the nations Or in your ashes to lie and your name be forgotten for ever. Justly your voices approve me, armipotent children of Ilus; Straight from Zeus is our race and the Thunderer lives in our nature. Long I have suffered this taunt that Paris was Ilions ruin Born on a night of the gods and of Ate, clothed in a body. Scornful I strode on my path secure of the light in my bosom, Turned from the muttering voices of envy, their hates who are fallen, Voices of hate that cling round the wheels of the triumphing victor; Now if I speak, tis the strength in me answers, not to belittle, That excusing which most I rejoice in and glory for ever, Tyndaris rape whom I seized by the will of divine Aphrodite. Mortal this error that Greece would have slumbered apart in her mountains, Sunk, by the trumpets of Fate unaroused and the morning within her, Only were Paris unborn and the world had not gazed upon Helen. Fools, who say that a spark was the cause of this giant destruction! War would have stridden on Troy though Helen were still in her Sparta Tending an Argive loom, not the glorious prize of the Trojans, Greece would have banded her nations though Paris had drunk not Eurotas. Coast against coast I set not, nor Ilion opposite Argos. Phryx accuse who upreared Troys domes by the azure Aegean, Curse Poseidon who fringed with Greece the blue of his waters: Then was this war first decreed and then Agamemnon was fashioned; Armed he strode forth in the secret Thought that is womb of the future. Fate and Necessity guided those vessels, captained their armies. When they stood mailed at her gates, when they cried in the might of their union, Troy, renounce thy alliances, draw back humbly from Hellas, Should she have hearkened persuading her strength to a shameful compliance, Ilion queen of the world whose voice was the breath of the storm-gods? Should she have drawn back her foot as it strode towards the hills of the Latins? Thrace left bare to her foes, recoiled from Illyrian conquests? If all this without battle were possible, people of Priam, Blame then Paris, say then that Helen was cause of the struggle. But I have sullied the hearth, I have trampled the gift and the guest-rite, Heaven I have armed with my sin and unsealed the gaze of the Furies, So was Troy doomed who righteous had triumphed, locked with the Argive. Fools or hypocrites! Meanest falsehood is this among mortals, Veils of purity weaving, names misplacing ideal When our desires we disguise and paint the lusts of our nature. Men, ye are men in your pride and your strength, be not sophists and tonguesters. Lie not! prate not that nations live by righteousness, justice Shields them, gods out of heaven look down wroth on the crimes of the mighty! Known have men what thing has screened itself mouthing these semblances. Crouching Dire like a beast in the green of the thickets, selfishness silent Crunches the bones of its prey while the priest and the statesman are glozing. So are the nations soothed and deceived by the clerics of virtue, Taught to reconcile fear of the gods with their lusts and their passions; So with a lie on their lips they march to the rapine and slaughter. Truly the vanquished were guilty! Else would their cities have perished, Shrieked their ravished virgins, their peasants been hewn in the vineyards? Truly the victors were tools of the gods and their glorious servants! Else would the war-cars have ground triumphant their bones whom they hated? Servants of God are they verily, even as the ape and the tiger. Does not the wild-beast too triumph enjoying the flesh of his captives? Tell us then what was the sin of the antelope, wherefore they doomed her, Wroth at her many crimes? Come, justify God to his creatures! Not to her sins was she offered, not to the Furies or Justice, But to the strength of the lion the high gods offered a victim, Force that is God in the lions breast with the forest for altar. What, in the cities stormed and sacked by Achilles in Troas Was there no just man slain? Was Brises then a transgressor? Hearts that were pierced in his walls, were they sinners tracked by the Furies? No, they were pious and just and their altars burned for Apollo, Reverent flamed up to Pallas who slew them aiding the Argives. Or if the crime of Paris they shared and his doom has embraced them, Whom had the island cities offended, stormed by the Locrian, Wave-kissed homes of peace but given to the sack and the spoiler? Was then King Atreus just and the house accursd of Pelops, Tantalus race, whose deeds men shuddering hear and are silent? Look! they endure, their pillars are firm, they are regnant and triumph. Or are Thyestean banquets sweet to the gods in their savour? Only a womans heart is pursued in their wrath by the Furies! No, when the wrestlers meet and embrace in the mighty arena, Not at their sins and their virtues the high gods look in that trial; Which is the strongest, which is the subtlest, this they consider. Nay, there is none in the world to befriend save ourselves and our courage; Prowess alone in the battle is virtue, skill in the fighting Only helps, the gods aid only the strong and the valiant. Put forth your lives in the blow, you shall beat back the banded aggressors. Neither believe that for justice denied your subjects have left you Nor that for justice trampled Pallas and Hera abandon. Two are the angels of God whom men worship, strength and enjoyment. Into this life which the sunlight bounds and the greenness has cradled, Armed with strength we have come; as our strength is, so is our joyance. What but for joyance is birth and what but for joyance is living? But on this earth that is narrow, this stage that is crowded, increasing One on another we press. There is hunger for lands and for oxen, Horses and armour and gold desired; possession allures us Adding always as field to field some fortunate farmer. Hearts too and minds are our prey; we seize on mens souls and their bodies, Slaves to our works and desires that our hearts may bask golden in leisure. One on another we prey and one by another are mighty. This is the world and we have not made it; if it is evil, Blame first the gods; but for us, we must live by its laws or we perish. Power is divine; divinest of all is power over mortals. Power then the conqueror seeks and power the imperial nation, Even as luminous, passionless, wonderful, high over all things Sit in their calmness the gods and oppressing our grief-tortured nations Stamp their wills on the world. Nor less in our death-besieged natures Gods are and altitudes. Earth resists, but my soul in me widens Helped by the toil behind and the agelong effort of Nature. Even in the worm is a god and it writhes for a form and an outlet. Workings immortal obscurely struggling, hints of a godhead Labour to form in this clay a divinity. Hera widens, Pallas aspires in me, Phoebus in flames goes battling and singing, Ares and Artemis chase through the fields of my soul in their hunting. Last in some hour of the Fates a Birth stands released and triumphant; Poured by its deeds over earth it rejoices fulfilled in its splendour. Conscious dimly of births unfinished hid in our being Rest we cannot; a world cries in us for space and for fullness. Fighting we strive by the spur of the gods who are in us and oer us, Stamping our image on men and events to be Zeus or be Ares. Love and the need of mastery, joy and the longing for greatness Rage like a fire unquenchable burning the world and creating, Nor till humanity dies will they sink in the ashes of Nature. All is injustice of love or all is injustice of battle. Man over woman, woman oer man, over lover and foeman Wrestling we strive to expand in our souls, to be wide, to be happy. If thou wouldst only be just, then wherefore at all shouldst thou conquer? Not to be just, but to rule, though with kindness and high-seated mercy, Taking the world for our own and our will from our slaves and our subjects, Smiting the proud and sparing the suppliant, Trojans, is conquest. Justice was base of thy government? Vainly, O statesman, thou liest. If thou wert just, thou wouldst free thy slaves and be equal with all men. Such were a dream of some sage at night when he muses in fancy, Imaging freely a flawless world where none were afflicted, No man inferior, all could sublimely equal and brothers Live in a peace divine like the gods in their luminous regions. This, O Antenor, were justice known but in words to us mortals. But for the justice thou vauntest enslaving men to thy purpose, Setting an iron yoke, nor regarding their need and their nature, Then to say I am just; I slay not, save by procedure, Rob not save by law, is an outrage to Zeus and his creatures. Terms are these feigned by the intellect making a pact with our yearnings, Lures of the sophist within us draping our passions with virtue. When thou art weak, thou art just, when thy subjects are strong and remember. Therefore, O Trojans, be firm in your will and, though all men abandon, Bow not your heads to reproach nor your hearts to the sin of repentance; For you have done what the gods desired in your breasts and are blameless. Proudly enjoy the earth that they gave you, enthroning their natures, Fight with the Greeks and the world and trample down the rebellious, What you have lost, recover, nor yield to the hurricane passing. You cannot utterly die while the Power lives untired in your bosoms; When tis withdrawn, not a moment of life can be added by virtue. Faint not for helpers fled! Though your yoke had been mild as a fathers They would have gone as swiftly. Strength men desire in their masters; All men worship success and in failure and weakness abandon. Not for his justice they clung to Teucer, but for their safety, Seeing in Troy a head and by barbarous foemen afflicted. Faint not, O Trojans, cease not from battle, persist in your labour! Conquer the Greeks, your allies shall be yours and fresh nations your subjects. One care only lodge in your hearts, how to fight, how to conquer. Peace has smiled out of Phthia; a hand comes outstretched from the Hellene. Who would not join with the godlike? who would not grasp at Achilles? There is a price for his gifts; it is such as Achilles should ask for, Never this nation concede. O Antenors golden phrases Glorifying rest to the tired and confuting patience and courage, Garbed with a subtlety lax and the hopes that palliate surrender! Charmed men applaud the skilful purpose, the dexterous speaker; This they forget that a Force decides, not the wiles of the statesman. Now let us yield, do you say, we will rise when our masters are weakened? Nay, then, our masters master shall find us an easy possession! Easily nations bow to a yoke when their virtue relaxes; Hard is the breaking fetters once worn, for the virtue has perished. Hope you when custom has shaped men into the mould of a vileness, Hugging their chains when the weak feel easier trampled than rising Or though they groan, yet have heart nor strength for the anguish of effort, Then to cast down whom, armed and strong, you were mastered opposing? Easy is lapse into uttermost hell, not easy salvation. Or have you dreamed that Achilles, this son of the gods and the ocean, Aught else can be with the strong and the bold save pursuer or master? Know you so little the mood of the mighty? Think you the lion Only will lick his prey, that his jaws will refrain from the banquet? Rest from thy bodings, Antenor! Not all the valour of Troya Perished with Hector, nor with Polydamas vision has left her; Troy is not eager to slay her soul on a pyre of dishonour. Still she has children left who remember the mood of their mother. Helen none shall take from me living, gold not a drachma Travels from coffers of Priam to Greece. Let another and older Pay down his wealth if he will and his daughters serve Menelaus. Rather from Ilion I will go forth with my brothers and kinsmen; Troy I will leave and her shame and live with my heart and my honour Refuged with lions on Ida or build in the highlands a city Or in an isle of the seas or by dark-driven Pontic waters. Dear are the halls of our childhood, dear are the fields of our fathers, Yet to the soul that is free no spot on the earth is an exile. Rather wherever sunlight is bright, flowers bloom and the rivers Flow in their lucid streams to the Ocean, there is our country. So will I live in my souls wide freedom, never in Troya Shorn of my will and disgraced in my strength and the mock of my rivals. First had you yielded, shame at least had not stained your surrender. Strength indulges the weak! But what Hector has fallen refusing, Men! what through ten loud years we denied with the spear for our answer, That what Trojan will ever renounce, though his city should perish? Once having fought we will fight to the end nor that end shall be evil. Clamour the Argive spears on our walls? Are the ladders erected? Far on the plain is their flight, on the farther side of the Xanthus. Where are the deities hostile? Vainly the eyes of the tremblers See them stalking vast in the ranks of the Greeks and the shoutings Dire of Poseidon they hear and are blind with the aegis of Pallas. Who then sustained so long this Troy, if the gods are against her? Even the hills could not stand save upheld by their concert immortal. Now not with Tydeus son, not now with Odysseus and Ajax Trample the gods in the sound of their chariot-wheels, victory leading: Argos falls red in her heaps to their scythes; they shelter the Trojans; Victory unleashed follows and fawns upon Penthesilea. Ponder no more, O Ilion, city of ancient Priam! Rise, O beloved of the gods, and go forth in thy strength to the battle. Not by the dreams of Laocoon strung to the faith that is febrile, Nor with the tremblings vain and the haunted thoughts of Antenor, But with a noble and serious strength and an obstinate valour Suffer the shock of your foes, O nation chosen by Heaven; Proudly determine on victory, live by disaster unshaken. Either Fate receive like men, nay, like gods, nay, like Trojans. So like an army that streams and that marches, speeding and pausing, Drawing in horn and wing or widened for scouting and forage, Bridging the floods, avoiding the mountains, threading the valleys, Fast with their flashing panoply clad in gold and in iron Moved the array of his thoughts; and throughout delight and approval Followed their march, in triumph led but like prisoners willing, Glad and unbound to a land they desire. Triumphant he ended, Lord of opinion, though by the aged frowned on and censured, But to this voice of their thoughts the young men vibrated wholly. Loud like a storm on the ocean mounted the roar of the people. Cease from debate, men cried, arise, O thou warlike Aeneas! Speak for this nation, launch like a spear at the tents of the Hellene Ilions voice of war! Then up mid a limitless shouting Stern and armed from his seat like a war-god helmd Aeneas Rose by King Priam approved in this last of Ilions sessions, Holding the staff of the senates authority. Silence, O commons, Hear and assent or refuse as your right is, masters of Troya, Ancient and sovereign people, act that your kings have determined Sitting in council high, their reply to the strength of Achilles. Son of the Aeacids, vain is thy offer; the pride of thy challenge Rather we choose; it is nearer to Dardanus, King of the Hellenes. Neither shall Helen be led back, the Tyndarid, weeping to Argos, Nor down the paths of peace revisit her fathers Eurotas. Death and the fire may prevail oer us, never our wills shall surrender Lowering Priams heights and darkening Ilions splendours. Not of such sires were we born, but of kings and of gods, O Larissan. Not with her gold Troy traffics for safety, but with her spear-points. Stand with thy oath in the war-front, Achilles; call on thy helpers Armed to descend from the calm of Olympian heights to thy succour Hedging thy fame from defeat; for we all desire thee in battle, Mighty to end thee or tame at last by the floods of the Xanthus. So Aeneas resonant spoke, stern, fronted like Ares, And with a voice that conquered the earth and invaded the heavens Loud they approved their doom and fulfilled their impulse immortal. Last Deiphobus rose in their meeting, head of their mellay: Proudly and well have you answered, O nation beloved of Apollo; Fearless of death they must walk who would live and be mighty for ever. Now, for the sun is hastening up the empyrean azure, Hasten we also. Tasting of food round the call of your captains Meet in your armd companies, chariots and hoplites and archers. Strong be your hearts, let your courage be stern like the sun when it blazes; Fierce will the shock be today ere he sink blood-red in the waters. They with a voice as of Oceans meeting rose from their session, Filling the streets with her tread Troy strode from her Ilian forum. *** ~ Sri Aurobindo, 3 - The Book of the Assembly ,

893:Geraint And Enid O purblind race of miserable men, How many among us at this very hour Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves, By taking true for false, or false for true; Here, through the feeble twilight of this world Groping, how many, until we pass and reach That other, where we see as we are seen! So fared it with Geraint, who issuing forth That morning, when they both had got to horse, Perhaps because he loved her passionately, And felt that tempest brooding round his heart, Which, if he spoke at all, would break perforce Upon a head so dear in thunder, said: 'Not at my side. I charge thee ride before, Ever a good way on before; and this I charge thee, on thy duty as a wife, Whatever happens, not to speak to me, No, not a word!' and Enid was aghast; And forth they rode, but scarce three paces on, When crying out, 'Effeminate as I am, I will not fight my way with gilded arms, All shall be iron;' he loosed a mighty purse, Hung at his belt, and hurled it toward the squire. So the last sight that Enid had of home Was all the marble threshold flashing, strown With gold and scattered coinage, and the squire Chafing his shoulder: then he cried again, 'To the wilds!' and Enid leading down the tracks Through which he bad her lead him on, they past The marches, and by bandit-haunted holds, Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the hern, And wildernesses, perilous paths, they rode: Round was their pace at first, but slackened soon: A stranger meeting them had surely thought They rode so slowly and they looked so pale, That each had suffered some exceeding wrong. For he was ever saying to himself, 'O I that wasted time to tend upon her, 145 To compass her with sweet observances, To dress her beautifully and keep her true'-And there he broke the sentence in his heart Abruptly, as a man upon his tongue May break it, when his passion masters him. And she was ever praying the sweet heavens To save her dear lord whole from any wound. And ever in her mind she cast about For that unnoticed failing in herself, Which made him look so cloudy and so cold; Till the great plover's human whistle amazed Her heart, and glancing round the waste she feared In ever wavering brake an ambuscade. Then thought again, 'If there be such in me, I might amend it by the grace of Heaven, If he would only speak and tell me of it.' But when the fourth part of the day was gone, Then Enid was aware of three tall knights On horseback, wholly armed, behind a rock In shadow, waiting for them, caitiffs all; And heard one crying to his fellow, 'Look, Here comes a laggard hanging down his head, Who seems no bolder than a beaten hound; Come, we will slay him and will have his horse And armour, and his damsel shall be ours.' Then Enid pondered in her heart, and said: 'I will go back a little to my lord, And I will tell him all their caitiff talk; For, be he wroth even to slaying me, Far liefer by his dear hand had I die, Than that my lord should suffer loss or shame.' Then she went back some paces of return, Met his full frown timidly firm, and said; 'My lord, I saw three bandits by the rock Waiting to fall on you, and heard them boast That they would slay you, and possess your horse And armour, and your damsel should be theirs.' He made a wrathful answer: 'Did I wish 146 Your warning or your silence? one command I laid upon you, not to speak to me, And thus ye keep it! Well then, look--for now, Whether ye wish me victory or defeat, Long for my life, or hunger for my death, Yourself shall see my vigour is not lost.' Then Enid waited pale and sorrowful, And down upon him bare the bandit three. And at the midmost charging, Prince Geraint Drave the long spear a cubit through his breast And out beyond; and then against his brace Of comrades, each of whom had broken on him A lance that splintered like an icicle, Swung from his brand a windy buffet out Once, twice, to right, to left, and stunned the twain Or slew them, and dismounting like a man That skins the wild beast after slaying him, Stript from the three dead wolves of woman born The three gay suits of armour which they wore, And let the bodies lie, but bound the suits Of armour on their horses, each on each, And tied the bridle-reins of all the three Together, and said to her, 'Drive them on Before you;' and she drove them through the waste. He followed nearer; ruth began to work Against his anger in him, while he watched The being he loved best in all the world, With difficulty in mild obedience Driving them on: he fain had spoken to her, And loosed in words of sudden fire the wrath And smouldered wrong that burnt him all within; But evermore it seemed an easier thing At once without remorse to strike her dead, Than to cry 'Halt,' and to her own bright face Accuse her of the least immodesty: And thus tongue-tied, it made him wroth the more That she COULD speak whom his own ear had heard Call herself false: and suffering thus he made Minutes an age: but in scarce longer time Than at Caerleon the full-tided Usk, 147 Before he turn to fall seaward again, Pauses, did Enid, keeping watch, behold In the first shallow shade of a deep wood, Before a gloom of stubborn-shafted oaks, Three other horsemen waiting, wholly armed, Whereof one seemed far larger than her lord, And shook her pulses, crying, 'Look, a prize! Three horses and three goodly suits of arms, And all in charge of whom? a girl: set on.' 'Nay,' said the second, 'yonder comes a knight.' The third, 'A craven; how he hangs his head.' The giant answered merrily, 'Yea, but one? Wait here, and when he passes fall upon him.' And Enid pondered in her heart and said, 'I will abide the coming of my lord, And I will tell him all their villainy. My lord is weary with the fight before, And they will fall upon him unawares. I needs must disobey him for his good; How should I dare obey him to his harm? Needs must I speak, and though he kill me for it, I save a life dearer to me than mine.' And she abode his coming, and said to him With timid firmness, 'Have I leave to speak?' He said, 'Ye take it, speaking,' and she spoke. 'There lurk three villains yonder in the wood, And each of them is wholly armed, and one Is larger-limbed than you are, and they say That they will fall upon you while ye pass.' To which he flung a wrathful answer back: 'And if there were an hundred in the wood, And every man were larger-limbed than I, And all at once should sally out upon me, I swear it would not ruffle me so much As you that not obey me. Stand aside, And if I fall, cleave to the better man.' And Enid stood aside to wait the event, 148 Not dare to watch the combat, only breathe Short fits of prayer, at every stroke a breath. And he, she dreaded most, bare down upon him. Aimed at the helm, his lance erred; but Geraint's, A little in the late encounter strained, Struck through the bulky bandit's corselet home, And then brake short, and down his enemy rolled, And there lay still; as he that tells the tale Saw once a great piece of a promontory, That had a sapling growing on it, slide From the long shore-cliff's windy walls to the beach, And there lie still, and yet the sapling grew: So lay the man transfixt. His craven pair Of comrades making slowlier at the Prince, When now they saw their bulwark fallen, stood; On whom the victor, to confound them more, Spurred with his terrible war-cry; for as one, That listens near a torrent mountain-brook, All through the crash of the near cataract hears The drumming thunder of the huger fall At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear His voice in battle, and be kindled by it, And foemen scared, like that false pair who turned Flying, but, overtaken, died the death Themselves had wrought on many an innocent. Thereon Geraint, dismounting, picked the lance That pleased him best, and drew from those dead wolves Their three gay suits of armour, each from each, And bound them on their horses, each on each, And tied the bridle-reins of all the three Together, and said to her, 'Drive them on Before you,' and she drove them through the wood. He followed nearer still: the pain she had To keep them in the wild ways of the wood, Two sets of three laden with jingling arms, Together, served a little to disedge The sharpness of that pain about her heart: And they themselves, like creatures gently born But into bad hands fallen, and now so long By bandits groomed, pricked their light ears, and felt 149 Her low firm voice and tender government. So through the green gloom of the wood they past, And issuing under open heavens beheld A little town with towers, upon a rock, And close beneath, a meadow gemlike chased In the brown wild, and mowers mowing in it: And down a rocky pathway from the place There came a fair-haired youth, that in his hand Bare victual for the mowers: and Geraint Had ruth again on Enid looking pale: Then, moving downward to the meadow ground, He, when the fair-haired youth came by him, said, 'Friend, let her eat; the damsel is so faint.' 'Yea, willingly,' replied the youth; 'and thou, My lord, eat also, though the fare is coarse, And only meet for mowers;' then set down His basket, and dismounting on the sward They let the horses graze, and ate themselves. And Enid took a little delicately, Less having stomach for it than desire To close with her lord's pleasure; but Geraint Ate all the mowers' victual unawares, And when he found all empty, was amazed; And 'Boy,' said he, 'I have eaten all, but take A horse and arms for guerdon; choose the best.' He, reddening in extremity of delight, 'My lord, you overpay me fifty-fold.' 'Ye will be all the wealthier,' cried the Prince. 'I take it as free gift, then,' said the boy, 'Not guerdon; for myself can easily, While your good damsel rests, return, and fetch Fresh victual for these mowers of our Earl; For these are his, and all the field is his, And I myself am his; and I will tell him How great a man thou art: he loves to know When men of mark are in his territory: And he will have thee to his palace here, And serve thee costlier than with mowers' fare.' Then said Geraint, 'I wish no better fare: I never ate with angrier appetite 150 Than when I left your mowers dinnerless. And into no Earl's palace will I go. I know, God knows, too much of palaces! And if he want me, let him come to me. But hire us some fair chamber for the night, And stalling for the horses, and return With victual for these men, and let us know.' 'Yea, my kind lord,' said the glad youth, and went, Held his head high, and thought himself a knight, And up the rocky pathway disappeared, Leading the horse, and they were left alone. But when the Prince had brought his errant eyes Home from the rock, sideways he let them glance At Enid, where she droopt: his own false doom, That shadow of mistrust should never cross Betwixt them, came upon him, and he sighed; Then with another humorous ruth remarked The lusty mowers labouring dinnerless, And watched the sun blaze on the turning scythe, And after nodded sleepily in the heat. But she, remembering her old ruined hall, And all the windy clamour of the daws About her hollow turret, plucked the grass There growing longest by the meadow's edge, And into many a listless annulet, Now over, now beneath her marriage ring, Wove and unwove it, till the boy returned And told them of a chamber, and they went; Where, after saying to her, 'If ye will, Call for the woman of the house,' to which She answered, 'Thanks, my lord;' the two remained Apart by all the chamber's width, and mute As two creatures voiceless through the fault of birth, Or two wild men supporters of a shield, Painted, who stare at open space, nor glance The one at other, parted by the shield. On a sudden, many a voice along the street, And heel against the pavement echoing, burst Their drowse; and either started while the door, 151 Pushed from without, drave backward to the wall, And midmost of a rout of roisterers, Femininely fair and dissolutely pale, Her suitor in old years before Geraint, Entered, the wild lord of the place, Limours. He moving up with pliant courtliness, Greeted Geraint full face, but stealthily, In the mid-warmth of welcome and graspt hand, Found Enid with the corner of his eye, And knew her sitting sad and solitary. Then cried Geraint for wine and goodly cheer To feed the sudden guest, and sumptuously According to his fashion, bad the host Call in what men soever were his friends, And feast with these in honour of their Earl; 'And care not for the cost; the cost is mine.' And wine and food were brought, and Earl Limours Drank till he jested with all ease, and told Free tales, and took the word and played upon it, And made it of two colours; for his talk, When wine and free companions kindled him, Was wont to glance and sparkle like a gem Of fifty facets; thus he moved the Prince To laughter and his comrades to applause. Then, when the Prince was merry, asked Limours, 'Your leave, my lord, to cross the room, and speak To your good damsel there who sits apart, And seems so lonely?' 'My free leave,' he said; 'Get her to speak: she doth not speak to me.' Then rose Limours, and looking at his feet, Like him who tries the bridge he fears may fail, Crost and came near, lifted adoring eyes, Bowed at her side and uttered whisperingly: 'Enid, the pilot star of my lone life, Enid, my early and my only love, Enid, the loss of whom hath turned me wild-What chance is this? how is it I see you here? Ye are in my power at last, are in my power. Yet fear me not: I call mine own self wild, But keep a touch of sweet civility 152 Here in the heart of waste and wilderness. I thought, but that your father came between, In former days you saw me favourably. And if it were so do not keep it back: Make me a little happier: let me know it: Owe you me nothing for a life half-lost? Yea, yea, the whole dear debt of all you are. And, Enid, you and he, I see with joy, Ye sit apart, you do not speak to him, You come with no attendance, page or maid, To serve you--doth he love you as of old? For, call it lovers' quarrels, yet I know Though men may bicker with the things they love, They would not make them laughable in all eyes, Not while they loved them; and your wretched dress, A wretched insult on you, dumbly speaks Your story, that this man loves you no more. Your beauty is no beauty to him now: A common chance--right well I know it--palled-For I know men: nor will ye win him back, For the man's love once gone never returns. But here is one who loves you as of old; With more exceeding passion than of old: Good, speak the word: my followers ring him round: He sits unarmed; I hold a finger up; They understand: nay; I do not mean blood: Nor need ye look so scared at what I say: My malice is no deeper than a moat, No stronger than a wall: there is the keep; He shall not cross us more; speak but the word: Or speak it not; but then by Him that made me The one true lover whom you ever owned, I will make use of all the power I have. O pardon me! the madness of that hour, When first I parted from thee, moves me yet.' At this the tender sound of his own voice And sweet self-pity, or the fancy of it, Made his eye moist; but Enid feared his eyes, Moist as they were, wine-heated from the feast; And answered with such craft as women use, Guilty or guiltless, to stave off a chance 153 That breaks upon them perilously, and said: 'Earl, if you love me as in former years, And do not practise on me, come with morn, And snatch me from him as by violence; Leave me tonight: I am weary to the death.' Low at leave-taking, with his brandished plume Brushing his instep, bowed the all-amorous Earl, And the stout Prince bad him a loud good-night. He moving homeward babbled to his men, How Enid never loved a man but him, Nor cared a broken egg-shell for her lord. But Enid left alone with Prince Geraint, Debating his command of silence given, And that she now perforce must violate it, Held commune with herself, and while she held He fell asleep, and Enid had no heart To wake him, but hung o'er him, wholly pleased To find him yet unwounded after fight, And hear him breathing low and equally. Anon she rose, and stepping lightly, heaped The pieces of his armour in one place, All to be there against a sudden need; Then dozed awhile herself, but overtoiled By that day's grief and travel, evermore Seemed catching at a rootless thorn, and then Went slipping down horrible precipices, And strongly striking out her limbs awoke; Then thought she heard the wild Earl at the door, With all his rout of random followers, Sound on a dreadful trumpet, summoning her; Which was the red cock shouting to the light, As the gray dawn stole o'er the dewy world, And glimmered on his armour in the room. And once again she rose to look at it, But touched it unawares: jangling, the casque Fell, and he started up and stared at her. Then breaking his command of silence given, She told him all that Earl Limours had said, Except the passage that he loved her not; 154 Nor left untold the craft herself had used; But ended with apology so sweet, Low-spoken, and of so few words, and seemed So justified by that necessity, That though he thought 'was it for him she wept In Devon?' he but gave a wrathful groan, Saying, 'Your sweet faces make good fellows fools And traitors. Call the host and bid him bring Charger and palfrey.' So she glided out Among the heavy breathings of the house, And like a household Spirit at the walls Beat, till she woke the sleepers, and returned: Then tending her rough lord, though all unasked, In silence, did him service as a squire; Till issuing armed he found the host and cried, 'Thy reckoning, friend?' and ere he learnt it, 'Take Five horses and their armours;' and the host Suddenly honest, answered in amaze, 'My lord, I scarce have spent the worth of one!' 'Ye will be all the wealthier,' said the Prince, And then to Enid, 'Forward! and today I charge you, Enid, more especially, What thing soever ye may hear, or see, Or fancy (though I count it of small use To charge you) that ye speak not but obey.' And Enid answered, 'Yea, my lord, I know Your wish, and would obey; but riding first, I hear the violent threats you do not hear, I see the danger which you cannot see: Then not to give you warning, that seems hard; Almost beyond me: yet I would obey.' 'Yea so,' said he, 'do it: be not too wise; Seeing that ye are wedded to a man, Not all mismated with a yawning clown, But one with arms to guard his head and yours, With eyes to find you out however far, And ears to hear you even in his dreams.' With that he turned and looked as keenly at her As careful robins eye the delver's toil; 155 And that within her, which a wanton fool, Or hasty judger would have called her guilt, Made her cheek burn and either eyelid fall. And Geraint looked and was not satisfied. Then forward by a way which, beaten broad, Led from the territory of false Limours To the waste earldom of another earl, Doorm, whom his shaking vassals called the Bull, Went Enid with her sullen follower on. Once she looked back, and when she saw him ride More near by many a rood than yestermorn, It wellnigh made her cheerful; till Geraint Waving an angry hand as who should say 'Ye watch me,' saddened all her heart again. But while the sun yet beat a dewy blade, The sound of many a heavily-galloping hoof Smote on her ear, and turning round she saw Dust, and the points of lances bicker in it. Then not to disobey her lord's behest, And yet to give him warning, for he rode As if he heard not, moving back she held Her finger up, and pointed to the dust. At which the warrior in his obstinacy, Because she kept the letter of his word, Was in a manner pleased, and turning, stood. And in the moment after, wild Limours, Borne on a black horse, like a thunder-cloud Whose skirts are loosened by the breaking storm, Half ridden off with by the thing he rode, And all in passion uttering a dry shriek, Dashed down on Geraint, who closed with him, and bore Down by the length of lance and arm beyond The crupper, and so left him stunned or dead, And overthrew the next that followed him, And blindly rushed on all the rout behind. But at the flash and motion of the man They vanished panic-stricken, like a shoal Of darting fish, that on a summer morn Adown the crystal dykes at Camelot Come slipping o'er their shadows on the sand, But if a man who stands upon the brink 156 But lift a shining hand against the sun, There is not left the twinkle of a fin Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower; So, scared but at the motion of the man, Fled all the boon companions of the Earl, And left him lying in the public way; So vanish friendships only made in wine. Then like a stormy sunlight smiled Geraint, Who saw the chargers of the two that fell Start from their fallen lords, and wildly fly, Mixt with the flyers. 'Horse and man,' he said, 'All of one mind and all right-honest friends! Not a hoof left: and I methinks till now Was honest--paid with horses and with arms; I cannot steal or plunder, no nor beg: And so what say ye, shall we strip him there Your lover? has your palfrey heart enough To bear his armour? shall we fast, or dine? No?