TERMS STARTING WITH
Scheme84 {Scheme} from {Indiana University}. It requires {Franz Lisp} on a {VAX} under {VMS} or {BSD}. E-mail: Nancy Garrett "nlg@indiana.edu". Send a tape with return postage to Scheme84 Distribution, Nancy Garrett, c/o Dan Friedman, Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. Telephone: +1 (812) 335 9770.
Scheme84 ::: Scheme from Indiana University. It requires Franz Lisp on a VAX under VMS or BSD.E-mail: Nancy Garrett .Send a tape with return postage to Scheme84 Distribution, Nancy Garrett, c/o Dan Friedman, Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. Telephone: +1 (812) 335 9770.
Scheme88 ::: .[Description?]
Scheme88 {(ftp://nexus.yorku.ca/pub/scheme/)}. [Description?]
Scheme-"C {Scheme-to-C}
Scheme Library "library" (SLIB) A portable {Scheme} library providing compatibiliy and utility functions for all standard Scheme implementations. Version 2c5 supports {Bigloo}, {Chez}, {ELK}, {GAMBIT}, {MacScheme}, {MITScheme}, {PocketScheme}, {RScheme}, {Scheme-"C}, {Scheme48}, {SCM}, {SCSH}, {T3.1}, {UMB-Scheme}, and {VSCM}. {(http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/~jaffer/SLIB.html)}. (1999-06-07)
Scheme Library ::: (library) (SLIB) A portable Scheme library providing compatibiliy and utility functions for all standard Scheme implementations.Version 2c5 supports Bigloo, Chez, ELK, GAMBIT, MacScheme, MITScheme, PocketScheme, RScheme, Scheme->C, Scheme48, SCM, SCSH, T3.1, UMB-Scheme, and VSCM. . (1999-06-07)
Scheme-Linda ::: A Scheme interface to Linda written by Ulf Dahlen of University of Edinburgh in 1990. It runs on the Computing Surface and the Symmetry.[Scheme-Linda, U. Dahlen et al, EPCC-TN-90-01 Edinburgh 1990]. (1994-12-15)
Scheme-Linda A {Scheme} interface to {Linda} written by Ulf Dahlen of {University of Edinburgh} in 1990. It runs on the {Computing Surface} and the {Symmetry}. ["Scheme-Linda", U. Dahlen et al, EPCC-TN-90-01 Edinburgh 1990]. (1994-12-15)
Scheme Object System ::: (SOS) Chris Hanson? .[Description?]
Scheme Object System (SOS) Chris Hanson? {(ftp://altdorf.ai.mit.edu/archive/cph/sos.tar.gz)}. [Description?]
Scheme "programming" (Originally "Schemer", by analogy with {Planner} and {Conniver}). A small, uniform {Lisp} dialect with clean {semantics}, developed initially by {Guy Steele} and {Gerald Sussman} in 1975. Scheme uses {applicative order reduction} and {lexical scope}. It treats both {functions} and {continuations} as {first-class} objects. One of the most used implementations is {DrScheme}, others include {Bigloo}, {Elk}, {Liar}, {Orbit}, {Scheme86} (Indiana U), {SCM}, {MacScheme} (Semantic Microsystems), {PC Scheme} (TI), {MIT Scheme}, and {T}. See also {Kamin's interpreters}, {PSD}, {PseudoScheme}, {Schematik}, {Scheme Repository}, {STk}, {syntax-case}, {Tiny Clos}, {Paradigms of AI Programming}. There have been a series of revisions of the report defining Scheme, known as {RRS} (Revised Report on Scheme), {R2RS} (Revised Revised Report ..), {R3RS}, {R3.99RS}, {R4RS}. {Scheme resources (http://schemers.org/)}. Mailing list: scheme@mc.lcs.mit.edu. [IEEE P1178-1990, "IEEE Standard for the Scheme Programming Language", ISBN 1-55937-125-0]. (2003-09-14)
Scheme ::: (programming) (Originally Schemer, by analogy with Planner and Conniver). A small, uniform Lisp dialect with clean semantics, developed order reduction and lexical scope. It treats both functions and continuations as first-class objects.One of the most used implementations is DrScheme, others include Bigloo, Elk, Liar, Orbit, Scheme86 (Indiana U), SCM, MacScheme (Semantic Microsystems), PC Scheme (TI), MIT Scheme, and T.See also Kamin's interpreters, PSD, PseudoScheme, Schematik, Scheme Repository, STk, syntax-case, Tiny Clos, Paradigms of AI Programming.There have been a series of revisions of the report defining Scheme, known as RRS (Revised Report on Scheme), R2RS (Revised Revised Report ..), R3RS, R3.99RS, R4RS. .Mailing list: [IEEE P1178-1990, IEEE Standard for the Scheme Programming Language, ISBN 1-55937-125-0].(2003-09-14)
Scheme Repository A collection of free {Scheme} programs. {(ftp://nexus.yorku.ca/pub/scheme/)}.
Scheme Repository ::: A collection of free Scheme programs. .
Scheme-to-C "language" A {Scheme} {compiler} written in {C} that emits C and is embeddable in C. Scheme-to-C was written by Joel Bartlett of {Digital Western Research Laboratory}. Version 15mar93 translates a superset of Revised**4 Scheme to C that is then compiled by the {native} {C} compiler for the {target machine}. This design results in a portable system that allows either stand-alone Scheme programs or programs written in both compiled and interpreted Scheme and other languages. It supports "{expansion passing style}" {macros}, {foreign function} calls, {records}, and interfaces to {Xlib} ({Ezd} and {Scix}). Scheme-to-C runs on {VAX}, {ULTRIX}, {DECstation}, {Alpha AXP} {OSF}/1, {Windows 3.1}, {Apple Macintosh} 7.1, {HP 9000/300}, {HP 9000/700}, {Sony News}, {SGI} {Iris} and {Harris} {Nighthawk}, and other {Unix}-like {88000} systems. The earlier 01nov91 version runs on {Amiga}, {SunOS}, {NeXT}, and {Apollo} systems. {(ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/DEC/Scheme-to-C/)}. (2000-05-24)
Scheme-to-C ::: (language) A Scheme compiler written in C that emits C and is embeddable in C. Scheme-to-C was written by Joel Bartlett of Digital Western Research supports expansion passing style macros, foreign function calls, records, and interfaces to Xlib (Ezd and Scix).Scheme-to-C runs on VAX, ULTRIX, DECstation, Alpha AXP OSF/1, Windows 3.1, Apple Macintosh 7.1, HP 9000/300, HP 9000/700, Sony News, SGI Iris and Harris Nighthawk, and other Unix-like 88000 systems. The earlier 01nov91 version runs on Amiga, SunOS, NeXT, and Apollo systems. .(2000-05-24)
scheme ::: 1. A plan, design, or program of action to be followed. 2. A systematic plan of action to achieve a specific end. 3. A diagram, map, or the like. schemes, schemed, scheme-lines, world-scheme.
schemed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Scheme
schemeful ::: a. --> Full of schemes or plans.
scheme ::: n. --> A combination of things connected and adjusted by design; a system.
A plan or theory something to be done; a design; a project; as, to form a scheme.
Any lineal or mathematical diagram; an outline.
A representation of the aspects of the celestial bodies for any moment or at a given event.
scheme of the celestial hierarchy, the order of
schemer ::: n. --> One who forms schemes; a projector; esp., a plotter; an intriguer.
SCHEME (T.B.) A 49-globe, a succession of seven seven-globes.
scheme, the 3 intellectual angelic guides of the
scheme, the teletarchae are celestial intelligences
TERMS ANYWHERE
14a). In the pseudo-Dionysian scheme with its
3. A highly composite and diverse study which attempts to ascertain the limits of the special sciences, to disclose their interrelations one with another, and to examine their implications so fir as these contribute to a theory either of the universe as a whole or of some pervasive aspect of it. This aspect of the philosophy of science is the least precise and definite of the three, and employs the more speculative methods. One of the most characteristic of its problems is that of the classification of the sciences. This involves the attempt to construct a general table, or diagram, or map of the sciences which will properly integrate the sciences according to method, subject-matter, or some other principle of organization. Another characteristic problem is that of the implications of science for some general theory of the universe, e.g., idealism, materialism, positivism, mechanism, teleology, monism, or pluralism. In recent years a new type of problem has appeared which, if it is properly part of the philosophy of science at all, belongs to this aspect of the subject. This is the problem of the social relations of science. It examines such problems as the place of science in a given cultural scheme, e.g., its relations to government, business, art, religion and morality.
6.001 "education" /siks dub*l oh wun/, /dub*l oh wun/ or rarely /siks dub*l oh fun/ {MIT}'s introductory computer class for majors, known for its intensity. Developed by {Gerald Sussman} and {Hal Abelson}, the course is taught in {Scheme} and introduces {recursion}, {higher-order functions}, {object-oriented programming} and much more. Students who grasp the {meta}circular {interpreter} gain entry into the {Knights of the Lambda-Calculus}. 6.001 has been exported to several other colleges, sometimes successfully. The textbook, "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs", written with Julie Sussman is a classic that can be found on the shelves of many computer scientists, whether they took the course or not. Legendary characters from the class, problem sets, and book include the wise Alyssa P. Hacker, Ben Bitdiddle, Lem E. Tweakit and Eva Lu Ator, the careless Louis Reasoner and {Captain Abstraction}. (1994-11-22)
Abstract-Type and Scheme-Definition Language "language" (ASDL) A language developed as part of {Esprit} project {GRASPIN}, as a basis for generating {language-based editors} and environments. It combines an {object-oriented} type system, syntax-directed translation schemes and a target-language interface. ["ASDL - An Object-Oriented Specification Language for Syntax-Directed Environments", M.L. Christ-Neumann et al, European Software Eng Conf, Strasbourg, Sept 1987, pp.77-85]. (1996-02-19)
Abstract-Type and Scheme-Definition Language ::: (language) (ASDL) A language developed as part of Esprit project GRASPIN, as a basis for generating language-based editors and environments. It combines an object-oriented type system, syntax-directed translation schemes and a target-language interface.[ASDL - An Object-Oriented Specification Language for Syntax-Directed Environments, M.L. Christ-Neumann et al, European Software Eng Conf, Strasbourg, Sept 1987, pp.77-85]. (1996-02-19)
aftergame ::: n. --> A second game; hence, a subsequent scheme or expedient.
Agnidhra (Sanskrit) Agnīdhra [from agnīdh kindler from the verbal root agni fire + the verbal root indh to kindle, light] Fire kindler; eldest of the ten sons of Priyavarta, the eldest son of Svayambhuva Manu. Three of Priyavarta’s sons became mendicants, the other seven became kings famed for valor and wisdom. Priyavarta divided the earth into seven dvipas or continental islands, giving one of each of his king-sons to administer. Agnidhra ruled over Jambu-dvipa which he in turn apportioned among his nine sons (VP 2:1). Blavatsky correlates the Puranic allegory to the seven globes of a planetary chain, Jambu-dvipa being equivalent to globe D in the theosophical scheme.
Aion Development System "artificial intelligence, product" (ADS) A commericial {expert system shell} developed by {Aion Corporation} that supported {forward chainging} and {backward chaining} and featured an {object-oriented} {knowledge representation} scheme, graphics and integrated with other {programming languages} like {C} and {Pascal}. ["Expert Systems in Chemistry Research", Markus C. Hemmer]. (2014-10-05)
Alfl ::: (language) A lazy function language. A weakly typed, lazy functional language developed by Paul HudakScheme preprocessor for the Orbit compiler, by transforming laziness into force-and-delay.[Alfl Reference Manual and Programmer's Guide, P. Hudak, YALEU/DCS/RR322, Yale U, Oct 1984].See also ParAlfl. (1995-04-24)
Alfl "language" A lazy function language. A {weakly typed}, {lazy} {functional language} developed by Paul Hudak "hudak-paul@cs.yale.edu" of Yale in 1983. Alfl is implemented as a {Scheme} {preprocessor} for the {Orbit} compiler, by transforming laziness into {force}-and-{delay}. ["Alfl Reference Manual and Programmer's Guide", P. Hudak, YALEU/DCS/RR322, Yale U, Oct 1984]. See also {ParAlfl}. (1995-04-24)
Amal: “There are several levels between the mind and the Supermind. One of them is that of the Ideal. A common classification by Sri Aurobindo is: the Higher Mind, the Illumined Mind, the Intuition, the Overmind Intuition, the Overmind, the supramentalised Overmind. In an early chapter of The Life Divine, there is a triple scheme: the Phenomenal, the Ideal, the Real. The Ideal here would cover all the planes between mind and Supermind.”
Amphain-Essumen (Gnostic) Also Amphian-Essumene. The sixth pair of aeons or emanations as given in the Valentinian scheme by the Christian Father Epiphanius.
angels in Hell. In the Dionysian scheme, the
angels in the pseudo-Dionysian hierarchic scheme
ANSI C ::: (language, standard) (American National Standards Institute C) A revision of C, adding function prototypes, structure passing, structure assignment and standardised library functions. ANSI X3.159-1989.cgram is a grammar for ANSI C, written in Scheme. unproto is a program for removing function prototypes to translate ANSI C to standard C. lcc is a retargetable compiler for ANSI C. (1995-11-26)
ANSI C "language, standard" (American National Standards Institute C) A revision of {C}, adding {function prototypes}, {structure passing}, {structure assignment} and standardised library functions. {ANSI} X3.159-1989. {cgram} is a {grammar} for ANSI C, written in {Scheme}. {unproto} is a program for removing function prototypes to translate ANSI C to standard C. {lcc} is a {retargetable} {compiler} for ANSI C. (1995-11-26)
Apple Address Resolution Protocol "networking" (AARP) {Apple}'s system to allow {AppleTalk} {protocol} to work over networks other than {LocalTalk}, such as {Ethernet} or {Token Ring}. {AppleTalk} {nodes} announce their presence to the network so that other nodes can address messages to them. AARP maps between AppleTalk addresses and other schemes. It is actually a general address mapping protocol that can be used to map between addresses at any protocol level. [G. Sidhu, R. Andrews, and A. Oppenheimer, "Inside AppleTalk", Addison Wesley, 1990]. (2006-04-18)
apple-touch-icon "programming" (apple-touch-icon.png) {Apple}'s default {icon} (image) used to represent a {website}, e.g. when saved as a {bookmark} or on the {home screen} of an {iOS} device such as an {iPhone} or {iPad}. Apple's scheme allows a site to offer images of different sizes so the client can choose the most appropriate one according to its screen size and resolution. Apple devices and applications completely ignore the {favicon}.ico {de facto standard} which, while somewhat quirky in its use of the {ico} format, has been pretty much universally adopted elsewhere. Conversely, apple-touch-icon.png will be ignored by non-Apple devices, possibly because its 16x16 resolution would look pretty shabby on most smart phones. The icon can be provided in various different resolutions for different screen sizes and resolutions, e.g. apple-touch-icon-152x152.png for {retina iPad} with {iOS7}. {(https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/AppleApplications/Reference/SafariWebContent/ConfiguringWebApplications/ConfiguringWebApplications.html) Apple documentation}. {(https://realfavicongenerator.net/faq)}. (2018-08-19)
applicative order reduction "programming" An {evaluation strategy} under which an expression is evaluated by repeatedly evaluating its leftmost innermost {redex}. This means that a function's arguments are evaluated before the function is applied. This method will not terminate if a function is given a non-terminating expression as an argument even if the function is not {strict} in that argument. Also known as {call-by-value} since the values of arguments are passed rather than their names. This is the evaluation strategy used by {ML}, {Scheme}, {Hope} and most {procedural languages} such as {C} and {Pascal}. See also {normal order reduction}, {parallel reduction}. (1995-01-25)
applicative order reduction ::: (programming) An evaluation strategy under which an expression is evaluated by repeatedly evaluating its leftmost innermost redex. This means that This is the evaluation strategy used by ML, Scheme, Hope and most procedural languages such as C and Pascal.See also normal order reduction, parallel reduction. (1995-01-25)
Applying the twelve sons of Jacob in the Hebrew scheme to the twelve signs of the zodiac, Joseph is assigned to Sagittarius: his “bow abode in strength.” In a circular representation of the zodiac, Seth (son of Adam) is made equivalent to Sagittarius (IU 2:462).
Aquinas “blessed” the Dionysian scheme of 9
Architectonic: (Kant) (Gr. architektonikos; Ger. Architektonik) The formal scheme, structural design, or method of elucidation of a system. The architectonic of Kant's system rests throughout the basic distinctions of the traditional logic. -- O.F.K.
artist ::: n. --> One who practices some mechanic art or craft; an artisan.
One who professes and practices an art in which science and taste preside over the manual execution.
One who shows trained skill or rare taste in any manual art or occupation.
An artful person; a schemer.
Arupa-devas (Sanskrit) Arūpa-deva-s [from a not + rūpa form, body + deva divine being] Formless celestial beings; suggested in The Mahatma Letters (p. 107) to refer to beings who were once men as we now are, but who have graduated out of the human sage into one of the two main classes of dhyani-chohans. According to this scheme, there are men; those superior to men who nevertheless were formerly men, divided into the rupa and arupa; and beneath men two classes who will be men in the future, such as asuras (elementals having a more or less human form) and beasts or elementals of a less advanced class which can be called animal elementals.
ary scheme of the Egyptians, and in hermetics, the
ASDL {Abstract-Type and Scheme-Definition Language}
“A simple calculation will show that at this rate the constellation Taurus (Heb. Alph) was in the first sign of the zodiac at the beginning of the Kali Yuga, and consequently the Equinoctial point fell therein. At this time, also, Leo was in the summer solstice, Scorpio in the autumnal Equinox, and Aquarius in the winter solstice; and these facts form the astronomical key to half the religious mysteries of the world — the Christian scheme included” (TG 387).
associator ::: n. --> An associate; a confederate or partner in any scheme.
As the four yugas are a reflection in human history of what takes place in the evolution of the earth itself, and also of the planetary chain, the same scheme of yugas applies on larger scales: there exist the four yugas in the time periods of the evolution of a planetary chain, as well as in the general time period of a globe manvantara. These cosmic yugas are very much longer than the racial yugas, but the same general scheme of 4, 3, 2 applies throughout.
Astrology ::: The astrology of the ancients was indeed a great and noble science. It is a term which means the "scienceof the celestial bodies." Modern astrology is but the tattered and rejected outer coating of real, ancientastrology; for that truly sublime science was the doctrine of the origin, of the nature, of the being, and ofthe destiny of the solar bodies, of the planetary bodies, and of the beings who dwell on them. It alsotaught the science of the relations of the parts of kosmic nature among themselves, and more particularlyas applied to man and his destiny as forecast by the celestial orbs. From that great and noble sciencesprang up an exoteric pseudo-science, derived from the Mediterranean and Asian practice, eventuating inthe modern scheme called astrology -- a tattered remnant of ancient wisdom.In actual fact, genuine archaic astrology was one of the branches of the ancient Mysteries, and wasstudied to perfection in the ancient Mystery schools. It had throughout all ancient time the unqualifiedapproval and devotion of the noblest men and of the greatest sages. Instead of limiting itself as modernso-called astrology does to a system based practically entirely upon certain branches of mathematics, inarchaic days the main body of doctrine which astrology then contained was transcendental metaphysics,dealing with the greatest and most abstruse problems concerning the universe and man. The celestialbodies of the physical universe were considered in the archaic astrology to be not merely time markers,or to have vague relations of a psychomagnetic quality as among themselves -- although indeed this istrue -- but to be the vehicles of starry spirits, bright and living gods, whose very existence andcharacteristics, individually as well as collectively, made them the governors and expositors of destiny.
asymmetrical modulation "communications" A scheme to maximise use of a communications line by giving a larger share of the {bandwidth} to the {modem} at the end which is transmitting the most information. Only one end of the connection has full bandwidth, the other has only a fraction of the bandwidth. Normally, which end gets the full bandwidth is chosen dynamically. Asymmetrical modulation was made famous by the {HST} mode of the early high-speed modems from {US Robotics}. (1998-03-13)
asymmetrical modulation ::: (communications) A scheme to maximise use of a communications line by giving a larger share of the bandwidth to the modem at the end which is transmitting the most information.Only one end of the connection has full bandwidth, the other has only a fraction of the bandwidth. Normally, which end gets the full bandwidth is chosen dynamically.Asymmetrical modulation was made famous by the HST mode of the early high-speed modems from US Robotics. (1998-03-13)
backtracking "algorithm" A scheme for solving a series of sub-problems each of which may have multiple possible solutions and where the solution chosen for one sub-problem may affect the possible solutions of later sub-problems. To solve the overall problem, we find a solution to the first sub-problem and then attempt to recursively solve the other sub-problems based on this first solution. If we cannot, or we want all possible solutions, we backtrack and try the next possible solution to the first sub-problem and so on. Backtracking terminates when there are no more solutions to the first sub-problem. This is the algorithm used by {logic programming} languages such as {Prolog} to find all possible ways of proving a {goal}. An optimisation known as "{intelligent backtracking}" keeps track of the dependencies between sub-problems and only re-solves those which depend on an earlier solution which has changed. Backtracking is one {algorithm} which can be used to implement {nondeterminism}. It is effectively a {depth-first search} of a {problem space}. (1995-04-13)
backtracking ::: (algorithm) A scheme for solving a series of sub-problems each of which may have multiple possible solutions and where the solution chosen for one sub-problem may affect the possible solutions of later sub-problems.To solve the overall problem, we find a solution to the first sub-problem and then attempt to recursively solve the other sub-problems based on this first the next possible solution to the first sub-problem and so on. Backtracking terminates when there are no more solutions to the first sub-problem.This is the algorithm used by logic programming languages such as Prolog to find all possible ways of proving a goal. An optimisation known as intelligent backtracking keeps track of the dependencies between sub-problems and only re-solves those which depend on an earlier solution which has changed.Backtracking is one algorithm which can be used to implement nondeterminism. It is effectively a depth-first search of a problem space. (1995-04-13)
backup rotation "operating system" Any system for re-using {backup} media, e.g. {magnetic tape}. One extreme would be to use the same media for every backup (e.g. copy disk A to disk B), the other extreme would be to use new media every time. The trade-off is between the cost of buying and storing media and the ability to restore any version of any file. One example is the {Grandfather, Father, Son} (GFS) scheme. (2004-10-08)
backup rotation ::: (operating system) Any system for re-using backup media, e.g. magnetic tape. One extreme would be to use the same media for every backup (e.g. copy restore any version of any file. One example is the Grandfather, Father, Son (GFS) scheme.(2004-10-08)
Basic Encoding Rules ::: (protocol, standard) (BER) ASN.1 encoding rules for producing self-identifying and self-delimiting transfer syntax for data structures described in ASN.1 notations.BER is an self-identifying and self-delimiting encoding scheme, which means that each data value can be identified, extracted and decoded individually.Huw Rogers once described BER as a triumph of bloated theory over clean implementation. He also criticises it as designed around bitstreams with arbitrary boundaries between data which can only be determined at a high level.Documents: ITU-T X.690, ISO 8825-1.See also CER, DER, PER. (1998-05-28)
Basic Encoding Rules "protocol, standard" (BER) {ASN.1} encoding rules for producing self-identifying and self-delimiting {transfer syntax} for data structures described in {ASN.1} notations. BER is an self-identifying and self-delimiting encoding scheme, which means that each data value can be identified, extracted and decoded individually. Huw Rogers once described BER as "a triumph of bloated theory over clean implementation". He also criticises it as designed around bitstreams with arbitrary boundaries between data which can only be determined at a high level. Documents: {ITU-T} X.690, {ISO} 8825-1. See also {CER}, {DER}, {PER}. (1998-05-28)
BBN Butterfly ::: (computer) A supercomputer developed at BBN Technologies, named after the butterfly multi-stage switching network around which it was built. It could GP-1000 models used up to 256 Motorola 68020s. The later TC-2000 models used up to 512 Motorola 88100s.Language developed for, or ported to, the BBN Butterfly were Butterfly Common LISP, Butterfly Scheme, Delirium, and MultiScheme. .(2003-11-10)
BBN Butterfly "computer" A {supercomputer} developed at {BBN Technologies}, named after the "butterfly" multi-stage switching network around which it was built. It could have up to 512 {CPUs} connected to allow every CPU access to every other CPU's memory, albeit with about 15 times the latency than for its own. The earlier GP-1000 models used up to 256 {Motorola 68020s}. The later TC-2000 models used up to 512 {Motorola 88100s}. Language developed for, or ported to, the BBN Butterfly were {Butterfly Common LISP}, {Butterfly Scheme}, {Delirium}, and {MultiScheme}. {(http://paralogos.com/DeadSuper/Misc/BBN.html)}. (2003-11-10)
Berkeley Softworks "company" The company that wrote {Graffiti} and a similar scheme for the {Commodore 64} (made it very {Macintosh}-like) and the {Commodore 128} (which could {multitask}). (1995-01-24)
Berkeley Softworks ::: (company) The company that wrote Graffiti and a similar scheme for the Commodore 64 (made it very Macintosh-like) and the Commodore 128 (which could multitask). (1995-01-24)
Bertrand (Named after the British mathematician Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)). Wm. Leler. Rule-based specification language based on augmented term rewriting. Used to implement constraint languages. The user must explicitly specify the tree-search and the constraint propagation. {(ftp://nexus.yorku.ca/pub/scheme/scm/bevan.shar)}. ["Constraint Programming Languages - Their Specification and Generation", W. Leler, A-W 1988, ISBN 0-201-06243-7].
best fit "algorithm" A {resource} allocation scheme (usually for {memory}). Best Fit allocates resources in a way that optimises some parameter. Alternative schemes such as {first fit} or random allocation are likely to be quicker but sub-optimal in use of resources. For example, when allocating a new block of memory from a pool of free blocks (a {heap}), one might choose the smallest space which is big enough. This would leave larger spaces free to satisfy larger requests and reduce fragmentation of the remaining free space. (2015-01-31)
Best Fit ::: (algorithm) A resource allocation scheme (usually for memory). Best Fit tries to determine the best place to put the new data. The definition of 'best' the wasted space at the end of the block being allocated - i.e. use the smallest space which is big enough.By minimising wasted space, more data can be allocated overall, at the expense of a more time-consuming allocation routine.Compare First Fit. (1997-06-02)
Bigloo "language" A {Scheme} {interpreter}, {compiler} and {run-time system} by Manuel Serrano "Manuel.Serrano@inria.fr" which aims to deliver small, fast stand-alone {applications}. It supports {modules} and {optimisation}. Bigloo's features enable Scheme programs to be used where {C} or {C++} might usually be required. The Bigloo compiler produces {ANSI C} which is compiled into {stand-alone executables}, {JVM} {bytecode}, or .{NET bytecode}. Hence Bigloo enables Scheme programs to interwork with C, {Java} and {C
Bigloo ::: (language) A Scheme interpreter, compiler and run-time system by Manuel Serrano which aims to deliver small, fast features enable Scheme programs to be used where C or C++ might usually be required.The Bigloo compiler produces ANSI C which is compiled into stand-alone executables, JVM bytecode, or .NET bytecode. Hence Bigloo enables Scheme programs to interwork with C, Java and C
BitTorrent "networking" A popular, distributed form of {peer-to-peer} {file sharing} that enables a {client} program to fetch different parts of a file (a "torrent") from different sources in parallel. The system is designed to encourage users to make downloaded data available for others to upload. This is aided by a scheme for exchanging unique identifiers, commonly stored in ".torrent" files. A downloader who does not serve data to others is called a "leech". A "seed" is a computer that has a complete copy of a file, possibly the original. The bittorrent.com site claims there are over 100 million users as of 2007-03-24. Most of the data is copyright material like films or commercial software. {(http://www.bittorrent.com/what-is-bittorrent)}. (2007-03-27)
Bradley, Francis Herbert: (1846-1924) Dialectician extraordinary of British philosophy, Bradley sought to purge contemporary thought of the extremely sensationalistic and utilitarian elements embodied in the tradition of empiricism. Though owing much to Hegel, he early repudiated the Hegelian system as such, and his own variety of Absolute Idealism bases itself upon no scheme of categories. His brilliant attack upon the inadequate assumptions of hedonistic ethics (Ethical Studies, 1877) was followed in 1883 by The Principles of Logic in which his dialectic analysis was applied to the problems of inference and judgment. It was, however, his Appearance and Reality (1893) with its famous theory of "the degrees of truth" which first disturbed the somnambulism of modern metaphysics, and led Caird to remark upon "the greatest thing since Kant". In later years Bradley's growing realization of ultimate difficulties in his version of the coherence theory led him to modify his doctrines in the direction of a Platonic mysticism. See Essays on Truth and Reality, the second edition of the Logic Collected Essays, etc. -- W.S.W.
broadcast quality video "communications, multimedia" Roughly, {video} with more than 30 frames per second at a {resolution} of 800 x 640 {pixels}. The quality of moving pictures and sound is determined by the complete chain from camera to receiver. Relevant factors are the colour temperature of the lighting, the balance of the red, green and blue vision pick-up tubes to produce the correct display colour temperature (which will be different) and the {gamma} pre-correction to cancel the non-linear characteristic of {cathode-ray tubes} in television receivers. The {resolution} of the camera tube and video coding system will determine the maximum number of {pixels} in the picture. Different colour coding systems have different defects. The NTSC system (National Television Systems Committee) can produce {hue} errors. The PAL system (Phase Alternation by Line) can produce {saturation} errors. Television modulation systems are specified by ITU CCIR Report 624. Low-resolution systems have {bandwidths} of 4.2 MHz with 525 to 625 lines per frame as used in the Americas and Japan. Medium resolution of 5 to 6.5 MHz with 625 lines is used in Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia. {High-Definition Television} (HDTV) will require 8 MHz or more of bandwidth. A medium resolution (5.5 MHz in UK) picture can be represented by 572 lines of 402 pixels. Note the ratio of pixels to lines is not the same as the {aspect ratio}. A {VGA} display (480n lines of 640 pixels) could thus display 84% of the height of one picture frame. Most compression techniques reduce quality as they assume a restricted range of detail and motion and discard details to which the human eye is not sensitive. Broadcast quality implies something better than amateur or domestic video and therefore can't be retained on a domestic video recorder. Broadcasts use quadriplex or U-matic recorders. The lowest frame rate used for commercial entertainment is the 24Hz of the 35mm cinema camera. When broadcast on a 50Hz television system, the pictures are screened at 25Hz reducing the running times by 4%. On a 60Hz system every five movie frames are screened as six TV frames, still at the 4% increased rate. The six frames are made by mixing adjacent frames, with some degradation of the picture. A computer system to meet international standard reproduction would at least VGA resolution, an interlaced frame rate of 24Hz and 8 bits to represent the luminance (Y) component. For a component display system using red, green and blue (RGB) electron guns and phosphor dots each will require 7 bits. Transmission and recording is different as various coding schemes need less bits if other representations are used instead of RGB. Broadcasts use YUV and compression can reduce this to about 3.5 bits per pixel without perceptible degradation. High-quality video and sound can be carried on a 34 Mbaud channel after being compressed with {ADPCM} and {variable length coding}, potentially in real time. (1997-07-04)
Scheme84 {Scheme} from {Indiana University}. It requires {Franz Lisp} on a {VAX} under {VMS} or {BSD}. E-mail: Nancy Garrett "nlg@indiana.edu". Send a tape with return postage to Scheme84 Distribution, Nancy Garrett, c/o Dan Friedman, Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. Telephone: +1 (812) 335 9770.
Scheme88 {(ftp://nexus.yorku.ca/pub/scheme/)}. [Description?]
Scheme-"C {Scheme-to-C}
Scheme Library "library" (SLIB) A portable {Scheme} library providing compatibiliy and utility functions for all standard Scheme implementations. Version 2c5 supports {Bigloo}, {Chez}, {ELK}, {GAMBIT}, {MacScheme}, {MITScheme}, {PocketScheme}, {RScheme}, {Scheme-"C}, {Scheme48}, {SCM}, {SCSH}, {T3.1}, {UMB-Scheme}, and {VSCM}. {(http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/~jaffer/SLIB.html)}. (1999-06-07)
Scheme-Linda A {Scheme} interface to {Linda} written by Ulf Dahlen of {University of Edinburgh} in 1990. It runs on the {Computing Surface} and the {Symmetry}. ["Scheme-Linda", U. Dahlen et al, EPCC-TN-90-01 Edinburgh 1990]. (1994-12-15)
Scheme Object System (SOS) Chris Hanson? {(ftp://altdorf.ai.mit.edu/archive/cph/sos.tar.gz)}. [Description?]
Scheme "programming" (Originally "Schemer", by analogy with {Planner} and {Conniver}). A small, uniform {Lisp} dialect with clean {semantics}, developed initially by {Guy Steele} and {Gerald Sussman} in 1975. Scheme uses {applicative order reduction} and {lexical scope}. It treats both {functions} and {continuations} as {first-class} objects. One of the most used implementations is {DrScheme}, others include {Bigloo}, {Elk}, {Liar}, {Orbit}, {Scheme86} (Indiana U), {SCM}, {MacScheme} (Semantic Microsystems), {PC Scheme} (TI), {MIT Scheme}, and {T}. See also {Kamin's interpreters}, {PSD}, {PseudoScheme}, {Schematik}, {Scheme Repository}, {STk}, {syntax-case}, {Tiny Clos}, {Paradigms of AI Programming}. There have been a series of revisions of the report defining Scheme, known as {RRS} (Revised Report on Scheme), {R2RS} (Revised Revised Report ..), {R3RS}, {R3.99RS}, {R4RS}. {Scheme resources (http://schemers.org/)}. Mailing list: scheme@mc.lcs.mit.edu. [IEEE P1178-1990, "IEEE Standard for the Scheme Programming Language", ISBN 1-55937-125-0]. (2003-09-14)
Scheme Repository A collection of free {Scheme} programs. {(ftp://nexus.yorku.ca/pub/scheme/)}.
Scheme-to-C "language" A {Scheme} {compiler} written in {C} that emits C and is embeddable in C. Scheme-to-C was written by Joel Bartlett of {Digital Western Research Laboratory}. Version 15mar93 translates a superset of Revised**4 Scheme to C that is then compiled by the {native} {C} compiler for the {target machine}. This design results in a portable system that allows either stand-alone Scheme programs or programs written in both compiled and interpreted Scheme and other languages. It supports "{expansion passing style}" {macros}, {foreign function} calls, {records}, and interfaces to {Xlib} ({Ezd} and {Scix}). Scheme-to-C runs on {VAX}, {ULTRIX}, {DECstation}, {Alpha AXP} {OSF}/1, {Windows 3.1}, {Apple Macintosh} 7.1, {HP 9000/300}, {HP 9000/700}, {Sony News}, {SGI} {Iris} and {Harris} {Nighthawk}, and other {Unix}-like {88000} systems. The earlier 01nov91 version runs on {Amiga}, {SunOS}, {NeXT}, and {Apollo} systems. {(ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/DEC/Scheme-to-C/)}. (2000-05-24)
bunko ::: n. --> A kind of swindling game or scheme, by means of cards or by a sham lottery.
bus "architecture, networking" A set of electrical conductors (wires, PCB tracks or connections in an {integrated circuit}) connecting various "stations", which can be {functional units} in a computer or {nodes} in a {network}. A bus is a {broadcast} channel, meaning that each station receives every other station's transmissions and all stations have equal access to the bus. Various schemes have been invented to solve the problem of collisions: multiple stations trying to transmit at once, e.g. {CSMA/CD}, {bus master}. The term is almost certainly derived from the electrical engineering term "bus bar" - a substantial, rigid power supply conductor to which several connections are made. This was once written "'bus bar" as it was a contraction of "omnibus bar" - a connection bar "for all", by analogy with the passenger omnibus - a conveyance "for all". {More on derivation (/pub/misc/omnibus.html)}. There are busses both within the {CPU} and connecting it to external {memory} and {peripheral} devices. The data bus, address bus and control signals, despite their names, really constitute a single bus since each is useless without the others. The width of the data bus is usually specified in {bits} and is the number of parallel connectors. This and the {clock rate} determine the bus's data rate (the number of {bytes} per second which it can carry). This is one of the factors limiting a computer's performance. Most current {microprocessors} have 32-bit busses both internally and externally. 100 or 133 {megahertz} bus clock rates are common. The bus clock is typically slower than the processor clock. Some processors have internal busses which are wider than their external busses (usually twice the width) since the width of the internal bus affects the speed of all operations and has less effect on the overall system cost than the width of the external bus. Various bus designs have been used in the {PC}, including {ISA}, {EISA}, {Micro Channel}, {VL-bus} and {PCI}. Other peripheral busses are NuBus, TURBOchannel, VMEbus, MULTIBUS and STD bus. See also {bus network}. {Ukranian (http://open-taxi.com/mynews/~adrian/10)}. (2010-07-10)
Butterfly Scheme ::: A parallel version of Scheme for the BBN Butterfly computer.
Butterfly Scheme A parallel version of {Scheme} for the {BBN Butterfly} computer.
cache coherency "storage" (Or "cache consistency") /kash koh-heer'n-see/ The synchronisation of data in multiple {caches} such that reading a memory location via any cache will return the most recent data written to that location via any (other) cache. Some {parallel processors} do not cache accesses to {shared memory} to avoid the issue of cache coherency. If caches are used with shared memory then some system is required to detect when data in one processor's cache should be discarded or replaced because another processor has updated that memory location. Several such schemes have been devised. (1998-11-10)
cache coherency ::: (storage) (Or cache consistency) /kash koh-heer'n-see/ The synchronisation of data in multiple caches such that reading a memory location via any cache will return the most recent data written to that location via any (other) cache.Some parallel processors do not cache accesses to shared memory to avoid the issue of cache coherency. If caches are used with shared memory then some system replaced because another processor has updated that memory location. Several such schemes have been devised. (1998-11-10)
callback 1. "programming" A scheme used in {event-driven} programs where the program registers a {subroutine} (a "callback handler") to handle a certain {event}. The program does not call the handler directly but when the event occurs, the {run-time system} calls the handler, usually passing it arguments to describe the event. 2. "communications, security" A {user authentication} scheme used by some computers running {dial-up} services. The user dials in to the computer and gives his {user name} and {password}. The computer then hangs up the connection and uses an {auto-dial} {modem} to call back to the user's registered telephone number. Thus, if an unauthorised person discovers a user's password, the callback will go, not to him, but to the owner of that login who will then know that his account is under attack. However, some {PABXs} can be fooled into thinking that the caller has hung up by sending them a dial tone. When the computer tries to call out on the same line it is not actually dialing through to the authorised user but is still connected to the original caller. 3. "communications" {cost control callback}. (2003-07-13)
callback ::: 1. (programming) A scheme used in event-driven programs where the program registers a subroutine (a callback handler) to handle a certain event. The run-time system calls the handler, usually passing it arguments to describe the event.2. (communications, security) A user authentication scheme used by some computers running dial-up services. The user dials in to the computer and gives to him, but to the owner of that login who will then know that his account is under attack.However, some PABXs can be fooled into thinking that the caller has hung up by sending them a dial tone. When the computer tries to call out on the same line it is not actually dialing through to the authorised user but is still connected to the original caller.3. (communications) cost control callback.(2003-07-13)
call-with-current-continuation ::: (Lisp, programming) (call/cc) A Lisp control function that takes a function f as its argument and calls f, passing it the current continuation, print the value returned by call/cc then anything passed to k will also be printed.E.g, in Scheme: (define (f k)(k 1) Will display 1.(2001-04-27)
call-with-current-continuation "programming" (call/cc) A {Lisp} control {function} that implements the {continuation passing style} of programming. In continuation passing style (CPS), every function f takes an extra final argument k called the "continuation". The continuation is itself a function and represents the rest of the program. Instead of just returning a value in the normal way, f passes it as an argument to k and returns the result of that. call/cc takes a function f as its argument and calls f, passing it the current continuation k. It thus allows a CPS function to be called in a non-CPS (direct) context. For example, if the final result is to print the value returned by call/cc then anything passed to k will also be printed. E.g, in {Scheme}: (define (f k) (k 1) (k 2) 3) (display (call-with-current-continuation f)) Will display 1. [Is this correct?] (2014-09-24)
castlebuilder ::: n. --> Fig.: one who builds castles in the air or forms visionary schemes.
C-Scheme {MIT Scheme}
cgram ::: (language) An ANSI C LL1 or LL2 grammar written in Scheme by Mohd Hanafiah Abdullah . A program (f-f-d.s) extracts the FIRST/FOLLOW/DIRECTOR sets. .(2005-01-07)
cgram "language" An {ANSI C} {LL1} or {LL2} {grammar} written in {Scheme} by Mohd Hanafiah Abdullah "napi@cs.indiana.edu". A program (f-f-d.s) extracts the FIRST/FOLLOW/DIRECTOR sets. {(ftp://primost.cs.wisc.edu/pub/comp.compilers/cgram-ll1.Z)}. (2005-01-07)
Chaldean cosmological scheme.
Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol "networking, security, standard, protocol" (CHAP) An {authentication} scheme used by {PPP} servers to validate the identity of the originator of the connection upon connection or any time later. CHAP applies a three-way {handshaking} procedure. After the link is established, the server sends a "challenge" message to the originator. The originator responds with a value calculated using a {one-way hash function}. The server checks the response against its own calculation of the expected hash value. If the values match, the authentication is acknowledged; otherwise the connection is usually terminated. CHAP provides protection against {playback} attack through the use of an incrementally changing identifier and a variable challenge value. The authentication can be repeated any time while the connection is open limiting the time of exposure to any single attack, and the server is in control of the frequency and timing of the challenges. As a result, CHAP provides greater security then {PAP}. CHAP is defined in {RFC} 1334. (1996-03-05)
Challenge-Handshake Authentication Protocol ::: (networking, security, standard, protocol) (CHAP) An authentication scheme used by PPP servers to validate the identity of the originator of the connection upon connection or any time later.CHAP applies a three-way handshaking procedure. After the link is established, the server sends a challenge message to the originator. The originator the values match, the authentication is acknowledged; otherwise the connection is usually terminated.CHAP provides protection against playback attack through the use of an incrementally changing identifier and a variable challenge value. The frequency and timing of the challenges. As a result, CHAP provides greater security then PAP.CHAP is defined in RFC 1334. (1996-03-05)
character encoding "character" (Or "character encoding scheme") A mapping between {binary} data values and character {code positions} (or "code points"). Early systems stored characters in a variety of ways, e.g. four six-bit characters in a 24-bit word, but around 1960, eight-bit bytes started to become the most common data storage layout, with each character stored in one byte, typically in the {ASCII} character set. In the case of {ASCII}, the character encoding is an {identity} mapping: code position 65 maps to the byte value 65. This is possible because ASCII uses only code positions representable as single {bytes}, i.e., values between 0 and 255. ({US-ASCII} only uses values 0 to 127, in fact.) From the late 1990s, there was increased use of larger character sets such as {Unicode} and many {CJK} {coded character sets}. These can represent characters from many languages and more symbols. {Unicode} uses many more than the 256 code positions that can be represented by one byte. It thus requires more complex mappings: sometimes the characters are mapped onto pairs of bytes (see {DBCS}). In many cases, this breaks programs that assume a one-to-one mapping of bytes to characters, and so, for example, treat any occurrance of the byte value 13 as a {carriage return}. To avoid this problem, character encodings such as {UTF-8} were devised. (2015-11-29)
character encoding ::: (character) (Or character encoding scheme) A mapping of binary values to code positions and back; generally a 1:1 (bijective) mapping.In the case of ASCII, this is generally a f(x)=x mapping: code point 65 maps to the byte value 65, and vice versa. This is possible because ASCII uses only code positions representable as single bytes, i.e., values between 0 and 255, at most. (US-ASCII only uses values 0 to 127, in fact.)Unicode and many CJK coded character sets use many more than 255 positions, requiring more complex mappings: sometimes the characters are mapped onto pairs occurrance of the byte value 13 as a carriage return. To avoid this problem, character encodings such as UTF-8 were devised. (1998-10-18)
character encoding scheme {character encoding}
chief of the order. In the scheme of Mirandola,
Chi: The moving power; the subtle beginning of motion; the great Scheme (or germs ?) from which all things came and to which all things return (Chuang Tzu, d. c 295 B.C.); a mechanical arrangement according to which heavenly and earthly bodies revolve (Taoist mechanism, especially Lieh Tzu, third century A.D.); man's pure nature (as in Chuang Tzu, between 399 and 295 B.C.). -- W.T.C.
Color awareness: According to occult teachings, color and color scheme exercise a tremendous influence on the human mind, and by learning the mastery of colors, man can become the master of his thought power and ruler of his destiny.
Color From darkness comes white light; from white light comes color. These correspond to the unmanifest Logos, the manifest Logos, and the seven rays, and this cosmogonical scheme is repeated throughout the universe.
Comite Europeen des Postes et Telecommunications "body" (CEPT, European Conference of Post and Telecommunications) The committee that defined the CEPT speech {compression} scheme. [Details of compression scheme?] (1998-03-16)
Comite Europeen des Postes et Telecommunications ::: (body) (CEPT, European Conference of Post and Telecommunications) The committee that defined the CEPT speech compression scheme.[Details of compression scheme?] (1998-03-16)
communism ::: n. --> A scheme of equalizing the social conditions of life; specifically, a scheme which contemplates the abolition of inequalities in the possession of property, as by distributing all wealth equally to all, or by holding all wealth in common for the equal use and advantage of all.
compact ::: 1. (Or finite, isolated) In domain theory, an element d of a cpo D is compact if and only if, for any chain S, a subset of D, d = lub S => there exists s in S such that d = s. I.e. you always reach d (or better) after a finite number of steps up the chain.(= is written in LaTeX as \sqsubseteq).[Jargon File] (1995-01-13)2. Of a design, describes the valuable property that it can all be apprehended at once in one's head. This generally means the thing created from the design cleanly into the overall design scheme (thus, some fans of Classic C maintain that ANSI C is no longer compact). (1995-01-13)
compact 1. "theory" (Or "finite", "isolated") In {domain theory}, an element d of a {cpo} D is compact if and only if, for any {chain} S, a subset of D, d "= lub S =" there exists s in S such that d "= s. I.e. you always reach d (or better) after a finite number of steps up the chain. (""=" is written in {LaTeX} as {\sqsubseteq}). [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-13) 2. "jargon" Of a design, describes the valuable property that it can all be apprehended at once in one's head. This generally means the thing created from the design can be used with greater facility and fewer errors than an equivalent tool that is not compact. Compactness does not imply triviality or lack of power; for example, {C} is compact and {Fortran} is not, but C is more powerful than Fortran. Designs become non-compact through accreting {features} and {cruft} that don't merge cleanly into the overall design scheme (thus, some fans of {Classic C} maintain that {ANSI C} is no longer compact). (2008-10-13)
concerted ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Concert ::: a. --> Mutually contrived or planned; agreed on; as, concerted schemes, signals.
concert ::: v. t. --> To plan together; to settle or adjust by conference, agreement, or consultation.
To plan; to devise; to arrange.
Agreement in a design or plan; union formed by mutual communication of opinions and views; accordance in a scheme; harmony; simultaneous action.
Musical accordance or harmony; concord.
A musical entertainment in which several voices or
Concurrent Scheme ::: A parallel Lisp, for the Mayfly by M. Swanson swanson% .[Concurrent Scheme, R.R. Kessler et al, in Parallel Lisp: Languages and Systems, T. Ito et al eds, LNCS 441, Springer 1989]. (1994-11-30)
Concurrent Scheme "language" A parallel {Lisp}, for the {Mayfly} by M. Swanson "swanson%teewinot@cs.utah.edu". ["Concurrent Scheme", R.R. Kessler et al, in Parallel Lisp: Languages and Systems, T. Ito et al eds, LNCS 441, Springer 1989]. (1994-11-30)
conjugation ::: n. --> the act of uniting or combining; union; assemblage.
Two things conjoined; a pair; a couple.
The act of conjugating a verb or giving in order its various parts and inflections.
A scheme in which are arranged all the parts of a verb.
A class of verbs conjugated in the same manner.
A kind of sexual union; -- applied to a blending of
constant angular velocity ::: (storage) (CAV) A disk driving scheme in which the angular velocity of the disk is kept constant. This means that the linear velocity of the disk be mechanical stability puts an upper limit on the angular velocity (and not the linear velocity) this allows the full potential of the drive is used. (1998-03-27)
constant angular velocity "storage" (CAV) One of the two schemes for controlling the rate of rotation of the disk in a {disk drive}. Constant {angular velocity} keeps the rate of rotation constant. This means that the {linear velocity} of the disk under the head is larger when reading or writing the outer {tracks}. This in turn implies either a variation in the data rate to and from the heads or the bits per unit length along the track. The alternative, {constant linear velocity}, requires the rate of rotation of the disk to accelerate and decelerate according to the radial postion of the heads, increasing the energy use and vibration. (2014-07-16)
constant linear velocity ::: (storage) (CLV) A disk driving scheme in which the linear velocity of the disk is kept constant. This requires that the angular velocity of the disk be maximal angular velocity at outer tracks means that the full potential of the drive is not used. (1998-03-27)
constant mapping "networking" A precursor to {ARP} used by some {TCP} software in which the destination {Ethernet address} is constructed from the top 24 {bits} of the source Ethernet address followed by the low 24 bits of the (class A) destination {Internet address}. For this scheme the top 24 bits of the Ethernet address must be the same on all hosts on the network. (2014-08-06)
constant mapping ::: Some TCP software constructs the destination Ethernet address from the top 24 bits of the Ethernet address followed by the low 24 bits of the (class A) destination Internet address. For this scheme the top 24 bits of the Ethernet address must be the same on all hosts on the net. Contrast ARP.
Construction, Psychological: (In contrast to Logical) A framework devised by the common-sense, scientific or philosophical imagination for the integration of diverse empirical data. In contrast to an hypothesis, a construction is not an inference from experience but is an arbitrary scheme which, though presumably not a true picture of the actual state of affairs, satisfies the human imagination and promotes further investigation. Perceptual objects, space and time, physical atoms, electrons, etc. as well as philosophical world-views, have by certain philosophers been called logical constructs. (Cf. B. Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World, Ch. IV.) -- L.W.
Continuation Passing Style ::: (CPS) A semantically clean language with continuations used as an intermediate language for Scheme and the SML/NJ compiler.[Rabbit: A Compiler for Scheme, G.L. Steele, AI-TR-474, MIT (May 1978)].[Compiling With Continuations, A. Appel, Cambridge U Press 1992].
Continuation Passing Style "language" (CPS) An intermediate language for {Scheme} that implements {continuation passing style}. The CPS language is semantically clean and is used for the {SML/NJ} {compiler}. ["Rabbit: A Compiler for Scheme", G.L. Steele, AI-TR-474, MIT (May 1978)]. ["Compiling With Continuations", A. Appel, Cambridge U Press 1992]. (2014-09-24)
contrivance ::: n. --> The act or faculty of contriving, inventing, devising, or planning.
The thing contrived, invented, or planned; disposition of parts or causes by design; a scheme; plan; atrifice; arrangement.
contrive ::: v. t. --> To form by an exercise of ingenuity; to devise; to invent; to design; to plan. ::: v. i. --> To make devices; to form designs; to plan; to scheme; to plot.
contrivings ::: clever and ingenious designs, plans, schemes.
Converse: See logic, formal, §§ 4, 8. Coordinates: (from Lat. co + ordinare, to regulate) Logical: Items of the same order and rank in a scheme of classification. Also, class characteristics serving as indices of order or distinction among the elements of a series or assemblage. -- O.F.W.
copybroke "security" /kop'ee-brohk/ (Or "copywronged" - a play on "{copyright}") 1. Used to describe an instance of a {copy-protected} program that has been "broken"; that is, a copy with the copy-protection scheme disabled or removed. 2. Copy-protected software which is unusable because of some {bit-rot} or {bug} that has confused the {copy protection}. 3. Used to describe data damaged because of a side effect of a copy protection system. [{Jargon File}] (1997-03-16)
copybroke ::: (security) /kop'ee-brohk/ (Or copywronged - a play on copyright) 1. Used to describe an instance of a copy-protected program that has been broken; that is, a copy with the copy-protection scheme disabled or removed.2. Copy-protected software which is unusable because of some bit-rot or bug that has confused the copy protection.3. Used to describe data damaged because of a side effect of a copy protection system.[Jargon File] (1997-03-16)
Corresponding to the three Logoi in the Hindu scheme are Brahman, Brahma, and Isvara emanating originally from parabrahman-mulaprakriti. In the highly philosophical visioning of Mahayana Buddhism is adi-buddha, mahabuddhi, and the celestial buddha, occasionally indirectly called dharmakaya. On a scale of less magnitude, Hindu thought has developed the triad Brahma, the emanator or original emanation; Vishnu, the supporter or sustainer, a feminine characteristic nevertheless; and Siva at once the regenerator and producer in the sense of destroying but to regenerate. Still a third Hindu scheme is found in the series of paramatman, mahabuddhi or alaya, and mahat or cosmic creative mind.
Cosmogonically, theosophy considers the universe and all in it, from its first divine appearance to its last material modification, as being in toto as well as in all manifested details an emanation from the universal mind. This emanation takes place at the beginning of a manvantara in three separate stages or degrees: the First or unmanifest Logos; the Second or manifest-unmanifest Logos; and finally the Third or manifest Logos. Logos is applicable to these three stages because each is the manifesting of the wisdom in its divine predecessor, each stage carrying within itself, on the principle of the emanational scheme, the attributes or qualities of its predecessors. The Second Logos has invariably been considered feminine, and the Third Logos is regarded as the creative power.
counsel ::: n. --> Interchange of opinions; mutual advising; consultation.
Examination of consequences; exercise of deliberate judgment; prudence.
Result of consultation; advice; instruction.
Deliberate purpose; design; intent; scheme; plan.
A secret opinion or purpose; a private matter.
One who gives advice, especially in legal matters; one professionally engaged in the trial or management of a cause in court;
craftily ::: done skillfully in underhand or evil schemes; cunningly; deceitfully; slyly.
crunch ::: 1. (jargon) To process, usually in a time-consuming or complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,000,000. Fortran programs do mostly number crunching.2. (compression) To reduce the size of a file without losing information by a complicated scheme that produces bit configurations completely unrelated to file crunching to distinguish it from number crunching.) Use of crunch itself in this sense is rare among Unix hackers.3. The hash character. Used at XEROX and CMU, among other places.4. To squeeze program source to the minimum size that will still compile or execute. The term came from a BBC Microcomputer program that crunched BBC BASIC mattered). Obfuscated C Contest entries are often crunched; see the first example under that entry.[Jargon File](2002-03-14)
crunch 1. "jargon" To process, usually in a time-consuming or complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,000,000. "Fortran programs do mostly {number crunching}." 2. "compression" To reduce the size of a file without losing information by a scheme such as {Huffman coding}. Since such {lossless compression} usually takes more computations than simpler methods such as {run-length encoding}, the term is doubly appropriate. 3. The {hash character}. Used at {XEROX} and {CMU}, among other places. 4. To squeeze program source to the minimum size that will still compile or execute. The term came from a {BBC Microcomputer} program that crunched {BBC BASIC} {source} in order to make it run more quickly (apart from storing {keywords} as byte codes, the language was wholly interpreted, so the number of characters mattered). {Obfuscated C Contest} entries are often crunched; see the first example under that entry. [{Jargon File}] (2007-11-12)
CTI ::: 1. (communications) Computer Telephone Integration.2. (education) Computers in Teaching Initiative. A UK government scheme. (1996-12-08)
CTI 1. "communications" {Computer Telephone Integration}. 2. "education" Computers in Teaching Initiative. A UK government scheme. (1996-12-08)
daisy chain ::: (networking) A bus wiring scheme in which, for example, device A is wired to device B, device B is wired to device C, etc. The last device is normally in contrast to a simple bus, each device in the chain may modify one or more signals before passing them on.Characteristic of RS-485, of Apple's LocalTalk, and of various industrial control networks; also often used to describe Thinwire Ethernet (10base2). (1997-01-07)
daisy chain "networking" A {bus} wiring scheme in which, for example, device A is wired to device B, device B is wired to device C, etc. The last device is normally wired to a resistor or {terminator}. All devices may receive identical signals or, in contrast to a simple bus, each device in the chain may modify one or more signals before passing them on. Characteristic of {RS-485}, of {Apple}'s {LocalTalk}, and of various industrial control networks; also often used to describe {Thinwire} {Ethernet} ({10base2}). (1997-01-07)
data flow ::: A data flow architecture or language performs a computation when all the operands are available. Data flow is one kind of data driven architecture, the data to be transmitted directly from the producing instruction to the consuming one.Data flow schemes differ chiefly in the way that they handle re-entrant code. Static schemes disallow it, dynamic schemes use either code copying or tagging at every point of reentry.An example of a data flow architecture is MIT's VAL machine.
data flow "architecture" A data flow architecture or language performs a computation when all the {operands} are available. Data flow is one kind of {data driven} architecture, the other is {demand driven}. It is a technique for specifying {fine-grain concurrency}, usually in the form of two-dimensional graphs in which instructions that are available for concurrent execution are written alongside each other while those that must be executed in sequence are written one under the other. Data dependencies between instructions are indicated by directed arcs. Instructions do not reference memory since the data dependence arcs allow data to be transmitted directly from the producing instruction to the consuming one. Data flow schemes differ chiefly in the way that they handle {re-entrant} code. Static schemes disallow it, dynamic schemes use either "code copying" or "tagging" at every point of reentry. An example of a data flow architecture is {MIT}'s {VAL} machine.
designer ::: n. --> One who designs, marks out, or plans; a contriver.
One who produces or creates original works of art or decoration.
A plotter; a schemer; -- used in a bad sense.
designment ::: n. --> Delineation; sketch; design; ideal; invention.
Design; purpose; scheme.
design ::: n. 1. Purpose, aim, intention, especially with reference to a Divine Creator. 2. Plan or scheme. 3. A combination of details or features; pattern or motif. design"s, designs. *v. 4. To work out the structure or form of (something). 5. To plan and make (something) artistically or skilfully. *designed, designing.
design ::: n. --> To draw preliminary outline or main features of; to sketch for a pattern or model; to delineate; to trace out; to draw.
To mark out and exhibit; to designate; to indicate; to show; to point out; to appoint.
To create or produce, as a work of art; to form a plan or scheme of; to form in idea; to invent; to project; to lay out in the mind; as, a man designs an essay, a poem, a statue, or a cathedral.
To intend or purpose; -- usually with for before the remote
detail ::: n. --> A minute portion; one of the small parts; a particular; an item; -- used chiefly in the plural; as, the details of a scheme or transaction.
A narrative which relates minute points; an account which dwells on particulars.
The selection for a particular service of a person or a body of men; hence, the person or the body of men so selected.
To relate in particulars; to particularize; to report
device ::: 1. Something devised or framed by art or inventive power; an invention, contrivance for some particular purpose. 2. A plan or scheme, especially a malign one. 3. Something elaborately or fancifully designed. devices.
device ::: n. --> That which is devised, or formed by design; a contrivance; an invention; a project; a scheme; often, a scheme to deceive; a stratagem; an artifice.
Power of devising; invention; contrivance.
An emblematic design, generally consisting of one or more figures with a motto, used apart from heraldic bearings to denote the historical situation, the ambition, or the desire of the person adopting it. See Cognizance.
devise ::: v. t. --> To form in the mind by new combinations of ideas, new applications of principles, or new arrangement of parts; to formulate by thought; to contrive; to excogitate; to invent; to plan; to scheme; as, to devise an engine, a new mode of writing, a plan of defense, or an argument.
To plan or scheme for; to purpose to obtain.
To say; to relate; to describe.