--then do thou, being right honest, pray That we may meet the horsemen of Earl Doorm, I too would still be honest.' Thus he said: And sadly gazing on her bridle-reins, And answering not one word, she led the way. But as a man to whom a dreadful loss Falls in a far land and he knows it not, But coming back he learns it, and the loss So pains him that he sickens nigh to death; So fared it with Geraint, who being pricked In combat with the follower of Limours, Bled underneath his armour secretly, And so rode on, nor told his gentle wife What ailed him, hardly knowing it himself, Till his eye darkened and his helmet wagged; And at a sudden swerving of the road, Though happily down on a bank of grass, The Prince, without a word, from his horse fell. And Enid heard the clashing of his fall, Suddenly came, and at his side all pale Dismounting, loosed the fastenings of his arms, 157 Nor let her true hand falter, nor blue eye Moisten, till she had lighted on his wound, And tearing off her veil of faded silk Had bared her forehead to the blistering sun, And swathed the hurt that drained her dear lord's life. Then after all was done that hand could do, She rested, and her desolation came Upon her, and she wept beside the way. And many past, but none regarded her, For in that realm of lawless turbulence, A woman weeping for her murdered mate Was cared as much for as a summer shower: One took him for a victim of Earl Doorm, Nor dared to waste a perilous pity on him: Another hurrying past, a man-at-arms, Rode on a mission to the bandit Earl; Half whistling and half singing a coarse song, He drove the dust against her veilless eyes: Another, flying from the wrath of Doorm Before an ever-fancied arrow, made The long way smoke beneath him in his fear; At which her palfrey whinnying lifted heel, And scoured into the coppices and was lost, While the great charger stood, grieved like a man. But at the point of noon the huge Earl Doorm, Broad-faced with under-fringe of russet beard, Bound on a foray, rolling eyes of prey, Came riding with a hundred lances up; But ere he came, like one that hails a ship, Cried out with a big voice, 'What, is he dead?' 'No, no, not dead!' she answered in all haste. 'Would some of your people take him up, And bear him hence out of this cruel sun? Most sure am I, quite sure, he is not dead.' Then said Earl Doorm: 'Well, if he be not dead, Why wail ye for him thus? ye seem a child. And be he dead, I count you for a fool; Your wailing will not quicken him: dead or not, Ye mar a comely face with idiot tears. 158 Yet, since the face IS comely--some of you, Here, take him up, and bear him to our hall: An if he live, we will have him of our band; And if he die, why earth has earth enough To hide him. See ye take the charger too, A noble one.' He spake, and past away, But left two brawny spearmen, who advanced, Each growling like a dog, when his good bone Seems to be plucked at by the village boys Who love to vex him eating, and he fears To lose his bone, and lays his foot upon it, Gnawing and growling: so the ruffians growled, Fearing to lose, and all for a dead man, Their chance of booty from the morning's raid, Yet raised and laid him on a litter-bier, Such as they brought upon their forays out For those that might be wounded; laid him on it All in the hollow of his shield, and took And bore him to the naked hall of Doorm, (His gentle charger following him unled) And cast him and the bier in which he lay Down on an oaken settle in the hall, And then departed, hot in haste to join Their luckier mates, but growling as before, And cursing their lost time, and the dead man, And their own Earl, and their own souls, and her. They might as well have blest her: she was deaf To blessing or to cursing save from one. So for long hours sat Enid by her lord, There in the naked hall, propping his head, And chafing his pale hands, and calling to him. Till at the last he wakened from his swoon, And found his own dear bride propping his head, And chafing his faint hands, and calling to him; And felt the warm tears falling on his face; And said to his own heart, 'She weeps for me:' And yet lay still, and feigned himself as dead, That he might prove her to the uttermost, And say to his own heart, 'She weeps for me.' 159 But in the falling afternoon returned The huge Earl Doorm with plunder to the hall. His lusty spearmen followed him with noise: Each hurling down a heap of things that rang Against his pavement, cast his lance aside, And doffed his helm: and then there fluttered in, Half-bold, half-frighted, with dilated eyes, A tribe of women, dressed in many hues, And mingled with the spearmen: and Earl Doorm Struck with a knife's haft hard against the board, And called for flesh and wine to feed his spears. And men brought in whole hogs and quarter beeves, And all the hall was dim with steam of flesh: And none spake word, but all sat down at once, And ate with tumult in the naked hall, Feeding like horses when you hear them feed; Till Enid shrank far back into herself, To shun the wild ways of the lawless tribe. But when Earl Doorm had eaten all he would, He rolled his eyes about the hall, and found A damsel drooping in a corner of it. Then he remembered her, and how she wept; And out of her there came a power upon him; And rising on the sudden he said, 'Eat! I never yet beheld a thing so pale. God's curse, it makes me mad to see you weep. Eat! Look yourself. Good luck had your good man, For were I dead who is it would weep for me? Sweet lady, never since I first drew breath Have I beheld a lily like yourself. And so there lived some colour in your cheek, There is not one among my gentlewomen Were fit to wear your slipper for a glove. But listen to me, and by me be ruled, And I will do the thing I have not done, For ye shall share my earldom with me, girl, And we will live like two birds in one nest, And I will fetch you forage from all fields, For I compel all creatures to my will.' He spoke: the brawny spearman let his cheek Bulge with the unswallowed piece, and turning stared; 160 While some, whose souls the old serpent long had drawn Down, as the worm draws in the withered leaf And makes it earth, hissed each at other's ear What shall not be recorded--women they, Women, or what had been those gracious things, But now desired the humbling of their best, Yea, would have helped him to it: and all at once They hated her, who took no thought of them, But answered in low voice, her meek head yet Drooping, 'I pray you of your courtesy, He being as he is, to let me be.' She spake so low he hardly heard her speak, But like a mighty patron, satisfied With what himself had done so graciously, Assumed that she had thanked him, adding, 'Yea, Eat and be glad, for I account you mine.' She answered meekly, 'How should I be glad Henceforth in all the world at anything, Until my lord arise and look upon me?' Here the huge Earl cried out upon her talk, As all but empty heart and weariness And sickly nothing; suddenly seized on her, And bare her by main violence to the board, And thrust the dish before her, crying, 'Eat.' 'No, no,' said Enid, vext, 'I will not eat Till yonder man upon the bier arise, And eat with me.' 'Drink, then,' he answered. 'Here!' (And filled a horn with wine and held it to her,) 'Lo! I, myself, when flushed with fight, or hot, God's curse, with anger--often I myself, Before I well have drunken, scarce can eat: Drink therefore and the wine will change thy will.' 'Not so,' she cried, 'by Heaven, I will not drink Till my dear lord arise and bid me do it, And drink with me; and if he rise no more, I will not look at wine until I die.' 161 At this he turned all red and paced his hall, Now gnawed his under, now his upper lip, And coming up close to her, said at last: 'Girl, for I see ye scorn my courtesies, Take warning: yonder man is surely dead; And I compel all creatures to my will. Not eat nor drink? And wherefore wail for one, Who put your beauty to this flout and scorn By dressing it in rags? Amazed am I, Beholding how ye butt against my wish, That I forbear you thus: cross me no more. At least put off to please me this poor gown, This silken rag, this beggar-woman's weed: I love that beauty should go beautifully: For see ye not my gentlewomen here, How gay, how suited to the house of one Who loves that beauty should go beautifully? Rise therefore; robe yourself in this: obey.' He spoke, and one among his gentlewomen Displayed a splendid silk of foreign loom, Where like a shoaling sea the lovely blue Played into green, and thicker down the front With jewels than the sward with drops of dew, When all night long a cloud clings to the hill, And with the dawn ascending lets the day Strike where it clung: so thickly shone the gems. But Enid answered, harder to be moved Than hardest tyrants in their day of power, With life-long injuries burning unavenged, And now their hour has come; and Enid said: 'In this poor gown my dear lord found me first, And loved me serving in my father's hall: In this poor gown I rode with him to court, And there the Queen arrayed me like the sun: In this poor gown he bad me clothe myself, When now we rode upon this fatal quest Of honour, where no honour can be gained: And this poor gown I will not cast aside Until himself arise a living man, 162 And bid me cast it. I have griefs enough: Pray you be gentle, pray you let me be: I never loved, can never love but him: Yea, God, I pray you of your gentleness, He being as he is, to let me be.' Then strode the brute Earl up and down his hall, And took his russet beard between his teeth; Last, coming up quite close, and in his mood Crying, 'I count it of no more avail, Dame, to be gentle than ungentle with you; Take my salute,' unknightly with flat hand, However lightly, smote her on the cheek. Then Enid, in her utter helplessness, And since she thought, 'He had not dared to do it, Except he surely knew my lord was dead,' Sent forth a sudden sharp and bitter cry, As of a wild thing taken in the trap, Which sees the trapper coming through the wood. This heard Geraint, and grasping at his sword, (It lay beside him in the hollow shield), Made but a single bound, and with a sweep of it Shore through the swarthy neck, and like a ball The russet-bearded head rolled on the floor. So died Earl Doorm by him he counted dead. And all the men and women in the hall Rose when they saw the dead man rise, and fled Yelling as from a spectre, and the two Were left alone together, and he said: 'Enid, I have used you worse than that dead man; Done you more wrong: we both have undergone That trouble which has left me thrice your own: Henceforward I will rather die than doubt. And here I lay this penance on myself, Not, though mine own ears heard you yestermorn-You thought me sleeping, but I heard you say, I heard you say, that you were no true wife: I swear I will not ask your meaning in it: I do believe yourself against yourself, 163 And will henceforward rather die than doubt.' And Enid could not say one tender word, She felt so blunt and stupid at the heart: She only prayed him, 'Fly, they will return And slay you; fly, your charger is without, My palfrey lost.' 'Then, Enid, shall you ride Behind me.' 'Yea,' said Enid, 'let us go.' And moving out they found the stately horse, Who now no more a vassal to the thief, But free to stretch his limbs in lawful fight, Neighed with all gladness as they came, and stooped With a low whinny toward the pair: and she Kissed the white star upon his noble front, Glad also; then Geraint upon the horse Mounted, and reached a hand, and on his foot She set her own and climbed; he turned his face And kissed her climbing, and she cast her arms About him, and at once they rode away. And never yet, since high in Paradise O'er the four rivers the first roses blew, Came purer pleasure unto mortal kind Than lived through her, who in that perilous hour Put hand to hand beneath her husband's heart, And felt him hers again: she did not weep, But o'er her meek eyes came a happy mist Like that which kept the heart of Eden green Before the useful trouble of the rain: Yet not so misty were her meek blue eyes As not to see before them on the path, Right in the gateway of the bandit hold, A knight of Arthur's court, who laid his lance In rest, and made as if to fall upon him. Then, fearing for his hurt and loss of blood, She, with her mind all full of what had chanced, Shrieked to the stranger 'Slay not a dead man!' 'The voice of Enid,' said the knight; but she, Beholding it was Edyrn son of Nudd, Was moved so much the more, and shrieked again, 'O cousin, slay not him who gave you life.' And Edyrn moving frankly forward spake: 164 'My lord Geraint, I greet you with all love; I took you for a bandit knight of Doorm; And fear not, Enid, I should fall upon him, Who love you, Prince, with something of the love Wherewith we love the Heaven that chastens us. For once, when I was up so high in pride That I was halfway down the slope to Hell, By overthrowing me you threw me higher. Now, made a knight of Arthur's Table Round, And since I knew this Earl, when I myself Was half a bandit in my lawless hour, I come the mouthpiece of our King to Doorm (The King is close behind me) bidding him Disband himself, and scatter all his powers, Submit, and hear the judgment of the King.' 'He hears the judgment of the King of kings,' Cried the wan Prince; 'and lo, the powers of Doorm Are scattered,' and he pointed to the field, Where, huddled here and there on mound and knoll, Were men and women staring and aghast, While some yet fled; and then he plainlier told How the huge Earl lay slain within his hall. But when the knight besought him, 'Follow me, Prince, to the camp, and in the King's own ear Speak what has chanced; ye surely have endured Strange chances here alone;' that other flushed, And hung his head, and halted in reply, Fearing the mild face of the blameless King, And after madness acted question asked: Till Edyrn crying, 'If ye will not go To Arthur, then will Arthur come to you,' 'Enough,' he said, 'I follow,' and they went. But Enid in their going had two fears, One from the bandit scattered in the field, And one from Edyrn. Every now and then, When Edyrn reined his charger at her side, She shrank a little. In a hollow land, From which old fires have broken, men may fear Fresh fire and ruin. He, perceiving, said: 'Fair and dear cousin, you that most had cause 165 To fear me, fear no longer, I am changed. Yourself were first the blameless cause to make My nature's prideful sparkle in the blood Break into furious flame; being repulsed By Yniol and yourself, I schemed and wrought Until I overturned him; then set up (With one main purpose ever at my heart) My haughty jousts, and took a paramour; Did her mock-honour as the fairest fair, And, toppling over all antagonism, So waxed in pride, that I believed myself Unconquerable, for I was wellnigh mad: And, but for my main purpose in these jousts, I should have slain your father, seized yourself. I lived in hope that sometime you would come To these my lists with him whom best you loved; And there, poor cousin, with your meek blue eyes The truest eyes that ever answered Heaven, Behold me overturn and trample on him. Then, had you cried, or knelt, or prayed to me, I should not less have killed him. And so you came,-But once you came,--and with your own true eyes Beheld the man you loved (I speak as one Speaks of a service done him) overthrow My proud self, and my purpose three years old, And set his foot upon me, and give me life. There was I broken down; there was I saved: Though thence I rode all-shamed, hating the life He gave me, meaning to be rid of it. And all the penance the Queen laid upon me Was but to rest awhile within her court; Where first as sullen as a beast new-caged, And waiting to be treated like a wolf, Because I knew my deeds were known, I found, Instead of scornful pity or pure scorn, Such fine reserve and noble reticence, Manners so kind, yet stately, such a grace Of tenderest courtesy, that I began To glance behind me at my former life, And find that it had been the wolf's indeed: And oft I talked with Dubric, the high saint, Who, with mild heat of holy oratory, 166 Subdued me somewhat to that gentleness, Which, when it weds with manhood, makes a man. And you were often there about the Queen, But saw me not, or marked not if you saw; Nor did I care or dare to speak with you, But kept myself aloof till I was changed; And fear not, cousin; I am changed indeed.' He spoke, and Enid easily believed, Like simple noble natures, credulous Of what they long for, good in friend or foe, There most in those who most have done them ill. And when they reached the camp the King himself Advanced to greet them, and beholding her Though pale, yet happy, asked her not a word, But went apart with Edyrn, whom he held In converse for a little, and returned, And, gravely smiling, lifted her from horse, And kissed her with all pureness, brother-like, And showed an empty tent allotted her, And glancing for a minute, till he saw her Pass into it, turned to the Prince, and said: 'Prince, when of late ye prayed me for my leave To move to your own land, and there defend Your marches, I was pricked with some reproof, As one that let foul wrong stagnate and be, By having looked too much through alien eyes, And wrought too long with delegated hands, Not used mine own: but now behold me come To cleanse this common sewer of all my realm, With Edyrn and with others: have ye looked At Edyrn? have ye seen how nobly changed? This work of his is great and wonderful. His very face with change of heart is changed. The world will not believe a man repents: And this wise world of ours is mainly right. Full seldom doth a man repent, or use Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch Of blood and custom wholly out of him, And make all clean, and plant himself afresh. Edyrn has done it, weeding all his heart 167 As I will weed this land before I go. I, therefore, made him of our Table Round, Not rashly, but have proved him everyway One of our noblest, our most valorous, Sanest and most obedient: and indeed This work of Edyrn wrought upon himself After a life of violence, seems to me A thousand-fold more great and wonderful Than if some knight of mine, risking his life, My subject with my subjects under him, Should make an onslaught single on a realm Of robbers, though he slew them one by one, And were himself nigh wounded to the death.' So spake the King; low bowed the Prince, and felt His work was neither great nor wonderful, And past to Enid's tent; and thither came The King's own leech to look into his hurt; And Enid tended on him there; and there Her constant motion round him, and the breath Of her sweet tendance hovering over him, Filled all the genial courses of his blood With deeper and with ever deeper love, As the south-west that blowing Bala lake Fills all the sacred Dee. So past the days. But while Geraint lay healing of his hurt, The blameless King went forth and cast his eyes On each of all whom Uther left in charge Long since, to guard the justice of the King: He looked and found them wanting; and as now Men weed the white horse on the Berkshire hills To keep him bright and clean as heretofore, He rooted out the slothful officer Or guilty, which for bribe had winked at wrong, And in their chairs set up a stronger race With hearts and hands, and sent a thousand men To till the wastes, and moving everywhere Cleared the dark places and let in the law, And broke the bandit holds and cleansed the land. Then, when Geraint was whole again, they past 168 With Arthur to Caerleon upon Usk. There the great Queen once more embraced her friend, And clothed her in apparel like the day. And though Geraint could never take again That comfort from their converse which he took Before the Queen's fair name was breathed upon, He rested well content that all was well. Thence after tarrying for a space they rode, And fifty knights rode with them to the shores Of Severn, and they past to their own land. And there he kept the justice of the King So vigorously yet mildly, that all hearts Applauded, and the spiteful whisper died: And being ever foremost in the chase, And victor at the tilt and tournament, They called him the great Prince and man of men. But Enid, whom her ladies loved to call Enid the Fair, a grateful people named Enid the Good; and in their halls arose The cry of children, Enids and Geraints Of times to be; nor did he doubt her more, But rested in her falty, till he crowned A happy life with a fair death, and fell Against the heathen of the Northern Sea In battle, fighting for the blameless King. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

894:Meantime Ferrara lay in rueful case; The lady-city, for whose sole embrace Her pair of suitors struggled, felt their arms A brawny mischief to the fragile charms They tugged forone discovering that to twist Her tresses twice or thrice about his wrist Secured a point of vantageone, how best He 'd parry that by planting in her breast His elbow spikeeach party too intent For noticing, howe'er the battle went, The conqueror would but have a corpse to kiss. "May Boniface be duly damned for this!" Howled some old Ghibellin, as up he turned, From the wet heap of rubbish where they burned His house, a little skull with dazzling teeth: "A boon, sweet Christlet Salinguerra seethe "In hell for ever, Christ, and let myself "Be there to laugh at him!"moaned some young Guelf Stumbling upon a shrivelled hand nailed fast To the charred lintel of the doorway, last His father stood within to bid him speed. The thoroughfares were overrun with weed Docks, quitchgrass, loathy mallows no man plants. The stranger, none of its inhabitants Crept out of doors to taste fresh air again, And ask the purpose of a splendid train Admitted on a morning; every town Of the East League was come by envoy down To treat for Richard's ransom: here you saw The Vicentine, here snowy oxen draw The Paduan carroch, its vermilion cross On its white field. A-tiptoe o'er the fosse Looked Legate Montelungo wistfully After the flock of steeples he might spy In Este's time, gone (doubts he) long ago To mend the ramparts: sure the laggards know The Pope's as good as here! They paced the streets More soberly. At last, "Taurello greets "The League," announced a pursuivant,"will match "Its courtesy, and labours to dispatch "At earliest Tito, Friedrich's Pretor, sent "On pressing matters from his post at Trent, "With Mainard Count of Tyrol,simply waits "Their going to receive the delegates." "Tito!" Our delegates exchanged a glance, And, keeping the main way, admired askance The lazy engines of outlandish birth, Couched like a king each on its bank of earth Arbalist, manganel and catapult; While stationed by, as waiting a result, Lean silent gangs of mercenaries ceased Working to watch the strangers. "This, at least, "Were better spared; he scarce presumes gainsay "The League's decision! Get our friend away "And profit for the future: how else teach "Fools 't is not safe to stray within claw's reach "Ere Salinguerra's final gasp be blown? "Those mere convulsive scratches find the bone. "Who bade him bloody the spent osprey's nare?" The carrochs halted in the public square. Pennons of every blazon once a-flaunt, Men prattled, freelier than the crested gaunt White ostrich with a horse-shoe in her beak Was missing, and whoever chose might speak "Ecelin" boldly out: so,"Ecelin "Needed his wife to swallow half the sin "And sickens by himself: the devil's whelp, "He styles his son, dwindles away, no help "From conserves, your fine triple-curded froth "Of virgin's blood, your Venice viper-broth "Eh? Jubilate!""Peace! no little word "You utter here that 's not distinctly heard "Up at Oliero: he was absent sick "When we besieged Bassanowho, i' the thick "O' the work, perceived the progress Azzo made, "Like Ecelin, through his witch Adelaide? "She managed it so well that, night by night "At their bed-foot stood up a soldier-sprite, "First fresh, pale by-and-by without a wound, "And, when it came with eyes filmed as in swound, "They knew the place was taken.""Ominous "That Ghibellins should get what cautelous "Old Redbeard sought from Azzo's sire to wrench "Vainly; Saint George contrived his town a trench "O' the marshes, an impermeable bar." "Young Ecelin is meant the tutelar "Of Padua, rather; veins embrace upon "His hand like Brenta and Bacchiglion." What now?"The founts! God's bread, touch not a plank! "A crawling hell of carrionevery tank "Choke-full!found out just now to Cino's cost "The same who gave Taurello up for lost, "And, making no account of fortune's freaks, "Refused to budge from Padua then, but sneaks "Back now with Concorezzi: 'faith! they drag "Their carroch to San Vitale, plant the flag "On his own palace, so adroitly razed "He knew it not; a sort of Guelf folk gazed "And laughed apart; Cino disliked their air "Must pluck up spirit, show he does not care "Seats himself on the tank's edgewill begin "To hum, za, za, Cavaler Ecelin "A silence; he gets warmer, clinks to chime, "Now both feet plough the ground, deeper each time, "At last, za, za and up with a fierce kick "Comes his own mother's face caught by the thick "Grey hair about his spur!"                Which means, they lift The covering, Salinguerra made a shift To stretch upon the truth; as well avoid Further disclosures; leave them thus employed. Our dropping Autumn morning clears apace, And poor Ferrara puts a softened face On her misfortunes. Let us scale this tall Huge foursquare line of red brick garden-wall Bastioned within by trees of every sort On three sides, slender, spreading, long and short; Each grew as it contrived, the poplar ramped, The fig-tree reared itself,but stark and cramped, Made fools of, like tamed lions: whence, on the edge, Running 'twixt trunk and trunk to smooth one ledge Of shade, were shrubs inserted, warp and woof, Which smothered up that variance. Scale the roof Of solid tops, and o'er the slope you slide Down to a grassy space level and wide, Here and there dotted with a tree, but trees Of rarer leaf, each foreigner at ease, Set by itself: and in the centre spreads, Borne upon three uneasy leopards' heads, A laver, broad and shallow, one bright spirt Of water bubbles in. The walls begirt With trees leave off on either hand; pursue Your path along a wondrous avenue Those walls abut on, heaped of gleamy stone, With aloes leering everywhere, grey-grown From many a Moorish summer: how they wind Out of the fissures! likelier to bind The building than those rusted cramps which drop Already in the eating sunshine. Stop, You fleeting shapes above there! Ah, the pride Or else despair of the whole country-side! A range of statues, swarming o'er with wasps, God, goddess, woman, man, the Greek rough-rasps In crumbling Naples marblemeant to look Like those Messina marbles Constance took Delight in, or Taurello's self conveyed To Mantua for his mistress, Adelaide, A certain font with caryatides Since cloistered at Goito; only, these Are up and doing, not abashed, a troop Able to right themselveswho see you, stoop Their arms o' the instant after you! Unplucked By this or that, you pass; for they conduct To terrace raised on terrace, and, between, Creatures of brighter mould and braver mien Than any yet, the choicest of the Isle No doubt. Here, left a sullen breathing-while, Up-gathered on himself the Fighter stood For his last fight, and, wiping treacherous blood Out of the eyelids just held ope beneath Those shading fingers in their iron sheath, Steadied his strengths amid the buzz and stir Of the dusk hideous amphitheatre At the announcement of his over-match To wind the day's diversion up, dispatch The pertinactious Gaul: while, limbs one heap, The Slave, no breath in her round mouth, watched leap Dart after dart forth, as her hero's car Clove dizzily the solid of the war Let coil about his knees for pride in him. We reach the farthest terrace, and the grim San Pietro Palace stops us.                Such the state Of Salinguerra's plan to emulate Sicilian marvels, that his girlish wife Retrude still might lead her ancient life In her new home: whereat enlarged so much Neighbours upon the novel princely touch He took,who here imprisons Boniface. Here must the Envoys come to sue for grace; And here, emerging from the labyrinth Below, Sordello paused beside the plinth Of the door-pillar.           He had really left Verona for the cornfields (a poor theft From the morass) where Este's camp was made; The Envoys' march, the Legate's cavalcade All had been seen by him, but scarce as when, Eager for cause to stand aloof from men At every point save the fantastic tie Acknowledged in his boyish sophistry, He made account of such. A crowd,he meant To task the whole of it; each part's intent Concerned him therefore: and, the more he pried, The less became Sordello satisfied With his own figure at the moment. Sought He respite from his task? Descried he aught Novel in the anticipated sight Of all these livers upon all delight? This phalanx, as of myriad points combined, Whereby he still had imaged the mankind His youth was passed in dreams of rivalling, His agein plans to prove at least such thing Had been so dreamed,which now he must impress With his own will, effect a happiness By theirs,supply a body to his soul Thence, and become eventually whole With them as he had hoped to be without Made these the mankind he once raved about? Because a few of them were notable, Should all be figured worthy note? As well Expect to find Taurello's triple line Of trees a single and prodigious pine. Real pines rose here and there; but, close among, Thrust into and mixed up with pines, a throng Of shrubs, he saw,a nameless common sort O'erpast in dreams, left out of the report And hurried into corners, or at best Admitted to be fancied like the rest. Reckon that morning's proper chiefshow few! And yet the people grew, the people grew, Grew ever, as if the many there indeed, More left behind and most who should succeed, Simply in virtue of their mouths and eyes, Petty enjoyments and huge miseries, Mingled with, and made veritably great Those chiefs: he overlooked not Mainard's state Nor Concorezzi's station, but instead Of stopping there, each dwindled to be head Of infinite and absent Tyrolese Or Paduans; startling all the more, that these Seemed passive and disposed of, uncared for, Yet doubtless on the whole (like Eglamor) Smiling; for if a wealthy man decays And out of store of robes must wear, all days, One tattered suit, alike in sun and shade, 'T is commonly some tarnished gay brocade Fit for a feast-night's flourish and no more: Nor otherwise poor Misery from her store Of looks is fain upgather, keep unfurled For common wear as she goes through the world, The faint remainder of some worn-out smile Meant for a feast-night's service merely. While Crowd upon crowd rose on Sordello thus, (Crowds no way interfering to discuss, Much less dispute, life's joys with one employed In envying them,or, if they aught enjoyed, Where lingered something indefinable In every look and tone, the mirth as well As woe, that fixed at once his estimate Of the result, their good or bad estate) Old memories returned with new effect: And the new body, ere he could suspect, Cohered, mankind and he were really fused, The new self seemed impatient to be used By him, but utterly another way Than that anticipated: strange to say, They were too much below him, more in thrall Than he, the adjunct than the principal. What booted scattered units?here a mind And there, which might repay his own to find, And stamp, and use?a few, howe'er august, If all the rest were grovelling in the dust? No: first a mighty equilibrium, sure, Should he establish, privilege procure For all, the few had long possessed! He felt An error, an exceeding error melt: While he was occupied with Mantuan chants, Behoved him think of men, and take their wants, Such as he now distinguished every side, As his own want which might be satisfied, And, after that, think of rare qualities Of his own soul demanding exercise. It followed naturally, through no claim On their part, which made virtue of the aim At serving them, on his,that, past retrieve, He felt now in their toils, theirsnor could leave Wonder how, in the eagerness to rule, Impress his will on mankind, he (the fool!) Had never even entertained the thought That this his last arrangement might be fraught with incidental good to them as well, And that mankind's delight would help to swell His own. So, if he sighed, as formerly Because the merry time of life must fleet, 'T was deeplier now,for could the crowds repeat Their poor experiences? His hand that shook Was twice to be deplored. "The Legate, look! "With eyes, like fresh-blown thrush-eggs on a thread, "Faint-blue and loosely floating in his head, "Large tongue, moist open mouth; and this long while "That owner of the idiotic smile "Serves them!"        He fortunately saw in time His fault however, and since the office prime Includes the secondarybest accept Both offices; Taurello, its adept, Could teach him the preparatory one, And how to do what he had fancied done Long previously, ere take the greater task. How render first these people happy? Ask The people's friends: for there must be one good One way to itthe Cause! He understood The meaning now of Palma; why the jar Else, the ado, the trouble wide and far Of Guelfs and Ghibellins, the Lombard hope And Rome's despair?'twixt Emperor and Pope The confused shifting sort of Eden tale Hardihood still recurring, still to fail That foreign interloping fiend, this free And native overbrooding deity: Yet a dire fascination o'er the palms The Kaiser ruined, troubling even the calms Of paradise; or, on the other hand, The Pontiff, as the Kaisers understand, One snake-like cursed of God to love the ground, Whose heavy length breaks in the noon profound Some saving treewhich needs the Kaiser, dressed As the dislodging angel of that pest: Yet flames that pest bedropped, flat head, full fold, With coruscating dower of dyes. "Behold "The secret, so to speak, and master-spring "O' the contest!which of the two Powers shall bring "Men good, perchance the most good: ay, it may "Be that!the question, which best knows the way." And hereupon Count Mainard strutted past Out of San Pietro; never seemed the last Of archers, slingers: and our friend began To recollect strange modes of serving man Arbalist, catapult, brake, manganel, And more. "This way of theirs may,who can tell? "Need perfecting," said he: "let all be solved "At once! Taurello 't is, the task devolved "On late: confront Taurello!"                And at last He did confront him. Scarce an hour had past When forth Sordello came, older by years Than at his entry. Unexampled fears Oppressed him, and he staggered off, blind, mute And deaf, like some fresh-mutilated brute, Into Ferraranot the empty town That morning witnessed: he went up and down Streets whence the veil had been stript shred by shred, So that, in place of huddling with their dead Indoors, to answer Salinguerra's ends, Townsfolk make shift to crawl forth, sit like friends With any one. A woman gave him choice Of her two daughters, the infantile voice Or the dimpled knee, for half a chain, his throat Was clasped with; but an archer knew the coat Its blue cross and eight lilies,bade beware One dogging him in concert with the pair Though thrumming on the sleeve that hid his knife. Night set in early, autumn dews were rife, They kindled great fires while the Leaguers' mass Began at every carroch: he must pass Between the kneeling people. Presently The carroch of Verona caught his eye With purple trappings; silently he bent Over its fire, when voices violent Began, "Affirm not whom the youth was like "That struck me from the porch: I did not strike "Again: I too have chestnut hair; my kin "Hate Azzo and stand up for Ecelin. "Here, minstrel, drive bad thoughts away! Sing! Take "My glove for guerdon!" And for that man's sake He turned: "A song of Eglamor's!"scarce named, When, "Our Sordello's rather!"all exclaimed; "Is not Sordello famousest for rhyme?" He had been happy to deny, this time, Profess as heretofore the aching head And failing heart,suspect that in his stead Some true Apollo had the charge of them, Was champion to reward or to condemn, So his intolerable risk might shift Or share itself; but Naddo's precious gift Of gifts, he owned, be certain! At the close "I made that," said he to a youth who rose As if to hear: 't was Palma through the band Conducted him in silence by her hand. Back now for Salinguerra. Tito of Trent Gave place to Palma and her friend, who went In turn at Montelungo's visit: one After the other were they come and gone, These spokesmen for the Kaiser and the Pope, This incarnation of the People's hope, Sordello,all the say of each was said; And Salinguerra sat,himself instead Of these to talk with, lingered musing yet. 'T was a drear vast presence-chamber roughly set In order for the morning's use; full face, The Kaiser's ominous sign-mark had first place, The crowned grim twy-necked eagle, coarsely-blacked With ochre on the naked wall; nor lacked Romano's green and yellow either side; But the new token Tito brought had tried The Legate's patiencenay, if Palma knew What Salinguerra almost meant to do Until the sight of her restored his lip A certain half-smile, three months' chieftainship Had banished! Afterward, the Legate found No change in him, nor asked what badge he wound And unwound carelessly. Now sat the Chief Silent as when our couple left, whose brief Encounter wrought so opportune effect In thoughts he summoned not, nor would reject, Though time 't was now if ever, to pausefix On any sort of ending: wiles and tricks Exhausted, judge! his charge, the crazy town, Just managed to be hindered crashing down His last sound troops rangedcare observed to post His best of the maimed soldiers innermost So much was plain enough, but somehow struck Him not before. And now with this strange luck Of Tito's news, rewarding his address So well, what thought he of?how the success With Friedrich's rescript there, would either hush Old Ecelin's scruples, bring the manly flush To his young son's white cheek, or, last, exempt Himself from telling what there was to tempt? No: that this minstrel was Romano's last Servanthimself the first! Could he contrast The whole!that minstrel's thirty years just spent In doing nought, their notablest event This morning's journey hither, as I told Who yet was lean, outworn and really old, A stammering awkward man that scarce dared raise His eye before the magisterial gaze And Salinguerra with his fears and hopes Of sixty years, his Emperors and Popes, Cares and contrivances, yet, you would say, 'T was a youth nonchalantly looked away Through the embrasure northward o'er the sick Expostulating treesso agile, quick And graceful turned the head on the broad chest Encased in pliant steel, his constant vest, Whence split the sun off in a spray of fire Across the room; and, loosened of its tire Of steel, that head let breathe the comely brown Large massive locks discoloured as if a crown Encircled them, so frayed the basnet where A sharp white line divided clean the hair; Glossy above, glossy below, it swept Curling and fine about a brow thus kept Calm, laid coat upon coat, marble and sound: This was the mystic mark the Tuscan found, Mused of, turned over books about. Square-faced, No lion more; two vivid eyes, enchased In hollows filled with many a shade and streak Settling from the bold nose and bearded cheek. Nor might the half-smile reach them that deformed A lip supremely perfect elseunwarmed, Unwidened, less or more; indifferent Whether on trees or men his thoughts were bent, Thoughts rarely, after all, in trim and train As now a period was fulfilled again: Of such, a series made his life, compressed In each, one story serving for the rest How his life-streams rolling arrived at last At the barrier, whence, were it once overpast, They would emerge, a river to the end, Gathered themselves up, paused, bade fate befriend, Took the leap, hung a minute at the height, Then fell back to oblivion infinite: Therefore he smiled. Beyond stretched garden-grounds Where late the adversary, breaking bounds, Had gained him an occasion, That above, That eagle, testified he could improve Effectually. The Kaiser's symbol lay Beside his rescript, a new badge by way Of baldric; while,another thing that marred Alike emprise, achievement and reward, Ecelin's missive was conspicuous too. What past life did those flying thoughts pursue? As his, few names in Mantua half so old; But at Ferrara, where his sires enrolled It latterly, the Adelardi spared No pains to rival them: both factions shared Ferrara, so that, counted out, 't would yield A product very like the city's shield, Half black and white, or Ghibellin and Guelf As after Salinguerra styled himself And Este who, till Marchesalla died, (Last of the Adelardi)never tried His fortune there: with Marchesalla's child Would pass,could Blacks and Whites be reconciled And young Taurello wed Linguetta,wealth And sway to a sole grasp. Each treats by stealth Already: when the Guelfs, the Ravennese Arrive, assault the Pietro quarter, seize Linguetta, and are gone! Men's first dismay Abated somewhat, hurries down, to lay The after indignation, Boniface, This Richard's father. "Learn the full disgrace "Averted, ere you blame us Guelfs, who rate "Your Salinguerra, your sole potentate "That might have been, 'mongst Este's valvassors "Ay, Azzo'swho, not privy to, abhors "Our step; but we were zealous." Azzo then To do with! Straight a meeting of old men: "Old Salinguerra dead, his heir a boy, "What if we change our ruler and decoy "The Lombard Eagle of the azure sphere "With Italy to build in, fix him here, "Settle the city's troubles in a trice? "For private wrong, let public good suffice!" In fine, young Salinguerra's staunchest friends Talked of the townsmen making him amends, Gave him a goshawk, and affirmed there was Rare sport, one morning, over the green grass A mile or so. He sauntered through the plain, Was restless, fell to thinking, turned again In time for Azzo's entry with the bride; Count Boniface rode smirking at their side; "She brings him half Ferrara," whispers flew, "And all Ancona! If the stripling knew!" Anon the stripling was in Sicily Where Heinrich ruled in right of Constance; he Was gracious nor his guest incapable; Each understood the other. So it fell, One Spring, when Azzo, thoroughly at ease, Had near forgotten by what precise degrees He crept at first to such a downy seat, The Count trudged over in a special heat To bid him of God's love dislodge from each Of Salinguerra's palaces,a breach Might yawn else, not so readily to shut, For who was just arrived at Mantua but The youngster, sword on thigh and tuft on chin, With tokens for Celano, Ecelin, Pistore, and the like! Next news,no whit Do any of Ferrara's domes befit His wife of Heinrich's very blood: a band Of foreigners assemble, understand Garden-constructing, level and surround, Build up and bury in. A last news crowned The consternation: since his infant's birth, He only waits they end his wondrous girth Of trees that link San Pietro with Tom, To visit Mantua. When the Podest Ecelin, at Vicenza, called his friend Taurello thither, what could be their end But to restore the Ghibellins' late Head, The Kaiser helping? He with most to dread From vengeance and reprisal, Azzo, there With Boniface beforehand, as aware Of plots in progress, gave alarm, expelled Both plotters: but the Guelfs in triumph yelled Too hastily. The burning and the flight, And how Taurello, occupied that night With Ecelin, lost wife and son, I told: Not how he bore the blow, retained his hold, Got friends safe through, left enemies the worst O' the fray, and hardly seemed to care at first: But afterward men heard not constantly Of Salinguerra's House so sure to be! Though Azzo simply gained by the event A shifting of his plaguesthe first, content To fall behind the second and estrange So far his nature, suffer such a change That in Romano sought he wife and child, And for Romano's sake seemed reconciled To losing individual life, which shrunk As the other prosperedmortised in his trunk; Like a dwarf palm which wanton Arabs foil Of bearing its own proper wine and oil, By grafting into it the stranger-vine, Which sucks its heart out, sly and serpentine, Till forth one vine-palm feathers to the root, And red drops moisten the insipid fruit. Once Adelaide set on,the subtle mate Of the weak soldier, urged to emulate The Church's valiant women deed for deed, And paragon her namesake, win the meed O' the great Matilda,soon they overbore The rest of Lombardy,not as before By an instinctive truculence, but patched The Kaiser's strategy until it matched The Pontiff's, sought old ends by novel means. "Only, why is it Salinguerra screens "Himself behind Romano?him we bade "Enjoy our shine i' the front, not seek the shade!" Asked Heinrich, somewhat of the tardiest To comprehend. Nor Philip acquiesced At once in the arrangement; reasoned, plied His friend with offers of another bride, A statelier functionfruitlessly: 't was plain Taurello through some weakness must remain Obscure. And Otho, free to judge of both Ecelin the unready, harsh and loth, And this more plausible and facile wight With every point a-sparklechose the right, Admiring how his predecessors harped On the wrong man: "thus," quoth he, "wits are warped "By outsides!" Carelessly, meanwhile, his life Suffered its many turns of peace and strife In many landsyou hardly could surprise The man; who shamed Sordello (recognize!) In this as much beside, that, unconcerned What qualities were natural or earned, With no ideal of graces, as they came He took them, singularly well the same Speaking the Greek's own language, just because Your Greek eludes you, leave the least of flaws In contracts with him; while, since Arab lore Holds the stars' secrettake one trouble more And master it! 'T is done, and now deter Who may the Tuscan, once Jove trined for her, From Friedrich's path!Friedrich, whose pilgrimage The same man puts aside, whom he 'll engage To leave next year John Brienne in the lurch, Come to Bassano, see Saint Francis' church And judge of Guido the Bolognian's piece Which,lend Taurello credit,rivals Greece Angels, with aureoles like golden quoits Pitched home, applauding Ecelin's exploits. For elegance, he strung the angelot, Made rhymes thereto; for prowess, clove he not Tiso, last siege, from crest to crupper? Why Detail you thus a varied mastery But to show how Taurello, on the watch For men, to read their hearts and thereby catch Their capabilities and purposes, Displayed himself so far as displayed these: While our Sordello only cared to know About men as a means whereby he 'd show Himself, and men had much or little worth According as they kept in or drew forth That self; the other's choicest instruments Surmised him shallow.            Meantime, malcontents Dropped off, town after town grew wiser. "How "Change the world's face?" asked people; "as 't is now "It has been, will be ever: very fine "Subjecting things profane to things divine, "In talk! This contumacy will fatigue "The vigilance of Este and the League! "The Ghibellins gain on us!"as it happed. Old Azzo and old Boniface, entrapped By Ponte Alto, both in one month's space Slept at Verona: either left a brace Of sonsbut, three years after, either's pair Lost Guglielm and Aldobrand its heir: Azzo remained and Richardall the stay Of Este and Saint Boniface, at bay As 't were. Then, either Ecelin grew old Or his brain alterednot o' the proper mould For new applianceshis old palm-stock Endured no influx of strange strengths. He 'd rock As in a drunkenness, or chuckle low As proud of the completeness of his woe, Then weep real tears;now make some mad onslaught On Este, heedless of the lesson taught So painfully,now cringe for peace, sue peace At price of past gain, bar of fresh increase To the fortunes of Romano. Up at last Rose Este, down Romano sank as fast. And men remarked these freaks of peace and war Happened while Salinguerra was afar: Whence every friend besought him, all in vain, To use his old adherent's wits again. Not he!"who had advisers in his sons, "Could plot himself, nor needed any one's "Advice." 'T was Adelaide's remaining staunch Prevented his destruction root and branch Forthwith; but when she died, doom fell, for gay He made alliances, gave lands away To whom it pleased accept them, and withdrew For ever from the world. Taurello, who Was summoned to the convent, then refused A word at the wicket, patience thus abused, Promptly threw off alike his imbecile Ally's yoke, and his own frank, foolish smile. Soon a few movements of the happier sort Changed matters, put himself in men's report As heretofore; he had to fight, beside, And that became him ever. So, in pride And flushing of this kind of second youth, He dealt a good-will blow. Este in truth Lay proneand men remembered, somewhat late, A laughing old outrageous stifled hate He bore to Estehow it would outbreak At times spite of disguise, like an earthquake In sunny weatheras that noted day When with his hundred friends he tried to slay Azzo before the Kaiser's face: and how, On Azzo's calm refusal to allow A liegeman's challenge, straight he too was calmed: As if his hate could bear to lie embalmed, Bricked up, the moody Pharaoh, and survive All intermediate crumblings, to arrive At earth's catastrophe't was Este's crash Not Azzo's he demanded, so, no rash Procedure! Este's true antagonist Rose out of Ecelin: all voices whist, All eyes were sharpened, wits predicted. He 'T was, leaned in the embrasure absently, Amused with his own efforts, now, to trace With his steel-sheathed forefinger Friedrich's face I' the dust: but as the trees waved sere, his smile Deepened, and words expressed its thought erewhile. "Ay, fairly housed at last, my old compeer? "That we should stick together, all the year "I kept Vicenza!How old Boniface, "Old Azzo caught us in its market-place, "He by that pillar, I at this,caught each "In mid swing, more than fury of his speech, "Egging the rabble on to disavow "Allegiance to their MarquisBacchus, how "They boasted! Ecelin must turn their drudge, "Nor, if released, will Salinguerra grudge "Paying arrears of tribute due long since "Bacchus! My man could promise then, nor wince "The bones-and-muscles! Sound of wind and limb, "Spoke he the set excuse I framed for him: "And now he sits me, slavering and mute, "Intent on chafing each starved purple foot "Benumbed past aching with the altar slab: "Will no vein throb there when some monk shall blab "Spitefully to the circle of bald scalps, "'Friedrich 's affirmed to be our side the Alps' "Eh, brother Lactance, brother Anaclet? "Sworn to abjure the world, its fume and fret, "God's own now? Drop the dormitory bar, "Enfold the scanty grey serge scapular "Twice o'er the cowl to muffle memories out! "So! But the midnight whisper turns a shout, "Eyes wink, mouths open, pulses circulate "In the stone walls: the past, the world you hate "Is with you, ambush, open fieldor see "The surging flamewe fire Vicenzaglee! "Follow, let Pilio and Bernardo chafe! "Bring up the Mantuansthrough San Biagiosafe! "Ah, the mad people waken? Ah, they writhe "And reach us? If they block the gate? No tithe "Can passkeep back, you Bassanese! The edge, "Use the edgeshear, thrust, hew, melt down the wedge, "Let out the black of those black upturned eyes! "Hellare they sprinkling fire too? The blood fries "And hisses on your brass gloves as they tear "Those upturned faces choking with despair. "Brave! Slidder through the reeking gate! `How now? "'You six had charge of her?' And then the vow "Comes, and the foam spirts, hair's plucked, till one shriek "(I hear it) and you flingyou cannot speak "Your gold-flowered basnet to a man who haled "The Adelaide he dared scarce view unveiled "This morn, naked across the fire: how crown "The archer that exhausted lays you down "Your infant, smiling at the flame, and dies? "While one, while mine . . .                "Bacchus! I think there lies "More than one corpse there" (and he paced the room) "Another cinder somewhere: 't was my doom "Beside, my doom! If Adelaide is dead, "I live the same, this Azzo lives instead "Of that to me, and we pull, any how, "Este into a heap: the matter 's now "At the true juncture slipping us so oft. "Ay, Heinrich died and Otho, please you, doffed "His crown at such a juncture! Still, if hold "Our Friedrich's purpose, if this chain enfold "The neck of . . . who but this same Ecelin "That must recoil when the best days begin! "Recoil? that 's nought; if the recoiler leaves "His name for me to fight with, no one grieves: "But he must interfere, forsooth, unlock "His cloister to become my stumbling-block "Just as of old! Ay, ay, there 't is again "The land's inevitable Headexplain "The reverences that subject us! Count "These Ecelins now! Not to say as fount, "Originating power of thought,from twelve "That drop i' the trenches they joined hands to delve, "Six shall surpass him, but . . . why men must twine "Somehow with something! Ecelin 's a fine "Clear name! 'Twere simpler, doubtless, twine with me "At once: our cloistered friend's capacity "Was of a sort! I had to share myself "In fifty portions, like an o'ertasked elf "That 's forced illume in fifty points the vast "Rare vapour he 's environed by. At last "My strengths, though sorely frittered, e'en converge "And crown . . . no, Bacchus, they have yet to urge "The man be crowned!            "That aloe, an he durst, "Would climb! Just such a bloated sprawler first "I noted in Messina's castle-court "The day I came, when Heinrich asked in sport "If I would pledge my faith to win him back "His right in Lombardy: 'for, once bid pack "Marauders,' he continued, `in my stead "'You rule, Taurello!' and upon this head `Laid the silk glove of ConstanceI see her "Too, mantled head to foot in miniver, "Retrude following!           "I am absolved "From further toil: the empery devolved "On me, 't was Tito's word: I have to lay "For once my plan, pursue my plan my way, "Prompt nobody, and render an account "Taurello to Taurello! Nay, I mount "To Friedrich: he conceives the post I kept, "Who did true service, able or inept, "Who 's worthy guerdon, Ecelin or I. "Me guerdoned, counsel follows: would he vie "With the Pope really? Azzo, Boniface "Compose a right-arm Hohenstauffen's race "Must break ere govern Lombardy. I point "How easy 't were to twist, once out of joint, "The socket from the bone: my Azzo's stare "Meanwhile! for I, this idle strap to wear, "Shallfret myself abundantly, what end "To serve? There 's left me twenty years to spend "How better than my old way? Had I one "Who laboured overthrow my worka son "Hatching with Azzo superb treachery, "To root my pines up and then poison me, "Suppose't were worth while frustrate that! Beside, "Another life's ordained me: the world's tide "Rolls, and what hope of parting from the press "Of waves, a single wave though weariness "Gently lifted aside, laid upon shore? "My life must be lived out in foam and roar, "No question. Fifty years the province held "Taurello; troubles raised, and troubles quelled, "He in the midstwho leaves this quaint stone place, "These trees a year or two, then not a trace "Of him! How obtain hold, fetter men's tongues "Like this poor minstrel with the foolish songs "To which, despite our bustle, he is linked? "Flowers one may teaze, that never grow extinct. "Ay, that patch, surely, green as ever, where "I set Her Moorish lentisk, by the stair, "To overawe the aloes; and we trod "Those flowers, how call you such?into the sod; "A stately foreignera world of pain "To make it thrive, arrest rough windsall vain! "It would decline; these would not be destroyed: "And now, where is it? where can you avoid "The flowers? I frighten children twenty years "Longer!which way, too, Ecelin appears "To thwart me, for his son's besotted youth "Gives promise of the proper tigertooth: "They feel it at Vicenza! Fate, fate, fate, "My fine Taurello! Go you, promulgate "Friedrich's decree, and here 's shall aggrandise "Young Ecelinyour Prefect's badge! a prize "Too precious, certainly.              "How now? Compete "With my old comrade? shuffle from their seat "His children? Paltry dealing! Do n't I know "Ecelin? now, I think, and years ago! "What 's changedthe weakness? did not I compound "For that, and undertake to keep him sound "Despite it? Here 's Taurello hankering "After a boy's prefermentthis plaything "To carry, Bacchus!" And he laughed.                    Remark Why schemes wherein cold-blooded men embark Prosper, when your enthusiastic sort Fail: while these last are ever stopping short (So much they shouldso little they can do!) The careless tribe see nothing to pursue If they desist; meantime their scheme succeeds. Thoughts were caprices in the course of deeds Methodic with Taurello; so, he turned, Enough amused by fancies fairly earned Of Este's horror-struck submitted neck, And Richard, the cowed braggart, at his beck, To his own petty but immediate doubt If he could pacify the League without Conceding Richard; just to this was brought That interval of vain discursive thought! As, shall I say, some Ethiop, past pursuit Of all enslavers, dips a shackled foot Burnt to the blood, into the drowsy black Enormous watercourse which guides him back To his own tribe again, where he is king; And laughs because he guesses, numbering The yellower poison-wattles on the pouch Of the first lizard wrested from its couch Under the slime (whose skin, the while, he strips To cure his nostril with, and festered lips, And eyeballs bloodshot through the desert-blast) That he has reached its boundary, at last May breathe;thinks o'er enchantments of the South Sovereign to plague his enemies, their mouth, Eyes, nails, and hair; but, these enchantments tried In fancy, puts them soberly aside For truth, projects a cool return with friends, The likelihood of winning mere amends Ere long; thinks that, takes comfort silently, Then, from the river's brink, his wrongs and he, Hugging revenge close to their hearts, are soon Off-striding for the Mountains of the Moon. Midnight: the watcher nodded on his spear, Since clouds dispersing left a passage clear For any meagre and discoloured moon To venture forth; and such was peering soon Above the harassed cityher close lanes Closer, not half so tapering her fanes, As though she shrunk into herself to keep What little life was saved, more safely. Heap By heap the watch-fires mouldered, and beside The blackest spoke Sordello and replied Palma with none to listen. "'T is your cause: "What makes a Ghibellin? There should be laws "(Remember how my youth escaped! I trust "To you for manhood, Palma! tell me just "As any child)there must be laws at work "Explaining this. Assure me, good may lurk "Under the bad,my multitude has part "In your designs, their welfare is at heart "With Salinguerra, to their interest "Refer the deeds he dwelt on,so divest "Our conference of much that scared me. Why "Affect that heartless tone to Tito? I "Esteemed myself, yes, in my inmost mind "This morn, a recreant to my racemankind "O'erlooked till now: why boast my spirit's force, "Such force denied its object? why divorce "These, then admire my spirit's flight the same "As though it bore up, helped some half-orbed flame "Else quenched in the dead void, to living space? "That orb cast off to chaos and disgrace, "Why vaunt so much my unencumbered dance, "Making a feat's facilities enhance "Its marvel? But I front Taurello, one "Of happier fate, and all I should have done, "He does; the people's good being paramount "With him, their progress may perhaps account "For his abiding still; whereas you heard "The talk with Titothe excuse preferred "For burning those five hostages,and broached "By way of blind, as you and I approached, "I do believe."         She spoke: then he, "My thought "Plainlier expressed! All to your profitnought "Meantime of these, of conquests to achieve "For them, of wretchedness he might relieve "While profiting your party. Azzo, too, "Supports a cause: what cause? Do Guelfs pursue "Their ends by means like yours, or better?"                        When The Guelfs were proved alike, men weighed with men, And deed with deed, blaze, blood, with blood and blaze, Morn broke: "Once more, Sordello, meet its gaze "Proudlythe people's charge against thee fails "In every point, while either party quails! "These are the busy ones: be silent thou! "Two parties take the world up, and allow "No third, yet have one principle, subsist "By the same injustice; whoso shall enlist "With either, ranks with man's inveterate foes. "So there is one less quarrel to compose: "The Guelf, the Ghibellin may be to curse "I have done nothing, but both sides do worse "Than nothing. Nay, to me, forgotten, reft "Of insight, lapped by trees and flowers, was left "The notion of a serviceha? What lured "Me here, what mighty aim was I assured "Must move Taurello? What if there remained "A cause, intact, distinct from these, ordained "For me, its true discoverer?"                 Some one pressed Before them here, a watcher, to suggest The subject for a ballad: "They must know "The tale of the dead worthy, long ago "Consul of Romethat 's long ago for us, "Minstrels and bowmen, idly squabbling thus `In the world's cornerbut too late no doubt, "For the brave time he sought to bring about. "Not know Crescentius Nomentanus?" Then He cast about for terms to tell him, when Sordello disavowed it, how they used Whenever their Superior introduced A novice to the Brotherhood("for I "Was just a brown-sleeve brother, merrily "Appointed too," quoth he, "till Innocent "Bade me relinquish, to my small content, "My wife or my brown sleeves")some brother spoke Ere nocturns of Crescentius, to revoke The edict issued, after his demise, Which blotted fame alike and effigies, All out except a floating power, a name Including, tending to produce the same Great act. Rome, dead, forgotten, lived at least Within that brain, though to a vulgar priest And a vile stranger,two not worth a slave Of Rome's, Pope John, King Otho,fortune gave The rule there: so, Crescentius, haply dressed In white, called Roman Consul for a jest, Taking the people at their word, forth stepped As upon Brutus' heel, nor ever kept Rome waiting,stood erect, and from his brain Gave Rome out on its ancient place again, Ay, bade proceed with Brutus' Rome, Kings styled Themselves mere citizens of, and, beguiled Into great thoughts thereby, would choose the gem Out of a lapfull, spoil their diadem The Senate's cypher was so hard to scratch He flashes like a phanal, all men catch The flame, Rome 's just accomplished! when returned Otho, with John, the Consul's step had spurned, And Hugo Lord of Este, to redress The wrongs of each. Crescentius in the stress Of adverse fortune bent. "They crucified "Their Consul in the Forum; and abide "E'er since such slaves at Rome, that I(for I "Was once a brown-sleeve brother, merrily "Appointed)I had option to keep wife "Or keep brown sleeves, and managed in the strife "Lose both. A song of Rome!"                And Rome, indeed, Robed at Goito in fantastic weed, The Mother-City of his Mantuan days, Looked an established point of light whence rays Traversed the world; for, all the clustered homes Beside of men, seemed bent on being Romes In their degree; the question was, how each Should most resemble Rome, clean out of reach. Nor, of the Two, did either principle Struggle to change, but to possess Rome,still Guelf Rome or Ghibellin Rome.                Let Rome advance! Rome, as she struck Sordello's ignorance How could he doubt one moment? Rome 's the Cause! Rome of the Pandects, all the world's new laws Of the Capitol, of Castle Angelo; New structures, that inordinately glow, Subdued, brought back to harmony, made ripe By many a relic of the archetype Extant for wonder; every upstart church That hoped to leave old temples in the lurch, Corrected by the Theatre forlorn That,as a mundane shell, its world late born, Lay and o'ershadowed it. These hints combined, Rome typifies the scheme to put mankind Once more in full possession of their rights. "Let us have Rome again! On me it lights "To build up Romeon me, the first and last: "For such a future was endured the past!" And thus, in the grey twilight, forth he sprung To give his thought consistency among The very Peoplelet their facts avail Finish the dream grown from the archer's tale. ~ Robert Browning, Sordello - Book the Fourth ,

895: Ilion Book I: The Book of the Herald Dawn in her journey eternal compelling the labour of mortals, Dawn the beginner of things with the night for their rest or their ending, Pallid and bright-lipped arrived from the mists and the chill of the Euxine. Earth in the dawn-fire delivered from starry and shadowy vastness Woke to the wonder of life and its passion and sorrow and beauty, All on her bosom sustaining, the patient compassionate Mother. Out of the formless vision of Night with its look on things hidden Given to the gaze of the azure she lay in her garment of greenness, Wearing light on her brow. In the dawn-ray lofty and voiceless Ida climbed with her god-haunted peaks into diamond lustres, Ida first of the hills with the ranges silent beyond her Watching the dawn in their giant companies, as since the ages First began they had watched her, upbearing Time on their summits. Troas cold on her plain awaited the boon of the sunshine. There, like a hope through an emerald dream sole-pacing for ever, Stealing to wideness beyond, crept Simois lame in his currents, Guiding his argent thread mid the green of the reeds and the grasses. Headlong, impatient of Space and its boundaries, Time and its slowness, Xanthus clamoured aloud as he ran to the far-surging waters, Joining his call to the many-voiced roar of the mighty Aegean, Answering Oceans limitless cry like a whelp to its parent. Forests looked up through their rifts, the ravines grew aware of their shadows. Closer now gliding glimmered the golden feet of the goddess. Over the hills and the headlands spreading her garment of splendour, Fateful she came with her eyes impartial looking on all things, Bringer to man of the day of his fortune and day of his downfall. Full of her luminous errand, careless of eve and its weeping, Fateful she paused unconcerned above Ilions mysteried greatness, Domes like shimmering tongues of the crystal flames of the morning, Opalesque rhythm-line of tower-tops, notes of the lyre of the sungod. High over all that a nation had built and its love and its laughter, Lighting the last time highway and homestead, market and temple, Looking on men who must die and women destined to sorrow, Looking on beauty fire must lay low and the sickle of slaughter, Fateful she lifted the doom-scroll red with the script of the Immortals, Deep in the invisible air that folds in the race and its morrows Fixed it, and passed on smiling the smile of the griefless and deathless, Dealers of death though death they know not, who in the morning Scatter the seed of the event for the reaping ready at nightfall. Over the brooding of plains and the agelong trance of the summits Out of the sun and its spaces she came, pausing tranquil and fatal, And, at a distance followed by the golden herds of the sungod, Carried the burden of Light and its riddle and danger to Hellas. Even as fleets on a chariot divine through the gold streets of ether, Swiftly when Life fleets, invisibly changing the arc of the soul-drift, And, with the choice that has chanced or the fate man has called and now suffers Weighted, the moment travels driving the past towards the future, Only its face and its feet are seen, not the burden it carries. Weight of the event and its surface we bear, but the meaning is hidden. Earth sees not; lifes clamour deafens the ear of the spirit: Man knows not; least knows the messenger chosen for the summons. Only he listens to the voice of his thoughts, his hearts ignorant whisper, Whistle of winds in the tree-tops of Time and the rustle of Nature. Now too the messenger hastened driving the car of the errand: Even while dawn was a gleam in the east, he had cried to his coursers. Half yet awake in lights turrets started the scouts of the morning Hearing the jar of the wheels and the throb of the hooves exultation, Hooves of the horses of Greece as they galloped to Phrygian Troya. Proudly they trampled through Xanthus thwarting the foam of his anger, Whinnying high as in scorn crossed Simois tangled currents, Xanthus reed-girdled twin, the gentle and sluggard river. One and unarmed in the car was the driver; grey was he, shrunken, Worn with his decades. To Pergama cinctured with strength Cyclopean Old and alone he arrived, insignificant, feeblest of mortals, Carrying Fate in his helpless hands and the doom of an empire. Ilion, couchant, saw him arrive from the sea and the darkness. Heard mid the faint slow stirrings of life in the sleep of the city, Rapid there neared a running of feet, and the cry of the summons Beat round the doors that guarded the domes of the splendour of Priam. Wardens charged with the night, ye who stand in Laomedons gateway, Waken the Ilian kings. Talthybius, herald of Argos, Parleying stands at the portals of Troy in the grey of the dawning. High and insistent the call. In the dimness and hush of his chamber Charioted far in his dreams amid visions of glory and terror, Scenes of a vivider world,though blurred and deformed in the brain-cells, Vague and inconsequent, there full of colour and beauty and greatness, Suddenly drawn by the pull of the conscious thread of the earth-bond And of the needs of Time and the travail assigned in the transience Warned by his body, Deiphobus, reached in that splendid remoteness, Touched through the nerve-ways of life that branch to the brain of the dreamer, Heard the terrestrial call and slumber startled receded Sliding like dew from the mane of a lion. Reluctant he travelled Back from the light of the fields beyond death, from the wonderful kingdoms Where he had wandered a soul among souls in the countries beyond us, Free from the toil and incertitude, free from the struggle and danger: Now, compelled, he returned from the respite given to the time-born, Called to the strife and the wounds of the earth and the burden of daylight. He from the carven couch upreared his giant stature. Haste-spurred he laved his eyes and regained earths memories, haste-spurred Donning apparel and armour strode through the town of his fathers, Watched by her gods on his way to his fate, towards Pergamas portals. Nine long years had passed and the tenth now was wearily ending, Years of the wrath of the gods, and the leaguer still threatened the ramparts Since through a tranquil morn the ships came past Tenedos sailing And the first Argive fell slain as he leaped on the Phrygian beaches; Still the assailants attacked, still fought back the stubborn defenders. When the reward is withheld and endlessly leng thens the labour, Weary of fruitless toil grows the transient heart of the mortal. Weary of battle the invaders warring hearthless and homeless Prayed to the gods for release and return to the land of their fathers: Weary of battle the Phrygians beset in their beautiful city Prayed to the gods for an end of the danger and mortal encounter. Long had the high-beached ships forgotten their measureless ocean. Greece seemed old and strange to her children camped on the beaches, Old like a life long past one remembers hardly believing But as a dream that has happened, but as the tale of another. Time with his tardy touch and Nature changing our substance Slowly had dimmed the faces loved and the scenes once cherished: Yet was the dream still dear to them longing for wife and for children, Longing for hearth and glebe in the far-off valleys of Hellas. Always like waves that swallow the shingles, lapsing, returning, Tide of the battle, race of the onset relentlessly thundered Over the Phrygian corn-fields. Trojan wrestled with Argive, Caria, Lycia, Thrace and the war-lord mighty Achaia Joined in the clasp of the fight. Death, panic and wounds and disaster, Glory of conquest and glory of fall, and the empty hearth-side, Weeping and fortitude, terror and hope and the pang of remembrance, Anguish of hearts, the lives of the warriors, the strength of the nations Thrown were like weights into Destinys scales, but the balance wavered Pressed by invisible hands. For not only the mortal fighters, Heroes half divine whose names are like stars in remoteness, Triumphed and failed and were winds or were weeds on the dance of the surges, But from the peaks of Olympus and shimmering summits of Ida Gleaming and clanging the gods of the antique ages descended. Hidden from human knowledge the brilliant shapes of Immortals Mingled unseen in the mellay, or sometimes, marvellous, maskless, Forms of undying beauty and power that made tremble the heart-strings Parting their deathless secrecy crossed through the borders of vision, Plain as of old to the demigods out of their glory emerging, Heard by mortal ears and seen by the eyeballs that perish. Mighty they came from their spaces of freedom and sorrowless splendour. Sea-vast, trailing the azure hem of his clamorous waters, Blue-lidded, maned with the Night, Poseidon smote for the future, Earth-shaker who with his trident releases the coils of the Dragon, Freeing the forces unborn that are locked in the caverns of Nature. Calm and unmoved, upholding the Word that is Fate and the order Fixed in the sight of a Will foreknowing and silent and changeless, Hera sent by Zeus and Athene lifting his aegis Guarded the hidden decree. But for Ilion, loud as the surges, Ares impetuous called to the fire in mens hearts, and his passion Woke in the shadowy depths the forms of the Titan and demon; Dumb and coerced by the grip of the gods in the abyss of the being, Formidable, veiled they sit in the grey subconscient darkness Watching the sleep of the snake-haired Erinnys. Miracled, haloed, Seer and magician and prophet who beholds what the thought cannot witness, Lifting the godhead within us to more than a human endeavour, Slayer and saviour, thinker and mystic, leaped from his sun-peaks Guarding in Ilion the wall of his mysteries Delphic Apollo. Heavens strengths divided swayed in the whirl of the Earth-force. All that is born and destroyed is reborn in the sweep of the ages; Life like a decimal ever recurring repeats the old figure; Goal seems there none for the ball that is chased throughout Time by the Fate-teams; Evil once ended renews and no issue comes out of living: Only an Eye unseen can distinguish the thread of its workings. Such seemed the rule of the pastime of Fate on the plains of the Troad; All went backwards and forwards tossed in the swing of the death-game. Vain was the toil of the heroes, the blood of the mighty was squandered, Spray as of surf on the cliffs when it moans unappeased, unrequited Age after fruitless age. Day hunted the steps of the nightfall; Joy succeeded to grief; defeat only greatened the vanquished, Victory offered an empty delight without guerdon or profit. End there was none of the effort and end there was none of the failure. Triumph and agony changing hands in a desperate measure Faced and turned as a man and a maiden trampling the grasses Face and turn and they laugh in their joy of the dance and each other. These were gods and they trampled lives. But though Time is immortal, Mortal his works are and ways and the anguish ends like the rapture. Artists of Nature content with their work in the plan of the transience, Beautiful, deathless, august, the Olympians turned from the carnage, Leaving the battle already decided, leaving the heroes Slain in their minds, Troy burned, Greece left to her glory and downfall. Into their heavens they rose up mighty like eagles ascending Fanning the world with their wings. As the great to their luminous mansions Turn from the cry and the strife, forgetting the wounded and fallen, Calm they repose from their toil and incline to the joy of the banquet, Watching the feet of the wine-bearers rosily placed on the marble, Filling their hearts with ease, so they to their sorrowless ether Passed from the wounded earth and its air that is ploughed with mens anguish; Calm they reposed and their hearts inclined to the joy and the silence. Lifted was the burden laid on our wills by their starry presence: Man was restored to his smallness, the world to its inconscient labour. Life felt a respite from height, the winds breathed freer delivered; Light was released from their blaze and the earth was released from their greatness. But their immortal content from the struggle titanic departed. Vacant the noise of the battle roared like the sea on the shingles; Wearily hunted the spears their quarry; strength was disheartened; Silence increased with the march of the months on the tents of the leaguer. But not alone on the Achaians the steps of the moments fell heavy; Slowly the shadow deepened on Ilion mighty and scornful: Dragging her days went by; in the rear of the hearts of her people Something that knew what they dared not know and the mind would not utter, Something that smote at her soul of defiance and beauty and laughter, Darkened the hours. For Doom in her sombre and giant uprising Neared, assailing the skies: the sense of her lived in all pastimes; Time was pursued by unease and a terror woke in the midnight: Even the ramparts felt her, stones that the gods had erected. Now no longer she dallied and played, but bounded and hastened, Seeing before her the end and, imagining massacre calmly, Laughed and admired the flames and rejoiced in the cry of the captives. Under her, dead to the watching immortals, Deiphobus hastened Clanging in arms through the streets of the beautiful insolent city, Brilliant, a gleaming husk but empty and left by the daemon. Even as a star long extinguished whose light still travels the spaces, Seen in its form by men, but itself goes phantom-like fleeting Void and null and dark through the uncaring infinite vastness, So now he seemed to the sight that sees all things from the Real. Timeless its vision of Time creates the hour by things coming. Borne on a force from the past and no more by a power for the future Mighty and bright was his body, but shadowy the shape of his spirit Only an eidolon seemed of the being that had lived in him, fleeting Vague like a phantom seen by the dim Acherontian waters. But to the guardian towers that watched over Pergamas gateway Out of the waking city Deiphobus swiftly arriving Called, and swinging back the huge gates slowly, reluctant, Flung Troy wide