To imagine; to guess.
digital carrier ::: (hardware, communications) A medium which can carry digital signals; broadly equivalent to the physical layer of the OSI seven layer model of can include direct current (DC), whereas broadband carriers are modulated by various methods into frequency bands which do not include DC.Sometimes a modem (modulator/demodulator) or codec (coder/decoder) combines several channels on one transmission path. The combining of channels is called division multiplexing (FDM) and codecs with time division multiplexing (TDM) though this grouping of concepts is somewhat arbitrary.If the medium of a carrier is copper telephone wire, the circuit may be called T1, T3, etc. as these designations originally described such.T1 carriers used a restored polar line coding scheme which allowed a baseband signal to be transported as broadband and restored to baseband at the receiver. T1 is not used in this sense today, and indeed it is often confused with the DS1 signal carried. (1996-03-31)
digital carrier "hardware, communications" A medium which can carry {digital} signals; broadly equivalent to the {physical layer} of the {OSI} seven layer model of networks. Carriers can be described as {baseband} or {broadband}. A baseband carrier can include direct current (DC), whereas broadband carriers are modulated by various methods into frequency bands which do not include DC. Sometimes a {modem} (modulator/demodulator) or {codec} (coder/decoder) combines several channels on one transmission path. The combining of channels is called {multiplexing}, and their separation is called demultiplexing, independent of whether a modem or codec bank is used. Modems can be associated with {frequency division multiplexing} (FDM) and codecs with {time division multiplexing} (TDM) though this grouping of concepts is somewhat arbitrary. If the medium of a carrier is copper telephone wire, the circuit may be called {T1}, {T3}, etc. as these designations originally described such. T1 carriers used a restored polar line coding scheme which allowed a baseband signal to be transported as broadband and restored to baseband at the receiver. T1 is not used in this sense today, and indeed it is often confused with the {DS1} signal carried. (1996-03-31)
Digital Subscriber Line "communications, protocol" (DSL, or Digital Subscriber Loop, xDSL - see below) A family of {digital} {telecommunications} {protocols} designed to allow high speed data communication over the existing {copper} telephone lines between end-users and telephone companies. When two conventional {modems} are connected through the telephone system ({PSTN}), it treats the communication the same as voice conversations. This has the advantage that there is no investment required from the telephone company (telco) but the disadvantage is that the {bandwidth} available for the communication is the same as that available for voice conversations, usually 64 kb/s ({DS0}) at most. The {twisted-pair} copper cables into individual homes or offices can usually carry significantly more than 64 kb/s but the telco needs to handle the signal as digital rather than analog. There are many implementation of the basic scheme, differing in the communication {protocol} used and providing varying {service levels}. The {throughput} of the communication can be anything from about 128 kb/s to over 8 Mb/s, the communication can be either symmetric or asymmetric (i.e. the available bandwidth may or may not be the same {upstream} and {downstream}). Equipment prices and service fees also vary considerably. The first technology based on DSL was {ISDN}, although ISDN is not often recognised as such nowadays. Since then a large number of other protocols have been developed, collectively referred to as xDSL, including {HDSL}, {SDSL}, {ADSL}, and {VDSL}. As yet none of these have reached very wide deployment but wider deployment is expected for 1998-1999. {(http://cyberventure.com/~cedpa/databus-issues/v38n1/xdsl.html)}. {2Wire DSL provider lookup (http://2Wire.com/)}. ["Data Cooks, But Will Vendors Get Burned?", "Supercomm Spotlight On ADSL" & "Lucent Sells Paradine", Wilson & Carol, Inter@ctive Week Vol. 3
Digital Subscriber Line ::: (communications, protocol) (DSL, or Digital Subscriber Loop, xDSL - see below) A family of digital telecommunications protocols designed to allow high speed data communication over the existing copper telephone lines between end-users and telephone companies.When two conventional modems are connected through the telephone system (PSTN), it treats the communication the same as voice conversations. This has the offices can usually carry significantly more than 64 kb/s but the telco needs to handle the signal as digital rather than analog.There are many implementation of the basic scheme, differing in the communication protocol used and providing varying service levels. The throughput bandwidth may or may not be the same upstream and downstream). Equipment prices and service fees also vary considerably.The first technology based on DSL was ISDN, although ISDN is not often recognised as such nowadays. Since then a large number of other protocols have and VDSL. As yet none of these have reached very wide deployment but wider deployment is expected for 1998-1999. . .[Data Cooks, But Will Vendors Get Burned?, Supercomm Spotlight On ADSL & Lucent Sells Paradine, Wilson & Carol, Week Vol. 3
Dionysian scheme. In Hebrew lore the virtues are
direct mapped cache "architecture" A {cache} where the cache location for a given address is determined from the middle address bits. If the {cache line} size is 2^n then the bottom n address bits correspond to an offset within a cache entry. If the cache can hold 2^m entries then the next m address bits give the cache location. The remaining top address bits are stored as a "tag" along with the entry. In this scheme, there is no choice of which block to flush on a cache miss since there is only one place for any block to go. This simple scheme has the disadvantage that if the program alternately accesses different addresses which map to the same cache location then it will suffer a cache miss on every access to these locations. This kind of {cache conflict} is quite likely on a multi-processor. See also {fully associative cache}, {set associative cache}.
direct mapped cache ::: (architecture) A cache where the cache location for a given address is determined from the middle address bits. If the cache line size is 2^n then the can hold 2^m entries then the next m address bits give the cache location. The remaining top address bits are stored as a tag along with the entry.In this scheme, there is no choice of which block to flush on a cache miss since there is only one place for any block to go. This simple scheme has the to these locations. This kind of cache conflict is quite likely on a multi-processor. See also fully associative cache, set associative cache.
disingenuous ::: a. --> Not noble; unbecoming true honor or dignity; mean; unworthy; as, disingenuous conduct or schemes.
Not ingenuous; wanting in noble candor or frankness; not frank or open; uncandid; unworthily or meanly artful.
dispensation ::: n. --> The act of dispensing or dealing out; distribution; often used of the distribution of good and evil by God to man, or more generically, of the acts and modes of his administration.
That which is dispensed, dealt out, or appointed; that which is enjoined or bestowed
A system of principles, promises, and rules ordained and administered; scheme; economy; as, the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations.
Division: (Lat. dividere, to divide) The logical process of indicating the species within a genus, the sub-species within the species, and so on a classificatory scheme constructed on the principle of genus and species. -- A.C.B.
DrScheme ::: (Scheme) A popular Scheme implementation from the PLT team at Rice University. .(2001-02-22)
DrScheme "Scheme" A popular {Scheme} implementation from the {PLT} team at {Rice University}. {(http://cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/packages/drscheme/)}. (2001-02-22)
dreamer ::: n. --> One who dreams.
A visionary; one lost in wild imaginations or vain schemes of some anticipated good; as, a political dreamer.
dream ::: n. --> The thoughts, or series of thoughts, or imaginary transactions, which occupy the mind during sleep; a sleeping vision.
A visionary scheme; a wild conceit; an idle fancy; a vagary; a revery; -- in this sense, applied to an imaginary or anticipated state of happiness; as, a dream of bliss; the dream of his youth.
To have ideas or images in the mind while in the state of sleep; to experience sleeping visions; -- often with of; as, to dream of a battle, or of an absent friend.
dupe ::: n. --> One who has been deceived or who is easily deceived; a gull; as, the dupe of a schemer.
To deceive; to trick; to mislead by imposing on one&
DYnamic LANguage "language" (Dylan) A simple {object-oriented} {Lisp} dialect, most closely resembling {CLOS} and {Scheme}, developed by Advanced Technology Group East at {Apple Computer}. {Thomas} is a Dylan {compiler} implemented in {Scheme}. See also {Marlais}. ["Dylan(TM) an Object-Oriented Dynamic Language", {Apple Computer}, Eastern Research and Technology, April 1992]. (1995-04-19)
Edwin {MIT Scheme}
Egocentric and unegoistic ::: The egocentric man feels and takes things as they affect him. Does this please me or displease, give me gladness or pain, flatter my pride, vanity, ambition or hurt it, satisfy my desires or thwart them, etc. The unegoistic man does not look at things like that. He looks to see what things arc in themselves and would be if he were not there, what is their meaniog, how tlicy get into the scheme of things
error correcting memory "storage" (ECM) {RAM} using some kind of {error detection and correction} (EDAC) scheme. The two types of memory errors in RAM (especially {DRAM}) are "soft" errors due to radiation-induced bit switching, and "hard" errors due to the unexpected deterioration of a memory chip. Soft errors do not indicate lasting damage to the memory board, but they do corrupt programs or data. Hard errors demand physical repairs. Single bit memory failures are the most common. A hard single bit failure, such as that caused by a completely dead chip can be corrected by EDAC if each chip supplies only one bit of each word. EDAC memory is the most common level of protection for {minicomputers} and {mainframes} whereas the cheaper parity protection is more common in {microcomputers}. [Clearpoint, "The Designer's Guide to Add-In Memory", Third Addition]. (1995-10-10)
‘Ets Ha-Hayyim (Hebrew) ‘Ēts Ha-ḥayyīm The Tree of Lives; sometimes simply called the Tree (Chald ’ilan). A Qabbalistic term applied to the Sephirothal tenfold scheme, when arranged diagrammatically in three columns of three Sephiroth each, crowned with the tenth, Sephirah or Kether.
EuLisp 1985-present. A {Lisp} dialect intended to be a common European {standard}, with influences from {Common LISP}, {Le LISP}, {Scheme} and {T}. {First-class functions}, {class}es and {continuations}, both {static scope} and {dynamic scope}, {modules}, support for {parallelism}. The class system ({TELOS}) incorporates ideas from {CLOS}, {ObjVLisp} and {Oaklisp}. See also {Feel}. E-mail: "eudist@maths.bath.ac.uk".
Expanded Memory Specification "storage" (EMS) An {IBM PC} memory {paging} scheme enabling access to memory other than {conventional memory} in {real mode}. {Expanded memory} is provided through a {page frame} of at least 64 {kilobytes} in the {reserved memory} address region. Access to this memory is provided by an {expanded memory manager} (EMM) software. The EMM functions are accessible through {interrupt} 67H. In {8086} or {8088} based systems this is the only way to use memory beyond conventional memory. In systems based on {80286} or later, {XMS} and {HMA} provide alternative methods. EMS was developed jointly by {Lotus}, {Intel}, and {Microsoft} prior to 1988. Accordingly, this specification is sometimes referred to as LIM EMS. A complete discussion of EMS and programming examples can be found in ["PC System Programming for developers", 1989, ISBN 1-55755-035-2 (Book only) and ISBN 1-55755-036-0 (Book and diskette)]. {EEMS}, a competing expanded memory management standard, was developed by {AST Research}, {Quadram} and {Ashton-Tate}. See also {upper memory block}. (1996-01-10)
exploder ::: n. --> One who or that which explodes.
One who rejects an opinion or scheme with open contempt.
Extension Language Kit "language" (Elk) A {Scheme} {interpreter} by Oliver Laumann "net@cs.tu-berlin.de" and Carsten Bormann "cabo@cs.tu-berlin.de" of the {Technical University of Berlin}. Elk was designed to be used as a general extension language. New {types} and {primitive} procedures can easily be added. It has {first-class environments}, {dynamic-wind}, {fluid-let}, {macros}, {autoload}ing and a {dump}. It provides interfaces to {Xlib}, {Xt} and various {widget} sets; {dynamic loading} of extensions and {object files}; almost all artificial limitations removed; {generational}/{incremental garbage collector}; {Unix} {system call} extensions; {Records} (structures) and {bit strings}. Version: 2.2 is mostly {R3RS} compatible and runs on {Unix}, {Ultrix}, {VAX}, {Sun-3}, {Sun-4}, {68000}, {i386}, {MIPS}, {IBM PC RT}, {RS/6000}, {HP700}, {SGI}, {Sony}, {MS-DOS} ({gcc}+{DJGPP} or {go32}). {Germany (ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/Unix/languages/scheme/elk-2.2.tar.gz)}. {US (ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/elk-2.2.tar.gz)}. {US (ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/comp.sources.misc/volume8/elk)}. (1994-12-15)
ezd "graphics, tool" (Easy drawing) A graphics {server} that sits between an {application program} and an {X} server and allows both existing and new programs easy access to structured graphics. Ezd users have been able to have their programs produce interactive drawings within hours of reading the manual page. Ezd supports structured graphics - application defined graphical objects are ordered into drawings by the application. Unlike most X tools, ezd does not require any event handling by the application. The ezd server maintains the window contents. When an event occurs an application supplied {Scheme} expression is evaluated. {(ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/DEC/ezd/)}. Contact: Joel Bartlett. (2000-03-25)
fanciful ::: a. --> Full of fancy; guided by fancy, rather than by reason and experience; whimsical; as, a fanciful man forms visionary projects.
Conceived in the fancy; not consistent with facts or reason; abounding in ideal qualities or figures; as, a fanciful scheme; a fanciful theory.
Curiously shaped or constructed; as, she wore a fanciful headdress.
Figure: An astrological or Celestial Figure, variously called Geniture, Map, Scheme, Chart, Theme, Mirror of Heaven, Nativity or Horoscope, as cast, erected or drawn by modern astrologers, consists of a circle of the heavens, representing the 360° of the Earth’s orbit, divided into twelve arcs—resembling a wheel of twelve spokes. These arcs may represent Signs of 30° each beginning at the Spring equinoctial point, or Houses of an indeterminate number of degrees beginning at an ascending degree. A Solar Figure, used where a specific moment of birth is not known, employs the Sun’s degree as the point of beginning, or Ascendant. The Houses or geo-arcs, based upon the degree rising in the east at the specific moment for which the Figure is cast, supposedly represent the number of degrees which pass over the horizon in two hours from that particular longitude and latitude and on that day. The Sign-divisions, or heliarcs, are thus subdivisions of the Earth’s annual orbit round the Sun, while the House-divisions, or geo-arcs, are subdivisions of the daily orbit of a particular point on the Earth’s surface around the Earth’s axis.
first fit "algorithm" A {resource} allocation scheme that searches a list of free resources and returns the first one that can satisfy the request. For example, when allocating memory from a list of free blocks (a {heap}), first fit scans the list from the beginning until it finds a block which is big enough to satisfy the request. The requested size is allocated from this block and the rest of the block returned to the free pool. First fit is faster than a {best fit} scheme, but results in more {fragmentation} of the free space because it is more likely to split up a large free block when a smaller block could have been used. (2015-01-31)
fixed-point "programming" A {number representation} scheme where a number, F is represented by an {integer} I such that F=I*R^-P, where R is the (assumed) {radix} of the representation and P is the (fixed) number of digits after the radix point. On computers with no {floating-point unit}, fixed-point calculations are significantly faster than floating-point as all the operations are basically integer operations. Fixed-point representation also has the advantage of having uniform density, i.e., the smallest resolvable difference of the representation is R^-P throughout the representable range, in contrast to {floating-point} representations. For example, in {PL/I}, FIXED data has both a {precision} and a scale-factor (P above). So a number declared as 'FIXED DECIMAL(7,2)' has a precision of seven and a scale-factor of two, indicating five integer and two fractional decimal digits. The smallest difference between numbers will be 0.01. (2006-11-15)
F-Logic An {object-oriented} language and {deductive database} system. ["F-Logic: A Higher-Order Language for Reasoning about Objects, Inheritance and Scheme", ACM SIGMOD May 1989, pp. 134-146]. (1994-10-20)
FOOL Fool's Lisp. A small {Scheme} {interpreter}. {(ftp://scam.berkeley.edu/src/local/fools.tar.Z)}. (1994-10-04)
Fools' Lisp A small {Scheme} {interpreter} by Jonathan Lee "jonathan@scam.berkeley.edu". Version 1.3.2 is R4RS conformant. It runs on {Sun-3}, {Sun-4}, {Decstation}, {VAX} ({Ultrix}), {Sequent}, {Apollo}. {(ftp://scam.berkeley.edu/src/local/fools.tar.Z)}. (1991-10-31)
forecast ::: v. t. --> To plan beforehand; to scheme; to project.
To foresee; to calculate beforehand, so as to provide for. ::: v. i. --> To contrive or plan beforehand.
frequency division multiplexing "communications" (FDM) The simultaneous transmission of multiple separate signals through a shared medium (such as a wire, {optical fibre}, or light beam) by modulating, at the transmitter, the separate signals into separable frequency bands, and adding those results linearly either before transmission or within the medium. While thus combined, all the signals may be amplified, conducted, translated in frequency and routed toward a destination as a single signal, resulting in economies which are the motivation for multiplexing. Apparatus at the receiver separates the multiplexed signals by means of frequency passing or rejecting filters, and demodulates the results individually, each in the manner appropriate for the modulation scheme used for that band or group. Bands are joined to form groups, and groups may then be joined into larger groups; this process may be considered recursively, but such technique is common only in large and sophisticated systems and is not a necessary part of FDM. Neither the transmitters nor the receivers need be close to each other; ordinary radio, television, and cable service are examples of FDM. It was once the mainstay of the long distance telephone system. The more recently developed {time division multiplexing} in its several forms lends itself to the handling of digital data, but the low cost and high quality of available FDM equipment, especially that intended for television signals, make it a reasonable choice for many purposes. Compare {wavelength division multiplexing}, {time division multiplexing}, {code division multiplexing}. (2001-06-28)
FX-87 Effects. A {polymorphic} language based on {Scheme}, allowing {side effects} and {first-class} functions. It attempts to integrate functional and {imperative programming}. Expressions have types, side effects (e.g. reading, writing or allocating) and regions (stating where the effects may occur). Versions: FX-89, {FX-90}. {(ftp://brokaw.lcs.mit.edu/)}. ["The FX-87 Reference Manual", D.K. Gifford "gifford@lcs.mit.edu" et al, MIT/LCS/TR-407, Oct 1987]. (1995-01-31)
Gambit "language" A variant of {Scheme} R3.99 supporting the {future} construct of {Multilisp} by Marc Feeley "feeley@iro.umontreal.ca". Implementation includes optimising compilers for {Macintosh} (with Toolbox and built-in editor) and {Motorola} {680x0} {Unix} systems and {HP300}, {BBN} {GP100} and {NeXT}. Version 2.0 conforms to the {IEEE} {Scheme} standard. Gambit used {PVM} as its intermediate language. {(ftp://acorn.cs.brandeis.edu/dist)}, {(ftp://ftp.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/amiga/fish/f7/ff764/Gambit_Terp)}. {(ftp://ftp.iro.umontreal.ca/pub/parallele/gambit/)}. Mailing list: gambit@trex.umontreal.ca. (1998-02-10)
garbage collection "programming" (GC) The process by which dynamically allocated storage is reclaimed during the execution of a program. The term usually refers to automatic periodic storage reclamation by the garbage collector (part of the {run-time system}), as opposed to explicit code to free specific blocks of memory. Automatic garbage collection is usually triggered during memory allocation when the amount free memory falls below some threshold or after a certain number of allocations. Normal execution is suspended and the garbage collector is run. There are many variations on this basic scheme. Languages like {Lisp} represent expressions as {graphs} built from {cells} which contain pointers and data. These languages use automatic {dynamic storage allocation} to build expressions. During the evaluation of an expression it is necessary to reclaim space which is used by subexpressions but which is no longer pointed to by anything. This reclaimed memory is returned to the free memory pool for subsequent reallocation. Without garbage collection the program's memory requirements would increase monotonically throughout execution, possibly exceeding system limits on {virtual memory} size. The three main methods are {mark-sweep garbage collection}, {reference counting} and {copying garbage collection}. See also the {AI koan} about garbage collection. (1997-08-25)
Genus, summum: (Lat.) In a classificatory scheme the largest and most inclusive genus which is not itself a species to any larger genus. -- A.C.B.
GEORGE "language" One of the earliest programming languages, developed by Charles Hamblin in 1957. GEORGE was a {stack oriented language}, using {reverse Polish notation}. It was implemented on the {English Electric} {DEUCE}. ["GEORGE: A Semi-Translation Programming Scheme for the DEUCE, Programming and Operations Manual", C. L. Hamblin, U New S Wales, 1958]. ["Computer Languages", C.L. Hamblin, Aust J Sci 20(5):135-139, Dec 1957 and Aust Comp J 17(4):195-198, Nov 1985] (2007-03-18)
Gerald Sussman "person" (Gerald J. Sussman, Jerry) A noted {hacker} at {MIT} and one of the developers of {SCHEME} and {6.001}. {(http://martigny.ai.mit.edu/~gjs/gjs.html)}. (1996-11-29)
GIP 1. General Interpretive Programme. A 1956 interpreted language for the {English Electric} {DEUCE}, with {array} operations and an extensive library of numerical methods. ["Interpretive and Brick Schemes, with Special Reference to Matrix Operations", English Electric COmpany, DEUCE News No. 10 (1956)]. (1994-11-02) 2. An erroneous singular of {GIPS}.
God(s) and Goddess(es) A generalizing term signifying all self-conscious entities superior to humankind, most often restricted to the three dhyani-chohanic kingdoms. The gods have differing places in nature’s hierarchical scheme, running through innumerable grades of cosmic intelligences. Theosophy teaches that human beings who successfully reach the seventh round on this earth chain will pass, at the conclusion of this last round, into the kingdom superior to the human, that of the lowest dhyani-chohans.
graduate ::: n. --> To mark with degrees; to divide into regular steps, grades, or intervals, as the scale of a thermometer, a scheme of punishment or rewards, etc.
To admit or elevate to a certain grade or degree; esp., in a college or university, to admit, at the close of the course, to an honorable standing defined by a diploma; as, he was graduated at Yale College.
To prepare gradually; to arrange, temper, or modify by
Grandfather, Father, Son "operating system" (GFS) A {backup rotation} scheme in which a "grandfather" backup is performed on the first Monday of each month, a "father" backup is performed on every other Monday and a "son" backup is performed on every other day of the week. Grandfather tapes are kept for a year, father tapes for a month and son tapes for a week. The exact schedule (and thus the number of tapes required) may vary, as may the choice of {full backup} or {incremental backup}, but the idea is that it should be possible to restore versions of any file of different ages: e.g. yesterday's, last week's or last year's version. (2004-10-11)
Great Renaming "history" The {flag day} in 1986 on which all of the non-local groups on the {Usenet} had their names changed from the net.- format to the current multiple-hierarchies scheme. Used especially in discussing the history of newsgroup names. "The oldest sources group is comp.sources.misc; before the Great Renaming, it was net.sources." {FAQ (http://vrx.net/usenet/history/rename.html)}. [{Jargon File}] (2000-07-14)
Guy Lewis Steele, Jr. "person" (GLS) A software engineer whose most notable contributions to the art of computing include the design of {Scheme} (in cooperation with {Gerald Sussman}) and the design of the original command set of {Emacs}. He is also known for his contribution to the {Jargon File} and for being the first to port {TeX} (from {WAITS} to {ITS}). He wrote the book "Common Lisp", which virtually defines the language. He was working at {Sun Microsystems, Inc.} from 1996 to the present (June 2001). (2001-06-14)
hash coding "programming, algorithm" (Or "hashing") A scheme for providing rapid access to data items which are distinguished by some {key}. Each data item to be stored is associated with a key, e.g. the name of a person. A {hash function} is applied to the item's key and the resulting hash value is used as an index to select one of a number of "hash buckets" in a hash table. The table contains pointers to the original items. If, when adding a new item, the hash table already has an entry at the indicated location then that entry's key must be compared with the given key to see if it is the same. If two items' keys hash to the same value (a "{hash collision}") then some alternative location is used (e.g. the next free location cyclically following the indicated one). For best performance, the table size and {hash function} must be tailored to the number of entries and range of keys to be used. The hash function usually depends on the table size so if the table needs to be enlarged it must usually be completely rebuilt. When you look up a name in the phone book (for example), you typically hash it by extracting its first letter; the hash buckets are the alphabetically ordered letter sections. See also: {btree}, {checksum}, {CRC}, {pseudorandom number}, {random}, {random number}, {soundex}. (1997-08-03)
HELP 1. "language, robotics" {DEA}. A Language for industrial robots. 2. (Help Est un Lisp Paresseux - Help Is a Lazy Lisp). A {lazy} version of {Scheme} with strictness {annotations}, by Thomas Schiex "schiex@europe.cert.fr".
He taught that the primal cause, which he names Bythos (depth), manifested itself as the pleroma (fullness), the sum total of all manifestation. His teachings on pleroma are defined by a vast, intricate diagrammatic scheme, representing a process of emanation on a hierarchical plan with threefold, sevenfold, tenfold, and twelvefold hierarchies; mankind itself forming a lower branch of these hierarchies. Thus he is enabled to explain the origin of mixture or evil, and to reconcile the goodness of God with the imperfection of nature by pointing to minor demiurgic creators; thus too he can give the true meaning of Christ and redemption.
Hierarchy ::: The word hierarchy merely means that a scheme or system or state of delegated directive power andauthority exists in a self-contained body, directed, guided, and taught by one having supreme authority,called the hierarch. The name is used by theosophists, by extension of meaning, as signifying theinnumerable degrees, grades, and steps of evolving entities in the kosmos, and as applying to all parts ofthe universe; and rightly so, because every different part of the universe -- and their number is simplycountless -- is under the vital governance of a divine being, of a god, of a spiritual essence; and allmaterial manifestations are simply the appearances on our plane of the workings and actions of thesespiritual beings behind it.The series of hierarchies extends infinitely in both directions. If he so choose for purposes of thought,man may consider himself at the middle point, from which extends above him an unending series of stepsupon steps of higher beings of all grades -- growing constantly less material and more spiritual, andgreater in all senses -- towards an ineffable point. And there the imagination stops, not because the seriesitself stops, but because our thought can reach no farther out nor in. And similar to this series, aninfinitely great series of beings and states of beings descends downwards (to use human terms) -downwards and downwards, until there again the imagination stops, merely because our thought can gono farther.The summit, the acme, the flower, the highest point (or the hyparxis) of any series of animate and"inanimate" beings, whether we enumerate the stages or degrees of the series as seven or ten or twelve(according to whichever system we follow), is the divine unity for that series or hierarchy, and thishyparxis or highest being is again in its turn the lowest being of the hierarchy above it, and so extendingonwards forever -- each hierarchy manifesting one facet of the divine kosmic life, each hierarchyshowing forth one thought, as it were, of the divine thinkers.Various names were given to these hierarchies considered as series of beings. The generalized Greekhierarchy as shown by writers in periods preceding the rise of Christianity may be collected andenumerated as follows: (1) Divine; (2) Gods, or the divine-spiritual; (3) Demigods, sometimes calleddivine heroes, involving a very mystical doctrine; (4) Heroes proper; (5) Men; (6) Beasts or animals; (7)Vegetable world; (8) Mineral world; (9) Elemental world, or what was called the realm of Hades. TheDivinity (or aggregate divine lives) itself is the hyparxis of this series of hierarchies, because each ofthese nine stages is itself a subordinate hierarchy. This (or any other) hierarchy of nine, hangs like apendant jewel from the lowest hierarchy above it, which makes the tenth counting upwards, which tenthwe can call the superdivine, the hyperheavenly, this tenth being the lowest stage (or the ninth, countingdownwards) of still another hierarchy extending upwards; and so on, indefinitely.One of the noblest of the theosophical teachings, and one of the most far-reaching in its import, is that ofthe hierarchical constitution of universal nature. This hierarchical structure of nature is so fundamental,so basic, that it may be truly called the structural framework of being. (See also Planes)
High bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line "communications, protocol" (HDSL) A form of {Digital Subscriber Line}, providing {T1} or {E1} connections over two or three {twisted-pair} copper lines, respectively. Unlike most other forms of DSL HDSL is not a typical consumer service, it's used mostly to replace traditional T1/E1 connections, such as connecting {PBXes} to {telco} offices. The advantage of HDSL over the {Alternate Mark Inversion} line coding scheme traditionally used on T1/E1 lines is that it requires about an order of magnitude lower bandwidth to carry the same traffic. (1998-05-18)
High Voltage Differential "hardware" (HVD) {Differential SCSI} scheme that has been in use for years. The {terminators} run on 5 Volts DC. See also {LVD}. (1999-02-16)
Hobbit A {Scheme} to {C} compiler by Tanel Tammet "tammet@cs.chalmers.se". Hobbit attempts to retain most of the original Scheme program structure, making the output C program readable and modifiable. Hobbit is written in Scheme and is able to self-compile. Hobbit release 1 works together with the {scm} release scm4b3. Future releases of scm and hobbit will be coordinated. {(ftp://altdorf.ai.mit.edu/archive/scm/hobbit2.tar.Z)}. (1993-04-25) 2. The non-{ITS} name of "vad@ai.mit.edu" (*Hobbit*), master of lasers.
horoscope ::: n. --> The representation made of the aspect of the heavens at the moment of a person&
Hungarian Notation "language, convention" A linguistic convention requiring one or more letters to be added to the start of {variable} names to denote {scope} and/or {type}. Hungarian Notation is mainly confined to {Microsoft Windows} programming environments, such as Microsoft {C}, {C++} and {Visual Basic}. It was originally devised by {Charles Simonyi}, a Hungarian, who was a senior programmer at {Microsoft} for many years. He disliked the way that names in C programs gave no clue as to the type, leading to frequent programmer errors. According to legend, fellow programmers at Microsoft, on seeing the convoluted, vowel-less variable names produced by his scheme, said, "This might as well be in Greek - or even Hungarian!". They made up the name "Hungarian notation" (possibly with "{reverse Polish notation}" in mind). Hungarian Notation is not really necessary when using a modern {strongly-typed language} as the {compiler} warns the programmer if a variable of one type is used as if it were another type. It is less useful in {object-oriented programming} languages such as {C++}, where many variables are going to be instances of {classes} and so begin with "obj". In addition, variable names are essentially only {comments}, and thus are just as susceptible to becoming out-of-date and incorrect as any other comment. For example, if a {signed} {short} {int} becomes an unsigned {long} int, the variable name, and every use of it, should be changed to reflect its new type. A variable's name should describe the values it holds. Type and scope are aspects of this, but Hungarian Notation overemphasises their importance by allocating so much of the start of the name to them. Furthermore, type and scope information can be found from the variable's declaration. Ironically, this is particularly easy in the development environments in which Hungarian Notation is typically used. {Simonyi's original monograph (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/hunganotat.htm)}. {Microsoft VB Naming Conventions (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q110/2/64.asp)}. (2003-09-11)
Ialdabaoth’s mother, Sophia Achamoth (wisdom of the lower four of the cosmic planes) is the daughter or manifested reflection of the Heavenly Sophia — divine wisdom, or the mahat-side of akasa. Therefore Ialdabaoth is equivalent to the Nazarene Demiourgos of the Codex Nazaraeus, which makes him identical with the Hebrew Jehovah, the creator of the physical earth and the material side of the rector of the planet Saturn. He is also identical with Tsebaoth-Adamas, “the Pthahil of the Codex Nazaraeus, the Demiurge of the Valentinian system, the Proarchose of the Barbelitae, the Great Archon of Basilides and the Elohim of Justinus, etc. Ialdabaoth (the Child of Chaos) was . . . the Chief of the Creative Forces and the representative of one of the classes of Pitris” (BCW 13:43n). In the Ophite scheme he is the first of the superior septenate.
ideality ::: the supra-intellectual faculty (vijñana) with its powers of smr.ti (consisting of intuition and discrimination), sruti (or inspiration) and dr.s.t.i (or revelation), usually distinguished from (but sometimes including) vijñanabuddhi or intuitive mind. The plane of ideality or vijñana generally referred to in the early period of the Record of Yoga appears to be what in 1918 was designated primary / inferior ideality, above which Sri Aurobindo then distinguished a secondary / superior ideality. In 1919, the lower plane came to be called logistic ideality in a scheme of three planes, of which the higher two were termed hermetic ideality (later srauta vijñana) and seer ideality. Up to 1920, "ideality" by itself continued to refer mainly to the first of these planes.
If the twelve sons of Jacob in the Hebrew scheme are made equivalent to the twelve signs of the zodiac, Dan is assigned to Scorpio; Dan is described as a serpent by the way, who bites the horse’s heels and causes the rider to fall backward — and one must here remember the role always ascribed in archaic occultism to the serpent: the Agathodaemon or the Kakodaemon, the serpent of wisdom and the serpent of evil.
imagine ::: v. t. --> To form in the mind a notion or idea of; to form a mental image of; to conceive; to produce by the imagination.
To contrive in purpose; to scheme; to devise; to compass; to purpose. See Compass, v. t., 5.
To represent to one&
In a Hindu scheme, the first body of Brahma is called his body of night, and from it proceeded the three highest groups of pitris, the asuras or sons of wisdom; while the four lower classes of pitris proceeded from the body of twilight.
In Ezekiel’s vision of the Cherubim, or the four sacred animals, the angel with the face of the lion corresponds to Michael, as in the Ophite scheme.
ingenious ::: a. --> Possessed of genius, or the faculty of invention; skillful or promp to invent; having an aptitude to contrive, or to form new combinations; as, an ingenious author, mechanic.
Proseeding from, pertaining to, or characterized by, genius or ingenuity; of curious design, structure, or mechanism; as, an ingenious model, or machine; an ingenious scheme, contrivance, etc.
Witty; shrewd; adroit; keen; sagacious; as, an ingenious reply.
Interchange File Format "file format" (IFF, full name "EA IFF 1985") A generic file format published by {Electronic Arts} as an open standard. IFF is {chunk}-based and hierarchical so files can include other files. It is easily extensible and an all round Good Idea. An IFF file starts with one of the following "group IDs": 'FORM', 'LIST' or 'CAT '. This is followed by an unsigned 32-bit number of bytes in the remainder of the file. Then comes an ID that indicates which type of IFF file this is. The main image type is {ILBM}, {audio} is either {AIFF} or {8SVX}, animations are {ANIM} etc. An IFF file will probably have a {filename extension} related to this file type stored in the file. The rest of the file is divided into {chunks} each of which also has a four-byte header and byte count. {Microsoft} {WAV} and {AVI} are all based around an almost identical scheme to IFF called {RIFF}. The main difference is that, in RIFF files, numbers are little-endian as on {Intel} processors, whereas in IFF files they are big-endian, as on the {Motorola 68000} processors in the {Amiga} where IFF files were first used. (1997-07-23)
In the cosmic sense the sadhyas signify the names collectively of the twelve great gods, the first twelve cosmic hierarchs emanating from Brahma, out of which flow not only the twelve cosmic planes, but the hierarchies inherent in these twelve planes. Their importance lies in the fact that they are the earliest emanations in serial order from the formative and productive Brahma-prakriti, and therefore are really the origin of all beings and things in the cosmos arranged from the beginning in the duodenary hierarchical scheme. Plato had the same thought when he spoke of Divinity forming the universe according to the number twelve. They are reminiscent of the Latin dii consentes, taken over from the ancient mystical Etruscans who stated that these twelve “agreeing or consenting divinities” form the council of Jupiter, the Latin Brahma. The twelve dii consentes consisted of six feminine and six masculine divinities, and the Etruscan theology stated that they govern not only the world, but time also, coming into existence periodically at the commencement of a world period, and passing into rest or pralaya when the world period ended.
in the Dionysian scheme—seraphim, cherubim,
In the hierarchy of emanations proceeding from the cosmic monad, the Seraphim precede the cherubim in emanational order, because in the hierarchical scheme the Seraphim stand for the formative or creative fires, the spiritual archetypes, whereas the cherubim are the builders of forms and hence are of the rupa class themselves. Thus the Seraphim belong to the arupa class which works through and in the Cherubim or rupa class. Thus the Seraphim, whose color is the spiritual red or spiritual fire, precede both in time and in hierarchical dignity the Cherubim whose color is blue — the idea being that before manifestation of both mind and of forms can take place there must be in the cosmic monad the awakening of divine desire, signified as fiery or flamy color, spiritual red. As the Veda has it: “desire first arose in It.”
In the pseudo-Dionysian scheme there are only 9
In the Sephirothal scheme, the Divine Name of the Sephirah of Malchuth was ’Adonai. The Gnostics taught that Iurbo and Adonai were names of Iao-Jehovah, who is an emanation of Ilda Baoth. According to Origen the Gnostics considered Adonai the genius of the sun. Blavatsky writes: “Both Aidoneus and Dionysius [Dionysus] are the bases of Adonai, or ‘Jurbo Adonai,’ as Jehovah is called in Codex Nazaraeus. . . . Baal-Adonis of the sods or Mysteries of the pre-Babylonian Jews became the Adonai by the Massorah, the later-vowelled Jehovah” (SD 1:463). See also ’ADON; IAO; JEHOVAH
In the theosophical scheme, it is the sixth principle counting upwards in the human constitution: the vehicle of pure, universal spirit, hence an inseparable garment or vehicle of atman. In its essence of the highest plane of akasa or alaya, buddhi stands in the same relation to atman as, on the cosmic scale, mulaprakriti does to parabrahman.
In the theosophical scheme of rounds and races, the fifth manvantara of the Puranas refers to the first half or descending arc of the third round of our present planetary chain, and the fifth manu, Raivata, to the root-manu of this third round; further, the passage of the life-waves through each round of all the globes of the planetary chain — i.e. from globe A to globe G — consists of two “manvantaras,” and thus it is that the first half or descending arc of the third round is the fifth of these manvantaras. Moreover, just as in the third root-race on this globe in our present fourth round the manasaputras incarnated in the then relatively intellectually senseless humanity to awaken its self-conscious mind, so in their own way and on their own planes did the abhutarajasas act. In the descending arc of the third round they played the same part, albeit in a more diffuse and less active way, that they later did in the early part of the third root-race of the fourth round on this globe, when the human vehicles were evolutionally ready for a more intensive incarnation.
In the theosophic scheme of the septenary cosmos, the three higher planes are termed arupa planes, formless worlds, where form as we humans perceive it ceases to exist on our objective planes, while the four lower cosmic planes are called rupa-lokas or manifested planes (OG 6, 149). If the cosmos is viewed as a denary, then the three highest planes may be called arupa, while the seven manifested planes are the rupa worlds (Fund 240).
intrigue ::: v. i. --> To form a plot or scheme; to contrive to accomplish a purpose by secret artifice.
To carry on a secret and illicit love or amour.
Intricacy; complication.
A complicated plot or scheme intended to effect some purpose by secret artifice; conspiracy; stratagem.
The plot or romance; a complicated scheme of designs, actions, and events.
ISAPI filter "web" A replaceable {DLL} which the {server} calls whenever there is an {HTTP} request. When the filter is first loaded, it communicates to the server what sort of notifications will be accepted. After that, whenever a selected event occurs, the filter is called to process the event. Example applications of ISAPI filters include custom {authentication} schemes, {compression}, {encryption}, logging, traffic analysis or other request analyses. (1997-01-06)
ISLisp International Standard Lisp. An {object-oriented} Lisp intended as an international replacement for {Common Lisp}, {EuLisp}, {Le-Lisp} and {Scheme}. The standard's goals are object orientation, extensibility, efficiency, and suitability for non-academic use. The standard is defined in {ISO} WG 16, draft Dec 1992. {(ftp://ma2s2.mathematik.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/lisp/islisp/)}. (1995-02-14)
ISWIM "language" (If You See What I Mean) An influential but unimplemented computer programming language described in the article by {Peter J. Landin} cited below. Landin attempted to capture all known programming language concepts, including {assignment} and control operators such as {goto} and {coroutines}, within a single {lambda calculus} based framework. ISWIM is an {imperative language} with a functional core, consisting of {sugared} {lambda calculus} plus {mutable variables} and {assignment}. A powerful control mechanism, Landin's {J operator}, enables capture of the current {continuation} (the {call/cc} operator of {Scheme} is a simplified version). Being based on lambda calculus ISWIM had {higher order functions} and {lexically scoped} variables. The {operational semantics} of ISWIM are defined using Landin's {SECD machine} and use {call-by-value} ({eager evaluation}). To make ISWIM look more like mathematical notation, Landin replaced {ALGOL}'s semicolons and begin end blocks with the {off-side rule} and scoping based on indentation. An ISWIM program is a single {expression} qualified by "where" clauses (auxiliary definitions including equations among variables), conditional expressions and function definitions. With {CPL}, ISWIM was one of the first programming languages to use "where" clauses. New {data types} could be defined as a (possibly recursive) {sum of products} like the {algebraic data types} found in modern functional languages. ISWIM variables were probably {dynamically typed} but Landin may have planned some form of {type inference}. Concepts from ISWIM appear in Art Evan's {PAL} and John Reynold's {Gedanken}, Milner's {ML} and purely functional languages with lazy evaluation like {SASL}, {Miranda} and {Haskell}. [{"The Next 700 Programming Languages" (http://www.cs.utah.edu/~wilson/compilers/old/papers/p157-landin.pdf)}, P.J. Landin, CACM 9(3):157-166, Mar 1966]. (2007-03-20)
J A derivative and redesign of {APL} with added features and control structures. J is {purely functional} with {lexical scope} and more conventional control structures, plus several new concepts such as {function rank} and {function arrays}. J was designed and developed by Kennneth E. Iverson and Roger Hui "hui@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.com". J uses only the {ASCII} character set but has a spelling scheme that retains the advantages of {APL}'s special alphabet. J is a conventional procedural programming language but can be used as a {purely functional} language. Version 4.1 for {MS-DOS}, Sun, Mac, Archimedes. Source available in C from {Iverson Software}, +1 (416) 925 6096. Version 6 package from ISI includes an interpreter and tutorial. Ported to {DEC}, {NeXT}, {SGI}, {Sun-3}, {Sun-4}, {Vax}, {RS/6000}, {MIPS}, {Macintosh}, {Acorn Archimedes}, {IBM PC}, {Atari}, {3b1}, {Amiga}. {(ftp://watserv1.waterloo.edu/languages/apl/j)}. J-mode {GNU Emacs} macros available by {(ftp://think.com/pub/j/gmacs/j-interaction-mode.el)}. ["APL\?", Roger K.W. Hui et al, APL90 Conf Proc, Quote Quad 20(4):192-200]. (1992-10-31)
JAffer's Canonical ALgebra "mathematics, tool" (JACAL) A {symbolic mathematics} program, most of which was written in {Scheme} by Aubrey Jaffer. {(http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/~jaffer/JACAL.html)}. (1999-06-27)
Kama-dhatu (Sanskrit) Kāmadhātu Desire world; first of the Buddhist trailokya (three regions), called kama (desire), rupa (form), and arupa (formless). In the theosophic scheme, kama-dhatu is composed of the seven manifested globes of the earth-chain on the four lowest cosmic planes. Rupa-dhatu (form or image world) is composed of the five superior globes on the higher three cosmic planes. Arupa-dhatu (formless or imageless world), composed of the three highest of the ten cosmic planes, is to us a purely subjective world, a state rather than a place. The dhatus correspond in meaning with the Hindu lokas.
Kamin's interpreters "language, tool" A set of {interpreters} for {Pascal}, {Lisp}, {APL}, {Scheme}, {SASL}, {CLU}, {Smalltalk}, and {Prolog}. Tim Budd "budd@cs.orst.edu" implemented them as {subclasses} in {C++} sometime before 1991-09-12. {(ftp://cs.orst.edu/pub/budd/kamin/)}. ["Programming Languages, An Interpreter-Based Approach", Samuel Kamin]. (2002-03-14)
key 1. "database" A value used to identify a {record} in a database, derived by applying some fixed function to the record. The key is often simply one of the {fields} (a {column} if the database is considered as a table with records being rows, see "{key field}"). Alternatively the key may be obtained by applying some function, e.g. a {hash function}, to one or more of the fields. The set of keys for all records forms an {index}. Multiple indexes may be built for one database depending on how it is to be searched. 2. "cryptography" A value which must be fed into the {algorithm} used to decode an encrypted message in order to reproduce the original {plain text}. Some encryption schemes use the same (secret) key to encrypt and decrypt a message, but {public key encryption} uses a "private" (secret) key and a "public" key which is known by all parties. 3. "hardware" An electromechanical {keyboard} button. (2003-07-04)
key-book ::: a book or other text containing the system or explanatory scheme for the interpretation of a cipher, code, or other composition of hidden or veiled meaning.
knight-errantry ::: n. --> The character or actions of wandering knights; the practice of wandering in quest of adventures; chivalry; a quixotic or romantic adventure or scheme.
Knights of the Lambda-Calculus A semi-mythical organisation of wizardly LISP and Scheme hackers. The name refers to a mathematical formalism invented by Alonzo Church, with which LISP is intimately connected. There is no enrollment list and the criteria for induction are unclear, but one well-known LISPer has been known to give out buttons and, in general, the *members* know who they are. [{Jargon File}]
Label Forwarding Information Base "networking" (LFIB) A {label switching} scheme used in {MultiProtocol Label Switching} (MPLS). [Details?] (2007-06-25)
lalr.ss "tool" An {LALR1 grammar} {parser generator} written in, and outputting, {Scheme} by Mark Johnson "mj@cs.brown.edu". Version 0.9 (before 1995-10-30). FTP new/lalr.shar from the {Scheme Repository}. (1993-05-24)
LAP LISP Assembly Program. The {assembly language} embedded into early {Lisp}. LAP was also used by the {Liar} compiler for {MIT Scheme} and {MACLISP}. [Sammet 1969, p. 597]. (1994-11-01)
Lempel-Ziv compression {Substitutional compression} schemes proposed by Jakob Ziv and Abraham Lempel in 1977 and 1978. There are two main schemes, {LZ77} and {LZ78}. {Lempel-Ziv Welch compression} is a variant of {LZ78}.
Lempel-Ziv Welch compression (LZW) The {algorithm} used by the {Unix} {compress} command to reduce the size of files, e.g. for archival or transmission. LZW was designed by Terry Welch in 1984 for implementation in hardware for high-performance disk controllers. It is a variant of {LZ78}, one of the two {Lempel-Ziv compression} schemes. The LZW algorithm relies on reoccurrence of byte sequences (strings) in its input. It maintains a table mapping input strings to their associated output codes. The table initially contains mappings for all possible strings of length one. Input is taken one byte at a time to find the longest initial string present in the table. The code for that string is output and then the string is extended with one more input byte, b. A new entry is added to the table mapping the extended string to the next unused code (obtained by incrementing a counter). The process repeats, starting from byte b. The number of bits in an output code, and hence the maximum number of entries in the table is usually fixed and once this limit is reached, no more entries are added. LZW compression and decompression are licensed under {Unisys} Corporation's 1984 U.S. Patent 4,558,302 and equivalent foreign patents. This kind of patent isn't legal in most coutries of the world (including the UK) except the USA. Patents in the UK can't describe {algorithms} or mathematical methods. [A Technique for High Performance Data Compression, Terry A. Welch, IEEE Computer, 17(6), June 1984, pp. 8-19] [J. Ziv and A. Lempel, "A Universal Algorithm for Sequential Data Compression," IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. IT-23, No. 3, May 1977, pp. 337-343].
Liar {MIT Scheme}
linear address space A memory addressing scheme used in processors where the whole memory can be accessed using a single address that fits in a single register or instruction. This contrasts with a {segmented memory} architecture, such as that used on the {Intel 8086}, where an address is given by an offset from a base address held in one of the "segment registers". Linear addressing greatly simplifies programming at the {assembly language} level but requires more instruction word bits to be allocated for an address. (1995-02-16)
liquid crystal display "hardware" (LCD) An electro-optical device used to display digits, characters or images, commonly used in digital watches, calculators, and portable computers. The heart of the liquid crystal display is a piece of {liquid crystal} material placed between a pair of transparent {electrodes}. The liquid crystal changes the phase of the light passing through it and this phase change can be controlled by the {voltage} applied between the electrodes. If such a unit is placed between a pair of {plane polariser} plates then light can pass through it only if the correct voltage is applied. Liquid crystal displays are formed by integrating a number of such cells, or more usually, by using a single liquid crystal plate and a pattern of electrodes. The simplest kind of liquid crystal displays, those used in digital watches and calculators, contain a common electrode plane covering one side and a pattern of electrodes on the other. These electrodes can be individually controlled to produce the appropriate display. Computer displays, however, require far too many pixels (typically between 50,000 and several millions) to make this scheme, in particular its wiring, feasible. The electrodes are therefore replaced by a number of row electrodes on one side and column electrodes on the other. By applying voltage to one row and several columns the {pixels} at the intersections are set. The pixels being set one row after the other, in {passive matrix} displays the number of rows is limited by the ratio of the setting and fading times. In the setup described above (known as "{twisted nematic}") the number of rows is limited to about 20. Using an alternative "{supertwisted nematic}" setup {VGA} quality displays (480 rows) can be easily built. As of 1995 most {notebook computers} used this technique. Fading can be slowed by putting an active element, such as a {transistor}, on the top of each pixel. This "remembers" the setting of that pixel. These {active matrix} displays are of much better quality (as good as {CRTs}) but are much more expensive than the passive matrix displays. LCDs are slimmer, lighter and consume less power than the previous dominant display type, the {cathode ray tube}, hence their importance for {portable computers}. (1995-12-09)
Lisp "language" LISt Processing language. (Or mythically "Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses"). {Artificial Intelligence}'s mother tongue, a symbolic, {functional}, {recursive} language based on the ideas of {lambda-calculus}, variable-length lists and trees as fundamental data types and the interpretation of code as data and vice-versa. Data objects in Lisp are lists and {atoms}. Lists may contain lists and atoms. Atoms are either numbers or symbols. Programs in Lisp are themselves lists of symbols which can be treated as data. Most implementations of Lisp allow functions with {side-effects} but there is a core of Lisp which is {purely functional}. All Lisp functions and programs are expressions that return values; this, together with the high memory use of Lisp, gave rise to {Alan Perlis}'s famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar Wilde quote) that "Lisp programmers know the value of everything and the cost of nothing". The original version was {LISP 1}, invented by {John McCarthy} "jmc@sail.stanford.edu" at {MIT} in the late 1950s. Lisp is actually older than any other {high level language} still in use except {Fortran}. Accordingly, it has undergone considerable change over the years. Modern variants are quite different in detail. The dominant {HLL} among hackers until the early 1980s, Lisp now shares the throne with {C}. See {languages of choice}. One significant application for Lisp has been as a proof by example that most newer languages, such as {COBOL} and {Ada}, are full of unnecessary {crocks}. When the {Right Thing} has already been done once, there is no justification for {bogosity} in newer languages. See also {Association of Lisp Users}, {Common Lisp}, {Franz Lisp}, {MacLisp}, {Portable Standard Lisp}, {Interlisp}, {Scheme}, {ELisp}, {Kamin's interpreters}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-04-16)
Logical Block Addressing "storage" (LBA) A {hard disk} {sector} addressing scheme used on all {SCSI} hard disks, and on {ATA-2} conforming {IDE} hard disks. The addressing conversion is performed by the hard disk firmware. Prior to LBA, combined limitations of {IBM PC} {BIOS} and {ATA} restricted the useful capacity of IDE hard disks on IBM PCs and compatibles to 1024 cylinders * 63 sectors per track * 16 heads * 512 bytes per sector = 528 million bytes = 504 megabytes. Modern BIOSes select LBA mode automatically, and work around the 1024-cylinder BIOS limit by representing a hard disk to the OS as having e.g. half as many cylinders and twice as many heads. However, there is still an unbreakable BIOS disk size limit of 1024 cylinders * 63 sectors per track * 256 heads * 512 bytes per sector = 8 gigabytes, but modern OSes (including {Windows 9x}, {Windows NT} and {Linux}) are not affected by it, since they issue direct LBA-based calls, bypassing the BIOS hard disk services completely. (2000-04-30)
logrolling ::: n. --> The act or process of rolling logs from the place where they were felled to the stream which floats them to the sawmill or to market. In this labor neighboring camps of loggers combine to assist each other in turn.
Hence: A combining to assist another in consideration of receiving assistance in return; -- sometimes used of a disreputable mode of accomplishing political schemes or ends.
loka ::: "a way in which conscious being images itself", a world or plane of existence, including planes other than the material world, with which we may come into contact by "an opening of our mind and life parts to a great range of subjective-objective experiences in which these planes present themselves no longer as extensions of subjective being and consciousness, but as worlds; for the experiences there are organised as they are in our own world, but on a different plan, with a ... different process and law of action and in a substance which belongs to a supraphysical Nature". The principal lokas, described as the "seven worlds", are in ascending order: bhū (the world of anna1, matter), bhuvar (the world of pran.a, life-force), svar (the world of manas, mind), maharloka (the world of vijñana, gnosis), janaloka (the world of ananda, bliss), tapoloka (the world of [cit-]tapas, [consciousness]force), and satyaloka (the world of sat, absolute existence); when the three highest planes are combined into one world of saccidananda (existence-consciousness-bliss), the result is a scheme of five worlds, sometimes counted in descending order so that bhū becomes the fifth.
lottery ::: n. --> A scheme for the distribution of prizes by lot or chance; esp., a gaming scheme in which one or more tickets bearing particular numbers draw prizes, and the rest of tickets are blanks. Fig. : An affair of chance.
Allotment; thing allotted.
LZ77 compression The first {algorithm} to use the {Lempel-Ziv} {substitutional compression} schemes, proposed in 1977. LZ77 compression keeps track of the last n bytes of data seen, and when a phrase is encountered that has already been seen, it outputs a pair of values corresponding to the position of the phrase in the previously-seen buffer of data, and the length of the phrase. In effect the compressor moves a fixed-size "window" over the data (generally referred to as a "sliding window"), with the position part of the (position, length) pair referring to the position of the phrase within the window. The most commonly used {algorithms} are derived from the {LZSS} scheme described by James Storer and Thomas Szymanski in 1982. In this the compressor maintains a window of size N bytes and a "lookahead buffer", the contents of which it tries to find a match for in the window: while (lookAheadBuffer not empty) { get a pointer (position, match) to the longest match in the window for the lookahead buffer; if (length " MINIMUM_MATCH_LENGTH) { output a (position, length) pair; shift the window length characters along; } else { output the first character in the lookahead buffer; shift the window 1 character along; } } Decompression is simple and fast: whenever a (POSITION, LENGTH) pair is encountered, go to that POSITION in the window and copy LENGTH bytes to the output. Sliding-window-based schemes can be simplified by numbering the input text characters mod N, in effect creating a circular buffer. The sliding window approach automatically creates the {LRU} effect which must be done explicitly in {LZ78} schemes. Variants of this method apply additional compression to the output of the LZSS compressor, which include a simple variable-length code ({LZB}), dynamic {Huffman coding} ({LZH}), and {Shannon-Fano} coding ({ZIP} 1.x), all of which result in a certain degree of improvement over the basic scheme, especially when the data are rather random and the LZSS compressor has little effect. An algorithm was developed which combines the ideas behind LZ77 and LZ78 to produce a hybrid called {LZFG}. LZFG uses the standard sliding window, but stores the data in a modified {trie} data structure and produces as output the position of the text in the trie. Since LZFG only inserts complete *phrases* into the dictionary, it should run faster than other LZ77-based compressors. All popular archivers ({arj}, {lha}, {zip}, {zoo}) are variations on LZ77. [comp.compression {FAQ}]. (1995-04-07)
LZ78 compression A {substitutional compression} scheme which works by entering phrases into a dictionary and then, when a reoccurrence of that particular phrase is found, outputting the dictionary index instead of the phrase. Several {algorithms} are based on this principle, differing mainly in the manner in which they manage the dictionary. The most well-known Lempel-Ziv scheme is Terry Welch's {Lempel-Ziv Welch} variant of LZ78. [comp.compression {FAQ}].
LZH compression "algorithm" (After Lempel-Ziv and Haruyasu, the inventors) A {compression} {algorithm} derived from the {LZSS} scheme with a sliding window and additional compression applied to the output of the LZSS compressor by {dynamic Huffman coding}. (1995-04-07)
machinate ::: v. i. --> To plan; to contrive; esp., to form a scheme with the purpose of doing harm; to contrive artfully; to plot. ::: v. t. --> To contrive, as a plot; to plot; as, to machinate evil.
machination ::: n. --> The act of machinating.
That which is devised; a device; a hostile or treacherous scheme; an artful design or plot.
machinator ::: n. --> One who machinates, or forms a scheme with evil designs; a plotter or artful schemer.
mail gateway "messaging" A machine that connects two or more {electronic mail} systems (including dissimilar mail systems) and transfers messages between them. Sometimes the mapping and translation can be quite complex, and it generally requires a {store and forward} scheme whereby the message is received from one system completely before it is transmitted to the next system, after suitable translations. (1996-02-26)
Manchester encoding "communications, protocol" A method of transmitting bits which enables the receiver to easily synchronise with the sender. A simple way of signalling bits might be to transmit a high voltage for some period for a 1-bit and a low voltage for a 0 bit: Bits Sent: 1 1 0 0 Signal: High ___________ Low |___________ Time: -" . . . . . However, when several identical bits are sent in succession, this provides no information to the receiver about when each bit starts and stops. Manchester encoding splits each bit period into two, and ensures that there is always a transition between the signal levels in the middle of each bit. This allows the receiver to synchronise with the sender. In normal Manchester encoding, a 1-bit is transmitted with a high voltage in the first period, and a low voltage in the second, and vice verse for the 0 bit: Bits Sent: 1 1 0 0 Signal: High __ __ __ __ Low |__| |_____| |__| Time: -" . ' . ' . ' . ' . In Differential Manchester encoding, a 1-bit is indicated by making the first half of the signal equal to the last half of the previous bit's signal and a 0-bit is indicated by making the first half of the signal opposite to the last half of the previous bit's signal. That is, a zero bit is indicated by a transition at the beginning of the bit. Like normal Manchester encoding, there is always a transition in the middle of the transmission of the bit. Differential Manchester Encoding Bits Sent: 1 1 0 0 Signal: High ____ __ __ __ Low |_____| |__| |__| Time: -" . ' . ' . ' . ' . With each bit period half as long, twice as much {bandwidth} is required when using either of the Manchester encoding schemes. (1995-11-23)
manoeuvre ::: n. --> Management; dexterous movement; specif., a military or naval evolution, movement, or change of position.
Management with address or artful design; adroit proceeding; stratagem.
To perform a movement or movements in military or naval tactics; to make changes in position with reference to getting advantage in attack or defense.
To manage with address or art; to scheme.
MBONE Virtual Internet Backbone for Multicast IP. {IP-Multicast} is the {class-D} addressing scheme in {IP} implemented by Steve Deering at {Xerox PARC}. It was adopted at the {IETF} March 1992 meeting and acquired the name MBONE after the July 1992 IETF meeting. IP Multicast-based routing allows distributed applications to achieve {real-time} communication over {IP} {wide area networks} through a lightweight, highly {thread}ed model of communication. Each network-provider participant in the MBONE provides one or more IP multicast routers to connect with tunnels to other participants and to customers. The multicast routers are typically separate from a network's production routers since most production routers don't yet support IP multicast. Most sites use workstations running the mrouted program, but the experimental MOSPF software for Proteon routers is an alternative. Ideally, the machines running mrouted should be dedicated to this task, for reasons of real-time performance and ease of installing kernel patches. Since most intermediate nodes have at least three tunnels, each carrying a separate ({unicast}) copy of each packet, it is also useful to have multiple network interfaces so it can be installed parallel to the unicast router for those sites with configurations like this: +----------+ | Backbone | | Node | +----------+ | ------------------------------------------ External DMZ Ethernet | | +----------+ +----------+ | Router | | mrouted | +----------+ +----------+ | | ------------------------------------------ Internal DMZ Ethernet This configuration allows the mrouted machine to connect with tunnels to other regional networks over the external {DMZ} and the physical backbone network, and connect with tunnels to the lower-level mrouted machines over the internal {DMZ}, thereby splitting the load of the replicated packets. The mrouted machine would not do any unicast forwarding. Note that end-user sites may participate with as little as one workstation that runs the packet audio and video software and has a tunnel to a network-provider node. {RFC 1112} gives the details. {FAQ (http://eit.com/techinfo/mbone/mbone.html)}. (1994-11-11)
Memory: (Lat. memoria) Non-inferential knowledge of past perceptual objects (perceptual memory) or of past emotions, feelings and states of consciousness of the remembering subject (introspective memory). See Introspection. Memory is psychologically analyzable into three functions: revival or reproduction of the memory image, recognition of the image as belonging to the past of the remembering subject, and temporal localization of the remembered object by reference to a psychological or physical time-scheme.
MEROON "language" An {object-oriented} system built on {Scheme}. [What kind of system?] {(ftp://nexus.yorku.ca/pub/scheme/new/)}. (1997-05-05)
MIT Scheme "language" (Previously "C-Scheme") A {Scheme} implementation by the {MIT} Scheme Team (Chris Hanson, Jim Miller, Bill Rozas, and many others) with a rich set of utilities, a compiler called {Liar} and an editor called {Edwin}. MIT Scheme includes an {interpreter}, large {run-time library}, {Emacs} {macros}, {native-code compiler}, emacs-like editor, and a {source-level debugger}. {MIT Scheme} conforms fully with {R4RS} and almost with the {IEEE Scheme} {standard}. It runs on {Motorola 68000}: {HP9000}, {Sun-3}, {NeXT}; {MIPS}: {Decstation}, {Sony}, {SGI}; {HP-PA}: 600, 700, 800; {VAX}: {Ultrix}, {BSD}, {DEC} {Alpha}: {OSF}; {Intel i386}: {MS-DOS}, {MS Windows}, and various other {Unix} systems. See also: {LAP}, {Schematik}, {Scode}. {(http://gnu.org/software/mit-scheme/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.scheme.c}. Mailing list: mit-scheme-announce@gnu.org (cross-posted to news). E-mail: "mit-scheme-devel@gnu.org" (maintainers). (2003-08-14)
MLISP 1. {M-expression LISP}. 2. Meta-LISP. D.C. Smith & H. Enea. LISP variant with ALGOL-like syntax. Not just a surface syntax, a full language. "MLISP", D.C. Smith, TR CS-179, CS Dept, Stanford (Oct 1970). Version: MLISP2. 3. A hybrid of M-expression LISP and Scheme. "M-LISP: Its Natural Semantics and Equational Logic", R. Muller, SIGPLAN Notices 26(9):234-242 (Sept 1991) (PEPM '91).
modem "hardware, communications" (Modulator/demodulator) An electronic device for converting between serial data (typically {EIA-232}) from a computer and an audio signal suitable for transmission over a telephone line connected to another modem. In one scheme the audio signal is composed of silence (no data) or one of two frequencies representing zero and one. Modems are distinguished primarily by the maximum data rate they support. Data rates can range from 75 bits per second up to 56000 and beyond. Data from the user (i.e. flowing from the local terminal or computer via the modem to the telephone line) is sometimes at a lower rate than the other direction, on the assumption that the user cannot type more than a few characters per second. Various data {compression} and error correction {algorithms} are required to support the highest speeds. Other optional features are {auto-dial} (auto-call) and {auto-answer} which allow the computer to initiate and accept calls without human intervention. Most modern modems support a number of different {protocols}, and two modems, when first connected, will automatically negotiate to find a common protocol (this process may be audible through the modem or computer's loudspeakers). Some modem protocols allow the two modems to renegotiate ("retrain") if the initial choice of data rate is too high and gives too many transmission errors. A modem may either be internal (connected to the computer's {bus}) or external ("stand-alone", connected to one of the computer's {serial ports}). The actual speed of transmission in characters per second depends not just the modem-to-modem data rate, but also on the speed with which the processor can transfer data to and from the modem, the kind of compression used and whether the data is compressed by the processor or the modem, the amount of noise on the telephone line (which causes retransmissions), the serial character format (typically {8N1}: one {start bit}, eight data bits, no {parity}, one {stop bit}). See also {acoustic coupler}, {adaptive answering}, {baud barf}, {Bulletin Board System}, {Caller ID}, {SoftModem}, {U.S. Robotics}, {UUCP}, {whalesong}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.modems}. (2002-05-04)
Modified Frequency Modulation "storage" (MFM, Modified {FM}, or sometimes "Multiple Frequency Modulation") A modification to the original {frequency modulation} scheme for encoding data on {magnetic disks}. MFM allows more than 1 symbol per flux transition (up to 3), giving greater density of data. It is used with a data rate of between 250-500 kbit/s on industry standard 3.5" and 5.25" low and high density {diskettes}, and up to 5 Mbit/s on {ST-506} {hard disks}. Except for 1.44 MB floppy disks, this encoding is obsolete. Other data encoding schemes include {GCR}, {FM}, {RLL}. See also: {PRML}. (2002-06-24)
MultiScheme An implementation of {Multilisp} built on MIT's {C-Scheme}, for the {BBN Butterfly}. ["MultiScheme: A Paralled Processing System Based on MIT Scheme", J. Miller, TR-402, MIT LCS, Sept 1987]. (1995-04-04)
multicast addressing {Ethernet} addressing scheme used to send {packets} to devices of a certain type or for {broadcast}ing to all nodes. The least significant bit of the most significant byte of a multi-cast address is one.
MultiLisp "language" A {parallel} extension of {Scheme} with explicit {concurrency}. The form (future X) immediately returns a "{future}", and creates a {task} to evaluate X. When the evaluation is complete, the future is resolved to be the value. ["MultiLisp: A Language for Concurrent Symbolic Computation", R. Halstead, TOPLAS pp.501-538 (Oct 1985)]. [Did MultiLisp use {PVM} as its intermediate language?] (1998-02-10)
Natural Language Information Analysis Method (NIAM, or Nijssen IAM) A method for {data model}ling. ["Conceptual Scheme and Relational Database Design", Nijssen and Halpin, Prentice-Hall, 1989]. (1995-03-31)
Nebu (Gnostic-Hebrew) The planetary genius of Mercury in the Ophite Gnostic scheme. The Codex Nazaraeus states that Nebu is “a false Messiah, who will deprave the ancient worship of God,” according to Norberg (preface to his trans.)
negotiate ::: v. i. --> To transact business; to carry on trade.
To treat with another respecting purchase and sale or some business affair; to bargain or trade; as, to negotiate with a man for the purchase of goods or a farm.
To hold intercourse respecting a treaty, league, or convention; to treat with, respecting peace or commerce; to conduct communications or conferences.
To intrigue; to scheme.
Nerig (Gnostic) The planetary genius of Mars, according to the Ophite Gnostic scheme.
nostrum ::: n. --> A medicine, the ingredients of which are kept secret for the purpose of restricting the profits of sale to the inventor or proprietor; a quack medicine.
Any scheme or device proposed by a quack.
Oaklisp "language" A portable {object-oriented} {Scheme} by K. Lang and Barak Perlmutter of {Yale}. Oaklisp uses a superset of Scheme {syntax}. It is based on generic operations rather than functions, and features {anonymous classes}, {multiple inheritance}, a strong error system, {setters} and {locators} for operations and a facility for {dynamic binding}. Version 1.2 includes an interface, {bytecode compiler}, {run-time system} and documentation. {(ftp://f.gp.cs.cmu.edu/usr/bap/oak/ftpable/)}, {for Amiga (ftp://ftp.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/amiga/fish/ff519)}. ["Oaklisp: An Object-Oriented Scheme with First-Class Types", K. Lang et al, SIGPLAN Notices 21(11):30-37 (Nov 1986) (OOPSLA '86)]. (1992-05-01)
Opal 1. A {DSP} language. ["OPAL: A High Level Language and Environment for DSP boards on PC", J.P. Schwartz et al, Proc ICASSP-89, 1989]. 2. The language of the {object-oriented database} {GemStone}. ["Making Smalltalk a Database System", G. Copeland et al, Proc SIGMOD'84, ACM 1984, pp.316- 325]. 3. A {simulation} language with provision for {stochastic variables}. An extension of {Autostat}. ["C-E-I-R OPAL", D. Pilling, Internal Report, C.E.I.R. Ltd. (1963)]. 4. A language for compiler testing said to be used internally by {DEC}. 5. A {functional programming} language designed at the {Technische Universitaet Berlin} as a testbed for the development of {functional programs}. OPAL integrates concepts from Algebraic Specification and Functional Programming, which favour the (formal) development of (large) production-quality software written in a {purely functional} style. The core of OPAL is a {strongly typed}, {higher-order}, {strict} applicative language which belongs to the tradition of {Hope} and {ML}. The algebraic flavour of OPAL is visible in the syntactical appearance and in the preference of {parameterisation} to {polymorphism}. OPAL supports: {information hiding} - each language unit is divided into an interface (signature) and an implementation part; selective import; {parameterised modules}; free constructor {views} on {sorts}, which allow pattern-based function definitions despite quite different implementations; full {overloading} of names; puristic scheme language with no {built-in} data types (except {Booleans} and denotations). OPAL and its predecessor OPAL-0 have been used for some time at the Technische Universitaet Berlin in CS courses and for research into optimising compilers for applicative languages. The OPAL compiler itself is writte entirely in OPAL. An overview is given in "OPAL: Design And Implementation of an Algebraic Programming Language". {(http://cs.tu-berlin.de/~opal/)}. {(ftp://ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/local/uebb/papers/DesignImplOpal.ps.gz)}. (1995-02-16)
or 7th Heaven. In the Dionysian scheme, the cheru¬
Orbit A {Scheme} compiler. ["Orbit: An Optimising Compiler for Scheme", D.A. Kranz et al, SIGPLAN Notices 21(7):281-292 (Jul 1986)]. (1994-10-28)
originate ::: v. t. --> To give an origin or beginning to; to cause to be; to bring into existence; to produce as new. ::: v. i. --> To take first existence; to have origin or beginning; to begin to exist or act; as, the scheme originated with the governor and council.
outline ::: n. --> The line which marks the outer limits of an object or figure; the exterior line or edge; contour.
In art: A line drawn by pencil, pen, graver, or the like, by which the boundary of a figure is indicated.
A sketch composed of such lines; the delineation of a figure without shading.
Fig.: A sketch of any scheme; a preliminary or general indication of a plan, system, course of thought, etc.; as, the outline
P6 "processor" ("P" from {Pentium}, 6 from 686, the successor to 586 which is what the Pentium would have been had it followed the naming scheme its predecessors) The name for the {Pentium Pro} during development. (1995-11-15)
PaiLisp "language" A {parallel} {Lisp} built on {Scheme} in 1986. ["A Parallel Lisp Language PaiLisp and its Kernel Specification", T. Ito et al, in Parallel Lisp: Languages and Systems, T. Ito et al eds, LNCS 441, Springer 1989]. (1995-01-30)
panhellenism ::: n. --> A scheme to unite all the Greeks in one political body.
panslavism ::: n. --> A scheme or desire to unite all the Slavic races into one confederacy.
Paradigms of AI Programming A book by Peter Norvig with {Scheme} and {Prolog} {interpreters} and {compilers} in {Common Lisp}. {(ftp://Unix.sri.com/pub/norvig/)}. ["Paradigms of AI Programming", Peter Norvig].
Parallel Virtual Machine "parallel, networking, tool" (PVM) 1. A {software} system designed to allow a network of {heterogeneous} machines to be used as a single {distributed} {parallel processor}. PVM was developed by the {University of Tennessee}, The {Oak Ridge National Laboratory} and the {Emory University}. {(http://epm.ornl.gov/pvm/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.parallel.pvm}. 2. The {intermediate language} used by the {Gambit} compiler for {Scheme}. [And Multilisp?] (1995-01-30)
Password Authentication Protocol "networking" (PAP) An {authentication} scheme used by {PPP} servers to validate the identity of the originator of the connection. PAP applies a two-way {handshaking} procedure. After the link is established the originator sends an id-password pair to the server. If authentication succeeds the server sends back an acknowledgement; otherwise it either terminates the connection or gives the originator another chance. PAP is not a strong authentication method. Passwords are sent over the circuit "in the clear" and there is no protection against playback or repeated "trial and error" attacks. The originator is in total control of the frequency and timing of the attempts. Therefore, any server that can use a stronger authentication method, such as {CHAP}, will offer to negotiate that method prior to PAP. The use of PAP is appropriate, however, if a {plaintext} password must be available to simulate a login at a remote host. PAP is defined in {RFC} 1334. (1996-03-23)
pattern recognition "artificial intelligence, data processing" A branch of {artificial intelligence} concerned with the classification or description of observations. Pattern recognition aims to classify {data} (patterns) based on either a priori knowledge or on statistical information extracted from the patterns. The patterns to be classified are usually groups of measurements or observations, defining points in an appropriate multidimensional space. A complete pattern recognition system consists of a sensor that gathers the observations to be classified or described; a {feature extraction} mechanism that computes numeric or {symbolic} information from the observations; and a classification or description scheme that does the actual job of classifying or describing observations, relying on the extracted features. The classification or description scheme is usually based on the availability of a set of patterns that have already been classified or described. This set of patterns is termed the {training set} and the resulting learning strategy is characterised as {supervised}. Learning can also be {unsupervised}, in the sense that the system is not given an a priori labelling of patterns, instead it establishes the classes itself based on the statistical regularities of the patterns. The classification or description scheme usually uses one of the following approaches: statistical (or {decision theoretic}), syntactic (or structural), or neural. Statistical pattern recognition is based on statistical characterisations of patterns, assuming that the patterns are generated by a {probabilistic} system. Structural pattern recognition is based on the structural interrelationships of features. Neural pattern recognition employs the neural computing paradigm that has emerged with {neural networks}. (1995-09-22)
PC-Scheme Version 3.03 compiler, debugger, profiler, editor, libraries {(ftp://altdorf.ai.mit.edu/archive/pc-scheme/)}. Written at {Texas Instruments}. Runs on {MS-DOS} 286/386 IBM PCs and compatibles. Includes an optimising compiler, an emacs-like editor, inspector, debugger, performance testing, foreign function interface, window system and an object-oriented subsystem. Also supports the dialect used in {Hal Abelson} and {Gerald Sussman}'s {SICP}. Conformance: Revised^3 Report, also supports dialect used in SICP. restriction: official version is $95, contact "rww@ibuki.com" ports: MS-DOS See also {PCS/Geneva}. (1992-02-23)
PCS 1. {Personal Communication Services}. 2. {PC-Scheme}.
PCS/Geneva A cleaned-up version of {Texas Instrument}'s {PC Scheme} developed at the {University of Geneva}. The main extensions to PC Scheme are {486} support, {BGI} graphics, {LIM-EMS} pagination support, line editing and {assembly code}-level interfacing. Version 4.02PL1. E-mail: "schemege@uni2a.unige.ch". (1994-01-11)
phase-shift keying "communications" (PSK) A {digital modulation} scheme that conveys data by changing the {phase} of a {carrier} wave. The data can either determine the absolute phase relative to the unmodulated carrier or reference signal ("coherent phase-shift keying", CPSK) or the change in phase ("differential phase-shift keying", DPSK). The number of different phases used determines the amount of data that can be transmitted in each cycle. Each cycle can be considered to constitute one "symbol", e.g. with two possible phases, each cycle carries one {bit}. The more phases that are used, the less tollerant to noise the transmissions becomes. Alternatives to PSK are {amplitude-shift keying} (ASK) and {frequency-shift keying} (FSK). (2010-01-26)
physical addressing "networking" The low level addressing scheme used on {Ethernet}. The 48-bit destination {Ethernet address} in a {packet} is compared with the receiving node's Ethernet address. Compare {IP address}. (1994-12-23)
pinax ::: n. --> A tablet; a register; hence, a list or scheme inscribed on a tablet.
plan ::: a. --> A draught or form; properly, a representation drawn on a plane, as a map or a chart; especially, a top view, as of a machine, or the representation or delineation of a horizontal section of anything, as of a building; a graphic representation; a diagram.
A scheme devised; a method of action or procedure expressed or described in language; a project; as, the plan of a constitution; the plan of an expedition.
A method; a way of procedure; a custom.
Plane Used figuratively for “the range or extent of some state of consciousness, or of the perceptive power of a particular set of senses, or the action of a particular force, or the state of matter corresponding to any of the above” (TG 255). Though the cosmic planes are different from one another, they are not separated by gaps, just as the spectral colors are distinct and characteristic yet merge imperceptibly into each other. Nor can it be supposed that at all stages of evolution the scheme of planes was the same as now: we hear of a physico-astral stage of humanity and of other beings which now no longer exist on earth, in much the same way as we find the fossils of types intermediate between existing types but now extinct.
plan ::: n. 1. A systematic arrangement of elements or important parts; a configuration or outline. 2. A scheme, program, or method worked out beforehand for the accomplishment of an objective. plans, heart-plan, life-plan, time-plan, world-plan, vision-plans, world-plan. *v. 3. To formulate a scheme or program for the accomplishment, enactment, or attainment of. *plans, planned, planning.
PLANNER A language for writing {theorem provers} by {Carl Hewitt} "hewitt@ai.mit.edu" {MIT} 1967. Never fully implemented. {CONNIVER} was an outgrowth of {PLANNER} and {microPLANNER} a subset. {PLASMA} is a PLANNER-like system modelled on {Actors}. See also {POPLER}, {QLISP}, {Scheme}. ["PLANNER: A Language for Proving Theorems in Robots", Carl Hewitt, Proc IJCAI-69, Wash DC, May 1969].
Plesiochronous Digital Hierarchy "communications" (PDH) A transmission system for voice communication using {plesiochronous} synchronisation. PDH is the conventional {multiplexing} technology for network transmission systems. The transmitter adds dummy information bits to allow multiple channels to be bit interleaved. The receiver discards these bits once the signals have been demultiplexed. PDH combines multiple 2 Mb/s ({E1}) channels in Europe and 1.544 Mb/s ({DS1}) channels in the US and Japan. PDH is being replaced by {SONET} and other SDH ({Synchronous Digital Hierarchy}) schemes. (2003-09-30)
plot ::: 1. The pattern of events or main story in a narrative or drama. 2. A secret plan to accomplish a purpose (often hostile or illegal); a scheme. 3. A small piece of ground, generally used for a specific purpose. plots.
plot ::: n. --> A small extent of ground; a plat; as, a garden plot.
A plantation laid out.
A plan or draught of a field, farm, estate, etc., drawn to a scale.
Any scheme, stratagem, secret design, or plan, of a complicated nature, adapted to the accomplishment of some purpose, usually a treacherous and mischievous one; a conspiracy; an intrigue; as, the Rye-house Plot.
plotter ::: n. --> One who plots or schemes; a contriver; a conspirator; a schemer.
Pluggable Authentication Module "security" (PAM) The new industry standard integrated {login} {framework}. PAM is used by system entry components, such as the {Common Desktop Environment}'s dtlogin, to authenticate users logging into a {Unix} system. It provides pluggability for a variety of system-entry services. PAM's ability to {stack} authentication {modules} can be used to integrate {login} with different authentication mechanisms such as {RSA}, {DCE} and {Kerberos}, and thus unify login mechanisms. PAM can also integrate {smart card} authentication. {White paper (http://gr.osf.org/book/psm-wppr.htm)}. [OSF-RFC 86.0 V. Samar, R. Schemers, "Unified Login with Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)", Oct 1995]. (1997-07-18)
politic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to polity, or civil government; political; as, the body politic. See under Body.
Pertaining to, or promoting, a policy, especially a national policy; well-devised; adapted to its end, whether right or wrong; -- said of things; as, a politic treaty.
Sagacious in promoting a policy; ingenious in devising and advancing a system of management; devoted to a scheme or system rather than to a principle; hence, in a good sense, wise; prudent; sagacious;
politician ::: n. --> One versed or experienced in the science of government; one devoted to politics; a statesman.
One primarily devoted to his own advancement in public office, or to the success of a political party; -- used in a depreciatory sense; one addicted or attached to politics as managed by parties (see Politics, 2); a schemer; an intriguer; as, a mere politician.
Portable Scheme Debugger (PSD) A package for source code debugging of {R4RS}-compliant {Scheme} under {GNU Emacs} by Kellom ?ki Pertti "pk@cs.tut.fi". Version 1.1. Distributed under {GNU} {GPL}. It works with {scm}, {Elk} and {Scheme-"C}. {(ftp://ftp.cs.tut.fi/pub/src/languages/schemes/psd.tar.Z)}. (1992-10-08)
Portable Scheme Interpreter (PSI) A portable scheme interpreter by Ozan Yigit "oz@ursa.sis.yorku.ca", David Keldsen and Pontus Hedman that includes a simple {DAG} compiler and a {virtual machine}. It can be used as an integrated extension {interpreter} in other systems and allows easy addition of new primitives. There are some unique debugging and tracing facilities. Acceptable performance results from a fairly straight-forward implementation. {Continuations} are fully and portably supported and perform well. PSI is based on the simple compilers and {virtual machine} in Kent Dbyvig's thesis. The pre-release version conforms to {R4RS} with a number of useful extensions. (1993-02-19)
preferable ::: a. --> Worthy to be preferred or chosen before something else; more desirable; as, a preferable scheme.
presence detect "storage" A means of identifying a {memory chip} to the {memory controller} logic. The original scheme, Parallel Presence Detect (PPD) used a separate pin for each bit of information. The limited number of pins available only gave the density and the speed of the chips. To pass more information, the Serial Presence Detect (SPD) scheme was introduced, storing the information in {serial EEPROM} with one pin to enable it and one for data. (2012-06-25)
programme ::: n. --> That which is written or printed as a public notice or advertisement; a scheme; a prospectus; especially, a brief outline or explanation of the order to be pursued, or the subjects embraced, in any public exercise, performance, or entertainment; a preliminary sketch.
project ::: n. --> The place from which a thing projects, or starts forth.
That which is projected or designed; something intended or devised; a scheme; a design; a plan.
An idle scheme; an impracticable design; as, a man given to projects. ::: v. t.
projector ::: n. --> One who projects a scheme or design; hence, one who forms fanciful or chimerical schemes.
Prolog "programming" Programming in Logic or (French) Programmation en Logique. The first of the huge family of {logic programming} languages. Prolog was invented by Alain Colmerauer and Phillipe Roussel at the University of Aix-Marseille in 1971. It was first implemented 1972 in {ALGOL-W}. It was designed originally for {natural-language processing} but has become one of the most widely used languages for {artificial intelligence}. It is based on {LUSH} (or {SLD}) {resolution} {theorem proving} and {unification}. The first versions had no user-defined functions and no control structure other than the built-in {depth-first search} with {backtracking}. Early collaboration between Marseille and Robert Kowalski at {University of Edinburgh} continued until about 1975. Early implementations included {C-Prolog}, {ESLPDPRO}, {Frolic}, {LM-Prolog}, {Open Prolog}, {SB-Prolog}, {UPMAIL Tricia Prolog}. In 1998, the most common Prologs in use are {Quintus Prolog}, {SICSTUS Prolog}, {LPA Prolog}, {SWI Prolog}, {AMZI Prolog}, {SNI Prolog}. {ISO} draft standard at {Darmstadt, Germany (ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/programming/languages/prolog/standard/)}. or {UGA, USA (ftp://ai.uga.edu/ai.prolog.standard)}. See also {negation by failure}, {Kamin's interpreters}, {Paradigms of AI Programming}, {Aditi}. A Prolog {interpreter} in {Scheme}. {(ftp://cpsc.ucalgary.ca/pub/prolog1.1)}. {A Prolog package (ftp://cpsc.ucalgary.ca/pub/prolog1.1/prolog11.tar.Z)} from the {University of Calgary} features {delayed goals} and {interval arithmetic}. It requires {Scheme} with {continuations}. ["Programming in Prolog", W.F. Clocksin & C.S. Mellish, Springer, 1985]. (2001-04-01)
promoter ::: n. --> One who, or that which, forwards, advances, or promotes; an encourager; as, a promoter of charity or philosophy.
Specifically, one who sets on foot, and takes the preliminary steps in, a scheme for the organization of a corporation, a joint-stock company, or the like.
One who excites; as, a promoter of sedition.
An informer; a makebate.
proposal ::: n. --> That which is proposed, or propounded for consideration or acceptance; a scheme or design; terms or conditions proposed; offer; as, to make proposals for a treaty of peace; to offer proposals for erecting a building; to make proposals of marriage.
The offer by a party of what he has in view as to an intended business transaction, which, with acceptance, constitutes a contract.
prosecute ::: v. t. --> To follow or pursue with a view to reach, execute, or accomplish; to endeavor to obtain or complete; to carry on; to continue; as, to prosecute a scheme, hope, or claim.
To seek to obtain by legal process; as, to prosecute a right or a claim in a court of law.
To pursue with the intention of punishing; to accuse of some crime or breach of law, or to pursue for redress or punishment, before a legal tribunal; to proceed against judicially; as, to
prosecution ::: n. --> The act or process of prosecuting, or of endeavoring to gain or accomplish something; pursuit by efforts of body or mind; as, the prosecution of a scheme, plan, design, or undertaking; the prosecution of war.
The institution and carrying on of a suit in a court of law or equity, to obtain some right, or to redress and punish some wrong; the carrying on of a judicial proceeding in behalf of a complaining party, as distinguished from defense.
prospectus ::: n. --> A summary, plan, or scheme of something proposed, affording a prospect of its nature; especially, an exposition of the scheme of an unpublished literary work.
PSD "tool" {Portable Scheme Debugger}.
PseudoScheme A translator from {Scheme} to {Common Lisp} by Jonathan Rees "jar@cs.cornell.edu". Version 2.8. It conforms to all of {R3RS} except {call/cc} and requires {Common Lisp}. Runs on {Lucid}, {Symbolics CL}, {VAX Lisp}, {Explorer CL}. Mailing list: info-clscheme-request@mc.lcs.mit.edu. (1994-10-28)
pseudo-Dionysian scheme of 9 orders or choirs,
PSI {Portable Scheme Interpreter}
public-key encryption "cryptography" (PKE, Or "public-key cryptography") An {encryption} scheme, introduced by Diffie and Hellman in 1976, where each person gets a pair of keys, called the public key and the private key. Each person's public key is published while the private key is kept secret. Messages are encrypted using the intended recipient's public key and can only be decrypted using his private key. This is often used in conjunction with a {digital signature}. The need for sender and receiver to share secret information (keys) via some secure channel is eliminated: all communications involve only public keys, and no private key is ever transmitted or shared. Public-key encryption can be used for {authentication}, {confidentiality}, {integrity} and {non-repudiation}. {RSA encryption} is an example of a public-key cryptosystem. {alt.security FAQ (http://cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/bngusenet/alt/security/top.html)}. See also {knapsack problem}. (1995-03-27)
punched card "storage, history" (Or "punch card") The signature medium of computing's Stone Age, now long obsolete outside of a few {legacy systems}. The punched card actually predates computers considerably, originating in 1801 as a control device for {Jacquard looms}. {Charles Babbage} used them as a data and program storage medium for his {Analytical Engine}: "To those who are acquainted with the principles of the Jacquard loom, and who are also familiar with analytical formulæ, a general idea of the means by which the Engine executes its operations may be obtained without much difficulty. In the Exhibition of 1862 there were many splendid examples of such looms. [...] These patterns are then sent to a peculiar artist, who, by means of a certain machine, punches holes in a set of pasteboard cards in such a manner that when those cards are placed in a Jacquard loom, it will then weave upon its produce the exact pattern designed by the artist. [...] The analogy of the Analytical Engine with this well-known process is nearly perfect. There are therefore two sets of cards, the first to direct the nature of the operations to be performed -- these are called operation cards: the other to direct the particular variables on which those cards are required to operate -- these latter are called variable cards. Now the symbol of each variable or constant, is placed at the top of a column capable of containing any required number of digits." -- from Chapter 8 of Charles Babbage's "Passages from the Life of a Philosopher", 1864. The version patented by {Herman Hollerith} and used with mechanical tabulating machines in the 1890 US Census was a piece of cardboard about 90 mm by 215 mm. There is a widespread myth that it was designed to fit in the currency trays used for that era's larger dollar bills, but recent investigations have falsified this. {IBM} (which originated as a tabulating-machine manufacturer) married the punched card to computers, encoding binary information as patterns of small rectangular holes; one character per column, 80 columns per card. Other coding schemes, sizes of card, and hole shapes were tried at various times. The 80-column width of most character terminals is a legacy of the IBM punched card; so is the size of the quick-reference cards distributed with many varieties of computers even today. See {chad}, {chad box}, {eighty-column mind}, {green card}, {dusty deck}, {lace card}, {card walloper}. [{Jargon File}] (1998-10-19)
Q "language" A very {high level language} by Per Bothner based on {lazy} generalised sequences. Q has {lexical scope}, and some support for {logic programming}[?] and {constraint} programming. The language includes small subsets of {Common Lisp} and {Scheme}. Q was a test-bed for programming language ideas. Where {APL} uses {arrays} for looping, Q uses generalised sequences which may be infinite and may be stored or calculated on demand. It has {macros}, {primitives} to run programs, and an {interactive} command language. Q is implemented in {C++}, and comes with an {interpreter}, {compiler} framework, libraries, and documentation. It runs on {Linux} and {SUN-4} and should work on any 32-bit {Unix}. {(http://kelso.bothner.com/~per/software/
quine "programming" /kwi:n/ (After the logician Willard V. Quine, via Douglas Hofstadter) A program that generates a copy of its own source text as its complete output. Devising the shortest possible quine in some given programming language is a common hackish amusement. In most interpreted languages, any constant, e.g. 42, is a quine because it "evaluates to itself". In certain {Lisp} dialects (e.g. {Emacs Lisp}), the symbols "nil" and "t" are "self-quoting", i.e. they are both a symbol and also the value of that symbol. In some dialects, the function-forming function symbol, "lambda" is self-quoting so that, when applied to some arguments, it returns itself applied to those arguments. Here is a quine in {Lisp} using this idea: ((lambda (x) (list x x)) (lambda (x) (list x x))) Compare this to the {lambda expression}: (\ x . x x) (\ x . x x) which reproduces itself after one step of {beta reduction}. This is simply the result of applying the {combinator} {fix} to the {identity function}. In fact any quine can be considered as a {fixed point} of the language's evaluation mechanism. We can write this in {Lisp}: ((lambda (x) (funcall x x)) (lambda (x) (funcall x x))) where "funcall" applies its first argument to the rest of its arguments, but evaluation of this expression will never terminate so it cannot be called a quine. Here is a more complex version of the above Lisp quine, which will work in Scheme and other Lisps where "lambda" is not self-quoting: ((lambda (x) (list x (list (quote quote) x))) (quote (lambda (x) (list x (list (quote quote) x))))) It's relatively easy to write quines in other languages such as {PostScript} which readily handle programs as data; much harder (and thus more challenging!) in languages like {C} which do not. Here is a classic {C} quine for {ASCII} machines: char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main() {printf(f,34,f,34,10);}%c"; main(){printf(f,34,f,34,10);} For excruciatingly exact quinishness, remove the interior line break. Some infamous {Obfuscated C Contest} entries have been quines that reproduced in exotic ways. {Ken Thompson}'s {back door} involved an interesting variant of a quine - a compiler which reproduced part of itself when compiling (a version of) itself. [{Jargon File}] (1995-04-25)
quixotry ::: n. --> Quixotism; visionary schemes.
R2RS A revision of {RRS}, itself revised in {R3RS}. ["The Revised Revised Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme", Clinger, AI Memo 848, MIT Aug 1985]. (1995-02-09)
R3RS A revision of {R2RS}, revised in {R4RS}. ["The Revised^3 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme", J. Rees et al, SIGPLAN Notices 21(12):37-79 (Dec 1986)].
R4RS A revision of {R3RS}, revised in {R3.99RS}. {(ftp://altdorf.ai.mit.edu/)}. ["The Revised^4 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme", W. Clinger et al, MIT (Nov 1991)]. (1994-10-28) [Later revisions?]
radically ::: adv. --> In a radical manner; at, or from, the origin or root; fundamentally; as, a scheme or system radically wrong or defective.
Without derivation; primitively; essentially.
ramification ::: n. --> The process of branching, or the development of branches or offshoots from a stem; also, the mode of their arrangement.
A small branch or offshoot proceeding from a main stock or channel; as, the ramifications of an artery, vein, or nerve.
A division into principal and subordinate classes, heads, or departments; also, one of the subordinate parts; as, the ramifications of a subject or scheme.
The production of branchlike figures.
ramify ::: v. t. --> To divide into branches or subdivisions; as, to ramify an art, subject, scheme. ::: v. i. --> To shoot, or divide, into branches or subdivisions, as the stem of a plant.
To be divided or subdivided, as a main subject.
realize ::: v. t. --> To make real; to convert from the imaginary or fictitious into the actual; to bring into concrete existence; to effectuate; to accomplish; as, to realize a scheme or project.
To cause to seem real; to impress upon the mind as actual; to feel vividly or strongly; to make one&
Reason is a clarified, ordered and organised Ignorance. It is a half-enlightened Ignorance seeking for truth, but a truth which it insists on founding upon the data and postulates of the Ignorance. Reason is not in possession of the Truth, it is a seeker. It is [unable to] discover the Truth or embody it; it leaves Truth covered but rendered into mental representations, a verbal and ideative scheme, an abstract algebra of concepts, a theory of the Ignorance. Sense-evidence is its starting point and it never really gets away from that insecure beginning. Its concepts start from sense-data and though like a kite it can fly high into an air of abstractions, it is held to the earth of sense by a string of great strength; if that string is broken it drifts lazily [in] the clouds and always it falls back by natural gravitation to its original earth basis—only so can it receive strength to go farther. Its field is the air and sky of the finite, it cannot ascend into the stratosphere of the spiritual vision, still less can it move at ease in the Infinite.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 12, Page: 256
recursive acronym "convention" A hackish (and especially {MIT}) tradition is to choose acronyms and abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other acronyms or abbreviations. The classic examples were two MIT editors called {EINE} ("EINE Is Not {Emacs}") and {ZWEI} ("ZWEI Was EINE Initially"). More recently, there is a {Scheme} compiler called {LIAR} (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and {GNU} stands for "GNU's Not Unix!" - and a company with the name {CYGNUS}, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support". See also {mung}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-04-28)
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Servers "architecture" (RAIS) The use of multiple {servers} to provide the same service in such a way that service will still be available if one or more of the servers fails. The term may or may not imply some kind of {load balancing} between the servers. See {cluster}. The term "RAIS" follows {RAID}, which describes schemes for resilient disk storage. (2007-02-28)
RefLisp "language" A small {Lisp} {interpreter} written in {C++} by Bill Birch of {Bull}, UK. RefLisp has a built-in {web server}, {Wiki}, {LISP server pages}, {SQL Databases}, {XML parser}, {MD5} hashing, {regular expressions}, {reference counting} and {mark-sweep garbage collection}. RefLisp has {shallow-binding} and {dynamic scope} with optional support for {lexical scope}, {Common Lisp} compatibility and for {indefinite extent} {Scheme} programs. RefLisp is distributed under the {GPL}. {RefLisp Home (http://sourceforge.net/projects/reflisp/)}. (2005-02-08)
restless ::: a. --> Never resting; unquiet; uneasy; continually moving; as, a restless child.
Not satisfied to be at rest or in peace; averse to repose or quiet; eager for change; discontented; as, restless schemers; restless ambition; restless subjects.
Deprived of rest or sleep.
Passed in unquietness; as, the patient has had a restless night.
RRS An early definition of {Scheme}. Revised in {R2RS}. ["The Revised Report on Scheme", G.L. Steele et al, AI Memo 452, MIT, Jan 1978]. (1994-10-28) [Was the original "Report on Scheme" published?]
Ruler: An astrological term, at times loosely-applied, principally concerned with a schematic arrangement of the Signs, whereby certain planets are deemed to have special potency or congeniality in a certain sign or signs. The entire subject of rulership is involved in much controversy, particularly since the modern discovery of additional planets for which there is no place in the ancient scheme of rulerships. It is recommended, in general, to speak of the Lord of a House and the Ruler of a Sign. The Lord of a House is deemed to be the Ruler of the Sign that occupies the cusp. The Lord of the Nativity, or as often termed the Ruler of the Horoscope, is variously the most strongly placed planet in the map, especially that planet which is in the First House and close to the ascending degree. Lacking a planet so placed, the Ruler of the ascending sign is the Lord of the Nativity.
Run Length Limited "storage" (RLL) The most popular scheme for encoding data on {magnetic disks}. RLL packs up to 50% more data on a disk than {MFM}. {IBM} invented RLL encoding and used it in {mainframe} disk drives. During the late 1980s, {PC} hard disks began using RLL. Today, virtually every drive on the market uses some form of RLL. Groups of bits are mapped to specific patterns of flux. The density of flux transitions is limited by the spatial resolution of the disk and frequency response of the head and electronics. However, transitions must be close enough to allow reliable {clock recovery}. RLL implementations vary according to the minimum and maximum allowed numbers of {transition cells} between transitions. For example, the most common variant today, RLL 1,7, can have a transition in every other cell and must have at least one transition every seven cells. The exact mapping from bits to transitions is essentially arbitrary. Other schemes include {GCR}, {FM}, {Modified Frequency Modulation} (MFM). See also: {PRML}. {(http://cma.zdnet.com/book/upgraderepair/ch14/ch14.htm)}. (2003-08-12)
San cheng: The Three Rectifications, also called san t'ung, which means that in the scheme of macrocosmos -- microcosmos relationship between man and the universe, the vital force (ch'i) underlying the correspondence should be so directed and controlled that, first of all, the germination of things, its symbolic color, black, and all governmental and social functions corresponding to it; secondly, the sprouting of things together with its symbolic color, white, and social and political correspondences; and, thirdly, the movement of things and its color, red, and correspondence in human affairs -- all become correct. Applied to the interpretation of history, this theory means that the Hsia dynasty (2207-1766 B.C.?) was the reign of Man, the Shang dynasty (1765-1122 B.C.?) that of Earth, and the Chou dynasty (1122?-249 BC ) that of Heaven. (Tung Chung-shu, 177-104 B.C.) -- W.T.C.
scale ::: n. 1. A progressive or graduated series or classification. 2. An ascending or descending collection of pitches proceeding by a specified scheme of intervals. 3. A standard of measurement or judgment; a criterion. 4. Relative or proportionate size or extent; degree, proportion. slow-scaled. *v. 5. To climb; ascend; move upward; mount. *scales.
Schelog "language, Scheme, Prolog" (Previously "slog"?) A {Prolog} to {Chez Scheme} {macro} translator by "dorai@cs.rice.edu". Schelog relies on continuations. {(http://cs.rice.edu/CS/PLT/packages/schelog)}. (2000-11-20)
schematic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a scheme or a schema.
Schematik A {NeXT} front-end to {MIT Scheme} for the NeXT by Chris Kane and Max Hailperin "max@nic.gac.edu". Schematik provides syntax-knowledgeable text editing, graphics windows and a user-interface to an underlying MIT Scheme process. It comes with MIT Scheme 7.1.3 ready to install on the NeXT and requires {NEXTSTEP}. Version: 1.1.5.2. {USA FTP (ftp://ftp.gac.edu/pub/next/scheme/)}. {Germany (ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-muenchen.de/pub/next/ProgLang)}. E-mail: "schematik@gac.edu". (1993-03-11)
schematist ::: n. --> One given to forming schemes; a projector; a schemer.
schematize ::: v. i. --> To form a scheme or schemes.
scheme ::: 1. A plan, design, or program of action to be followed. 2. A systematic plan of action to achieve a specific end. 3. A diagram, map, or the like. schemes, schemed, scheme-lines, world-scheme.
schemed ::: imp. & p. p. --> of Scheme
schemeful ::: a. --> Full of schemes or plans.
scheme ::: n. --> A combination of things connected and adjusted by design; a system.
A plan or theory something to be done; a design; a project; as, to form a scheme.
Any lineal or mathematical diagram; an outline.
A representation of the aspects of the celestial bodies for any moment or at a given event.
scheme of the celestial hierarchy, the order of
schemer ::: n. --> One who forms schemes; a projector; esp., a plotter; an intriguer.
scheme, the 3 intellectual angelic guides of the
scheme, the teletarchae are celestial intelligences
scheming ::: p. pr. & vb. n. --> of Scheme ::: a. --> Given to forming schemes; artful; intriguing.
schemist ::: n. --> A schemer.
Science, philosophy of: That philosophic discipline which is the systematic study of the nature of science, especially of its methods, its concepts and presuppositions, and its place in the general scheme of intellectual disciplines.
SCM 1. "business" {Supply Chain Management}. (2003-10-09) 2. "language" A {Scheme} {interpreter} in {C} by Aubrey Jaffer and others. SCM conforms to {R4RS} and {IEEE} {P1178} and includes a {conformance test}. It is distributed under {GPL}. Version 5d0 runs under {Amiga}, {Atari-ST}, {MacOS}, {MS-DOS}, {OS/2}, {NOS/VE}, {Unicos}, {VMS}, {Unix}, and similar systems. {x-scm} provides an {X Window System} interface for SCM programs. {(http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/~jaffer/SCM.html)}. (1999-06-07)
Scode The internal representation used by the {Liar} compiler for {MIT Scheme}. (1994-11-01)
SCOOPS Scheme Object-Oriented Programming System. Developed at {Texas Instruments} in 1986. It supports {multiple inheritance} and {class variables}. {(ftp://altdorf.ai.mit.edu/archive/scheme-library/unsupported/CScheme)}. (1994-11-01)
Secondary and derivative meanings: (a) Anything concerned with the supra-physical. Thus "metaphysical healing", "metaphysical poetry", etc. (b) Any scheme of explanation which transcends the inadequacies or inaccuracies of ordinary thought. -- W.S.W.
sector mapping In this scheme the memory and {cache} are divided into blocks of 2^m bytes (the {cache line} size). A sector consists of 2^n consecutive blocks. When a block is cached, it is read into the correct position in any sector of the cache, given by discarding the bottom m address bits and taking the next n as the block number within the sector. That whole sector is then tagged with the remaining upper address bits and the other blocks in the sector are marked as invalid. This scheme takes advantage of locality of reference to consecutive blocks and needs fewer tags thus reducing the cost of associative access to the tags.
segmented address space "architecture" An addressing scheme where all memory references are formed by adding an offset to a base address held in a segment {register}. The effect is to segment memory into blocks, which may overlap either partially or completely, depending on the contents of the segment registers but normally they would be distinct to give access to the maximum total range of addresses. In this case the scheme does provide some degree of {memory protection} within a single process since, for example, a data reference cannot affect an area of memory containing code. However, compilers must either generate slower code or code with artificial limits on the size of {data structures}. The best known implementation is that used on the {Intel 8086} and later Intel {microprocessors}, where a 16-bit {offset} is added to a 16-bit base address held in one of four segment base registers. Each instruction has a default segment (code (CS), data (DS), stack (SS), ? (ES)) which determines which segment register is used. Special prefix instructions allow this default to be overridden. Other computers, such as {GE-645}/{Honeywell Multics}, {Burroughs} large systems ({B-5500}, {B-6600}), and others, have used segmentation to good effect. Opposite: {flat address space}. See also {addressing mode}. [In what way were the others better than Intel's {brain damaged} implementation?]. (2004-06-01)
Setext A markup scheme intended for documents that are both human- and computer-readable.
Similix An autoprojector (self-applicable partial evaluator) for a higher order subset of the strict functional language Scheme. Similix handles programs with user defined primitive abstract data type operators which may process global variables (such as input/output operators). Version 5.0. Anders Bondorf "anders@diku.dk" conformance: extension of large subset of R4RS Scheme. requires: Scheme ports: Scm, Chez Scheme portability: high E-mail: Anders Bondorf "anders@diku.dk" {(ftp://ftp.diku.dk/pub/diku/dists/Similix.tar.Z)}. (1993-05-18)
siod "language" (Scheme In One Defun or Scheme In One Day) A small {Scheme} implementation in {C} by George Carrette "gjc@world.std.com", "gjc@mitech.com". SIOD is arranged as a set of subroutines that can be called from any main program for the purpose of introducing an interpreted extension language. It compiles to 20 kbytes of executable ({VAX}/{VMS}). {Lisp} calls {C} and C calls Lisp transparently. SIOD supports symbols, strings, {arrays}, {hash coding}, file i/o (binary, text, seek), data save/restore in binary and text, interface to commercial {databases} such {Oracle} and {Digital} {RDB}. Version 3.0 runs on {VAX}/{VMS},{Unix}, {Sun-3}, {Sun-4}, {Amiga}, {Macintosh}, {MIPS}, {Cray}, {ALPHA}/{VMS}, {Windows NT} and {OS/2}. It can be compiled by most {ANSI C} compilers and {C++} compilers, e.g. {gcc} -Wall. {(ftp://world.std.com/pub/gjc/)}, {(ftp://world.std.com/src/lisp/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.scheme}. (1994-02-18)
Skim "language" A {Scheme} implementation with {packages} and other enhancements, by Alain Deutsch et al, France. (2000-11-02)
SLIB {Scheme Library}
socialism ::: n. --> A theory or system of social reform which contemplates a complete reconstruction of society, with a more just and equitable distribution of property and labor. In popular usage, the term is often employed to indicate any lawless, revolutionary social scheme. See Communism, Fourierism, Saint-Simonianism, forms of socialism.
sooterkin ::: n. --> A kind of false birth, fabled to be produced by Dutch women from sitting over their stoves; also, an abortion, in a figurative sense; an abortive scheme.
SOS 1. {Scheme Object System}. 2. An infamously {losing} text editor. Once, back in the 1960s, when a text editor was needed for the {PDP-6}, a hacker {crufted} together a {quick-and-dirty} "stopgap editor" to be used until a better one was written. Unfortunately, the old one was never really discarded when new ones (in particular, {TECO}) came along. SOS is a descendant ("Son of Stopgap") of that editor, and many {PDP-10} users gained the dubious pleasure of its acquaintance. Since then other programs similar in style to SOS have been written, notably the early font editor BILOS /bye'lohs/, the Brother-In-Law Of Stopgap (the alternate expansion "Bastard Issue, Loins of Stopgap" has been proposed). 3. The {PDP-10} instruction to decrease a value. Oppose {AOS}. [{Jargon File}]
sparse A sparse {matrix} (or {vector}, or {array}) is one in which most of the elements are zero. If storage space is more important than access speed, it may be preferable to store a sparse matrix as a list of (index, value) pairs or use some kind of {hash} scheme or {associative memory}. (1995-01-16)
statistical time division multiplexing "communications" (STDM, StatMUX) A system developed to overcome some inefficiencies of standard {time division multiplexing}, where {time slices} are still allocated to channels, even if they have no information to transmit. STDM uses a variable time slot length and by allowing channels to vie for any free slot space. It employs a buffer memory which temporarily stores the data during periods of peak traffic. This scheme allows STDM to waste no high-speed line time with inactive channels. STDM requires each transmission to carry identification information (i.e. a channel identifier). To reduce the cost of this overhead, a number of characters for each channel are grouped together for transmission. ["Data Communications, Computer Networks and Open Systems", Halsall & Fred, Addison Wesley, p160-161, 1995]. ["Digital, Analog, and Data Communication", Sinnema & McGovern, Prentice Hall, p245, 1986]. (1997-03-05)
STING A parallel dialect of {Scheme} intended to serve as a high-level {operating system} for symbolic programming languages. {First-class} {threads} and processors and customisable {scheduling} policies. E-mail: "suresh@research.nj.dec.com". ["A Customizable Substrate for Concurrent Languages", S. Jagannathan et al, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, 1992]. (1994-11-03)
STk "language, LISP, graphics" A {Scheme} {interpreter} blended with Ousterhout's {Tk} package by Erick Gallesio "eg@unice.fr". STk expresses all of Tk as Scheme objects. STk includes a slow {CLOS}/{Dylan}-like {object-oriented} extension. STk almost conforms to {R4RS} and runs on {SunOS} 4.1.x and {Ultrix}/{MIPS}. {(ftp://kaolin.unice.fr/pub/STk-1.00.tar.gz)}. {(ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/imp/STk-2.1.tar.Z)}. (2000-12-16)
stratagem ::: a clever, often underhanded scheme or trick for achieving an objective.
STREAM ["STREAM: A Scheme Language for Formally Describing Digital Circuits", C.D. Kloos in PARLE: Parallel Architectures and Languages Europe, LNCS 259, Springer 1987]. (1995-01-30)
strided /str:'d*d/ (scientific computing) Said of a sequence of memory reads and writes to addresses, each of which is separated from the last by a constant interval called "the stride length", or just "the stride". These can be a worst-case access pattern for {cache} schemes when the stride length is a multiple of the {cache line} size. Strided references are often generated by loops through an {array}, and (if the data is large enough that access-time is significant) it can be worthwhile to tune for better locality by inverting double loops or by partially unrolling the outer loop of a loop nest. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-21)
Synchronous Optical NETwork "networking" (SONET) A {broadband} networking {standard} based on point-to-point {optical fibre} networks. SONET will provide a high-bandwidth "pipe" to support {ATM}-based services. The SONET standard will establish a digital {hierarchical network} with a consistent worldwide transport scheme. SONET has been designed to take advantage of fibre, in contrast to the {plain old telephone system} which was designed for copper wires. SONET carries {circuit-switched} data in {frames} at speeds in multiples of 51.84 megabits per second (Mbps) up to 48 * 51.84 Mbps = 2.488 {gigabits} per second. Since SONET uses multiple channels to transmit data, each SONET {frame} can be considered to be a two-dimensional table of bytes that is 9 rows high and 90 columns deep. For every {OC-n} level, SONET can transmit n number of frames at a given time. Groups of frames are called {superframes}. SONET is the American version of {SDH}. [Wulf Losee; Corporate Computing 8.92; STACKS; LAN Magazine 10.93]. (1994-11-30)
Syntax-Case "language" A {macro} system for {Scheme} by R. Kent Dybvig "dyb@cs.indiana.edu". It is superior to the low-level system described in the Revised^4 Report ({R4RS}). Pattern variables are ordinary identifiers with essentially the same status as lexical variable names and {macro} {keywords}. The {syntax} is modified to recognise and handle references to pattern variables. Version 2.1 works with {Chez Scheme} and the {Macintosh} port runs under {MacGambit} 2.0 {(ftp://iuvax.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme/syntax-case.tar.Z)}. {Macintosh (ftp://maya.dei.unipd.it/pub/mac/gambit/)}. ["Syntactic Abstraction in Scheme", Robert Hieb, R. Kent Dybvig and Carl Bruggeman IUCS TR
system ::: 1. A group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole. 2. An organized and coordinated method, scheme, or plan; a procedure.
T1 "communications" An {AT&T} term for a {digital carrier} facility used to transmit a {DS1} formatted digital signal at 1.544 megabits per second. T1 transmission uses a bipolar {Return To Zero} {alternate mark inversion} line coding scheme to keep the DC carrier component from saturating the line. Although some consider T1 signaling obsolete, much equipment operates at the "T1 rate" and such signals are either combined for transmission via faster circuits, or demultiplexed into 64 kilobit per second circuits for distribution to individual subscribers. T1 signals can be transported on {unshielded twisted pair} telephone lines. The transmitted signal consists of pips of a few hundred nanoseconds width, each inverted with respect to the one preceding. At the sending end the signal is 1 volt, and as received, greater than 0.01 volts. This requires repeaters about every 6000 feet. The information is contained in the timing of the signals, not the polarity. When a long sequence of bits in the transmitted information would cause no pip to be sent, "{bit stuffing}" is used so the receiving apparatus will not lose track of the sending clock. A T1 circuit requires two twisted pair lines, one for each direction. Some newer equipment uses the two lines at half the T1 rate and in {full-duplex} mode; the sent and received signals are separated at each end by components collectively called a "hybrid". Although this technique requires more sophisticated equipment and lowers the line length, an advantage is that half the sent and half the received information is mixed on any one line, making low-tech wiretaps less a threat. See also {Integrated Services Digital Network}. (1994-11-23)
T 1. True. A {Lisp} compiler by Johnathan A. Rees in 1982 at {Yale University}. T has {static scope} and is a near-superset of {Scheme}. {Unix} source is available. T is written in itself and compiles to efficient native code. Used as the basis for the Yale {Haskell} system. Maintained by David Kranz "kranz@masala.lcs.mit.edu". {(ftp://ftp.ai.mit.edu/pub/systems/t3.1)}. A {multiprocessing} version of T is available {(ftp://masala.lcs.mit.edu/pub/mult)}. Runs on {Decstation}, {SPARC}, {Sun-3}, {Vax} under {Unix}, {Encore}, {HP}, {Apollo}, {Macintosh} under {A/UX}. E-mail: "t3-bugs@cs.yale.edu" (bugs). E-mail: "t-project@cs.yale.edu". (1991-11-26) ["The T Manual", Johnathan A. Rees "jar@zurich.ai.mit.edu" et al, Yale U, 1984]. 2. A {functional language}. ["T: A Simple Reduction Language Based on Combinatory Term Rewriting", Ida et al, Proc of Prog Future Generation Computers, 1988]. 3. (lower case) The {Lisp} {atom} used to represent "true", among other things. "false" is represented using the same atom as an empty list, {nil}. This {overloading} of the basic constants of the language helps to make Lisp {write-only code}. 4. In transaction-processing circles, an abbreviation for "transaction". 5. (Purdue) An alternative spelling of "{tee}".
tariff ::: n. --> A schedule, system, or scheme of duties imposed by the government of a country upon goods imported or exported; as, a revenue tariff; a protective tariff; Clay&
telephony "communications" Communication, often two-way, of spoken information, by means of electrical signals carried by wires or radio waves. The term was used to indicate transmission of the voice, as opposed to {telegraphy} (done in {Morse code} and usually called "{continuous wave}" or CW transmission), radio teletypewriter (RTTY) transmission (also called FSK for "{Frequency Shift Keying}", the modulation scheme used by such machines), and later, facimile. (1995-03-14)
terminator "electronics" A resistor connected to a signal wire in a {bus} or {network} for the purpose of impedance matching to prevent reflections. For example, a 50 ohm resistor connected across the end of an {Ethernet} cable. {SCSI} chains and some {LocalTalk} wiring schemes also require terminators. (1995-05-17)
Texas Instruments "company" (TI) A US electronics company. A TI engineer, {Jack Kilby} invented the {integrated circuit} in 1958. Three TI employees left the company in 1982 to start {Compaq}. The {COOL} and {OATH} {C++} {class} libraries were developed at TI, as were {PDL2} and the {ASC} computer, {PC-Scheme} and {Texas Instruments Pascal}. {(ftp://ti.com/)}. (1994-09-26)
The complex scheme of major races and their subdivisions — overlapping each other and in various stages of their evolution, intermingling and crossing with one another — gives rise to the immense variety of types which we see on earth today. See also ROOT-RACE(S)
the Dionysian scheme, the dominations rank 4th
the Islamic scheme of 7 Heavens, the Guardian
The Method of Statistics. The basic principle of statistical method is that of simplification, which makes possible a concise and comprehensive knowledge of a mass of isolated facts by correlating them along definite lines. The various stages of this method are: precise definition of the problem or field of inquiry; collection of material required by the problem; tabulation and measurement of material in a manner satisfying the purpose of the problem; clear presentation of the significant features of tabulated material (by means of charts, diagrams, symbols, graphs, equations and the like), selection of mathematical methods for application to the material obtained; necessary conclusion from the facts and figures obtained; general interpretation within the limits of the problem and the procedure used. The special methods of treating statistical data are: collecting, sampling, selecting, tabulating, classifying, totaling or aggregating, measuring, averaging, relating and correlating, presenting symbolically. Each one of these methods uses specialized experimental or mathematical means in its actual application. The special methods of interpreting statistical data already treated are: analyzing, estimiting, describing, comparing, explaining, applying and predicting. In order to be conclusive, the various stages and types of the statistical method must avoid loose definitions, cross divisions resulting ftom conflicting interpretations of the problem, data which are not simultaneous or subject to similar conditions, conclusions from poor oi incomplete data, prejudices in judging, even when there is no conuption of evidence. The philosophy of statistics is concerned in general with the discussion and evaluation of the mathematical principles, methods and results of this science; and in particular with a critical analysis of the fitness of biological, psychological, educational, economic and sociological materials, for various types of statistical treatment. The purpose of such an inquiry is to integrate its results into the general problems and schemes of philosophy proper. Cf.. Richard von Mises, Statistics, Probability, and Truth.
Theodice, Theodicy [coined from Greek theos god + dike justice] A vindication of divine justice; a system or method of intellectual theorizing about the nature of so-called divine justice, having in view vindication of the justice and holiness of God, in connection with evil. Ancient philosophers all taught that the heart of things was divine harmony and that whatever evil, distortion, and obliquity might exist in the world is ultimately traceable back to the imperfect intelligence of evolving beings, who by their manifold conflicts of thought and will thus produce disharmony, relative confusion, and hence evil, in the scheme of things. This view was replaced during Christian ages by the attempt of many writers to rescue the reputation of the Christian God, who on the one hand is said to be the creator of everything and who yet is supposed to be the fountain of love, mercy, harmony, and goodness. In view of the evils and suffering in the world, such Christian attempts have been futile, for it is obvious that if God is the creator of all that is, He must have been either directly or indirectly the creator of all the disharmony, wickedness, and misery in the world, as was indeed alleged by many Jewish rabbis, following statements in the Hebrew scriptures. But this thought has been denied by Christians who refuse to accept their God of love and justice as the creator of evil, and thus they had recourse to the Devil, who himself must have been created by their omniscient God.
theory ::: n. --> A doctrine, or scheme of things, which terminates in speculation or contemplation, without a view to practice; hypothesis; speculation.
An exposition of the general or abstract principles of any science; as, the theory of music.
The science, as distinguished from the art; as, the theory and practice of medicine.
The philosophical explanation of phenomena, either physical
There is a legend known in Tibet which places the mystical Sambhala not only on earth, but likewise upon Mount Meru, and again in the sun — implying a hierarchy of divine or spiritual beings existing in a threefold order, each order having its own stage or place in this scheme.
The scheme of terrestrial evolution from the standpoint of the ancient wisdom given in The Secret Doctrine is, in a few words: the earth we see is the fourth of a sevenfold “chain” of globes which constitutes a single organism, as we may call it. The other six globes are not visible to our gross senses but the entire group is intimately connected. The vast stream of human monads circulates seven times round the earth planetary chain during the great cycle. We are now in the fourth circulation or round of the great pilgrimage on our globe and so this period is called the fourth round. While on our globe we pass through seven stages called “root-races,” each lasting for millions of years. Each in its turn is subdivided into smaller septenary sections. Each succeeding root-race is shorter than its predecessor, and there is some overlapping. Great geological changes separate each root-race from its successor and only a comparatively few survivors remain to provide the seed for the next root-race.
the seraphim. In Mirandola’s scheme, they are
These very mysterious and powerful divinities of the archaic ages, whatever name may be given to them, are in the cosmic hierarchies the same as the dhyani-buddhas and the dhyanis of modern theosophy, equivalent to the archangels and angels of the Christian hierarchical scheme. Thus they are the children of cosmic spiritual fire, this fire in its turn being equivalent to the luminous and warming effulgence of action of the hierarchies of cosmic mind. They are the most occult divinities of the archaic wisdom-religion, and the worship of them under whatever name they were known was invariably marked by a high degree of spiritual and philosophic profundity and deep religious devotion.
The story of Mel, a Real Programmer "programming, person" A 1983 article by Ed Nather about {hacker} {Mel Kaye}. The full text follows. A recent article devoted to the macho side of programming made the bald and unvarnished statement, "Real Programmers write in FORTRAN". Maybe they do now, in this decadent era of Lite beer, hand calculators and "user-friendly" software but back in the Good Old Days, when the term "software" sounded funny and Real Computers were made out of {drums} and {vacuum tubes}, Real Programmers wrote in {machine code} - not {Fortran}, not {RATFOR}, not even {assembly language} - {Machine Code}, raw, unadorned, inscrutable {hexadecimal} numbers, directly. Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel, because that was his name. I first met Mel when I went to work for {Royal McBee Computer Corporation}, a now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company. The firm manufactured the {LGP-30}, a small, cheap (by the standards of the day) {drum}-memory computer, and had just started to manufacture the RPC-4000, a much-improved, bigger, better, faster -- drum-memory computer. Cores cost too much, and weren't here to stay, anyway. (That's why you haven't heard of the company, or the computer.) I had been hired to write a {Fortran} compiler for this new marvel and Mel was my guide to its wonders. Mel didn't approve of compilers. "If a program can't rewrite its own code," he asked, "what good is it?" Mel had written, in {hexadecimal}, the most popular computer program the company owned. It ran on the {LGP-30} and played blackjack with potential customers at computer shows. Its effect was always dramatic. The LGP-30 booth was packed at every show, and the IBM salesmen stood around talking to each other. Whether or not this actually sold computers was a question we never discussed. Mel's job was to re-write the blackjack program for the {RPC-4000}. ({Port}? What does that mean?) The new computer had a one-plus-one addressing scheme, in which each machine instruction, in addition to the {operation code} and the address of the needed {operand}, had a second address that indicated where, on the revolving drum, the next instruction was located. In modern parlance, every single instruction was followed by a {GO TO}! Put *that* in {Pascal}'s pipe and smoke it. Mel loved the RPC-4000 because he could optimize his code: that is, locate instructions on the drum so that just as one finished its job, the next would be just arriving at the "read head" and available for immediate execution. There was a program to do that job, an "optimizing assembler", but Mel refused to use it. "You never know where its going to put things", he explained, "so you'd have to use separate constants". It was a long time before I understood that remark. Since Mel knew the numerical value of every operation code, and assigned his own drum addresses, every instruction he wrote could also be considered a numerical constant. He could pick up an earlier "add" instruction, say, and multiply by it, if it had the right numeric value. His code was not easy for someone else to modify. I compared Mel's hand-optimised programs with the same code massaged by the optimizing assembler program, and Mel's always ran faster. That was because the "{top-down}" method of program design hadn't been invented yet, and Mel wouldn't have used it anyway. He wrote the innermost parts of his program loops first, so they would get first choice of the optimum address locations on the drum. The optimizing assembler wasn't smart enough to do it that way. Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either, even when the balky {Flexowriter} required a delay between output characters to work right. He just located instructions on the drum so each successive one was just *past* the read head when it was needed; the drum had to execute another complete revolution to find the next instruction. He coined an unforgettable term for this procedure. Although "optimum" is an absolute term, like "unique", it became common verbal practice to make it relative: "not quite optimum" or "less optimum" or "not very optimum". Mel called the maximum time-delay locations the "most pessimum". After he finished the blackjack program and got it to run, ("Even the initialiser is optimised", he said proudly) he got a Change Request from the sales department. The program used an elegant (optimised) {random number generator} to shuffle the "cards" and deal from the "deck", and some of the salesmen felt it was too fair, since sometimes the customers lost. They wanted Mel to modify the program so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console, they could change the odds and let the customer win. Mel balked. He felt this was patently dishonest, which it was, and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer, which it did, so he refused to do it. The Head Salesman talked to Mel, as did the Big Boss and, at the boss's urging, a few Fellow Programmers. Mel finally gave in and wrote the code, but he got the test backward, and, when the sense switch was turned on, the program would cheat, winning every time. Mel was delighted with this, claiming his subconscious was uncontrollably ethical, and adamantly refused to fix it. After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$, the Big Boss asked me to look at the code and see if I could find the test and reverse it. Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look. Tracking Mel's code was a real adventure. I have often felt that programming is an art form, whose real value can only be appreciated by another versed in the same arcane art; there are lovely gems and brilliant coups hidden from human view and admiration, sometimes forever, by the very nature of the process. You can learn a lot about an individual just by reading through his code, even in hexadecimal. Mel was, I think, an unsung genius. Perhaps my greatest shock came when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it. No test. *None*. Common sense said it had to be a closed loop, where the program would circle, forever, endlessly. Program control passed right through it, however, and safely out the other side. It took me two weeks to figure it out. The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility called an {index register}. It allowed the programmer to write a program loop that used an indexed instruction inside; each time through, the number in the index register was added to the address of that instruction, so it would refer to the next datum in a series. He had only to increment the index register each time through. Mel never used it. Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register, add one to its address, and store it back. He would then execute the modified instruction right from the register. The loop was written so this additional execution time was taken into account -- just as this instruction finished, the next one was right under the drum's read head, ready to go. But the loop had no test in it. The vital clue came when I noticed the index register bit, the bit that lay between the address and the operation code in the instruction word, was turned on-- yet Mel never used the index register, leaving it zero all the time. When the light went on it nearly blinded me. He had located the data he was working on near the top of memory -- the largest locations the instructions could address -- so, after the last datum was handled, incrementing the instruction address would make it overflow. The carry would add one to the operation code, changing it to the next one in the instruction set: a jump instruction. Sure enough, the next program instruction was in address location zero, and the program went happily on its way. I haven't kept in touch with Mel, so I don't know if he ever gave in to the flood of change that has washed over programming techniques since those long-gone days. I like to think he didn't. In any event, I was impressed enough that I quit looking for the offending test, telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it. He didn't seem surprised. When I left the company, the blackjack program would still cheat if you turned on the right sense switch, and I think that's how it should be. I didn't feel comfortable hacking up the code of a Real Programmer." [Posted to {Usenet} by its author, Ed Nather "utastro!nather", on 1983-05-21]. {Jargon File (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html)}. [{On the trail of a Real Programmer (http://www.jamtronix.com/blog/2011/03/25/on-the-trail-of-a-real-programmer/)}, 2011-03-25 blog post by "jonno" at Jamtronix] [When did it happen? Did Mel use hexadecimal or octal?] (2003-09-12)
Thomas "language" A language compatible with the language {Dylan}(TM). Thomas is NOT {Dylan}(TM). The first public release of a translator to {Scheme} by Matt Birkholz, Jim Miller, and Ron Weiss, written at {Digital Equipment Corporation}'s {Cambridge Research Laboratory} runs (slowly) on {MIT}'s {CScheme}, DEC's {Scheme-"C}, Marc Feeley's {Gambi}, {Macintosh}, {PC}, {Vax}, {MIPS}, {Alpha}, {680x0}. {(ftp://gatekeeper.pa.dec.com/pub/DEC/Thomas)}. Mailing list: "info-thomas@crl.dec.com". ["Dylan(TM) an object-oriented dynamic language", {Apple Computer}, Eastern Research and Technology, April 1992]. (1992-09-11)
Thrones An angelic group in the Christian celestial hierarchy, as outlined by the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. The Thrones rank third in the ninefold scheme, being preceded by the Seraphim and Cherubim; the second and intermediate triad is formed of Dominions, Virtues, and Powers; while the third triad is formed of Principalities, Archangels, and Angels. This scheme was derived from Hebrew angelology, which comes from the Chaldean; although this Christian angelic scheme has been philosophically powerfully affected by Neoplatonic and neo-Pythagorean thought. “They who are called in Theology ‘the Thrones,’ and are the ‘Seat of God,’ must be the first incarnated men on Earth” (SD 2:80). The Zohar states that the Benei ’Elohim (sons of god) belong to the tenth subdivision of the Thrones. The ancient Syrians defined their world of Rulers similarly to the Chaldeans: the lowest world was the sublunary, our earth, ruled by Angels; then Mercury, Archangels; Venus, Principalities; Sun, Powers; Mars, Virtues; Jupiter, Dominions; and Saturn, Thrones.