to the entering Argive. Ilions portals Parted admitting her destiny, then with a sullen and iron Cry they closed. Mute, staring, grey like a wolf descended Old Talthybius, propping his steps on the staff of his errand; Feeble his body, but fierce still his glance with the fire within him; Speechless and brooding he gazed on the hated and coveted city. Suddenly, seeking heaven with her buildings hewn as for Titans, Marvellous, rhythmic, a child of the gods with marble for raiment, Smiting the vision with harmony, splendid and mighty and golden, Ilion stood up around him entrenched in her giant defences. Strength was uplifted on strength and grandeur supported by grandeur; Beauty lay in her lap. Remote, hieratic and changeless, Filled with her deeds and her dreams her gods looked out on the Argive, Helpless and dumb with his hate as he gazed on her, they too like mortals Knowing their centuries past, not knowing the morrow before them. Dire were his eyes upon Troya the beautiful, his face like a doom-mask: All Greece gazed in them, hated, admired, grew afraid, grew relentless. But to the Greek Deiphobus cried and he turned from his passion Fixing his ominous eyes with the god in them straight on the Trojan: Messenger, voice of Achaia, wherefore confronting the daybreak Comest thou driving thy car from the sleep of the tents that besiege us? Fateful, I deem, was the thought that, conceived in the silence of midnight, Raised up thy aged limbs from the couch of their rest in the stillness, Thoughts of a mortal but forged by the Will that uses our members And of its promptings our speech and our acts are the tools and the image. Oft from the veil and the shadow they leap out like stars in their brightness, Lights that we think our own, yet they are but tokens and counters, Signs of the Forces that flow through us serving a Power that is secret. What in the dawning bringst thou to Troya the mighty and dateless Now in the ending of Time when the gods are weary of struggle? Sends Agamemnon challenge or courtesy, Greek, to the Trojans? High like the northwind answered the voice of the doom from Achaia: Trojan Deiphobus, daybreak, silence of night and the evening Sink and arise and even the strong sun rests from his splendour. Not for the servant is rest nor Time is his, only his death-pyre. I have not come from the monarch of men or the armoured assembly Held on the wind-swept marge of the thunder and laughter of ocean. One in his singleness greater than kings and multitudes sends me. I am a voice out of Phthia, I am the will of the Hellene. Peace in my right I bring to you, death in my left hand. Trojan, Proudly receive them, honour the gifts of the mighty Achilles. Death accept, if Ate deceives you and Doom is your lover, Peace if your fate can turn and the god in you chooses to hearken. Full is my heart and my lips are impatient of speech undelivered. It was not made for the streets or the market, nor to be uttered Meanly to common ears, but where counsel and majesty harbour Far from the crowd in the halls of the great and to wisdom and foresight Secrecy whispers, there I will speak among Ilions princes. Envoy, answered the Laomedontian, voice of Achilles, Vain is the offer of peace that sets out with a threat for its prelude. Yet will we hear thee. Arise who are fleetest of foot in the gateway, Thou, Thrasymachus, haste. Let the domes of the mansion of Ilus Wake to the bruit of the Hellene challenge. Summon Aeneas. Even as the word sank back into stillness, doffing his mantle Started to run at the bidding a swift-footed youth of the Trojans First in the race and the battle, Thrasymachus son of Aretes. He in the dawn disappeared into swiftness. Deiphobus slowly, Measuring Fate with his thoughts in the troubled vasts of his spirit, Back through the stir of the city returned to the house of his fathers, Taming his mighty stride to the pace infirm of the Argive. But with the god in his feet Thrasymachus rapidly running Came to the halls in the youth of the wonderful city by Ilus Built for the joy of the eye; for he rested from war and, triumphant, Reigned adored by the prostrate nations. Now when all ended, Last of its mortal possessors to walk in its flowering gardens, Great Anchises lay in that luminous house of the ancients Soothing his restful age, the far-warring victor Anchises, High Bucoleons son and the father of Rome by a goddess; Lonely and vagrant once in his boyhood divine upon Ida White Aphrodite ensnared him and she loosed her ambrosial girdle Seeking a mortals love. On the threshold Thrasymachus halted Looking for servant or guard, but felt only a loneness of slumber Drawing the souls sight within away from its life and things human; Soundless, unheeding, the vacant corridors fled into darkness. He to the shades of the house and the dreams of the echoing rafters Trusted his high-voiced call, and from chambers still dim in their twilight Strong Aeneas armoured and mantled, leonine striding, Came, Anchises son; for the dawn had not found him reposing, But in the night he had left his couch and the clasp of Cresa, Rising from sleep at the call of his spirit that turned to the waters Prompted by Fate and his mother who guided him, white Aphrodite. Still with the impulse of speed Thrasymachus greeted Aeneas: Hero Aeneas, swift be thy stride to the Ilian hill-top. Dardanid, haste! for the gods are at work; they have risen with the morning, Each from his starry couch, and they labour. Doom, we can see it, Glows on their anvils of destiny, clang we can hear of their hammers. Something they forge there sitting unknown in the silence eternal, Whether of evil or good it is they who shall choose who are masters Calm, unopposed; they are gods and they work out their iron caprices. Troy is their stage and Argos their background; we are their puppets. Always our voices are prompted to speech for an end that we know not, Always we think that we drive, but are driven. Action and impulse, Yearning and thought are their engines, our will is their shadow and helper. Now too, deeming he comes with a purpose framed by a mortal, Shaft of their will they have shot from the bow of the Grecian leaguer, Lashing themselves at his steeds, Talthybius sent by Achilles. Busy the gods are always, Thrasymachus son of Aretes, Weaving Fate on their looms, and yesterday, now and tomorrow Are but the stands they have made with Space and Time for their timber, Frame but the dance of their shuttle. What eye unamazed by their workings Ever can pierce where they dwell and uncover their far-stretching purpose? Silent they toil, they are hid in the clouds, they are wrapped with the midnight. Yet to Apollo I pray, the Archer friendly to mortals, Yet to the rider on Fate I abase myself, wielder of thunder, Evil and doom to avert from my fatherland. All night Morpheus, He who with shadowy hands heaps error and truth upon mortals, Stood at my pillow with images. Dreaming I erred like a phantom Helpless in Ilions streets with the fire and the foeman around me. Red was the smoke as it mounted triumphant the house-top of Priam, Clang of the arms of the Greeks was in Troya, and thwarting the clangour Voices were crying and calling me over the violent Ocean Borne by the winds of the West from a land where Hesperus harbours. Brooding they ceased, for their thoughts grew heavy upon them and voiceless. Then, in a farewell brief and unthought and unconscious of meaning, Parting they turned to their tasks and their lives now close but soon severed: Destined to perish even before his perishing nation, Back to his watch at the gate sped Thrasymachus rapidly running; Large of pace and swift, but with eyes absorbed and unseeing, Driven like a car of the gods by the whip of his thoughts through the highways, Turned to his mighty future the hero born of a goddess. One was he chosen to ascend into greatness through fall and disaster, Loser of his world by the will of a heaven that seemed ruthless and adverse, Founder of a newer and greater world by daring adventure. Now, from the citadels rise with the townships crowding below it High towards a pondering of domes and the mystic Palladium climbing, Fronted with the morning ray and joined by the winds of the ocean, Fate-weighed up Troys slope strode musing strong Aeneas. Under him silent the slumbering roofs of the city of Ilus Dreamed in the light of the dawn; above watched the citadel, sleepless Lonely and strong like a goddess white-limbed and bright on a hill-top, Looking far out at the sea and the foe and the prowling of danger. Over the brow he mounted and saw the palace of Priam, Home of the gods of the earth, Laomedons marvellous vision Held in the thought that accustomed his will to unearthly achievement And in the blaze of his spirit compelling heaven with its greatness, Dreamed by the harp of Apollo, a melody caught into marble. Out of his mind it arose like an epic canto by canto; Each of its halls was a strophe, its chambers lines of an epode, Victor chant of Ilions destiny. Absent he entered, Voiceless with thought, the brilliant megaron crowded with paintings, Paved with a splendour of marble, and saw Deiphobus seated, Son of the ancient house by the opulent hearth of his fathers, And at his side like a shadow the grey and ominous Argive. Happy of light like a lustrous star when it welcomes the morning, Brilliant, beautiful, glamoured with gold and a fillet of gem-fire, Paris, plucked from the song and the lyre by the Grecian challenge, Came with the joy in his face and his eyes that Fate could not alter. Ever a child of the dawn at play near a turn of the sun-roads, Facing destinys look with the careless laugh of a comrade, He with his vision of delight and beauty brightening the earth-field Passed through its peril and grief on his way to the ambiguous Shadow. Last from her chamber of sleep where she lay in the Ilian mansion Far in the heart of the house with the deep-bosomed daughters of Priam, Noble and tall and erect in a nimbus of youth and of glory, Claiming the world and life as a fief of her strength and her courage, Dawned through a doorway that opened to distant murmurs and laughter, Capturing the eye like a smile or a sunbeam, Penthesilea. She from the threshold cried to the herald, crossing the marble, Regal and fleet, with her voice that was mighty and dire in its sweetness. What with such speed has impelled from the wind-haunted beaches of Troas, Herald, thy car though the sun yet hesitates under the mountains? Comest thou humbler to Troy, Talthybius, now than thou camest Once when the streams of my East sang low to my ear, not this Ocean Loud, and I roamed in my mountains uncalled by the voice of Apollo? Bringest thou dulcet-eyed peace or, sweeter to Penthesilea, Challenge of war when the spears fall thick on the shields of the fighters, Lightly the wheels leap onward chanting the anthem of Ares, Death is at work in his fields and the heart is enamoured of danger? What says Odysseus, the baffled Ithacan? what Agamemnon? Are they then weary of war who were rapid and bold and triumphant, Now that their gods are reluctant, now victory darts not from heaven Down from the clouds above Ida directing the luminous legions Armed by Fate, now Pallas forgets, now Poseidon slumbers? Bronze were their throats to the battle like bugles blaring in chorus; Mercy they knew not, but shouted and ravened and ran to the slaughter Eager as hounds when they chase, till a woman met them and stayed them, Loud my war-shout rang by Scamander. Herald of Argos, What say the vaunters of Greece to the virgin Penthesilea? High was the Argives answer confronting the mighty in Troya. Princes of Pergama, whelps of the lion who roar for the mellay, Suffer my speech! It shall ring like a spear on the hearts of the mighty. Blame not the herald; his voice is an impulse, an echo, a channel Now for the timbrels of peace and now for the drums of the battle. And I have come from no cautious strength, from no half-hearted speaker, But from the Phthian. All know him! Proud is his soul as his fortunes, Swift as his sword and his spear are the speech and the wrath from his bosom. I am his envoy, herald am I of the conquering Argives. Has not one heard in the night when the breezes whisper and shudder, Dire, the voice of a lion unsatisfied, gnawed by his hunger, Seeking his prey from the gods? For he prowls through the glens of the mountains, Errs a dangerous gleam in the woodlands, fatal and silent. So for a while he endures, for a while he seeks and he suffers Patient yet in his terrible grace as assured of his banquet; But he has lacked too long and he lifts his head and to heaven Roars in his wonder, incensed, impatiently. Startled the valleys Shrink from the dreadful alarum, the cattle gallop to shelter. Arming the herdsmen cry to each other for comfort and courage. So Talthybius spoke, as a harper voicing his prelude Touches his strings to a varied music, seeks for a concord; Long his strain he prepares. But one broke in on the speaker, Sweet was his voice like a harps though heard in the front of the onset, One of the sons of Fate by the people loved whom he ruined, Leader in counsel and battle, the Priamid, he in his beauty Carelessly walking who scattered the seeds of Titanic disaster. Surely thou dreamedst at night and awaking thy dreams have not left thee! Hast thou not woven thy words to intimidate children in Argos Sitting alarmed in the shadows who listen pale to their nurses? Greek, thou art standing in Ilion now and thou facest her princes. Use not thy words but thy kings. If friendship their honey-breathed burden, Friendship we clasp from Achilles, but challenge outpace with our challenge Meeting the foe ere he moves in his will to the clash of encounter. Such is the way of the Trojans since Phryx by the Hellespont halting Seated Troy on her hill with the Ocean for comrade and sister. Shaking in wrath his filleted head Talthybius answered: Princes, ye speak their words who drive you! Thus said Achilles: Rise, Talthybius, meet in her spaces the car of the morning; Challenge her coursers divine as they bound through the plains of the Troad. Hasten, let not the day wear gold ere thou stand in her ramparts. Herald charged with my will to a haughty and obstinate nation, Speak in the palace of Priam the word of the Phthian Achilles. Freely and not as his vassal who leads, Agamemnon, the Argive, But as a ruler in Hellas I send thee, king of my nations. Long I have walked apart from the mellay of gods in the Troad, Long has my listless spear leaned back on the peace of my tent-side, Deaf to the talk of the trumpets, the whine of the chariots speeding; Sole with my heart I have lived, unheeding the Hellene murmur, Chid when it roared for the hunt the lion pack of the war-god, Day after day I walked at dawn and in blush of the sunset, Far by the call of the seas and alone with the gods and my dreaming, Leaned to the unsatisfied chant of my heart and the rhythms of ocean, Sung to by hopes that were sweet-lipped and vain. For Polyxenas brothers Still are the brood of the Titan Laomedon slain in his greatness, Engines of God unable to bear all the might that they harbour. Awe they have chid from their hearts, nor our common humanity binds them, Stay have they none in the gods who approve, giving calmness to mortals: But like the Titans of old they have hugged to them grandeur and ruin. Seek then the race self-doomed, the leaders blinded by heaven Not in the agora swept by the winds of debate and the shoutings Lion-voiced, huge of the people! In Troyas high-crested mansion Speak out my word to the hero Deiphobus, head of the mellay, Paris the racer of doom and the stubborn strength of Aeneas. Herald of Greece, when thy feet shall be pressed on the gold and the marble, Rise in the Ilian megaron, curb not the cry of the challenge. Thus shalt thou say to them striking the ground with the staff of defiance, Fronting the tempests of war, the insensate, the gamblers with downfall. Princes of Troy, I have sat in your halls, I have slept in your chambers; Not in the battle alone as a warrior glad of his foemen, Glad of the strength that mates with his own, in peace we encountered. Marvelling I sat in the halls of my enemies, close to the bosoms Scarred by the dints of my sword and the eyes I had seen through the battle, Ate rejoicing the food of the East at the tables of Priam Served by the delicatest hands in the world, by Hecubas daughter, Or with our souls reconciled in some careless and rapturous midnight Drank of the sweetness of Phrygian wine, admiring your bodies Shaped by the gods indeed, and my spirit revolted from hatred, Softening it yearned in its strings to the beauty and joy of its foemen, Yearned from the death that oertakes and the flame that cries and desires Even at the end to save and even on the verge to deliver Troy and her wonderful works and her sons and her deep-bosomed daughters. Warned by the gods who reveal to the heart what the mind cannot hearken Deaf with its thoughts, I offered you friendship, I offered you bridal, Hellas for comrade, Achilles for brother, the world for enjoyment Won by my spear. And one heard my call and one turned to my seeking. Why is it then that the war-cry sinks not to rest by the Xanthus? We are not voices from Argolis, Lacedaemonian tricksters, Splendid and subtle and false; we are speakers of truth, we are Hellenes, Men of the northl and faithful in friendship and noble in anger, Strong like our fathers of old. But you answered my truth with evasion Hoping to seize what I will not yield and you flattered your people. Long have I waited for wisdom to dawn on your violent natures. Lonely I paced oer the sands by the thousand-throated waters Praying to Pallas the wise that the doom might turn from your mansions, Buildings delightful, gracious as rhythms, lyrics in marble, Works of the transient gods, and I yearned for the end of the war-din Hoping that Death might relent to the beautiful sons of the Trojans. Far from the cry of the spears, from the speed and the laughter of axles, Heavy upon me like iron the intolerable yoke of inaction Weighed like a load on a runner. The war-cry rose by Scamander; Xanthus was crossed on a bridge of the fallen, not by Achilles. Often I stretched out my hand to the spear, for the Trojan beaches Rang with the voice of Deiphobus shouting and slaying the Argives; Often my heart like an anxious mother for Greece and her children Leaped, for the air was full of the leonine roar of Aeneas. Always the evening fell or the gods protected the Argives. Then by the moat of the ships, on the hither plain of the Xanthus New was the voice that climbed through the din and sailed on the breezes, High, insistent, clear, and it shouted an unknown war-cry Threatening doom to the peoples. A woman had come in to aid you, Regal and insolent, fair as the morning and fell as the northwind, Freed from the distaff who grasps at the sword and she spurns at subjection Breaking the rule of the gods. She is turbulent, swift in the battle. Clanging her voice of the swan as a summons to death and disaster, Fleet-footed, happy and pitiless, laughing she runs to the slaughter; Strong with the gait that allures she leaps from her car to the slaying, Dabbles in blood smooth hands like lilies. Europe astonished Reels from her shock to the Ocean. She is the panic and mellay, War is her paean, the chariots thunder of Penthesilea. Doom was her coming, it seems, to the men of the West and their legions; Ajax sleeps for ever, Meriones lies on the beaches. One by one they are falling before you, the great in Achaia. Ever the wounded are borne like the stream of the ants when they forage Past my ships, and they hush their moans as they near and in silence Gaze at the legions inactive accusing the fame of Achilles. Still have I borne with you, waited a little, looked for a summons, Longing for bridal torches, not flame on the Ilian housetops, Blood in the chambers of sweetness, the golden amorous city Swallowed by doom. Not broken I turned from the wrestle Titanic, Hopeless, weary of toil in the ebb of my glorious spirit, But from my stress of compassion for doom of the kindred nations, But for her sake whom my soul desires, for the daughter of Priam. And for Polyxenas sake I will speak to you yet as your lover Once ere the Fury, abrupt from Erebus, deaf to your crying, Mad with the joy of the massacre, seizes on wealth and on women Calling to Fire as it strides and Ilion sinks into ashes. Yield; for your doom is impatient. No longer your helpers hasten, Legions swift to your call; the yoke of your pride and your splendour Lies not now on the nations of earth as when Fortune desired you, Strength was your slave and Troya the lioness hungrily roaring Threatened the western world from her ramparts built by Apollo. Gladly released from the thraldom they hated, the insolent shackles Curbing their manhood the peoples arise and they pray for your ruin; Piled are their altars with gifts; their blessings help the Achaians. Memnon came, but he sleeps, and the faces swart of his nation Darken no more like a cloud over thunder and surge of the onset. Wearily Lycia fights; far fled are the Carian levies. Thrace retreats to her plains preferring the whistle of stormwinds Or on the banks of the Strymon to wheel in her Orphean measure, Not in the revel of swords and fronting the spears of the Hellenes. Princes of Pergama, open your gates to our Peace who would enter, Life in her gracious clasp and forgetfulness, grave of earths passions, Healer of wounds and the past. In a comity equal, Hellenic, Asia join with Greece, one world from the frozen rivers Trod by the hooves of the Scythian to farthest undulant Ganges. Tyndarid Helen resign, the desirable cause of your danger, Back to Greece that is empty long of her smile and her movements. Broider with riches her coming, pomp of her slaves and the waggons Endlessly groaning with gold that arrive with the ransom of nations. So shall the Fury be pacified, she who exultant from Sparta Breathed in the sails of the Trojan ravisher helping his oarsmen. So shall the gods be appeased and the thoughts of their wrath shall be cancelled, Justice contented trace back her steps and for brands of the burning Torches delightful shall break into Troy with the swords of the bridal. I like a bridegroom will seize on your city and clasp and defend her Safe from the envy of Argos, from Lacedaemonian hatred, Safe from the hunger of Crete and the Locrians violent rapine. But if you turn from my voice and you hearken only to Ares Crying for battle within you deluded by Hera and Pallas, Swiftly the fierce deaths surges shall close over Troy and her ramparts Built by the gods shall be stubble and earth to the tread of the Hellene. For to my tents I return not, I swear it by Zeus and Apollo, Master of Truth who sits within Delphi fathomless brooding Sole in the caverns of Nature and hearkens her underground murmur, Giving my oath to his keeping mute and stern who forgets not, Not from the panting of Ares toil to repose, from the wrestle Locked of hope and death in the ruthless clasp of the mellay Leaving again the Trojan ramparts unmounted, leaving Greece unavenged, the Aegean a lake and Europe a province. Choosing from Hellas exile, from Peleus and Deidamia, Choosing the field for my chamber of sleep and the battle for hearthside I shall go warring on till Asia enslaved to my footsteps Feels the tread of the God in my sandal pressed on her bosom. Rest shall I then when the borders of Greece are fringed with the Ganges; Thus shall the past pay its Titan ransom and, Fate her balance Changing, a continent ravished suffer the fortune of Helen. This I have sworn allying my will to Zeus and Ananke. So was it spoken, the Phthian challenge. Silent the heroes Looked back amazed on their past and into the night of their future. Silent their hearts felt a grasp from gods and had hints of the heavens. Hush was awhile in the room, as if Fate were trying her balance Poised on the thoughts of her mortals. At length with a musical laughter Sweet as the jangling of bells upon anklets leaping in measure Answered aloud to the gods the virgin Penthesilea. Long I had heard in my distant realms of the fame of Achilles, Ignorant still while I played with the ball and ran in the dances Thinking not ever to war; but I dreamed of the shock of the hero. So might a poet inland who imagines the rumour of Ocean, Yearn with his lust for the giant upheaval, the dance as of hill-tops, Toss of the yellow mane and the tawny march and the voices Lionlike claiming earth as a prey for the clamorous waters. So have I longed as I came for the cry and the speed of Achilles. But he has lurked in his ships, he has sulked like a boy that is angry. Glad am I now of his soul that arises hungry for battle, Glad, whether victor I live or defeated travel the shadows. Once shall my spear have rung on the shield of the Phthian Achilles. Peace I desire not. I came to a haughty and resolute nation, Honour and fame they cherish, not life by the gift of a foeman. Sons of the ancient house on whom Ilion looks as on Titans, Chiefs whom the world admires, do you fear then the shock of the Phthian? Gods, it is said, have decided your doom. Are you less in your greatness? Are you not gods to reverse their decrees or unshaken to suffer? Memnon is dead and the Carians leave you? Lycia lingers? But from the streams of my East I have come to you, Penthesilea. Virgin of Asia, answered Talthybius, doom of a nation Brought thee to Troy and her haters Olympian shielded thy coming, Vainly who feedest mens hearts with a hope that the gods have rejected. Doom in thy sweet voice utters her counsels robed like a woman. Answered the virgin disdainfully, wroth at the words of the Argive: Hast thou not ended the errand they gave thee, envoy of Hellas? Not, do I think, as our counsellor camst thou elected from Argos, Nor as a lover to Troy hast thou hastened with amorous footing Hurting thy heart with her frowardness. Hatred and rapine sent thee, Greed of the Ilian gold and lust of the Phrygian women, Voice of Achaian aggression! Doom am I truly; let Gnossus Witness it, Salamis speak of my fatal arrival and Argos Silent remember her wounds. But the Argive answered the virgin: Hearken then to the words of the Hellene, Penthesilea. Virgin to whom earths strongest are corn in the sweep of thy sickle, Lioness vain of thy bruit who besiegest the paths of the battle! Art thou not satiate yet? hast thou drunk then so little of slaughter? Death has ascended thy car; he has chosen thy hand for his harvest. But I have heard of thy pride and disdain, how thou scornest the Argives And of thy fate thou complainest that ever averse to thy wishes Cloisters the Phthian and matches with weaklings Penthesilea. Not of the Ithacan boar nor the wild-cat littered in Locris Nor of the sleek-coat Argive wild-bulls sates me the hunting; So hast thou said, I would bury my spear in the lion of Hellas. Blind and infatuate, art thou not beautiful, bright as the lightning? Were not thy limbs made cunningly linking sweetness to sweetness? Is not thy laughter an arrow surprising hearts imprudent? Charm is the seal of the gods upon woman. Distaff and girdle, Work of the jar at the well and the hush of our innermost chambers, These were appointed thee, but thou hast scorned them, O Titaness, grasping Rather the shield and the spear. Thou, obeying thy turbulent nature, Tramplest oer laws that are old to the pleasure thy heart has demanded. Rather bow to the ancient Gods who are seated and constant. But for thyself thou passest and what hast thou gained for the aeons Mingled with men in their works and depriving the age of thy beauty? Fair art thou, woman, but fair with a bitter and opposite sweetness Clanging in war when thou matchest thy voice with the shout of assemblies. Not to this end was thy sweetness made and the joy of thy members, Not to this rhythm Heaven tuned its pipe in thy throat of enchantment, Armoured like men to go warring forth and with hardness and fierceness Mix in the strife and the hate while the varied meaning of Nature Perishes hurt in its heart and life is emptied of music. Long have I marked in your world a madness. Monarchs descending Court the imperious mob of their slaves and their suppliant gesture Shameless and venal offends the majestic tradition of ages: Princes plead in the agora; spurred by the tongue of a coward, Heroes march to an impious war at a priestly bidding. Gold is sought by the great with the chaffering heart of the trader. Asia fails and the Gods are abandoning Ida for Hellas. Why must thou come here to perish, O noble and exquisite virgin, Here in a cause not thine, in a quarrel remote from thy beauty, Leaving a land that is lovely and far to be slain among strangers? Girl, to thy rivers go back and thy hills where the grapes are aspirant. Trust not a fate that indulges; for all things, Penthesilea, Break with excess and he is the wisest who walks by a measure. Yet, if thou wilt, thou shalt meet me today in the shock of the battle: There will I give thee the fame thou desirest; captive in Hellas, Men shall point to thee always, smiling and whispering, saying, This is the woman who fought with the Greeks, overthrowing their heroes; This is the slayer of Ajax, this is the slave of Achilles. Then with her musical laughter the fearless Penthesilea: Well do I hope that Achilles enslaved shall taste of that glory Or on the Phrygian fields lie slain by the spear of a woman. But to the herald Achaian the Priamid, leader of Troya: Rest in the halls of thy foes and ease thy fatigue and thy winters. Herald, abide till the people have heard and reply to Achilles. Not as the kings of the West are Ilions princes and archons, Monarchs of men who drive their nations dumb to the battle. Not in the palace of Priam and not in the halls of the mighty Whispered councils prevail and the few dispose of the millions; But with their nation consulting, feeling the hearts of the commons Ilions princes march to the war or give peace to their foemen. Lightning departs from her kings and the thunder returns from her people Met in the ancient assembly where Ilus founded his columns And since her famous centuries, names that the ages remember Leading her, Troya proclaims her decrees to obedient nations. Ceasing he cried to the thralls of his house and they tended the Argive. Brought to a chamber of rest in the luminous peace of the mansion, Grey he sat and endured the food and the wine of his foemen, Chiding his spirit that murmured within him and gazed undelighted, Vexed with the endless pomps of Laomedon. Far from those glories Memory winged it back to a sward half-forgotten, a village Nestling in leaves and low hills watching it crowned with the sunset. So for his hour he abode in earths palace of lordliest beauty, But in its caverns his heart was weary and, hurt by the splendours, Longed for Greece and the smoke-darkened roof of a cottage in Argos, Eyes of a woman faded and children crowding the hearthside. Joyless he rose and eastward expected the sunrise on Ida. *** ~ Sri Aurobindo, 1 - The Book of the Herald ,

896:Scene. Basil; a chamber in the house of Paracelsus. 1526. Paracelsus, Festus. Paracelsus. Heap logs and let the blaze laugh out! Festus.                      True, true! 'T is very fit all, time and chance and change Have wrought since last we sat thus, face to face And soul to soulall cares, far-looking fears, Vague apprehensions, all vain fancies bred By your long absence, should be cast away, Forgotten in this glad unhoped renewal Of our affections. Paracelsus.          Oh, omit not aught Which witnesses your own and Michal's own Affection: spare not that! Only forget The honours and the glories and what not, It pleases you to tell profusely out. Festus. Nay, even your honours, in a sense, I waive: The wondrous Paracelsus, life's dispenser, Fate's commissary, idol of the schools And courts, shall be no more than Aureole still, Still Aureole and my friend as when we parted Some twenty years ago, and I restrained As best I could the promptings of my spirit Which secretly advanced you, from the first, To the pre-eminent rank which, since, your own Adventurous ardour, nobly triumphing, Has won for you. Paracelsus.          Yes, yes. And Michal's face Still wears that quiet and peculiar light Like the dim circlet floating round a pearl? Festus. Just so. Paracelsus.     And yet her calm sweet countenance, Though saintly, was not sad; for she would sing Alone. Does she still sing alone, bird-like, Not dreaming you are near? Her carols dropt In flakes through that old leafy bower built under The sunny wall at Wrzburg, from her lattice Among the trees above, while I, unseen, Sat conning some rare scroll from Tritheim's shelves Much wondering notes so simple could divert My mind from study. Those were happy days. Respect all such as sing when all alone! Festus. Scarcely alone: her children, you may guess, Are wild beside her. Paracelsus.            Ah, those children quite Unsettle the pure picture in my mind: A girl, she was so perfect, so distinct: No change, no change! Not but this added grace May blend and harmonize with its compeers, And Michal may become her motherhood; But't is a change, and I detest all change, And most a change in aught I loved long since. So, Michalyou have said she thinks of me? Festus. O very proud will Michal be of you! Imagine how we sat, long winter-nights, Scheming and wondering, shaping your presumed Adventure, or devising its reward; Shutting out fear with all the strength of hope. For it was strange how, even when most secure In our domestic peace, a certain dim And flitting shade could sadden all; it seemed A restlessness of heart, a silent yearning, A sense of something wanting, incomplete Not to be put in words, perhaps avoided By mute consentbut, said or unsaid, felt To point to one so loved and so long lost. And then the hopes rose and shut out the fears How you would laugh should I recount them now I still predicted your return at last With gifts beyond the greatest of them all, All Tritheim's wondrous troop; did one of which Attain renown by any chance, I smiled, As well aware of who would prove his peer Michal was sure some woman, long ere this, As beautiful as you were sage, had loved . . . Paracelsus. Far-seeing, truly, to discern so much In the fantastic projects and day-dreams Of a raw restless boy! Festus.            Oh, no: the sunrise Well warranted our faith in this full noon! Can I forget the anxious voice which said "Festus, have thoughts like these ere shaped themselves "In other brains than mine? have their possessors "Existed in like circumstance? were they weak "As I, or ever constant from the first, "Despising youth's allurements and rejecting "As spider-films the shackles I endure? "Is there hope for me?"and I answered gravely As an acknowledged elder, calmer, wiser, More gifted mortal. O you must remember, For all your glorious . . . Paracelsus.                Glorious? ay, this hair, These handsnay, touch them, they are mine! Recall With all the said recallings, times when thus To lay them by your own ne'er turned you pale As now. Most glorious, are they not? Festus.                    Whywhy Something must be subtracted from success So wide, no doubt. He would be scrupulous, truly, Who should object such drawbacks. Still, still, Aureole, You are changed, very changed! 'T were losing nothing To look well to it: you must not be stolen From the enjoyment of your well-won meed. Paracelsus. My friend! you seek my pleasure, past a doubt: You will best gain your point, by talking, not Of me, but of yourself. Festus.             Have I not said All touching Michal and my children? Sure You know, by this, full well how Aennchen looks Gravely, while one disparts her thick brown hair; And Aureole's glee when some stray gannet builds Amid the birch-trees by the lake. Small hope Have I that he will honour (the wild imp) His namesake. Sigh not! 't is too much to ask That all we love should reach the same proud fate. But you are very kind to humour me By showing interest in my quiet life; You, who of old could never tame yourself To tranquil pleasures, must at heart despise . . . Paracelsus. Festus, strange secrets are let out by death Who blabs so oft the follies of this world: And I am death's familiar, as you know. I helped a man to die, some few weeks since, Warped even from his go-cart to one end The living on princes' smiles, reflected from A mighty herd of favourites. No mean trick He left untried, and truly well-nigh wormed All traces of God's finger out of him: Then died, grown old. And just an hour before, Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes, He sat up suddenly, and with natural voice Said that in spite of thick air and closed doors God told him it was June; and he knew well, Without such telling, harebells grew in June; And all that kings could ever give or take Would not be precious as those blooms to him. Just so, allowing I am passing sage, It seems to me much worthier argument Why pansies,[1] eyes that laugh, bear beauty's prize From violets, eyes that dream(your Michal's choice) Than all fools find to wonder at in me Or in my fortunes. And be very sure I say this from no prurient restlessness, No self-complacency, itching to turn, Vary and view its pleasure from all points, And, in this instance, willing other men May be at pains, demonstrate to itself The realness of the very joy it tastes. What should delight me like the news of friends Whose memories were a solace to me oft, As mountain-baths to wild fowls in their flight? Ofter than you had wasted thought on me Had you been wise, and rightly valued bliss. But there's no taming nor repressing hearts: God knows I need such!So, you heard me speak? Festus. Speak? when? Paracelsus.       When but this morning at my class? There was noise and crowd enough. I saw you not. Surely you know I am engaged to fill The chair here?that't is part of my proud fate To lecture to as many thick-skulled youths As please, each day, to throng the theatre, To my great reputation, and no small Danger of Basil's benches long unused To crack beneath such honour? Festus.                I was there; I mingled with the throng: shall I avow Small care was mine to listen?too intent On gathering from the murmurs of the crowd A full corroboration of my hopes! What can I learn about your powers? but they Know, care for nought beyond your actual state, Your actual value; yet they worship you, Those various natures whom you sway as one! But ere I go, be sure I shall attend . . . Paracelsus. Stop, o' God's name: the thing's by no means yet Past remedy! Shall I read this morning's labour At least in substance? Nought so worth the gaining As an apt scholar! Thus then, with all due Precision and emphasisyou, beside, are clearly Guiltless of understanding more, a whit, The subject than your stoolallowed to be A notable advantage. Festus.            