Thrones—in the pseudo-Dionysian scheme, the
TickIT A software industry quality assessment scheme.
Tiny Clos A core part of {Common Lisp Object System} (CLOS) ported to {Scheme} and rebuilt using a MOP ({Metaobject Protocol}). This should be interesting to those who want to use MOPs without using a full {Common Lisp} or {Dylan}. The first release works with {MIT Scheme} 11.74. {(ftp://parcftp.xerox.com/pub/mops/)}. E-mail: Gregor Kiczales "gregor@parc.xerox.com". Mailing list: mops (administered by "gregor@parc.xerox.com"). (1992-12-14)
toaster "jargon" 1. The archetypal really stupid {application} for an {embedded} {microprocessor} controller; often used in comments that imply that a scheme is inappropriate technology (but see {elevator controller}). "{DWIM} for an assembler? That'd be as silly as running {Unix} on your toaster!" 2. A very, very dumb computer. "You could run this program on any dumb toaster." See {bitty box}, {Get a real computer!}, {toy}, {beige toaster}. 3. A {Macintosh}, especially the {Classic Mac}. Some hold that this is implied by sense 2. 4. A peripheral device. "I bought my box without toasters, but since then I've added two boards and a second disk drive". This is not usually to be taken literally but, to show off the expansion capabilities of the {Risc PC}, {Acorn Computers Ltd.} built a seven-slice machine (which they called "the rocket-ship") and installed every imaginable peripheral. In a spare {drive bay} of the top slice they installed a toaster. This machine was exhibited at various shows where it attracted attention by occasionally ejecting a pizza. [{Jargon File}] (1997-07-18)
token ring A computer {local area network} arbitration scheme in which conflicts in the transmission of messages are avoided by the granting of "tokens" which give permission to send. A station keeps the token while transmitting a message, if it has a message to transmit, and then passes it on to the next station. Often, "Token Ring" is used to refer to the {IEEE 802.5} token ring {standard}, which is the most common type of token ring. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.dcom.lans.token-ring}.
topic ::: n. --> One of the various general forms of argument employed in probable as distinguished from demonstrative reasoning, -- denominated by Aristotle to`poi (literally, places), as being the places or sources from which arguments may be derived, or to which they may be referred; also, a prepared form of argument, applicable to a great variety of cases, with a supply of which the ancient rhetoricians and orators provided themselves; a commonplace of argument or oratory.
A treatise on forms of argument; a system or scheme of forms
“To screen the real mystery name of ain-soph — the Boundless and Endless No-Thing — the Kabalists have brought forward the compound attribute-appellation of one of the personal creative Elohim, whose name was Yah and Jah, the letters i or j or y being interchangeable, or Jah-Hovah, i.e., male and female; Jah-Eve an hermaphrodite, or the first form of humanity, the original Adam of Earth, not even Adam-Kadmon, whose ‘mind-born son’ is the earthly Jah-Hovah, mystically. And knowing this, the crafty Rabbin-Kabalist has made of it a name so secret, that he could not divulge it later on without exposing the whole scheme; and thus he was obliged to make it sacred” (SD 2:126).
traitorous ::: a. --> Guilty of treason; treacherous; perfidious; faithless; as, a traitorous officer or subject.
Consisting in treason; partaking of treason; implying breach of allegiance; as, a traitorous scheme.
Tridasa (Sanskrit) Tridaśa [from tri three + daśa ten] Thirty; as used in ancient India, it refers in round numbers to the general cycles of the Vedic deities, of which there were 33 ordinary ones: the 12 adityas, the 8 vasus, the 11 rudras, and 2 asvins. When the Hindu trimurti or triad is added to these, the number becomes 36, one of the archaic numbers of esoteric computation, not only in chronology but likewise in theology and theogony. Thirty-six is half of 72, which is 1/5 of 360, and 1/6 of the highly mystical key number 432, with ciphers added or not, according to the computation undertaken. Following the law of chronological analogy, thirty, which is 1/12 of 360, is the foundation number of esoteric computation, to which ciphers may be added according to the scheme held in mind. The 33 crores (330 million) deities usually enumerated in the Hindu pantheon are to be understood similarly, 33 being a round number for 36; for here too the 33 crores must be taken in connection with the trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, themselves aggregates, giving the important figure 36.
Turanian A word of vague meaning, used as an alternative to Mongolian in that scheme which divides humanity into three main divisions of 1) Black, Ethiopian, or Negro; 2) Yellow, Mongolian, or Turanian; and 3) White, Caucasian. It thus excludes Aryans, Semites, and Hamites, which are subdivisions of the Caucasian; also it incorrectly gives Ethiopian as synonymous with Negro. The name is derived from Tur, one of three brothers in Persian legend who were ancestors of three divisions of the human race. In accordance with the idea of basing ethnography upon linguistics, it has since been replaced by the word Ural-Altaic, as denoting a group of peoples and their languages in northern and central Asia, eastern Russian, and Turks, Magyars, Finns, Basques, and Lapps in Europe. The languages are agglutinative.
Turing Machine "computability" A hypothetical machine defined in 1935-6 by {Alan Turing} and used for {computability theory} proofs. It consists of an infinitely long "tape" with symbols (chosen from some {finite set}) written at regular intervals. A pointer marks the current position and the machine is in one of a finite set of "internal states". At each step the machine reads the symbol at the current position on the tape. For each combination of current state and symbol read, a program specifies the new state and either a symbol to write to the tape or a direction to move the pointer (left or right) or to halt. In an alternative scheme, the machine writes a symbol to the tape *and* moves at each step. This can be encoded as a write state followed by a move state for the write-or-move machine. If the write-and-move machine is also given a distance to move then it can emulate an write-or-move program by using states with a distance of zero. A further variation is whether halting is an action like writing or moving or whether it is a special state. [What was Turing's original definition?] Without loss of generality, the symbol set can be limited to just "0" and "1" and the machine can be restricted to start on the leftmost 1 of the leftmost string of 1s with strings of 1s being separated by a single 0. The tape may be infinite in one direction only, with the understanding that the machine will halt if it tries to move off the other end. All computer {instruction sets}, {high level languages} and computer architectures, including {parallel processors}, can be shown to be equivalent to a Turing Machine and thus equivalent to each other in the sense that any problem that one can solve, any other can solve given sufficient time and memory. Turing generalised the idea of the Turing Machine to a "Universal Turing Machine" which was programmed to read instructions, as well as data, off the tape, thus giving rise to the idea of a general-purpose programmable computing device. This idea still exists in modern computer design with low level {microcode} which directs the reading and decoding of higher level {machine code} instructions. A {busy beaver} is one kind of Turing Machine program. Dr. Hava Siegelmann of {Technion} reported in Science of 28 Apr 1995 that she has found a mathematically rigorous class of machines, based on ideas from {chaos} theory and {neural networks}, that are more powerful than Turing Machines. Sir Roger Penrose of {Oxford University} has argued that the brain can compute things that a Turing Machine cannot, which would mean that it would be impossible to create {artificial intelligence}. Dr. Siegelmann's work suggests that this is true only for conventional computers and may not cover {neural networks}. See also {Turing tar-pit}, {finite state machine}. (1995-05-10)
TYMNET "networking, history" A United States-wide commercial computer network, created by {Tymshare, Inc.} some time before 1970, and used for {remote login} and file transfer. The network public went live in November 1971. In its original implementation, it consisted of fairly simple circuit-oriented {nodes}, whose circuits were created by central network supervisors writing into the appropriate nodes' "permuter tables". The supervisors also performed login validations as well as circuit management. Circuits were character oriented and the network was oriented toward interactive character-by-character {full-duplex} communications circuits. The network had more than one supervisor running, but only one was active, the others being put to sleep with "sleeping pill" messages. If the active supervisor went down, all the others would wake up and battle for control of the network. After the battle, the supervisor with the highest pre-set priority would dominate, and the network would then again be controlled by only one supervisor. (During the takeover battle, the net consisted of subsets of itself across which new circuits could not be built). Existing circuits were not affected by supervisor switches. There was a clever scheme to switch the echoing function between the local node and the host based on whether or not a special character had been typed by the user. Data transfers were also possible via "auxiliary circuits". The Tymshare hosts (which ran customer code) were {SDS 940}, {DEC} {PDP-10}, and eventually {IBM 370} computers. {Xerox} {XDS 940} might have been used if Xerox, who bought the design for the SDS 940 from Scientific Data Systems, had ever built any. The switches were originally {Varian Data Machines} 620i. The {Interdata 8/32} was never used because the performance was disappointing. The TYMNET Engine, based loosely on the Interdata 7/32, was developed instead to replace the Varian 620i. In the early 1990s, newer "Turbo" nodes based on the {Motorola 68000} began to replace the 7/32s. These were later replaced with {SPARCs}. PDP-10s supported (and still do in 1999) cross-platform development and billing. {Tymshare, Inc.} originally wrote and implemented TYMNET to provide nationwide access for their {time-sharing} customers. La Roy Tymes booted up the public TYMNET in November of 1971 and, as of March 2002, it had been running ever since without a single system crash. TYMNET was the largest commercial network in the United States in its heyday, with nodes in every major US city and a few overseas as well. Tymshare acquired a French subsidiary, {SLIGOS}, and had TYMNET nodes in Paris, France. Tymshare sold the TYMNET network software to {TRW}, who created their own private network (which was not called TYMNET). In about 1979, TYMNET Inc. was spun off from Tymshare, Inc. to continue administration and development of the network. TYMNET outlived its parent company Tymshare and was acquired by {MCI}. As of May 1994 they still ran three {DEC KL-10s} under {TYMCOM-X}, although they planned to decommission them soon. The original creators of TYMNET included: Ann Hardy, Norm Hardy, Bill Frantz. La Roy Tymes (who always insisted that his name was NOT the source of the name) wrote the first supervisor which ran on the 940. Joe Rinde made many significant technical and marketing contributions. La Roy wrote most of the code of the network proper. Several others wrote code in support of development and administration. Just recently (1999) La Roy, on contract, wrote a version of the supervisor to run on {SPARC} hardware. The name TYMNET was suggested by Vigril Swearingen in a weekly meeting between Tymshare technical and marketing staff in about 1970. {(http://cap-lore.com/ETH.html)}. [E-mail from La Roy Tymes] (2002-11-26)
type scheme A typing of an expression which may include {type variables}. E.g. \ x . x :: a -" a where a is a {generic type variable} which may be instantiated to any type. (1994-10-31)
UMB Scheme A {Scheme} system including an editor and debugger by William Campbell "bill@cs.umb.edu". Conforms to the {R4RS}. {(ftp://nexus.yorku.ca/pub/scheme/)}. (1994-10-28)
unbelief ::: n. --> The withholding of belief; doubt; incredulity; skepticism.
Disbelief; especially, disbelief of divine revelation, or in a divine providence or scheme of redemption.
underplot ::: n. --> A series of events in a play, proceeding collaterally with the main story, and subservient to it.
A clandestine scheme; a trick.
Uniform Resource Locator "web" (URL, previously "Universal") A {standard} way of specifying the location of an object, typically a {web page}, on the {Internet}. Other types of object are described below. URLs are the form of address used on the {World-Wide Web}. They are used in {HTML} documents to specify the target of a {hypertext link} which is often another HTML document (possibly stored on another computer). Here are some example URLs: http://w3.org/default.html http://acme.co.uk:8080/images/map.gif http://foldoc.org/?Uniform+Resource+Locator http://w3.org/default.html
Uniform Resource Name "web" (URN, previously Uniform/Universal Resource Number) 1. Any {URI} which is not a {URL}. 2. A particular scheme which is currently (1991-4) under development by the {IETF}, which should provide for the resolution using {Internet} {protocols} of names which have a greater persistence than that currently associated with Internet {host} names or organisations (as used in {URLs}). Uniform Resource Names will be URI schemes that improve on URLs in reliability over time, including authenticity, replication, and high availability. When defined, a URN in sense 1 will be an example of a URN in sense 2. {(http://w3.org/pub/WWW/Addressing/Addressing.html)}. (2006-04-18)
University of Edinburgh "body, education" A university in the centre of Scotland's capital. The University of Edinburgh has been promoting and setting standards in education for over 400 years. Granted its Royal Charter in 1582 by James VI, the son of Mary Queen of Scots, the University was founded the following year by the Town Council of Edinburgh, making it the first post-Reformation university in Scotland, and the first civic university to be established in the British Isles. Known in its early years as King James College, or the Tounis (Town's) College, the University soon established itself internationally, and by the 18th century Edinburgh was a leading centre of the European Enlightenment and one of the continent's principal universities. The University's close relationship with the city in which it is based, coupled with a forward-looking, international perspective, has kept Edinburgh at the forefront of new research and teaching developments whilst enabling it to retain a uniquely Scottish character. Edinburgh's academics are at the forefront of developments in the study and application of languages, medicine, micro-electronics, biotechnology, computer-based disciplines and many other subjects. Edinburgh's standing as a world centre for research is further enhanced by the presence on and around University precincts of many independently-funded, but closely linked, national research institutes {(http://ed.ac.uk/)}. Address: Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh, Scotland EH8 9YL, UK. Telephone: +44 (131) 650 1000. See also {ABSET}, {ABSYS}, {Alice}, {ASL+}, {Baroque}, {C++Linda}, {Cogent Prolog}, {COWSEL}, {Echidna}, {Edinburgh Prolog}, {Edinburgh SML}, {EdML}, {ELLIS}, {ELSIE}, {ESLPDPRO}, {Extended ML}, {Hope}, {IMP}, {LCF}, {Lisp-Linda}, {Marseille Prolog}, {metalanguage}, {MIKE}, {ML}, {ML Kit}, {ML-Linda}, {Multipop-68}, {Nuprl}, {Oblog}, {paraML}, {Pascal-Linda}, {POP-1}, {POP-2}, {POPLER}, {Prolog}, {Prolog-2}, {Prolog-Linda}, {Scheme-Linda}, {Skel-ML}, {Standard ML}, {Sticks&Stones}, {supercombinators}, {SWI-Prolog}, {tail recursion modulo cons}, {WPOP}. (1995-12-29)
utopianism ::: n. --> The ideas, views, aims, etc., of a Utopian; impracticable schemes of human perfection; optimism.
Vananin-Lamer, Vananin-Lamertade (Gnostic) The seventh pair of aeons or emanations, represented as Father-Mother in the Valentinian scheme as recorded by the early Christian writer Epiphanius.
virtual machine 1. An {abstract machine} for which an {interpreter} exists. Virtual machines are often used in the implementation of portable executors for {high-level languages}. The HLL is compiled into code for the virtual machine (an {intermediate language}) which is then executed by an {interpreter} written in {assembly language} or some other portable language like {C}. Examples are {Core War}, {Java Virtual Machine}, {OCODE}, {OS/2}, {POPLOG}, {Portable Scheme Interpreter}, {Portable Standard Lisp}, {Parallel Virtual Machine}, {Sequential Parlog Machine}, {SNOBOL Implementation Language}, {SODA}, {Smalltalk}. 2. A software emulation of a physical computing environment. The term gave rise to the name of {IBM}'s {VM} {operating system} whose task is to provide one or more simultaneous execution environments in which operating systems or other programs may execute as though they were running "on the bare iron", that is, without an eveloping Control Program. A major use of VM is the running of both outdated and current versions of the same operating system on a single {CPU} complex for the purpose of system migration, thereby obviating the need for a second processor. (2002-04-15)
virtual memory "memory management" A system allowing a computer program to behave as though the computer's memory was larger than the actual {physical} {RAM}. The excess is stored on {hard disk} and copied to RAM as required. Virtual memory is usually much larger than physical memory, making it possible to run programs for which the total code plus data size is greater than the amount of RAM available. This is known as "{demand paged} virtual memory". A page is copied from disk to RAM ("paged in") when an attempt is made to access it and it is not already present. This paging is performed automatically by collaboration between the {CPU}, the {memory management unit} (MMU), and the {operating system} {kernel}. The program is unaware of virtual memory, it just sees a large {address space}, only part of which corresponds to physical memory at any instant. The virtual {address space} is divided into {pages}. Each {virtual address} output by the {CPU} is split into a (virtual) {page} number (the most significant bits) and an offset within the page (the N least significant bits). Each page thus contains 2^N {bytes} (or whatever the unit of addressing is). The offset is left unchanged and the {memory management unit} (MMU) maps the virtual page number to a {physical} page number. This is recombined with the offset to give a {physical address} - a location in {physical memory} ({RAM}). The performance of a program will depend dramatically on how its memory access pattern interacts with the paging scheme. If accesses exhibit a lot of {locality of reference}, i.e. each access tends to be close to previous accesses, the performance will be better than if accesses are randomly distributed over the program's {address space} thus requiring more paging. In a {multitasking} system, physical memory may contain pages belonging to several programs. Without {demand paging}, an OS would need to allocate physical memory for the whole of every active program and its data. Such a system might still use an {MMU} so that each program could be located at the same {virtual address} and not require run-time relocation. Thus virtual addressing does not necessarily imply the existence of virtual memory. Similarly, a {multitasking} system might load the whole program and its data into physical memory when it is to be executed and copy it all out to disk when its {timeslice} expired. Such "swapping" does not imply virtual memory and is less efficient than paging. Some {application programs} implement virtual memory wholly in software, by translating every virtual memory access into a file access, but efficient virtual memory requires hardware and operating system support. (2002-11-26)
Virtual Storage Access Method "database" (VSAM) An {IBM} disk file storage scheme first used in {S/370} and virtual storage. VSAM comprises three access methods: {Keyed Sequenced Data Set} (KSDS), {Relative Record Data Set} (RRDS), and {Entry Sequenced Data Set} (ESDS). Both {IMS/DB} and {DB2} are implemented on top of VSAM and use its underlying data structures. ["Storage" or "Sequential"?] (2002-07-26)
Virtues One degree in the celestial hierarchy of Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite, whose doctrines, arising about the 4th or 5th century, have exercised a great influence on Christian thought. He divides the heavenly host into three triads: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. As a hierarchy of emanating powers, this system is allied to, and in large part derivative from, Neoplatonic teachings of the time, as well as having strong elements of Pythagorean thought. The Virtues correspond to the planet Mars, according to the hierarchical scheme of the Syrians. See also ANGELOLOGY
visionary ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to a visions or visions; characterized by, appropriate to, or favorable for, visions.
Affected by phantoms; disposed to receive impressions on the imagination; given to reverie; apt to receive, and act upon, fancies as if they were realities.
Existing in imagination only; not real; fanciful; imaginary; having no solid foundation; as, visionary prospect; a visionary scheme or project.
VSCM "language, LISP" A highly {portable} implementation of {Scheme}, written in {ANSI C} and {Scheme}. VSCM features {exception} and {interrupt} handling, executable portable memory images, {coroutines} and {continuations} with multiple arguments. Portability is achieved by exclusive use of legal ANSI C features. Version II Nov9 by Matthias Blume "blume@cs.princeton.edu" included {run-time support} and a {bytecode compiler}. It conforms to R4RS and IEEE P1178 and runs on {Unix} and {Macintosh}. VSCM is no longer actively developed - the author recommends {StandardML}. {(http://cs.princeton.edu/~blume/vscm/)}. (2001-01-02)
Weak Head Normal Form "reduction, theory" (WHNF) A {lambda expression} is in weak head normal form (WHNF) if it is a {head normal form} (HNF) or any {lambda abstraction}. I.e. the top level is not a {redex}. The term was coined by {Simon Peyton Jones} to make explicit the difference between {head normal form} (HNF) and what {graph reduction} systems produce in practice. A lambda abstraction with a reducible body, e.g. \ x . ((\ y . y+x) 2) is in WHNF but not HNF. To reduce this expression to HNF would require reduction of the lambda body: (\ y . y+x) 2 --" 2+x Reduction to WHNF avoids the {name capture} problem with its need for {alpha conversion} of an inner lambda abstraction and so is preferred in practical {graph reduction} systems. The same principle is often used in {strict} languages such as {Scheme} to provide {call-by-name} evaluation by wrapping an expression in a lambda abstraction with no arguments: D = delay E = \ () . E The value of the expression is obtained by applying it to the empty argument list: force D = apply D () = apply (\ () . E) () = E (1994-10-31)
Wi-Fi Protected Access "networking, security" (WPA) A security scheme for {wireless networks}, developed by the networking industry in response to the shortcomings of {Wired Equivalent Privacy} (WEP). WPA uses {Temporal Key Integrity Protocol} (TKIP) {encryption} and provides built-in {authentication}, giving security comparable to {VPN} tunneling with WEP, with the benefit of easier administration and use. {WPA-PSK} is a simplified form of WPA. (2007-05-11)
Wizard Book "publication" {Hal Abelson}, {Gerald Sussman} and Julie Sussman's "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" (MIT Press, 1984; ISBN 0-262-01077-1), an excellent computer science text used in introductory courses at MIT. So called because of the wizard on the jacket. One of the {bibles} of the LISP/Scheme world. Also, less commonly, known as the {Purple Book}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-01-10)
Woman In philosophy, symbolizes the mother aspect of nature or feminine characteristic of the universe always found in the triads of Father-Mother-Son (changed in the Christian scheme to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost — the Holy Spirit in primitive Christianity always being considered feminine). From time immemorial it has been customary to associate primordial spirit-substance, later becoming matter, with the cosmic feminine principle represented symbolically by a horizontal line); and spirit has always been associated with the masculine principle (represented by a vertical line); but the words feminine and masculine are merely borrowed from human beings, and the characteristics of originating cosmic principles were far better expressed by pairs of opposites such as negative and positive.
world ::: 1. Everything that exists; the universe; the macrocosm. 2. The earth with its inhabitants. 3. Any sphere, realm, or domain, with all pertaining to it. 4. Any period, state, or sphere of existence. world"s, worlds, wonder-world, wonder-worlds, world-adventure, world-adventure"s, world-being"s, World-Bliss, world-cloak, world-conjecture"s, world-creating, world-creators, world-delight, World-Delight, world-destiny, world-destroying, world-disillusion"s, world-dream, world-drowse, world-egos, world-energies, world-energy, World-Energy, world-force, world-experience, world-fact, world-failure"s, world-fate, World-Force, world-forces, World-free, World-Geometer"s, world-heart, world-idea, world-ignorance, World-Ignorance, World-maker"s, world-indifference, world-interpreting, world-kindergarten, world-knowledge, world-law, world-laws, world-libido"s, world-making"s, World-Matter"s, World-naked, world-need, world-ocean"s, world-outline, world-pain, world-passion, World-personality, world-pile, world-plan, world-power, World-Power, World-Power"s, World-Puissance, world-rapture, world-redeemer"s, world-rhyme, world-rhythms, world-scene, world-scheme, world-sea, World-Self, world-shape, world-shapes, world-space, world-stuff, world-symbol, World-symbols, World-task, world-time, World-Time‘s, world-tree, world-ways, world-whim, dream-world, heaven-world, mid-world.
World-Wide Web "web, networking, hypertext" (WWW, W3, the web) A {client-server} {hypertext} distributed information retrieval system, often referred to as "The Internet" though strictly speaking, the Internet is the network and the web is just one use of the network (others being {e-mail}, {DNS}, {SSH}). Basically, the web consists of documents or {web pages} in {HTML} format (a kind of {hypertext}), each of which has a unique {URL} or "web address". {Links} in a page are URLs of other pages which may be part of the same {website} or a page on another site on a different {web server} anywhere on the {Internet}. As well as HTML pages, a URL may refer to an image, some code ({JavaScript} or {Java}), {CSS}, a {video} stream or other kinds of object. URLs typically start with "http://", indicating that the page needs to be fetched using the {HTTP} {protocol} or or "https://" for the {HTTPS} protocol which {encrypts} the request and the resulting page for security. The URL "scheme" (the bit before the ":") indicates the protocol to use. These include {FTP}, the original protocol for transferring files over the Internet. {RTSP} is a {streaming protocol} that allow a continuous feed of {audio} or {video} from the server to the browser. {Gopher} was a predecessor of HTTP and {Telnet} starts an {interactive} {command-line} session with a remote server. The web is accessed using a {client} program known as a {web browser} that runs on the user's computer. The browser fetches and displays pages and allows the user to follow {links} by clicking on them (or similar action) and to input queries to the server. A variety of browsers are freely available, e.g. {Google Chrome}, {Microsoft} {Internet Explorer}, {Apple} {Safari} and {Mozilla} {Firefox}. Early browsers included {NCSA} {Mosaic} and {Netscape} {Navigator}. Queries can be entered into "forms" which allow the user to enter arbitrary text and select options from customisable menus and other controls. The server processes each request - either a simple URL or data from a form - and returns a response, typically a page of HTML. The World-Wide Web originated from the {CERN} High-Energy Physics laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland. In the early 1990s, the developers at CERN spread word of the Web's capabilities to scientific and academic audiences worldwide. By September 1993, the share of Web traffic traversing the {NSFNET} {Internet} {backbone} reached 75 {gigabytes} per month or one percent. By July 1994 it was one {terabyte} per month. The {World Wide Web Consortium} is the main standards body for the web. Following the widespread availability of web browsers and servers from about 1995, organisations started using the same software and protocols on their own private internal {TCP/IP} networks giving rise to the term "{intranet}". {This dictionary} is accessible via the Web at {(http://foldoc.org/)}. {An article by John December (http://sunsite.unc.edu/cmc/mag/1994/oct/webip.html)}. {W3 servers, clients and tools (http://w3.org/Status.html)}. (2017-11-01)
XScheme "language" {Scheme} in {C} with {object-oriented} extensions by David Betz. Version 0.28 runs on {IBM PC}, {Macintosh}, {Atari} and {Amiga}. {(ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/comp.sources.amiga/volume90)}. {(ftp://nexus.yorku.ca/pub/scheme/)}. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.lisp.x}. (1992-02-02)
x-scm "language" An accessory for the {scm} {Scheme} {interpreter}, by Larry Campbell, that provides an environment for building {Motif} and {OpenLook} {application programs}. There is some support as well for raw {Xlib} applications, but not enough yet to be useful. Posted to {alt.sources}. (1992-08-10)
YASOS {Yet Another Scheme Object System}
Yet Another Scheme Object System "language" (YASOS) A system for {object-oriented programming} in {Scheme}. E-mail: Ken Dickey "kend@newton.apple.com" (2010-02-28)
Yuga(Sanskrit) ::: A word meaning an "age," a period of time. A yuga is a period of mundane time, and four ofthese periods are usually enumerated in "divine years":1. Krita or Satya Yuga. . . . 4,000Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 400Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,8002. Treta Yuga. . . . . . . . . . . 3,000Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 300Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,6003. Dvapara Yuga. . . . . . . . 2,000Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 200Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,4004. Kali Yuga. . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000Sandhya. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Sandhyamsa. . . . . . . . . . . . . 100Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,200TOTAL . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .12,000This rendered in years of mortals equals:4,800 x 360 = 1,728,0003,600 x 360 = 1,296,0002,400 x 360 = 864,0001,200 x 360 = 432,000. . . . . .Total 4,320,000Of these four yugas, our present racial period is the fourth or kali yuga, often called the "iron age" or the"black age." It is stated to have commenced at the moment of Krishna's death, usually given as 3,102years before the Christian era. There is a very important point of the teaching in connection with theyugas which must not be forgotten. It is the following: The four yugas as above outlined refer to whatmodern theosophical philosophy calls a root-race, although indeed a root-race from its individualbeginning to its individual ending is about double the length of the composite yuga above set forth incolumnar form. The racial yugas, however, overlap because each new great race is born at about themiddle period of the parent race, although the individual length of any one race is as above stated. Thus itis that by the overlapping of the races, a race and its succeeding race may for a long time becontemporaneous on the face of the globe.As the four yugas are a reflection in human history of what takes place in the evolution of the earth itselfand of the planetary chain, therefore the same scheme of yugas applies also on a cosmic scale -- thereexist the four series of satya yuga, treta yuga, dvapara yuga, and kali yuga, in the evolution of the earth,and on a still larger scale in the evolution of a planetary chain. Of course these cosmic yugas are verymuch longer than the racial yugas, but the same general scheme of 4, 3, 2 applies throughout. For furtherdetails of the teaching concerning the yugas, the student should consult H. P. Blavatsky's The SecretDoctrine, and the work by the present author, Fundamentals of the Esoteric Philosophy.
Ze‘eir ’Anpin (Aramaic) Zĕ‘ēir ’Anpīn. Ze‘eir ’Appayim (Hebrew) Zĕ‘ēir Āppayim [zĕ‘ēir small, short + ’apīn face, countenance] Short face, the less visage; its Greek equivalent is Microprosopus. A Qabbalistic term applied to the lower nine Sephiroth, emanating from the first Sephirah (Kether the Crown) or the Long Face (’Arich ’Anpin). The nine lower Sephiroth are not able to envisage or express the full Sephirothal Tree or scheme nor the full radiance of the Concealed of the Concealed. The Short Face is the union of the nine Sephiroth considered as a composite individual, corresponding to the Qabbalistic ’Adam Qadmon, the Heavenly Man or the manifest or Third Logos. See also YESOD
KEYS (10k)
13 Sri Aurobindo
2 Sri Ramana Maharshi
1 Richard Stallman
1 Ken Wilber
1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9810342
1 The Mother
1 Jorge Luis Borges
1 ?
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
32 Anonymous
20 Jane Austen
15 Patty Schemel
11 Sri Aurobindo
11 Robert Burns
11 Kurt Vonnegut
8 Samuel Johnson
8 Michael Wolff
8 Mahatma Gandhi
8 Henry Hazlitt
7 P G Wodehouse
7 H L Mencken
6 Neal Stephenson
6 G K Chesterton
6 Edmund Burke
5 Steven D Levitt
5 Robert Masello
5 Narendra Modi
5 Mitchell Zuckoff
5 Lisa Kleypas
1:Time's accidents are steps in its vast scheme. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, #KEYS
2:This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,#KEYS
3:The conscious Force that acts in Nature's breast,
A dark-robed labourer in the cosmic scheme ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge,#KEYS
4:In order to understand how the new holographic paradigm fits into the overall scheme of things, it is necessary to have an overall scheme of things to begin with. ~ Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, p. 126, #KEYS
5:One should remain as a witness to whatever happens, adopting the attitude, 'Let whatever strange things that happen happen, let us see!' Nothing happens by accident in the divine scheme of things. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
6:The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once you learn Lisp you will see what is missing in most other languages. ~ Richard Stallman, #KEYS
7:One should remain as a witness to whatever happens, adopting the attitude, 'Let whatever strange things that happens happen, let us see!' This should be one's practice. Nothing happens by accident in the divine scheme of things. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #KEYS
8:If Lisp is a 'programmable programming language,' then Scheme is an assemble-it-at-home kit for making yourself a programmable programming language. JavaScript does not have this quality AT ALL.
~ ?, http://raganwald.com/2013/07/19/javascript-is-a-lisp.html,#KEYS
9:An ocean of electric Energy
Formlessly formed its strange wave-particles
Constructing by their dance this solid scheme, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, 02.05,#KEYS
10:Opponents of the Highest they have come
Out of their world of soulless thought and power
To serve by enmity the cosmic scheme. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness,#KEYS
11:A cosmic Thought spreads out its vastitudes;
Its smallest parts are here philosophies
Challenging with their detailed immensity,
Each figuring an omniscient scheme of things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real,#KEYS
12:The final result is a system where programmers, artists, animators, and designers are productively programming directly in an S-expression Scheme-like language. Dan closed his talk by wowing the audience with the trailer for the game, which has now been released and is garnering extremely positive reviews. ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9810342, #KEYS
13:An ocean of electric Energy
Formlessly formed its strange wave-particles
Constructing by their dance this solid scheme, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Godheads of the Little Life
Wave-particles
The dictum that each has his own way is not true; each has his own way of following the common way and the "own way" may often be very defective. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Mental Development and Sadhana,#KEYS
14:She sets the hard inventions of her brain
In a pattern of eternal fixity:
Indifferent to the cosmic dumb demand,
Unconscious of too close realities,
Of the unspoken thought, the voiceless heart,
She leans to forge her credos and iron codes
And metal structures to imprison life
And mechanic models of all things that are.
For the world seen she weaves a world conceived:
She spins in stiff but unsubstantial lines
Her gossamer word-webs of abstract thought,
Her segment systems of the Infinite,
Her theodicies and cosmogonic charts
And myths by which she explains the inexplicable.
At will she spaces in thin air of mind
Like maps in the school-house of intellect hung,
Forcing wide Truth into a narrow scheme,
Her numberless warring strict philosophies;
Out of Nature's body of phenomenon
She carves with Thought's keen edge in rigid lines,
Like rails for the World-Magician's power to run, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri,#KEYS
15:From the twilight of day till the twilight of evening, a leopard, in the last years of the thirteenth century, would see some wooden planks, some vertical iron bars, men and women who changed, a wall and perhaps a stone gutter filled with dry leaves. He did not know, could not know, that he longed for love and cruelty and the hot pleasure of tearing things to pieces and the wind carrying the scent of a deer, but something suffocated and rebelled within him and God spoke to him in a dream: ""You live and will die in this prison so that a man I know of may see you a certain number of times and not forget you and place your figure and symbol in a poem which has its precise place in the scheme of the universe. You suffer captivity, but you will have given a word to the poem.
God, in the dream, illumined the animal's brutishness and the animal understood these reasons and accepted his destiny, but, when he awoke, there was in him only an obscure resignation, a valorous ignorance, for the machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of a beast. ~ Jorge Luis Borges,#KEYS
16:scope and aim of the works of sacrifice :::
Into the third and last category of the works of sacrifice can be gathered all that is directly proper to the Yoga of works; for here is its field of effectuation and major province. It covers the entire range of lifes more visible activities; under it fall the multiform energies of the Will-to-Life throwing itself outward to make the most of material existence. It is here that an ascetic or other-worldly spirituality feels an insurmountable denial of the Truth which it seeks after and is compelled to turn away from terrestrial existence, rejecting it as for ever the dark playground of an incurable Ignorance. Yet it is precisely these activities that are claimed for a spiritual conquest and divine transformation by the integral Yoga. Abandoned altogether by the more ascetic disciplines, accepted by others only as a field of temporary ordeal or a momentary, superficial and ambiguous play of the concealed spirit, this existence is fully embraced and welcomed by the integral seeker as a field of fulfilment, a field for divine works, a field of the total self-discovery of the concealed and indwelling Spirit. A discovery of the Divinity in oneself is his first object, but a total discovery too of the Divinity in the world behind the apparent denial offered by its scheme and figures and, last, a total discovery of the dynamism of some transcendent Eternal; for by its descent this world and self-will be empowered to break their disguising envelopes and become divine in revealing form and manifesting process as they now are secretly in their hidden essence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 169,#KEYS
17:Has creation a definite aim? Is there something like a final end to which it is moving?
The Mother: No, the universe is a movement that is eternally unrolling itself. There is nothing which you can fix upon as the end and one aim. But for the sake of action we have to section the movement, which is itself unending, and to say that this or that is the goal, for in action we need something upon which we can fix our aim. In a picture you need a definite scheme of composition and colour; you have to set a limit, to put the whole thing within a fixed framework; but the limit is illusory, the frame is a mere convention. There is a constant continuation of the picture that stretches beyond any particular frame, and each continuation can be drawn in the same conditions in an unending series of frames. Our aim is this or that, we say, but we know that it is only the beginning of another aim beyond it, and that in its turn leads to yet another; the series develop always and never stop.
What is the proper function of the intellect? Is it a help or a hindrance to Sadhana?
Whether the intellect is a help or a hindrance depends upon the person and upon the way in which it is used. There is a true movement of the intellect and there is a wrong movement; one helps, the other hinders. The intellect that believes too much in its own importance and wants satisfaction for its own sake, is an obstacle to the higher realisation.
But this is true not in any special sense or for the intellect alone, but generally and of other faculties as well. For example, people do not regard an all-engrossing satisfaction of the vital desires or the animal appetites as a virtue; the moral sense is accepted as a mentor to tell one the bounds that one may not transgress. It is only in his intellectual activities that man thinks he can do without any such mentor or censor!
Any part of the being that keeps to its proper place and plays its appointed role is helpful; but directly it steps beyond its sphere, it becomes twisted and perverted and therefore false. A power has the right movement when it is set into activity for the divine's purpose; it has the wrong movement when it is set into activity for its own satisfaction.
The intellect, in its true nature, is an instrument of expression and action. It is something like an intermediary between the true knowledge, whose seat is in the higher regions above the mind, and realisation here below. The intellect or, generally speaking, the mind gives the form; the vital puts in the dynamism and life-power; the material comes in last and embodies. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 28th April 1931 and 5th May 1929,#KEYS
18:O Death, thou lookst on an unfinished world
Assailed by thee and of its road unsure,
Peopled by imperfect minds and ignorant lives,
And sayest God is not and all is vain.
How shall the child already be the man?
Because he is infant, shall he never grow?
Because he is ignorant, shall he never learn?
In a small fragile seed a great tree lurks,
In a tiny gene a thinking being is shut;
A little element in a little sperm,
It grows and is a conqueror and a sage.
Then wilt thou spew out, Death, God's mystic truth,
Deny the occult spiritual miracle?
Still wilt thou say there is no spirit, no God?
A mute material Nature wakes and sees;
She has invented speech, unveiled a will.
Something there waits beyond towards which she strives,
Something surrounds her into which she grows:
To uncover the spirit, to change back into God,
To exceed herself is her transcendent task.
In God concealed the world began to be,
Tardily it travels towards manifest God:
Our imperfection towards perfection toils,
The body is the chrysalis of a soul:
The infinite holds the finite in its arms,
Time travels towards revealed eternity.
A miracle structure of the eternal Mage,
Matter its mystery hides from its own eyes,
A scripture written out in cryptic signs,
An occult document of the All-Wonderful's art.
All here bears witness to his secret might,
In all we feel his presence and his power.
A blaze of his sovereign glory is the sun,
A glory is the gold and glimmering moon,
A glory is his dream of purple sky.
A march of his greatness are the wheeling stars.
His laughter of beauty breaks out in green trees,
His moments of beauty triumph in a flower;
The blue sea's chant, the rivulet's wandering voice
Are murmurs falling from the Eternal's harp.
This world is God fulfilled in outwardness.
His ways challenge our reason and our sense;
By blind brute movements of an ignorant Force,
By means we slight as small, obscure or base,
A greatness founded upon little things,
He has built a world in the unknowing Void.
His forms he has massed from infinitesimal dust;
His marvels are built from insignificant things.
If mind is crippled, life untaught and crude,
If brutal masks are there and evil acts,
They are incidents of his vast and varied plot,
His great and dangerous drama's needed steps;
He makes with these and all his passion-play,
A play and yet no play but the deep scheme
Of a transcendent Wisdom finding ways
To meet her Lord in the shadow and the Night:
Above her is the vigil of the stars;
Watched by a solitary Infinitude
She embodies in dumb Matter the Divine,
In symbol minds and lives the Absolute.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Debate of Love and Death,#KEYS
19:The recurring beat that moments God in Time.
Only was missing the sole timeless Word
That carries eternity in its lonely sound,
The Idea self-luminous key to all ideas,
The integer of the Spirit's perfect sum
That equates the unequal All to the equal One,
The single sign interpreting every sign,
The absolute index to the Absolute.
There walled apart by its own innerness
In a mystical barrage of dynamic light
He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile
Erect like a mountain-chariot of the Gods
Motionless under an inscrutable sky.
As if from Matter's plinth and viewless base
To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds
Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme
Ascended towards breadths immeasurable;
It hoped to soar into the Ineffable's reign:
A hundred levels raised it to the Unknown.
So it towered up to heights intangible
And disappeared in the hushed conscious Vast
As climbs a storeyed temple-tower to heaven
Built by the aspiring soul of man to live
Near to his dream of the Invisible.
Infinity calls to it as it dreams and climbs;
Its spire touches the apex of the world;
Mounting into great voiceless stillnesses
It marries the earth to screened eternities.
Amid the many systems of the One
Made by an interpreting creative joy
Alone it points us to our journey back
Out of our long self-loss in Nature's deeps;
Planted on earth it holds in it all realms:
It is a brief compendium of the Vast.
This was the single stair to being's goal.
A summary of the stages of the spirit,
Its copy of the cosmic hierarchies
Refashioned in our secret air of self
A subtle pattern of the universe.
It is within, below, without, above.
Acting upon this visible Nature's scheme
It wakens our earth-matter's heavy doze
To think and feel and to react to joy;
It models in us our diviner parts,
Lifts mortal mind into a greater air,
Makes yearn this life of flesh to intangible aims,
Links the body's death with immortality's call:
Out of the swoon of the Inconscience
It labours towards a superconscient Light.
If earth were all and this were not in her,
Thought could not be nor life-delight's response:
Only material forms could then be her guests
Driven by an inanimate world-force.
Earth by this golden superfluity
Bore thinking man and more than man shall bear;
This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate;
It calls out of our dense mortality
The conscious spirit nursed in Matter's house.
The living symbol of these conscious planes,
Its influences and godheads of the unseen,
Its unthought logic of Reality's acts
Arisen from the unspoken truth in things,
Have fixed our inner life's slow-scaled degrees.
Its steps are paces of the soul's return
From the deep adventure of material birth,
A ladder of delivering ascent
And rungs that Nature climbs to deity.
Once in the vigil of a deathless gaze
These grades had marked her giant downward plunge,
The wide and prone leap of a godhead's fall.
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme.
The great World-Mother by her sacrifice
Has made her soul the body of our state;
Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness
Divinity's lapse from its own splendours wove
The many-patterned ground of all we are.
An idol of self is our mortality.
Our earth is a fragment and a residue;
Her power is packed with the stuff of greater worlds
And steeped in their colour-lustres dimmed by her drowse;
An atavism of higher births is hers,
Her sleep is stirred by their buried memories
Recalling the lost spheres from which they fell.
Unsatisfied forces in her bosom move;
They are partners of her greater growing fate
And her return to immortality;
They consent to share her doom of birth and death;
They kindle partial gleams of the All and drive
Her blind laborious spirit to compose
A meagre image of the mighty Whole.
The calm and luminous Intimacy within
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,#KEYS
20:Attention on Hypnagogic Imagery The most common strategy for inducing WILDs is to fall asleep while focusing on the hypnagogic imagery that accompanies sleep onset. Initially, you are likely to see relatively simple images, flashes of light, geometric patterns, and the like.
Gradually more complicated forms appear: faces, people, and finally entire scenes. 6
The following account of what the Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky called "half-dream states" provides a vivid example of what hypnagogic imagery can be like:
I am falling asleep. Golden dots, sparks and tiny stars appear and disappear before my eyes. These sparks and stars gradually merge into a golden net with diagonal meshes which moves slowly and regularly in rhythm with the beating of my heart, which I feel quite distinctly. The next moment the golden net is transformed into rows of brass helmets belonging to Roman soldiers marching along the street below. I hear their measured tread and watch them from the window of a high house in Galata, in Constantinople, in a narrow lane, one end of which leads to the old wharf and the Golden Horn with its ships and steamers and the minarets of Stamboul behind them. I hear their heavy measured tread, and see the sun shining on their helmets. Then suddenly I detach myself from the window sill on which I am lying, and in the same reclining position fly slowly over the lane, over the houses, and then over the Golden Horn in the direction of Stamboul. I smell the sea, feel the wind, the warm sun. This flying gives me a wonderfully pleasant sensation, and I cannot help opening my eyes. 7
Ouspensky's half-dream states developed out of a habit of observing the contents of his mind while falling asleep or in half-sleep after awakening from a dream. He notes that they were much easier to observe in the morning after awakening than before sleep at the beginning of the night and did not occur at all "without definite efforts." 8
Dr. Nathan Rapport, an American psychiatrist, cultivated an approach to lucid dreaming very similar to Ouspensky's: "While in bed awaiting sleep, the experimenter interrupts his thoughts every few minutes with an effort to recall the mental item vanishing before each intrusion that inquisitive attention." 9 This habit is continued sleep itself, with results like the following:
Brilliant lights flashed, and a myriad of sparkles twinkled from a magnificent cut glass chandelier. Interesting as any stage extravaganza were the many quaintly detailed figurines upon a mantel against the distant, paneled wall adorned in rococo.
At the right a merry group of beauties and gallants in the most elegant attire of Victorian England idled away a pleasant occasion. This scene continued for [a] period of I was not aware, before I discovered that it was not reality, but a mental picture and that I was viewing it. Instantly it became an incommunicably beautiful vision. It was with the greatest stealth that my vaguely awakened mind began to peep: for I knew that these glorious shows end abruptly because of such intrusions.
I thought, "Have I here one of those mind pictures that are without motion?" As if in reply, one of the young ladies gracefully waltzed about the room. She returned to the group and immobility, with a smile lighting her pretty face, which was turned over her shoulder toward me. The entire color scheme was unobtrusive despite the kaleidoscopic sparkles of the chandelier, the exquisite blues and creamy pinks of the rich settings and costumes. I felt that only my interest in dreams brought my notice to the tints - delicate, yet all alive as if with inner illumination. 10
Hypnagogic Imagery Technique
1. Relax completely
While lying in bed, gently close your eyes and relax your head, neck, back, arms, and legs. Completely let go of all muscular and mental tension, and breathe slowly and restfully. Enjoy the feeling of relaxation and let go of your thoughts, worries, and concerns. If you have just awakened from sleep, you are probably sufficiently relaxed.
Otherwise, you may use either the progressive relaxation exercise (page 33) or the 61-point relaxation exercise (page 34) to relax more deeply. Let everything wind down,
slower and slower, more and more relaxed, until your mind becomes as serene as the calmest sea.
2. Observe the visual images
Gently focus your attention on the visual images that will gradually appear before your mind's eye. Watch how the images begin and end. Try to observe the images as delicately as possible, allowing them to be passively reflected in your mind as they unfold. Do not attempt to hold onto the images, but instead just watch without attachment or desire for action. While doing this, try to take the perspective of a detached observer as much as possible. At first you will see a sequence of disconnected, fleeting patterns and images. The images will gradually develop into scenes that become more and more complex, finally joining into extended sequences.
3. Enter the dream
When the imagery becomes a moving, vivid scenario, you should allow yourself to be passively drawn into the dream world. Do not try to actively enter the dream scene,
but instead continue to take a detached interest in the imagery. Let your involvement with what is happening draw you into the dream. But be careful of too much involvement and too little attention. Don't forget that you are dreaming now!
Commentary
Probably the most difficult part of this technique to master is entering the dream at Step 3. The challenge is to develop a delicate vigilance, an unobtrusive observer perspective, from which you let yourself be drawn into the dream. As Paul Tholey has emphasized, "It is not desirable to want actively to enter into the scenery,
since such an intention as a rule causes the scenery to disappear." 11 A passive volition similar to that described in the section on autosuggestion in the previous chapter is required: in Tholey's words, "Instead of actively wanting to enter into the scenery, the subject should attempt to let himself be carried into it passively." 12 A Tibetan teacher advises a similar frame of mind: "While delicately observing the mind, lead it gently into the dream state, as though you were leading a child by the hand." 13
Another risk is that, once you have entered into the dream, the world can seem so realistic that it is easy to lose lucidity, as happened in the beginning of Rapport's WILD described above. As insurance in case this happens, Tholey recommends that you resolve to carry out a particular action in the dream, so that if you momentarily lose lucidity, you may remember your intention to carry out the action and thereby regain lucidity.
~ Stephen LaBerge, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming,#KEYS
21:
Can a Yogi attain to a state of consciousness in which he can know all things, answer all questions, relating even to abstruse scientific problems, such as, for example, the theory of relativity?
Theoretically and in principle it is not impossible for a Yogi to know everything; all depends upon the Yogi.
But there is knowledge and knowledge. The Yogi does not know in the way of the mind. He does not know everything in the sense that he has access to all possible information or because he contains all the facts of the universe in his mind or because his consciousness is a sort of miraculous encyclopaedia. He knows by his capacity for a containing or dynamic identity with things and persons and forces. Or he knows because he lives in a plane of consciousness or is in contact with a consciousness in which there is the truth and the knowledge.
If you are in the true consciousness, the knowledge you have will also be of the truth. Then, too, you can know directly, by being one with what you know. If a problem is put before you, if you are asked what is to be done in a particular matter, you can then, by looking with enough attention and concentration, receive spontaneously the required knowledge and the true answer. It is not by any careful application of theory that you reach the knowledge or by working it out through a mental process. The scientific mind needs these methods to come to its conclusions. But the Yogi's knowledge is direct and immediate; it is not deductive. If an engineer has to find out the exact position for the building of an arch, the line of its curve and the size of its opening, he does it by calculation, collating and deducing from his information and data. But a Yogi needs none of these things; he looks, has the vision of the thing, sees that it is to be done in this way and not in another, and this seeing is his knowledge.
Although it may be true in a general way and in a certain sense that a Yogi can know all things and can answer all questions from his own field of vision and consciousness, yet it does not follow that there are no questions whatever of any kind to which he would not or could not answer. A Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could not or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusion of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge is not in the mind. If you put him some silly mental query of that character, he probably would not answer. The very common conception that you can put any ignorant question to him as to some super-schoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder.
Moreover, the term "Yogi" is very vague and wide. There are many types of Yogis, many lines or ranges of spiritual or occult endeavour and different heights of achievement, there are some whose powers do not extend beyond the mental level; there are others who have gone beyond it. Everything depends on the field or nature of their effort, the height to which they have arrived, the consciousness with which they have contact or into which they enter.
Do not scientists go sometimes beyond the mental plane? It is said that Einstein found his theory of relativity not through any process of reasoning, but through some kind of sudden inspiration. Has that inspiration anything to do with the Supermind?
The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane illumined by some other light still farther above. But all that has nothing to do with the action of Supermind and this higher mental level is far removed from the supramental plane. Men are too easily inclined to believe that they have climbed into regions quite divine when they have only gone above the average level. There are many stages between the ordinary human mind and the Supermind, many grades and many intervening planes. If an ordinary man were to get into direct contact even with one of these intermediate planes, he would be dazzled and blinded, would be crushed under the weight of the sense of immensity or would lose his balance; and yet it is not the Supermind.
Behind the common idea that a Yogi can know all things and answer all questions is the actual fact that there is a plane in the mind where the memory of everything is stored and remains always in existence. All mental movements that belong to the life of the earth are memorised and registered in this plane. Those who are capable of going there and care to take the trouble, can read in it and learn anything they choose. But this region must not be mistaken for the supramental levels. And yet to reach even there you must be able to silence the movements of the material or physical mind; you must be able to leave aside all your sensations and put a stop to your ordinary mental movements, whatever they are; you must get out of the vital; you must become free from the slavery of the body. Then only you can enter into that region and see. But if you are sufficiently interested to make this effort, you can arrive there and read what is written in the earth's memory.
Thus, if you go deep into silence, you can reach a level of consciousness on which it is not impossible for you to receive answers to all your questions. And if there is one who is consciously open to the plenary truth of the supermind, in constant contact with it, he can certainly answer any question that is worth an answer from the supramental Light. The queries put must come from some sense of the truth and reality behind things. There are many questions and much debated problems that are cobwebs woven of mere mental abstractions or move on the illusory surface of things. These do not pertain to real knowledge; they are a deformation of knowledge, their very substance is of the ignorance. Certainly the supramental knowledge may give an answer, its own answer, to the problems set by the mind's ignorance; but it is likely that it would not be at all satisfactory or perhaps even intelligible to those who ask from the mental level. You must not expect the supramental to work in the way of the mind or demand that the knowledge in truth should be capable of being pieced together with the half-knowledge in ignorance. The scheme of the mind is one thing, but Supermind is quite another and it would no longer be supramental if it adapted itself to the exigencies of the mental scheme. The two are incommensurable and cannot be put together.
When the consciousness has attained to supramental joys, does it no longer take interest in the things of the mind?
The supramental does not take interest in mental things in the same way as the mind. It takes its own interest in all the movements of the universe, but it is from a different point of view and with a different vision. The world presents to it an entirely different appearance; there is a reversal of outlook and everything is seen from there as other than what it seems to the mind and often even the opposite. Things have another meaning; their aspect, their motion and process, everything about them, are watched with other eyes. Everything here is followed by the supermind; the mind movements and not less the vital, the material movements, all the play of the universe have for it a very deep interest, but of another kind. It is about the same difference as that between the interest taken in a puppet-play by one who holds the strings and knows what the puppets are to do and the will that moves them and that they can do only what it moves them to do, and the interest taken by another who observes the play but sees only what is happening from moment to moment and knows nothing else. The one who follows the play and is outside its secret has a stronger, an eager and passionate interest in what will happen and he gives an excited attention to its unforeseen or dramatic events; the other, who holds the strings and moves the show, is unmoved and tranquil. There is a certain intensity of interest which comes from ignorance and is bound up with illusion, and that must disappear when you are out of the ignorance. The interest that human beings take in things founds itself on the illusion; if that were removed, they would have no interest at all in the play; they would find it dry and dull. That is why all this ignorance, all this illusion has lasted so long; it is because men like it, because they cling to it and its peculiar kind of appeal that it endures.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 93?
,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment. ~ samuel-johnson, @wisdomtrove 2:Philosophy first constructs a scheme of happiness and then tries to fit the world to it. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 3:Democracy must be a sound scheme at bottom, else it would not survive such cruel strains. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 4:Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 5:I have a scheme for stopping war. It's this - no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one. ~ will-rogers, @wisdomtrove 6:I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 7:The human mind is not rich enough to drive many horses abreast and wants one general scheme, under which it strives to bring everything. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 8:Humans live best when each has his place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 9:Periods' are largely an invention of the historians. The poets themselves are not conscious of living in any period and refuse to conform to the scheme. ~ c-s-lewis, @wisdomtrove 10:I like a thing simple but it must be simple through complication. Everything must come into your scheme, otherwise you cannot achieve real simplicity. ~ gertrude-stein, @wisdomtrove 11:A scheme of which every part promises delight, can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 12:No scheme for a change of society can be made to appear immediately palatable, except by falsehood, until society has become so desperate that it will accept any change. ~ t-s-eliot, @wisdomtrove 13:Ah Love! could you and I with him conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire Would we not shatter it to bits-and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire? ~ omar-khayyam, @wisdomtrove 14:It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get. ~ confucius, @wisdomtrove 15:We have discovered that the scheme of & 16:If your life is in harmony, then your life is full and good, but not overcrowded. If it is overcrowded, you are doing more than is right for you, more than is your job to do in the total scheme of things. ~ peace-pilgrim, @wisdomtrove 17:Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an article for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 18:For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 19:Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 20:Life is a voyage, and we are all sailing under sealed orders. We plan, plot, scheme and arrange, and some fine day Fate steps in and our dreams are tossed into the yeasty deep. We grin and bear it& 21:There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere. ~ jane-austen, @wisdomtrove 22:And the dream that our mind had sketched in haste Shall others continue, but never complete. For none upon earth can achieve his scheme; The best as the worst are futile here: We wake at the self-same point of the dream, All is here begun, and finished elsewhere. ~ victor-hugo, @wisdomtrove 23:We doubt not the destiny of our country that she is to accomplish great things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points. ~ margaret-fuller, @wisdomtrove 24:The scheme, my dear Marqs. which you propose as a precedent, to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this Country from that state of Bondage in wch. they are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your Heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work. ~ george-washington, @wisdomtrove 25:The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda - a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make & 26:It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of his rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for mutual support. ~ thomas-paine, @wisdomtrove 27:The federal [bank deposit] insurance scheme has worked up to now simply and solely because there have been very few bank failures. The next time we have a pestilence of them it will come to grief quickly enough, and if the good banks escape ruin with the bad ones it will be only because the taxpayer foots the bill. ~ h-l-mencken, @wisdomtrove 28:In the external scheme of things, shining moments are as brief as the twinkling of an eye, yet such twinklings are what eternity is made of - moments when we human beings can say "I love you," "I'm proud of you," "I forgive you," "I'm grateful for you." That's what eternity is made of: invisible imperishable good stuff. ~ fred-rogers, @wisdomtrove 29:If you are well off and can afford to spend ten or twenty-five dollars a day to hire some patient soul to listen to your troubles you can be readjusted to the crazy scheme of things and spare yourself the humiliation of becoming a Christian Scientist. You can have your ego trimmed or removed, as you wish, just like a wart or bunion. ~ henry-miller, @wisdomtrove 30:I, in my own mind, have always thought of America as a place in the divine scheme of things that was set aside as a promised land... Any person with the courage, with the desire to tear up their roots, to strive for freedom, to attempt and dare to live in a strange and foreign place, to travel halfway across the world was welcome here. ~ ronald-reagan, @wisdomtrove 31:Natural law is not applicable to the unseen world behind the symbols, because it is unadapted to anything except symbols, and its perfection is a perfection of symbolic linkage. You cannot apply such a scheme to the parts of our personality which are not measurable by symbols any more than you can extract the square root of a sonnet. ~ sir-arthur-eddington, @wisdomtrove 32:One thing I found out was that we need extended families. We need gangs. And, of course, if they're tribes and clans and so forth have been dispersed by the industrial revolution by people looking for work wherever they can find it. And a nuclear family, a man, a woman and kids and a dog and cat is no survival scheme at all. Horribly vulnerable. ~ kurt-vonnegut, @wisdomtrove 33:Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading through up to your eyes in blood, you could only end up where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found... all is confusion beyond it. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 34:He felt all the torment of his and her position, all the difficulties they were surrounded by in consequence of their station in life, which exposed them to the eyes of the whole world, obliged them to hide their love, to lie and deceive, and again to lie and deceive, to scheme and constantly think about others while the passion that bound them was so strong that they both forgot everything but their love. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 35:I find that many men and women are troubled by the thought that they are too small and inconsequential in the scheme of things. But that is not our real trouble - we are actually too big and too complex, for God made us in His image and we are too big to be satisfied with what the world offers us!.. Man is bored, because he is too big to be happy with that which sin is giving him. God has made him too great, his potential is too mighty. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 36:The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble. ~ charles-dickens, @wisdomtrove 37:If we could travel into the past, it's mind-boggling what would be possible. For one thing, history would become an experimental science, which it certainly isn't today. The possible insights into our own past and nature and origins would be dazzling. For another, we would be facing the deep paradoxes of interfering with the scheme of causality that has led to our own time and ourselves. I have no idea whether it's possible, but it's certainly worth exploring. ~ carl-sagan, @wisdomtrove 38:I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to any thing which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the subject as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. ~ edmund-burke, @wisdomtrove 39:I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story - the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths - which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. ... I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. ~ j-r-r-tolkien, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:I have no grand scheme. ~ Dave Attell, #NFDB
2:scheme. And life and food ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
3:My only scheme was to be a rapper. ~ Eminem, #NFDB
4:social capital pyramid scheme ~ Malka Ann Older, #NFDB
5:Young men preen. Old men scheme. ~ Mason Cooley, #NFDB
6:I'm scared of actors with a scheme. ~ Cate Blanchett, #NFDB
7:navigation scheme forms a visual hierarchy ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
8:The whole government is a Ponzi scheme. ~ Bernard Madoff, #NFDB
9:Denial is a save now, pay later scheme. ~ Gavin de Becker, #NFDB
10:No scheme pays as well as legitimate business. ~ E W Howe, #NFDB
11:scheme which requires such a sacrifice. But ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
12:The very madness of the scheme protects it. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
13:She wanted out of the decorating scheme. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, #NFDB
14:She wanted out of that decorating scheme. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, #NFDB
15:We are quite small in the big scheme of things. ~ Amber Valletta, #NFDB
16:Sorrow and respect didn't follow a color scheme. ~ Henning Mankell, #NFDB
17:The DSA scheme has not been reviewed for 25 years ~ David Willetts, #NFDB
18:Sorrow and respect didn't follow a colour scheme. ~ Henning Mankell, #NFDB
19:The best scheme of Phonetics is a stiff uncertain thing. ~ T E Brown, #NFDB
20:Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
21:Madoff Securities is the world's largest Ponzi scheme. ~ Harry Markopolos, #NFDB
22:Life is the big scheme; death is the little one at the end. ~ Cath Crowley, #NFDB
23:Modeling was so fleeting it doesn't count in my life scheme. ~ Ali MacGraw, #NFDB
24:We do not live in an economy, we live in a Ponzi scheme. ~ Douglas Rushkoff, #NFDB
25:more lucrative dates. The scheme was not properly disclosed ~ Jacquie McNish, #NFDB
26:My God, girl, you can bugger up any well-thought-out scheme. ~ Kiki Hamilton, #NFDB
27:We are in a waking dream... We see worlds where others scheme. ~ Hamza Yusuf, #NFDB
28:In the big scheme of things, a little love is all we need ~ Benny Bellamacina, #NFDB
29:Remember your dream is your only scheme, so keep on pushing. ~ Curtis Mayfield, #NFDB
30:Monetary expansion is a massive scheme of hidden redistribution. ~ Murray Rothbard, #NFDB
31:We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
32:In the big scheme of things, it’s the little things that matter ~ Benny Bellamacina, #NFDB
33:There is no such thing as compulsion in the scheme of nonviolence. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
34:The welfare state may be well-intentioned, but it is a Ponzi scheme ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
35:A scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful; ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
36:Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. ~ Alan Greenspan, #NFDB
37:heroin under prohibition becomes, in effect, a pyramid selling scheme. ~ Johann Hari, #NFDB
38:Feminism is not a scheme to deprive men but a plan to liberate us all ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
39:There is no get-rich-quick scheme equal to a poor girl marrying a rich man. ~ E W Howe, #NFDB
40:Every prosperous person who does not work has a creative scheme that does. ~ John Otway, #NFDB
41:In fact, in the grand scheme of things, everyone was equally useless. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
42:In the big scheme of things, all's we really need, is a little love ~ Benny Bellamacina, #NFDB
43:Social Security is a family insurance program, not an investment scheme. ~ Diane Watson, #NFDB
44:Reductionism describes the scheme, and it has a long history of successes. ~ Steven Vogel, #NFDB
45:Spoofing? No. Ponzi scheme? Not at all! Just finance. Legal as hell. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
46:A garden scheme should have a backbone - a central idea beautifully phrased. ~ Edwin Lutyens, #NFDB
47:Every manoeuvre must be the development of a scheme; it must aim at a goal. ~ Ferdinand Foch, #NFDB
48:We’re trivial pissants in the big scheme of things, fleas, fly shit in the pepper. ~ C J Box, #NFDB
49:Lawrence concluded that Alan’s penis scheme must have finally found a taker. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
50:She was a dreamer and a schemer & one didnt dream and scheme without hope. ~ Loretta Chase, #NFDB
51:I quit, before I was the first person ever to be sacked from a volunteer scheme. ~ Miranda Hart, #NFDB
52:Go is no Erlang, Smalltalk or Scheme, nothing pure. But it works great and is fun! ~ Frank Muller, #NFDB
53:She had put on make-up in a colour scheme that indicated she might be colourblind. ~ Steig Larsson, #NFDB
54:She had put on make-up in a colour scheme that indicated she might be colourblind. ~ Stieg Larsson, #NFDB
55:Doesn’t love fall somewhere in the big scheme of things? Isn’t it the biggest scheme? ~ Cath Crowley, #NFDB
56:Sanity is a sonnet with a strict meter and rhyme scheme-and my mind is free verse. ~ Holly Schindler, #NFDB
57:Change the scheme! Alter the mood! Electrify the boys and girls, if you'd be so kind. ~ Michael Sheen, #NFDB
58:Philosophy first constructs a scheme of happiness and then tries to fit the world to it. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
59:Rational thought is interpretation according to a scheme which we cannot escape. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
60:The mid-day meal is a well-intentioned scheme and has to be implemented effectively. ~ M M Pallam Raju, #NFDB
61:Democracy must be a sound scheme at bottom, else it would not survive such cruel strains. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
62:It’s hard to come up with a scheme to thwart some other scheme you don’t even know about. ~ Holly Black, #NFDB
63:she was as insignificant in the grand scheme of the galaxy as the sand beneath her feet. ~ Chris Dietzel, #NFDB
64:You belong in the scheme of the universe. There's nothing to be afraid of. You are Safe. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
65:Bring out the nature of the materials. Let their nature intimately into your scheme. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright, #NFDB
66:What should one do with the misery of the world in a scheme of the agreeable for one's self? ~ Henry James, #NFDB
67:From the trunk of their scheme, choices and decisions sprouted like branches and shoots. ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
68:Under our scheme of government the waste of public money is a crime against the citizen. ~ Grover Cleveland, #NFDB
69:Good luck is a sham. The wheel of fortune is a Ponzi scheme. True success requires sacrifice. ~ Rick Riordan, #NFDB
70:Perhaps my existence was pointless in any grand scheme of things, but it kept me entertained. ~ Steven Brust, #NFDB
71:The determinate scheme by stripping the sunrise of it's surprise would erase all sunrays. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
72:The US goverment proudly boasted Zero Tolerance and implemented the scheme with zero intelligence ~ Morrissey, #NFDB
73:Carrying arms for the removal of the Arms Act can never fall under any scheme of nonviolence. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
74:from a scheme once she’s started it. Then why should I care? I’ve let Celia play others since ~ Laurelin Paige, #NFDB
75:I know I'm on a small cable reality show. I'm realistic where I stand in the scheme of things. ~ Jai Rodriguez, #NFDB
76:Your scheme must be the framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
77:I’m going to untangle her deadly scheme, even if it leaves my love affair hanging by a thread. ~ Jennifer Estep, #NFDB
78:In my father’s scheme of things, there were Italians and then there was the rest of the world. ~ Janet Evanovich, #NFDB
79:In the scheme of our national government, the presidency is preeminently the people's office. ~ Grover Cleveland, #NFDB
80:thus had a somewhat outsized sense of her own importance relative to the universe’s grand scheme. ~ Sharon Guskin, #NFDB
81:Time’s accidents are steps in its vast scheme. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, #NFDB
82:In the end, every scheme and every science is justified by itself or it is not justified at all. ~ David Berlinski, #NFDB
83:Social security isn’t a ponzi scheme. It’s not bankrupting us. It’s not an outrage. It is working. ~ Rachel Maddow, #NFDB
84:God has made of man and woman one complete whole. In the scheme of nature, both of them are equal. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
85:Reasonable, sensible men can always make a reasonable scheme appear such to other reasonable men. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
86:Hale got a sense of his own importance in the grand scheme of the galaxy, and it felt utterly irrelevant. ~ Richard Fox, #NFDB
87:His manual of heaven and hell lay open before me, and I could perceive my nothingness in this scheme. ~ William Golding, #NFDB
88:Mozart didn't need a scheme for his music. He played and sang with the heavenly lightness of a child. ~ Joseph Goebbels, #NFDB
89:The financial system as a whole has had the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme if we look at it fundamentally. ~ Tim Lee, #NFDB
90:Art collectors are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. What matters and survives is the art. ~ Charles Saatchi, #NFDB
91:The point has always been to make music, it's not like I've always been running a giant money making scheme. ~ Girl Talk, #NFDB
92:When asked if direct sales is a pyramid scheme. My reply is a corporation has only one person at the top. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
93:Being an # entrepreneur is not a get-rich scheme; it takes # strength of character to keep going. ~ Robert Kiyosaki, #NFDB
94:So. Are we concocting some elaborate scheme where we pretend to be twins to get your parents back together? ~ Melissa Keil, #NFDB
95:A so-called ideal scheme which does not grow out of reality is definitely and finally not ideal at all. ~ Michael Oakeshott, #NFDB
96:The best scheme of finance is, to spend as little as possible; and the best tax is always the lightest. ~ Jean Baptiste Say, #NFDB
97:Everybody know that condom and birth control was white man scheme to kill off black people, but he don’t care. ~ Marlon James, #NFDB
98:I don't rule out the possibility of legislating a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, a market-based mechanism. ~ Julia Gillard, #NFDB
99:Liz," said Mr. Cootes, lost in admiration, "when it comes to doping out a scheme, you're the snake's eyebrows! ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
100:I like being alive, even if it's occasionally a real struggle and fairly pointless in the grand scheme of things. ~ Nina George, #NFDB
101:The Trump campaign had, perhaps less than inadvertently, replicated the scheme from Mel Brooks’s The Producers. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
102:This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate; ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,#NFDB
103:As I grow older I am unpleasantly impressed by the fact that giving each human being but one life is a bad scheme. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
104:For her own breakfast she'll project a scheme, Nor take her tea without a strategem. ~ Edward Young, Love of Fame (1725-1728), #NFDB
105:As usual, in every scheme that worsens the position of the poor, it is the poor who are invoked as beneficiaries. ~ Vandana Shiva, #NFDB
106:Nearly everything in the scheme of things works to dull a first-rate talent. But the worst probably is cowardice. ~ Norman Mailer, #NFDB
107:The Trump campaign had, perhaps less than inadvertently, replicated the scheme from Mel Brooks’s The Producers. In ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
108:Women scheme when they are weak, they lie out of fear. Men scheme when they are strong, they lie out of arrogance. ~ Julian Barnes, #NFDB
109:Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
110:The Socialists can scheme their schemes and the Liberals can dream their dreams, but we, at least, have work to do. ~ Hugh MacLennan, #NFDB
111:The human's place in the universe will be set in the scheme of evolution, the product of our biological inheritance. ~ Walter Gilbert, #NFDB
112:And then I wondered, does cussing count in the general scheme of things if you only cuss in your head and not out loud? ~ Andrew Smith, #NFDB
113:Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind. • ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
114:Christ at the Checkpoint is primarily a public relations scheme to dissuade American evangelicals from pro-Israel views. ~ Mark Tooley, #NFDB
115:There's no doomsday scheme made specifically for mankind,
only higher agenda and priority than human race preservation. ~ Toba Beta,#NFDB
116:Law has been unjustly charged with the whole blame of the calamities resulting from the scheme that bears his name. ~ Jean Baptiste Say, #NFDB
117:The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
118:There goes my meeting. - Oona
I'm sorry your latest get-rich-quick scheme has been temporarily put on hold. - DeeDee ~ Kirsten Miller,#NFDB
119:There was a madness in the scheme of life that men were forced to accept either with resigned fury or blunt indifference. ~ Terry Brooks, #NFDB
120:The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet, when we want shoes. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
121:Into every tidy scheme for arranging the pattern of human life, it is necessary to inject a certain dose of anarchism. ~ Bertrand Russell, #NFDB
122:If one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
123:We support the auto-enrolment but we have our doubts about the way the National Pension Scheme is going to be structured. ~ George Osborne, #NFDB
124:I’m now utterly convinced that this is part of some master scheme by the psychotic villain known as Kori and her sidekick, Sandy. ~ T J Klune, #NFDB
125:The Jock Upstart, is what Wellington calls - called me. A man who does not know his allotted place in the scheme of things. ~ Marguerite Kaye, #NFDB
126:I'm merely a baseball player, guys. In the great scheme of things, my thoughts, opinions and attitudes are of little importance. ~ John Rocker, #NFDB
127:I was taught that the human brain was the crowning glory of evolution so far, but I think it's a very poor scheme for survival. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
128:The conscious Force that acts in Nature’s breast,
A dark-robed labourer in the cosmic scheme ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Secret Knowledge,#NFDB
129:Don't get into this false sense that you are an individual when you're on Facebook. No. You're Not. You're a pawn in their scheme. ~ Matt Drudge, #NFDB
130:Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn’t care. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
131:To plant and maintain a flower border, with a good scheme for colour, is by no means the easy thing that is commonly supposed. ~ Gertrude Jekyll, #NFDB
132:What a wonderful and amazing Scheme have we here of the magnificent Vastness of the Universe! So many Suns, so many Earths. ~ Christiaan Huygens, #NFDB
133:I’m in the middle of another poorly thought-out, harebrained scheme that risks not only my life but all the other lives around me. How ~ Susan Ee, #NFDB
134:All this technology for connection and what we really only know more about is how anonymous we are in the grand scheme of things. ~ Heather Donahue, #NFDB
135:Life's in parts, and some go together and some don't, and some incongruously don't, and the whole scheme is better left to itself. ~ Joseph McElroy, #NFDB
136:Mr F.'s Aunt, who had eaten her pie with great solemnity, and who had been elaborating some grievous scheme of injury in her mind ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
137:My belief is to achieve success in any scheme one has to make oneself master of that scheme, know it inside and out, know every detail. ~ E L James, #NFDB
138:No Ponzi schemer tells anyone exactly how it works. The purpose of a Ponzi scheme is to trick people, to take the money and run. ~ Mitchell Zuckoff, #NFDB
139:In the grand scheme of the universe, that doesn't amount to a parasite on an ant on the butt of an elephant."
- Benjamin Carver ~ Bill Konigsberg,#NFDB
140:It was idle, he knew, to get between a fool and his folly; while two or three fools more or less would not alter the scheme of things. ~ Jack London, #NFDB
141:Stop attaching so much weight to being right. In the grand scheme of things, being right is insignificant compared with being happy. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
142:So endless and exorbitant are the desires of men that they will grasp at all, and can form no scheme of perfect happiness with less. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
143:No matter how skillful the trading scheme, over the long haul, abnormal returns are sustained only through abnormal exposure to risk. ~ Alan Greenspan, #NFDB
144:No reference is truly direct — every reference depends on some kind of coding scheme. It's just a question of how implicit it is. ~ Douglas Hofstadter, #NFDB
145:He imagines that when I see him indefatigable I'll regret my decision. Such is his miserable scheme. As though I were short of slaves! ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
146:It takes an unusually philosophic mind to accept that all one’s suffering might be to no end, really, in the larger scheme of things. ~ Ian C Esslemont, #NFDB
147:the Lord saw that man's wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every scheme his mind thought of was nothing but evil all the time, ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
148:The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no scheme; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb, against the heavens. It is clear sky. ~ Henry David Thoreau, #NFDB
149:Time is a factor in all action. An imperfect scheme put into action at the proper time is better than a perfect one accomplished too late. ~ Andre Maurois, #NFDB
150:We plan and we scheme. We plan for the day we once again see the sun and seek revenge on those who thought they could hide us from the world ~ Tillie Cole, #NFDB
151:[Heresy is] the dislocation of a complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein. ~ Hilaire Belloc, #NFDB
152:In the largest scheme of things, just as no one has the right to tell us our true value, no one has the right to tell us what we truly owe. ~ David Graeber, #NFDB
153:It's always helpful to remember that in the grand scheme of things you are much more important than... um, wait, than... something, maybe. ~ Demetri Martin, #NFDB
154:starters, it would be more efficient, since there would be one overarching scheme for settling debt instead of many small, competing schemes. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
155:The human mind is not rich enough to drive many horses abreast and wants one general scheme, under which it strives to bring everything. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
156:Yet, all things must pass, but especially time, and with the months and then the years, I came slowly to have a place in the scheme of things. ~ Robin Hobb, #NFDB
157:In the great scheme of things, what matters is not how long you live but why you live, what you stand for and what you are willing to die for. ~ Paul Watson, #NFDB
158:Humans live best when each has his place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
159:I think Americans suffer for their lack of travel, awareness of the world. It has horribly warped our sense of place in the scheme of things. ~ Henry Rollins, #NFDB
160:Maybe in the general scheme of things he couldn't find any meaning in life, but on a smaller scale it was okay. Not always, but a lot of the time. ~ Etgar Keret, #NFDB
161:Meltdown when we get home. Mom keeps chocolate for meltdowns. Daddy always has them when Uncle Jonas visits."
-David Lyons from Tanner's Scheme- ~ Lora Leigh,#NFDB
162:People used to think that private equity was basically just a compensation scheme, but it is much more about making companies more efficient. ~ David Rubenstein, #NFDB
163:Do not pander, patronize, scheme, or strategize,” his instincts told him. “Simply go about your business in your usual professional manner.” “But ~ Irvin D Yalom, #NFDB
164:Humans live best when each has his own place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
165:It’s been the structure of my life: you scheme and plan and try and fail and try again and accumulate and lose and win back, and then you tell. ~ Jerry Weintraub, #NFDB
166:Rodriguez seldom concerned himself with the past, holding that the future is all we can order the scheme of.
And maybe even here he was wrong. ~ Lord Dunsany,#NFDB
167:Social Security is unsustainable because it is not meeting the first order condition of a Ponzi scheme, namely expanding the pool of suckers. ~ Walter E Williams, #NFDB
168:Was humanity, or even life itself, that significant in the grand scheme of things? Wasn’t humanity's survival directly related to nature's decline? ~ M R Mathias, #NFDB
169:A common trait shared by people who have healed is that they cease being unreasonable in ways that no longer matter in the greater scheme of life. ~ Caroline Myss, #NFDB
170:At Ken Lay's funeral service the minister compared him to Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior. The difference is Dr. King had a dream, Ken Lay had a scheme. ~ Jay Leno, #NFDB
171:Intellectuals cannot tolerate the chance event, the unintelligible: they have a nostalgia for the absolute, for a universally comprehensive scheme. ~ Raymond Aron, #NFDB
172:The disagreements dividing Protestants from Catholics were about the internal consistency of the magical rules within their common fantasy scheme. ~ Kurt Andersen, #NFDB
173:Every Anarchist, as an Anarchist, would be perfectly willing to surrender his own scheme directly, if he saw that another worked better. For ~ Voltairine de Cleyre, #NFDB
174:I was dimly aware that I might be getting in over my head. But that only added to the scheme’s appeal. That it wouldn’t be easy was the whole point. ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
175:No one’s ever come up with a universal color scheme for the apocalypse, and if ours wanted to come in neon and peppermint stripe, well. That was okay. ~ Mira Grant, #NFDB
176:This bleak housing-scheme, designed by sadists who’d never had to live anywhere near it, had a heart which had shrivelled but refused to stop pumping. ~ Ian Rankin, #NFDB
177:American Medical Association [AMA] was strongly opposed to any scheme for group practice and to health insurance ... because they are un-American. ~ Morris Fishbein, #NFDB
178:Periods' are largely an invention of the historians. The poets themselves are not conscious of living in any period and refuse to conform to the scheme. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
179:I rank myself no higher in the scheme of things than a policeman - whose utility would disappear if there were no criminals. ~ Robert Cecil 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, #NFDB
180:No, Father, I've a very different idea of love. And until my dying day I shall refuse to love a scheme of things in which children are put to torture. ~ Albert Camus, #NFDB
181:This is what it looks like to rise above the circumstances and determine to hold on to the greater good in the grand scheme of things: honoring God. ~ Lysa TerKeurst, #NFDB
182:Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana is not a scheme that can be run by money. This scheme has to run with people's participation under the guidance of the MPs. ~ Narendra Modi, #NFDB
183:The honor of about 30 million votes remains with the Iranian nation and no enemy scheme would take away this dignity and honor from the Iranian nation. ~ Ali Khamenei, #NFDB
184:We simply must convince them that pishtacos are the latest and greatest diet scheme ever, and the local Californians will welcome them with open arms. ~ Gail Carriger, #NFDB
185:I like a thing simple but it must be simple through complication. Everything must come into your scheme, otherwise you cannot achieve real simplicity. ~ Gertrude Stein, #NFDB
186:It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
187:Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another. 10Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
188:Periods' are largely an invention of the historians. The poets
themselves are not conscious of living in any period and refuse to conform to the scheme. ~ C S Lewis,#NFDB
189:There is no justice. There are occasional acts of vengeance, or regret, but there's no real justice. In the natural scheme of things, it is not possible. ~ Jack McDevitt, #NFDB
190:Creating some god for one's inspirations was always a good way to avoid accusations of pride should the scheme succeed, as well as the blame if did not. ~ Margaret Atwood, #NFDB
191:If one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better; we find comfort somewhere . . . ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
192:Movies are not about the weekend that they're released, and in the grand scheme of things, that's probably the most unimportant time of a film's life. ~ Quentin Tarantino, #NFDB
193:He had learned to get along without her. Her meaning was forgotten. There was no place for her in his scheme of things, as there was no place for him in hers. ~ Jack London, #NFDB
194:It was a Machiavellian scheme. I am a Machiavelli. I'm like twelve Machiavellis, in fact."
"You are no Machiavelli. You are one gossipy little bitch. ~ Rahul Kanakia,#NFDB
195:The previous night in Tennessee, Ridgeway had called Cora and her mother a flaw in the American scheme. If two women were a flaw, what was a community? — ~ Colson Whitehead, #NFDB
196:Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is-insofar as it is thinkable at all-primitive and muddled. ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
197:In the bigger scheme of things the universe is not asking us to do something, the universe is asking us to be something. And that's a whole different thing. ~ Lucille Clifton, #NFDB
198:The other project was, a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of health, as well as brevity. ~ Jonathan Swift, #NFDB
199:Wall Street has turned the economy into a giant asset-stripping scheme, one whose purpose is to suck the last bits of meat from the carcass of the middle class. ~ Matt Taibbi, #NFDB
200:Did I see through the male tricks because I was destined to scheme that way myself? Or do girls see through the tricks, too, and just pretend not to notice? ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, #NFDB
201:I do not remember in my whole life I ever willfully misrepresented anything to anybody at any time. I have never knowingly had connection with a fraudulent scheme. ~ J P Morgan, #NFDB
202:It is much more fun to write about villains then heroes. The villains are the ones that think out the scheme, and the heroes just kind of come along for the ride. ~ D J MacHale, #NFDB
203:There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price. ~ Shirley Chisholm, #NFDB
204:Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions ~ Kurt Vonnegut,#NFDB
205:Recently though, our State Governments have discussed instigating a carbon trading scheme - the details are still to be decided - and that's an encouraging sign. ~ Peter Garrett, #NFDB
206:Viewed toward the past, this scheme of unification of past experience appears like a tree and indeed we speak of an ancestral tree. ~ Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe, #NFDB
207:A typical Ponzi scheme involves taking money from investors, then paying them off with money taken from new investors, rather than paying them from actual earnings. ~ Amy Goodman, #NFDB
208:A scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
209:Because patriarchy uses redemptive theology to legitimate itself, all believers who embrace the redeemer complex are accessory to the master scheme of domination. ~ John Lamb Lash, #NFDB
210:Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all your fellow humans everywhere in the world. ~ Margaret Laurence, #NFDB
211:A scheme of which every part promises delight, can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
212:Cold was something that was accepted, like air, clouds, and parents; a fact of Nature, and as such could not be used in any fraudulent scheme to stay out of school. ~ Jean Shepherd, #NFDB
213:In a democratic scheme, money invested in the promotion of learning gives a tenfold return to the people even as a seed sown in good soil returns a luxuriant crop. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
214:Using the WWE classification scheme of HV97 and the Reynolds/NCEP weekly global SST analysis (Reynolds and Smith 1994), I have composited the SSTA changes following the ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
215:Economists can be called the worldly philosophers for they sought to embrace in a scheme of philosophy the most worldly of man's activities-his drive for wealth. ~ Robert Heilbroner, #NFDB
216:No scheme for a change of society can be made to appear immediately palatable, except by falsehood, until society has become so desperate that it will accept any change. ~ T S Eliot, #NFDB
217:There are two things to be considered with regard to any scheme. In the first place, Is it good in itself? In the second, Can it be easily put into practice? ~ Jean Jacques Rousseau, #NFDB
218:A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
219:Humans may or may not have cosmic significance, and if they do, it will be by hitching a ride on the objective centrality of knowledge in the cosmic scheme of things. ~ David Deutsch, #NFDB
220:Then,’ Richard said, ‘I think we accept your scheme, with one important change in it. You, too, must be watched and followed.’
‘And slept with?’ Lymond said. ~ Dorothy Dunnett,#NFDB
221:The Kushner family’s desperate need for cash was turning U.S. foreign policy into an investment banking scheme dedicated to the refinancing of the Kushner family debt. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
222:White Supremacy is this nation's oldest pyramid scheme. Even those who have lost everything to the scheme are still hanging in there, waiting for their turn to cash out. ~ Ijeoma Oluo, #NFDB
223:White Supremacy is this nation’s oldest pyramid scheme. Even those who have lost everything to the scheme are still hanging in there, waiting for their turn to cash out. ~ Ijeoma Oluo, #NFDB
224:You who build these altars now to sacrifice these children , you must not do it anymore. A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a god . ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
225:An ocean of electric Energy
Formlessly formed its strange wave-particles
Constructing by their dance this solid scheme, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Godheads of the Little Life,#NFDB
226:I realized that being present for loved ones who are dying or aging is one of the greatest honors and gifts in my life. We are quite small in the big scheme of things. ~ Amber Valletta, #NFDB
227:It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get. ~ Confucius, #NFDB
228:We do not have an ecological crisis. The ecosphere has a human crisis. Our 'story' about our place in the scheme of things has somehow gone awry in the industrial age. ~ William E Rees, #NFDB
229:But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
230:Too much vigor in the beginning of an undertaking often intercepts and prevents the steadiness and perseverance always necessary in the conduct of a complicated scheme. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
231:Whenever we attempt to mend the scheme of Providence and to interfere in the Government of the world, we had need be very circumspect lest we do more harm than good. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
232:Arthur Young's Reflexive Universe - fascinating but too schematic to fit into my scheme. The most I could hope for was a sense of the vocabulary and some possible images. ~ James Merrill, #NFDB
233:But the characteristic that is truly special about our species...[is] our ability to model our world and understand both it and where we fit into its overall scheme.... ~ Arthur C Clarke, #NFDB
234:The virtue of the civil partnerships scheme lay in the attempt to treat the needs of gay and lesbian couples as what they are, not to bundle them into some other category. ~ John Sentamu, #NFDB
235:A scheme is unjust when the higher expectations, one or more of them, are excessive. If these expectations were decreased, the situation of the less favored would be improved. ~ John Rawls, #NFDB
236:Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the 'hidden' confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. ~ Alan Greenspan, #NFDB
237:If we had failed to pursue the facts as far as they led, we would have denied the public any knowledge of an unprecedented scheme of political surveillance and sabotage. ~ Katharine Graham, #NFDB
238:I mean, really, whatever you woke up worrying about this morning, get over it. How important in the greater scheme of things can it possibly be? Make your peace and move on. ~ Ken Robinson, #NFDB
239:No one has ever won the war. Good opposes evil the way the summer sun opposes winter cold, the way light opposes darkness. They are built into the eternal scheme of Nature. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
240:I make my patients feel like they're still part of life, part of some grand nutty scheme instead of alone with their diseases. With me, they still feel part of the human race. ~ Samuel Shem, #NFDB
241:I’m a million cameras, even when I’m sleeping, clicking, clicking, every second something is growing and changing. We are little arrogant flashes in a grand magnificent scheme. ~ Max Porter, #NFDB
242:The fundamental purpose of a novel like Count Julian is to achieve the unity of object and means of representation, the fusion of treason as scheme and treason as language. ~ Juan Goytisolo, #NFDB
243:The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
244:You know, some things don’t matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person’s heart—now, that matters. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
245:In fact, in the grand scheme of things, everyone was equally useless. That`s what he was saying, and it infuriated Citra, because on a certain level, she knew he was right. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
246:I’ve just become a Socialist. It’s a great scheme. You ought to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by collaring all you can and sitting on it. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
247:What Brother Pepe saw in Edward Bonshaw was a man who looked like he belonged—like a man who had never felt at home, but who’d suddenly found his place in the scheme of things. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
248:If they had connived a scheme, and Christ had not been raised from the dead, where would have been the hardest place on the face of the earth to convince anyone? In Jerusalem. ~ Josh McDowell, #NFDB
249:I'm using my own person in pieces, but I'm trying to turn my person into a nonperson in the sense of a person without will, without volition. I'm subjecting myself to a scheme. ~ Vito Acconci, #NFDB
250:I think you're failing to focus on the big picture."
"It's only when one focuses on the small picture," James said, "that the full horror of this scheme becomes apparent. ~ Anthony Capella,#NFDB
251:Ultimately, when you come up with a classification scheme that is collectively exhaustive and mutually exclusive, then the theory can become what Kuhn called a paradigm. ~ Clayton Christensen, #NFDB
252:If the fresh facts come to our knowledge all fit themselves into the scheme, then our hypothesis may gradually become a solution. Sherlock Holmes speaking with Dr. Watson. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
253:Every kiss, every touch, was a promise that we both knew, I was his and he was mine, and no conspiracy or scheme of kingdoms had a fraction of the power that surged between us. ~ Mary E Pearson, #NFDB
254:The human spirit can be indomitable and it is this rare quality that is not at all to be expected that makes survivors of us all, the human race in the grand scheme of things. ~ Martha Gellhorn, #NFDB
255:You know, some things don't matter that much...Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart - now, that matters. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
256:Every age has its peculiar folly: Some scheme, project, or fantasy into which it plunges, spurred on by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the force of imitation. ~ Charles Mackay, #NFDB
257:Humans live best when each has his place to stand, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things and what he may achieve. Destroy the place and you destroy the person. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
258:There was a huge movement that led up to [gay marriage legilization], and I played a small role in the great scheme of things. But it was really a privilege to get to do it. ~ Donald Verrilli Jr, #NFDB
259:In my paper the fact the XY was not equal to YX was very disagreeable to me. I felt this was the only point of difficulty in the whole scheme...and I was not able to solve it. ~ Werner Heisenberg, #NFDB
260:It makes you love vividly, work intensely, and realize that, in the scheme of things, you really don't have time to sit on the sofa in your undies watching Homes Under the Hammer. ~ Caitlin Moran, #NFDB
261:Sometimes, people forget my record of fiscal conservatism on major issues in the state legislature. The greatest example is my voting against the pension borrowing scheme in 1997. ~ Leonard Lance, #NFDB
262:China reminds me most of America at its own moment of transformation—the period that Mark Twain and Charles Warner named the Gilded Age, when “every man has his dream, his pet scheme. ~ Evan Osnos, #NFDB
263:In order to understand how the new holographic paradigm fits into the overall scheme of things, it is necessary to have an overall scheme of things to begin with. ~ Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye, p. 126, #NFDB
264:You are mistaken, your ladyship, if you suppose I am seriously considering your scheme. For you to entertain such a notion indicates that you have willfully misunderstood my character. ~ P O Dixon, #NFDB
265:I like the idea of feeling small. Sometimes life can seem bigger than you, you know? But knowing you're less than a speck in the whole scheme of things takes the pressure off, sort of. ~ Anna Banks, #NFDB
266:Of all the strands in Operation Fortitude, none was quite so bizarre, so wholly unlikely, as the great pigeon double cross, the first and only avian deception scheme ever attempted. ~ Ben Macintyre, #NFDB
267:The vastness of possibilities in space reminded me that while my life felt important, it was tiny in the scheme of things. Human civilization was only a blink on the radar of time. ~ Michelle Madow, #NFDB
268:Things change all the time; but how much of it is real? Does any choice any of us ever makes, no matter how important it seems, really cause a ripple in the greater scheme of things? ~ Joan D Vinge, #NFDB
269:I realize thirty is just a number, that you're only as old as you feel and all that. I also realize that in the grand scheme of things, thirty is still young. But it's not that young. ~ Emily Giffin, #NFDB
270:Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! ~ Omar Khayy m,#NFDB
271:Ah, Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits — and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! ~ Omar Khayy m,#NFDB
272:In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might. ~ Winston Churchill, #NFDB
273:Inherited aptitudes and traits of temperament count for quite as much as length of habituation in deciding what range of habits will come to dominate any individual's scheme of life. ~ Thorstein Veblen, #NFDB
274:We all know the secret of dieting—eat better, eat less, exercise more—it’s the application that’s challenging. I had to create a scheme to put happiness ideas into practice in my life. ~ Gretchen Rubin, #NFDB
275:Congress, we have held, does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions - it does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouse-holes. ~ Antonin Scalia, #NFDB
276:In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might. ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
277:One thing to remember is that the vast majority of decisions are not lifelong ones. They may seem pressing in the moment, but in the grand scheme of things, most are just that: a moment. ~ Pam Laricchia, #NFDB
278:Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things. ~ Pema Chodron, #NFDB
279:liberalism and democracy, with all of their limitations, are what remains after every utopia and extremist scheme based on blood and territory has been exposed and shattered by reality. ~ Robert D Kaplan, #NFDB
280:Langley would never complete his newspaper project. I knew that and I'm sure he knew it as well. It was a crazy foolish hand-rubbing scheme that kept his mind in the mood he liked to be in. ~ E L Doctorow, #NFDB
281:A celebrated north country apostle, who, after Calvin had damned ninety-nine in a hundred of mankind, had contrived a scheme for damning ninety-nine in a hundred of the followers of Calvin. ~ William Godwin, #NFDB
282:Development seems to have become the agenda only of government. It is seen as a scheme. That should not be the case. Development should be everyone`s agenda. It should be a people's movement. ~ Narendra Modi, #NFDB
283:We walk this planet for such a short time. In the overall scheme of things, our lives are mere blips on the canvas of eternity. So have the wisdom to enjoy the journey and savor the process. ~ Robin S Sharma, #NFDB
284:When you think about it, in the big scheme of things, our time together is like a dash of spice in a big cosmic soup--important for richness of flavor, but still, not quite the main ingredient. ~ Alyson Noel, #NFDB
285:For every clever person who goes to the trouble of creating an incentive scheme, there is an army of people, clever and otherwise, who will inevitably spend even more time trying to beat it. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
286:Reality isn't a vast, fixed scheme trapping you without choice. At any moment you have the choice to break out of what is really trapping you-your automatic reactions dredged up from the past. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
287:Like racism, misogyny can never be adequately addressed by its victims alone. The men who get it also understand that feminism is not a scheme to deprive men but a campaign to liberate us all. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
288:The notion of ever more old people needing ever more young people, who will in turn grow old and need even more young people, and so on ad infinitum, is an obvious ecological Ponzi scheme. ~ David Attenborough, #NFDB
289:We have discovered that the scheme of 'outlawing war' has made war more like an outlaw without making it less frequent and that to banish the knight does not alleviate the suffering of the peasant. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
290:I agree that we must expand opportunities for retirement saving, but we must not undermine this worthy effort with a flawed privatization scheme that takes the 'security' out of Social Security. ~ Mary Landrieu, #NFDB
291:We are the beasts that scheme, the predators that predict. We live by the lie, not by the truth; we study the truth only to shape more convincing lies that will bend other people to our will. ~ Orson Scott Card, #NFDB
292:Don’t trust anyone who promises you a new life. Pick-up artists, lifestyle gurus, pyramid-scheme face cream evangelists, Weight Watchers coaches: These people make their living off of your failures. ~ Lindy West, #NFDB
293:It’s not too wild a guess that, of all living creatures, probably not more than one in ten million is a human being. A person is a biological rarity. He is important in God’s scheme of things. ~ David J Schwartz, #NFDB
294:no scheme of self-government, however benevolently or generously it may be bestowed upon us, will ever make us a self-governing nation, if we have no respect for the languages our mothers speak. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
295:But seriously, I think overall in the scheme of things winning an Emmy is not important. Let's get our priorities straight. I think we all know what's really important in life - winning an Oscar. ~ Ellen DeGeneres, #NFDB
296:He had nothing to do with the sales end of the business—because he had no charm. Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
297:I should live my life on bended knee
If I can't control my destiny
You've gotta have a scheme
You've gotta have a plan
In the world of today, for tomorrow's man
- No Control ~ David Bowie,#NFDB
298:There is no "grand scheme of things." That's just a bullshit disguise for cowards. The present has no right to judge the past. Or to act in order to win the future's approval.' (Todd, the marine) ~ Arthur Phillips, #NFDB
299:We may not be able to stop satan from doing his business, but we can scheme to make his business to yield a loss! All things... I mean "all", "all things", "everything" is working for our good! ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
300:I think many people are terribly afraid of being demoted by the Darwinian scheme from the role of authors and creators in their own right into being just places where things happen in the universe. ~ Daniel Dennett, #NFDB
301:Our particular causality scheme has brought us to a modest and rudimentary, although in many respects heroic, series of explorations. But it is far inferior to what might have been, and may one day be. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
302:Berkeley , Hume, Kant , Fichte , Hegel , James , Bergson all are united in one earnest attempt, the attempt to reinstate man with his high spiritual claims in a place of importance in the cosmic scheme. ~ David Hume, #NFDB
303:Our heart beats in unified vindication. One pulse . . . one purpose. To give us our vengeance. To at last reap the rewards of the scheme that began so long ago with a curious little girl named Alice. To ~ A G Howard, #NFDB
304:A Day never passes without some ardent reformer or group of reformers suggesting some new government intervention, some new statist scheme to fill some alleged 'need' or relieve some alleged distress. ~ Henry Hazlitt, #NFDB
305:Here's a question I still can't answer: Did I see through the male tricks because I was destined to scheme that way myself? Or do girls see through the tricks, too, and just pretend not to notice? ~ Jeffrey Eugenides, #NFDB
306:Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve treated our world like it was a hotel room and we were rock stars. But we aren’t rock stars. In the scheme of evolutionary forces, we are a weak, fragile species. ~ Blake Crouch, #NFDB
307:They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers. ~ Barbara Kingsolver, #NFDB
308:I haven't got a heart: only the former site of one, with a monument there to say that it has been removed and the area it occupied turned into a public garden, in pursuance of the slum-clearance scheme. ~ T E Lawrence, #NFDB
309:suggestion than hers. If we are to make practical application of the Montessori scheme we must not neglect to consider the modifications of it which differing social conditions may render necessary. ~ Maria Montessori, #NFDB
310:There are very few men and women in whom a Universalist feeling is altogether lacking; its prevalence suggests that it must be part of our inborn nature and have a place in Nature's scheme of evolution. ~ Arthur Keith, #NFDB
311:All of which is mostly bullshit. The reality is that it's just like any other Ponzi scheme: the guys at the top are doing pretty well, but the guys on the bottom are doing Amway pitches in trailer parks. ~ Tod Goldberg, #NFDB
312:I want to ensure and the Government wants to ensure that Australia is well prepared to tackle dangerous climate change with a scheme which is both responsible and which meets our international commitments. ~ Wayne Swan, #NFDB
313:Mr Earbrass escaped from Messrs Scuffle and Dustcough, who were most anxious to go into all the ramifications of a scheme for having his novels translated into Urdu, and went to call on a distant cousin. ~ Edward Gorey, #NFDB
314:Typically, if you reward something, you get more of it. You punish something, you get less of it. And our businesses have been built for the last 150 years very much on that kind of motivational scheme. ~ Daniel H Pink, #NFDB
315:All part of an intricate scheme I formulated long ago.” Darla laughed. “In other words, you’re making this up as you go.” “I prefer to think I’m acting with situational awareness in a fluid event dynamic. ~ Frank Tuttle, #NFDB
316:Henchard, like all his kind, was superstitious, and he could not help thinking that the concatenation of events this evening had produced was the scheme of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
317:It was always intended, though, that where Australian workers could negotiate better benefits as well with their employer, that those benefits come in in addition to the existing paid parental leave scheme. ~ Chris Bowen, #NFDB
318:Like an old person, the Old Soul is easily tired by pressure, tension and conflict. To them, the matters of everyday life are unsurprising, commonplace and inconsequential in the greater scheme of things. ~ Aletheia Luna, #NFDB
319:The system of positional notation we use derives from the Hindus; however, the same scheme was used two milleniums earlier by the Babylonians, but to a more limited extent because they did not have a zero. ~ Morris Kline, #NFDB
320:I am often asked if Network Marketing is a Pyramid Scheme. My reply is that corporations really are pyramid schemes. A corporation has only one person at the top, generally the CEO, and everyone else below. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
321:I cannot tell you ... how to be rich. But I can tell you how to feel rich, which is far better, let me tell you firsthand, than being rich. Be grateful... It is the only totally reliable get rich quick scheme. ~ Ben Stein, #NFDB
322:Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an article for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
323:no scheme of self-government, however benevolently or generously it may be bestowed upon us, will ever make us a self-governing nation, if we have no respect for the languages our mothers speak. FOOTNOTE: ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
324:The most temptation I'd experienced had been with Tomas, the Senate's spy who had been feeding off me without permission, and Mircea, who was probably plotting some nefarious scheme. I have no taste in men. ~ Karen Chance, #NFDB
325:Many individuals and organization units contribute to every large decision, and the very problem of centralization and decentralization is a problem of arranging the complex system into an effective scheme. ~ Herbert Simon, #NFDB
326:To insist on one's place in the scheme of things and to live up to that place.To empower others in their reaching for some place in the scheme of things.To do these things is to make fairy tales come true. ~ Robert Fulghum, #NFDB
327:We realise our existence is confined to our being. Our demise makes not a whit difference to the world around us, nor to the scheme of things.
We come to our senses; we understand our utter insignificance. ~ Umera Ahmed,#NFDB
328:A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
329:For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe. Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
330:In the end, of course, Stoicism is simply another path some people can try out in order to develop a more or less coherent view of the world, of who they are, and of how they fit in the broader scheme of things. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
331:We have branded Jesus beyond recognition. Church has become a business. Jesus is our marketing scheme. We create bookstores, T-shirts, bracelets, bumper stickers, and board games all in the name of Jesus. ~ Jefferson Bethke, #NFDB
332:I don't know my place in the bigger scheme of things, but I do know I'm here on this earth for a reason, and I never make the mistake of thinking that what I do is trivial. I trust in myself. I am important. ~ Christina Dodd, #NFDB
333:I feel Man would be wise to work at correcting his own mistakes instead of waiting for intervention from on high, and should replace faith in an unknowable divine plan with a well-thought-out scheme of his own. ~ Mark Hodder, #NFDB
334:The adoration of Christ had been a part of the man's passionate nature for a long time past. But the imitation of Christ, as a sort of plan or ordered scheme of life, in that sense may be said to begin here. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
335:Glass’s nature was to fret. He was intensely agitated by the pressure from bankers for a centralized scheme and worried that bankers had gotten to Wilson (a suspicion, of course, that was entirely correct). ~ Roger Lowenstein, #NFDB
336:Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
337:I began to write what I called 'rhythms' ie unrhymed pieces with no formal metrical scheme where the rhythm was created by a kind if inner chant... Later I was told I was writing 'free verse' or Vers libre. ~ Richard Aldington, #NFDB
338:On the other hand, constant hysteria did have one unintended political virtue. If every new event canceled out every other event, like some wacky news-cycle pyramid scheme, then you always survived another day. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
339:The music that I make is pretty sincere; it's from my heart and I love it, and what just happened is more people have started to connect with my heart, and I haven't followed some kind of marketing scheme. ~ Esperanza Spalding, #NFDB
340:Before Bernays scheme was launched, engagement and wedding rings were just a gold band, but using his techniques of social conditioning he was able to brainwash men and women into believing that a large diamond ring ~ Mark Dice, #NFDB
341:Opponents of the Highest they have come
Out of their world of soulless thought and power
To serve by enmity the cosmic scheme. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness,#NFDB
342:People work hard and save hard to own a car. They do not want to be told that they cannot drive it by a Deputy Prime Minister whose idea of a park and ride scheme is to park one Jaguar and drive away in another. ~ William Hague, #NFDB
343:Faith in the possibilities of continued and rigorous inquiry does not limit access to truth to any channel or scheme of things. It does not first say that truth is universal and then add there is but one road to it. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
344:Now I'm having to live with sales of around 50,000 per album - but I'm pretty content with my place in the general scheme of things, even if it's meant I don't drive a fancy car and can't afford grand vacations. ~ David Knopfler, #NFDB
345:Generosity is self-existing openness, complete openness. You are no longer subject to cultivating your own scheme or project. And the best way to open yourself up is to make friends with yourself and with others. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
346:I have achieved my seventy years in the usual way: by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else... I will offer here, as a sound maxim, this: That we can't reach old age by another man's road. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
347:It is a certainty that Herbalife is a pyramid scheme. We believe it's harming a population of low-income, principally Hispanic people in the U.S. to benefit a handful of super wealthy people at the top of the pyramid. ~ Bill Ackman, #NFDB
348:You don’t expect your readers to go, “Ah this book’s not just a fine work of literary whatshisname, but also a get-rich-quick scheme,” to be followed shortly by a go-to-prison-quick scheme, which I believe he did. Are ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
349:Devlin: Scarlett works in mysterious ways. Gibson: You can do better than that, McCallister. Devlin: Your sister amazes and terrifies me. I fully support whatever scheme she’s concocted. Bowie: Amen. Me: I hate you all. ~ Lucy Score, #NFDB
350:I plan years in advance, but I like to leave enough space in the narrative scheme to change things, because I always get my best ideas the closer I come to the end of a project, after I've lived with it for a while. ~ Grant Morrison, #NFDB
351:Lestat,’ she said, ‘it is the larger scheme which means nothing.’ … ‘It is the small act which means all. Of course sickness and suffering will continue after I’m gone. But what’s important is that I have done all I can. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
352:Note to aspiring writers: This is actually not that many rejections in the grand scheme of things. I know published writers whose rejection count is in the triple digits. Never give up. Never, never, never give up. ~ Jennifer Weiner, #NFDB
353:The Newtonian scheme became an illusion of determinism in a tempestuous world of human actions. Economists became preoccupied with mechanical models of markets and uninterested in the willful people who inhabit them. ~ George Gilder, #NFDB
354:With little going for me other than unstoppable eagerness, a sense of total commitment, and a stubborn refusal to give up on what felt like a divinely ordained scheme, I cast myself upon the waters of the world’s oceans. ~ Roz Savage, #NFDB
355:But the world had its layers. To the simple it offered simplicity. To the wise it offered profundity. And the only measure of courage worth acknowledging was found in accepting where one stood in that scheme – in hard, ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
356:I have drunk the Infinite like a giant's wine. Time is my drama or my pageant dream.Now are my illumined cells joy's flaming scheme And changed my thrilled and branching nerves to fine.(Collected Poems ~ Transformation)#SriAurobindo, #NFDB
357:Perhaps the universe should have deigned to provide such warnings, but scythes were no more supernatural than tax collectors in the grand scheme of things. They showed up, did their unpleasant business, and were gone. ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
358:Three years is a long time.” “It is to us. But in the scheme of things—not at all. I mean,” said Andy reasonably, “look at some poor dumb bunny like Sabine Ingersoll or that idiot James Villiers. Forrest fucking Longstreet. ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
359:I couldn’t talk. Why couldn’t I…
The room was tipping over now.
I heard muffled voices.
Then it was all black again.
I fainted.
In the grand scheme of things, it was embarrassing, but survivable. ~ Tijan,#NFDB
360:Most people might think I’d mind that I’m no longer unique, no longer the sole warden of this strange gift. Instead I feel free. In the grand scheme, it matters less what I do now, and so, conversely, my choices matter more. ~ Ann Aguirre, #NFDB
361:When I go back to the core of my childhood, my cousin Lucy seems always to be in the peripheral vision of my memories. She is off to one side, always off to one side, with a book, with a scheme or a project or an enterprise. ~ Martin Amis, #NFDB
362:Cupping his face in her hands, she looked into eyes that had seen thousands of sunrises before she was even a glimmer in the scheme of the universe. "But you have an advantage," she whispered. "You're a little bit human now. ~ Nalini Singh, #NFDB
363:The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once you learn Lisp you will see what is missing in most other languages. ~ Richard Stallman, #NFDB
364:You won't mind my calling you Comrade, will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by collaring all you can and sitting on it. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
365:Another difficulty with the reservation scheme was that it reinforced the popular association of Christianity with foreign imperialism, and thus with enmity to the nationalism that was rising in the early twentieth century. ~ Philip Jenkins, #NFDB
366:The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once you learn Lisp you will see what is missing in most other languages. ~ Richard Stallman, #NFDB
367:When any welfare scheme is being proposed, its political sponsors always dwell on what a generous and compassionate government should pay to Paul; they neglect to mention that this additional money must be seized from Peter. ~ Henry Hazlitt, #NFDB
368:We are all bound to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain which restrains without enslaving us. The most wonderful aspect of the universal scheme of things is the action of free beings under divine guidance. ~ Joseph de Maistre, #NFDB
369:For that world out there we just saw. For humanity. What’s it been, about fifteen thousand people, and a couple hundred years? In the big scheme of things it’s not that many. And then we have a new world to live on.” “If ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
370:I stuck with my education, you know, I really did that for my grandma. It meant a lot to her that I finished school and in the grand scheme of things it was her who had saved and helped provide for me this opportunity to go to school. ~ G Eazy, #NFDB
371:My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them. ~ Abraham Lincoln, #NFDB
372:Our job as actors, especially in front of a camera, is almost like textile artists. We spend so much time getting the right texture of yarn, and working out the color scheme, and binding off the weave, and making it just right. ~ Anthony Heald, #NFDB
373:They say you forget your troubles on a trout stream, but that's not quite it. What happens is that you begin to see where your troubles fit into the grand scheme of things, and suddenly they're just not such a big deal anymore. ~ John Gierach, #NFDB
374:If “Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted,” then there is no purpose or grand cosmic scheme to life beyond what we choose to impose or believe. To some this is cynicism. For the Chaos Magician, it is a breath of dizzying freedom. ~ Phil Hine, #NFDB
375:The scheme had been, if I remember, that after lunch I should go off and caddy for Honoria on a shopping tour down Regent Street; but when she got up and started collecting me and the rest of her things, Aunt Agatha stopped her. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
376:Don't throw any of yourself away. Don't worry about a grand scheme or unified vision for your work. Don't worry about unity--what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day you'll look back and it will all make sense. ~ Austin Kleon, #NFDB
377:Don’t throw any of yourself away. Don’t worry about a grand scheme or unified vision for your work. Don’t worry about unity—what unifies your work is the fact that you made it. One day, you’ll look back and it will all make sense. ~ Austin Kleon, #NFDB
378:Few Indians or castes fought to forge a new nation called Mexico; such a scheme would have made little sense, and held little interest, for them. They fought in the hope that their lot in life might in some way improve. The ~ Timothy J Henderson, #NFDB
379:If you, however, separate reason and faith so that it's purely a rationalistic scheme, it will end in violence. If a pure faith scheme - sometimes called the fundamentalist scheme in modern parlance - you'll end in violence too. ~ Francis George, #NFDB
380:They are subject to envy, and through envy to oppression. On the present scheme it is impossible to divine what advantage they derive from the aristocratic preference upon which the unequal representation of the masses is founded. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
381:My adult mind says that the really interesting bit of LOTR must have been what happened afterwards—the troubles of a war-ravaged continent, the Marshall Aid scheme for Mordor, the shift in political power, the democratization of Minas ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
382:My way of remaining French was the financing scheme I used for Quest for Fire, with Fox funds, since it started as a 100% American production. The film was not in French and yet was French in style, reflecting my personality. ~ Jean Jacques Annaud, #NFDB
383:The economy is a ponzi scheme. People are working harder than they ever have for less wages, but we have so many bobbles because manufacturing has come up so quickly over the past hundred years that people have the illusion of wealth. ~ Alex Jones, #NFDB
384:Understanding and not understanding are all in the scheme of ignorance, just a realm of the mind. This is not learning. This is your birthright. You cannot study to be what you are. You do not need to understand in order to breathe. ~ H W L Poonja, #NFDB
385:What’s life in this nation? Collect emptiness in a household of cornflakes. Transient fuel gobbles attention, the television aches, the truth walks. Scheme worms welcome your corpse, trap clicks and you’re in heaven, bored rigid
~ Steve Aylett,#NFDB
386:The full retirement age is 67 and the lifespan is 80, so when they first conceived Social Security, they didn't think they were going to be paying benefits for 13-15 years. That's one of the reasons why this pyramid scheme isn't working. ~ Joe Heck, #NFDB
387:A cosmic Thought spreads out its vastitudes;
Its smallest parts are here philosophies
Challenging with their detailed immensity,
Each figuring an omniscient scheme of things. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real,#NFDB
388:As modern tyrannies are swept away (and every honest heart delights), the quick-thinking servants of the world’s great powers still proffer plans to intervene, to jostle, scheme and sponsor factions that they barely understand. ~ Catherine Merridale, #NFDB
389:he recognized Donald Trump’s picture on the jacket and assumed it was a get-rich-quick scheme. Obviously, Jake Berman hadn’t taken the man’s advice. Though, considering Berman had lost his job and declared bankruptcy, maybe he had. ~ Karin Slaughter, #NFDB
390:That moment was the first time I heard the phrase Project Hollywood. I didn’t think much about it at the time. I figured it would end up like Project Bliss: another stillborn scheme consigned to the trashcan of mental masturbation. “I ~ Neil Strauss, #NFDB
391:There are no adequate substitutes for father, mother, and children bound together in a loving commitment to nurture and protect. No government, no matter how well-intentioned, can take the place of the family in the scheme of things. ~ Gerald R Ford, #NFDB
392:What was at all events not permanently hidden from him was a truth much less invidious about his years of darkness. It was the strange scheme of things again: the years of darkness had been needed to render possible the years of light. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
393:One should remain as a witness to whatever happens, adopting the attitude, 'Let whatever strange things that happens happen, let us see!' This should be one's practice. Nothing happens by accident in the divine scheme of things. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi, #NFDB
394:[I]f one wants to imagine consciousness in a scheme, one could say that it is a field of awareness with the ego complex as the regulating center. As soon as I say, “I know,” something has entered the field of my consciousness. ~ Marie-Louise von Franz, #NFDB
395:For a split second I felt as though she was nobody special in the larger scheme of my life. She was just some girl who had tied me to her leg to help her sink when she jumped off the bridge. Then I blinked and was in love with her again. ~ Miranda July, #NFDB
396:...Erich Fromm wondered why most people did not become insane in the face of the existential contradiction between a symbolic self, that seems to give man infinite worth in a timeless scheme of things, and a body that is worth about 98¢. ~ Ernest Becker, #NFDB
397:The bottom line was that the scheme was a measured risk, with a probability that the RBI would lose money, a certainty that the bankers would make money, but also a reasonable chance that the country would be significantly better off. ~ Raghuram G Rajan, #NFDB
398:Using some economic issues to make one group of people, regardless of race or religion, the scapegoat for all the problems of the country is just the stupidest, and yet, the most creative propaganda scheme that you can come up with. ~ Immortal Technique, #NFDB
399:In the grand scheme of stories, he was nothing, almost an unmentionable, for he was not an odd character or an interesting one. He was a thread, one of many, without which the tapestry would crumble, the yarn fray, and the tale unravel. ~ Rabih Alameddine, #NFDB
400:A conceptual scheme is never discarded merely because of a few stubborn facts with which it cannot be reconciled; a conceptual scheme is either modified or replaced by a better one, never abandoned with nothing left to take its place. ~ James Bryant Conant, #NFDB
401:No people can more exactly interpret the inmost meaning of the present situation in Ireland than the American Negro. The scheme is simple. You knock a man down and then have him arrested for assault. You kill a man and then hang the corpse. ~ W E B Du Bois, #NFDB
402:Somewhere in the scheme of things there can be room for everyone to live creatively. This involves retaining something personal, perhaps secret, that is unmistakably yourself. If nothing else, try breathing, something no one can do for you. ~ D W Winnicott, #NFDB
403:Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme These woes of mine fulfil, Here firm I rest; they must be best, Because they are Thy will! Then all I want—O do Thou grant This one request of mine!— Since to enjoy Thou dost deny, Assist me to resign. ~ Robert Burns, #NFDB
404:The opportunity that is unique [to our] time is what inspires me to do everything I can to move things forward. This is the first time that we have the capacity to understand our place in the greater scheme of things to the extent that we do. ~ Sylvia Earle, #NFDB
405:When it came to the human race, there was no more left to learn. Nothing about our own existence to decipher. Which meant that no one person was important than any other. In fact in the ground scheme of things, everyone was equally useless ~ Neal Shusterman, #NFDB
406:In a scheme of policy which is devised for a nation, we should not limit our views to its operation during a single year, or even for a short term of years. We should look at its operation for a considerable time, and in war as well as in peace. ~ Henry Clay, #NFDB
407:Nothing in our politics is any longer driven or designed by individual humans who have a name and a face; we have sunk from theism into impersonal and depersonalizing deism, a scheme of rule by alien and implacable abstract metaphysical forces. ~ Kenny Smith, #NFDB
408:SOMETIMES, WHEN SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS HAPPENING, I TRY MY DAMNEDEST TO CONCENTRATE ON THE MOST INCONSEQUENTIAL, UNRELATED DETAIL READILY AVAILABLE TO ME. A DETAIL THAT, IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS, HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SITUATION AT HAND. ~ Kim Holden, #NFDB
409:That's why people loved stories so, I realized in that instant, because they found in them what was missing from their own lives, the things they knew, no matter how much or how hard they might hope and dream and scheme, they would never have. ~ Brandy Purdy, #NFDB
410:Two boys, both in varsity football, kissing under the bleachers, muscular silhouettes merging against the deep purple sky. I wasn’t the only one with a secret. In the grand scheme of things, my secret wasn’t even as dangerous as some of theirs. ~ Leah Raeder, #NFDB
411:Helen?" I asked. "Andrew! Are you okay? What happened?" "Nothing, this whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. They actually wanted to try to interest us in a multi-level marketing scheme, but they got mixed up and tried to kill us instead. ~ Jeff Strand, #NFDB
412:In this method, you don’t ask, What do I want from life? You ask a different set of questions: What does life want from me? What are my circumstances calling me to do? In this scheme of things we don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life. ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
413:All through my life I never did believe in human measurement. Numbers, time, inches, feet. All are just ploys for cutting nature down to size. I know the grand scheme of the world is beyond our brains to fathom, so I don't try, just let it in. ~ Louise Erdrich, #NFDB
414:From whatever angle he viewed their dawning intimacy, he could not see it as part of her scheme of life; and to be the unforeseen element in a career so accurately planned was stimulating even to a man who had renounced sentimental experiments. ~ Edith Wharton, #NFDB
415:If Lisp is a 'programmable programming language,' then Scheme is an assemble-it-at-home kit for making yourself a programmable programming language. JavaScript does not have this quality AT ALL.
~ ?, http://raganwald.com/2013/07/19/javascript-is-a-lisp.html,#NFDB
416:I had no big plan to become a curator, no great scheme to work my way up a ladder. I was just trying to pass the time. I thought if I did normal things - held down a job, for example - I could starve off the part of me that hated everything. ~ Ottessa Moshfegh, #NFDB
417:I regard it as the irresistible effect of the Copernican astronomy to have made the theological scheme of redemption absolutely incredible ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, Quoted in Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Emerson, the Mind On Fire (Univ. of Calif Press 1995), p. 124, #NFDB
418:Life is a voyage, and we are all sailing under sealed orders. We plan, plot, scheme and arrange, and some fine day Fate steps in and our dreams are tossed into the yeasty deep. We grin and bear it--anyway we bear it: it is the only thing to do. ~ Elbert Hubbard, #NFDB
419:The private equity world is a relatively small one. There are currently probably a few thousand professional jobs worldwide. In private equity, that's probably about all there is. So in the scheme of things, the firms are all relatively small. ~ David Bonderman, #NFDB
420:A termination of one's life is necessary in the scheme of things to provide a logical reason for unselfishness. . . . The fact that there is an end to one's life compels one to take an interest in things that will continue to live after one is dead. ~ Paul Dirac, #NFDB
421:He had no settled plan of life, nor looked forward at all, but merely lived from day to day. Yet he read a great deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of study, as chance threw books in his way, and inclination directed him through them. ~ James Boswell, #NFDB
422:They were actually sitting at a table, like two old friends, not like the hunter
and the hunted. And it wasn't especially awkward. They were comfortable together,
despite the fact that she'd hit him with a bus. Maybe his scheme would work. ~ Janet Evanovich,#NFDB
423:Ask Robespierre. Ask the man with the conscience which is more important, your friend or your country— ask him how he weighs an individual in the scheme of things. Ask him which comes first, his old pals or his new principles. You ask him, Camille. ~ Hilary Mantel, #NFDB
424:The most powerful programming language is Lisp. If you don't know Lisp (or its variant, Scheme), you don't appreciate what a powerful language is. Once you learn Lisp you will see what is missing in most other languages. ~ Richard Stallman, [How I do my computing], #NFDB
425:Nietzsche mourns the loss of “man’s belief in his dignity, his uniqueness, his irreplace-ability in the scheme of existence.” For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
426:nor any special purpose, for a Divinity. Mankind had made it all up out of whole cloth because, at bottom, everyone was afraid of the dark, afraid of ultimate extinction, afraid to face the fact that individual lives meant nothing in the grand scheme ~ Robert Masello, #NFDB
427:Remember to remember your power - everything you've learned with these steps to financial freedom - and put it all into practice everyday, because in the grand scheme of life, you'll never really know how things are meant to turn out until they turn out. ~ Suze Orman, #NFDB
428:Humans live best when each has his own place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things. Destroy the place and destroy the person. You and I, Thufir, of all those who love the Duke, are most ideally situated to destroy the other’s place. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
429:Mankind had made it all up out of whole cloth because, at bottom, everyone was afraid of the dark, afraid of ultimate extinction, afraid to face the fact that individual lives meant nothing in the grand scheme of a vast and utterly indifferent cosmos. ~ Robert Masello, #NFDB
430:My purpose for living, my role in this great scheme was clear to me from the first: to fall down, to worship, to praise, to wait upon the word of El."
"That sounds really boring."
"Really? Imagine the bliss of fulfilling one's created purpose. ~ Tosca Lee,#NFDB
431:Well, it was most likely too late; there would not be time for me to flagellate myself for every dishonorable deed in that list, nor any chance to make good the harms I’d done. Minor harms, to be sure, in the scheme of things; but large enough to regret. ~ Clive Barker, #NFDB
432:Barb did. Ms. Matchmaker.” Jules rolled her eyes, twirling a finger around her ear. “Probably thought it could be our song. Yours and mine. If… you know, if her crazy scheme worked. Then we’d have this story to tell our grandkids someday or something…” “Our ~ Selena Kitt, #NFDB
433:We are made for blood. Rough hands. Dirty hearts. We are lesser creatures in the grand scheme of things, but without us men of war, no one except those of Lykos would hear Eo’s song. Without our rough hands, the dreams of the pure hearts would never be built. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
434:It fit into my scheme of things for many reasons. At the time it was true that male dancers were looked down upon, and it was true that a lot of the male dancers were effeminate. But what I was really trying to do was develop something that would be American. ~ Gene Kelly, #NFDB
435:There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
436:It's no wonder the White House is delaying release of the latest dismal budget figures. It's not just that they are grossly more dismal than the projections. It's that they will undercut already-waning public support for Obama's socialized medicine scheme. ~ David Limbaugh, #NFDB
437:He was a long, stripy policeman, who flowed out of his uniform at odd spots, as if Nature, setting out to make a constable, had had a good deal of material left over which she had not liked to throw away but hardly seemed able to fit into the general scheme. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
438:Over the years I've never written or made movies about political themes 'cause while they do have current critical importance, in the large, large scheme of things, only the big questions matter and the answers to those big questions are very, very depressing. ~ Woody Allen, #NFDB
439:the way bubbles work is structurally identical to Ponzi schemes—what a coincidence!—and indeed it’s another amazing coincidence how much the entire capitalist economy resembles in its basic structure either a Ponzi scheme or a bundle of Ponzi schemes. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
440:are for peace. But so long as U.S. imperialism refuses to give up its arrogant and unreasonable demands and its scheme to extend aggression, the only course for the Chinese people is to remain determined to go on fighting side by side with the Korean people. Not ~ Mao Zedong, #NFDB
441:For all the clever jokes that could be made here involving "mind" and "matter" there is one sure and certain variation you can take with you to the grave: "In the grand scheme of things you don't matter very much, and the laws of physics don't mind at all. ~ Patrick E McLean, #NFDB
442:There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere—and ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
443:Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into a relation to his fellow-men; and his religion... was simply one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for him by his position as a member of society. ~ William Robertson Smith, #NFDB
444:Book writing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Anyone who decides to write a book must expect to invest a lot of time and effort without any guarantee of success. Books do not write themselves and they do not sell themselves. Authors write and promote their books. ~ Dan Poynter, #NFDB
445:And the dream that our mind had sketched in haste Shall others continue, but never complete. For none upon earth can achieve his scheme; The best as the worst are futile here: We wake at the self-same point of the dream, All is here begun, and finished elsewhere. ~ Victor Hugo, #NFDB
446:But the world had its layers. To the simple it offered simplicity. To the wise it offered profundity. And the only measure of courage worth acknowledging was found in accepting where one stood in that scheme—in hard, unwavering honesty, no matter how humbling. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
447:Memory weaves and traps us at the same time according to a scheme in which we do not participate: we should never speak of our memory, for it is anything but ours; it works on its own terms, it assists us while deceiving us or perhaps deceives up to assist us. ~ Julio Cortazar, #NFDB
448:Memory weaves and traps us at the same time according to a scheme in which we do not participate: we should never speak of our memory, for it is anything but ours; it works on its own terms, it assists us while deceiving us or perhaps deceives up to assist us. ~ Julio Cort zar, #NFDB
449:The span of three or four minutes is pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. People lose hundreds of minutes everyday, squandering them on trivial things. But sometimes in those fragments of time, something can happen you'll remember the rest of your life. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
450:in Britain, for example, it meant that a centralized "nickname" system could be introduced. Under this scheme, companies and individuals could reserve a special word as their "telegraphic address" to make life easier for anyone who wanted to send them a telegram. ~ Tom Standage, #NFDB
451:It is a mistake to consider marriage merely as a scheme of happiness. It is also a bond of service. It is the most ancient form of that social ministration which God has ordained for all human beings, and which is symbolized by all the relations of nature. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin, #NFDB
452:The span of three or four minutes is pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. People lose hundreds of minutes every day, squandering them on trivial things. But sometimes in those fragments of time, something can happen you’ll remember the rest of your life. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
453:He whose honor depends on the opinion of the mob must day by day strive with the greatest anxiety, act and scheme in order to retain his reputation. For the mob is varied and inconsistent, and therefore if a reputation is not carefully preserved it dies quickly. ~ Baruch Spinoza, #NFDB
454:I discover poetry when I was in elementary school and I was so fascinated by it. Because I realised if you get the right amount of syllables and the right amount of words, in the right rhyme scheme and you put it all together. You make words just bounce of a page. ~ Taylor Swift, #NFDB
455:To be honest, I thought of you as an amateur - a spoiled, entitled, runaway princeling bent on revenge who would get caught and then complicate my elegant scheme. I figured the less you knew, the better."