Surely, Aureole, You laugh at me! Paracelsus.          I laugh? Ha, ha! thank heaven, I charge you, if't be so! for I forget Much, and what laughter should be like. No less, However, I forego that luxury Since it alarms the friend who brings it back. True, laughter like my own must echo strangely To thinking men; a smile were better far; So, make me smile! If the exulting look You wore but now be smiling, 't is so long Since I have smiled! Alas, such smiles are born Alone of hearts like yours, or herdsmen's souls Of ancient time, whose eyes, calm as their flocks, Saw in the stars mere garnishry of heaven, And in the earth a stage for altars only. Never change, Festus: I say, never change! Festus. My God, if he be wretched after all Paracelsus. When last we parted, Festus, you declared, Or Michal, yes, her soft lips whispered words I have preserved. She told me she believed I should succeed (meaning, that in the search I then engaged in, I should meet success) And yet be wretched: now, she augured false. Festus. Thank heaven! but you spoke strangely: could I venture To think bare apprehension lest your friend, Dazzled by your resplendent course, might find Henceforth less sweetness in his own, could move Such earnest mood in you? Fear not, dear friend, That I shall leave you, inwardly repining Your lot was not my own! Paracelsus.              And this for ever! For ever! gull who may, they will be gulled! They will not look nor think;'t is nothing new In them: but surely he is not of them! My Festus, do you know, I reckoned, you Though all beside were sand-blindyou, my friend, Would look at me, once close, with piercing eye Untroubled by the false glare that confounds A weaker vision: would remain serene, Though singular amid a gaping throng. I feared you, or I had come, sure, long ere this, To Einsiedeln. Well, error has no end, And Rhasis is a sage, and Basil boasts A tribe of wits, and I am wise and blest Past all dispute! 'T is vain to fret at it. I have vowed long ago my worshippers Shall owe to their own deep sagacity All further information, good or bad. Small risk indeed my reputation runs, Unless perchance the glance now searching me Be fixed much longer; for it seems to spell Dimly the characters a simpler man Might read distinct enough. Old Eastern books Say, the fallen prince of morning some short space Remained unchanged in semblance; nay, his brow Was hued with triumph: every spirit then Praising, his heart on flame the while:a tale! Well, Festus, what discover you, I pray? Festus. Some foul deed sullies then a life which else Were raised supreme? Paracelsus.            Good: I do well, most well Why strive to make men hear, feel, fret themselves With what is past their power to comprehend? I should not strive now: only, having nursed The faint surmise that one yet walked the earth, One, at least, not the utter fool of show, Not absolutely formed to be the dupe Of shallow plausibilities alone: One who, in youth, found wise enough to choose The happiness his riper years approve, Was yet so anxious for another's sake, That, ere his friend could rush upon a mad And ruinous course, the converse of his own, His gentle spirit essayed, prejudged for him The perilous path, foresaw its destiny, And warned the weak one in such tender words, Such accentshis whole heart in every tone That oft their memory comforted that friend When it by right should have increased despair: Having believed, I say, that this one man Could never lose the light thus from the first His portionhow should I refuse to grieve At even my gain if it disturb our old Relation, if it make me out more wise? Therefore, once more reminding him how well He prophesied, I note the single flaw That spoils his prophet's title. In plain words, You were deceived, and thus were you deceived I have not been successful, and yet am Most miserable; 't is said at last; nor you Give credit, lest you force me to concede That common sense yet lives upon the world! Festus. You surely do not mean to banter me? Paracelsus. You know, orif you have been wise enough To cleanse your memory of such mattersknew, As far as words of mine could make it clear, That't was my purpose to find joy or grief Solely in the fulfilment of my plan Or plot or whatsoe'er it was; rejoicing Alone as it proceeded prosperously, Sorrowing then only when mischance retarded Its progress. That was in those Wrzburg days! Not to prolong a theme I thoroughly hate, I have pursued this plan with all my strength; And having failed therein most signally, Cannot object to ruin utter and drear As all-excelling would have been the prize Had fortune favoured me. I scarce have right To vex your frank good spirit late so glad In my supposed prosperity, I know, And, were I lucky in a glut of friends, Would well agree to let your error live, Nay, strengthen it with fables of success. But mine is no condition to refuse The transient solace of so rare a godsend, My solitary luxury, my one friend: Accordingly I venture to put off The wearisome vest of falsehood galling me, Secure when he is by. I lay me bare Prone at his mercybut he is my friend! Not that he needs retain his aspect grave; That answers not my purpose; for't is like, Some sunny morningBasil being drained Of its wise population, every corner Of the amphitheatre crammed with learned clerks, Here OEcolampadius, looking worlds of wit, Here Castellanus, as profound as he, Munsterus here, Frobenius there, all squeezed And staring,that the zany of the show, Even Paracelsus, shall put off before them His trappings with a grace but seldom judged Expedient in such cases:the grim smile That will go round! Is it not therefore best To venture a rehearsal like the present In a small way? Where are the signs I seek, The first-fruits and fair sample of the scorn Due to all quacks? Why, this will never do! Festus. These are foul vapours, Aureole; nought beside! The effect of watching, study, weariness. Were there a spark of truth in the confusion Of these wild words, you would not outrage thus Your youth's companion. I shall ne'er regard These wanderings, bred of faintness and much study. 'T is not thus you would trust a trouble to me, To Michal's friend. Paracelsus.           I have said it, dearest Festus! For the manner, 't is ungracious probably; You may have it told in broken sobs, one day, And scalding tears, ere long: but I thought best To keep that off as long as possible. Do you wonder still? Festus.            No; it must oft fall out That one whose labour perfects any work, Shall rise from it with eye so worn that he Of all men least can measure the extent Of what he has accomplished. He alone Who, nothing tasked, is nothing weary too, May clearly scan the little he effects: But we, the bystanders, untouched by toil, Estimate each aright. Paracelsus.            This worthy Festus Is one of them, at last! 'T is so with all! First, they set down all progress as a dream; And next, when he whose quick discomfiture Was counted on, accomplishes some few And doubtful steps in his career,behold, They look for every inch of ground to vanish Beneath his tread, so sure they spy success! Festus. Few doubtful steps? when death retires before Your presencewhen the noblest of mankind, Broken in body or subdued in soul, May through your skill renew their vigour, raise The shattered frame to pristine stateliness? When men in racking pain may purchase dreams Of what delights them most, swooning at once Into a sea of bliss or rapt along As in a flying sphere of turbulent light? When we may look to you as one ordained To free the flesh from fell disease, as frees Our Luther's burning tongue the fettered soul? When . . . Paracelsus.      When and where, the devil, did you get This notable news? Festus.          Even from the common voice; From those whose envy, daring not dispute The wonders it decries, attributes them To magic and such folly. Paracelsus.              Folly? Why not To magic, pray? You find a comfort doubtless In holding, God ne'er troubles him about Us or our doings: once we were judged worth The devil's tempting . . . I offend: forgive me, And rest content. Your prophecy on the whole Was fair enough as prophesyings go; At fault a little in detail, but quite Precise enough in the main; and hereupon I pay due homage: you guessed long ago (The prophet!) I should failand I have failed. Festus. You mean to tell me, then, the hopes which fed Your youth have not been realized as yet? Some obstacle has barred them hitherto? Or that their innate . . . Paracelsus.               As I said but now, You have a very decent prophet's fame, So you but shun details here. Little matter Whether those hopes were mad,the aims they sought, Safe and secure from all ambitious fools; Or whether my weak wits are overcome By what a better spirit would scorn: I fail. And now methinks't were best to change a theme I am a sad fool to have stumbled on. I say confusedly what comes uppermost; But there are times when patience proves at fault, As now: this morning's strange encounteryou Beside me once again! you, whom I guessed Alive, since hitherto (with Luther's leave) No friend have I among the saints at peace, To judge by any good their prayers effect. I knew you would have helped mewhy not he, My strange competitor in enterprise, Bound for the same end by another path, Arrived, or ill or well, before the time, At our disastrous journey's doubtful close? How goes it with Aprile? Ah, they miss Your lone sad sunny idleness of heaven, Our martyrs for the world's sake; heaven shuts fast: The poor mad poet is howling by this time! Since you are my sole friend then, here or there, I could not quite repress the varied feelings This meeting wakens; they have had their vent, And now forget them. Do the rear-mice still Hang like a fretwork on the gate (or what In my time was a gate) fronting the road From Einsiedeln to Lachen? Festus.               Trifle not: Answer me, for my sake alone! You smiled Just now, when I supposed some deed, unworthy Yourself, might blot the else so bright result; Yet if your motives have continued pure, Your will unfaltering, and in spite of this, You have experienced a defeat, why then I say not you would cheerfully withdraw From contestmortal hearts are not so fashioned But surely you would ne'ertheless withdraw. You sought not fame nor gain nor even love, No end distinct from knowledge,I repeat Your very words: once satisfied that knowledge Is a mere dream, you would announce as much, Yourself the first. But how is the event? You are defeatedand I find you here! Paracelsus. As though "here" did not signify defeat! I spoke not of my little labours here, But of the break-down of my general aims: For you, aware of their extent and scope, To look on these sage lecturings, approved By beardless boys, and bearded dotards worse, As a fit consummation of such aims, Is worthy notice. A professorship At Basil! Since you see so much in it, And think my life was reasonably drained Of life's delights to render me a match For duties arduous as such post demands, Be it far from me to deny my power To fill the petty circle lotted out Of infinite space, or justify the host Of honours thence accruing. So, take notice, This jewel dangling from my neck preserves The features of a prince, my skill restored To plague his people some few years to come: And all through a pure whim. He had eased the earth For me, but that the droll despair which seized The vermin of his household, tickled me. I came to see. Here, drivelled the physician, Whose most infallible nostrum was at fault; There quaked the astrologer, whose horoscope Had promised him interminable years; Here a monk fumbled at the sick man's mouth With some undoubted relica sudary Of the Virgin; while another piebald knave Of the same brotherhood (he loved them ever) Was actively preparing 'neath his nose Such a suffumigation as, once fired, Had stunk the patient dead ere he could groan. I cursed the doctor and upset the brother, Brushed past the conjurer, vowed that the first gust Of stench from the ingredients just alight Would raise a cross-grained devil in my sword, Not easily laid: and ere an hour the prince Slept as he never slept since prince he was. A dayand I was posting for my life, Placarded through the town as one whose spite Had near availed to stop the blessed effects Of the doctor's nostrum which, well seconded By the sudary, and most by the costly smoke Not leaving out the strenuous prayers sent up Hard by in the abbeyraised the prince to life: To the great reputation of the seer Who, confident, expected all along The glad eventthe doctor's recompense Much largess from his highness to the monks And the vast solace of his loving people, Whose general satisfaction to increase, The prince was pleased no longer to defer The burning of some dozen heretics Remanded till God's mercy should be shown Touching his sickness: last of all were joined Ample directions to all loyal folk To swell the complement by seizing me Whodoubtless some rank sorcererendeavoured To thwart these pious offices, obstruct The prince's cure, and frustrate heaven by help Of certain devils dwelling in his sword. By luck, the prince in his first fit of thanks Had forced this bauble on me as an earnest Of further favours. This one case may serve To give sufficient taste of many such, So, let them pass. Those shelves support a pile Of patents, licences, diplomas, titles From Germany, France, Spain, and Italy; They authorize some honour; ne'ertheless, I set more store by this Erasmus sent; He trusts me; our Frobenius is his friend, And him "I raised" (nay, read it) "from the dead." I weary you, I see. I merely sought To show, there's no great wonder after all That, while I fill the class-room and attract A crowd to Basil, I get leave to stay, And therefore need not scruple to accept The utmost they can offer, if I please: For't is but right the world should be prepared To treat with favour e'en fantastic wants Of one like me, used up in serving her. Just as the mortal, whom the gods in part Devoured, received in place of his lost limb Some virtue or othercured disease, I think; You mind the fables we have read together. Festus. You do not think I comprehend a word. The time was, Aureole, you were apt enough To clothe the airiest thoughts in specious breath; But surely you must feel how vague and strange These speeches sound. Paracelsus.            Well, then: you know my hopes; I am assured, at length, those hopes were vain; That truth is just as far from me as ever; That I have thrown my life away; that sorrow On that account is idle, and further effort To mend and patch what's marred beyond repairing, As useless: and all this was taught your friend By the convincing good old-fashioned method Of forceby sheer compulsion. Is that plain? Festus. Dear Aureole, can it be my fears were just? God wills not . . . Paracelsus.           Now, 't is this I most admire The constant talk men of your stamp keep up Of God's will, as they style it; one would swear Man had but merely to uplift his eye, And see the will in question charactered On the heaven's vault. 'T is hardly wise to moot Such topics: doubts are many and faith is weak. I know as much of any will of God As knows some dumb and tortured brute what Man, His stern lord, wills from the perplexing blows That plague him every way; but there, of course, Where least he suffers, longest he remains My case; and for such reasons I plod on, Subdued but not convinced. I know as little Why I deserve to fail, as why I hoped Better things in my youth. I simply know I am no master here, but trained and beaten Into the path I tread; and here I stay, Until some further intimation reach me, Like an obedient drudge. Though I prefer To view the whole thing as a task imposed Which, whether dull or pleasant, must be done Yet, I deny not, there is made provision Of joys which tastes less jaded might affect; Nay, some which please me too, for all my pride Pleasures that once were pains: the iron ring Festering about a slave's neck grows at length Into the flesh it eats. I hate no longer A host of petty vile delights, undreamed of Or spurned before; such now supply the place Of my dead aims: as in the autumn woods Where tall trees used to flourish, from their roots Springs up a fungous brood sickly and pale, Chill mushrooms coloured like a corpse's cheek. Festus. If I interpret well your words, I own It troubles me but little that your aims, Vast in their dawning and most likely grown Extravagantly since, have baffled you. Perchance I am glad; you merit greater praise; Because they are too glorious to be gained, You do not blindly cling to them and die; You fell, but have not sullenly refused To rise, because an angel worsted you In wrestling, though the world holds not your peer; And though too harsh and sudden is the change To yield content as yet, still you pursue The ungracious path as though't were rosv-strewn. 'T is well: and your reward, or soon or late, Will come from him whom no man serves in vain. Paracelsus. Ah, very fine! For my part, I conceive The very pausing from all further toil, Which you find heinous, would become a seal To the sincerity of all my deeds. To be consistent I should die at once; I calculated on no after-life; Yet (how crept in, how fostered, I know not) Here am I with as passionate regret For youth and health and love so vainly lavished, As if their preservation had been first And foremost in my thoughts; and this strange fact Humbled me wondrously, and had due force In rendering me the less averse to follow A certain counsel, a mysterious warning You will not understandbut't was a man With aims not mine and yet pursued like mine, With the same fervour and no more success, Perishing in my sight; who summoned me As I would shun the ghastly fate I saw, To serve my race at once; to wait no longer That God should interfere in my behalf, But to distrust myself, put pride away, And give my gains, imperfect as they were, To men. I have not leisure to explain How, since, a singular series of events Has raised me to the station you behold, Wherein I seem to turn to most account The mere wreck of the past,perhaps receive Some feeble glimmering token that God views And may approve my penance: therefore here You find me, doing most good or least harm. And if folks wonder much and profit little 'T is not my fault; only, I shall rejoice When my part in the farce is shuffled through, And the curtain falls: I must hold out till then. Festus. Till when, dear Aureole? Paracelsus.              Till I'm fairly thrust From my proud eminence. Fortune is fickle And even professors fall: should that arrive, I see no sin in ceding to my bent. You little fancy what rude shocks apprise us We sin; God's intimations rather fail In clearness than in energy: 't were well Did they but indicate the course to take Like that to be forsaken. I would fain Be spared a further sample. Here I stand, And here I stay, be sure, till forced to flit. Festus. Be you but firm on that head! long ere then All I expect will come to pass, I trust: The cloud that wraps you will have disappeared. Meantime, I see small chance of such event: They praise you here as one whose lore, already Divulged, eclipses all the past can show, But whose achievements, marvellous as they be, Are faint anticipations of a glory About to be revealed. When Basil's crowds Dismiss their teacher, I shall be content That he depart. Paracelsus.         This favour at their hands I look for earlier than your view of things Would warrant. Of the crowd you saw to-day, Remove the full half sheer amazement draws, Mere novelty, nought else; and next, the tribe Whose innate blockish dulness just perceives That unless miracles (as seem my works) Be wrought in their behalf, their chance is slight To puzzle the devil; next, the numerous set Who bitterly hate established schools, and help The teacher that oppugns them, till he once Have planted his own doctrine, when the teacher May reckon on their rancour in his turn; Take, too, the sprinkling of sagacious knaves Whose cunning runs not counter to the vogue But seeks, by flattery and crafty nursing, To force my system to a premature Short-lived development. Why swell the list? Each has his end to serve, and his best way Of serving it: remove all these, remains A scantling, a poor dozen at the best, Worthy to look for sympathy and service, And likely to draw profit from my pains. Festus. 'T is no encouraging picture: still these few Redeem their fellows. Once the germ implanted, Its growth, if slow, is sure. Paracelsus.                God grant it so! I would make some amends: but if I fail, The luckless rogues have this excuse to urge, That much is in my method and my manner, My uncouth habits, my impatient spirit, Which hinders of reception and result My doctrine: much to say, small skill to speak! These old aims suffered not a looking-off Though for an instant; therefore, only when I thus renounced them and resolved to reap Some present fruitto teach mankind some truth So dearly purchasedonly then I found Such teaching was an art requiring cares And qualities peculiar to itself: That to possess was one thingto display Another. With renown first in my thoughts, Or popular praise, I had soon discovered it: One grows but little apt to learn these things. Festus. If it be so, which nowise I believe, There needs no waiting fuller dispensation To leave a labour of so little use. Why not throw up the irksome charge at once? Paracelsus. A task, a task!         But wherefore hide the whole Extent of degradation, once engaged In the confessing vein? Despite of all My fine talk of obedience and repugnance, Docility and what not, 't is yet to learn If when the task shall really be performed, My inclination free to choose once more, I shall do aught but slightly modify The nature of the hated task I quit. In plain words, I am spoiled; my life still tends As first it tended; I am broken and trained To my old habits: they are part of me. I know, and none so well, my darling ends Are proved impossible: no less, no less, Even now what humours me, fond fool, as when Their faint ghosts sit with me and flatter me And send me back content to my dull round? How can I change this soul?this apparatus Constructed solely for their purposes, So well adapted to their every want, To search out and discover, prove and perfect; This intricate machine whose most minute And meanest motions have their charm to me Though to none elsean aptitude I seize, An object I perceive, a use, a meaning, A property, a fitness, I explain And I alone:how can I change my soul? And this wronged body, worthless save when tasked Under that soul's dominionused to care For its bright master's cares and quite subdue Its proper cravingsnot to ail nor pine So he but prosperwhither drag this poor Tried patient body? God! how I essayed To live like that mad poet, for a while, To love alone; and how I felt too warped And twisted and deformed! What should I do, Even tho'released from drudgery, but return Faint, as you see, and halting, blind and sore, To my old life and die as I began? I cannot feed on beauty for the sake Of beauty only, nor can drink in balm From lovely objects for their loveliness; My nature cannot lose her first imprint; I still must hoard and heap and class all truths With one ulterior purpose: I must know! Would God translate me to his throne, believe That I should only listen to his word To further my own aim! For other men, Beauty is prodigally strewn around, And I were happy could I quench as they This mad and thriveless longing, and content me With beauty for itself alone: alas, I have addressed a frock of heavy mail Yet may not join the troop of sacred knights; And now the forest-creatures fly from me, The grass-banks cool, the sunbeams warm no more. Best follow, dreaming that ere night arrive, I shall o'ertake the company and ride Glittering as they! Festus.           I think I apprehend What you would say: if you, in truth, design To enter once more on the life thus left, Seek not to hide that all this consciousness Of failure is assumed! Paracelsus.            My friend, my friend, I toil, you listen; I explain, perhaps You understand: there our communion ends. Have you learnt nothing from to-day's discourse? When we would thoroughly know the sick man's state We feel awhile the fluttering pulse, press soft The hot brow, look upon the languid eye, And thence divine the rest. Must I lay bare My heart, hideous and beating, or tear up My vitals for your gaze, ere you will deem Enough made known? You! who are you, forsooth? That is the crowning operation claimed By the arch-demonstratorheaven the hall, And earth the audience. Let Aprile and you Secure good places: 't will be worth the while. Festus. Are you mad, Aureole? What can I have said To call for this? I judged from your own words. Paracelsus. Oh, doubtless! A sick wretch describes the ape That mocks him from the bed-foot, and all gravely You thither turn at once: or he recounts The perilous journey he has late performed, And you are puzzled much how that could be! You find me here, half stupid and half mad; It makes no part of my delight to search Into these matters, much less undergo Another's scrutiny; but so it chances That I am led to trust my state to you: And the event is, you combine, contrast And ponder on my foolish words as though They thoroughly conveyed all hidden here Here, loathsome with despair and hate and rage! Is there no fear, no shrinking and no shame? Will you guess nothing? will you spare me nothing? Must I go deeper? Ay or no? Festus.                Dear friend . . .                Paracelsus. True: I am brutal't is a part of it; The plague's signyou are not a lazar-haunter, How should you know? Well then, you think it strange I should profess to have failed utterly, And yet propose an ultimate return To courses void of hope: and this, because You know not what temptation is, nor how 'T is like to ply men in the sickliest part. You are to understand that we who make Sport for the gods, are hunted to the end: There is not one sharp volley shot at us, Which 'scaped with life, though hurt, we slacken pace And gather by the wayside herbs and roots To staunch our wounds, secure from further harm: We are assailed to life's extremest verge. It will be well indeed if I return, A harmless busy fool, to my old ways! I would forget hints of another fate, Significant enough, which silent hours Have lately scared me with. Festus.                Another! and what?                Paracelsus. After all, Festus, you say well: I am A man yet: I need never humble me. I would have beensomething, I know not what; But though I cannot soar, I do not crawl. There are worse portions than this one of mine. You say well! Festus.        Ah!        Paracelsus.          And deeper degradation! If the mean stimulants of vulgar praise, If vanity should become the chosen food Of a sunk mind, should stifle even the wish To find its early aspirations true, Should teach it to breathe falsehood like life-breath An atmosphere of craft and trick and lies; Should make it proud to emulate, surpass Base natures in the practices which woke Its most indignant loathing once . . . No, no! Utter damnation is reserved for hell! I had immortal feelings; such shall never Be wholly quenched: no, no!                My friend, you wear A melancholy face, and certain't is There's little cheer in all this dismal work. But was it my desire to set abroach Such memories and forebodings? I foresaw Where they would drive. 'T were better we discuss News from Lucerne or Zurich; ask and tell Of Egypt's flaring sky or Spain's cork-groves. Festus. I have thought: trust me, this mood will pass away! I know you and the lofty spirit you bear, And easily ravel out a clue to all. These are the trials meet for such as you, Nor must you hope exemption: to be mortal Is to be plied with trials manifold. Look round! The obstacles which kept the rest From your ambition, have been spurned by you; Their fears, their doubts, the chains that bind themall, Were flax before your resolute soul, which nought Avails to awe save these delusions bred From its own strength, its selfsame strength disguised, Mocking itself. Be brave, dear Aureole! Since The rabbit has his shade to frighten him, The fawn a rustling bough, mortals their cares, And higher natures yet would slight and laugh At these entangling fantasies, as you At trammels of a weaker intellect, Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts! I know you. Paracelsus.      And I know you, dearest Festus! And how you love unworthily; and how All admiration renders blind. Festus.                You hold That admiration blinds? Paracelsus.             Ay and alas!             Festus. Nought blinds you less than admiration, friend! Whether it be that all love renders wise In its degree; from love which blends with love Heart answering heartto love which spends itself In silent mad idolatry of some Pre-eminent mortal, some great soul of souls, Which ne'er will know how well it is adored. I say, such love is never blind; but rather Alive to every the minutest spot Which mars its object, and which hate (supposed So vigilant and searching) dreams not of. Love broods on such: what then? When first perceived Is there no sweet strife to forget, to change, To overflush those blemishes with all The glow of general goodness they disturb? To make those very defects an endless source Of new affection grown from hopes and fears? And, when all fails, is there no gallant stand Made even for much proved weak? no shrinking-back Lest, since all love assimilates the soul To what it loves, it should at length become Almost a rival of its idol? Trust me, If there be fiends who seek to work our hurt, To ruin and drag down earth's mightiest spirits Even at God's foot, 't will be from such as love, Their zeal will gather most to serve their cause; And least from those who hate, who most essay By contumely and scorn to blot the light Which forces entrance even to their hearts: For thence will our defender tear the veil And show within each heart, as in a shrine, The giant image of perfection, grown In hate's despite, whose calumnies were spawned In the untroubled presence of its eyes. True admiration blinds not; nor am I So blind. I call your sin exceptional; It springs from one whose life has passed the bounds Prescribed to life. Compound that fault with God! I speak of men; to common men like me The weakness you reveal endears you more, Like the far traces of decay in suns. I bid you have good cheer! Paracelsus.               Proeclare! Optime! Think of a quiet mountain-cloistered priest Instructing Paracelsus! yet't is so. Come, I will show you where my merit lies. 'T is in the advance of individual minds That the slow crowd should ground their expectation Eventually to follow; as the sea Waits ages in its bed till some one wave Out of the multitudinous mass, extends The empire of the whole, some feet perhaps, Over the strip of sand which could confine Its fellows so long time: thenceforth the rest, Even to the meanest, hurry in at once, And so much is clear gained. I shall be glad If all my labours, failing of aught else, Suffice to make such inroad and procure A wider range for thought: nay, they do this; For, whatsoe'er my notions of true knowledge And a legitimate success, may be, I am not blind to my undoubted rank When classed with others: I precede my age: And whoso wills is very free to mount These labours as a platform whence his own May have a prosperous outset. But, alas! My followersthey are noisy as you heard; But, for intelligence, the best of them So clumsily wield the weapons I supply And they extol, that I begin to doubt Whether their own rude clubs and pebble-stones Would not do better service than my arms Thus vilely swayedif error will not fall Sooner before the old awkward batterings Than my more subtle warfare, not half learned. Festus. I would supply that art, then, or withhold New arms until you teach their mystery. Paracelsus. Content you, 't is my wish; I have recourse To the simplest training. Day by day I seek To wake the mood, the spirit which alone Can make those arms of any use to men. Of course they are for swaggering forth at once Graced with Ulysses' bow, Achilles' shield Flash on us, all in armour, thou Achilles! Make our hearts dance to thy resounding step! A proper sight to scare the crows away! Festus. Pity you choose not then some other method Of coming at your point. The marvellous art At length established in the world bids fair To remedy all hindrances like these: Trust to Frobenius' press the precious lore Obscured by uncouth manner, or unfit For raw beginners; let his types secure A deathless monument to after-time; Meanwhile wait confidently and enjoy The ultimate effect: sooner or later You shall be all-revealed. Paracelsus.               The old dull question In a new form; no more. Thus: I possess Two sorts of knowledge; one,vast, shadowy, Hints of the unbounded aim I once pursued: The other consists of many secrets, caught While bent on nobler prize,perhaps a few Prime principles which may conduct to much: These last I offer to my followers here. Now, bid me chronicle the first of these, My ancient study, and in effect you bid Revert to the wild courses just abjured: I must go find them scattered through the world. Then, for the principles, they are so simple (Being chiefly of the overturning sort), That one time is as proper to propound them As any otherto-morrow at my class, Or half a century hence embalmed in print. For if mankind intend to learn at all, They must begin by giving faith to them And acting on them: and I do not see But that my lectures serve indifferent well: No doubt these dogmas fall not to the earth, For all their novelty and rugged setting. I think my class will not forget the day I let them know the gods of Israel, Atius, Oribasius, Galen, Rhasis, Serapion, Avicenna, Averres, Were blocks! Festus.       And that reminds me, I heard something About your waywardness: you burned their books, It seems, instead of answering those sages. Paracelsus. And who said that? Festus.          Some I met yesternight With OEcolampadius. As you know, the purpose Of this short stay at Basil was to learn His pleasure touching certain missives sent For our Zuinglius and himself. 'T was he Apprised me that the famous teacher here Was my old friend. Paracelsus.          Ah, I forgot: you went . . .          Festus. From Zurich with advices for the ear Of Luther, now at Wittenberg(you know, I make no doubt, the differences of late With Carolostadius)and returning sought Basil and . . . Paracelsus.         I remember. Here's a case, now, Will teach you why I answer not, but burn The books you mention. Pray, does Luther dream His arguments convince by their own force The crowds that own his doctrine? No, indeed! His plain denial of established points Ages had sanctified and men supposed Could never be oppugned while earth was under And heaven above thempoints which chance or time Affected notdid more than the array Of argument which followed. Boldly deny! There is much breath-stopping, hair-stiffening Awhile; then, amazed glances, mute awaiting The thunderbolt which does not come: and next, Reproachful wonder and inquiry: those Who else had never stirred, are able now To find the rest out for themselves, perhaps To outstrip him who set the whole at work, As never will my wise class its instructor. And you saw Luther? Festus.           'T is a wondrous soul!           Paracelsus. True: the so-heavy chain which galled mankind Is shattered, and the noblest of us all Must bow to the deliverernay, the worker Of our own projectwe who long before Had burst our trammels, but forgot the crowd, We should have taught, still groaned beneath the load: This he has done and nobly. Speed that may! Whatever be my chance or my mischance, What benefits mankind must glad me too; And men seem made, though not as I believed, For something better than the times produce. Witness these gangs of peasants your new lights From Suabia have possessed, whom Mnzer leads, And whom the duke, the landgrave and the elector Will calm in blood! Well, well; 't is not my world! Festus. Hark! Paracelsus.    'T is the melancholy wind astir Within the trees; the embers too are grey: Morn must be near. Festus.          Best ope the casement: see, The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars, Is blank and motionless: how peaceful sleep The tree-tops altogether! Like an asp, The wind slips whispering from bough to bough. Paracelsus. Ay; you would gaze on a wind-shaken tree By the hour, nor count time lost. Festus.                  So you shall gaze: Those happy times will come again. Paracelsus.                   Gone, gone, Those pleasant times! Does not the moaning wind Seem to bewail that we have gained such gains And bartered sleep for them? Festus.                It is our trust That there is yet another world to mend All error and mischance. Paracelsus.              Another world! And why this world, this common world, to be A make-shift, a mere foil, how fair soever, To some fine life to come? Man must be fed With angels' food, forsooth; and some few traces Of a diviner nature which look out Through his corporeal baseness, warrant him In a supreme contempt of all provision For his inferior tastessome straggling marks Which constitute his essence, just as truly As here and there a gem would constitute The rock, their barren bed, one diamond. But were it sowere man all mindhe gains A station little enviable. From God Down to the lowest spirit ministrant, Intelligence exists which casts our mind Into immeasurable shade. No, no: Love, hope, fear, faiththese make humanity; These are its sign and note and character, And these I have lost!gone, shut from me for ever, Like a dead friend safe from unkindness more! See, morn at length. The heavy darkness seems Diluted, grey and clear without the stars; The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves as if Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let go His hold; and from the East, fuller and fuller Day, like a mighty river, flowing in; But clouded, wintry, desolate and cold. Yet see how that broad prickly star-shaped plant, Half-down in the crevice, spreads its woolly leaves All thick and glistering with diamond dew. And you depart for Einsiedeln this day, And we have spent all night in talk like this! If you would have me better for your love, Revert no more to these sad themes. Festus.                    One favour, And I have done. I leave you, deeply moved; Unwilling to have fared so well, the while My friend has changed so sorely. If this mood Shall pass away, if light once more arise Where all is darkness now, if you see fit To hope and trust again, and strive again, You will remembernot our love alone But that my faith in God's desire that man Should trust on his support, (as I must think You trusted) is obscured and dim through you: For you are thus, and this is no reward. Will you not call me to your side, dear Aureole? ~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part III - Paracelsus ,