"I hate it when you sugarcoat things," Ash said. ~ Cinda Williams Chima,#NFDB
456:every one of the novels. To some the delightful freshness and humour of Northanger Abbey, its completeness, finish, and entrain, obscure the undoubted critical facts that its scale is small, and its scheme, after all, that of burlesque or parody, a kind in which the ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
457:In other words, in the encroaching malaise of 1910, it was easy to be gripped by the brilliance of the hippopotamus scheme, to feel hippopotamuses resonating not just as a way of sidestepping catastrophic famine, but as a symbol of American greatness being renewed. ~ Jon Mooallem, #NFDB
458:What’s the rush, little fellow?” asked Bibwit Harte. “What seems to be the trouble?” “You’re the little fellow!” Jack said. “Hmm, well…in the grand scheme of the cosmos, I am a little fellow. We’re all quite little, if you think about it that way. Good point, Jack. ~ Frank Beddor, #NFDB
459:For the core of religion is the twinned principle of arrogance and fear. Fear of oblivion. Fear of an unfair life and an arbitrary universe. Fear of there simply being nothing, no great and grand scheme to existence. The fear, ultimately, of being powerless. ~ Aaron Dembski Bowden, #NFDB
460:God knows,” Charpentier said, “I like the present scheme of things very little, but I dread to think what will happen if the conduct of reform falls into hands like yours.”
“Reform?” Camille said. “I’m not talking about reform. The city will explode this summer. ~ Hilary Mantel,#NFDB
461:Mirrors have come to mean much more than the original 'looking glass.' They are now a part of the decorative scheme of a modern home. By using them, there are no dark, gloomy corners, no drab caverns for halls. There can be a feeling of freedom, light, air, space. ~ Dorothy Draper, #NFDB
462:He was certainly an intensely egotistical and unfeeling man, but the sight of his victim, his first victim, bloody and pitiful at his feet, may have released some long pent fountain of remorse which for a time may have flooded whatever scheme of action he had contrived. ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
463:I learnt to distrust all physical concepts as the basis for a theory. Instead one should put one's trust in a mathematical scheme, even if the scheme does not appear at first sight to be connected with physics. One should concentrate on getting interesting mathematics. ~ Paul Dirac, #NFDB
464:The cats were relaxing in a patch of sunlight on the rug without a thought in their sleek brown heads. What matter to them that it was Sunday-or even Thursday? Every day was Today in their scheme of things, and there was no such thing as Yesterday or Tomorrow. ~ Lilian Jackson Braun, #NFDB
465:If, with all the time at my disposal, with all the wealth of the resources of this vast universe, to do with as I will, I could not produce a better scheme of life than now prevails, I would be ashamed of my efforts and consider my work a humiliating failure. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll, #NFDB
466:Thus the pure archetypal harmonies, and their echoes, the musical consonances, are generated by dividing the circle by means of construable, regular polygons; wheras the 'unspeakable' polygons produce discordant sounds, and are useless in the scheme of the universe. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
467:If one could be enraged by the loss of a favorite sports team, shouldn't his anger rise at the entrenchment of a scheme whereby no innocent person was safe, where self-determination was a crime punished by the vagaries of an opaque & impervious justice system? ~ Ausma Zehanat Khan, #NFDB
468:The forces which are working out the great scheme of perfect happiness, taking no account of incidental suffering, exterminate such sections of mankind as stand in their way, with the same sternness that they exterminate beasts of prey and herds of useless ruminants. ~ Herbert Spencer, #NFDB
469:Amway had secretly authorized a scheme creating dummy invoices to deceive Canadian customs officials into accepting falsely low valuations on products the company imported into Canada. Amway had thus fraudulently lowered its tax bills by $26.4 million from 1965 until 1978. ~ Jane Mayer, #NFDB
470:In the grand scheme of nature, I believe that it is very natural that animals eat animals, and that humans eat animals. It is only in the last couple of decades that meat-processing factories have come to rise, and I believe we should take time to reflect on that reality. ~ Bong Joon ho, #NFDB
471:There are three basic flavors of incentive: economic, social, and moral. Very often a single incentive scheme will include all three varieties. Think about the anti-smoking campaign of recent years. The addition of a $3-per-pack “sin tax” is a strong economic incentive ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
472:We have to recognize that spirituality is a legitimate dimension in the psyche. It's a legitimate dimension in the universal scheme of things. It doesn't mean that you are superstitious, that you are in to magical, primitive thinking, if you take spirituality seriously. ~ Stanislav Grof, #NFDB
473:If I had known, do you think I should have let her get away with this mad plan? That I should have let her rob me of my child? No, I should have taken you myself and hidden with you in some far-off land and never seen her again rather than agree to such an unnatural scheme ~ Mary Hoffman, #NFDB
474:The scheme of separate confederacies, which will always multiply the chances of ambition, will be a never failing bait to all such influential characters in the State administrations as are capable of preferring their own emolument and advancement to the public weal. ~ Alexander Hamilton, #NFDB
475:Folks, the most insidious part of this whole health care scheme is that all of these vast medical expenditures will become nothing more than government budget items. We individuals will no longer exist. The relationship between a government and citizen will change forever. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
476:I strongly reject any conceptual scheme that places our options on a line, and holds that the only alternative to a pair of extreme positions lies somewhere between them. More fruitful perspectives often require that we step off the line to a site outside the dichotomy. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
477:Nearly all of us have a deep rooted wish for peace-peace on earth; but we shall never attain the true peace-the peace of love, and not the uneasy equilibrium of fear-until we recognize the place of animals in the scheme of things and treat them accordingly. ~ Hugh Dowding 1st Baron Dowding, #NFDB
478:the inability to ameliorate the soul-destroying visual discord of corporate fast-food franchises. Some acquaintance or another would periodically drag me into one of the horrors, and, under the malign influence of a décor scheme that assaulted my retinas with primary colors, ~ Kevin Hearne, #NFDB
479:The most common self-inflicted put-down is 'I am not a pastor-I am just a layperson.' This is all part of a clever satanic scheme to neutralize apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers along with the entire army of disciples, already positioned in the marketplace. ~ Ed Silvoso, #NFDB
480:There is enough mystery in the facts as we know them, enough of conspiracy, coincidence, loose ends, dead ends, multiple interpretations. There is no need […] to invent the grand and masterful scheme, the plot that reaches flawlessly in a dozen directions. - Agent Branch (58) ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
481:When we worry, we are telling God, "You are neither trustworthy nor in control, so I need to worry and scheme as I take matters into my own hands." In this way unbelief drives worry, for it is impossible to worry when we are trusting in the provision of our sovereign God. ~ James MacDonald, #NFDB
482:I have been studying the principles of socialism deeply of late, and I came to the conclusion that I must join the cause. It looked good to me. You work for the equal distribution of property and start in by swiping all you can and sitting on it. Ah, noble scheme! Me for it! ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
483:Therefore, in the course of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book all the positions of the orbits together with the movements which I ascribe to the Earth, in order that this book might contain, as it were, the general scheme of the universe. ~ Nicolaus Copernicus, #NFDB
484:The ritual heresy of baptism (whether for kids or believers) is an Aryan articulation of "hope" to seek salvation for ancient Egypt's ever drowning heritage (see Romans 6:4). There is, however, NO Atonement for the sin of ancient Egypt no matter how much the Aryans scheme. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
485:When you think about it in the big scheme of things our time together is like a dash of spice in a big cosmic soup - important for richness of flavor but still not quite the main ingredient. The past is over. It can't and shouldn't be reclaimed. All we ever have is now anyway. ~ Alyson Noel, #NFDB
486:A practical scheme, says Oscar Wilde, is either one already in existence, or a scheme that could be carried out under the existing conditions; but it is exactly the existing conditions that one objects to, and any scheme that could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. ~ Emma Goldman, #NFDB
487:As I get older, I think that things have been pre-determined for me, whether I liked it or wanted it, wished for it, whatever, way before in some way. And with others, you do have a choice that you can change. And that choice that you make is still part of this grand scheme. ~ Robert De Niro, #NFDB
488:For millennia philosophers and saints have tried to reason out a logical scheme for the universe... until Hilda came along and demonstrated that the universe is not logical but whimsical, its structure depending solely on the dreams and nightmares of non-logical dreamers. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
489:In this consists the difference between the character of a miser and that of a person of exact economy and assiduity. The one is anxious about small matters for their own sake; the other attends to them only in consequence of the scheme of life which he has laid down to himself. ~ Adam Smith, #NFDB
490:Some donor families had clearly committed tax crimes. Richard DeVos, co-founder of Amway, the Michigan-based worldwide multilevel marketing empire, had pleaded guilty to a criminal scheme in which he had defrauded the Canadian government of $22 million in customs duties in 1982. ~ Jane Mayer, #NFDB
491:Today I Pray May I make no decision, engineer no change in the course of my lifestream, without calling upon my Higher Power. May I have faith that God’s plan for me is better than any scheme I could devise for myself. Today I Will Remember God is the architect. I am the builder. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
492:Eventually I got to know him well enough to realize this: he delighted in the small things, but also knew that in the grand scheme of the world, nothing we did or felt mattered at all. And he got how that was unbelievably terrifying, but also was the thing that made us free. ~ Lynn Weingarten, #NFDB
493:Communism is what Karl Marx hoped could be an economic scheme for making industrialized nations take as good care of people, and especially of children and the old and disabled, as tribes and extended families used to do, before they were dispersed by the Industrial Revolution. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
494:every human being who is born into this universe is like a child who has been given a key to an infinite Library, written in cyphers that are more or less obscure, arranged by a scheme—of which we can at first know nothing, other than that there does appear to be some scheme. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
495:Grace dispensers give out of their own bounty, in gratitude (a word with the same root as grace) for what we have received from God. We serve others not with some hidden scheme of making converts, rather to contribute to the common good, to help humans flourish as God intended. ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
496:I was sort of trained in drama. I went to theater school. I started on the stage. Comedy is absolutely an essential part of what we do as actors. But I think in the grand scheme of things, comedy was born from tragedy. First there was tragedy and then there were the comedies. ~ Alex O Loughlin, #NFDB
497:The Griffith House was like nothing Viviane remembered, reminding her of how fast the world changed and of how insignificant she was in the grand scheme of things. She thought it unfair that her life should be both irrelevant and difficult. One or the other seemed quite enough. ~ Leslye Walton, #NFDB
498:According to the rules of comedy, your suffering will be funny after an undetermined length of time. Maybe not while you're having your gangrenous leg sawed off, watching your home burn down or learning how to be intimate with your cellmate, but, in the big scheme of things, soon. ~ Chuck Lorre, #NFDB
499:Besides trying to influence opinion in Maine, Webster sent agents to disrupt the activities of the “Patriot Hunters,” a radical American group hoping to oust the British from Canada, and the scheme seems to have been the first time that Americans were targets of their own government. ~ Gary May, #NFDB
500:It means I'm going back to the beginning. To the Fall. To all of us being cast out of Heaven because we dared to exercise free will. I'm talking about the first great injustice.
Reliving your greatest hits? she said, but he wasn't listening, lost in the details of his scheme ~ Lauren Kate,#NFDB
501:To have an idea of a thing is not just to get certain sensations from it. It is to be able to respond to the thing in view of its place in an inclusive scheme of action; it is to foresee the drift and probable consequence of the action of the thing upon us and of our action upon it. ~ John Dewey, #NFDB
502:We deeply regret that some Senators are still willing to do Big Oil?s bidding, and we now turn to the House where the Arctic drilling scheme should be dead on arrival. Americans are clamoring for a clean Congress and a clean energy plan, but sadly they were shortchanged on both today. ~ Carl Pope, #NFDB
503:if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere—and those evil-minded observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in and deceived than the parties themselves. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
504:Time is a big enemy. Companies have a tendency to drift and to do what was successful yesterday. CEOs need to set a high goal, enforce a time-based output scheme and stay connected all the way down in their organization. They have to do this sincerely every day, everywhere. ~ Michael J Silverstein, #NFDB
505:because no doctor or scientist of any sort, no one at all, really knows much of anything in the grand scheme of things. All we can do is speculate, chip away at our lonely perception of the truth, spew guesswork out of our learned mouths, and at the end of the day just have a cold beer. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
506:I get more results for my money than in any other philanthropic scheme. It is a medical fact that children can have a better chance in life with better looks, better health and more vigor if the teeth, nose, throat and mouth are taken proper care of at the crucial time of childhood. ~ George Eastman, #NFDB
507:In 2006, U.S. district judge Gladys Kessler found that the tobacco industry had “devised and executed a scheme to defraud consumers and potential consumers” about the hazards of cigarettes, hazards that their own internal company documents proved they had known about since the 1950s. ~ Naomi Oreskes, #NFDB
508:According to Machiavelli, human beings naturally tend to think in terms of patterns. They like to see events conforming to their expectations by fitting into a pattern or scheme, for schemes, whatever their actual content, comfort us by suggesting that the chaos of life is predictable. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
509:Piter: Ah-ah, Baron! Is it not regrettable you were unable to devise this delicious scheme by yourself?
Baron: Someday I will have you strangled, Piter.
Piter: Of a certainty, Baron. Enfin! But a kind act is never lost, eh?
Baron: Have you been chewing verite or semuta, Piter? ~ Frank Herbert,#NFDB
510:Every few decades, at random, I take on new goals, at random. It’s perfect. How could I improve on a scheme like that? I’m not stuck on any one thing forever; however much you think I’m wasting my time, it’s only for fifty or a hundred years. What difference does that make, in the long run? ~ Greg Egan, #NFDB
511:No matter what anyone says, suicide takes guts. It's for heroes and martyrs, truly vainglorious men. Archie was none of these. He was a man whose significance in the Greater Scheme of Things could be figured along familiar ratios:
Pebble : Beach
Raindrop : Ocean
Needle : Haystack ~ Zadie Smith,#NFDB
512:Such a scheme.. the betrayal of the national democracy of Industrial Ulster, would mean a carnival of reaction both North and South, would set back the wheels of progress, would destroy the oncoming unity of the Irish labour movement and paralyse all advanced movements while it lasted. ~ James Connolly, #NFDB
513:The introduction of numbers as coordinates by reference to the particular division scheme of the open one-dimensional continuum is an act of violence whose only practical vindication is the special calculatory manageability of the ordinary number continuum with its four basic operations. ~ Hermann Weyl, #NFDB
514:The plain fact is that education is itself a form of propaganda - a deliberate scheme to outfit the pupil, not with the capacity to weigh ideas, but with a simple appetite for gulping ideas ready-made. The aim is to make 'good' citizens, which is to say, docile and uninquisitive citizens. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
515:We doubt not the destiny of our country that she is to accomplish great things for human nature, and be the mother of a nobler race than the world has yet known. But she has been so false to the scheme made out at her nativity, that it is now hard to say which way that destiny points. ~ Margaret Fuller, #NFDB
516:I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland;Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,By pulling off flesh from the living planet;As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration. ~ Theodore Roethke, #NFDB
517:We want to limit the exploitation of the fiscal capacity of the richer regions by keeping down the rate of immigration to a level that would be meaningful and efficient. One way to do that is to have a scheme of equalization which essential bribes people to stay in the poorer regions. ~ James M Buchanan, #NFDB
518:A: There is no grand scheme of things. B: If there were a grand scheme of things, the fact – the fact – that we are not equipped to perceive it, either by natural or supernatural means, is a nightmarish obscenity. C: The very notion of a grand scheme of things is a nightmarish obscenity. ~ Thomas Ligotti, #NFDB
519:Insofar as we appreciate order, it is when we perceive it as being accompanied by complexity, when we feel that a variety of elements has been brought to order--that windows, doors and other details have been knitted into a scheme that manages to be at once regular and intricate. (p184) ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
520:The advertising scheme is anything but subtle. If you want to be healed, send in your money; and if you don’t get healed, you didn’t send enough. Like the wicked religious leaders condemned in Luke 20, Benny Hinn devours “widows’ houses” as he hawks false hope in exchange for money; ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
521:The scheme, my dear Marqs. which you propose as a precedent, to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this Country from that state of Bondage in wch. they are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your Heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work. ~ George Washington, #NFDB
522:You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance - a topic we should never discuss: the very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage - forget it. ~ Charlotte Bronte, #NFDB
523:If you ever happen to turn your attention to externals, for the pleasure of any one, be assured that you have ruined your scheme of life. Be contented, then, in everything, with being a philosopher; and if you with to seem so likewise to any one, appear so to yourself, and it will suffice you. ~ Epictetus, #NFDB
524:It's not that you're not smart anymore; it's that you're unwilling to do it. Coaches who coach know what I'm talking about. You just keep battling to help your coaches and your players, to refine your scheme, to break down your opponent, to find ways to travel and take care of your players. ~ Pete Carroll, #NFDB
525:It's starting to make sense to me. Why he'd go along with a scheme like this, why he'd spend his time with someone like me. It's not so he can move on from Gen. It's so he can't. I'm just his excuse. I'm holding Genevieve's place for her. When that piece makes sense, everything else starts to. ~ Jenny Han, #NFDB
526:It’s starting to make sense to me. Why he’d go along with a scheme like this, why he’d spend his time with someone like me. It’s not so he can move on from Gen. It’s so he can’t. I’m just his excuse. I’m holding Genevieve’s place for her. When that piece makes sense, everything else starts to. ~ Jenny Han, #NFDB
527:The Great Pyramid's Decoy Scheme (GPDS) consisted mainly of four layers of deterrence: the pyramid's intentional hidden tilt from true north; the pyramid's eight hidden faces; the pyramid's equinoctial hidden mode of operation; and the annual hidden access for the god through the shafts. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
528:You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance -- a topic we should never discuss: the very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage -- forget it. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
529:But when he was the federal prosecutor in New Jersey, Christie had sent Jared’s father, Charles Kushner, to jail in 2005. Charlie Kushner, pursued by the feds for an income tax cheat, set up a scheme with a prostitute to blackmail his brother-in-law, who was planning to testify against him. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
530:some things don't matter much. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart--now, that matters. The whole problem with people is...they know what matters, but they don't choose it...The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters. ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
531:The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them. ~ Plato, #NFDB
532:What I like way better than LGBT in terms of labeling sexuality actually is a scheme that comes to me from my friend Animal Prufrock wherein one is identified not by what they supposedly "are" but rather by what they are into. Which brings us to the terms hemosexual, shemosexual, and mosexual. ~ Ani DiFranco, #NFDB
533:Myron remained unconvinced. “Even if I agreed to go along with this cockamamy scheme, what about nights? You expect me to watch her twenty-four hours a day?” “Of course not. Win will help you there.” “Win has better things to do.” “Tell that goy boy-toy it’s for me,” Norm said. “He loves me.” A ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
534:Our pictures might not be recognizable, but come on. Why would we lie about it?”
“Same reason my own kids lie,” the server said. “To get attention.”
“Seriously?” Sam said. “We’re going to hatch this elaborate scheme, and launch it in your crappy little--?”
I stepped on Sam’s foot. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
535:The gas-cylinders had by this time been put into position on the front line. A special order came round imposing severe penalties on anyone who used any word but "accessory" in speaking of the gas. This was to keep it secret, but the French civilians knew all about the scheme long before this. ~ Robert Graves, #NFDB
536:What about Alys?” asked Wylan.
Again Kaz shrugged. “No one is going to believe that girl had anything to do with a financial scheme. Alys will sue for divorce and probably move back in with her parents. She’ll cry for a week, sing for two, and then get over it. Maybe she’ll marry a prince. ~ Leigh Bardugo,#NFDB
537:Amway later hired one of them as a Washington lobbyist. Meanwhile, perhaps coincidentally, the FTC investigation into whether Amway was an illegal pyramid scheme fizzled, resulting only in the company having its knuckles rapped for misleading advertising about how much its distributors could earn. ~ Jane Mayer, #NFDB
538:A: There is no grand scheme of things.
B: If there were a grand scheme of things, the fact – the fact – that we are not equipped to perceive it, either by natural or supernatural means, is a nightmarish obscenity.
C: The very notion of a grand scheme of things is a nightmarish obscenity. ~ Thomas Ligotti,#NFDB
539:I know our congressmen hasn't done it, has anybody put a server in their basement? Oh boy, Hillary Clinton's only - Hillary Clinton's only experience in cyber security involves her criminal scheme to violate federal law, engineering a massive cover up and putting the entire nation in harm's way. ~ Donald Trump, #NFDB
540:Let me put it another way. There is a “stupid peace” and then there is a “smart peace.” The stupid peace comes from refusing to think about your overall situation. If you go that way, you can pop a cork, sit under a tree or on the beach, and try not to think about the grand scheme of things. ~ Timothy J Keller, #NFDB
541:Despite the raging wrath of our foes the holy souls of your brothers and sisters will remain alive. These evil ones scheme to blot out their names from the face of the earth; but a man cannot destroy letters. For words have wings; they mount up to the heavenly heights and they endure for eternity. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
542:I think this co-operative scheme is an uncommonly good one. It's much easier to work on someone else's job than one's own - gives one that delightful feelin' of interferin' and bossin' about, combined with the glorious sensation that another fellow is takin' all one's own work off one's hands. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
543:It has been the scheme of the Christian Church, and of all the other invented systems of religion, to hold man in ignorance of the Creator, as it is of Government to hold man in ignorance of his rights. The systems of the one are as false as those of the other, and are calculated for mutual support. ~ Thomas Paine, #NFDB
544:Every age has its peculiar folly; some scheme, project, or phantasy into which it plunges, spurred on either by the love of gain, the necessity of excitement, or the mere force of imitation. Failing in these, it has some madness, to which it is goaded by political or religious causes, or both combined. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
545:Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
546:I have tried at times to place humans in perspective against the vastness of universal time and space. I have been concerned with where we, as a race, may be going and what may be our purpose in the universal scheme — if we have a purpose. In general, I believe we do, and perhaps an important one. ~ Clifford D Simak, #NFDB
547:Our acceptance of an ontology is, I think, similar in principle to our acceptance of a scientific theory, say a system of physics;we adopt, at least insofar as we are reasonable, the simplest conceptual scheme into which the disordered fragments of raw experience can be fitted and arranged. ~ Willard Van Orman Quine, #NFDB
548:The truth is that trout fishermen scheme and lie and toss in their sleep. They dream of great dripping trout, shapely and elusive as mermaids, and arise cranky and haggard from their fantasies. They are moody and neglectful and all of them a little daft. Moreover they are inclined to drink too much. ~ John D Voelker, #NFDB
549:Your fantastic anticipations make me discern all the more forcibly what a wretched, unsubstantial scheme is this, on which we have wasted a precious summer of our lives. Do you seriously imagine that any such realities as you, and many others here, have dreamed of, will ever be brought to pass? ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, #NFDB
550:For the first time I saw a medley of haphazard facts fall into line and order. All the jumbles and recipes and hotchpotch of the inorganic chemistry of my boyhood seemed to fit into the scheme before my eyes-as though one were standing beside a jungle and it suddenly transformed itself into a Dutch garden. ~ C P Snow, #NFDB
551:I have long wanted to know the Greek language, and this scheme will also serve to impress your knowledge on your own minds. John Stuart Mill used to rise at dawn to learn Greek at the age of five, and what John Stuart Mill could do as an infant at dawn, I too can do on a Saturday afternoon in my prime. ~ Muriel Spark, #NFDB
552: Mr. Dennis received this part of the scheme with a wry face, observing that as a general principle he objected to women altogether, as being unsafe and slippery persons on whom there was no calculating with any certainty, and who were never in the same mind for four-and-twenty hours at a stretch. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
553:the government alleged that the company was little more than a pyramid scheme built upon misleading promises of riches to prospective distributors, many of whom bought its products in bulk, found themselves unable to sell them, and so were forced to cover their debts by recruiting additional distributors. ~ Jane Mayer, #NFDB
554:I say things that can be defined as prayers. But I don't pray to a power or ask an entity to intercede in the earthly scheme, because I don't believe that happens. But if I see a really unfortunate person in the street, I do pray, yes, though I suppose it's really more like a mantra to ease my own sorrow. ~ George Carlin, #NFDB
555:It is much more difficult to get implemented politically what might be desirable economically. Even if you came out with an economic argument in favor of equalization - and I think there are arguments on both sides - I would still come down in favour of some sort of a scheme on strict economic grounds. ~ James M Buchanan, #NFDB
556:Vichy officials and collaborationists imprisoned 135,000 people (many for little more than their political beliefs), sent 650,000 more to Germany as “guest workers” under an obligatory labor scheme, and, most notoriously, sent 76,000 Jews to Nazi death camps. Less than 3 percent of those Jews survived. ~ Michael S Neiberg, #NFDB
557:If the decision is unfavourable, the only alternative would be to place our information and our recommendations in the hands of the Deuxième Bureau or of our American colleagues of the Combined Intelligence Agency in Washington. Both of these organizations would doubtless be delighted to take over the scheme. ~ Ian Fleming, #NFDB
558:In this scheme, the ‘unconscious’ and the ‘preconscious’ are agencies or authorities (Instanzen) which the wish has to satisfy; the unconscious is more tolerant, and helps the wish to smuggle itself past the censorship of the preconscious. As a result, psychical energy is discharged without disturbing sleep. ~ Sigmund Freud, #NFDB
559:I reject the word 'script' entirely-at any rate in the usual sense. I prefer the old usage-usually scenario-which it had in the Commedia dell'Arte, meaning an outline or scheme: it implies a dynamism, a number of ideas and principles from which one can set out to find the best possible approach to filming. ~ Jacques Rivette, #NFDB
560:Come, weave us a scheme so I can pay them back! Stand beside me, Athena, fire me with daring, fierce as the day we ripped Troy's glittering crown of towers down. Stand by me - furious now as then, my bright-eyed one - and I would fight three hundred men, great goddess, with you to brace me, comrade-in-arms in battle! ~ Homer, #NFDB
561:"Triennale in the City" is a scheme that is of priority for the sponsoring local government. For many local governments, revitalization is an important mission for the local community, and, therefore, the attitude to achieve this mission through the cultural and/or artistic activities should not be denied. ~ Yasumasa Morimura, #NFDB
562:When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be times when you fail, and both are equally important. It's hard to understand failure when you're going through it, but in the grand scheme of things it's good to fall down - not because you're drunk and not near stairs. ~ Ellen DeGeneres, #NFDB
563:But the hope within our faith is that we can draw meaning out of what is meaningless, through the theopraxis of learning to love one another better–and that, in the global scheme of things, means living for the good of everyone, whether they be Foxconn workers or Syrian asylum seekers–or friends who are suffering. ~ Tony Jones, #NFDB
564:The federal [bank deposit] insurance scheme has worked up to now simply and solely because there have been very few bank failures. The next time we have a pestilence of them it will come to grief quickly enough, and if the good banks escape ruin with the bad ones it will be only because the taxpayer foots the bill. ~ H L Mencken, #NFDB
565:Till we come to try to put our own thoughts upon paper, we can have no notion how broke and imperfect they are, or find where the imperfection lies. Language is a scheme of machinery of so subtle a kind, that it is only by long habits that we can learn to conduct it in a masterly manner, or to the best purposes. ~ William Godwin, #NFDB
566:Life can be confusing. Good God, and how. Sometimes it seems like the older I get, the more confused I become. That seems ass-backwards. I thought I was supposed to be getting wiser. Instead, I just keep getting hit over the head with my relative insignificance in the greater scheme of the universe. Confusing, life. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
567:The moon got loose last night, and slid
down and fell out of the scheme–a very great loss; it breaks my heart
to think of it. There isn’t another thing among the ornaments and
decorations that is comparable to it for beauty and finish. It should
have been fastened better. If we can only get it back again- ~ Mark Twain,#NFDB
568:So, have you decided where to stash Tamar, dearest?” “Of course I have. All part of an intricate scheme I formulated long ago.” Darla laughed. “In other words, you’re making this up as you go.” “I prefer to think I’m acting with situational awareness in a fluid event dynamic.” “You’re already talking like a general. ~ Frank Tuttle, #NFDB
569:The only trouble with this scheme is that it does not work, for other reasons. Every theory that you make up has to be analysed against all possible consequences, to see if it predicts anything else. And this does predict something else. If the earth is moving, more particles will hit it from in front than from behind. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
570:If we have lost faith in our vernaculars, it is a sign of want of faith in ourselves; it is the surest sign of decay. And no scheme of self-government, however benevolently or generously it may be bestowed upon us, will ever make us a self-governing nation, if we have no respect for the languages our mothers speak. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
571:Particle physicists are the most deeply Platonic because their entire subject is built upon a belief that the deepest workings of the world are based upon symmetries. They examine symmetry after symmetry, confident in the expectation that the biggest and the best will have found employ in the grand scheme of things. ~ John D Barrow, #NFDB
572:I’m an Aristos. I don’t think you want to tangle with me. (Angelia)
Like I give a shit. I’m a god, baby, so in the grand scheme of things, if I wanted to rip your head off and use it for a bowling ball, there’s not many who could stop me and most of those who could would be too afraid of me to even try. (Zarek) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
573:In civil society, most of my fellow citizens are my civic friends, part of a great cooperative scheme. One of the repugnant features of democracy is that it transforms these people into threats to my well-being. My fellow citizens exercise power over me in risky and incompetent ways. This makes them my civic enemies. ~ Jason Brennan, #NFDB
574:In the external scheme of things, shining moments are as brief as the twinkling of an eye, yet such twinklings are what eternity is made of -- moments when we human beings can say "I love you," "I'm proud of you," "I forgive you," "I'm grateful for you." That's what eternity is made of: invisible imperishable good stuff. ~ Fred Rogers, #NFDB
575:There probably is no more important quest in all science than the attempt to understand those very particular events in evolution by which brains worked out that special trick that has enabled them to add to the cosmic scheme of things: color, sound, pain, pleasure, and all the other facets of mental experience. ~ Roger Wolcott Sperry, #NFDB
576:I suggest to you that the withholding of a puberty ceremony from young males in our society is a scheme, devised cunningly but subconciously, to make those males eager to go to war, no matter how terrible or unjust a war may be. There are just wars, too, of course. The war I was eager to go to happened to be a just one. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
577:I think the thing you're seeing now with the music industry is that the people who have tight-knit communities are now able to really hold each other up because of the internet tools. And the really top-down pyramid scheme of major labels and typical superstars isn't sustainable anymore because the system has collapsed. ~ Amanda Palmer, #NFDB
578:Just as Snow was concocting his theory of cholera as a waterborne agent that had
to be ingested to do harm, Chadwick was building an elaborate scheme that would
deliver the cholera directly to the mouths of Londoners. (A modern bio-terrorist
couldn't have come up with a more ingenious and far-reaching scheme). ~ Steven Johnson,#NFDB
579:Procedure is the bone structure of a democratic society. Our scheme of law affords great latitude for dissent and opposition. It compels wide tolerance not only for their expression but also for the organization of people and forces to bring about the acceptance of the dissenter's claim....We have alternatives to violence. ~ Abe Fortas, #NFDB
580:Between notes, he had contemplated means of destroying Myrna Minkoff but had reached no satisfactory conclusion. His most promising scheme had involved getting a book on munitions from the library, constructing a bomb, and mailing it in plain paper to Myrna. Then he remembered that his library card had been revoked. ~ John Kennedy Toole, #NFDB
581:The theory, suddenly presented as just this side of a likelihood, was that the Russians had suborned Donald Trump during a trip to Moscow with a crude blackmail scheme involving prostitutes and videotaped sexual acts pushing new boundaries of deviance (including “golden showers”) with prostitutes and videotaped sex acts. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
582:You realize how small you are in the grand scheme of things. We’re not really the rulers of this planet, we’re just tenants, and it’s the small stuff, the bacteria and insects and the plant matter that really runs it all. Even the big stuff, the nasty, scary stuff, it’s all pretty small in the grand scheme of things, isn’t it? ~ Wildbow, #NFDB
583:I mean, it's sickeningly brilliant and it's making billions upon billions of dollars as we speak. So, with that, I high-five the men on Madison Avenue for inventing a genius, exclusionary, and lucrative scheme, while simultaneously punching them in the crotch as hard as I can for ruining so many lives in the pursuit of money. ~ Jes Baker, #NFDB
584:The decorating scheme of Big World is simple in theme but complicated in execution. The theme is: things that shine and things that make noise. There are mirrors and glass railings and columns of polished steel; there are beeping lights and blaring loudspeakers; there are more reflective surfaces here than on a disco ball. ~ Peter Hessler, #NFDB
585:We try to resist it by making things that will last—forever, we say—things that we don’t have to wash, things that we don’t have to iron. Somehow, in the process of trying to deny that things are always changing, we lose our sense of the sacredness of life. We tend to forget that we are part of the natural scheme of things. ~ Pema Ch dr n, #NFDB
586:Come, weave us a scheme so I can pay them back!
Stand beside me, Athena, fire me with daring, fierce
as the day we ripped Troy's glittering crown of towers down.
Stand by me - furious now as then, my bright-eyed one -
and I would fight three hundred men, great goddess,
with you to brace me, comrade-in-arms in battle! ~ Homer,#NFDB
587:Therefore those governing the State ought primarily to devote themselves to the service of individual groups and of the whole commonwealth, and through the entire scheme of laws and institutions to cause both public and individual well-being to develop spontaneously out of the very structure and administration of the state. ~ Pope Leo XIII, #NFDB
588:Siena leaned over Cass, her features amorphous in the dim light. “Sorry to wake you, but you have a visitor,” she said with a giggle. “Your handsome man.”
Falco. It had to be. Cass started to correct Siena--he wasn’t hers, per se--but stopped herself. What did that really matter in the grand scheme of a murder investigation? ~ Fiona Paul,#NFDB
589:The medieval world then is one in which not only is the scheme of the virtues enlarged beyond an Aristotelian perspective, but above all in which the connection between the distinctively narrative element in human life and the character of the vices comes to the forefront of consciousness and not only in biblical terms. ~ Alasdair MacIntyre, #NFDB
590:August says to Lily," You know some things don't matter that much Lily. Like the colour of the house. How big is that in overall scheme of life? But lifiting person's heart- now that matters. The whole problem with people is – they know what matters but they don't choose it. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters ~ Sue Monk Kidd, #NFDB
591:Yes, authority, coercion, and dependence rest on the mass, but never freedom or the free unfoldment of the individual, never the birth of a free society. The Socialist demagogues know that as well as I, but they maintain the myth of the virtues of the majority, because their very scheme of life means the perpetuation of power. ~ Emma Goldman, #NFDB
592:You are what you are. People will see you as they see you, which in my experience says a lot more about who they are than who you are. Being true to yourself and giving yourself permission to be who you are and to love who you love... that's what it's all about. The rest... the rest is unimportant in the grand scheme of things. ~ Ingrid D az, #NFDB
593:If a man can devote himself undisturbed to the work which is on his mind, he can, as far I have observed, completely ignore his surroundings--they disappear for him; he can sit in filth and disorder, draught and cold, and be completely happy. For most women it is insufferable to sit in a room if the color scheme displeases them. ~ Isak Dinesen, #NFDB
594:When I go back to the Quran I see that the context of Revelation is creation in its entirety. The universe is a Revelation and this of course includes nature, plants and animals. In other words, what is coming from the Quran as rules and objectives are set within the larger scheme of the universe and nature as part of Creation. ~ Tariq Ramadan, #NFDB
595:The simplest scheme of evolution is one that depends on two processes; a generator and a test. The task of the generator is to produce variety, new forms that have not existed previously, whereas the task of the test is to cull out the newly generated forms so that only those that are well fitted to the environment will survive. ~ Herbert Simon, #NFDB
596:Every intellectual revolution which has ever stirred humanity into greatness has been a passionate protest against inert ideas. Then, alas, with pathetic ignorance of human psychology, it has proceeded by some educational scheme to bind humanity afresh with inert ideas of its own fashioning. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, The Aims of Education (1929), #NFDB
597:It's a familiar story now: a meek and depressed high school chemistry teacher with terminal cancer cooks up a scheme to make and market a superior grade of methamphetamine to provide a nest egg for his family after he's gone. But over the course of five seasons Walter White goes from milquetoast to murderous in order to survive. ~ Bryan Cranston, #NFDB
598:You can use C++ if you want with GNOME, but we don't assume that you're going to write C++. It's to a large extent based on Scheme, which is a dialect of LISP. LISP being the most powerful and cleanest of languages, that's the language that's the GNU project always prefers. ~ Richard Stallman in: "GNU's Not Linux" Network World Fusion, 01/11/99., #NFDB
599:Lucky for you, I have another scheme. First I need a hundred ducks, but after that it will all be pretty simple. What do you need the ducks for? I’m going to put a whole bunch of them in a giant catapult and launch them over Aurimere, Kami said. This will create a distraction. My message will be: Look at all the ducks I give. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan, #NFDB
600:When running a Ponzi scheme, how does one avoid enormous, unexpected withdrawals - runs on the bank, so to speak - that would pull back the curtain and reveal a little man blowing smoke? One way would be to attract a core of investors who could be counted on to never withdraw more than a small percentage of principal each year. ~ Mitchell Zuckoff, #NFDB
601:If you are well off and can afford to spend ten or twenty-five dollars a day to hire some patient soul to listen to your troubles you can be readjusted to the crazy scheme of things and spare yourself the humiliation of becoming a Christian Scientist. You can have your ego trimmed or removed, as you wish, just like a wart or bunion. ~ Henry Miller, #NFDB
602:Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve treated our world like it was a hotel room and we were rock stars. But we aren’t rock stars. In the scheme of evolutionary forces, we are a weak, fragile species. Our genome is corruptible, and we so abused this planet that we ultimately corrupted that precious DNA blueprint that makes us human. ~ Blake Crouch, #NFDB
603:Surely there must be some way to find a husband or, for that matter, merely an escort, without sacrificing one's privacy, self-respect, and interior decorating scheme. For example, men could be imported from the developing countries, many parts of which are suffering from a man excess, at least in relation to local food supply. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich, #NFDB
604:Cancer taught me a plan for more purposeful living, and that in turn taught me how to train and to win more purposefully. It taught me that pain has a reason, and that sometimes the experience of losing things-whether health or a car or an old sense of self-has its own value in the scheme of life. Pain and loss are great enhancers. ~ Lance Armstrong, #NFDB
605:I found earthquakes, even when I was in them, deeply satisfying, abruptly revealed evidence of the scheme in action. That the schemes could destroy the works of man might be a personal regret but remained, in the larger picture I had come to recognize, a matter of abiding indifference. No eye was on the sparrow. No eye was watching me. ~ Joan Didion, #NFDB
606:Love isn't blind. Love is reasonable. God is pure love, but He is also pure reason. If you separate reason from faith you'll end in violence. Either way, if you have a purely rationalistic scheme that is atheistic, for instance Communism was for social justice. Fascism was for the nation-state, which isn't automatically a bad thing. ~ Francis George, #NFDB
607:I, in my own mind, have always thought of America as a place in the divine scheme of things that was set aside as a promised land...Any person with the courage, with the desire to tear up their roots, to strive for freedom, to attempt and dare to live in a strange and foreign place, to travel halfway across the world was welcome here. ~ Ronald Reagan, #NFDB
608:I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind... At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy and wise in spite of themselves. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
609:It is inconceivable that anyone will divulge a truly effective get-rich scheme for the price of a book. There is ample opportunity to use wealth in this world, and neither I nor my friends, nor anyone else I have ever met, has so much of it that they are interested in putting themselves at a disadvantage by sharing their secrets. ~ Victor Niederhoffer, #NFDB
610:Post-genocide Rwanda has managed to implement a good universal health insurance scheme that covers a large proportion of the population. This came about because of the severity of the country's problems and the resulting high proportion of women in the parliament and among professional caregivers, which had a positive effect on policy. ~ Mary Robinson, #NFDB
611:There is a theory, that I rather subscribe to. The frame story implies that if he doesn't change, she will kill him. It's all very complex and subtle. The story is about a woman who persuades a man in power to a different temper and attitude, and so it is about women's wiles, what women will get up to. She has a plan, she has a scheme. ~ Marina Warner, #NFDB
612:We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem called Planet Earth. As we learn how we fit into the greater scheme of things, and begin to understand how the system works, we can plan ahead, we can use the resources responsibly, to show some respect for this inheritance that goes back 4.6 billion years. ~ Sylvia Earle, #NFDB
613:I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind... At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme, I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy, and wise in spite of themselves. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
614:We were all created in His image, and yet we were each created different and unique. No two people are alike. No two hearts beat to the same rhythm. If God had wanted everyone to be the same. He would have made it so. Therefore, disrespecting differences and imposing your thoughts on others is tantamount to disrespecting God’s holy scheme. ~ Elif Safak, #NFDB
615:He remembered the PM saying that every Russian is at heart a chess-player, and every American at heart a public-relations man. Well, Bret Rensselaer’s zeal did nothing to disprove that one. The sheer audacity of the scheme plus Bret’s enthusiasm was enough to persuade him that it was worth a try. Bret nodded to acknowledge the compliment. ~ Len Deighton, #NFDB
616:I know that plenty of folks have issues with Social Security, but I'd urge them to confront it on its own terms. Calling it a Ponzi scheme is misleading and does more to cloud the issue than it does to illuminate it. And yes, I do know that unless changes are made, the current system is unsustainable. But that doesn't mean it's fraud. ~ Mitchell Zuckoff, #NFDB
617:The world is full of interiors that bleach the spirit. Hospitals, police stations, job centres, local government offices and prisons all have their own subtle type of vampire colour scheme and black-hole furnishing, capable by accident or design of wiping away a person's self-esteem and will to resist, like boiled-over soup off a ceramic hob. ~ Tom Holt, #NFDB
618:Lucky for you, I have another scheme. First I need a hundred ducks, but after that it will be pretty simple."
"What do you need the ducks for?"
"I´m going to put a whole bunch of them in a giant catapult and launch them over Aurimere," Kami said. "This will create a distraction. My message will be: Look at all the ducks I give. ~ Sarah Rees Brennan,#NFDB
619:The final result is a system where programmers, artists, animators, and designers are productively programming directly in an S-expression Scheme-like language. Dan closed his talk by wowing the audience with the trailer for the game, which has now been released and is garnering extremely positive reviews. ~ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9810342, #NFDB
620:We know that our scheme of worlds began as thought-forms, or as science pleases to call them, dark nebulae. [...] It was from the darkness of this primum hyle that the visible universe was differentiated, when the dark nebulae in the process of their strivings were brought into visibility through the glowing light created by the friction of the dark atoms, #NFDB
621:There was a time—until very recently in the scheme of things—when there were no wild animals, because every animal was wild; and humans were few. Animals, and animal presence over us and around us. Over every horizon, animals. Their skins clothing our skins, their fats in our lamps, their bladders to carry water, meat when we could get it. ~ Kathleen Jamie, #NFDB
622:ask for help with one of the greatest-of-all-time calibrated questions: “How am I supposed to do that?” The critical part of this approach is that you really are asking for help and your delivery must convey that. With this negotiating scheme, instead of bullying the clerk, you’re asking for their advice and giving them the illusion of control. ~ Chris Voss, #NFDB
623:Those who struggle to change the world see themselves as noble, even tragic figures. Yet most of those who work for world betterment are not rebels against the scheme of things. They seek consolation for a truth they are too weak to bear. At bottom, their faith that the world can be transformed by human will is a denial of their own mortality. ~ John N Gray, #NFDB
624:You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say, you can have no Parliamentary government if you have no party government; and, therefore, when gentlemen denounce party government, they strike at the scheme of government which, in my opinion, has made this country great, and which I hope will keep it great. ~ Benjamin Disraeli, #NFDB
625:Anything else?” he asked, playing with my hair.
“Oh, yeah, there’s a dragon in the alley behind the diner, hanging out with Nona.”
Lend frowned at me, his warm fingers lingering on the back of my neck. “And this gets a mention after the color scheme for a dance and a new episode of a teen soap?”
“Priorities, Lend. Priorities. ~ Kiersten White,#NFDB
626:Life goes headlong. We chase some flying scheme, or we are hunted by some fear or command behind us. But if suddenly we encounter a friend, we pause; our heat and hurry look foolish enough; now pause, now possession, is required, and the power to swell the moment from the resources of the heart. The moment is all, in all noble relations. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
627:The hard decisions,” Ridgway added, “are not the ones you make in the heat of battle. Far harder to make are those involved in speaking your mind about some hare-brained scheme, which proposes to commit troops to action under conditions where failure is almost certain, and the only results will be the needless sacrifice of priceless lives. ~ Jean Edward Smith, #NFDB
628:The welfare state is predicate don collecting money from today's workers in order to pay for those who paid in before them. But today's workers don't have enough money to sustain the scheme, and there are too few of them to do so. As a result, virtually every welfare state in Europe, and many American states, like California are going broke. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
629:/Farsi Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! [bk1sm.gif] -- from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Omar Khayyam / Translated by Edward FitzGerald
~ Omar Khayyam, 73 - Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
,#NFDB
630:For her part, the Church always works for the integral development of every person. In this sense, she reiterates that the common good should not be simply an extra, simply a conceptual scheme of inferior quality tacked onto political programmes. The Church encourages those in power to be truly at the service of the common good of their peoples. ~ Pope Francis, #NFDB
631:Inscribed on it was a verse from the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, the eleventh-century Persian mystic. Reading the words aloud I prepared for a most amazing journey:
The sages who have compassed sea and land,
Their secret to search out and understand,
My mind misgives me if they ever solve
The scheme on which the universe is planned. ~ Tahir Shah,#NFDB
632:Places like Edinburgh seemed staid and passé compared to, say, Chicago, where a man could capitalize upon his native talents in grand fashion, regardless of who his father was. In the scheme of things, it was hard not to feel some jealousy that America was on the ascent, and Europe was wallowing in decline, thanks to its own bad behavior. Judging ~ Nancy Horan, #NFDB
633:The maid found a handkerchief of hers, under the bed in which she had died. A ring that had been missing turned up in his own writing desk. A tradesman arrived with fabric she had ordered three weeks ago. Each day, some further evidence of a task half finished, a scheme incomplete. He found a novel, with her place marked.
And this is it. ~ Hilary Mantel,#NFDB
634:Funny how a thing like that can be so damned important, but you don't know it's important until an instant later in the big scheme of time. Then you go back and try to retrieve it. You tell yourself it's in there somewhere. But it's really in that no-man's-land of the moment before you woke up and started paying attention to your own life. ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde, #NFDB
635:It seems incredible, in retrospect, that any state could proceed with so much hubris and so little information and planning to the dislocation of so many million lives. It seems, again in retrospect, a wild and irrational scheme which was bound to fail both the expectations of its planners and the material and social needs of its hapless victims. ~ James C Scott, #NFDB
636:Inspired by these meetings, Franklin created a scheme in which the Junto members would contribute funds toward buying books that all members could use. This model soon grew beyond Franklin’s Friday evening gatherings, leading him in 1731 to write the charter for the Library Company of Philadelphia, one of the first subscription libraries in America. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
637:The magic that confounds them is humanity. The naturally occurring, slow acting, unpredictably potent product of conscious minds connecting. These madmen want to synthesise love. They want to manufacture it, weaponise it, and use it to control people. It’s such a ludicrous scheme it would be funny if they weren’t trampling the world in pursuit of it. ~ Isaac Marion, #NFDB
638:My belief is to achieve success in any scheme one has to make oneself master of that scheme, know it inside and out, know every detail. I work hard, very hard to do that. I make decisions based on logic and facts. I have a natural gut instinct that can spot and nurture a good solid idea and good people. The bottom line is it’s always down to good people. ~ E L James, #NFDB
639:You may be trying to attain power in this world, then you start trying to attain power in that world. First you want to attain wealth in this world, then you try to attain wealth in that world. But you remain the same, and the mind and the functioning and the whole scheme remains the same: Attain! Reach! This is the ego trip. The achieving mind is the ego. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
640:People talk about the impatience of the populace; but sound historians know that most tyrannies have been possible because men moved too late. It is often essential to resist a tyranny before it exists. It is no answer to say, with a distant optimism, that the scheme is only in the air. A blow from a hatchet can only be parried while it is in the air. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
641:- Then whit?
- Git a job. Or git oan a scheme.
- No gaunnae stey oan n take Highers?
- Naw.
- Ye should. You could go tae University.
- Whit fir?
Geoff had to think for a while. He had recently graduated with a degree in English Literature and was on the dole. So were most of his fellow graduates.
- It's a good social life, he said. ~ Irvine Welsh,#NFDB
642:My mentality, uncontrollable and wanton as always, whispered to me a scheme so magnificent and daring that I shrank from the very thought of what I was hearing. "Stop!" I cried imploringly to my god-like mind. "This is madness." But still I listened to the counsel of my brain. It was offering me the opportunity to Save the World Through Degeneracy. ~ John Kennedy Toole, #NFDB
643:I tried to explain to her the significance of the great poet, but without much success, The Waste Land not figuring very largely in Mam's scheme of things. "The thing is," I said finally, "he won the Nobel Prize." "Well," she said, with that unerring grasp of inessentials which is the prerogative of mothers, "Im not surprised. It was a beautiful overcoat. ~ Alan Bennett, #NFDB
644:His hypothesis goes to this - to make the common run of his readers fancy they can do all that can be done by genius, and to make the man of genius believe he can only do what is to be done by mechanical rules and systematic industry. This is not a very feasible scheme; nor is Sir Joshua sufficiently clear and explicit in his reasoning in support of it. ~ William Hazlitt, #NFDB
645:I also asked time to stand still.
Because I'd been wrong. In life, there are three periods of time: before, after and now. I'd always thoughts of now as a limbo. Sometimes, rarely, it was limbo.
But in the scheme of things, if I took the time to stop and open my eyes; if I paid attention, and counted my blessings, now wasn't limbo.
Now was heaven. ~ Penny Reid,#NFDB
646:Logan to Sam "You know, sometimes life puts people in our way at unexpected times. And even if we think them to be inconvenient, the connection can be intense, it'll change the scheme of things. Whenever something like that happens, it is best to go with it, because no amount of refusal or denial is going to make a difference in whatever is meant to be ~ Taylor V Donovan, #NFDB
647:The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave. ~ Thomas B Macaulay, #NFDB
648:Because he knew in his very bones that there could be no reason, nor any special purpose, for a Divinity. Mankind had made it all up out of whole cloth because, at bottom, everyone was afraid of the dark, afraid of ultimate extinction, afraid to face the fact that individual lives meant nothing in the grand scheme of a vast and utterly indifferent cosmos. ~ Robert Masello, #NFDB
649:If any student of social science comes to appreciate the case of the Forgotten Man, he will become an unflinching advocate of strict scientific thinking in sociology, and a hard-hearted skeptic as regards any scheme of social amelioration. He will always want to know, Who and where is the Forgotten Man in this case, who will have to pay for it all? ~ William Graham Sumner, #NFDB
650:Congress and the White House are working out their scheme for pushing through a healthcare 'reform' bill that has more pages than the U.S. Constitution has words. I guarantee you that not a single member of the House or Senate has a complete understanding of that legislation any more than they understood all the implications of the USA PATRIOT Act back in 2001. ~ Butch Otter, #NFDB
651:Life can be confusing. Good God, and how. Sometimes it seems like the older I get, the more confused I become. That seems ass-backwards. I thought I was supposed to be getting wiser. Instead, I just keep getting hit over the head with my relative insignificance in the greater scheme of the universe. Confusing, life. But it beats the hell out of the alternative. ~ Jim Butcher, #NFDB
652:Men like Robin were never content, and men like Robin were all she would ever love, grasping, ambitious reflections of herself... He would begin to plot and scheme behind her back, building up a court faction... To emerge from that final conflict as the victor, it would be necessary to kill him. And she knew she was capable of doing it-- it was as simple as that. ~ Susan Kay, #NFDB
653:The Mandelbrot set obeys an extraordinarily precise scheme leaving nothing to chance whatsoever. I strongly suspect that the day somebody actually figures out how the brain is organized they will discover to their amazement that there is a coding scheme for building the brain which is of extraordinary precision. The idea of randomness in biology is just reflex. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
654:From the least parochial perspectives available to us, people are the most significant entities in the cosmic scheme of things. They are not ‘supported’ by their environments, but support themselves by creating knowledge. Once they have suitable knowledge (essentially, the knowledge of the Enlightenment), they are capable of sparking unlimited further progress. ~ David Deutsch, #NFDB
655:It was a cherished experience. I feel I got the chance to see the inner workings of the grand order of things. In the overall scheme of things, it proves that men can do about anything they want to if they work hard enough at it, and I knew that I could do it . . . and that leads, of course, to a strong suspicion that everybody else can do it if they want to. ~ Scott Carpenter, #NFDB
656:What a wonderful and amazing Scheme have we here of the magnificent Vastness of the Universe! So many Suns, so many Earths, and every one of them stock’d with so many Herbs, Trees and Animals, and adorn’d with so many Seas and Mountains! And how must our wonder and admiration be encreased when we consider the prodigious distance and multitude of the Stars? ~ Christiaan Huygens, #NFDB
657:Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong: there you have Nature, there you have her intentions, there you have her scheme: a perpetual action and reaction, a host of vices, a host of virtues, in one word, a perfect equilibrium resulting from the equality of good and evil on earth. ~ Marquis de Sade, #NFDB
658:That which is useless dies. Animals that fail to serve some useful purpose in the scheme of things slowly but surely become extinct. Let any part of the human body cease to perform its ordained function, and it withers-as when an arm is kept long in a sling. This same decree, that nothing useless is permitted to survive, runs through the mind of the industrial world. ~ B C Forbes, #NFDB
659:She had been a friend and companion such as few possessed: intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of hers--one to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had such an affection for her as could never find fault. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
660:Einstein knew that its central thesis was wrong. Why? Because he knew in his very bones that there could be no reason, nor any special purpose, for a Divinity. Mankind had made it all up out of whole cloth because, at bottom, everyone was afraid of the dark, afraid of ultimate extinction, afraid to face the fact that individual lives meant nothing in the grand scheme ~ Robert Masello, #NFDB
661:Fact is Our Lord knew all about the power of money: He gave capitalism a tiny niche in His scheme of things, He gave it a chance, He even provided a first installment of funds. Can you beat that? It's so magnificent. God despises nothing. After all, if the deal had come off, Judas would probably have endowed sanatoriums, hospitals, public libraries or laboratories. ~ Georges Bernanos, #NFDB
662:It’s the wild colour scheme that freaks me,” said Zaphod whose love affair with this ship had lasted almost three minutes into the flight, “Every time you try to operate on of these weird black controls that are labelled in black on a black background, a little black light lights up black to let you know you’ve done it. What is this? Some kind of galactic hyperhearse? ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
663:We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one's life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
664:Rejection is good. Putting others ahead of self, giving things away. Success, money, power, fame, happiness, friends; any kind of pleasure - giving it all away, in the pyramid scheme of life, with the knowledge that everything will be returned, and being satisfied with that knowledge; not with the actual return of things, but the idea of the return of things. There is death. ~ Tao Lin, #NFDB
665:There was a time when I believed in the story and the scheme of salvation, so far as I could understand it, just as I believed there was a Devil... Suddenly the light broke through to me and I knew this God was a lie... For indeed it is a silly story, and each generation nowadays swallows it with greater difficulty... Why do people go on pretending about this Christianity? ~ H G Wells, #NFDB
666:Any schemes - such as 'think of symmetry laws', or 'put the information in mathematical form', or 'guess equations'- are known to everybody now, and they are all tried all the time. When you are stuck, the answer cannot be one of these, because you will have tried these right away...The next scheme, the new discovery, is going to be made in a completely different way. ~ Richard P Feynman, #NFDB
667:Capitalism is the only engine credible enough to generate mass wealth. I think it's imperfect, but we're stuck with it. And thank God we have that in the toolbox. But if you don't manage it in some way that incorporates all of society, if everybody's not benefiting on some level and you don't have a sense of shared purpose, national purpose, then it's just a pyramid scheme. ~ David Simon, #NFDB
668:Drink then," he replied, still with the same cold composure.
"Does thou know mw so little Hester Pyrnne? Are my purposes wont to be so shallow? Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance, what could i do better for my object than to let thee live-than to give the medicines against all harm and peril of life-so that this burning shame may still blaze upon thy bosom? ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne,#NFDB
669:When, in the fifteenth century, some audacious mariners who had sailed from Europe discovered America, nothing seemed to justify such a venture in the eyes of their contemporaries. Today, however, we can see it has given birth to the twentieth-century United States. Don't you think the existence of the United States constitutes a valid reason for Columbus's wild scheme... ~ Pierre Boulle, #NFDB
670:A schism in the body social, will not be resolved by any scheme of a return to the good old days (archaism), or by programs guaranteed to render an ideal projected future (futurism), or even by the most realistic, hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating elements. Only birth can conquer death -- the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new. ~ Joseph Campbell, #NFDB
671:I was lucky enough to build on the work of a number of people who had already run laps around this theory-building track. The original classification scheme, years ago, distinguished radical from incremental change. The theory said that established firms managed incremental change well, but would be expected to founder when their industry encountered a radical change. ~ Clayton Christensen, #NFDB
672:Kant was right; morality did in the eighteenth century, as a matter of historical fact, presuppose something very like the teleological scheme of God, freedom and happiness as the final crown of virtue which Kant propounds. Detach morality from that framework and you will no longer have morality; or, at the very least, you will have radically transformed its character. ~ Alasdair MacIntyre, #NFDB
673:No point in describing the office. No point in even allowing the office to even
register on her eyeballs and take up valuable memory space in her brain.