897: Book IV: The Book of Partings Eagerly, spurred by Ares swift in their souls to the war-cry, All now pressed to their homes for the food of their strength in the battle. Ilion turned her thoughts in a proud expectancy seaward Waiting to hear the sounds that she loved and the cry of the mellay. Now to their citadel Priams sons returned with their father, Now from the gates Talthybius issued grey in his chariot; But in the halls of Anchises Aeneas not doffing his breastpiece Hastily ate of the corn of his country, cakes of the millet Doubled with wild-deers flesh, from the quiet hands of Cresa. She, as he ate, with her calm eyes watching him smiled on her husband: Ever thou hastest to battle, O warrior, ever thou fightest Far in the front of the ranks and thou seekest out Locrian Ajax, Turnest thy ear to the roar for the dangerous shout of Tydides; There, once heard, leaving all thou drivest, O stark in thy courage. Yet am I blest among women who tremble not, left in thy mansion, Quiet at old Anchises feet when I see thee in vision Sole with the shafts hissing round thee and say to my quivering spirit, Now he is striking at Ajax, now he has met Diomedes. Such are the mighty twain who are ever near to protect thee, Phoebus, the Thunderers son, and thy mother, gold Aphrodite; Such are the Fates that demand thee, O destined head of the future. But though my thoughts for their own are not troubled, always, Aeneas, Sore is my heart with pity for other Ilian women Who in this battle are losing their children and well-loved husbands, Brothers too dear, for the eyes that are wet, for the hearts that are silent. Will not this war then end that thunders for ever round Troya? But to Cresa the hero answered, the son of Anchises: Surely the gods protect, yet is Death too always mighty. Most in his shadowy envy he strikes at the brave and the lovely, Grudging works to abridge their days and to widow the sunlight. Most, disappointed, he rages against the beloved of Heaven; Striking their lives through their hearts he mows down their loves and their pleasures. Truly thou sayst, thou needst not to fear for my life in the battle; Ever for thine I fear lest he find thee out in his anger, Missing my head in the fight, when he comes here crossed in his godhead. Yet shall Phoebus protect and my mother, gold Aphrodite. But to Aeneas answered the tranquil lips of Cresa: So may it be that I go before thee, seeing, Aeneas, Over my dying eyes thy lips bend down for the parting. Blissfullest end is this for a woman here mid earths sorrows; Afterwards there we hope that the hands shall join which were parted. So she spoke, not knowing the gods: but Aeneas departing Clasped his fathers knees, the ancient mighty Anchises. Bless me, my father; I go to the battle. Strong with thy blessing Even today may I hurl down Ajax, slay Diomedes, And on the morrow gaze on the empty beaches of Troas. Troubled and joyless, nought replying to warlike Aeneas Long Anchises sat unmoving, silent, sombre, Gazing into his soul with eyes that were closed to the sunlight. Prosper, Aeneas, slowly he answered him, son of a goddess, Prosper, Aeneas; and if for Troy some doom is preparing, Suffer always the will of the gods with a piety constant. Only they will what Necessity fashions compelled by the Silence. Labour and war she has given to man as the law of his transience. Work; she shall give thee the crown of thy deeds or their ending appointed, Whether glorious thou pass or in silent shadows forgotten. But what thy mother commands perform ever, loading thy vessels. Who can know what the gods have hid with the mist of our hopings? Then from the house of his fathers Aeneas rapidly striding Came to the city echoing now with the wheels of the chariots, Clanging with arms and astream with the warlike tramp of her thousands. Fast through the press he strode and men turning knew Aeneas, Greatened in heart and went on with loftier thoughts towards battle. He through the noise and the crowd to Antenors high-built mansion Striding came, and he turned to its courts and the bronze of its threshold Trod which had suffered the feet of so many princes departed. But as he crossed its brazen square from the hall there came running, Leaping up light to his feet and laughing with sudden pleasure, Eurus the youngest son of Polydamas. Clasping the fatal War-hardened hand with a palm that was smooth as a maidens or infants, Well art thou come, Aeneas, he said, and good fortune has sent thee! Now I shall go to the field; thou wilt speak with my grandsire Antenor And he shall hear thee though chid by his heart reluctant. Rejoicing I shall go forth in thy car or warring by Penthesilea, Famous, give to her grasp the spear that shall smite down Achilles. Smiling answered Aeneas, Surely will, Eurus, thy prowess Carry thee far to the front; thou shalt fight with Epeus and slay him. Who shall say that this hand was not chosen to pierce Menelaus? But for a while with the ball should it rather strive, O hero, Till in the play and the wrestle its softness is trained for the smiting. Eagerly Eurus answered, But they have told me, Aeneas, This is the last of our fights; for today will Penthesilea Meet Achilles in battle and slay him ending the Argives. Then shall I never have mixed in this war that is famous for ever. What shall I say when my hairs are white like the aged Antenors? Men will ask, And what were thy deeds in the warfare Titanic? Whom didst thou slay of the Argives, son of Polydamas, venging Bravely thy father? Then must I say, I lurked in the city. I was too young and only ascending the Ilian ramparts Saw the return or the flight, but never the deed and the triumph. Friend, if you take me not forth, I shall die of grief ere the sunset. Plucking the hand of Aeneas he drew him into the mansion Vast; and over the floor of the spacious hall they hastened Laughing, the gracious child and the mighty hero and statesman, Flower of a present stock and the burdened star of the future. Meanwhile girt by his sons and the sons of his sons in his chamber Cried to the remnants left of his blood the aged Antenor. Hearken you who are sprung from my loins and children, their offspring! None shall again go forth to the fight who is kin to Antenor. Weighed with my curse he shall go and the spear-points athirst of the Argives Meet him wroth; he shall die in his sin and his name be forgotten. Oft have I sent forth my blood to be spilled in vain in the battle Fighting for Troy and her greatness earned by my toil and my fathers. Now all the debt has been paid; she rejects us driven by the immortals. Much do we owe to the mother who bore us, much to our country; But at the last our life is ours and the gods and the futures. Gather the gold of my house and our kin, O ye sons of Antenor. Warned by a voice in my soul I will go forth tonight from this city Fleeing the doom and bearing my treasures; the ships shall receive them Gathered, new-keeled by my care and the gods, in the narrow Propontis. Over Gods waters guided, treading the rage of Poseidon, Bellying out with their sails let them cleave to the untravelled distance Oceans crests and resign to their Fates the doomed and the evil. So Antenor spoke and his children heard him in silence; Awed by his voice and the dread of his curse they obeyed, though in sorrow. Halamus only replied to his father: Dire are the white hairs Reverend, loved, of a father, dreadful his curse to his children. Yet in my heart there is one who cries, tis the voice of my country, She for whose sake I would be in Tartarus tortured for ever. Pardon me then, if thou wilt; if the gods can, then let them pardon. For I will sleep in the dust of Troy embracing her ashes, There where Polydamas sleeps and the many comrades I cherished. So let me go to the darkness remembered or wholly forgotten, Yet having fought for my country, true in my fall to my nation. Then in his aged wrath to Halamus answered Antenor: Go then and perish doomed with the doomed and the hated of heaven; Nor shall the gods forgive thee dying nor shall thy father. Out from the chamber Halamus strode with grief in his bosom Wrestling with wrath and he went to his doom nor looked back at his dear ones. Crossing the hall the son of Antenor and son of Anchises Met in the paths of their fates where they knotted and crossed for the parting, One with the curse of the gods and his sire fast wending to Hades, Fortunate, blessed the other; yet equal their minds were and virtues. Cypris son to the Antenorid: Thee I have sought and thy brothers, Bough of Antenor; sore is our need today of thy counsels, Endless our want of their arms that are strong and their hearts that recoil not Meeting myriads stark with the spear in unequal battle. Halamus answered him: I will go forth to the palace of Priam, There where Troy yet lives and far from the halls of my fathers; There will I speak, not here. For my kin they repose in the mansion Sitting unarmed in their halls while their brothers fall in the battle. Eurus eagerly answered the hero: Me rather, therefore, Take to the fight with you; I will make war on the Greeks for my uncles; One for all I will fill their place in the shock with the foemen. But from his chamber-door Antenor heard and rebuked him: Scamp of my heart, thou torment! in to thy chamber and rest there, Bound with cords lest thou cease, thou flutter-brain, scourged into quiet; So shall thy lust of the fight be healed and our mansion grow tranquil. Chid by the old man Eurus slunk from the hall discontented, Yet with a dubious smile like a moonbeam lighting his beauty. But to Antenor the Dardanid born from the white Aphrodite: Late the Antenorids learn to flinch from the spears of the Argives, Even this boy of their blood has Polydamas heart and his valour. Nor should a life that was honoured and noble be stained in its ending. Nay, then, the mood of a child would shame a grey-headed wisdom, If for the fault of the people virtue and Troy were forgotten. For, though the people hear us not, yet are we bound to our nation: Over the people the gods are; over a man is his country; This is the deity first adored by the hearths of the noble. For by our nations will we are ruled in the home and the battle And for our nations weal we offer our lives and our childrens. Not by their own wills led nor their passions men rise to their manhood, Selfishly seeking their good, but the gods and the States and the fathers. Wroth Antenor replied to the warlike son of Anchises: Great is the soul in thee housed and stern is thy will, O Aeneas; Onward it moves undismayed to its goal though a city be ruined. They too guide thee who deepest see of the ageless immortals, One with her heart and one in his spirit, Cypris and Phoebus. Yet might a man not knowing this think as he watched thee, Aeneas, Spurring Priams race to its fall he endangers this city, Hoping to build a throne out of ruins sole in the Troad. I too have gods who warn me and lead, Athene and Hera. Not as the ways of other mortals are theirs who are guided, They whose eyes are the gods and they walk by a light that is secret. Coldly Aeneas made answer, stirred into wrath by the taunting: High wert thou always, nurtured in wisdom, ancient Antenor. Walk then favoured and led, yet watch lest passion and evil Feign auguster names and mimic the gait of the deathless. And with a smile on his lips but wrath in his bosom answered, Wisest of men but with wisdom of mortals, aged Antenor: Led or misled we are mortals and walk by a light that is given; Most they err who deem themselves most from error excluded. Nor shalt thou hear in this battle the shout of the men of my lineage Holding the Greeks as once and driving back Fate from their country. His alone will be heard for a space while the stern gods are patient Even now who went forth a victim self-offered to Hades, Last whom their wills have plucked from the fated house of Antenor. They now with wrath in their bosoms sundered for ever and parted. Forth from the halls of Antenor Aeneas rapidly striding Passed once more through the city hurrying now with its car-wheels, Filled with a mightier rumour of war and the march of its thousands, Till at Troys upward curve he found the Antenorid crestward Mounting the steep incline that climbed to the palace of Priam White in her proud and armed citadel. Silent, ascending Hardly their feet had attempted the hill when behind them they hearkened Sweet-tongued a call and the patter and hurry of light-running sandals, Turning they beheld with a flush on his cheeks and a light on his lashes Challenging mutely and pleading the boyish beauty of Eurus. Racer to mischief, said Halamus, couldst thou not sit in thy chamber? Surely cords and the rod await thee, Eurus, returning. Answered with laughter the child, I have broken through ranks of the fighters, Dived under chariot-wheels to arrive here and I return not. I too for counsel of battle have come to the palace of Priam. Burdened with thought they mounted slowly the road of their fathers Breasting the Ilian hill where Laomedons mansion was seated, They from the crest down-gazing saw their countrys housetops Under their feet and heard the murmur of Troya below them. But in the palace of Priam coming and going of house-thralls Filled all the corridors; smoke from the kitchens curled in its plenty Rich with savour and breathed from the labouring lungs of Hephaestus. Far in the halls and the chambers voices travelled and clustered, Anklets jangling ran and sang back from doorway to doorway Mocking with music of speed and its laughters the haste of the happy, Sound came of arms, there was tread of the great, there were murmurs of women, Voices glad of the doomed in Laomedons marvellous mansion. Six were the halls of its splendour, a hundred and one were its chambers Lifted on high upon columns that soared like the thoughts of its dwellers, Thoughts that transcended the earth though they sank down at last into ashes; So had Apollo dreamed to his lyre; and its tops were a grandeur Domed, as if seeking to roof mens lives with a hint of the heavens; Marble his columns rose and with marble his roofs were appointed, Conquered wealth of the world in its largeness suffered, supporting Purities of marble, glories of gold. Nor only of matter Blazed there the brutal pomps, but images mystic or mighty Crowded ceiling and wall, a work that the gods even admire Hardly believing that forms like these were imagined by mortals Here upon earth where sight is a blur and the soul lives encumbered. Scrolls that remembered in gems the thoughts austere of the ancients Bordered the lines of the stone and the forms of serpent and Naiad Ran in relief on those walls of pride in the palace of Priam Mingled with Dryads who tempted and fled and Satyrs who followed, Sports of the nymphs in the sea and the woods and their meetings with mortals, Sessions and battles of Trojan demigods, deaths that were famous, Wars and loves of men and the deeds of the golden immortals. Pillars sculptured with gods and with giants soared up from bases Lion-carved or were seated on bulls and bore into grandeur Amply those halls where they soared, or in lordliness slenderly fashioned, Dressed in flowers and reeds like virgins standing on Ida, Guarded the screens of stone and divided alcove and chamber. Ivory carved and broidered robes and the riches of Indus Cherished in sandalwood triumphed and teemed in the palace of Priam; Doors that were carven and fragrant sheltered the joys of its princes. Here in a chamber of luminous privacy Paris was arming. Near him moved Helen, a whiteness divine, and intent on her labour Fastened his cuirass, bound the greaves and settled the hauberk Thrilling his limbs with her touch that was heaven to the yearning of mortals. She with her hands of delight caressing the senseless metal Pressed her lips to his brilliant armour; she bowed down, she whispered: Cuirass, allowed by the gods, protect the beauty of Paris; Keep for me that for which country was lost and my child and my brothers. Yearning she bent to his feet, to the sandal-strings of her lover; Then as she gazed up, changed grew her mood; for the Daemon within her Rose that had banded Greece and was burning Troy into ashes. Slowly a smile that was perfect and perilous over her beauty Dawned like the sunlight on Paradise; strangely she looked on her lover. So might a goddess have gazed as she played with the love of a mortal Passing an hour on the earth ere she rose up white to Olympus. So art thou winner, Paris, yet and thy spirit ascendant Leads this Troy where thou wilt, O thou mighty one veiled in thy beauty. First in the dance and the revel, first in the joy of the mellay, Who would not leave for thy sake and repent it not country and homestead? Winning thou reignest still over Troy, over Fate, over Helen. Always so canst thou win? Has Death no claim on thy beauty, Fate no scourge for thy sins? How the years have passed by in a glory, Years of this heaven of the gods, O ravisher, since from my hearthstone Seizing thou borest me compelled to thy ships and my joy on the waters. Troy is enringed with the spears, her children fall and her glories, Mighty souls of heroes have gone down prone to the darkness; Thou and I abide! the mothers wail for our pleasure. Wilt thou then keep me for ever, O son of Priam, in Troya? Fate was my mother, they say, and Zeus for this hour begot me. Art thou a god too, O hero, disguised in this robe of the mortal, Brilliant, careless of death and of sin as if sure of thy rapture? What then if Fate today were to lay her hands on thee, Paris? Calmly he looked on the face of which Greece was enamoured, the body For whose desire great Troy was a sacrifice, tranquil regarded Lovely and dire on the lips he loved that smile of a goddess, Saw the daughter of Zeus in the woman, yet was not shaken. Temptress of Argos, he answered, thou snare for the world to be seized in, Thou then hopst to escape! But the gods could not take thee, O Helen, How then thy will that to mine is a captive, or how, though with battle, He who has lost thee, unhappy, the Spartan, bright Menelaus? All things yield to a man and Zeus is himself his accomplice When like a god he wills without remorse or longing. Thou on this earth art mine since I claimed thee beheld, not speaking, But with thy lids that fell thou veiledst thy heart of compliance. Then in whatever beyond I shall know how to take thee, O Helen, Even as here upon earth I knew, in heaven as in Sparta; I on Elysian fields will enjoy thee as now in the Troad. Silent a moment she lingered like one who is lured by a music Rapturous, heard by himself alone and his lover in heaven, Then in her beauty compelling she rose up divine among women. Yes, it is good, she cried, what the gods do and actions of mortals; Good is this play of the world; it is good, the joy and the torture. Praised be the hour of the gods when I wedded bright Menelaus! Praised, more praised the keels that severed the seas towards Helen Churning the senseless waves that knew not the bliss of their burden! Praised to the end the hour when I passed through the doors of my husband Laughing with joy in my heart for the arms that bore and enchained me! Never can Death undo what life has done for us, Paris. Nor, whatsoever betide, can the hour be unlived of our rapture. This too is good that nations should meet in the shock of the battle, Heroes be slain and a theme be made for the songs of the poets, Songs that shall thrill with the name of Helen, the beauty of Paris. Well is this also that empires should fall for the eyes of a woman; Well that for Helen Hector ended, Memnon was slaughtered, Strong Sarpedon fell and Troilus ceased in his boyhood. Troy for Helen burning, her glory, her empire, her riches, This is the sign of the gods and the type of things that are mortal. Thou who art kin to the masters of heaven, unconstrained like thy kindred High on this ancient stage of the Troad with gods for spectators Play till the end thy part, O thou wondrous and beautiful actor: Fight and slay the Greeks, my countrymen; victor returning Take for reward of the play, thy delight of Argive Helen. Force from my bosom a hint of the joy denied to the death-claimed, Rob in the kiss of my lips a pang from the raptures of heaven. Clasping him wholly her arms of desire were a girdle of madness, Cestus divine of the dread Aphrodite. He with her kisses Flushed like the gods with unearthly wine and rejoiced in his ruin. Thus while they conversed now in this hour that was near to their parting Last upon earth, a fleet-footed slavegirl came to the chamber: Paris, thy father and mother desire thee; there in the strangers Outer hall Aeneas and Halamus wait for thy coming. So with the Argive he wended to Priams ample chamber Far in Laomedons house where Troy looked upwards to Ida. Priam and Hecuba there, the ancient grey-haired rulers, Waiting him sat in their chairs of ivory calm in their greatness; Hid in her robes at their feet lay Cassandra crouched from her visions. Since, O my father, said Paris, thy thoughts have been with me, thy blessing Surely shall help me today in my strife with the strength of Achilles. Surely the gods shall obey in the end the might of our spirits, Pallas and Hera, flame-sandalled Artemis, Zeus and Apollo. Ever serve the immortal brightnesses man when he stands up Firm with his will uplifted a steadfast flame towards the heavens, Ares works in his heart and Hephaestus burns in his labour. Priam replied to his son: Forewilled by the gods, Alexander, All things happen on earth and yet we must strive who are mortals, Knowing all vain, yet we strive; for our nature seizing us always Drives like the flock that is herded and urged towards shambles or pasture. So have the high gods fashioned these tools of their action and pleasure; Failure and grief are their engines no less than the might of the victor; They in the blow descend and resist in the sobs of the smitten. Such are their goads that I too must walk in the paths that are common, Even I who know must send for thee, moved by Cassandra. Speak, O my child, since Apollo has willed it, once, and be silent. But in her raiment hidden Cassandra answered her father: No, for my heart has changed since I cried for him, vexed by Apollo. Why should I speak? For who will believe me in Troy? who believed me Ever in Troy or the world? Event and disaster approve me Only, my comrades, not men in their thoughts, not my brothers and kinsmen. All by their hopes are gladly deceived and grow wroth with the warner, Half-blind prophets of hope entertained by the gods in the mortal! Wiser blind, if nothing they saw or only the darkness. I too once hoped when Apollo pursued me with love in his temple. Round me already there gleamed the ray of the vision prophetic, Thrill of that rapture I felt and the joy of the god in his seeing Nor did I know that the knowledge of mortals is bound unto blindness. Either only they walk mid the coloured dreams of the senses Treading the greenness of earth and deeming the touch of things real, Or if they see, by the curse of the gods their sight into falsehood Easily turns and leads them more stumbling astray than the sightless. So are we either blind in a darkness or dazzled by seeing. Thus have the gods protected their purpose and baffled the sages; Over the face of the Truth their shield of gold is extended. But I deemed otherwise, urged by the Dreadful One, he who sits always Veiled in us fighting the gods whom he uses. I cried to Apollo, Give me thy vision sheer, not such as thou givst to thy prophets, Troubled though luminous; clear be the vision and ruthless to error, Far-darting god who art veiled by the sun and by death thou art shielded. Then I shall know that thou lovest. He gave, alarmed and reluctant, Driven by Fate and his heart; but I mocked him, I broke from my promise, Courage fatal helping my heart to its ruin with laughter. Always now I remember his face that grew tranquil and ruthless, Hear the voice divine and implacable: Since thou deceivest Even the gods and thou hast not feared to lie to Apollo, Speak shalt thou henceforth only truth, but none shall believe thee: Scorned in thy words, rejected yet more for their bitter fulfilment, Scourged by the gods thou must speak though thy sick heart yearns to be silent. For in this play thou hast dared to play with the masters of heaven, Girl, it is thou who hast lost; thy voice is mine and thy bosom. Since then all I foreknow; therefore anguish is mine for my portion: Since then all whom I love must perish slain by my loving. Even of that I denied him, violent force shall bereave me Grasped mid the flames of my city and shouts of her merciless victors. But to Cassandra answered gently the voice of her brother: Sister of mine, afflicted and seized by the dreadful Apollo, All whose eyes can pierce that curtain, gaze into dimness; This they have glimpsed and that they imagine deceived by their natures Seeing the forms in their hearts of dreadful things and of joyous; As in the darkness our eyes are deceived by shadows uncertain, Such is their sight who rend the veil that the dire gods have woven. Busy our hearts are weaving thoughts and images always: After their kind they see what here we call truth. So thy nature Tender and loving, plagued by this war and its fears for thy loved ones, Sees calamity everywhere; when the event like the vision Seems, as in every war the beloved must fall and the cherished, Then the heart cries, It has happened as all shall happen I mourn for. All that was bright it misses and only seizes on sorrow. Dear, on the brightness look and if thou must prophesy, tell us Rather of great Pelides slain by my spear in the onset. But with a voice of grief the sister answered her brother: Yes, he shall fall and his slayer too perish and Troy with his slayer. But in his spirit rejoicing Paris answered Cassandra: Let but this word come true; for the rest, the gods shall avert it. Look once more, O Cassandra, and comfort the heart of thy mother, See, O seer, my safe return with the spoils of Achilles. And with a voice of grief the sister answered her brother: Thou shalt return for thy hour while Troy yet stands in the sunshine. But in his spirit exultant Paris seizing the omen: Hearst thou, my father, my mother? She who still prophesied evil Now perceives of our night this dawning. Yet is it grievous, Since through a heart that we love must be pierced the heart of Achilles. Fate, with this evil satisfied, turn in the end from Troya. Bless me, my father, and thou, O Hecuba, mother long-patient, Still forgive that thy children have fallen for Helen and Paris. Tenderly yearning his mother drew him towards her and murmured: All for thy hyacinth curls was forgiven even from childhood And for thy sunlit looks, O wonder of charm, O Paris. Paris, my son, though Troy must fall, thy mother forgives thee, Blessing the gods who have lent thee to me for a while in their sunshine. Theirs are fate and result, but ours is the joy of our children; Even the griefs are dear that come from their hands while they love us. Fight and slay Achilles, the murderer dire of thy brothers; Venging Hector return, my son, to the clasp of thy mother. But in his calm august to Paris Priam the monarch: Victor so mightst thou come, so gladden the heart of thy mother. Then to the aged father of Paris Helen the Argive Bright and immortal and sad like a star that grows near to the dawning And on its pale companions looks who now fade from its vision: Me too pardon and love, my parents, even Helen, Cause of all bane and all death; but I came from the gods for this ruin Born as a torch for the burning of empires, cursed with this beauty. Nor have I known a fathers embrace, a mothers caresses, But to the distant gods I was born and nursed as an alien Here by earth from fear, not affection, compelled by the thunders. Two are her monstrous births, from the Furies and from the immortals; Either touching mortality suffers and bears not the contact. I have been both, a monster of doom and a portent of beauty. Slowly Priam the monarch answered to Argive Helen: That which thou art the gods have made thee; thou couldst not be other: That which thou didst, the gods have done; thou couldst not prevent them. Who here shall blame or whom shall he pardon? Should not my people Rail at me murmuring, Priam has lost what his fathers had gathered; Cursed is this king by heaven and cursed who are born as his subjects? Masked the high gods act; the doer is hid by his working. Each of us bears his punishment, fruit of a seed thats forgotten; Each of us curses his neighbour protecting his heart with illusions: Therefore like children we blame each other and hate and are angry. Take, my child, the joy of the sunshine won by thy beauty. I who lodge on this earth as an alien bound by the body, Wearing my sorrow even as I wear the imperial purple, Praise yet the gods for my days that have seen thee at last in my ending. Fitly Troy may cease having gazed on thy beauty, O Helen. He became silent, he ceased from words. But Paris and Helen Lightly went and gladly; pursuing their footsteps the mother, Mother once of Troilus, mother once of Hector, Stood at the door with her death in her eyes, nor returned from her yearning, But as one after a vanishing sunbeam gazes in prison, Gazed down the corridors after him, long who had passed from her vision. Then in the silent chamber Cassandra seized by Apollo Staggered erect and tossing her snow-white arms of affliction Cried to the heavens in her pain; for the fierce god tortured her bosom: Woe is me, woe for the guile and the bitter gift of Apollo! Woe, thrice woe, for my birth in Troy and the lineage of Teucer! So do you deal, O gods, with those who have served you and laboured, Those who have borne for your sake the evil burden of greatness. Blessed is he who holds mattock in hand or who bends oer the furrow Taking no thought for the good of mankind, with no yearnings for knowledge. Woe unto me for my wisdom which none shall value nor hearken! Woe unto thee, O King, for thy strength which shall not deliver! Better the eye that is sealed, more blest is the spirit thats feeble. Vainly your hopes with iron Necessity struggle, O mortals. Virtue shall lie in her pangs, for the gods have need of her torture; Sin shall be scourged, though her deeds were compelled by the gods in their anger. None shall avail in the end, the coward shall die and the hero. Troy shall fall in her sin and her virtues shall not protect her; Argos shall grow by her crimes till the gods shall destroy her for ever. Now have I fruit of thy love, O Loxias, dreadful Apollo. Woe is me, woe for the flame that approaches the house of my fathers! Woe is me, woe for the hand of Ajax laid on my tresses! Woe, thrice woe to him who shall ravish and him who shall cherish! Woe for the ships that shall bound too swift oer the azure Aegean! Woe for thy splendid shambles of hell, O Argive Mycenae! Woe for the evil spouse and the house accursd of Atreus! So with her voice of the swan she clanged out doom on the peoples, Over the palace of Priam and over the armd nation Marching resolved to the war in the pride of its centuries conquered, Centuries slain by a single day of the anger of heaven. Dim to the thoughts like a vision of Hades the luminous chamber Grew; in his ivory chair King Priam sat like a shadow Throned mid the ghosts of departed kings and forgotten empires. But in his valiance careless and bli the the Priamid hastened Seeking the pillared megaron wide where Deiphobus armoured Waited his coming forth with the warlike chiefs of the Trojans. Now as he passed by the halls of the women, the chambers that harboured Daughters and wives of King Priam and wives of his sons and their playmates, Niches of joy that were peopled with murmurs and sweet-tongued laughters, Troubled like trees with their birds in a morning of sun and of shadow Where in some garden of kings one walks with his heart in the sunshine, Out from her door where she stood for him waiting Polyxena started, Seized his hand and looked in his face and spoke to her brother. Then not even the brilliant strength of Paris availed him; Joyless he turned his face from her eyes of beauty and sorrow. So it is come, the hour that I feared, and thou goest, O Paris, Armed with the strength of Fate to strike at my heart in the battle; For he is doomed and thou and I, a victim to Hades. This thou preferrest and neither thy father could move nor thy mother Burning with Troy in their palace, nor could thy country persuade thee, Nor dost thou care for thy sisters happiness pierced by thy arrows. Will she remember it all, my sister Helen, in Argos Passing tranquil days with her husband, bright Menelaus, Holding her child on her knees? But we shall lie joyless in Hades. Paris replied: O sister Polyxena, blame me not wholly. We by the gods are ensnared; for the pitiless white Aphrodite Doing her will with us both compels this. Helpless our hearts are And when she drives perforce must love, for death or for gladness: Weighed in unequal scales she deals them to one or another. Happy who holding his love can go down into bottomless Hades. But to her brother replied in her anguish the daughter of Priam: Evilly deal with my days the immortals happy in heaven; Yes, I accuse the gods and I curse them who heed not our sorrow. This they have done with me, forcing my heart to the love of a foeman, One whose terrible hands have been stained with the blood of my brothers. This now they do, they have taken the two whom I love beyond heaven, Brother and husband, and drive to the fight to be slain by each other. Nay, go thou forth; for thou canst not help it, nor I, nor can Helen. Since I must die as a pageant to satisfy Zeus and his daughter, Since now my heart must be borne as a victim bleeding to please them, So let it be, let me deck myself and be bright for the altar. Into her chamber she turned with her great eyes blind, unregarding; He for a moment stood, then passed to the megaron slowly; Dim was the light in his eyes and clouded his glorious beauty. Meanwhile armed in the palace of Priam Penthesilea. Near her her captains silent and mighty stood, from the Orient Distant clouds of war, Surabdas and iron Surenas, Pharatus planned like the hills, Somaranes, Valarus, Tauron, High-crested Sumalus, Arithon, Sambus and Artavoruxes. There too the princes of Phrygian Troya gathered for counsel And with them Eurus came, Polydamas son, who most dearly Loved was of all the Trojan boys by the glorious virgin. She from her arming stayed to caress his curls and to chide him: Eurus, forgotten of grace, dost thou gad like a stray in the city Eager to mix with the armoured men and the chariots gliding? High on the roofs wouldst thou watch the swaying speck that is battle? Better to aim with the dart or seek with thy kind the palaestra; So wilt thou sooner be part of this greatness rather than straining Yearn from afar to the distance that veils the deeds of the mighty. But with an anxious lure in his smile on her Eurus answered: Not that remoteness to see have I come to the palace of Priam Leaving the house of my fathers, but for the spear and the breastpiece. Hast thou not promised me long I shall fight in thy car with Achilles? Doubtful he eyed her, a lions cub at play in his beauty, And mid the heroes who heard him laughter arose for a moment, Yet with a sympathy stirred; they remembered the days of their childhood, Thought of Troy still mighty, life in its rose-touched dawning When they had longed for the clash of the fight and the burden of armour. Glad, with the pride of the lioness watching her cub in the desert, Couchant she lies with her paws before her and joys in his gambols, Over the prey as he frisks and is careless, answered the virgin: Younger than thou in my nation have mounted the steed and the war-car. Eurus, arm; from under my shield thou shalt gaze at the Phthian, Reaching my shafts for the cast from the rim of my car in the battle Handle perhaps the spear that shall smite down the Phthian Achilles. What sayst thou, Halamus? Were not such prowess a perfect beginning Worthy Polydamas son and the warlike house of Antenor? Halamus started and smiting his hand on the grief of his bosom, Sombre replied and threatened with Fate the high-hearted virgin. Virgin armipotent, wherefore mockst thou thy friend, though unwitting? Nay, for the world will know at the end and my death cannot hide it, Slain by a fathers curse we fight who are kin to Antenor. Take not the boy in thy car, lest the Furies, Penthesilea, Aim through the shield and the shielder to wreak the curse of the grandsire. They will not turn nor repent for thy strength nor his delicate beauty. Swiftly to Halamus answered the high-crested might of the virgin: Curses leave lightly the lips when the soul of a man is in anger Even as blessings easily crowd round the head that is cherished. Yet have I never seen that a curse has sharpened a spear-point; Never Death drew back from the doomed by the power of a blessing. Valour and skill and chance are Fate and the gods and the Furies. Give me the boy; a hero shall come back formed from the onset. Do as thou wilt, replied Halamus; Fate shall guard or shall end him. Then to the boy delighted and smiling-eyed and exultant Cried with her voice like the call of heavens bugles waking the heroes, Blown by the lips of gold-haired Valkyries, Penthesilea. Go, find the spear, gird the sword, don the cuirass, child of the mighty. Armed when thou standst on the plain of the Xanthus, field of thy fathers, See that thou fight on this day like the comrade of Penthesilea. Bud of a hero, gaze unalarmed in the eyes of Achilles. Light as a hound released he ran to the hall of the armour Where were the shields of the mighty, the arms of the mansion of Teucer; There from the house-thralls he wrung the greaves and the cuirass and helmet Troilus wore, the wonderful boy who, ere ripened his prowess, Conquered the Greeks and drove to the ships and fought with Achilles. These on his boyish limbs he donned and ran back exulting Bearing spears and a sword and rejoiced in the clank on his armour. Meanwhile Deiphobus, head of the mellay, moved by Aeneas Opened the doors of their warlike debate to the strength of the virgin: Well do I hope that our courage outwearying every opponent Triumph shall lift to her ancient seat on the Pergaman turrets; Clouds from Zeus come and pass; his sunshine eternal survives them. Yet we are few in the fight and armoured nations besiege us. Surging on Troy today a numberless foe well-captained Hardly pushed back in shock after shock with the Myrmidon numbers Swelled returns; they fight with a hope that broken refashion Helpful skies