Fluorescent lights and partitions with carpet glued to them. I prefer my carpet
on the floor, thank you. A color scheme. Ergonomic shit. Chicks with
lipstick. Xerox smell. Everything's pretty new, she figures. ~ Neal Stephenson,#NFDB
674:The main route for introducing change to a conservative interpretive tradition is to employ veteran tools from its repository to advance unprecedented ideas. But one must do so without seeming to break the coherence of that system or pandering too obviously to external agendas. Overloaded or pushed too far, even the most indigenous interpretive scheme will run aground. ~ Jonathan A C Brown, #NFDB
675:wasn’t built for heavy doses of rejection. I’d known this about myself since high school, freshman year, when I got cut from the baseball team. A small setback, in the grand scheme, but it knocked me sideways. It was my first real awareness that not everyone in this world will like us, or accept us, that we’re often cast aside at the very moment we most need to be included. I ~ Phil Knight, #NFDB
676:We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one's life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
677:Know thyself, for in thyself is to be found all that there is to be known,” is still the rule for the wise student. If each one of us would scientifically regard ourselves as centres of force, holding the matter of our bodies within our radius of control, and thus working through and in them, we should have a hypothesis whereby the entire cosmic scheme could be interpreted. ~ Alice A Bailey, #NFDB
678:Nature is, above all, profligate. Don't believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn't it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place? This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme, the brainchild of a deranged manic-depressive with limitless capital. Extravagance! Nature will try anything once. ~ Annie Dillard, #NFDB
679:We must not leap to the fatalistic conclusion that we are stuck with the conceptual scheme that we grew up in. We can change it, bit by bit, plank by plank, though meanwhile there is nothing to carry us along but the evolving conceptual scheme itself. The philosopher's task was well compared by Neurath to that of a mariner who must rebuild his ship on the open sea. ~ Willard Van Orman Quine, #NFDB
680:I sought to comprehend the principles of eternally regenerative Universe and to discover human functioning therein, thereby to discover nature’s governing complexes of generalized principles and to employ these principles in the development of the specific artifacts that would benefit humanity’s fulfillment of its essential functioning in the cosmic scheme. ~ Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path, #NFDB
681:It is possible for one with a well-trained memory to compose clearly in an organized fashion on several different subjects. Once one has the all-important starting-place of the ordering scheme and the contents firmly in their places within it, it is quite possible to move back and forth from one distinct composition to another without losing one's place or becoming confused. ~ Mary Carruthers, #NFDB
682:Speculative Philosophy is the endeavour to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. By this notion of 'interpretation' I mean that everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme. ~ Charles Hartshorne, #NFDB
683:How extraordinary was my life an incident may illustrate... [As a youth] I was fascinated by a description of Niagara Falls. I had perused, and pictured in my imagination a big wheel run by the Falls. I told my uncle that I would go to America and carry out this scheme. Thirty years later I saw my ideas carried out at Niagara and marveled at the unfathomable mystery of the mind. ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
684:Under Khrushchev, Stalin-era laws restricting job mobility were abandoned, the official workday was shortened, minimum wages were established and a system of maternity leave introduced, along with a national pension scheme (extended to collective farmers after 1965). In short, the Soviet Union—and its more advanced satellite states—became embryonic welfare states, at least in form. ~ Tony Judt, #NFDB
685:Many of us live with incredible tension and anxiety because we think that our dreams will come true if we just get the right degree, if we just meet the right people, if we just get the right job. We assume our happiness is tied to our success, and our success depends on our performance. So we sweat and struggle and scheme and strategize, and we wonder why we aren’t enjoying life. ~ Judah Smith, #NFDB
686:Not only did this new pornography industry change the way men look at women and how we relate to sex, how we sell stuff, and not only did it change America's cultural landscape - it's also this incredible metaphor for a market-based economy. The great pyramid scheme that America has become. I felt like in were larger themes in terms of culture and economics that could be addressed. ~ David Simon, #NFDB
687:According to intelligence contacts of Sauncho’s, it had been common CIA practice for a while to put Nixon’s face on phony North Vietnamese bills, as part of a scheme to destabilize the enemy currency by airdropping millions of these fakes during routine bombing raids over the north. But Nixonizing U.S. currency this way was not as easily explained, nor sometimes even appreciated. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
688:Real motherhood is different. It's better and it's messier and it's more complicated. It will break your heart and make you laugh harder than you ever imagined. You find yourself alternating between feeling like your friends talked you into some sort of pyramid scheme so you could share in their misery and thinking this is the most fulfilling thing you've ever done in your life. ~ Melanie Shankle, #NFDB
689:we write every day, we fight every day, we think and scheme and dream a little dream every day. manuscripts pile up in the kitchen sink, run-on sentences dangle around our necks. we plant purple prose in our gardens and snip the adverbs only to thread them in our hair. we write with no guarantees, no certainties, no promises of what might come and we do it anyway. this is who we are. ~ Tahereh Mafi, #NFDB
690:During this very, very long poem
You could have connected
Maybe you are connecting
Maybe we’re connecting
See, I believe that the only things that really matter
In the grand scheme of life are God and people
And if people are made in the image of God
Then when you spend your time with people
It’s never wasted
- A Very Long Poem, by Marty Schoenleber III ~ Colleen Hoover,#NFDB
691:Here is an old Oriental proverb: *A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.* It is difficult to anticipate just how a situation will develop in every detail until you take a step forward and try out your present equipment. Then, if weaknesses appear, you will have clues as to how to strengthen your resources. No scheme or plan is perfect. Perfection is a process, not an end. ~ Napoleon Hill, #NFDB
692:I am somewhat uncertain whether there is a definite factual question as to whether natural language handles truth-value gaps. Nor am I even quite sure that there is a definite question of fact as to whether natural language should be evaluated by the minimal fixed point or another, given the choice of a scheme for handling gaps. We are not at the moment searching for the correct scheme. ~ Saul Kripke, #NFDB
693:In placid hours well-pleased we dream Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, What unlike things must meet and mate: A flame to melt--a wind to freeze; Sad patience--joyous energies; Humility--yet pride and scorn; Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity--reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, To wrestle with the angel--Art. ~ Herman Melville, #NFDB
694:Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading through up to your eyes in blood, you could only end up where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found... all is confusion beyond it. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
695:Rockets now evoke a slightly old-fashioned kind of wonder, because they stand for an obsolete version of technological prowess. In the scheme of history which has become the most popular version of the recent past, the Space Age counts as the final phase of the Age of Industry – its culmination, just before the paradigm changed and the Age of Information replaced steel with digits. ~ Francis Spufford, #NFDB
696:For the first time I saw a medley of haphazard facts fall into line and order. All the jumbles and recipes and hotchpotch of the inorganic chemistry of my boyhood seemed to fit into the scheme before my eyes—as though one were standing beside a jungle and it suddenly transformed itself into a Dutch garden.
[Upon hearing the Periodic Table explained in a first-tern university lecture.] ~ C P Snow,#NFDB
697:If you do something to benefit one person, that is an absolute gain, and its relative insignificance in the wider scheme is irrelevant. Benefit two people without concomitant harm to others - or a village, tribe, city, class, nation, society or civilisation - and the benefits are scalable, arithmetic. There is no excuse beyond fatalistic self-indulgence and sheer laziness for doing nothing. ~ Iain Banks, #NFDB
698:Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions. ~ C Wright Mills, #NFDB
699:Growing hops is one of the most labour-intensive parts of the brewing process, and all the workers, at every step of the way, are grossly underpaid. It’s good that we have the chance these days to buy Fair Trade bananas and coffee. Why not extend the scheme to British produce, too? Why not pay more for beer, and pay the highly skilled men and women who work in the gardens the minimum wage? ~ Ian Marchant, #NFDB
700:The exploitation agenda advocated by liberals is modeled after the dependency-inducing design of the drug dealer's business model: "We'll supply the first hit for free, and after that, you'll need us forever in order to survive." In order for the liberal scheme to succeed, all attempts at self-empowerment or individual initiative are to be met with fierce resistance and social sanction. ~ Angela McGlowan, #NFDB
701:You can't take yourself too seriously. Like, yeah, I'm doin' all that, but still I don't feel like I've done anything, really. I feel blessed 'cause I'm doin' all these things, but I'm not satisfied. I still have that feeling like, "Who am I? Who am I to have an ego? Who am I to change up and act like some Hollywood character?" Technically, in the grand scheme of things, I haven't done anything. ~ J Cole, #NFDB
702:Society is rigid. Everyone knows everyone else in their world. Everyone has their place in the scheme of things. If you don't belong to a family, a tribe, a village, a guild, whatever, you don't exist then, either. And you can't just pitch up somewhere without mutual acquaintances, recommendations, or letters of introduction. Life on the fringes of society, any society in any time, is tough. ~ Jodi Taylor, #NFDB
703:I replayed our last kiss in my mind, clinging to it like a life vest in a raging sea. Had I imagined his feelings for me, misread his intentions? What if everything he’d said was just a ploy, a scheme to get me to Tir Na Nog and the queen?
No, I couldn’t believe that. The emotion on his face that night was real. I had to believe that he cared, I had to believe in him, or I would go crazy. ~ Julie Kagawa,#NFDB
704:It would be painful and probably embarrassing–no, not embarrassing, because only I controlled whether or not I was embarrassed. And I could do this. And I wouldn't be embarrassed. Even if I was, just a little, it didn't matter in the big scheme of things. This speech wasn't forever. Being embarrassed was not forever. None of this was forever.
But trying was.
Living was. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,#NFDB
705:The industry was finally found guilty under the RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations).121 In 2006, U.S. district judge Gladys Kessler found that the tobacco industry had “devised and executed a scheme to defraud consumers and potential consumers” about the hazards of cigarettes, hazards that their own internal company documents proved they had known about since the 1950s. ~ Naomi Oreskes, #NFDB
706:Can you understand this? Shooting dope is all about getting warm and fuzzy. Dependably so. But the Daddy-rush... Forget about it! I've never felt anything so terrifying! It's so real, even the pleasure can break your heart. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is what separates shooting smack from loving your little girl. Heroin may kill you, but it'll never break your heart. Not like a child. ~ Jerry Stahl, #NFDB
707:Even in the realm of pure mathematics, the mathematician may use any set of symbols he desires within any given region of space-time; he may even go so far as to maintain that any one set of symbols fits the scheme as well as any other, but to erect this method into a philosophy and confuse independence of any one special meaning with independence of all meaning is unjustified and unwarranted. ~ Fulton J Sheen, #NFDB
708:In my acquaintance with John Rawls, I found him to be a simple and honest man, who just by chance also happened to be the greatest moral philosopher of the twentieth century. I would like to think that I could emulate at least his modesty - his refusal to exaggerate his perception of himself and his place in the larger scheme of things - even if my work never compares with his in its importance. ~ Allen W Wood, #NFDB
709:What is it? For what do you scheme? Ethine's death would weigh on you and the stain of her blood would seep into your skin" "Do you know what they wish for when they give you the Unseelie crown?" Roiben's tone was soft, like he was telling a secret. Kaye could barely catch his words. "That you be made of ice. What makes you think it matters what I feel? What makes you think I feel anything at all? ~ Holly Black, #NFDB
710:The claims of contemporary art cannot be ignored in any vital scheme of life. The art of today is that which really belongs to us: it is our own reflection. In condemning it we but condemn ourselves. We say that the present age possesses no art: who is responsible for this? It is indeed a shame that despite all our rhapsodies about the ancients we pay so little attention to our own possibilities. ~ Kakuz Okakura, #NFDB
711:With my hair in a low ponytail that did a decent job of hiding the healing tattoo, I almost looked like a respectable girlfriend— which only went to show how deceptive appearances were, seeing as I was part of a crazy scheme to bring my last boyfriend back from the dead.
Mead, Richelle (2010-05-18). Spirit Bound: A Vampire Academy Novel (p. 68). Penguin Young Readers Group. Kindle Edition. ~ Richelle Mead,#NFDB
712:She had chosen Dante because she found the rhyme scheme pleasingly jaunty, but she realized too late that the Inferno's tale of sinners being cruelly punished in the afterlife was much too bloody and disturbing to be suitable for young minds. Penelope could tell this by the way the children hung on her every word and demanded "More, more!" each time she reached the end of a canto and tried to stop. ~ Maryrose Wood, #NFDB
713:Even if corners were cut, (Iran-Contra) was a brilliant scheme. There is no possibility that anyone in any Democratic administration would have gone to such lengths to fund anti-Communist forces. When Democrats scheme from the White House, it's to cover up the President's affair with an intern. When Republicans scheme, it's to support embattled anti-Communist freedom fighters sold out by the Democrats. ~ Ann Coulter, #NFDB
714:God sounds kinda like a shitty father to me. If God was so powerful why'd he have to give his son up? It sounds like God owed someone some money and they couldn't get to him, so they murked his son. That's what I really think happened. Jesus got stabbed up in an alley... but it's easier to sell crucifixes. You can't sell a pendant of someone getting shanked up In the alley. It's a marketing scheme. ~ Hannibal Buress, #NFDB
715:If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things. ~ Daniel Dennett, #NFDB
716:Legalism may “work” in an institution such as a Bible college or the Marine Corps. In a world of ungrace, structured shame has considerable power. But there is a cost, an incalculable cost: ungrace does not work in a relationship with God. I have come to see legalism in its pursuit of false purity as an elaborate scheme of grace avoidance. You can know the law by heart without knowing the heart of it ~ Philip Yancey, #NFDB
717:The International Idea,
The largest and the clearest,
Is welding all the nations now,
Except the one that’s nearest.
This compromise has long been known,
This scheme of partial pardons,
In ethical societies
And small suburban gardens—
The villas and the chapels where
I learned with little labour
The way to love my fellow-man
And to hate my next-door neighbor. ~ G K Chesterton,#NFDB
718:The value of autonomy … lies in the scheme of responsibility it creates: autonomy makes each of us responsible for shaping his own life according to some coherent and distinctive sense of character, conviction, and interest. It allows us to lead our own lives rather than be led along them, so that each of us can be, to the extent such a scheme of rights can make this possible, what he has made himself. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
719:But it grieves my heart, love,
To see you tryin' to be a part of
A world that just don't exist.
It's all just a dream, babe,
A vacuum, a scheme, babe,
That sucks you into feelin' like this.
I can see that your head
Has been twisted and fed
By worthless foam from the mouth.
I can tell you are torn
Between stayin' and returnin'
On back to the South.
From "To Ramona ~ Bob Dylan,#NFDB
720:If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things. ~ Daniel C Dennett, #NFDB
721:What is it? For what do you scheme? Ethine's death would weigh on you and the stain of her blood would seep into your skin"
"Do you know what they wish for when they give you the Unseelie crown?" Roiben's tone was soft, like he was telling a secret. Kaye could barely catch his words. "That you be made of ice. What makes you think it matters what I feel? What makes you think I feel anything at all? ~ Holly Black,#NFDB
722:Jude leaped out of arm's reach, and walked along the trackway weeping--not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was good for God's birds was bad for God's gardener; but with the awful sense that he had wholly disgraced himself before he had been a year in the parish, and hence might be a burden to his great-aunt for life. ~ Thomas Hardy, #NFDB
723:The physicist may be satisfied when he has the mathematical scheme and knows how to use for the interpretation of the experiments. But he has to speak about his results also to non-physicists who will not be satisfied unless some explanation is given in plain language. Even for the physicist the description in plain language will be the criterion of the degree of understanding that has been reached. ~ Werner Heisenberg, #NFDB
724:An ocean of electric Energy
Formlessly formed its strange wave-particles
Constructing by their dance this solid scheme, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Godheads of the Little Life
Wave-particles
The dictum that each has his own way is not true; each has his own way of following the common way and the \“own way\” may often be very defective. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - IV, Mental Development and Sadhana,#NFDB
725:He felt all the torment of his and her position, all the difficulties they were surrounded by in consequence of their station in life, which exposed them to the eyes of the whole world, obliged them to hide their love, to lie and deceive, and again to lie and deceive, to scheme and constantly think about others while the passion that bound them was so strong that they both forgot everything but their love. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
726:Any time you do something, you make decisions about time and space. I wanted those decisions to be out of my hands. I could be dragged, carried along by another person, I could be a receiver. I could be the agent of the overall scheme, but I didn't want to be the agent of the particular action. I could make the ultimate decision that my space is going to change now, but I don't know where it's going to go. ~ Vito Acconci, #NFDB
727:f you can approach the world’s complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only just scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things. ~ Daniel C Dennett, #NFDB
728:The value of autonomy … lies in the scheme of responsibility it creates: autonomy makes each of us responsible for shaping his own life according to some coherent and distinctive sense of character, conviction, and interest. It allows us to lead our own lives rather than be led along them, so that each of us can be, to the extent such a scheme of rights can make this possible, what he has made himself.” All ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
729:A certain type—he knew them all too well from years of experience as a detective, he knew how they acted, how they spoke, how their minds worked. These were people who would do anything to win at what they saw as the game of life, who had no allegiance to anyone or anything beyond themselves, who were gifted liars, who could scheme their way into almost anyone’s confidence, then betray them without hesitation. ~ Alan Furst, #NFDB
730:All my life, I ain't understand shit about what was going on. A thing just happen, then something else happen, then something else, an so on, and half the time nothing making any sense. But Dan say it is all part of a scheme of some sort, and the best way we can get along is figure out how we fit into the scheme, and then try to stick to our place. Somehow knowing this, things get a good bit clearer for me. ~ Winston Groom, #NFDB
731:During the recent depression many companies have been able to offset their operating losses by including in income profits arising from repurchases of their own bonds at a substantial discount from par. Unfortunately the credit of U. S. Steel Corporation has always stood so high that this lucrative source of revenue has not hitherto been available to it. The Modernization Scheme will remedy this condition. ~ Warren Buffett, #NFDB
732:It was the very essence of his life to be a solitary achievement, accomplished not by hermit-like withdrawal with it's silence and immobility but by a system of restless wandering, by the detachment of an impermanent dweller amongst changing scenes. In this scheme he had perceived the means of passing through life without suffering and almost without a single care in the world- invulnerable because elusive. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
733:Just what is a speculative bubble? The Oxford English Dictionary defines a bubble as “anything fragile, unsubstantial, empty, or worthless; a deceptive show. From 17th c. onwards often applied to delusive commercial or financial schemes.” The problem is that words like show and scheme suggest a deliberate creation, rather than a widespread social phenomenon that is not directed by any central impresario. ~ Robert J Shiller, #NFDB
734:Just as the introduction of the irrational numbers ... is a convenient myth [which] simplifies the laws of arithmetic ... so physical objects are postulated entities which round out and simplify our account of the flux of existence... The conceptional scheme of physical objects is [likewise] a convenient myth, simpler than the literal truth and yet containing that literal truth as a scattered part. ~ Willard Van Orman Quine, #NFDB
735:Schism in the soul, schism in the body social, will not be resolved by any scheme to return to the good old days (archaism), or by programs guaranteed to render an ideal projected future (futurism), or even by the most realistic, hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating elements [of civilization]. Only birth can conquer death―the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new. ~ Arnold Joseph Toynbee, #NFDB
736:There is an infinity of landscape here, caused by the purity of the atmosphere. It has been said that there is a lack of colour. It is not so obvious as the greenness of England, but it is infinitely more varied and more delicate in tone. The landscape is a pinky mauve, a lilac, and the reflection of the sun of the particles of the atmosphere is a warm amber. So I should say our colour scheme is amber and lilac. ~ Hans Heysen, #NFDB
737:What can you prove about space? How do you know where you are? Can space be curved? How many dimensions are there? How does geometry explain the natural order and unity of the cosmos? These are the questions behind the five geometric revolutions of world history. It started with a little scheme hatched by Pythagoras: to employ mathematics as the abstract system of rules that can model the physical universe. ~ Leonard Mlodinow, #NFDB
738:In selling his scheme, Obama has been promoting the myth that our system is no better than those of other advanced nations. His recent statements have betrayed his openly contemptuous attitude toward American health care and out top-flight medical profession. His attitude is consistent with his revealed general attitude about America, which he denigrates every time he gets a chance, especially on foreign soil. ~ David Limbaugh, #NFDB
739:My government has taken a special initiative for Africa, pledging $ 200 million in the form of credit line as part of the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) Scheme. My government has also announced a second scheme TEAM-9 initiative with a certain number of African countries with an outlay of $ 500 million. These initiatives aim at the long-term economic development of certain African countries. ~ A P J Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
740:The ticket to emotional health, like that to physical health, comes from eating your veggies—that is, accepting the bland and mundane truths of life: truths such as “Your actions actually don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things” and “The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy, and that’s okay.” This vegetable course will taste bad at first. Very bad. You will avoid accepting it. ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
741:If you think that what you're doing is not all that important in the larger scheme of things and that you're just an insignificant creature in the whole wide world, which is full of six billion people, and that people are born and die every day and it makes no difference to future generations what you write, and that writing and reading are increasingly irrelevant activities, you'd probably never get out of bed. ~ Pankaj Mishra, #NFDB
742:But Einstein knew that its central thesis was wrong. Why? Because he knew in his very bones that there could be no reason, nor any special purpose, for a Divinity. Mankind had made it all up out of whole cloth because, at bottom, everyone was afraid of the dark, afraid of ultimate extinction, afraid to face the fact that individual lives meant nothing in the grand scheme of a vast and utterly indifferent cosmos. ~ Robert Masello, #NFDB
743:From our bathroom breaks to our sleep schedules to our emotional availability, Millennials are growing up highly attuned to the needs of capital markets. We are encouraged to strategize and scheme to find places, times, and roles where we can be effectively put to work. Efficiency is our existential purpose, and we are a generation of finely honed tools, crafted from embryos to be lean, mean production machines. ~ Malcolm Harris, #NFDB
744:It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity. It will attempt at the same time to find the due place in the modern democratic scheme for this new propaganda and to suggest its gradually evolving code of ethics and practice. ~ Edward L Bernays, #NFDB
745:I am Death and no one defeats or escapes Death. (Thanatos)
You know, I’ll bet most people shit their pants in terror when you hand them that line. But you know what, Mr. I-want-to-be-scary-and-am-failing-miserably? I’m not a person. I’m a Dark-Hunter and in the grand scheme of things you don’t mean shit to me. Now I can sit here and play with you, but I'd rather just put you out of both our miseries. (Zarek) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon,#NFDB
746:Sometimes I think about the trees and the mountains and how long they've been here. Much longer than I've been alive, and they'll be here long after I've gone. It makes you realize how small you are in the scheme of things, what little impact you have on the world. It's part of the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing this weekend, to make an impact. To know I might have made a difference, even if it was a small one. ~ Megan Bostic, #NFDB
747:ADVENTURE (ADVE'NTURE) n.s.[French.]1. An accident; a chance; a hazard; an event of which we have no direction. The general summoned three castles that were near: one desperate of succour, and not desirous to dispute the defence, presently yielded; but two stood upon their adventure.Sir John Hayward.2. In this sense is used the phrase, at all adventures;[à l’adventure, Fr.]By chance; without any rational scheme. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
748:in a boy like Bigger, young, unschooled, whose subjective life was clothed in the tattered rags of American “culture,” this primitive fear and ecstasy were naked, exposed, unprotected by religion or a framework of government or a scheme of society whose final faiths would gain his love and trust; unprotected by trade or profession, faith or belief; opened to every trivial blast of daily or hourly circumstance. There ~ Richard Wright, #NFDB
749:Many state governments have launched innovative steps such as Ladli Laxmi scheme of Madhya Pradesh, PDS reform scheme of Chattisgarh, computerization of land records in Karnataka, free computers to students passing 10th standard exams, pollution control efforts in Himachal, power sector reforms in Rajasthan and Mumbai - Pune Expressway in Maharashta. These excellent innovative schemes are examples of good governance. ~ Narendra Modi, #NFDB
750:You are what you worship. There's something so true about that, with how we're operating as a culture in America. People believing in a wide variety of things, and rarely believing in the same thing. It gives us an opportunity to have a conversation: What is faith? What is belief? What is your personal responsibility for how you see yourself in the grander scheme of the universe, and life, and your contribution to it? ~ Bryan Fuller, #NFDB
751:One must have a rigid, easily retained order, with a definite beginning. Into this order one places the components of what one wishes to memorize and recall. As a money-changer ("nummularium") separates and classifies his coins by type in his money bag ("sacculum," "marsupium"), so the contents of wisdom's storehouse ("thesaurus," "archa"), which is the memory, must be classified according to a definite, orderly scheme. ~ Ibid, 81-82, #NFDB
752:I had no idea that you would come up with this mad scheme. How did you enlist your mother in your wickedness? What lies did you tell her?” “None. From the first, my mother has known exactly who you are.” His nonchalant reply knotted her stomach with shame and anger. How could he be so careless of her reputation? “Your mistress?” After a fraught pause, Lachlan’s voice emerged deep and steady. “The woman I want to marry. ~ Anna Campbell, #NFDB
753:Anarchism may be described as the doctrine that all the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and that the State should be abolished..... Nor does the Anarchistic scheme furnish any code of morals to be imposed upon the individual. "Mind your own business" is its own moral law. Interference with another's business is a crime and the only crime, and as such may properly be resisted. ~ Benjamin Tucker, #NFDB
754:I have something to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
755:Yes, and Eliza and I composed a precocious critique of the Constitution of the United Staes of America, too. We argued that it was a good scheme for misery as any, since its success in keeping the common people reasonably happy and proud depended on the strength of the people themselves-- and yet it described no practical machinery which would tend to make the people, as opposed to their elected representatives, strong. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
756:Consistent with Martin Klaproth’s inspiration in 1789 to link his discovery of a new element with the recent discovery of the planet Uranus and with McMillan’s suggestion to extend the scheme to Neptune, Seaborg would name element 94 for Pluto, the ninth planet outward from the sun, discovered in 1930 and named for the Greek god of the underworld, a god of the earth’s fertility but also the god of the dead: plutonium. * ~ Richard Rhodes, #NFDB
757:She left me the way people leave a hotel room. A hotel room is a place to be when you are doing something else. Of itself it is of no consequence to one's major scheme. A hotel room is convenient. But its convenience is limited to the time you need it while you are in that particular town on that particular business; you hope it is comfortable, but prefer, rather, that it be anoymous. It is not, after all, where you live. ~ Toni Morrison, #NFDB
758:The only reason there is a crisis about Social Security in the US and pensions in Europe and Japan is that you cannot maintain a "Ponzi" scheme indefinitely. We have collected from today's young to pay today's old and counted on tomorrow's young to keep doing so. That was a fine scheme as long as the number of young people was rising faster than old people. When that ratio comes to an end, such a system also has to end. ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
759:It’s the color scheme of that first afternoon—that white panorama full of potential, that threshold white—that Marina understands as whomise. And that’s what she’s trying to recreate now, a year and a bit later, with a series of expensive light bulbs. ‘White light,’ the packaging promised. She fits them one by one throughout the house, and unbeknown to her, choreographs the slow dance of light-over-puddle in the passageway. ~ Laia Jufresa, #NFDB
760:And there is something great about knowing that my only job is to be as happy as I can be about my life, and feel as good as I can about myself, and to lead as full and eventful a life as I can, so that it doesn’t ever feel like I’m just waiting around for some guy to ask me out. And most importantly, it’s good for us all to remember that we don’t need to scheme and plot and beg to get someone to ask us out. We’re fantastic. ~ Liz Tuccillo, #NFDB
761:And there is something great about knowing that my only job is to be as happy as I can be about my life, and feel as good as I can about myself, and to lead as full and eventful a life as I can, so that it doesn’t ever feel like I’m just waiting around for some guy to ask me out. And most importantly, it’s good for us all to remember that we don’t need to scheme and plot and beg to get someone to ask us out. We’re fantastic. ~ Greg Behrendt, #NFDB
762:Unlike all earlier Roman reformers, Gaius sponsored not just a single initiative but a dozen or so. He was the first politician in the city, leaving aside the mythical founding fathers, to have an extensive and coherent programme, with measures that covered such things as the right of appeal against the death penalty, the outlawing of bribery and a much more ambitious scheme of land distribution than Tiberius had ever proposed. ~ Mary Beard, #NFDB
763:It's awfully good of some people to have asked me to take the job, but I'd rather read about a grand escape than plan one. Besides, I'm terrible at keeping secrets and I hate to scheme against people. It seems rude. I don't deal with guilt well and I'm worried we might hurt some feelings in the process of defending ourselves. Also, I am juggling a couple of books. Being a full-time conspirator would take away from my reading time. ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
764:My dad was always snoozing on the couch, like Dagwood Bumstead. He was a lazy motherfucker. God bless him. He was always working on some kind of get-rich-quick scheme. This is what my dad was like: I'd say, Hey, Dad, we studied penguins today in school. He'd say, Yeah? I'm a penguin fucker from way back. Dad, I saw a giraffe at the zoo today. Yeah? I'm a giraffe fucker from way back. That's my dad. My dad was a giraffe fucker. ~ James Ellroy, #NFDB
765:Dear God, there couldn't be a single thing more humiliating in this entire world. Unless, of course, Hairy had been out here in his maxi pad. Thomas sighed. Walking around the house with that thing tied around his waist, Hairy had looked like a—well, he'd looked like an ugly dog in a Kotex. Thomas had laughed his ass off at first, but soon discovered the crazy scheme had saved him about three cleanup jobs in one evening alone. ~ Susan Donovan, #NFDB
766:I sorrowfully acknowledge that seven years ago.... I was wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends and colleagues who victimized me with the aid of a female confederate. They conspired to betray me into a sexual encounter at a time of great stress in my marital life.... I was set up as part of a scheme to co-opt me and obtain some advantage for themselves over me in connection with their hope for position in the ministry. ~ Jim Bakker, #NFDB
767:If productiveness is the ultimate measure of worth, then making money is the highest of virtues, and John’s passions are rightly placed. But if God is the ultimate occupation of the human soul, then Dad’s passion to get the most of God is the human’s highest goal. Instead of using earned wealth to enhance his life with material comforts, the Bible offers a life-enhancement scheme that takes it to another level altogether. ~ Mark David Henderson, #NFDB
768:God is not an actor within the larger scheme of things. He is not a muscle-bound Jupiter, bullying the littler ones. He is the Author of the whole thing. We never ask how much of Hamlet's role was contributed by Hamlet, and how much by Shakespeare. That is not a question that can be answered with 70/30 or 50/50 or 90/10. The right answer is 100/100. Hamlet's actions are all Hamlet's and they are all Shakespeare's. Douglas Wilson ~ Douglas Wilson, #NFDB
769:I thought no one complained unless to get a thing remedied.’ ‘Exactly so. That is man! And experience never shows man that woman’s growls relieve her soul, and that she dreads nothing more than their being acted on! All I wish is, that this scheme may die a natural death; but I should be miserable, and deserved to be so, if I raised a finger to hinder it. What, must you go? Rule Daisy’s lines if she writes to Meta, please. ~ Charlotte Mary Yonge, #NFDB
770:Nativism being a pyramid scheme, I found myself contemptuous of the refugees’ presence in a city already overburdened. At the foot of the docks, we yelled at them to go home, even though we knew home to be a pestilence field. We carried signs calling them terrorists and criminals and we vandalized the homes that would take them in. It made me feel good to do it, it made me feel rooted; their unbelonging was proof of my belonging. ~ Omar El Akkad, #NFDB
771:be a delightful scheme indeed, and completely do for us at once. Good Heaven! Brighton, and a whole campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor regiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton!" "Now I have got some news for you," said Lydia, as they sat down at table. "What do you think? It is excellent news—capital news—and about a certain person we all like!" Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
772:The human mind shows an urge to capture into fixed forms through unreal assumptions, that is, fictions, that which is chaotic, always in flux, and incomprehensible. Serving this urge, the child quite generally uses a scheme in order to act and to find his way. We proceed much the same when we divide the earth by meridians and parallels, for only thus do we obtain fixed points which we can bring into a relationship with one another. ~ Alfred Adler, #NFDB
773:You did what you were told or you didn't get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn't your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn't your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn't care. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
774:Wait. Henri, you said that Carmen didn't remember you, but she wasn't unkind to you, right? She didn't seem to be trying to hide from you? Perhaps she was an unwilling participant in the Colorman's scheme. Perhaps she loved you deeply and he made her forget. Perhaps Juliette, too, is being manipulated against her will."
"Perhaps," said Lautrec absentmindedly. "but she is too beautiful, I think, to not be inherently evil. ~ Christopher Moore,#NFDB
775:[I]f he had to guess, he would say that the reason he doesn't want to loan the book out, to Ethan or anyone else, is because of the part of his personality that is one gigantic record-keeping system, a complex sifting and filing scheme that dictates what goes here and what goes there, turning his life into so many marks on a tablet. His mind would busy itself with the book's whereabouts every second it was away. He knows it would. ~ Kevin Brockmeier, #NFDB
776:Yeah, so? I was ignorant, but I’m not a fucking moron. Why would I give the shit to you just so I could buy it back from you later?” I leaned back against the counter. “Hon, you’re fucking with the wrong chick. I’ve been around too many drug dealers to buy into a scheme like that.”
He shocked me by bursting out laughing. “Drug dealers? Well, that’s an interesting analogy.” He shook his head but a sardonic smile stayed on his face. ~ Diana Rowland,#NFDB
777:Where no man thinks himself under any obligation to submit to another, and, instead of co-operating in one great scheme, every one hastens through by-paths to private profit, no great change can suddenly be made; nor is superior knowledge of much effect, where every man resolves to use his own eyes and his own judgment, and every one applauds his own dexterity and diligence, in proportion as he becomes rich sooner than his neighbour. ~ Samuel Johnson, #NFDB
778:I feel like I'm really accomplishing something with harmony and melody. Ultimately, again, I'm not a singer, some people can sing with an "I" or an "a," some people can sing and they can sang. I think I can "sang" more than anything. I'm not a formal singer and I'm an MC, but it's secondary to the second nature of just melody. You know but ultimately I'm a writer and I do soul music. Whether it's in song form or rhyme scheme, it's soul. ~ Cee Lo Green, #NFDB
779:An oyster has hardly any more reasoning power than a scientist has; and so it it is reasonably certain that this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen million years was a preparation for him; but that would be just like an oyster, which is the most conceited animal there is, except man. And anyway, this one could not know, at that early date, that he was only an incident in a scheme, and that there was some more in the scheme yet. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
780:you're instantly in a bind once you arrive here on earth, of need, self-will, a body and a separate personality, even before teh crippling self-consciousness kicks in, even before the seventh grade ... you're fucked at cell division ... it's all downhill from there. After that, it's all survival, and trying to keep yourself either entertained or convinced that the things you're obsessed with are of any importance at all in the big scheme. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
781:Lord Trenear will take care of them.”
“Who will take care of Trenear? He’ll have to scheme and labor a lifetime to keep his estate from falling to ruins. But with the smallest fraction of my fortune”--he snapped his fingers in front of her face--“all his debt will vanish. The house will be restored, and the land will be made fat and green. A happy ending for everyone.”
“Except for the woman who marries you,” Kathleen said disdainfully. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
782:Salander was dressed for the day in a black T-shirt with a picture on it of E.T. with fangs, and the words I AM ALSO AN ALIEN. She had on a black skirt that was frayed at the hem, a worn-out black, mid-length leather jacket, rivet belt, heavy Doc Marten boots, and horizontally striped, green-and-red knee socks. She had put on make-up in a colour scheme that indicated she might be colourblind. In other words, she was exceptionally decked out. ~ Stieg Larsson, #NFDB
783:And what is a man? He is someone who rises when life has knocked him down. He is someone who raises his fist to heaven when a storm has ruined his crop--and then plants again. And again. A man remains unbroken by the savage twists of fate.
That man may never win. But when he sees himself reflected, he can be proud of what he sees. For low he may be in the present scheme of things: peasant, serf, or dispossessed. But he is unconquerable ~ David Gemmell,#NFDB
784:How unwise had the wanderers been, who had deserted its shelter, entangled themselves in the web of society, and entered on what men of the world called "life," - that labyrinth of evil, that scheme of mutual torture. To live, according to this sense of the word, we must not only observe and learn, we must also feel; we must not only be mere spectators of action, we must act; we must not describe, but be subjects of description. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, #NFDB
785:The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble. ~ Charles Dickens, #NFDB
786:But her feeling towards the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred: they had probably made all their money out of high prices for everything that was not paid in kind at the Rectory: such people were no part of God's plan in making the world; and their accent was an affliction to the ears. A town where such monsters abounded was hardly more than a sort of low comedy, which could not be taken account of in a well-bred scheme of the universe. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
787:I have begun drafting a memorandum for the prosecuting authorities, together with all evidence necessary to establish not only the existence of numerous specific instances of scientific or economic fraud in relation to the official "global warming" storyline but also the connections between these instances, and the overall scheme of deception that the individual artifices appear calculated to reinforce. ~ Christopher Monckton 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, #NFDB
788:The hypothesis I wish to advance is thatthe language of morality is ingrave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have--very largely if not entirely--lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality. ~ Alasdair MacIntyre, #NFDB
789:Why?” he asks. Here goes nothing. It all comes out in a rush. “Canning, I’m gay. And yeah—maybe that’s not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Except that the last time we were here I kind of…pushed you into fooling around with me. It wasn’t cool, and I’ve spent the last four years feeling shitty about it.” For a long moment he just gapes at me. And when he finally speaks, it isn’t what I expect him to say. “And?” And? “And…I’m sorry. ~ Sarina Bowen, #NFDB
790:In his better moments, Mr Baxter is a decent, ordinary guy — a guy you wouldn't mistake for anyone special. But he is special. In my book, he is. For one thing he has a full night's sleep behind him, and he's just embraced his wife before leaving for work. But even before he goes, he's already expected home a set number of hours later. True, in the grander scheme of things, his return will be an event of small moment — but an event nonetheless. ~ Raymond Carver, #NFDB
791:The catastrophe of every socialist scheme in the 20th century has had a devastating effect on leftwing optimism and has replaced it with the corrosive nihilism that makes it impossible for most leftists to defend a country which, compared to the socialist paradises, is a veritable heaven on earth. All that remains of the revolutionary project is the bitter hatred of the society its exponents inhabit, and their destructive will to bring it down. ~ David Horowitz, #NFDB
792:Having a child as a single mother was a crucible - maybe this is true for all parents. I got rid of so much stuff that didn't really matter in the scheme of things-like throwing stuff out of an airplane that kept me flying too low. What was left was essential, i.e. not a lot of extraneous stuff that had kept me busy and people-pleasing. I just didn't have the luxury of wasting my life force on so much stupidity and distraction. That made me strong. ~ Anne Lamott, #NFDB
793:No one wanted a repeat of the sweaty and irritated Eisenhower who had disembarked during the Operation ALERT drill, so the Sikorsky UH-34 Seahorse helicopters were painted white on top, to help reflect heat and lower the cabin temperature, and each was fitted with an automobile air conditioner to help keep the passengers cool. Their distinctive paint scheme came to be known as “white tops,” and would designate helicopters used for VIP transport. ~ Garrett M Graff, #NFDB
794:When blood is once cold and stagnant, it is no longer human blood; when flesh is once dead, it is no longer that flesh which we desire in our lovers and respect in our friends. The grace, the attraction, the terror, have all gone from it with the animating spirit. Accustom yourself to look upon it with composure; for if my scheme is practicable you will have to live some days in constant proximity to that which now so greatly horrifies you. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, #NFDB
795:Hillary does nothing without careful calculation. She knows that politicians - provided they have real power - who bash entire industries tend to raise huge dollars from individuals in those industries. Certain types of politicians are drawn to this marketing technique because they think the 'bashing' also can be held up as proof that they are not being corrupted. This scheme is called 'putting the squeeze on.' Does that phrase remind you of anything? ~ Donald Luskin, #NFDB
796:As I conceive this doctrine to be a gross misrepresentation of the character and moral government of God, and to affect many other articles in the scheme of Christianity, greatly disfiguring and depraving it; I shall show, ... that it has no countenance whatever in reason, or the Scriptures; and, therefore, that the whole doctrine of atonement, with every modification of it, has been a departure from the primitive and genuine doctrine of Christianity. ~ Joseph Priestley, #NFDB
797:He [the "specialist"] is one who, out of all that has to be known in order to be a man of judgment, is only acquainted with one science, and even of that one only knows the small corner in which he is an active investigator. He even proclaims it as a virtue that he takes no cognisance of what lies outside the narrow territory specially cultivated by himself, and gives the name of "dilettantism" to any curiosity for the general scheme of knowledge. ~ Jose Ortega y Gasset, #NFDB
798:Now, what’s this about Nancy being missing?”
Jane grabbed his hand. “I hate to tell you, Uncle, but she’s gone off somewhere with Edwin’s brother.”
Despite hearing Sadler’s gasp, Dom kept his gaze fixed on Blakeborough to assess the man’s reaction. There was shock, alarm, dismay. But no guilt. The man was either a brilliant actor…or entirely unaware of his brother’s scheme.
A pity. Dom would very much have enjoyed arresting him. For anything. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,#NFDB
799:The importance of humor is primarily to puncture fixed ideas—to make us step back and realize that our situation, whatever it may be, is, in the grand scheme of things, always contingent and arbitrary and ephemeral. And that helps us to deal with our emotions and to keep going. Holding on to one perspective, on the other hand, whether it takes the form of grief or anger or a particular political standpoint, is often destructive to us and to those around us ~ Paul Murray, #NFDB
800:Three situations were distinguished to characterize the developmental process of an artifact at some stage: no dominant technological frame, one technological frame, and several dominant technological frames. It is stressed that these situations should not be interpreted as forming a rigid scheme of phases through which an artifact successively has to pass. Rather, it is a heuristic device to simplify the description of the “seamless web” of history. In ~ Wiebe E Bijker, #NFDB
801:Comic books, movies, radio programmes centered their entertainment around the fact of torture. With the clearest of consciences, with a patriotic intensity, children dreamed, talked, acted orgies of physical abuse. Imaginations were released to wander on a reconnaissance mission from Cavalry to Dachau. European children starved and watched their parents scheme and die. Here we grew up with toy whips. Early warning against our future leaders, the war babies. ~ Leonard Cohen, #NFDB
802:During the time at home, Chris focused on a peculiar story he’d first heard years before. An elderly friend had asked him to trim some of her overgrown trees, and as a thank-you she’d given Chris a book about the strange adventures of Patrick Leigh Fermor, known to everyone as Paddy. Paddy was Chris’s kind of adventurer—gallant, literary, madcap, merry. Chris dug around for more and soon learned about Paddy’s daffy scheme to kidnap a German general. ~ Christopher McDougall, #NFDB
803:If we could travel into the past, it's mind-boggling what would be possible. For one thing, history would become an experimental science, which it certainly isn't today. The possible insights into our own past and nature and origins would be dazzling. For another, we would be facing the deep paradoxes of interfering with the scheme of causality that has led to our own time and ourselves. I have no idea whether it's possible, but it's certainly worth exploring. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
804:But to think there was meaning, a scheme to things, well, that was quite beyond her philosophical reach. She feared as she always had, that all that was ever meant was loneliness, hard work, striving to make a difference when no difference could possibly be made. It was like dipping a stick into the ocean and trying to write something – all the little people of the world spinning out little patterns that lasted no more than a few years, and meant nothing at all. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
805:It makes absolutely no difference in the scheme of things whether all but a handful of people live or die. No more than the importance of a single flower, or blade of grass, or vegetable, or bird. It would make no difference if those men who held that ancient pass or that equally ancient fort had, instead, died of disease or old age or in a saloon fight. But it made a difference that they died where they did. It mattered. It justified their whole existence. ~ Jack L Chalker, #NFDB
806:In God's scheme what is a few billion years here and there. Perhaps there have come and gone a dozen human civilizations in the past billion years that we know nothing about. And after this civilization we are living in destroys itself, it will all start up again in a million years when the planet has all its messes cleaned up. Then, finally, one of these civilizations, say five billion years from now, will last because people treat each other the way they ought to. ~ Leon Uris, #NFDB
807:It would convert the Treasury of the United States into a manufactory of paper money. It makes the House of Representatives and the Senate, or the caucus of the party which happens to be in the majority, the absolute dictator of the financial and business affairs of this country. This scheme surpasses all the centralism and all the Caesarism that were ever charged upon the Republican party in the wildest days of the war or in the events growing out of the war. ~ James A Garfield, #NFDB
808:The big scandal around IG Farben this week is the unlucky subsidiary Spottbilligfilm AG, whose entire management are about to be purged for sending to OKW weapons procurement a design proposal for a new airborne ray which could turn whole populations, inside a ten-kilometer radius, stone blind. An IG review board caught the scheme in time. Poor Spottbilligfilm. It had slipped their collective mind what such a weapon would do to the dye market after the next war. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
809:But it is fortunate,'' thought she, ``that I have something to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by my carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realized. A scheme of which every part promises delight, can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
810:Let me teach you a new way of seeing yourselves in the great scheme of things. We should no longer feel inferior to the men who went before us. Their lives were one long struggle to perform the same deeds that we hold in honor now. Yet, for all their worth, they made few gains for the nation or for themselves. In fact, their enemies seemed to prosper as much as they did. Our forefathers may have displayed wonderful courage, but they failed to reap great rewards.” Placing ~ Xenophon, #NFDB
811:This is the meanest thing anyone’s ever done to me,” I said, through my tear-clogged throat. “I want you to know that.” But even as the words were leaving my mouth, I knew it wasn’t true. In the grand, historical scheme of things, my father leaving us was doubtlessly worse. Which is one of the many things that sucked about my father?? he forever robbed me of the possibility of telling another man, This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and meaning it. ~ Jennifer Weiner, #NFDB
812:This would have been the perfect time to continue with his ravishment scheme. He could lay siege to her virginal clothing. Ruthlessly dismantle her inhibitions. Steal an hour or two of fleeting pleasure before proving beyond a shadow of doubt: Romance is an exercise in willful delusion and nothing—nothing—ends happily. At least, not in this castle, and not with a man like him.
There was only one wrinkle in that scheme.
He liked her too much to go through with it. ~ Tessa Dare,#NFDB
813:Those who can't do, teach. And, as Woody Allen says, those who can't teach, teach gym. And, as I say, those who can't teach gym become experts. That's who we look to for answers these days-the people telling you how to make your marriage work. Men telling women how to raise their self-esteem. The only thing that cures everything is talking to people who have the same problem you do. The rest is just a moneymaking bullshit scheme that some asshole is getting rich on. ~ Roseanne Barr, #NFDB
814:She is defeated, and her husband is vanquished. But everyone knows that she will not accept her defeat, she will plot and scheme for her son, just as Edward told me that I must plot and scheme for ours. She will never stop until she is back in England and the battle is drawn up again. She will never stop until her husband is dead, her son is dead, and she has no one left to put on the throne. This is what it means to be Queen of England in this country today. This ~ Philippa Gregory, #NFDB
815:The detail over which these monks went mad with joy was the universe itself;
the only thing really worthy of enjoyment. The white daylight shone
over all the world, the endless forests stood up in their order. The lightning awoke and the tree fell and the sea gathered into mountains and the ship went down, and all these disconnected and meaningless and terrible objects were all part of one dark and fearful conspiracy of goodness, one merciless scheme of mercy. ~ G K Chesterton,#NFDB
816:Be more than ready. Be present in your discipline. Remember your gift. Be grateful for your gift and treat it like a gift. Cherish it, take care of it, and pass it on. Use your time to bathe yourself in that gift. Move your hand across the canvas. Go to museums. Make this into an obsession…
What you are will show, ultimately. Start now, every day, becoming, in your actions, your regular actions, what you would like to become in the bigger scheme of things. ~ Anna Deavere Smith,#NFDB
817:In the grand scheme of things, we do the best we can, all of us, and we make up our stories as we go along; we write them and direct them and project them into the world. And sometimes we get other people’s stories, and sometimes we don’t, but always there is a story behind a story behind a story, linked in a chain that we can only see a small part of, because it’s there when we’re born and it continues after we’re gone. And who can comprehend all of it in one lifetime? ~ Leylah Attar, #NFDB
818:Triumphant, Asha felt confirmed in a suspicion she'd developed in her years of multi-directional, marginally profitable enterprise. Becoming a success in the great, rigged market of the overcity required less effort and intelligence than getting by, day to day, in the slums. The crucial things were luck and the ability to sustain two convictions: that what you were doing wasn't all that wrong, in the scheme of things, and that you weren't all that likely to get caught. ~ Katherine Boo, #NFDB
819:Do you think I don’t care what happens to her?”
He shakes his head. “No. I just think that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to have a friend instead of an agenda.”
“Fuck off then,” Dash says. His anger is back, controlled, focused. “I hope you find her, but if you don’t, I won’t mourn either of you.”
“I never expected it.” Verrel’s mouth twists in an awful parody of a smile. “I hope your scheme works, Dash, and that you get whatever it is you want. ~ Cat Hellisen,#NFDB
820:remembered how I was only a speck after all in uncomfortably limitless space, of no account whatever in the general scheme of things, but with a horrid private capacity for being often and easily hurt; and how specks have a trick of dying, which I in my turn would presently do, and a fresh speck, not nearly so nice, as I hoped and believed, would immediately start up and fill my vacancy, perhaps so exactly my vacancy that it would even wear my gloves and stockings. ~ Elizabeth von Arnim, #NFDB
821:Depend upon it you see but half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better; we find comfort somewhere- and those evil-minded observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in and deceived than the parties themselves. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
822:I examined my Liberalism and found it like an addiction to roulette. Here, though the odds are plain, and the certainty of loss apparent to anyone with a knowledge of arithmetic, the addict, failing time and again, is convinced he yet is graced with the power to contravene natural laws. The roulette addict, when he invariably comes to grief, does not examine either the nature of roulette, or of his delusion, but retires to develop a new system, and to scheme for more funds. ~ David Mamet, #NFDB
823:Depend upon it, you see but half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere—and those evil–minded observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in and deceived than the parties themselves. ~ Jane Austen, #NFDB
824:He knows that after him everything will continue on much as before, except that there will be a minuscule absence, a barely detective gap in the so-called grand scheme, one unit fewer now. Or not even that, not even an empty space where he once was, for all will rush immediately to fill that vacuum. Pft. Gone. Recollections of him will remain in the minds of others for a while, but presently those others too will die and his few relics with them. And then all will be dark. ~ John Banville, #NFDB
825:I prefer formal techniques, and use sonnets and rhyme, any manner of scheme to give a shape and order-of feeling as well as argument-to a poem. But all my life, I've also been a person who's made his bed in the morning and picks up the bath mat. That's what I mean by temperament. Whether genetic or acquired, I have a disposition to arrangements. One is born with this, as if with blue eyes or a weak heart. Do you think Allen Ginsberg ever put the cap back on his toothpaste? ~ J D McClatchy, #NFDB
826:That seemed to be a feature of life in the country [Malawi]: to welcome strangers, to let them live out their fantasy of philanthropy - a school, an orphanage, a clinic, a welfare center, a malaria eradication program, or a church; and then determine if in any of this effort and expense there was a side benefit - a kickback, a bribe, an easy job, a free vehicle. If the scheme didn't work - and few of them did work - whose fault was that? Whose idea was it in the first place? ~ Paul Theroux, #NFDB
827:A wine-colored welt of scar tissue had bubbled up in the little stab hole; it was interesting to look at, like a small blob of pink glue, and it reminded her in a good way of Lawrence of Arabia, burning himself with matches. Evidently that sort of thing built soldierly character. “The trick,” he’d said in the movie, “is not to mind that it hurts.” In the vast and ingenious scheme of suffering, as Harriet was now beginning to understand it, this was a trick well worth learning. ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
828:Barack Obama is telling the banking industry what it can and can't charge and what profit he will accept and what level of profit he won't accept. Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter came up with this scheme that resulted in the subprime mortgage crisis. They said it was unfair that poor and minority people didn't have houses, so we're basically gonna give 'em houses. How are we gonna do that? We're going to make the banks loan them money, knowing full well they can't pay it back. ~ Rush Limbaugh, #NFDB
829:The people who know the most are not allowed to ask questions—or even to make suggestions. The least common denominator sets the standards. Just wait until you see Washington, Betsy—these goddamn car salesmen and small-town lawyers come into town every two years not knowing their ass from a hole in the ground, and this enormously sophisticated and powerful and dangerous system is at their mercy. The Agency distorts information to fit the half-assed policies they scheme up. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
830:One [of my more common mistakes] would be ignoring the potential impact of leverage. I know the effect goes both ways, but say you do a sum-of-the-parts analysis and think the assets of a company are worth $100. If the company has $70 of debt, overstating the asset value by only $10 makes the equity value go from $30 to $20. In the grand scheme of things, being 10 percent off isn't that big a mistake, but when there's heavy leverage, it is. —Jean-Marie Eveillard, First Eagle Funds ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
831:I shared the details of Steve Jobs’s story, because when it comes to finding fulfilling work, the details matter. If a young Steve Jobs had taken his own advice and decided to only pursue work he loved, we would probably find him today as one of the Los Altos Zen Center’s most popular teachers. But he didn’t follow this simple advice. Apple Computer was decidedly not born out of passion, but instead was the result of a lucky break—a “small-time” scheme that unexpectedly took off. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
832:The people of that age were phrase slaves. The abjectness of their servitude is incomprehensible to us. There was a magic in words greater than the conjurer's art. So befuddled and chaotic were their minds that the utterance of a single word could negative the generalizations of a lifetime of serious research and thought. Such a word was the adjective UTOPIAN. The mere utterance of it could damn any scheme, no matter how sanely conceived, of economic amelioration or regeneration. ~ Jack London, #NFDB
833:Using this scheme, it can be said that games offer opportunities to go beyond the boundaries of ordinary experience in four different ways. In agonistic games, the participant must stretch her skills to meet the challenge provided by the skills of the opponents. The roots of the word “compete” are the Latin con petire, which meant “to seek together.” What each person seeks is to actualize her potential, and this task is made easier when others force us to do our best. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
834:You may not like this idea; none of us wants to admit that we are pack animals. But in a complicated world, running with the herd can make sense. Who has time to think through every decision and all the facts behind it? If everybody around you thinks that conserving energy is a good idea—well, maybe it is. So if you are the person designing an incentive scheme, you can use this knowledge to herd people into doing the right thing—even if they’re doing it for the wrong reasons. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
835:We're standing at the bar in Club Myst, one of the trendiest nightclubs in Las Vegas. The music is loud, and people are grinding, bodies close together, on the dance floor. The lighting inside the club is dim, and everything is done in dark woods and a dark color scheme. The ceiling is dotted with lights that are, I’m guessing, supposed to look like stars, and the ground is covered in a foot-deep mist that's lit a deep green from underneath, giving the room a strange, mystical glow. ~ R R Banks, #NFDB
836:But Scripture says that before they even entered Egypt, Abraham discussed with Sarah the dangers this place posed for a man with a beautiful wife. "When the Egyptians see you...they will say, "this is his wife"; and they will kill me, but they will let you live," he told her (Gen.12:12) Abraham's motives were selfish and cowardly, and the scheme reflected a serious weakness in faith. But Sarah's devotion to her husband is nonetheless commendable, and God honored her for it. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
837:Extending Jean-Paul's number (which Robert Bauval describes as magical and with which the earth is designed) into a whole one tropical year period of 365.24 days (i.e., one full revolution of Earth around the Sun) corresponds to an extension of the GPG's height (in addition to a one meter measure of the prolongation thereof) by a multiple of one sidereal month. This calibration scheme is guaranteed by dissecting the GPG's height (using Jean-Paul's number) into 1000/PI portions. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
838:If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working scheme. Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It's the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
839:We're standing at the bar in Club Myst, one of the trendiest nightclubs in Las Vegas. The music is loud, and people are grinding, bodies close together, on the dance floor. The lighting inside the club is dim, and everything is done in dark woods and a dark color scheme. The ceiling is dotted with lights that are, I’m guessing, supposed to look like stars, and the ground is covered in a foot- deep mist that's lit a deep green from underneath, giving the room a strange, mystical glow. ~ R R Banks, #NFDB
840:If Satan were to go out of the scheme, man would be burned up by the fiery passions of Mars and the angels of Lucifer. Without the chill, caution, and curbing of Saturn, his soul would speedily be lost in utter debauchery and licentiousness. If on the other hand, Lucifer should withdraw, man would soon be a stone again, incapable of incentive, of motion or emotion, and chained, like the sufferers of Dante's Inferno, by the icy fingers of death. ~ Manly P Hall, Magic: A Treatise on Esoteric Ethics, #NFDB
841:These bible people remind me of another calamity similar to this missionary scheme, when our people, or any christian power would go to Africa for the pious purpose of kidnapping negroes, the mother would cry out to her children "run, run, the christians are coming," so when ever you hear "bibles," run for your life, if you do not want your pockets picked, or to be insulted and slandered as I was... and if you hear "hopeful conversions" or the "gospel," don't stop to look behind you. ~ Anne Royall, #NFDB
842:You think I don't know?' I heard Seth say in a smug, knowing way. 'That I didn't know this entire time I've been gone?'
'Know what?' Aiden sounded surprisingly calm.
Seth laughed softly. 'She may be here with you, right now, but that's just a moment in time in the big scheme of things. And all moments end, Aiden. Yours will, too.'
I wanted to throw open the door and tell Seth to shut up.
'Sounds like something on the back of a twisted Hallmark card,' replied Aiden. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,#NFDB
843:If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working of a scheme. Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It's the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
844:Technology has a role that is biological in the strict sense of the word: it has every right to be included in the scheme of nature. From this point of view, which agrees with that of Bergson, there ceases to be any distinction between the artificial and the natural, between technology and life, since all organisms are the result of invention; if there is any difference, the advantage is on the side of the artificial. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Place of Technology in a General Biology of Mankind, #NFDB
845:During this time I began to write out of vanity, self-interest, and pride. I did the same thing in my writing that I did in my life. In order to acquire the fame and money I was writing for, it was necessary to conceal what was good and flaunt what was bad. And this is what I did. Time after time I would scheme in my writings to conceal under the mask of indifference and even pleasantry those yearnings for something good which gave meaning to my life. And I succeeded in this and was praised. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
846:The ticket to emotional health, like that to physical health, comes from eating your veggies – that is, accepting the bland and mundane truths of life: truths such as "Your actions actually don't matter that much in the grand scheme of things" and "The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy, and that's okay." This vegetable course will taste bad at first. Very bad. You will avoid accepting it. But once ingested, your body will wake up feeling more potent and more alive. ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
847:By the way, I’ve heard what Simon has been saying.”
Heat swept over my face. Another problem, but less important in the grand scheme of things. “Yeah, he’s being a douche. I think it’s his friends. He actually apologized to me, and then when his friends showed up, he told them I was trying to get with him.”
Daemon’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not okey.”
I sighed. “It’s no big deal.”
“Maybe not to you, but it is to me.” He paused, his shoulders squaring. “I’ll take care of it. ~ Jennifer L Armentrout,#NFDB
848:A pyramid scheme is illegal and is where no product or service is sold; the business exists just to bring in recruiting fees. These still pop up from time to time and are an illegal cousin to the Ponzi or Madoff scheme because of the last-man rule. The last-man rule is, if you were to extend the company’s success until the last man on earth joined the business, would it be over because they only make money from recruiting and never the sale of a product or service? If it would, this is illegal. ~ Dave Ramsey, #NFDB
849:The one thing I hate about the wedding industry is that it focuses so much on the one day. People become obsessed with details, enraged with those they love, worn out from planning a few hours of a day that may not mean that much in the grand scheme of things. Even as I’m designing a dress that will cost thousands and thousands of dollars, I’ve always tried to work that message in. Don’t forget that after this day comes thousands of other days. Be careful. Cherish each other. Don’t blow it. ~ Kristan Higgins, #NFDB
850:I think about that lost dignity you must be feeling and I want to tell you it doesn't matter. Not in the great scheme of things. This is just the end. It isn't the everything of you. And it's the everything we'll remember when the memory of this fades. xxx
I can't explain this though. The words are tangled on my tongue and I'm not sure they would make a difference. Because I guess for you the everything is done and there is only the now. And in the now your loss of dignity is everything. ~ Sarah Pinborough,#NFDB
851:I think about that lost dignity you must be feeling and I want to tell you it doesn't matter. Not in the great scheme of things. This is just the end. It isn't the everything of you. And it's the everything we'll remember when the memory of this fades. xxx
I can't explain this though. The words are tangled on my tongue and I'm not sure they would make a difference. Becuase I guess for you the everything is done and there is only the now. And in the now your loss of dignity is everything. ~ Sarah Pinborough,#NFDB
852:Done Amid fear and suspicion,
with startled minds and frightened eyes,
we pine and scheme over what steps to take
to avoid the certain
danger that threatens us so horribly.
Yet we are wrong. This was not the danger in store;
the portents were false
(or we never heard them, or failed to construe them properly).