and a man now leads them who conquers and slaughters, One of the sons of the gods and armed by the gods for the struggle. We unhelped save by Ares stern and the mystic Apollo And but as mortals striving with stubborn mortal courage, Hated and scorned and alone in the world, by the nations rejected, Fight with the gods and mankind and Achilles and numbers against us Keeping our country from death in this bitter hour of her fortunes. Therefore have prudence and hardihood severed contending our counsels Whether far out to fight on the seaward plain with the Argives Or behind Xanthus the river impetuous friendly to Troya. This my brother approves and the son of Antenor advises, Prudent masters of war who prepare by defence their aggression. But for myself from rashness I seek a more far-seeing wisdom, Not behind vain defences choosing a tardy destruction, Rather as Zeus with his spear of the lightning and chariot of tempest Scatters and chases the heavy mass of the clouds through the heavens, So would I hunt the Greeks through the plains to their lair by the Ocean, Straight at the throat of my foeman so would I leap in the battle. Swiftly to smite at the foe is prudence for armies outnumbered. Then to the Dardanid answered the high-crested Penthesilea: There where I find my foe I will fight him, whether by Xanthus Or at the fosse of the ships where they crouch behind bulwarks for shelter, Or if they dare by Scamander the higher marching on Troya. Sternly approved her the Trojan, So should they fight who would triumph Meeting the foe ere he move in his will to the clash of encounter. But with his careless laughter the brilliant Priamid Paris: Joy of the battle, joy of the tempest, joy of the gamble Mated are in thy blood, O virgin, daughter of Ares. Thou like the deathless wouldst have us combat, us who are human? Come, let the gods do their will with us, Ares let lead and his daughter! Always the blood is wiser and knows what is hid from the thinker. Life and treasure and fame to cast on the wings of a moment, Fiercer joy than this the gods have not given to mortals. Highly to Paris the virgin armipotent Penthesilea, Paris and Halamus, shafts of the war-god, fear not for Troya. Not as a vaunt do I speak it, you gods who stern-thoughted watch us, But in my vision of strength and the soul that is seated within me, Not while I live and war shall the host of the Myrmidon fighters Forcing the currents lave, as once they were wont, in Scamander Vaunting their victor car-wheels red with the blood of the vanquished. Then when I lie by some war-god slain on the fields of the Troad, Fight again if you will behind high-banked fast-flowing Xanthus. Halamus answered her, Never so by my will would I battle Flinging Troy as a stake on the doubtful diceboard of Ares. But you have willed it and so let it be; yet hearken my counsel. Massed in the fight let us aim the storm of our spears at one greatness, Mighty Pelides head who gives victory still to the Argives. Easy the Greeks to destroy lay Achilles once slain on the Troad, But if the Peleid lives the fire shall yet finish with Troya. Join then Orestes speed to the stubborn might of Aeneas, Paris fatal shafts and the missiles of Penthesilea. Others meanwhile, a puissant screen of our bravest and strongest, Fighting shall hold back Pylos and Argolis, Crete and the Locrian. Thou, Deiphobus, front the bronze-clad stern Diomedes, I with Polydamas spear will dare to restrain and discourage Ajax feet though they yearn for pursuit and are hungry for swiftness. Knot of retreat behind let some strong experienced captain Stand with our younger levies guarding the fords of the Xanthus, Fortify the wavering line and dawn as fresh strength on the wearied. Then if the fierce gods prevail we shall perish not driven like cattle Over the plains, but draw back sternly and slowly to Troya. Answered the Priamid, Wise is thy counsel, branch of Antenor. Chaff are the southern Achaians, only the hardihood Hellene, Only the savage speed of the Locrian rescues their legions. Marshal we so this field. Stand, Halamus, covering Xanthus, Helping our need when the foe press hard on the Ilian fighters. Paris, my brother, thou with our masses aid the Eoan. I with Aeneas single spear am enough for the Argive. Gladlier Halamus cried would I fight in the front with the Locrian! This too let be as you will; for one is the glory and service Fighting in front or guarding behind the fate of our country. So in their thoughts they ordered battle. Meanwhile Eurus Gleaming returned and the room grew glad with the light of his armour. Glad were its conscious walls of that vision of boyhood and valour; Gods of the household sighed and smiled at his courage and beauty, They who had seen so many pass over their floors and return not Hasting to battle, the fair and the mighty, the curled and the grizzled, All of them treading one path like the conscious masks of one pageant Winding past through the glare of a light to the shadows beyond them. But on her captains proudly smiling Penthesilea Seized him and cried aloud, her wild and warlike nature Moved by the mothers heart that the woman loses not ever. Who then shall fear for the fate of Troy when such are her children? Verily, Eurus, yearning has seized me to meet thee in battle Rather than Locrian Ajax, rather than Phthian Achilles. There acquiring a deathless fame I would make thee my captive, Greedy and glad who feel as a lioness eyeing her booty. Nay, I can never leave thee behind, my delicate Trojan, But, when this war ends, will bear thee away to the hills of my country And, as a robber might, with my captive glad and unwilling Bring thee a perfect gift to my sisters Ditis and Anna. Eurus, there in my land thou shalt look on such hills as thy vision Gazed not on yet, with their craggy tops besieging Cronion, Sheeted in virgin white and chilling his feet with their vastness. Thou shalt rejoice in our wooded peaks and our fruit-bearing valleys, Lakes of Elysium dreaming and wide and rivers of wonder. All day long thou shalt glide between mystic woodlands in silence Broken only by call of the birds and the plashing of waters. There shalt thou see, O Eurus, the childhood of Penthesilea. Thou shalt repose in my fathers house and walk in the gardens Green where I played at the ball with my sisters, Ditis and Anna. Musing she ceased, but if any god had touched her with prescience Bidding her think for the last time now of the haunts of her childhood, Gaze in her soul with a parting love at the thought of her sisters And of the lovely and distant land where she played through her summers, Brief was the touch; for she changed at once and only of triumph Dreamed and only yearned in her heart for the shock of Achilles. So they passed from the halls of Priam fated and lofty, Halls where the air seemed sobbing yet with the cry of Cassandra; Clad in their brilliant armour, bright in their beauty and courage, Sons of the passing demigods, they to their latest battle Down the ancestral hill of the Pergamans moved to the gateway. Loud with an endless march, with a tireless gliding to meet them, All Troy streamed from her streets and her palaces armed for the combat. Then to the voice of Deiphobus clanging high oer the rumour Wide the portals swung that shall close on a blood-red evening, Slow, foreboding, reluctant, and through the yawn of the gateway Drove with a cry her steeds the virgin Penthesilea Calling aloud, O steeds of my east, we drive to Achilles. Bli the in the car behind her Eurus scouted around him Scared with his eyes lest Antenor his grandsire should rise in the gateway, Hardly believing his fate that led him safe through the portals. After her trampled and crashed the ranks of her orient fighters. Paris next with his hosts came brilliant, gold on his armour, Gold on his helm; a mighty bow hung slack on his shoulder, Propped oer his arm a spear, as he drove his car through the gateway. Next Deiphobus drove and the hero strong Aeneas, Leading their numbers on. Behind them Dus and Polites, Helenus, Priams son, Thrasymachus, grizzled Aretes, Came like the tempest his father, Adamas, son of the Northwind Orus old in the fight and Eumachus, kin to Aeneas, Who was Cresas brother and richest of men in the Troad After Antenor only and Priam, Ilions monarch. Halamus drove and Arintheus led on his Lycian levies. Who were the last to speed out of Troya of all those legions Doomed to the sword? for never again from the ancient city Foot would march or chariots crash in their pride to the Xanthus. Aetor the old and Tryas the conqueror known by the Oxus. They in the portals met and their ancient eyes on each other Looked amazed, admiring on age the harness of battle. They in the turreted head of the gateway halted and conversed. Twenty years have passed, O Tryas, chief of the Trojans, Since in the battle thy car was seen and the arm of thy prowess Age has wronged. Why now to the crowded ways of the battle Move once more thy body infirm and thy eyes that are faded? And to Antenors brother the Teucrian, Thou too, O Aetor, Old and weary hast sat in thy halls and desisted from battle. Now in Troys portals I meet thee driving forth to the mellay. Aetor answered, Which then is better, to wretchedly perish Crushed by the stones of my falling house or slain like a victim Dragged through the blood of my kin on the sacred hearth of my fathers, Or in the battle to cease mid the war-cry and hymn of the chariots Knowing that Troy yet stands in her pride though doomed in her morrows? So have the young men willed and the old like thee who age not, Old are thy limbs, but thy heart is still young and hot for the war-din. Tryas replied, To perish is better for man or for nation Nobly in battle, nor end disgraced by disease or subjection. So have I come here to offer this shoulder Laomedon leaned on, Arms that have fought by the Oxus and conquered the Orients heroes Famous in Priams wars, and a heart that is faithful to Troya. These I will offer to death on his splendid altar of battle, Tri bute from Ilion. If she must fall, I shall see not her ending. Aetor replied to Tryas, Then let us perish together, Joined by the love of our race who in life were divided in counsel. All things embrace in death and the strife and the hatred are ended. Silent together they drove for the last time through Ilions portals Out with the rest to the fight towards the sea and the spears of the Argives. Only once, as they drove, they gazed back silent on Troya Lifting her marble pride in the golden joy of the morning. So through the ripening morn the army, crossing Scamander, Filling the heavens with the dust and the war-cry, marched on the Argives. Far in front Troys plain spread wide to the echoing Ocean. *** ~ Sri Aurobindo, 4 - The Book of Partings ,

898:The Ghost - Book Iv Coxcombs, who vainly make pretence To something of exalted sense 'Bove other men, and, gravely wise, Affect those pleasures to despise, Which, merely to the eye confined, Bring no improvement to the mind, Rail at all pomp; they would not go For millions to a puppet-show, Nor can forgive the mighty crime Of countenancing pantomime; No, not at Covent Garden, where, Without a head for play or player, Or, could a head be found most fit, Without one player to second it, They must, obeying Folly's call, Thrive by mere show, or not at all With these grave fops, who, (bless their brains!) Most cruel to themselves, take pains For wretchedness, and would be thought Much wiser than a wise man ought, For his own happiness, to be; Who what they hear, and what they see, And what they smell, and taste, and feel, Distrust, till Reason sets her seal, And, by long trains of consequences Insured, gives sanction to the senses; Who would not (Heaven forbid it!) waste One hour in what the world calls Taste, Nor fondly deign to laugh or cry, Unless they know some reason why; With these grave fops, whose system seems To give up certainty for dreams, The eye of man is understood As for no other purpose good Than as a door, through which, of course, Their passage crowding, objects force, A downright usher, to admit New-comers to the court of Wit: (Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen; 190 When I say Wit, I Wisdom mean) Where (such the practice of the court, Which legal precedents support) Not one idea is allow'd To pass unquestion'd in the crowd, But ere it can obtain the grace Of holding in the brain a place, Before the chief in congregation Must stand a strict examination. Not such as those, who physic twirl, Full fraught with death, from every curl; Who prove, with all becoming state, Their voice to be the voice of Fate; Prepared with essence, drop, and pill, To be another Ward or Hill, Before they can obtain their ends, To sign death-warrants for their friends, And talents vast as theirs employ, _Secundum artem_ to destroy, Must pass (or laws their rage restrain) Before the chiefs of Warwick Lane: Thrice happy Lane! where, uncontroll'd, In power and lethargy grown old, Most fit to take, in this bless'd land, The reins--which fell from Wyndham's hand, Her lawful throne great Dulness rears, Still more herself, as more in years; Where she, (and who shall dare deny Her right, when Reeves and Chauncy's by?) Calling to mind, in ancient time, One Garth, who err'd in wit and rhyme, Ordains, from henceforth, to admit None of the rebel sons of Wit, And makes it her peculiar care That Schomberg never shall be there. Not such as those, whom Polly trains To letters, though unbless'd with brains, Who, destitute of power and will To learn, are kept to learning still; Whose heads, when other methods fail, Receive instruction from the tail, Because their sires,--a common case 191 Which brings the children to disgrace,-Imagine it a certain rule They never could beget a fool, Must pass, or must compound for, ere The chaplain, full of beef and prayer, Will give his reverend permit, Announcing them for orders fit; So that the prelate (what's a name? All prelates now are much the same) May, with a conscience safe and quiet, With holy hands lay on that fiat Which doth all faculties dispense, All sanctity, all faith, all sense; Makes Madan quite a saint appear, And makes an oracle of Cheere. Not such as in that solemn seat, Where the Nine Ladies hold retreat,-The Ladies Nine, who, as we're told, Scorning those haunts they loved of old, The banks of Isis now prefer, Nor will one hour from Oxford stir,-Are held for form, which Balaam's ass As well as Balaam's self might pass, And with his master take degrees, Could he contrive to pay the fees. Men of sound parts, who, deeply read, O'erload the storehouse of the head With furniture they ne'er can use, Cannot forgive our rambling Muse This wild excursion; cannot see Why Physic and Divinity, To the surprise of all beholders, Are lugg'd in by the head and shoulders; Or how, in any point of view, Oxford hath any thing to do. But men of nice and subtle learning, Remarkable for quick discerning, Through spectacles of critic mould, Without instruction, will behold That we a method here have got To show what is, by what is not; And that our drift (parenthesis 192 For once apart) is briefly this: Within the brain's most secret cells A certain Lord Chief-Justice dwells, Of sovereign power, whom, one and all, With common voice, we Reason call; Though, for the purposes of satire, A name, in truth, is no great matter; Jefferies or Mansfield, which you will-It means a Lord Chief-Justice still. Here, so our great projectors say, The Senses all must homage pay; Hither they all must tribute bring, And prostrate fall before their king; Whatever unto them is brought, Is carried on the wings of Thought Before his throne, where, in full state, He on their merits holds debate, Examines, cross-examines, weighs Their right to censure or to praise: Nor doth his equal voice depend On narrow views of foe and friend, Nor can, or flattery, or force Divert him from his steady course; The channel of Inquiry's clear, No sham examination's here. He, upright justicer, no doubt, _Ad libitum_ puts in and out, Adjusts and settles in a trice What virtue is, and what is vice; What is perfection, what defect; What we must choose, and what reject; He takes upon him to explain What pleasure is, and what is pain; Whilst we, obedient to the whim, And resting all our faith on him, True members of the Stoic Weal, Must learn to think, and cease to feel. This glorious system, form'd for man To practise when and how he can, If the five Senses, in alliance, To Reason hurl a proud defiance, And, though oft conquer'd, yet unbroke, 193 Endeavour to throw off that yoke, Which they a greater slavery hold Than Jewish bondage was of old; Or if they, something touch'd with shame, Allow him to retain the name Of Royalty, and, as in sport, To hold a mimic formal court; Permitted--no uncommon thing-To be a kind of puppet king, And suffer'd, by the way of toy, To hold a globe, but not employ; Our system-mongers, struck with fear, Prognosticate destruction near; All things to anarchy must run; The little world of man's undone. Nay, should the Eye, that nicest sense, Neglect to send intelligence Unto the Brain, distinct and clear, Of all that passes in her sphere; Should she, presumptuous, joy receive Without the Understanding's leave, They deem it rank and daring treason Against the monarchy of Reason, Not thinking, though they're wondrous wise, That few have reason, most have eyes; So that the pleasures of the mind To a small circle are confined, Whilst those which to the senses fall Become the property of all. Besides, (and this is sure a case Not much at present out of place) Where Nature reason doth deny, No art can that defect supply; But if (for it is our intent Fairly to state the argument) A man should want an eye or two, The remedy is sure, though new: The cure's at hand--no need of fear-For proof--behold the Chevalier!-As well prepared, beyond all doubt, To put eyes in, as put them out. But, argument apart, which tends 194 To embitter foes and separate friends, (Nor, turn'd apostate from the Nine, Would I, though bred up a divine, And foe, of course, to Reason's Weal, Widen that breach I cannot heal) By his own sense and feelings taught, In speech as liberal as in thought, Let every man enjoy his whim; What's he to me, or I to him? Might I, though never robed in ermine, A matter of this weight determine, No penalties should settled be To force men to hypocrisy, To make them ape an awkward zeal, And, feeling not, pretend to feel. I would not have, might sentence rest Finally fix'd within my breast, E'en Annet censured and confined, Because we're of a different mind. Nature, who, in her act most free, Herself delights in liberty, Profuse in love, and without bound, Pours joy on every creature round; Whom yet, was every bounty shed In double portions on our head, We could not truly bounteous call, If Freedom did not crown them all. By Providence forbid to stray, Brutes never can mistake their way; Determined still, they plod along By instinct, neither right nor wrong; But man, had he the heart to use His freedom, hath a right to choose; Whether he acts, or well, or ill, Depends entirely on his will. To her last work, her favourite Man, Is given, on Nature's better plan, A privilege in power to err. Nor let this phrase resentment stir Amongst the grave ones, since indeed The little merit man can plead In doing well, dependeth still 195 Upon his power of doing ill. Opinions should be free as air; No man, whate'er his rank, whate'er His qualities, a claim can found That my opinion must be bound, And square with his; such slavish chains From foes the liberal soul disdains; Nor can, though true to friendship, bend To wear them even from a friend. Let those, who rigid judgment own, Submissive bow at Judgment's throne, And if they of no value hold Pleasure, till pleasure is grown cold, Pall'd and insipid, forced to wait For Judgment's regular debate To give it warrant, let them find Dull subjects suited to their mind. Theirs be slow wisdom; be my plan, To live as merry as I can, Regardless, as the fashions go, Whether there's reason for't or no: Be my employment here on earth To give a liberal scope to mirth, Life's barren vale with flowers to adorn, And pluck a rose from every thorn. But if, by Error led astray, I chance to wander from my way, Let no blind guide observe, in spite, I'm wrong, who cannot set me right. That doctor could I ne'er endure Who found disease, and not a cure; Nor can I hold that man a friend Whose zeal a helping hand shall lend To open happy Folly's eyes, And, making wretched, make me wise: For next (a truth which can't admit Reproof from Wisdom or from Wit) To being happy here below, Is to believe that we are so. Some few in knowledge find relief; I place my comfort in belief. Some for reality may call; 196 Fancy to me is all in all. Imagination, through the trick Of doctors, often makes us sick; And why, let any sophist tell, May it not likewise make us well? This I am sure, whate'er our view, Whatever shadows we pursue, For our pursuits, be what they will, Are little more than shadows still; Too swift they fly, too swift and strong, For man to catch or hold them long; But joys which in the fancy live, Each moment to each man may give: True to himself, and true to ease, He softens Fate's severe decrees, And (can a mortal wish for more?) Creates, and makes himself new o'er, Mocks boasted vain reality, And is, whate'er he wants to be. Hail, Fancy!--to thy power I owe Deliverance from the gripe of Woe; To thee I owe a mighty debt, Which Gratitude shall ne'er forget, Whilst Memory can her force employ, A large increase of every joy. When at my doors, too strongly barr'd, Authority had placed a guard, A knavish guard, ordain'd by law To keep poor Honesty in awe; Authority, severe and stern, To intercept my wish'd return; When foes grew proud, and friends grew cool, And laughter seized each sober fool; When Candour started in amaze, And, meaning censure, hinted praise; When Prudence, lifting up her eyes And hands, thank'd Heaven that she was wise; When all around me, with an air Of hopeless sorrow, look'd despair; When they, or said, or seem'd to say, There is but one, one only way Better, and be advised by us, 197 Not be at all, than to be thus; When Virtue shunn'd the shock, and Pride, Disabled, lay by Virtue's side, Too weak my ruffled soul to cheer, Which could not hope, yet would not fear; Health in her motion, the wild grace Of pleasure speaking in her face, Dull regularity thrown by, And comfort beaming from her eye, Fancy, in richest robes array'd, Came smiling forth, and brought me aid; Came smiling o'er that dreadful time, And, more to bless me, came in rhyme. Nor is her power to me confined; It spreads, it comprehends mankind. When (to the spirit-stirring sound Of trumpets breathing courage round, And fifes well-mingled, to restrain And bring that courage down again; Or to the melancholy knell Of the dull, deep, and doleful bell, Such as of late the good Saint Bride Muffled, to mortify the pride Of those who, England quite forgot, Paid their vile homage to the Scot; Where Asgill held the foremost place, Whilst my lord figured at a race) Processions ('tis not worth debate Whether they are of stage or state) Move on, so very, very slow, Tis doubtful if they move, or no; When the performers all the while Mechanically frown or smile, Or, with a dull and stupid stare, A vacancy of sense declare, Or, with down-bending eye, seem wrought Into a labyrinth of thought, Where Reason wanders still in doubt, And, once got in, cannot get out; What cause sufficient can we find, To satisfy a thinking mind, Why, duped by such vain farces, man 198 Descends to act on such a plan? Why they, who hold themselves divine, Can in such wretched follies join, Strutting like peacocks, or like crows, Themselves and Nature to expose? What cause, but that (you'll understand We have our remedy at hand, That if perchance we start a doubt, Ere it is fix'd, we wipe it out; As surgeons, when they lop a limb, Whether for profit, fame, or whim, Or mere experiment to try, Must always have a styptic by) Fancy steps in, and stamps that real, Which, _ipso facto_, is ideal. Can none remember?--yes, I know, All must remember that rare show When to the country Sense went down, And fools came flocking up to town; When knights (a work which all admit To be for knighthood much unfit) Built booths for hire; when parsons play'd, In robes canonical array'd, And, fiddling, join'd the Smithfield dance, The price of tickets to advance: Or, unto tapsters turn'd, dealt out, Running from booth to booth about, To every scoundrel, by retail, True pennyworths of beef and ale, Then first prepared, by bringing beer in, For present grand electioneering; When heralds, running all about To bring in Order, turn'd it out; When, by the prudent Marshal's care, Lest the rude populace should stare, And with unhallow'd eyes profane Gay puppets of Patrician strain, The whole procession, as in spite, Unheard, unseen, stole off by night; When our loved monarch, nothing both, Solemnly took that sacred oath, Whence mutual firm agreements spring 199 Betwixt the subject and the king, By which, in usual manner crown'd, His head, his heart, his hands, he bound, Against himself, should passion stir The least propensity to err, Against all slaves, who might prepare, Or open force, or hidden snare, That glorious Charter to maintain, By which we serve, and he must reign; Then Fancy, with unbounded sway, Revell'd sole mistress of the day, And wrought such wonders, as might make Egyptian sorcerers forsake Their baffled mockeries, and own The palm of magic hers alone. A knight, (who, in the silken lap Of lazy Peace, had lived on pap; Who never yet had dared to roam 'Bove ten or twenty miles from home, Nor even that, unless a guide Was placed to amble by his side, And troops of slaves were spread around To keep his Honour safe and sound; Who could not suffer, for his life, A point to sword, or edge to knife; And always fainted at the sight Of blood, though 'twas not shed in fight; Who disinherited one son For firing off an alder gun, And whipt another, six years old, Because the boy, presumptuous, bold To madness, likely to become A very Swiss, had beat a drum, Though it appear'd an instrument Most peaceable and innocent, Having, from first, been in the hands And service of the City bands) Graced with those ensigns, which were meant To further Honour's dread intent, The minds of warriors to inflame, And spur them on to deeds of fame; With little sword, large spurs, high feather, 200 Fearless of every thing but weather, (And all must own, who pay regard To charity, it had been hard That in his very first campaign His honours should be soil'd with rain) A hero all at once became, And (seeing others much the same In point of valour as himself, Who leave their courage on a shelf From year to year, till some such rout In proper season calls it out) Strutted, look'd big, and swagger'd more Than ever hero did before; Look'd up, look'd down, look'd all around, Like Mavors, grimly smiled and frown'd; Seem'd Heaven, and Earth, and Hell to call To fight, that he might rout them all, And personated Valour's style So long, spectators to beguile, That, passing strange, and wondrous true, Himself at last believed it too; Nor for a time could he discern, Till Truth and Darkness took their turn, So well did Fancy play her part, That coward still was at the heart. Whiffle (who knows not Whiffle's name, By the impartial voice of Fame Recorded first through all this land In Vanity's illustrious band?) Who, by all-bounteous Nature meant For offices of hardiment, A modern Hercules at least, To rid the world of each wild beast, Of each wild beast which came in view, Whether on four legs or on two, Degenerate, delights to prove His force on the parade of Love, Disclaims the joys which camps afford, And for the distaff quits the sword; Who fond of women would appear To public eye and public ear, But, when in private, lets them know 201 How little they can trust to show; Who sports a woman, as of course, Just as a jockey shows a horse, And then returns her to the stable, Or vainly plants her at his table, Where he would rather Venus find (So pall'd, and so depraved his mind) Than, by some great occasion led, To seize her panting in her bed, Burning with more than mortal fires, And melting in her own desires; Who, ripe in years, is yet a child, Through fashion, not through feeling, wild; Whate'er in others, who proceed As Sense and Nature have decreed, From real passion flows, in him Is mere effect of mode and whim; Who laughs, a very common way, Because he nothing has to say, As your choice spirits oaths dispense To fill up vacancies of sense; Who, having some small sense, defies it, Or, using, always misapplies it; Who now and then brings something forth Which seems indeed of sterling worth; Something, by sudden start and fit, Which at a distance looks like wit, But, on examination near, To his confusion will appear, By Truth's fair glass, to be at best A threadbare jester's threadbare jest; Who frisks and dances through the street, Sings without voice, rides without seat, Plays o'er his tricks, like Aesop's ass, A gratis fool to all who pass; Who riots, though he loves not waste, Whores without lust, drinks without taste, Acts without sense, talks without thought, Does every thing but what he ought; Who, led by forms, without the power Of vice, is vicious; who one hour, Proud without pride, the next will be 202 Humble without humility: Whose vanity we all discern, The spring on which his actions turn; Whose aim in erring, is to err, So that he may be singular, And all his utmost wishes mean Is, though he's laugh'd at, to be seen: Such, (for when Flattery's soothing strain Had robb'd the Muse of her disdain, And found a method to persuade Her art to soften every shade, Justice, enraged, the pencil snatch'd From her degenerate hand, and scratch'd Out every trace; then, quick as thought, From life this striking likeness caught) In mind, in manners, and in mien, Such Whiffle came, and such was seen In the world's eye; but (strange to tell!) Misled by Fancy's magic spell, Deceived, not dreaming of deceit, Cheated, but happy in the cheat, Was more than human in his own. Oh, bow, bow all at Fancy's throne, Whose power could make so vile an elf With patience bear that thing, himself. But, mistress of each art to please, Creative Fancy, what are these, These pageants of a trifler's pen, To what thy power effected then? Familiar with the human mind, And swift and subtle as the wind, Which we all feel, yet no one knows, Or whence it comes, or where it goes, Fancy at once in every part Possess'd the eye, the head, the heart, And in a thousand forms array'd, A thousand various gambols play'd. Here, in a face which well might ask The privilege to wear a mask In spite of law, and Justice teach For public good to excuse the breach, Within the furrow of a wrinkle 203 'Twixt eyes, which could not shine but twinkle, Like sentinels i' th' starry way, Who wait for the return of day, Almost burnt out, and seem to keep Their watch, like soldiers, in their sleep; Or like those lamps, which, by the power Of law, must burn from hour to hour, (Else they, without redemption, fall Under the terrors of that Hall, Which, once notorious for a hop, Is now become a justice shop) Which are so managed, to go out Just when the time comes round about, Which yet, through emulation, strive To keep their dying light alive, And (not uncommon, as we find, Amongst the children of mankind) As they grow weaker, would seem stronger, And burn a little, little longer: Fancy, betwixt such eyes enshrined, No brush to daub, no mill to grind, Thrice waved her wand around, whose force Changed in an instant Nature's course, And, hardly credible in rhyme, Not only stopp'd, but call'd back Time; The face of every wrinkle clear'd, Smooth as the floating stream appear'd, Down the neck ringlets spread their flame, The neck admiring whence they came; On the arch'd brow the Graces play'd; On the full bosom Cupid laid; Suns, from their proper orbits sent, Became for eyes a supplement; Teeth, white as ever teeth were seen, Deliver'd from the hand of Green, Started, in regular array, Like train-bands on a grand field day, Into the gums, which would have fled, But, wondering, turn'd from white to red; Quite alter'd was the whole machine, And Lady ---- ---- was fifteen. Here she made lordly temples rise 204 Before the pious Dashwood's eyes, Temples which, built aloft in air, May serve for show, if not for prayer; In solemn form herself, before, Array'd like Faith, the Bible bore. There over Melcombe's feather'd head-Who, quite a man of gingerbread, Savour'd in talk, in dress, and phiz, More of another world than this, To a dwarf Muse a giant page, The last grave fop of the last age-In a superb and feather'd hearse, Bescutcheon'd and betagg'd with verse, Which, to beholders from afar, Appear'd like a triumphal car, She rode, in a cast rainbow clad; There, throwing off the hallow'd plaid, Naked, as when (in those drear cells Where, self-bless'd, self-cursed, Madness dwells) Pleasure, on whom, in Laughter's shape, Frenzy had perfected a rape, First brought her forth, before her time, Wild witness of her shame and crime, Driving before an idol band Of drivelling Stuarts, hand in hand; Some who, to curse mankind, had wore A crown they ne'er must think of more; Others, whose baby brows were graced With paper crowns, and toys of paste, She jigg'd, and, playing on the flute, Spread raptures o'er the soul of Bute. Big with vast hopes, some mighty plan, Which wrought the busy soul of man To her full bent; the Civil Law, Fit code to keep a world in awe, Bound o'er his brows, fair to behold, As Jewish frontlets were of old; The famous Charter of our land Defaced, and mangled in his hand; As one whom deepest thoughts employ, But deepest thoughts of truest joy, Serious and slow he strode, he stalk'd; 205 Before him troops of heroes walk'd, Whom best he loved, of heroes crown'd, By Tories guarded all around; Dull solemn pleasure in his face, He saw the honours of his race, He saw their lineal glories rise, And touch'd, or seem'd to touch, the skies: Not the most distant mark of fear, No sign of axe or scaffold near, Not one cursed thought to cross his will Of such a place as Tower Hill. Curse on this Muse, a flippant jade, A shrew, like every other maid Who turns the corner of nineteen, Devour'd with peevishness and spleen; Her tongue (for as, when bound for life, The husband suffers for the wife, So if in any works of rhyme Perchance there blunders out a crime, Poor culprit bards must always rue it, Although 'tis plain the Muses do it) Sooner or later cannot fail To send me headlong to a jail. Whate'er my theme, (our themes we choose, In modern days, without a Muse; Just as a father will provide To join a bridegroom and a bride, As if, though they must be the players, The game was wholly his, not theirs) Whate'er my theme, the Muse, who still Owns no direction but her will, Plies off, and ere I could expect, By ways oblique and indirect, At once quite over head and ears In fatal politics appears. Time was, and, if I aught discern Of fate, that time shall soon return, When, decent and demure at least, As grave and dull as any priest, I could see Vice in robes array'd, Could see the game of Folly play'd Successfully in Fortune's school, 206 Without exclaiming rogue or fool. Time was, when, nothing both or proud, I lackey'd with the fawning crowd, Scoundrels in office, and would bow To cyphers great in place; but now Upright I stand, as if wise Fate, To compliment a shatter'd state, Had me, like Atlas, hither sent To shoulder up the firmament, And if I stoop'd, with general crack, The heavens would tumble from my back. Time was, when rank and situation Secured the great ones of the nation From all control; satire and law Kept only little knaves in awe; But now, Decorum lost, I stand Bemused, a pencil in my hand, And, dead to every sense of shame, Careless of safety and of fame, The names of scoundrels minute down, And libel more than half the town. How can a statesman be secure In all his villanies, if poor And dirty authors thus shall dare To lay his rotten bosom bare? Muses should pass away their time In dressing out the poet's rhyme With bills, and ribands, and array Each line in harmless taste, though gay; When the hot burning fit is on, They should regale their restless son With something to allay his rage, Some cool Castalian beverage, Or some such draught (though they, 'tis plain, Taking the Muse's name in vain, Know nothing of their real court, And only fable from report) As makes a Whitehead's Ode go down, Or slakes the Feverette of Brown: But who would in his senses think, Of Muses giving gall to drink, Or that their folly should afford 207 To raving poets gun or sword? Poets were ne'er designed by Fate To meddle with affairs of state, Nor should (if we may speak our thought Truly as men of honour ought) Sound policy their rage admit, To launch the thunderbolts of Wit About those heads, which, when they're shot, Can't tell if 'twas by Wit or not. These things well known, what devil, in spite, Can have seduced me thus to write Out of that road, which must have led To riches, without heart or head, Into that road, which, had I more Than ever poet had before Of wit and virtue, in disgrace Would keep me still, and out of place; Which, if some judge (you'll understand One famous, famous through the land For making law) should stand my friend, At last may in a pillory end; And all this, I myself admit, Without one cause to lead to it? For instance, now--this book--the Ghost-Methinks I hear some critic Post Remark most gravely--'The first word Which we about the Ghost have heard.' Peace, my good sir!--not quite so fast-What is the first, may be the last, Which is a point, all must agree, Cannot depend on you or me. Fanny, no ghost of common mould, Is not by forms to be controll'd; To keep her state, and show her skill, She never comes but when she will. I wrote and wrote, (perhaps you doubt, And shrewdly, what I wrote about; Believe me, much to my disgrace, I, too, am in the self-same case But still I wrote, till Fanny came Impatient, nor could any shame On me with equal justice fall 208 If she had never come at all. An underling, I could not stir Without the cue thrown out by her, Nor from the subject aid receive Until she came and gave me leave. So that, (ye sons of Erudition Mark, this is but a supposition, Nor would I to so wise a nation Suggest it as a revelation) If henceforth, dully turning o'er Page after page, ye read no more Of Fanny, who, in sea or air, May be departed God knows where, Rail at jilt Fortune; but agree No censure can be laid on me; For sure (the cause let Mansfield try) Fanny is in the fault, not I. But, to return--and this I hold A secret worth its weight in gold To those who write, as I write now, Not to mind where they go, or how, Through ditch, through bog, o'er hedge and stile, Make it but worth the reader's while, And keep a passage fair and plain Always to bring him back again. Through dirt, who scruples to approach, At Pleasure's call, to take a coach? But we should think the man a clown, Who in the dirt should set us down. But to return--if Wit, who ne'er The shackles of restraint could bear, In wayward humour should refuse Her timely succour to the Muse, And, to no rules and orders tied, Roughly deny to be her guide, She must renounce Decorum's plan, And get back when, and how she can; As parsons, who, without pretext, As soon as mention'd, quit their text, And, to promote sleep's genial power, Grope in the dark for half an hour, Give no more reason (for we know 209 Reason is vulgar, mean, and low) Why they come back (should it befall That ever they come back at all) Into the road, to end their rout, Than they can give why they went out. But to return--this book--the Ghost-A mere amusement at the most; A trifle, fit to wear away The horrors of a rainy day; A slight shot-silk, for summer wear, Just as our modern statesmen are, If rigid honesty permit That I for once purloin the wit Of him, who, were we all to steal, Is much too rich the theft to feel: Yet in this book, where Base should join With Mirth to sugar every line; Where it should all be mere chit-chat, Lively, good-humour'd, and all that; Where honest Satire, in disgrace, Should not so much as show her face, The shrew, o'erleaping all due bounds, Breaks into Laughter's sacred grounds, And, in contempt, plays o'er her tricks In science, trade, and politics. By why should the distemper'd scold Attempt to blacken men enroll'd In Power's dread book, whose mighty skill Can twist an empire to their will; Whose voice is fate, and on their tongue Law, liberty, and life are hung; Whom, on inquiry, Truth shall find With Stuarts link'd, time out of mind, Superior to their country's laws, Defenders of a tyrant's cause; Men, who the same damn'd maxims hold Darkly, which they avow'd of old; Who, though by different means, pursue The end which they had first in view, And, force found vain, now play their part With much less honour, much more art? Why, at the corners of the streets, 210 To every patriot drudge she meets, Known or unknown, with furious cry Should she wild clamours vent? or why, The minds of groundlings to inflame, A Dashwood, Bute, and Wyndham name? Why, having not, to our surprise, The fear of death before her eyes, Bearing, and that but now and then, No other weapon but her pen, Should she an argument afford For blood to men who wear a sword? Men, who can nicely trim and pare A point of honour to a hair-(Honour!--a word of nice import, A pretty trinket in a court, Which my lord, quite in rapture, feels Dangling and rattling with his seals-Honour!--a word which all the Nine Would be much puzzled to define-Honour!--a word which torture mocks, And might confound a thousand Lockes-Which--for I leave to wiser heads, Who fields of death prefer to beds Of down, to find out, if they can, What honour is, on their wild plan-Is not, to take it in their way, And this we sure may dare to say Without incurring an offence, Courage, law, honesty, or sense): Men, who, all spirit, life, and soul Neat butchers of a button-hole, Having more skill, believe it true That they must have more courage too: Men who, without a place or name, Their fortunes speechless as their fame, Would by the sword new fortunes carve, And rather die in fight than starve At coronations, a vast field, Which food of every kind might yield; Of good sound food, at once most fit For purposes of health and wit, Could not ambitious Satire rest, 211 Content with what she might digest? Could she not feast on things of course, A champion, or a champion's horse? A champion's horse--no, better say, Though better figured on that day, A horse, which might appear to us, Who deal in rhyme, a Pegasus; A rider, who, when once got on, Might pass for a Bellerophon, Dropt on a sudden from the skies, To catch and fix our wondering eyes, To witch, with wand instead of whip, The world with noble horsemanship, To twist and twine, both horse and man, On such a well-concerted plan, That, Centaur-like, when all was done, We scarce could think they were not one? Could she not to our itching ears Bring the new names of new-coin'd peers, Who walk'd, nobility forgot, With shoulders fitter for a knot Than robes of honour; for whose sake Heralds in form were forced to make, To make, because they could not find, Great predecessors to their mind? Could she not (though 'tis doubtful since Whether he plumber is, or prince) Tell of a simple knight's advance To be a doughty peer of France? Tell how he did a dukedom gain, And Robinson was Aquitain? Tell how her city chiefs, disgraced, Were at an empty table placed,-A gross neglect, which, whilst they live, They can't forget, and won't forgive; A gross neglect of all those rights Which march with city appetites, Of all those canons, which we find By Gluttony, time out of mind, Established, which they ever hold Dearer than any thing but gold? Thanks to my stars--I now see shore-- 212 Of courtiers, and of courts no more-Thus stumbling on my city friends, Blind Chance my guide, my purpose bends In line direct, and shall pursue The point which I had first in view, Nor more shall with the reader sport Till I have seen him safe in port. Hush'd be each fear--no more I bear Through the wide regions of the air The reader terrified, no more Wild ocean's horrid paths explore. Be the plain track from henceforth mine-Cross roads to Allen I resign; Allen, the honor of this nation; Allen, himself a corporation; Allen, of late notorious grown For writings, none, or all, his own; Allen, the first of letter'd men, Since the good Bishop holds his pen, And at his elbow takes his stand, To mend his head, and guide his hand. But hold--once more, Digression hence-Let us return to Common Sense; The car of Phoebus I discharge, My carriage now a Lord Mayor's barge. Suppose we now--we may suppose In verse, what would be sin in prose-The sky with darkness overspread, And every star retired to bed; The gewgaw robes of Pomp and Pride In some dark corner thrown aside; Great lords and ladies giving way To what they seem to scorn by day, The real feelings of the heart, And Nature taking place of Art; Desire triumphant through the night, And Beauty panting with delight; Chastity, woman's fairest crown, Till the return of morn laid down. Then to be worn again as bright As if not sullied in the night; Dull Ceremony, business o'er, 213 Dreaming in form at Cottrell's door; Precaution trudging all about To see the candles safely out, Bearing a mighty master-key, Habited like Economy, Stamping each lock with triple seals; Mean Avarice creeping at her heels. Suppose we too, like sheep in pen, The Mayor and Court of Aldermen Within their barge, which through the deep, The rowers more than half asleep, Moved slow, as overcharged with state; Thames groan'd beneath the mighty weight, And felt that bauble heavier far Than a whole fleet of men of war. Sleep o'er each well-known faithful head With liberal hand his poppies shed; Each head, by Dulness render'd fit Sleep and his empire to admit. Through the whole passage not a word, Not one faint, weak half-sound was heard; Sleep had prevail'd to overwhelm The steersman nodding o'er the helm; The rowers, without force or skill, Left the dull barge to drive at will; The sluggish oars suspended hung, And even Beardmore held his tongue. Commerce, regardful of a freight On which depended half her state, Stepp'd to the helm; with ready hand She safely clear'd that bank of sand, Where, stranded, our west-country fleet Delay and danger often meet, Till Neptune, anxious for the trade, Comes in full tides, and brings them aid. Next (for the Muses can survey Objects by night as well as day; Nothing prevents their taking aim, Darkness and light to them the same) They pass'd that building which of old Queen-mothers was design'd to hold; At present a mere lodging-pen, 214 A palace turn'd into a den; To barracks turn'd, and soldiers tread Where dowagers have laid their head. Why should we mention Surrey Street, Where every week grave judges meet All fitted out with hum and ha, In proper form to drawl out law, To see all causes duly tried 'Twixt knaves who drive, and fools who ride? Why at the Temple should we stay? What of the Temple dare we say? A dangerous ground we tread on there, And words perhaps may actions bear; Where, as the brethren of the seas For fares, the lawyers ply for fees. What of that Bridge, most wisely made To serve the purposes of trade, In the great mart of all this nation, By stopping up the navigation, And to that sand bank adding weight, Which is already much too great? What of that Bridge, which, void of sense But well supplied with impudence, Englishmen, knowing not the Guild, Thought they might have a claim to build, Till Paterson, as white as milk, As smooth as oil, as soft as silk, In solemn manner had decreed That on the other side the Tweed Art, born and bred, and fully grown, Was with one Mylne, a man unknown, But grace, preferment, and renown Deserving, just arrived in town: One Mylne, an artist perfect quite Both in his own and country's right, As fit to make a bridge as he, With glorious Patavinity, To build inscriptions worthy found To lie for ever under ground. Much more worth observation too, Was this a season to pursue The theme, our Muse might tell in rhyme: 215 The will she hath, but not the time; For, swift as shaft from Indian bow, (And when a goddess comes, we know, Surpassing Nature acts prevail. And boats want neither oar nor sail) The vessel pass'd, and reach'd the shore So quick, that Thought was scarce before. Suppose we now our City court Safely delivered at the port. And, of their state regardless quite, Landed, like smuggled goods, by night, The solemn magistrate laid down, The dignity of robe and gown, With every other ensign gone, Suppose the woollen nightcap on; The flesh-brush used, with decent state, To make the spirits circulate, (A form which, to the senses true, The lickerish chaplain uses too, Though, something to improve the plan, He takes the maid instead of man) Swathed, and with flannel cover'd o'er, To show the vigour of threescore, The vigour of threescore and ten, Above the proof of younger men, Suppose, the mighty Dulman led Betwixt two slaves, and put to bed; Suppose, the moment he lies down, No miracle in this great town, The drone as fast asleep as he Must in the course of nature be, Who, truth for our foundation take, When up, is never half awake. There let him sleep, whilst we survey The preparations for the day; That day on which was to be shown Court pride by City pride outdone. The jealous mother sends away, As only fit for childish play, That daughter who, to gall her pride, Shoots up too forward by her side. The wretch, of God and man accursed, 216 Of all Hell's instruments the worst, Draws forth his pawns, and for the day Struts in some spendthrift's vain array; Around his awkward doxy shine The treasures of Golconda's mine; Each neighbour, with a jealous glare, Beholds her folly publish'd there. Garments well saved, (an anecdote Which we can prove, or would not quote) Garments well saved, which first were made When tailors, to promote their trade, Against the Picts in arms arose, And drove them out, or made them clothes; Garments immortal, without end, Like names and titles, which descend Successively from sire to son; Garments, unless some work is done Of note, not suffer'd to appear 'Bove once at most in every year, Were now, in solemn form, laid bare, To take the benefit of air, And, ere they came to be employ'd On this solemnity, to void That scent which Russia's leather gave, From vile and impious moth to save. Each head was busy, and each heart In preparation bore a part; Running together all about The servants put each other out, Till the grave master had decreed, The more haste ever the worse speed. Miss, with her little eyes half-closed, Over a smuggled toilette dosed; The waiting-maid, whom story notes A very Scrub in petticoats, Hired for one work, but doing all, In slumbers lean'd against the wall. Milliners, summon'd from afar, Arrived in shoals at Temple Bar, Strictly commanded to import Cart loads of foppery from Court; With labour'd visible design, 217 Art strove to be superbly fine; Nature, more pleasing, though more wild, Taught otherwise her darling child, And cried, with spirited disdain, Be Hunter elegant and plain! Lo! from the chambers of the East, A welcome prelude to the feast, In saffron-colour'd robe array'd, High in a car, by Vulcan made, Who work'd for Jove himself, each steed, High-mettled, of celestial breed, Pawing and pacing all the way, Aurora brought the wish'd-for day, And held her empire, till out-run By that brave jolly groom, the Sun. The trumpet--hark! it speaks--it swells The loud full harmony; it tells The time at hand when Dulman, led By Form, his citizens must head, And march those troops, which at his call Were now assembled, to Guildhall, On matters of importance great, To court and city, church and state. From end to end the sound makes way, All hear the signal and obey; But Dulman, who, his charge forgot, By Morpheus fetter'd, heard it not; Nor could, so sound he slept and fast, Hear any trumpet, but the last. Crape, ever true and trusty known, Stole from the maid's bed to his own, Then in the spirituals of pride, Planted himself at Dulman's side. Thrice did the ever-faithful slave, With voice which might have reach'd the grave, And broke Death's adamantine chain, On Dulman call, but call'd in vain. Thrice with an arm, which might have made The Theban boxer curse his trade, The drone he shook, who rear'd the head, And thrice fell backward on his bed. What could be done? Where force hath fail'd, 218 Policy often hath prevail'd; And what--an inference most plain-Had been, Crape thought might be again. Under his pillow (still in mind The proverb kept, 'fast bind, fast find') Each blessed night the keys were laid, Which Crape to draw away assay'd. What not the power of voice or arm Could do, this did, and broke the charm; Quick started he with stupid stare, For all his little soul was there. Behold him, taken up, rubb'd down, In elbow-chair, and morning-gown; Behold him, in his latter bloom, Stripp'd, wash'd, and sprinkled with perfume; Behold him bending with the weight Of robes, and trumpery of state; Behold him (for the maxim's true, Whate'er we by another do, We do ourselves; and chaplain paid, Like slaves in every other trade, Had mutter'd over God knows what, Something which he by heart had got) Having, as usual, said his prayers, Go titter, totter to the stairs: Behold him for descent prepare, With one foot trembling in the air; He starts, he pauses on the brink, And, hard to credit, seems to think; Through his whole train (the chaplain gave The proper cue to every slave) At once, as with infection caught, Each started, paused, and aim'd at thought; He turns, and they turn; big with care, He waddles to his elbow-chair, Squats down, and, silent for a season, At last with Crape begins to reason: But first of all he made a sign, That every soul, but the divine, Should quit the room; in him, he knows, He may all confidence repose. 'Crape--though I'm yet not quite awake-- 219 Before this awful step I take, On which my future all depends, I ought to know my foes and friends. My foes and friends--observe me still-I mean not those who well or ill Perhaps may wish me, but those who Have't in their power to do it too. Now if, attentive to the state, In too much hurry to be great, Or through much zeal,--a motive, Crape, Deserving praise,--into a scrape I, like a fool, am got, no doubt I, like a wise man, should get out: Note that remark without replies; I say that to get out is wise, Or, by the very self-same rule, That to get in was like a fool. The marrow of this argument Must wholly rest on the event, And therefore, which is really hard, Against events too I must guard. Should things continue as they stand, And Bute prevail through all the land Without a rival, by his aid My fortunes in a trice are made; Nay, honours on my zeal may smile, And stamp me Earl of some great Isle: But if, a matter of much doubt, The present minister goes out, Fain would I know on what pretext I can stand fairly with the next? For as my aim, at every hour, Is to be well with those in power, And my material point of view, Whoever's in, to be in too, I should not, like a blockhead, choose To gain these, so as those to lose: 'Tis good in every case, you know, To have two strings unto our bow.' As one in wonder lost, Crape view'd His lord, who thus his speech pursued: 'This, my good Crape, is my grand point; 220 And as the times are out of joint, The greater caution is required To bring about the point desired. What I would wish to bring about Cannot admit a moment's doubt; The matter in dispute, you know, Is what we call the _Quomodo_. That be thy task.'--The reverend slave, Becoming in a moment grave, Fix'd to the ground and rooted stood, Just like a man cut out out of wood, Such as we see (without the least Reflection glancing on the priest) One or more, planted up and down, Almost in every church in town; He stood some minutes, then, like one Who wish'd the matter might be done, But could not do it, shook his head, And thus the man of sorrow said: 'Hard is this task, too hard I swear, By much too hard for me to bear; Beyond expression hard my part, Could mighty Dulman see my heart, When he, alas! makes known a will Which Crape's not able to fulfil. Was ever my obedience barr'd By any trifling nice regard To sense and honour? Could I reach Thy meaning without help of speech, At the first motion of thy eye Did not thy faithful creature fly? Have I not said, not what I ought, But what my earthly master taught? Did I e'er weigh, through duty strong, In thy great biddings, right and wrong? Did ever Interest, to whom thou Canst not with more devotion bow, Warp my sound faith, or will of mine In contradiction run to thine? Have I not, at thy table placed, When business call'd aloud for haste, Torn myself thence, yet never heard 221 To utter one complaining word, And had, till thy great work was done, All appetites, as having none? Hard is it, this great plan pursued Of voluntary servitude; Pursued without or shame, or fear, Through the great circle of the year, Now to receive, in this grand hour, Commands which lie beyond my power, Commands which baffle all my skill, And leave me nothing but my will: Be that accepted; let my lord Indulgence to his slave afford: This task, for my poor strength unfit, Will yield to none but Dulman's wit.' With such gross incense gratified, And turning up the lip of pride, 'Poor Crape'--and shook his empty head-'Poor puzzled Crape!' wise Dulman said, 'Of judgment weak, of sense confined, For things of lower note design'd; For things within the vulgar reach, To run of errands, and to preach; Well hast thou judged, that heads like mine Cannot want help from heads like thine; Well hast thou judged thyself unmeet Of such high argument to treat; Twas but to try thee that I spoke, And all I said was but a joke. Nor think a joke, Crape, a disgrace, Or to my person, or my place; The wisest of the sons of men Have deign'd to use them now and then. The only caution, do you see, Demanded by our dignity, From common use and men exempt, Is that they may not breed contempt. Great use they have, when in the hands Of one like me, who understands, Who understands the time and place, The person, manner, and the grace, Which fools neglect; so that we find, 222 If all the requisites are join'd, From whence a perfect joke must spring, A joke's a very serious thing. But to our business--my design, Which gave so rough a shock to thine, To my capacity is made As ready as a fraud in trade; Which, like broad-cloth, I can, with ease, Cut out in any shape I please. Some, in my circumstance, some few, Aye, and those men of genius too, Good men, who, without love or hate, Whether they early rise or late, With names uncrack'd, and credit sound, Rise worth a hundred thousand pound, By threadbare ways and means would try To bear their point--so will not I. New methods shall my wisdom find To suit these matters to my mind; So that the infidels at court, Who make our city wits their sport, Shall hail the honours of my reign, And own that Dulman bears a brain. Some, in my place, to gain their ends, Would give relations up, and friends; Would lend a wife, who, they might swear Safely, was none the worse for wear; Would see a daughter, yet a maid, Into a statesman's arms betray'd; Nay, should the girl prove coy, nor know What daughters to a father owe, Sooner than schemes so nobly plann'd Should fail, themselves would lend a hand; Would vote on one side, whilst a brother, Properly taught, would vote on t'other; Would every petty band forget; To public eye be with one set, In private with a second herd, And be by proxy with a third; Would, (like a queen, of whom I read, The other day--her name is fled-In a book,--where, together bound, 223 'Whittington and his Cat' I found-A tale most true, and free from art, Which all Lord Mayors should have by heart; A queen oh!--might those days begin Afresh, when queens would learn to spin-Who wrought, and wrought, but for some plot, The cause of which I've now forgot, During the absence of the sun Undid what she by day had done) Whilst they a double visage wear, What's sworn by day, by night unswear. Such be their arts, and such, perchance, May happily their ends advance; Prom a new system mine shall spring, A _locum tenens_ is the thing. That's your true plan. To obligate The present ministers of state, My shadow shall our court approach, And bear my power, and have my coach; My fine state-coach, superb to view, A fine state-coach, and paid for too. To curry favour, and the grace Obtain of those who're out of place; In the mean time I--that's to say, I proper, I myself--here stay. But hold--perhaps unto the nation, Who hate the Scot's administration, To lend my coach may seem to be Declaring for the ministry, For where the city-coach is, there Is the true essence of the Mayor: Therefore (for wise men are intent Evils at distance to prevent, Whilst fools the evils first endure, And then are plagued to seek a cure) No coach--a horse--and free from fear, To make our Deputy appear, Fast on his back shall he be tied, With two grooms marching by his side; Then for a horse--through all the land, To head our solemn city-band, Can any one so fit be found 224 As he who in Artillery-ground, Without a rider, (noble sight!) Led on our bravest troops to fight? But first, Crape, for my honour's sake-A tender point--inquiry make About that horse, if the dispute Is ended, or is still in suit: For whilst a cause, (observe this plan Of justice) whether horse or man The parties be, remains in doubt, Till 'tis determined out and out, That power must tyranny appear Which should, prejudging, interfere, And weak, faint judges overawe, To bias the free course of law. You have my will--now quickly run, And take care that my will be done. In public, Crape, you must appear, Whilst I in privacy sit here; Here shall great Dulman sit alone, Making this elbow-chair my throne, And you, performing what I bid, Do all, as if I nothing did.' Crape heard, and speeded on his way; With him to hear was to obey; Not without trouble, be assured, A proper proxy was procured To serve such infamous intent, And such a lord to represent; Nor could one have been found at all On t'other side of London Wall. The trumpet sounds--solemn and slow Behold the grand procession go, All moving on, cat after kind, As if for motion ne'er design'd. Constables, whom the laws admit To keep the peace by breaking it; Beadles, who hold the second place By virtue of a silver mace, Which every Saturday is drawn, For use of Sunday, out of pawn; Treasurers, who with empty key 225 Secure an empty treasury; Churchwardens, who their course pursue In the same state, as to their pew Churchwardens of St Margaret's go, Since Peirson taught them pride and show, Who in short transient pomp appear, Like almanacs changed every year; Behind whom, with unbroken locks, Charity carries the poor's box, Not knowing that with private keys They ope and shut it when they please: Overseers, who by frauds ensure The heavy curses of the poor; Unclean came flocking, bulls and bears, Like beasts into the ark, by pairs. Portentous, flaming in the van, Stalk'd the professor, Sheridan, A man of wire, a mere pantine, A downright animal machine; He knows alone, in proper mode, How to take vengeance on an ode, And how to butcher Ammon's son And poor Jack Dryden both in one: On all occasions next the chair He stands, for service of the Mayor, And to instruct him how to use His A's and B's, and P's and Q's: O'er letters, into tatters worn, O'er syllables, defaced and torn, O'er words disjointed, and o'er sense, Left destitute of all defence, He strides, and all the way he goes Wades, deep in blood, o'er Criss-cross-rows: Before him every consonant In agonies is seen to pant; Behind, in forms not to be known, The ghosts of tortured vowels groan. Next Hart and Duke, well worthy grace And city favour, came in place; No children can their toils engage, Their toils are turn'd to reverend age; When a court dame, to grace his brows 226 Resolved, is wed to city-spouse, Their aid with madam's aid must join, The awkward dotard to refine, And teach, whence truest glory flows, Grave sixty to turn out his toes. Each bore in hand a kit; and each To show how fit he was to teach A cit, an alderman, a mayor, Led in a string a dancing bear. Since the revival of Fingal, Custom, and custom's all in all, Commands that we should have regard, On all high seasons, to the bard. Great acts like these, by vulgar tongue Profaned, should not be said, but sung. This place to fill, renown'd in fame, The high and mighty Lockman came, And, ne'er forgot in Dulman's reign, With proper order to maintain The uniformity of pride, Brought Brother Whitehead by his side. On horse, who proudly paw'd the ground, And cast his fiery eyeballs round, Snorting, and champing the rude bit, As if, for warlike purpose fit, His high and generous blood disdain'd, To be for sports and pastimes rein'd, Great Dymock, in his glorious station, Paraded at the coronation. Not so our city Dymock came, Heavy, dispirited, and tame; No mark of sense, his eyes half-closed, He on a mighty dray-horse dozed: Fate never could a horse provide So fit for such a man to ride, Nor find a man with strictest care, So fit for such a horse to bear. Hung round with instruments of death, The sight of him would stop the breath Of braggart Cowardice, and make The very court Drawcansir quake; With dirks, which, in the hands of Spite, 227 Do their damn'd business in the night, From Scotland sent, but here display'd Only to fill up the parade; With swords, unflesh'd, of maiden hue, Which rage or valour never drew; With blunderbusses, taught to ride Like pocket-pistols, by his side, In girdle stuck, he seem'd to be A little moving armoury. One thing much wanting to complete The sight, and make a perfect treat, Was, that the horse, (a courtesy In horses found of high degree) Instead of going forward on, All the way backward should have gone. Horses, unless they breeding lack, Some scruple make to turn their back, Though riders, which plain truth declares, No scruple make of turning theirs. Far, far apart from all the rest, Fit only for a standing jest, The independent, (can you get A better suited epithet?) The independent Amyand came, All burning with the sacred flame Of Liberty, which well he knows On the great stock of Slavery grows; Like sparrow, who, deprived of mate, Snatch'd by the cruel hand of Fate, From spray to spray no more will hop, But sits alone on the house-top; Or like himself, when all alone At Croydon he was heard to groan, Lifting both hands in the defence Of interest, and common sense; Both hands, for as no other man Adopted and pursued his plan, The left hand had been lonesome quite, If he had not held up the right; Apart he came, and fix'd his eyes With rapture on a distant prize, On which, in letters worthy note, 228 There 'twenty thousand pounds' was wrote. False trap, for credit sapp'd is found By getting twenty thousand pound: Nay, look not thus on me, and stare, Doubting the certainty--to swear In such a case I should be loth-But Perry Cust may take his oath. In plain and decent garb array'd, With the prim Quaker, Fraud, came Trade; Connivance, to improve the plan, Habited like a juryman, Judging as interest prevails, Came next, with measures, weights, and scales; Extortion next, of hellish race A cub most damn'd, to show his face Forbid by fear, but not by shame, Turn'd to a Jew, like Gideon came; Corruption, Midas-like, behold Turning whate'er she touch'd to gold; Impotence, led by Lust, and Pride, Strutting with Ponton by her side; Hypocrisy, demure and sad, In garments of the priesthood clad, So well disguised, that you might swear, Deceived, a very priest was there; Bankruptcy, full of ease and health, And wallowing in well-saved wealth, Came sneering through a ruin'd band, And bringing B---- in her hand; Victory, hanging down her head, Was by a Highland stallion led; Peace, clothed in sables, with a face Which witness'd sense of huge disgrace, Which spake a deep and rooted shame Both of herself and of her name, Mourning creeps on, and, blushing, feels War, grim War, treading on her heels; Pale Credit, shaken by the arts Of men with bad heads and worse hearts, Taking no notice of a band Which near her were ordain'd to stand, Well-nigh destroyed by sickly fit, 229 Look'd wistful all around for Pitt; Freedom--at that most hallow'd name My spirits mount into a flame, Each pulse beats high, and each nerve strains, Even to the cracking; through my veins The tides of life more rapid run, And tell me I am Freedom's son-Freedom came next, but scarce was seen, When the sky, which appear'd serene And gay before, was overcast; Horror bestrode a foreign blast, And from the prison of the North, To Freedom deadly, storms burst forth. A car like those, in which, we're told, Our wild forefathers warr'd of old, Loaded with death, six horses bear Through the blank region of the air. Too fierce for time or art to tame, They pour'd forth mingled smoke and flame From their wide nostrils; every steed Was of that ancient savage breed Which fell Geryon nursed; their food The flesh of man, their drink his blood. On the first horses, ill-match'd pair, This fat and sleek, that lean and bare, Came ill-match'd riders side by side, And Poverty was yoked with Pride; Union most strange it must appear, Till other unions make it clear. Next, in the gall of bitterness, With rage which words can ill express, With unforgiving rage, which springs From a false zeal for holy things, Wearing such robes as prophets wear, False prophets placed in Peter's chair, On which, in characters of fire, Shapes antic, horrible, and dire Inwoven flamed, where, to the view, In groups appear'd a rabble crew Of sainted devils; where, all round, Vile relics of vile men were found, Who, worse than devils, from the birth 230 Perform'd the work of hell on earth, Jugglers, Inquisitors, and Popes, Pointing at axes, wheels, and ropes, And engines, framed on horrid plan, Which none but the destroyer, Man, Could, to promote his selfish views, Have head to make or heart to use, Bearing, to consecrate her tricks, In her left hand a crucifix, 'Remembrance of our dying Lord,' And in her right a two-edged sword, Having her brows, in impious sport, Adorn'd with words of high import, 'On earth peace, amongst men good will, Love bearing and forbearing still,' All wrote in the hearts' blood of those Who rather death than falsehood chose: On her breast, (where, in days of yore, When God loved Jews, the High Priest wore Those oracles which were decreed To instruct and guide the chosen seed) Having with glory clad and strength, The Virgin pictured at full length, Whilst at her feet, in small pourtray'd, As scarce worth notice, Christ was laid,-Came Superstition, fierce and fell, An imp detested, e'en in hell; Her eye inflamed, her face all o'er Foully besmear'd with human gore, O'er heaps of mangled saints she rode; Fast at her heels Death proudly strode, And grimly smiled, well pleased to see Such havoc of mortality; Close by her side, on mischief bent, And urging on each bad intent To its full bearing, savage, wild, The mother fit of such a child, Striving the empire to advance Of Sin and Death, came Ignorance. With looks, where dread command was placed, And sovereign power by pride disgraced, Where, loudly witnessing a mind 231 Of savage, more than human kind, Not choosing to be loved, but fear'd, Mocking at right, Misrule appear'd. With eyeballs glaring fiery red, Enough to strike beholders dead, Gnashing his teeth, and in a flood Pouring corruption forth and blood From his chafed jaws; without remorse Whipping and spurring on his horse, Whose sides, in their own blood embay'd, E'en to the bone were open laid, Came Tyranny, disdaining awe, And trampling over Sense and Law; One thing, and only one, he knew, One object only would pursue; Though less (so low doth passion bring) Than man, he would be more than king. With every argument and art Which might corrupt the head and heart, Soothing the frenzy of his mind, Companion meet, was Flattery join'd; Winning his carriage, every look Employed, whilst it conceal'd a hook; When simple most, most to be fear'd; Most crafty, when no craft appear'd; His tales, no man like him could tell; His words, which melted as they fell, Might even a hypocrite deceive, And make an infidel believe, Wantonly cheating o'er and o'er Those who had cheated been before:-Such Flattery came, in evil hour, Poisoning the royal ear of Power, And, grown by prostitution great, Would be first minister of state. Within the chariot, all alone, High seated on a kind of throne, With pebbles graced, a figure came, Whom Justice would, but dare not name. Hard times when Justice, without fear, Dare not bring forth to public ear The names of those who dare offend 232 'Gainst Justice, and pervert her end! But, if the Muse afford me grace, Description shall supply the place. In foreign garments he was clad; Sage ermine o'er the glossy plaid Cast reverend honour; on his heart, Wrought by the curious hand of Art, In silver wrought, and brighter far Than heavenly or than earthly star, Shone a White Rose, the emblem dear Of him he ever must revere; Of that dread lord, who, with his host Of faithful native rebels lost, Like those black spirits doom'd to hell, At once from power and virtue fell: Around his clouded brows was placed A bonnet, most superbly graced With mighty thistles, nor forgot The sacred motto--'Touch me not.' In the right hand a sword he bore Harder than adamant, and more Fatal than winds, which from the mouth Of the rough North invade the South; The reeking blade to view presents The blood of helpless innocents, And on the hilt, as meek become As lamb before the shearers dumb, With downcast eye, and solemn show Of deep, unutterable woe, Mourning the time when Freedom reign'd, Fast to a rock was Justice chain'd. In his left hand, in wax impress'd, With bells and gewgaws idly dress'd, An image, cast in baby mould, He held, and seem'd o'erjoy'd to hold On this he fix'd his eyes; to this, Bowing, he gave the loyal kiss, And, for rebellion fully ripe, Seem'd to desire the antitype. What if to that Pretender's foes His greatness, nay, his life, he owes; Shall common obligations bind, 233 And shake his constancy of mind? Scorning such weak and petty chains, Faithful to James he still remains, Though he the friend of George appear: Dissimulation's virtue here. Jealous and mean, he with a frown Would awe, and keep all merit down, Nor would to Truth and Justice bend, Unless out-bullied by his friend: Brave with the coward, with the brave He is himself a coward slave: Awed by his fears, he has no heart To take a great and open part: Mines in a subtle train he springs, And, secret, saps the ears of kings; But not e'en there continues firm 'Gainst the resistance of a worm: Born in a country, where the will Of one is law to all, he still Retain'd the infection, with full aim To spread it wheresoe'er he came; Freedom he hated, Law defied, The prostitute of Power and Pride; Law he with ease explains away, And leads bewilder'd Sense astray; Much to the credit of his brain, Puzzles the cause he can't maintain; Proceeds on most familiar grounds, And where he can't convince, confounds; Talents of rarest stamp and size, To Nature false, he misapplies, And turns to poison what was sent For purposes of nourishment. Paleness, not such as on his wings The messenger of Sickness brings, But such as takes its coward rise From conscious baseness, conscious vice, O'erspread his cheeks; Disdain and Pride, To upstart fortunes ever tied, Scowl'd on his brow; within his eye, Insidious, lurking like a spy, To Caution principled by Fear, 234 Not daring open to appear, Lodged covert Mischief; Passion hung On his lip quivering; on his tongue Fraud dwelt at large; within his breast All that makes villain found a nest; All that, on Hell's completest plan, E'er join'd to damn the heart of man. Soon as the car reach'd land, he rose, And, with a look which might have froze The heart's best blood, which was enough Had hearts been made of sterner stuff In cities than elsewhere, to make The very stoutest quail and quake, He cast his baleful eyes around: Fix'd without motion to the ground, Fear waiting on Surprise, all stood, And horror chill'd their curdled blood; No more they thought of pomp, no more (For they had seen his face before) Of law they thought; the cause forgot, Whether it was or ghost, or plot, Which drew them there: they all stood more Like statues than they were before. What could be done? Could Art, could Force. Or both, direct a proper course To make this savage monster tame, Or send him back the way he came? What neither art, nor force, nor both, Could do, a Lord of foreign growth, A Lord to that base wretch allied In country, not in vice and pride, Effected; from the self-same land, (Bad news for our blaspheming band Of scribblers, but deserving note) The poison came and antidote. Abash'd, the monster hung his head, And like an empty vision fled; His train, like virgin snows, which run, Kiss'd by the burning bawdy sun, To love-sick streams, dissolved in air; Joy, who from absence seem'd more fair, Came smiling, freed from slavish Awe; 235 Loyalty, Liberty, and Law, Impatient of the galling chain, And yoke of Power, resumed their reign; And, burning with the glorious flame Of public virtue, Mansfield came. ~ Charles Churchill,