It’s some other disaster, precipitous, violent,
one we hadn’t imagined,
that suddenly takes us unawares, and –
there’s no time now – overcomes us. ~ Constantinos P Cavafy,#NFDB
853:Would it not be prudent to get our civilization tools together, and see how much stock is left on hand in the way of Glass Beads and Theology, and Maxim Guns and Hymn Books, and Trade Gin and Torches of Progress and Enlightenment (patent adjustable ones, good to fire villages with, upon occasion), and balance the books, and arrive at the profit and loss, so that we may intelligently decide whether to continue the business or sellout the property and start a new Civilization Scheme on the proceeds. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
854:She was a fascinating character, to say the least. A pioneer and instigator of many weird and wooly projects and who liked to “instigate” you right along with her. Every village has one, and Doris was ours. A lively individual who was always throwing herself into some harebrained scheme or other, taking no prisoners as she pulled you into her wild world of wackiness. Doris’s “urgent” could mean anything from the need to raise money for lame goats to singing at the top of a living Christmas tree. ~ Suzanne Kelman, #NFDB
855:I liked action. But I spent a lot of time thinking about things. I’d imagine all kinds of situations and how I would handle them. “What are you doing Raymond?” my mother would ask. “Nothing. Just thinking.” “Daydreaming you mean,” she’d say. “Danny Dreamer is at it again.” They called me Danny Dreamer a lot, even later when I was in high school and would come home all excited about some scheme I’d thought up. I never considered my dreams wasted energy; they were invariably linked to some form of action. ~ Ray Kroc, #NFDB
856:Now, through an act as simple as walking across a stage and collecting an empty plastic folder representing a degree, our stock had plummeted to nothing, the wretched leavings of some cosmic Ponzi scheme. A lifetime's worth of planning and training and delusion gone with the wind. Some of us were moving home to live free of charge in our parents' guest rooms, or if we were thin enough, heading west to try our luck in L.A.; others, to our collective horror, were being forced to work at actual jobs. ~ Rachel Shukert, #NFDB
857:Good evening, Eisenberg Correctional. This is your new warden speaking. You may have noticed that every single door in the prison has just opened. This is in keeping with our new ‘leave whenever you want’ policy. We fully encourage you to explore this exciting new option! Also, for your information, the guards have been complicit in a scheme to orchestrate inmates’ deaths for profit, and you outnumber them by about fifty to one.” I clicked off the intercom and looked at Jablonski. “No, that’s crazy. ~ Craig Schaefer, #NFDB
858:I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to any thing which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the subject as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
859:Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a start, he has a strong personal rhythm to vary his metrics, he is nothing. Poets mistrust philosophy. They know that once the heads are counted, each owner of a head loses his personal identify and becomes a number in some government scheme: if not as a slave or serf, at least as a party to the device of majority voting, which smothers personal views. ~ Robert Graves, #NFDB
860:The charming sobriquets that we give our cities - the Big Apple, City of Angels, Baghdad-by-the-Bay, Windy City - are nothing more than picture-book thinking for the benefit of tourists and the child-minded. The terse reality is that the city as we know it and live it is a profit scheme, and future dominated by charter cities built on digital operating systems created by giant corporations will only make the scheme more insulting and inexorable. The charter city is not a home; it is a corporate mandate. ~ Curtis White, #NFDB
861:Philosophy, in one of its functions, is the critic of cosmologies. It is its function to harmonise, refashion, and justify divergent intuitions as to the nature of things. It has to insist on the scrutiny of the ultimate ideas, and on the retention of the whole of the evidence in shaping our cosmological scheme. Its business is to render explicit, and — so far as may be — efficient, a process which otherwise is unconsciously performed without rational tests. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (1925), #NFDB
862:Everybody has to solve that "meaning of life" and purpose question for themselves. Everybody does it their own way. I think you have to be thoughtful about the way that you're doing it. So I describe it as purpose. If you can think about leading a purposeful life - not just an accumulation but you actually make the world a better place - then I think in the grand scheme of the universe, that that explains our existence. If not, we're just passing through. We're grains of sand and we're blowing in the breeze. ~ Les Wexner, #NFDB
863:It is not therefore the business of philosophy, in our present situation in the universe, to attempt to take in at once, in one view, the whole scheme of nature; but to extend, with great care and circumspection, our knowledge, by just steps, from sensible things, as far as our observations or reasonings from them will carry us, in our enquiries concerning either the greater motions and operations of nature, or her more subtile and hidden works. In this way Sir Isaac Newton proceeded in his discoveries. ~ Colin Maclaurin, #NFDB
864:It is possible for one with a well-trained memory to compose clearly in an organized fashion on several different subjects. Once one has the all-important starting-place of the ordering scheme and the contents firmly in their places within it, it is quite possible to move back and forth from one distinct composition to another without losing one's place or becoming confused. ~ Mary Carruthers, (1990). The Book of Memory (first ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-38282-3. (limited preview on Google Books), p.7, #NFDB
865:The Trump campaign had, perhaps less than inadvertently, replicated the scheme from Mel Brooks’s The Producers. In that classic, Brooks’s larcenous and dopey heroes, Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom, set out to sell more than 100 percent of the ownership stakes in the Broadway show they are producing. Since they will be found out only if the show is a hit, everything about the show is premised on its being a flop. Accordingly, they create a show so outlandish that it actually succeeds, thus dooming our heroes. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
866:Jamie reflected that if he purposely went down to the crags of the Pacific and threw himself to the sharks, when he came before God and his father and mother, he could carry no smiling secret on his face. He would not have kept the faith. He would have broken the laws of God and man. He would have allowed frail woman to surpass him in courage, in endurance. He shut his eyes to close out even the imagined look on his mother's face. So right there Jamie crossed off the Pacific from his scheme of release. ~ Gene Stratton Porter, #NFDB
867:Men do not rest content with parrying the attacks of a superior, but often strike the first blow to prevent the attack being made. And we cannot fix the exact point at which our empire shall stop; we have reached a position in which we must not be content with retaining but must scheme to extend it, for, if we cease to rule others, we are in danger of being ruled ourselves. Nor can you look at inaction from the same point of view as others, unless you are prepared to change your habits and make them like theirs. ~ Alcibiades, #NFDB
868:nation. But I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to anything which relates to human actions and human concerns on a simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
869:He also believed that it was a deliberate scheme of their mentors to encourage those who were in power, or who would one day assume power, to witness the wonders that they were not being shown, so that they would never be tempted to get above themselves, so that they would always know that no matter how magnificent they appeared to themselves or those around them and regardless of what they achieved, it was all within the context of this greater, more powerful, sophisticated and ultimately far superior reality. ~ Iain M Banks, #NFDB
870:I'm sure that there must have been times when you have read books or watched films and found yourself secretly wishing for the villain to win. Why? Isn't that against the rules by which our society lives? Why should you feel this way? It's simple, really; the villain is the true hero of these tales, not the well-intentioned moron who somehow foils their diabolical scheme. The villain get's all the best lines, has the best costumes, has unlimited power and wealth- why on earth would anyone not want to be the villain? ~ Mark Walden, #NFDB
871:Eventually the potato's undeniable advantages over grain would convert all of northern Europe, but outside of Ireland the process was never anything less than a struggle. ... Louis (XVI) hatched an ingenious promotional scheme. He ordered a field of potatoes planted on the royal grounds and then posted his most elite guard to protect the crop during the day. He sent the guards home at midnight, and in due course the local peasants, suddenly convinced of the crop's value, made off in the night with the royal tubers. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
872:Human beings on our planet have been able to take inventories of the relative abundance of chemical elements in a sweep-out of an 11.5-billion-year observation. We have that kind of capability despite our absolutely negligible magnitude, physically. That we can deal with our minds in such magnitudes, and do so quite reliably, gives a hint that the human being must have some very great significance in this scheme, because we don’t know of any other phenomenon that has this mind; the human mind. ~ Buckminster Fuller, Everything I Know, #NFDB
873:I talked to one accountant, a very nice fellow who I would have been glad to have his family marry into mine. He said, "What these other accounting firms have done is very unethical. The [tax avoidance scheme] works best if it's not found out [by the IRS], so we only give it to our best clients, not the rest, so it's unlikely to be discovered. So my firm is better than the others." [Laughter] I'm not kidding. And he was a perfectly nice man. People just follow the crowd...Their mind just drifts off in a ghastly way. ~ Charlie Munger, #NFDB
874:So many fairy tales were about breaking taboos, and being punished for crossing lines you shouldn't have crossed.
Touching a spindle you were forbidden to touch. Inviting a witch into your cottage, and accepting the shiny apples she brought you, even though you knew better, because you wanted them.
And while most heroes or heroines managed to scratch or scheme their way out of peril, it was easier to avoid doing something stupid in the first place. Smarter, better, and infinitely less fraught with regret. ~ Sarah Cross,#NFDB
875:Yet in 1995, a few brave souls challenged the implementation of Georgia’s “two strikes and you’re out” sentencing scheme, which imposes life imprisonment for a second drug offense. Georgia’s district attorneys, who have unbridled discretion to decide whether to seek this harsh penalty, had invoked it against only 1 percent of white defendants facing a second drug conviction but against 16 percent of black defendants. The result was that 98.4 percent of those serving life sentences under the provision were black. ~ Michelle Alexander, #NFDB
876:This promise - that you will get more because they exist to get less - is woven throughout our entire society. Our politics, our education system, our infrastructure - anywhere there is a finite amount of power, influence, visibility, wealth, or opportunity. Anywhere in which someone might miss out. There the lure of that promise sustains racism.
White Supremacy is this nation's oldest pyramid scheme. Even those who have lost everything to the scheme are still hanging in there, waiting for their turn to cash out. ~ Ijeoma Oluo,#NFDB
877:The Islam of Muhammad banished the idea of supervision, of a police system of control. This explains the absence of clergy in Islam and the encouraging of all Muslims to get involved in understanding the written word. Individual responsibility came into play to balance the weight of aristocratic control, finally making it ineffective in an umma of believers whose behavior followed precise, internalized rules. Recognizing in women an inalienable will fitted into this scheme of making everyone individually responsible. ~ Fatema Mernissi, #NFDB
878:I don't think I stood still more than a moment, but something changed inside of me. An awesome shift took place. In one instant I saw a vast and terrifying possibility, and in that same instant, without question, I made up my mind.
It had no words to it or scheme or plan. And I would have denied it had anyone questioned me at that moment. I would have said, "No, never, farthest from my thoughts. What do you think I am, what sort of monster" ... And yet the choice had been made.
I understood something absolute. ~ Anne Rice,#NFDB
879:Oh, steal Jerome and go do your worst to him. I'll be judging your performance by how pissed Treganne is when we see her next. Hell, that's how I can amuse myself. I'll solicit wagers on how riled up you two can get the Scholar-"
"You do anything of the sort," said Delmastro, "and I'll chain you to an anchor by your precious bits and have you dragged over a reef."
"No, this is a good scheme," said Jean. "We could place our own bets with him, then rig the contest-"
"This ship has two anchors, Valora! ~ Scott Lynch,#NFDB
880:The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme that is manifest in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image - a personage who makes demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. ~ Rebecca Goldstein, #NFDB
881:This means that if we are able to make sense of absential relationships, it won’t merely illuminate certain everyday mysteries. If the example of zero is any hint, even just glimpsing the outlines of a systematic way to integrate these phenomena into the natural sciences could light the path to whole new fields of inquiry. And making scientific sense of these most personal of nature’s properties, without trashing them, has the potential to transform the way we personally see ourselves within the scheme of things. The ~ Terrence W Deacon, #NFDB
882:May I interrupt you for a few moments?”
“Of course.” She gestured to a chair near her writing desk, and set the pen in its holder. Noticing the deliberately bland expression on his face, she asked, “What scheme are you hatching?”
He blinked in surprise. “How do you know there’s a scheme?”
“Whenever you try to look innocent, it’s obvious you’re up to something.”
West grinned. “The girls wouldn’t dare approach you about it, but I told them I would, since it’s been established that I can outrun you when necessary. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
883:My pyramid of abundance, while a little more compressed than Maslow’s, follows a similar scheme for similar reasons. There are three levels, with the bottom belonging to food, water, shelter, and other basic survival concerns; the middle is devoted to catalysts for further growth like abundant energy, ample educational opportunities, and access to ubiquitous communications and information; while the highest tier is reserved for freedom and health, two core prerequisites enabling an individual to contribute to society. ~ Peter H Diamandis, #NFDB
884:There are three basic flavors of incentive: economic, social, and moral. Very often a single incentive scheme will include all three varieties. Think about the anti-smoking campaign of recent years. The addition of a $3-per-pack “sin tax” is a strong economic incentive against buying cigarettes. The banning of cigarettes in restaurants and bars is a powerful social incentive. And when the U.S. government asserts that terrorists raise money by selling black-market cigarettes, that acts as a rather jarring moral incentive. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
885:These changes-the more rapid pulse, the deeper breathing, the increase of sugar in the blood, the secretion from the adrenal glands-were very diverse and seemed unrelated. Then, one wakeful night, after a considerable collection of these changes had been disclosed, the idea flashed through my mind that they could be nicely integrated if conceived as bodily preparations for supreme effort in flight or in fighting. Further investigation added to the collection and confirmed the general scheme suggested by the hunch. ~ Walter Bradford Cannon, #NFDB
886:1924, the first two women were elected governors, and both were uninspiring stand-ins for their husbands. Nellie Tayloe Ross, the widow of the governor of Wyoming, had not even wanted her husband to run for office, and when he died suddenly, the Democrats nominated her to fill out his term without her permission. “Ma” Ferguson of Texas ran for office when her husband was impeached. Her signature achievement as governor was to pardon an average of 100 criminals a month in what critics claimed was a fee-for-freedom scheme. For ~ Gail Collins, #NFDB
887:Hard work and piety, study and learning, compassion and forgiveness—these have been the cornerstones of my life. I have now shared with the world the roots of these features. In fact, any life that has been lived to the full, when talked about with others, is a treasure house of thoughts and feelings that add lustre to the wonder that is life. In the process, if they also give my readers wings and help them to fire their dreams, I believe I would have played my small part in the scheme of life that destiny placed me in. ~ A P J Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
888:Men speak of blind destiny, a thing without scheme or purpose. But what sort of destiny is that? Each act in this world from which there can be no turning back has before it another, and it another yet. In a vast endless net. Men imagine that the choices before them are theirs to make. But we are free to act only upon what is given. Choice is lost in the maze of generations and each act in the maze is itself an enslavement for it voids every alternative and binds one ever more tightly into the constraints that make a life. ~ Cormac McCarthy, #NFDB
889:As the physicist Stephen Hawking put it, humans are ‘just a chemical scum on the surface of a typical planet that’s in orbit round a typical star on the outskirts of a typical galaxy’. The proviso ‘in the cosmic scheme of things’ is necessary because the chemical scum evidently does have a special significance according to values that it applies to itself, such as moral values. But the Principle says that all such values are themselves anthropocentric: they explain only the behaviour of the scum, which is itself insignificant. ~ David Deutsch, #NFDB
890:The Healthiest Response to life is Laughter.There is always a reason to be grateful.You belong in the scheme of the universe. There's nothing to be afraid of. You are Safe.Your soul cherishes every aspect of your life.There is a Plan, and your soul knows what it is.Ecstasy is the energy of spirit. When life flows, ecstasy is natural.There is a creative solution to every problem. Every possibility holds the promise of abundance.Obstacles are Opportunities in disguise.Evolution leads the way through desire.Freedom is Letting Go. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
891:These were all simple acts of obedience I missed. But not missed because I was unaware. They were missed because I was busy—caught in the rush of endless demands. And the rush makes us rebellious. I knew what to do and blatantly ignored it.
Ignoring God's leading doesn't seem like such a big deal in these cases. In the grand scheme of the world, how big a thing is it that I didn't pick up that cup? After all, how can I be sure it was really God?
I think a better question would be, How can I be sure it wasn't God? ~ Lysa TerKeurst,#NFDB
892:Rafe and Richard say that when my education is sufficient you mean to marry me to some old dowager with a great settlement and black teeth, and she will wear me out with lechery and rule me with her whims, and she will leave her estate away from the children she has and they will hate me and scheme against my life and one morning I shall be dead in my bed.” The spaniel swivels in his son’s arms, turns on him her mild, round, wondering eyes. “They are making sport of you, Gregory. If I knew such a woman, I would marry her myself. ~ Hilary Mantel, #NFDB
893:I shared with the ninety-year-old Subramaniam his vision of a second Green Revolution. He told me about his dream of setting up a national agro foundation that would develop hybrid seeds. His foundation would adopt small and marginal farmers and provide them with laboratory facilities for soil testing and access to information on the weather and markets, so that they could earn more through enhanced yields and better prices for what they produced. He aimed at bringing a million farmers under the scheme. Visionaries don’t age! ~ A P J Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
894:as Hume noted, nothing in logic requires the world to be that way, and we know from experience that it isn’t always so. I can keep my eyes open for more white swans, but no matter how many I spot, I’ll only be adding to my body of evidence, rather than actually proving something about the necessary color scheme of swans. In other words, inductions are necessarily impossible to substantiate. We can know that they are wrong—as Hume’s example turned out to be, when a species of black swan was discovered in Australia after his death— ~ Kathryn Schulz, #NFDB
895:...It has always seemed to me that one of the more deplorable aspects of dying, aside from the terror, pain and filth, is the fact that when I am gone there will be no one here to register the world in just the way that I do. Don't misunderstand me. I have no illusions about my significance in the torrid scheme of things. Others will register other versions of the world, countless billions of them, a welter of worlds particular each to each, but the one that I shall have made merely by my brief presence in it will be lost for ever. ~ John Banville, #NFDB
896:In the GRW scheme, however, an object as large as a cat, which would involve some 10^27 nuclear particles, would almost instantaneously have one of its particles 'hit' by a Gaussian function (as in Fig. 6.2), and since this particle's state would be entangled with the other particles in the cat, the reduction of that particle would 'drag' the others with it, causing the entire cat to find itself in the state of either life or death. In this way, the X-mystery of Schrodinger's cat-and of the measurement problem in general-is resolved. ~ Roger Penrose, #NFDB
897:‗In life, at sometime or another we come to a point where all relationships cease—where there is only us and Allah. There are no parents, brother or sister, or any friend. Then we realise that there is no earth under us nor is there sky above, but only Allah who is supporting us in this emptiness. Then we realise our worth – it is not more than a grain of sand or the leaf of a plant. Then we realise our existence is only confined to our being. Our demise makes not a whit of difference to the world around us, nor to the scheme of things. ~ Umera Ahmed, #NFDB
898:The true character of wu wei is not mere inactivity but perfect action-because it is act without activity. In other words, it is action not carried out independently of heaven and earth and in conflict with the dynamism of the whole, but in perfect harmony with the whole. It is not mere passivity, but it is action that seems both effortless and spontaneous because performed "rightly," in perfect accordance with our nature and with our place in the scheme of things. It is completely free because there is in it no force and no violence. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
899:This promise—you will get more because they exist to get less—is woven throughout our entire society. Our politics, our education system, our infrastructure—anywhere there is a finite amount of power, influence, visibility, wealth, or opportunity. Anywhere in which someone might miss out. Anywhere there might not be enough. There the lure of that promise sustains racism. White Supremacy is this nation’s oldest pyramid scheme. Even those who have lost everything to the scheme are still hanging in there, waiting for their turn to cash out. ~ Ijeoma Oluo, #NFDB
900:The world of ideas which it [mathematics] discloses or illuminates, the contemplation of divine beauty and order which it induces, the harmonious connexion of its parts, the infinite hierarchy and absolute evidence of the truths with which it is concerned, these, and such like, are the surest grounds of the title of mathematics to human regard, and would remain unimpeached and unimpaired were the plan of the universe unrolled like a map at our feet, and the mind of man qualified to take in the whole scheme of creation at a glance. ~ James Joseph Sylvester, #NFDB
901:A poem must be authentic. It could be flowery, it could have the most brilliant metaphor, it could be bursting with onomatopoeia and alliteration, assonance and consonance, hyperbole and paradox, from every end, it could have daring syntax and clever cacophony, it could have a neat and ordered rhyme scheme...but, if it loses its authenticity, its ability to convey the very heart and soul of the poet, then all the euphony and cacophony in the world cannot make up for the loss of its identity as a poem. And that is the true cacophony. ~ Gina Marinello Sweeney, #NFDB
902:Multiculturalism became the cutting edge of post-civil-rights-movement US history revisionism. For this scheme to work—and affirm US historical progress—Indigenous nations and communities had to be left out of the picture. As territorially and treaty-based peoples in North America, they did not fit the grid of multiculturalism but were included by transforming them into an inchoate oppressed racial group, while colonized Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans were dissolved into another such group, variously called “Hispanic” or “Latino. ~ Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, #NFDB
903:For every human being who is born into this universe is like a child who has been given a key to an infinite Library, written in cyphers that are more or less obscure, arranged by a scheme—of which we can at first know nothing, other than that there does appear to be some scheme—pervaded by a vapor, a spirit, a fragrance that reminds us that it was the work of our Father. Which does us no good whatever, other than to remind us, when we despair, that there is an underlying logic about it, that was understood once and can be understood again. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
904:[How to think about a problem:] The first step is to make the problem specific . . . ; The second step is to form theories freely of how to rid yourself of that burden . . . ; The third step is to develop in foresight the consequences of your proposals . . . ; The fourth and final step in thinking is to compare the consequences of your proposals to see which is best in the light of your scheme of life as a whole . . . ; Whether you choose a vacation or a spouse, a party or a candidate, a cause to contribute to or a creed to live by - think! ~ Brand Blanshard, #NFDB
905:To use the symbolic language of Bodkin’s scheme, he would then be abandoning the conventional estimates of time in relation to his own physical needs, and entering the world of total neuronic time, where the massive intervals of the geological timescale calibrated his existence. Here, a million years was the shortest working unit, and the problems of food and clothing were as irrelevant as they would have been to a Buddhist contemplative lotus-squatting before an empty rice bowl under the protective canopy of the million-headed cobra of eternity. ~ J G Ballard, #NFDB
906:A story, meanwhile, fills out the picture. It uses data, statistical or otherwise, to portray a sense of magnitude; without data, we have no idea how a story fits into the larger scheme of things. A good story also includes the passage of time, to show the degree of constancy or change; without a time frame, we can’t judge whether we’re looking at something truly noteworthy or just an anomalous blip. And a story lays out a daisy chain of events, to show the causes that lead up to a particular situation and the consequences that result from it. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
907:To plot is to live. […] We start out lives in chaos, in babble. As we surge up into the world, we try to devise a shape, a plan. There is dignity in this. Your whole life is a plot, a scheme, a diagram. It is a failed scheme but that's not the point. To plot is to affirm life, to seek shape and control. Even after death, most particularly after death, the search continues. Burial rites are an attempt to complete the scheme, in ritual. Picture a state funeral, Jack. It is all precision, detail, order, design. The nation holds its breath. - (WN 292) ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
908:For every human being who is born into this universe is like a child who has been given a key to an infinite Library, written in cyphers that are more or less obscure, arranged by a scheme — of which we can at first know nothing, other than that there does appear to be some scheme — pervaded by a vapor, a spirit, a fragrance that reminds us that it was the work of our Father. Which does us no good whatever, other than to remind us, when we despair, that there is an underlying logic about it, that was understood once and can be understood again. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
909:Saying that “life is short” is such a cliche. And it’s true.
In fact, we only have five minutes to be here. In the really big scheme of things, not even that long. We humans don’t even have the lifespan of fruit flies if you look at the bigger picture.
In other words, we don’t have a second—not even a second—to waste on petty drama, on living fake, shallow lives, on swallowing our truth, or on hiding our light.
We only dance around the flame of this gorgeous human existence for moments and the one thing important at all is loving beautifully. ~ Jacob Nordby,#NFDB
910:I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend, ranging from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story - the larger founded on the lesser in contact with the earth, the lesser drawing splendour from the vast backcloths - which I could dedicate simply to: to England; to my country. ... I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. ~ J R R Tolkien, #NFDB
911:I'm very glad my mother left my father, of course, but as I got older it did get harder to valorize that flight. This cover-seeking - desperate, adrenalized - had constituted her whole life as far as I could see. In avoidance of any reflection, thought. In which case her leaving him was a result of the same impulse that had her hook up with him in the first place. Not to think, not to connect: marry an insane bully. Simper at him. Not to be killed: get away from him. And her children? Her issue? How did they fit into her scheme? As sandbags? Decoys? ~ Gwendoline Riley, #NFDB
912:The truth was that a complex murder case attracted his attention and curiosity like nothing else on earth. He could make up reasons for it. He could say it was all about justice. About rectifying an imbalance in the scheme of things. About standing up for those who had been struck down. About a quest for truth. But there were other times when he considered it nothing but high-stakes puzzle-solving, an obsessive-compulsive drive to fit all the loose pieces together. An intellectual game, a contest of mind and will. A playing field on which he could excel. ~ John Verdon, #NFDB
913:Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command. They want books as a Turk is thought to want concubines - not to be hastily deflowered, but to be kept at their master's call, and enjoyed more often in thought than in reality. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
914:Aline looked up from her seated position at the bench as McKenna approached her, his dark presence falling over her like a shadow. Adam's reference to McKenna was not quite accurate- he looked far more like a devil than a dragon, needing only a pitchfork to complete the image. A tall, brooding, smoldering-eyed devil, in a formal scheme of black and white. He literally took her breath away. Aline was shocked by her own uncontrollable hunger to touch him. This was the feeling of her youth, the wild, dizzying excitement that she had never been able to forget. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
915:Do you feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, Mr. Darnay?"
"I am frightfully confused regarding time and place, but I am so far mended as to feel that."
"It must be an immense satisfaction!"
He said it bitterly, and filled up his glass again: which was a large one.
"As to me, the greatest desire I have is to forget that I belong to it. It has no good in it for me--except wine like this--nor I for it. So we are not much alike in that particular. Indeed, I begin to think we are not much alike in any particular, you and I. ~ Charles Dickens,#NFDB
916:He is the cause of all this misery - I am quite sure of it," whispered Caderousse, who had never taken his eyes of Fernand, to Danglars.
"I don't think so," answered the other; he's too stupid to imagine such a scheme. I only hope the mischief will fall upon the head of whoever wrought it."
"You don't mention those who aided and abetted the dead," said Caderousse.
"Surely," answered Danglars, "one cannot be held responsible for every chance arrow shot into the air."
"You can, indeed, when the arrow lights point downward on somebody's head. ~ Alexandre Dumas,#NFDB
917:No incident, however seemingly trivial, is unimportant in the scheme of things. One event leads to another, which triggers something else and before you know where you are, the ramifications spread far and wide throughout History. Echoing down the ages. Getting fainter and fainter, but never completely dying away. They talk of The Harmony of the Spheres, but History is A Symphony of Echoes. Every little action has huge consequences. They’re not always apparent, and sometimes, in our game, sometimes effect comes before cause, not after. It makes your head ache. ~ Jodi Taylor, #NFDB
918:Rugby football is a game I can't claim absolutely to understand in all its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general principles, of course. I mean to say, I know that the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line at the other end and that, in order to squalch this programme, each side is allowed to put in a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow man which, if done elsewhere, would result in 14 days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
919:I think that the spirit of America is still very much one of where people want to work hard and the majority of people want to work hard. They want to be entrepreneurs. But when you have that all taken away with government regulation or with government overbearance of taxation, you start to wonder whether if it's even worthwhile because who are you really working for? Are you working for yourself, are you working for the government? In the end, this wealth distribution scheme that's at the heart of the current political administration is an inherently wrong one. ~ Robin Leach, #NFDB
920:We wrote our software to know the detailed structure of the disk. It knew that the disk had 200 cylinders and 10 heads, and that each cylinder had several dozen sectors per head. It knew which cylinders held the Agents, Employers, and Members. All this was hard-wired into the code.
...
One day a more experienced programmer joined our ranks. When he saw what we had done, the blood drained from his face, and he stared aghast at us, as if we were aliens of some kind. Then he gently advised us to change our addressing scheme to use relative addresses. ~ Robert C Martin,#NFDB
921:The plan of spiritual evolution is marked not only by God's will that we move ever in the direction of love, nut also by another of God's creative principles: that humanity has free will. What that means is that in any given moment, it is our choice whether we move toward love or retreat from it. What is not love is fear. But in the larger scheme of things, there is a limit past which lovelessness cannot remain. Fear is not life-giving enough to sustain itself. We can move in the direction of fear only so long before it brings us to our knees, or to our end. ~ Marianne Williamson, #NFDB
922:Christie had sent Jared’s father, Charles Kushner, to jail in 2005. Charlie Kushner, pursued by the feds for an income tax cheat, set up a scheme with a prostitute to blackmail his brother-in-law, who was planning to testify against him. Various accounts, mostly offered by Christie himself, make Jared the vengeful hatchet man in Christie’s aborted Trump administration career. It was a kind of perfect sweet-revenge story: the son of the wronged man (or, in this case—there’s little dispute—the guilty-as-charged man) uses his power over the man who wronged his family. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
923:The capacity of the rational mind to deceive, manipulate, scheme, trick, falsify, minimize, mislead, betray, prevaricate, deny, omit, rationalize, bias, exaggerate and obscure is so endless, so remarkable, that centuries of pre-scientific thought, concentrating on clarifying the nature of moral endeavour, regarded it as positively demonic. This is not because of rationality itself, as a process. That process can produce clarity and progress. It is because rationality is subject to the single worst temptation—to raise what it knows now to the status of an absolute. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
924:I suddenly look at the fish and feel horrible all over again, that old death scheme is now back only now I'm gonna put my big healthy Anglosaxon teeth into it and wrench away at the mournful flesh of a little living being that only an hour ago was swimming happily in the sea, in fact even Dave thinking this and saying: 'Ah yes that little muzzling mouth was blindly sucking away in the glad waters of life and now look at it, here's where the fittin head's chopped off, you don't have to look, us big drunken sinners are now going to use it for our sacrificial supper[...] ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
925:The capacity of the rational mind to deceive, manipulate, scheme, trick, falsify, minimize, mislead, betray, prevaricate, deny, omit, rationalize, bias, exaggerate and obscure is so endless, so remarkable, that centuries of pre-scientific thought, concentrating on clarifying the nature of moral endeavour, regarded it as positively demonic. This is not because of rationality itself, as a process. That process can produce clarity and progress. It is because rationality is subject to the single worst temptation—to raise what it knows now to the status of an absolute. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
926:The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the hidden confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard. ~ Alan Greenspan, #NFDB
927:The World
Some are the brothers of all humankind,
And own them, whatsoever their estate;
And some, for sorrow and self-scorn, are blind
With enmity for man's unguarded fate.
For some there is a music all day long
Like flutes in Paradise, they are so glad;
And there is hell's eternal under-song
Of curses and the cries of men gone mad.
Some say the Scheme with love stands luminous,
Some say 't were better back to chaos hurled;
And so 't is what we are that makes for us
The measure and the meaning of the world.
~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,#NFDB
928:In the conceptual scheme which the British created to understand and to act in India, they constantly followed the same logic; they reduced vastly complex codes and their associated meanings to a few metonyms.’ Laws had to be translated into terms the British could understand and apply. A complicated, often chaotic and always fluid society like India was ‘redefined by the British to be a place of rules and orders; once the British had defined to their own satisfaction what they construed as Indian rules and customs, then the Indians had to conform to these constructions. ~ Shashi Tharoor, #NFDB
929:For all the successes of Western civilization, the world paid a dear price in terms of the most crucial component of existence - the human spirit. The shadow side of high technology - modern warfare and thoughtless homicide and suicide, urban blight, ecological mayhem, cataclysmic climate change, polarization of economic resources - is bad enough. Much worse, our focus on exponential progress in science and technology has left many of us relatively bereft in the realm of meaning and joy, and of knowing how our lives fit into the grand scheme of existence for all eternity. ~ Eben Alexander, #NFDB
930:There was a moment in the middle of college, imperceptible at the time as an actual moment, when talk started to shift from classes, majors, parties, and symbolism in literature to jobs. Once it happened, jobs won out, and classes and majors and novels and academic debates took on a sweet, quaint whiff of the past. Jobs made you sit up straighter and scheme, trying to think of any connections you had ever made and could now use. Everyone was thinking and worrying a little about the long run, that abstract road that supposedly might lead to happiness, before it led to death. ~ Meg Wolitzer, #NFDB
931:Restrict nothing--keep everything open: to Italy, to China, to anybody. I love America, I believe in America, because her belly can hold and digest all--anarchist, socialist, peacemakers, fighters, disturbers or degenerates of whatever sort--hold and digest all. If I felt that America could not do this I would be indifferent as between our institutions and any others. America is not all in all--the sum total: she is only to contribute her contribution to the big scheme. What shall that contribution be? I say, let it be something worth while--something exceptional, ennobling. ~ Walt Whitman, #NFDB
932:The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the great wealth of general ideas scattered through them.
His personal endowments, his wide opportunities for experience at a great period of civilization, his inheritance of an intellectual tradition not yet stiffened by excessive systematization, have made his writings an inexhaustible mine of suggestion. ~ Alfred North Whitehead,#NFDB
933:If one accepts as fundamental this Aristotelian idea of potentia – of objective tendencies – then the whole scheme of things becomes intuitively understandable. There is nothing intrinsically incomprehensible about the idea of ‘tendencies’. Indeed, we build our lives upon this concept. However, three centuries of false thinking has brought many physicists and philosophers to expect and desire an understanding of nature in which everything is completely predetermined in terms of the physically described aspects of nature alone. Contemporary physics violates that classical ideal. ~ Paul Davies, #NFDB
934:I wanted to know the best of the life of one (Muhammad) who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind. I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
935:To call oneself a libertarian marxist today is not to look backwards but to be committed to the future. The libertarian marxist is not an academic but a militant. He is well aware that it is up to him to change the world - no more, no less. History throws him on the brink. Everywhere the hour of the socialist revolution has sounded. Revolution - like landing on the moon - has entered the realm of the immediate and possible. Precise definition of the forms of a socialist society is no longer a utopian scheme. The only utopians are those who close their eyes to these realities. ~ Daniel Guerin, #NFDB
936:Prestero had a vested interest in those broken incubators, because the organization he founded, Design that Matters, had been working for several years on a new scheme for a more reliable, and less expensive, incubator, one that recognized complex medical technology was likely to have a very different tenure in a developing world context than it would in an American or European hospital. Designing an incubator for a developing country wasn’t just a matter of creating something that worked; it was also a matter of designing something that would break in a non-catastrophic way. ~ Steven Johnson, #NFDB
937:In this game, you have to think about making plays, you can't worry about making mistakes. At times, a guy will get thrown out, but in the bigger scheme, the bases we're going to take will far outweigh that occasional misread. And it depends on what you call a mistake. If the outfielder puts the ball right on the money, he's out by a quarter-step and it's a bang-bang play, that's not a mistake. That's baseball. If you're out by four or five steps, it's ugly, it's a misread, but in the big picture, that aggressiveness is going to help us more than the occasional blunder will hurt. ~ Mike Scioscia, #NFDB
938:Shortness of life was a primary force in the permanence of institutions, strange though it is to say it. But it is so much easier to hold onto whatever short-term survival scheme you have, rather than risking it all on a new plan that might not work— no matter how destructive your short-term plan might be for the following generations. Let them deal with it, you know. And really, to give them their due, by the time people learned the system they were old and dying, and for the next generation it was all there, massive and entrenched and having to be learned all over again. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson, #NFDB
939:You know, some things don't matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the over-all scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart-- now, that matters. The whole problem with people is--"
"They don't know what matters and what doesn't," I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.
"I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose the Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters. ~ Sue Monk Kidd,#NFDB
940:To some, the image of a pale body glimmering on a dark night whispers of defeat. What good is a God who does not control his Son's suffering? But another sound can be heard: the shout of a God crying out to human beings, "I LOVE YOU." Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to - because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.
Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross. ~ Philip Yancey,#NFDB
941:To some, the image of a pale body glimmering on a dark night whispers of defeat. What good is a God who does not control his Son's suffering? But another sound can be heard: the shout of a God crying out to human beings, "I LOVE YOU." Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to - because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.
Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross. ~ Philip Yancey,#NFDB
942:He was always saying he deserved better. Better than this, anyway. I would nod and agree with him, but I never told him what I wanted to tell him, which was, hey, Deepak, when you say that you deserve better, even if I agree with you, you are kind of also implying that I don’t deserve better, which, maybe I don’t, maybe this is about where I belong in the grand scheme of things, in terms of high-end low-end for me as a person, but I wish you wouldn’t say it because whenever you do, it makes me feel a sharp bit of sadness and then, for the rest of the day, a kind of low-grade crumminess. ~ Charles Yu, #NFDB
943:True, my boy. Only Hashem is omniscient, and until He decides we’re worthy of His communication via prophets or the Messiah, we mortals are forced to live in a state of ignorance. I’ve spent my whole life learning, Detective, acquiring knowledge not only from the scriptures of my belief, but from countless other sources—American law, philosophy, psychology, economics, political science: I have studied them all at great length. Yet, a madman can slip under my nose, and I realize I know nothing. I am still a meaningless speck of dust in the scheme of things. A most humbling experience. ~ Faye Kellerman, #NFDB
944:Your literary men, and your politicians, and so do the whole clan of the enlightened among us, essentially differ in these points. They have no respect for the wisdom of others; but they pay it off by a very full measure of confidence in their own. With them it is a sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things, because it is an old one. As to the new, they are in no sort of fear with regard to the duration of a building run up in haste; because duration is no object to those who think little or nothing has been done before their time, and who place all their hopes in discovery. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
945:In many ways, the work of a critic is easy,” Ego says. “We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
946:And yet I needed to know the meaning of my own existence. Only those who, at some time in their lives, have been possessed by such a need can guess at its intensity, comparable to that of physical hunger or sexual desire. I did not see how I could put one foot in front of the other unless I understood where I was going and why. I could do nothing unless I understood what part my action played in the scheme of things. All I knew was that I knew nothing - nothing, that is to say, of the slightest importance - and I was paralyzed by my ignorance as though immobilized in a dense fog. ~ Charles Le Gai Eaton, #NFDB
947:I have no way of knowing whether you, who eventually will read this record, like stories or not. If you do not, no doubt you have turned these pages without attention. I confess that I love them. Indeed, it often seems to me that of all the good things in the world, the only ones humanity can claim for itself are stories and music; the rest, mercy, beauty, sleep, clean water and hot food (as the Ascian would have said) are all the work of the Increate. Thus, stories are small things indeed in the scheme of the universe, but it is hard not to love best what is our own—hard for me, at least. ~ Gene Wolfe, #NFDB
948:I say, Bertie, is it really true that you were once engaged to Honoria?"
"It is."
Biffy coughed.
"How did you get out - I mean, what was the nature of the tragedy that prevented the marriage?"
"Jeeves worked it. He thought out the entire scheme."
"I think, before I go," said Biffy thoughtfully, "I'll just step into the kitchen and have a word with Jeeves."
I felt that the situation called for complete candour.
"Biffy, old egg," I said, "as man to man, do you want to oil out of this thing?"
"Bertie, old cork," said Biffy earnestly, "as one friend to another, I do. ~ P G Wodehouse,#NFDB
949:Benjamin Franklin, however, wrote: To relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity; it is godlike; but, if we provide encouragement for laziness, and supports for folly, may we not be found fighting against the order of God and nature, which perhaps has appointed want and misery as the proper punishments for, and cautions against, as well as necessary consequences of, idleness and extravagance? Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence, and to interfere with the government of the world, we had need be very circumspect, lest we do more harm than good. ~ Ben Carson, #NFDB
950:Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building. A vigorous totalitarian order requires that people be invested in the leaders' scheme, and while genocide may be the most perverse and ambitious means to this end, it is also the most comprehensive. In 1994, Rwanda was regarded in much of the rest of the world as the exemplary instance of the chaos and anarchy associated with collapsed states. In fact, the genocide was the product of order, authoritarianism, decades of modern political theorizing ans indoctrination, and one of the most meticulously administered states in history. ~ Philip Gourevitch, #NFDB
951:I struck up a conversation with Larry Page, Google’s brilliant cofounder. “Larry, I still don’t get it. There are so many search companies. Web search, for free? Where does that get you?” My unimaginative blindness is solid evidence that predicting is hard, especially about the future, but in my defense this was before Google had ramped up its ad auction scheme to generate real income, long before YouTube or any other major acquisitions. I was not the only avid user of its search site who thought it would not last long. But Page’s reply has always stuck with me: “Oh, we’re really making an AI. ~ Kevin Kelly, #NFDB
952:Szasz opposed any involuntary psychiatric intervention and, along with the Cuckoo’s Nest portrayal, paved the way for the disastrous dismantling of U.S. mental health facilities. But more generally they helped make popular and respectable the idea that much of science is a sinister scheme concocted by a despotic conspiracy to oppress the people. Mental illness, both Szasz and Laing said, is “a theory not a fact”—now the universal bottom-line argument for anyone, from creationists to climate change deniers to antivaccine hysterics, who prefer to disregard science in favor of their own beliefs. ~ Kurt Andersen, #NFDB
953:The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
954:It would be almost a public service to dangle the alternatives in front of the widow before Miles got her mind all turned inside out like he did everyone else’s. But . . . Miles had extracted his word from Ivan, with downright ruthless determination. Forced it, practically, and a forced oath was no oath at all. The way around this dilemma occurred to Ivan between one step and the next; his lips pursed in a sudden whistle. The scheme was nearly . . . Milesian. Cosmic justice, to serve the dwarf a dish with his own sauce. By the time Pym let him out the front door, Ivan was smiling again. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold, #NFDB
955:Their sisters have no earthly employment but household work and sewing, no earthly pleasure but an unprofitable visiting, and no hope, in all their life to come, of anything better. This stagnant state of things makes them decline in health. They are never well, and their minds and views shrink to wondrous narrowness. The great wish, the sole aim of every one of them is to be married, but the majority will never marry; they will die as they now live. They scheme, they plot, they dress to ensnare husbands. The gentlemen turn them into ridicule; they don’t want them; they hold them very cheap. ~ Charlotte Bront, #NFDB
956:we, doubtless, should hear one and another reply, “No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself: I thought my scheme good: I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look for it at that time, and in that manner; it came as a thief: death outwitted me: God’s wrath was too quick for me. O my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying peace and safety, then sudden destruction came upon me.” 10. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
957:Why does IPCA use them if they’re evil?” he asked, confused.
“They aren’t evil. They aren’t even really immoral, per se. They’re amoral. They don’t operate on the same level that we do. For a faerie, the only thing that matters is what they want. That’s their good. Anything else is superfluous. So like how they kidnap people, not a big deal—they want the person, they take him. Or killing someone. If you live forever, how much does one mortal life matter in the scheme of things? When you exist outside time, cutting off the forty years a person has left is a non-issue. They don’t even notice. ~ Kiersten White,#NFDB
958:No doubt, the theory of evolution will continue to play the singular role in the life of our secular culture that it has always played. The theory is unique among scientific instruments in being cherished not for what it contains, but for what it lacks. There are in Darwin's scheme no biotic laws, no Bauplan as in German natural philosophy, no special creation, no elan vital, no divine guidance or transcendental forces. The theory functions simply as a description of matter in one of its modes, and living creatures are said to be something that the gods of law indifferently sanction and allow. ~ David Berlinski, #NFDB
959:We began our life together at a moment of natural self-pity and defeat that left an inimitable impression on both of us. The rejection chastened me and let me know my proper place in the grand scheme of things. It was the last time I would ever make a move that required boldness or a leap of the imagination. I became tentative, suspicious, and dull. I learned to hold my tongue and mark my trail behind me and to look to the future with a wary eye. Finally, I was robbed of a certain optimism, that reckless acceptance of the world and all it could hand my way that had been my strength and deliverance. ~ Pat Conroy, #NFDB
960:The Secret Doctrine (H. P. Blavatsky) - Your Highlight on Location 171-174 | Added on Monday, March 16, 2015 8:34:00 PM The aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not "a fortuitous concurrence of atoms," and to assign to man his rightful place in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization. ========== The Secret Doctrine (H. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
961:The perspective of eternity is not a perspective from a certain place beyond the world, nor the point of view of a transcendent being; rather it is a certain form of thought and feeling that rational persons can adopt within the world. And having done so, they can, whatever their generation, bring together into one scheme all individual perspectives and arrive together at regulative principles that can be affirmed by everyone as he lives by them, each from his own standpoint. Purity of heart, if one could attain it, would be to see clearly and to act with grace and self-command from this point of view. ~ John Rawls, #NFDB
962:Anecdotes often represent the lowest form of persuasion. A story, meanwhile, fills out the picture. It uses data, statistical or otherwise, to portray a sense of magnitude; without data, we have no idea how a story fits into the larger scheme of things. A good story also includes the passage of time, to show the degree of constancy or change; without a time frame, we can’t judge whether we’re looking at something truly noteworthy or just an anomalous blip. And a story lays out a daisy chain of events, to show the causes that lead up to a particular situation and the consequences that result from it. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
963:These services aren’t necessarily, as advertised, the lifeblood of our modern connected world. They’re just products, developed by private companies, funded lavishly, marketed carefully, and designed ultimately to capture then sell your personal information and attention to advertisers. They can be fun, but in the scheme of your life and what you want to accomplish, they’re a lightweight whimsy, one unimportant distraction among many threatening to derail you from something deeper. Or maybe social media tools are at the core of your existence. You won’t know either way until you sample life without them. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
964:There is a very simple statement to be made about all these stories: they do not really come off intellectually as problems, and they do not come off artistically as fiction. They are too contrived, and too little aware of what goes on in the world. They try to be honest, but honesty is an art. The poor writer is dishonest without knowing it, and the fairly good one can be dishonest because he doesn’t know what to be honest about. He thinks a complicated murder scheme which baffled the lazy reader, who won’t be bothered itemizing the details, will also baffle the police, whose business is with details. ~ Raymond Chandler, #NFDB
965:So, if this were indeed my Final Hour, these would be my words to you. I would not claim to pass on any secret of life, for there is none, or any wisdom except the passionate plea of caring ... Try to feel, in your heart's core, the reality of others. This is the most painful thing in the world, probably, and the most necessary. In times of personal adversity, know that you are not alone. Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all of your fellow humans everywhere in the world. Know that your commitment is above all to life itself. ~ Margaret Laurence, #NFDB
966:The purpose of life is to find out who you really are, to grow and evolve, to reach higher states of consciousness, to experience the divine, to become enlightened. If you can find fulfillment on any of these levels, you are achieving your vision, not simply meeting the demands of everyday existence. A greater vision closes the gap between you and the universe. If life itself has a purpose, your existence fits into the cosmic scheme. The threat that existence is meaningless, which would lead to anxiety and despair, or an aching sense of loneliness, is removed when you are certain of your place in creation. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
967:Lord Peter's library was one of the most delightful bachelor rooms in London. Its scheme was black and primrose; its walls were lined with rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa suggested the embraces of the houris. In one corner stood a black baby grand, a wood fire leaped on a wide old-fashioned hearth, and the Sèvres vases on the chimneypiece were filled with ruddy and gold chrysanthemums. To the eyes of the young man who was ushered in from the raw November fog it seemed not only rare and unattainable, but friendly and familiar, like a colourful and gilded paradise in a mediæval painting ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
968:Fortunately, the Sun does not demand payment for all the energy that it delivers by radiation to Earth in the overall cosmic scheme, which is trying to make humanity a success despite our overwhelming ignorance and fear. The stars are trying to tell humanity to awake and prosper and consciously assume the important cosmic responsibilities for which it was designed. Since realization and fulfillment of that responsibility involve evolutionary discovery by humanity of the cosmic stature of its mind and the inconsequentiality of its muscle, the planting of humans on Earth may not bear fruit. ~ Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path, #NFDB
969:She’s certain that I intend to lure Lilly into the debauched harem that I maintain in the opium dens of Paris.” He turned her toward the lane. “Be so good as to thwart me from this evil scheme. You can begin by distracting me with a walk to the post office.”
She smiled, though it was slightly watery. “I see that it’s my Christian duty, when you put it so. I only hope I may not succumb to your wicked plot myself.”
“Oh, I have far more sinister plans for you. I mean to entice you to a dish of tea in the public parlor at the Antlers. I will certainly set a chair for you, and possibly I may even speak French. ~ Laura Kinsale,#NFDB
970:The reason is this. Any schemes – such as ‘think of symmetry laws’, or ‘put the information in mathematical form’, or ‘guess equations’ – are known to everybody now, and they are all tried all the time. When you are stuck, the answer cannot be one of these, because you will have tried these right away. There must be another way next time. Each time we get into this log-jam of too much trouble, too many problems, it is because the methods that we are using are just like the ones we have used before. The next scheme, the new discovery, is going to be made in a completely different way. So history does not help us much. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
971:THEY'D CHANGE THE AXIS OF THE EARTH!
There are fortunes to be made in polar real estate! Just change the climate of both poles, warm them up, give them mild winters and pleasant summers, and watch the boom! At the same time, cool off the tropics, clear out the jungles, and there's billions more in it!
That was the scheme of the famous Gun Club, the same space engineers who had fired the shot "From the Earth to the Moon." The story of how they planned to change the face of the Earth itself is a Jules Verne classic long out of print that's a delight to read and a real adventure in logical super-science. ~ Jules Verne,#NFDB
972:O join us, friends and mortals, on the scene—
Another chapter of our cosmic tale.
Luke Skywalker returns to Tatooine,
To save his friend Han Solo from his jail
Within the grasp of Jaba of the Hutt.
But while Luke doth the timely rescue scheme,
The vile Galactic Empire now hath cut
New plans for a space station with a beam
More awful than the first fear’d Death Star’s blast.
This weapon ultimate shall, when complete,
Mean doom for those within the rebel cast
Who fight to earn the taste of freedom sweet.
In time so long ago begins our play,
In hope-fill’d galaxy far, far away. ~ Ian Doescher,#NFDB
973:Your plan violates one of the most important principles we adhered to in combat: simplicity. When young SEAL leaders in training look at targets for training missions, they often try to develop a course of action that accounts for every single possibility they can think of. That results in a plan that is extraordinarily complex and very difficult to follow. While the troops might understand their individual pieces of the plan, they have a hard time following all the intricacies of the grand scheme. Perhaps they can even get away with that a few times if everything goes smoothly, but remember: the enemy gets a vote. ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
974:For his part, Mendeleev scanned Lecoq de Boisbaudran’s data on gallium and told the experimentalist, with no justification, that he must have measured something wrong, because the density and weight of gallium differed from Mendeleev’s predictions. This betrays a flabbergasting amount of gall, but as science philosopher-historian Eric Scerri put it, Mendeleev always “was willing to bend nature to fit his grand philosophical scheme.” The only difference between Mendeleev and crackpottery is that Mendeleev was right: Lecoq de Boisbaudran soon retracted his data and published results that corroborated Mendeleev’s predictions. ~ Sam Kean, #NFDB
975:No amount of standing on hilltops on dark nights and surveying the heavens could prepare a man for the actuality of space travel, because the earthbound observer saw only the the stars, not what separated them. They glittered in his vision, filling his eyes, and he had no choice but to assign them a position of importance in the cosmic scheme. The space traveler saw things differently. He was made aware that the universe consisted of emptiness, that the suns and nebulae were almost an irrelevancy, that the stars were nothing more than a whiff of gas diffusing into infinity. And sooner or later that knowledge began to hurt. ~ Bob Shaw, #NFDB
976:She herself was a victim of that lust for books which rages in the breast like a demon, and which cannot be stilled save by the frequent and plentiful acquisition of books. This passion is more common, and more powerful, than most people suppose. Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
977:As I look back, I think of my own grandmother, who made some of the biggest adjustments I ever saw a human being make. I came to the conclusion that she was able to make them partly because, with advancing age, you accept the blows of life more philosophically. In fact, you accept life, which is perhaps nature’s way of preparing you to accept death. It seems to me that when people grow old, death gradually becomes part of the natural scheme of life. Death is unnatural when it comes to the young, but with age it is normal and inevitable and, like everything else that has been inevitable in life, becomes easier to accept. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, #NFDB
978:Here an omnipotent superintelligent AI keeps some humans around, who feel treated like zoo animals and occasionally lament their fate. Why would the zookeeper AI keep humans around? The cost of the zoo to the AI will be minimal in the grand scheme of things, and it may want to retain at least a minimal breeding population for much the same reason that we keep endangered pandas in zoos and vintage computers in museums: as an entertaining curiosity. Note that today’s zoos are designed to maximize human rather than panda happiness, so we should expect human life in the zookeeper-AI scenario to be less fulfilling than it could be. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
979:Though he could not honestly believe in some invisible, mythical god, he could understand religion now. He could understand that it was a security blanket men wrapped around themselves. Maybe it was dark and close under that blanket and you couldn’t see more than a few inches in any direction, but it was safe. God created Heaven and Earth. There was a serenity to that, now wasn’t there? It was simple and reassuring. And if religion was indeed a sheltering blanket, then science was the cold hand which yanked it away, showing man his ultimate insignificance in the greater scheme of things, the truth about his origins and destiny. ~ Tim Curran, #NFDB
980:In the 1740s the Iroquois wearied of dealing with several often bickering English colonies and suggested that the colonies form a union similar to the league. In 1754 Benjamin Franklin, who had spent much time among the Iroquois observing their deliberations, pleaded with colonial leaders to consider his Albany Plan of Union: “It would be a strange thing if six nations of ignorant savages should be capable of forming a scheme for such a union and be able to execute it in such a manner as that it has subsisted ages and appears insoluble; and yet that a like union should be impracticable for ten or a dozen English colonies.”53 ~ James W Loewen, #NFDB
981:method developed by John Nash and Jürgen Moser is one of the pillars of the Kolmogorov–Arnold–Moser (KAM) theory that Étienne had mentioned. I also knew that Nash–Moser relies on Newton’s extraordinary iteration scheme for finding successively better approximations to the roots of real-valued equations—a method that converges unimaginably fast, exponentially exponentially fast!—and that Kolmogorov was able to exploit it with remarkable ingenuity. Frankly, I couldn’t see any connection whatever between these things and Landau damping. But who knows, I muttered to myself, perhaps Étienne’s intuition will turn out to be correct.… ~ C dric Villani, #NFDB
982:I’ve fought for and against pretty much every cause there is. There will always be war of some kind. At first it was over fertile soil and good water, then precious metal and then the most popular version of human disagreement, ‘My God is better than your God.’ Whether you draw your faith from Jeremiah and Jesus, Allah and Muhammad or Brahma and Buddha, it doesn’t matter. Someone will tell you you’re wrong, and he’ll fight you over it. Me, I believe in aliens, and to hell with all earthly gods. In the grand scheme of a trillion planets in the universe we’re just not that damn important anyway. And humans are rotten to the core. ~ David Baldacci, #NFDB
983:It’s rare that a story begins at the beginning. In the grand scheme of things, I really turned up at the beginning of the end of this one. After all, the story of the Rephaim and Scion started almost two hundred years before I was born - and human lives, to Rephaim, are as fleeting as a single heartbeat.
Some revolutions change the world in a day. Others take decades or centuries or more, and others still never come to fruition. Mine began with a moment and a choice. Mine began with the blooming of a flower in a secret city on the border between worlds.
You’ll have to wait and see how it ends.
Welcome back to Scion. ~ Samantha Shannon,#NFDB
984:Gregory picks up his little dog. He hugs her, and nuzzles the fur at the back of her neck. He waits. ‘Rafe and Richard say that when my education is sufficient you mean to marry me to some old dowager with a great settlement and black teeth, and she will wear me out with lechery and rule me with her whims, and she will leave her estate away from the children she has and they will hate me and scheme against my life and one morning I shall be dead in my bed.’
The spaniel swivels in his son's arms, turns on him her mild, round, wondering eyes. ‘They are making sport of you, Gregory. If I knew such a woman, I would marry her myself. ~ Hilary Mantel,#NFDB
985:I loved looking at the stars—they put in perspective how small I was compared to the Universe. Each of those hundreds of billions of stars was its own sun. It could have its own solar system of planets orbiting around it, and some of those planets could even contain life.
The vastness of possibilities in space reminded me that while my life felt important, it was tiny in the scheme of things. Human civilization was only a blink on the radar of time.
Did anyone else have these moments of amazement over the existence of humanity, when they are in awe of how they are here, and alive, even if it’s only for a short while? ~ Michelle Madow,#NFDB
986:Lind’s scheme has been widely adopted. Note, however, that it is based mainly on developments on the tactical and operational levels. It has relatively little to say about strategy, let alone grand strategy and the kind of political, economic, social and cultural factors in which the latter is rooted. In this it differs from some other schemes, including my own which is based on the distinction between “trinitarian” and “non-trinitarian” warfare. Here the assumption is that there are two basic kinds of war, i.e. those in which the distinction between government, armed forces and people is maintained and those in which it is not. ~ Martin van Creveld, #NFDB
987:The people of that age were phrase slaves. The abjectness of their servitude is incomprehensible to us. There was a magic in words greater than the conjurer's art. So befuddled and chaotic were their minds that the utterance of a single word could negative the generalizations of a lifetime of serious research and thought. Such a word was the adjective UTOPIAN. The mere utterance of it could damn any scheme, no matter how sanely conceived, of economic amelioration or regeneration. Vast populations grew frenzied over such phrases as "an honest dollar" and "a full dinner pail." The coinage of such phrases was considered strokes of genius. ~ Jack London, #NFDB
988:The irony of our existence is this: We are infinitesimal in the grand scheme of evolution, a tiny organism on Earth. And yet, personally, collectively, we are changing the planet through our voracity, the velocity of our reach, our desires, our ambitions, and our appetites. We multiply, our hunger multiplies, and our insatiable craving accelerates.
Consumption is a progressive disease.
We believe in more, more possessions, more power, more war. Anywhere, everywhere our advance of aggression continues.
My aggression toward myself is the first war.
Wilderness is an antidote to the war within ourselves. ~ Terry Tempest Williams,#NFDB
989:I have tasted words, I have seen them. Never had her hands reached out in darkness and felt the texture of pure marble, never had her forehead bent forward and, as against a stone altar, felt safety. I am now saved. Her mind could not then so specifically have seen it, could not have said, "Now I will reveal myself in words, words may now supercede a scheme of mathematical-biological definition. Words may be my heritage and with words...A lady will be set back in the sky....there was hope in a block of unsubstantiated marble, words could carve and set up solid altars...Thought followed the wing that beat its silver into seven-branched larch boughs. ~ H D, #NFDB
990:Mrs. Purkapile
He ran away and was gone for a year.
When he came home he told me the silly story
Of being kidnapped by pirates on Lake Michigan
And kept in chains so he could not write me.
I pretended to believe it, though I knew very well
What he was doing, and that he met
The milliner, Mrs. Williams, now and then
When she went to the city to buy goods, as she said.
But a promise is a promise
And marriage is marriage,
And out of respect for my own character
I refused to be drawn into a divorce
By the scheme of a husband who had merely grown tired
Of his marital vow and duty.
~ Edgar Lee Masters,#NFDB
991:Because he was a real captain, and very important in the general scheme of things, Matthews had a secretary, although she liked to be called an executive assistant. Her name was Gwen, and she had three virtues far above anyone else I had ever known: She was astonishingly efficient, unbearably serious, and uncompromisingly plain. It was a delightful combination and I always found it irresistible. So as I hurried up to her desk, wiping the residue of the doughnut off my hands and onto my pants where it belonged, I could not help attempting a very small bon mot. “Fair Gwendolyn,” I said. “The face that launched a thousand patrol vehicles!” She ~ Jeff Lindsay, #NFDB
992:Only problem with the whole scheme, really, is that Lauren’s about to blow up the planet. See, that’s the part you aren’t in on. The thing in the Box? It’s an angel. And it’s really old and really pissed off.” “You’re bluffing,” Nicky said. “Are we?” Caitlin shrugged. “We’re keeping things under wraps to avoid a panic, but a full report’s been delivered to the prince and his inner council. A council which, last time I checked, includes your father. Why don’t you get in touch with him? Ask him who Belephaia is.” He looked from her to me and back again, resting his hand on his desk phone. His brow furrowed as he worked out the implications. ~ Craig Schaefer, #NFDB
993:Re: That
That was no language that was your life.
That was a punning linguist.
That was the headline Author Gets Off.
That was an offer of amnesty and amnesia,
a garden variety fantasia,
a sobriety test and I'm sorry, you passed.
That was in love with the history of the West,
in league with mastery, in line with most of the rest.
That was a linguist's boast.
That was no language boat and you broke it.
That was a love boat and kept you perfectly dry.
A boat in the sky.
That was a scheme with a name on it.
That was to blame and too blind to see.
That was me too.
It was you.
~ Eric Torgersen,#NFDB
994:To A Lady Asking Foolish Questions
Why am I sorry, Chloe? Because the moon is far:
And who am I to be straitened in a little earthly star?
Because thy face is fair? And what if it had not been,
The fairest face of all is the face I have not seen.
Because the land is cold, and however I scheme and plot,
I cannot find a ferry to the land where I am not.
Because thy lips are red and thy breasts upbraid the snow?
(There is neither white nor red in the pleasance where I go.)
Because thy lips grow pale and thy breasts grow dun and fall?
I go where the wind blows, Chloe, and am not sorry at all.
~ Ernest Christopher Dowson,#NFDB
995:The growth of the nervous system from beginning to end is dominated by 'a totally integrated matrix, and not a progressive integration of primarily individuated units'. The organism is not a sum of its reflexes, but on the contrary 'the mechanism of the total pattern is an essential component of the performance of the part, i.e. the reflex'. The stimulus-response scheme cannot explain even embryonic behaviour, because movements appear long before the motor neurons of the reflex arc are connected with the sensory neurons. This centrifugal mode of development means that the individual acts on its environment before it reacts to its environment. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
996:You and I are faced with one of those situations (which fortunately are not very numerous in one lifetime) which cannot possibly be adequately judged beforehand. It strikes me as a colossal gamble, or rather, a very great adventure. And personally I am considerably exhilarated by the risks! ... The greatness of the adventure perhaps consists partly in the fact that as a Catholic I can marry only once! But, as with being born, perhaps once is quite sufficient! In the Church, you know, there is a great heightening of every moment of experience, since every moment is played against a supernatural backdrop. Nothing can be humdrum in this scheme. ~ Marshall McLuhan, #NFDB
997:Our intelligence is a source of toxicity to nature and discomfort to ourselves—unless our values are based on planetary values, are linked to the values of the rest of nature. And that means we need to fit ourselves more appropriately into the scheme of things by limiting our numbers, by limiting our extraction of natural resources and toxification of the environment. We need to realize that there is a hegemony of life on the planet—not necessarily a hegemony of intelligence. Intelligence is not a license to trample. The proper role of intelligence in a planetary ecology is that of gardener, caregiver, and maintainer of balance. ~ Terence McKenna, Evolving Times, #NFDB
998:And that was fine. I didn’t matter much in the scheme of things and Martin didn’t either. We were easily forgotten. It was a social and moral lesson, if nothing else. But for all foreseeable time to come — for as long as history was written, until the icecaps melted and the streets of Amsterdam were awash with water — the painting would be remembered and mourned. Who knew, or cared, the names of the Turks who blew the roof off the Parthenon? the mullahs who had ordered the destruction of the Buddhas at Bamiyan? Yet living or dead: their acts stood. It was the worst kind of immortality. Intentionally or no: I had extinguished a light at the heart of the world. ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
999:The welfare state may be well intended but it is a Ponzi scheme. People are paying in to support the people who previously paid in, but there isn't enough coming in, so it will collapse, like eery Ponzi scheme does. By the way, I had the author of a biography on Ponzi on my show. Ponzi was a good guy. He just got messed up and so he had to keep collecting money to pay the other people who paid in earlier. He didn't mean bad.
Ponzi turns out to be somewhat of a Saint. He heard of a girl who was in a fire, and he gave his own skin for her skin grafts. A total stranger.
Ponzi is the quintessential Liberal. Means well, and creates something destructive. ~ Dennis Prager,#NFDB
1000:QUICK MENTAL RECAP: KIDNAPPED BY Mafia gang ruled by insane, chain-smoking reject from the sixties—female; discover husband has alias name and FBI badge that he’s been able to keep hidden from me for seventeen years (reminder to self: get a clue!); follow half-baked scheme provided by Brad Pitt look-alike to make a quick getaway through guest bathroom; wind up playing bad game of Twister in bathtub with Elvis Presley wannabe; witness the whacking of FBI husband; hear Elvis Presley wannabe proclaim, regarding husband’s whacker: “That’s No Toes” and follow up with obvious comment, “Dis ain’t good.” Would Al Pacino be caught dead in this movie? Definitely not. ~ Karen Cantwell, #NFDB
1001:Freedom In Faith
HIS MIND alone is kingly who (though one)
But venerates of present things or past
What he believeth good, kneeling to none
Save God and Truth! Who awed not by this vast
And shadowy scheme of Life, but anchored fast
In Love and sitting central like the sun
So gives his mental beams to pierce and run
Through all its secrets while his days may last;
And thus progressive, little faith hath he
For mysteries, till sounding them he hear
The gathered tones of their stirr’d depths agree
With that religious harmony severe
Which anthems to his spiritual ear
The invisible Presence of the Deity.
~ Charles Harpur,#NFDB
1002:Greatness
That man is truly great, and he alone
Who venerates, of present things or past
The absolute only,—is the liege of none
Save God and truth; who, awed not by this vast
And shadowy scheme of life, but anchored fast
In love, and sitting central like the sun,
So gives his mental beams to pierce and run
Through all its secrets while his days may last.
While thus progressive, little faith has he
For mysteries, till, sounding them, he hear
The gathered tones of their stirred depths agree
With that religious harmony severe,
Which ever anthems to his spirit’s ear
The hallowing presence of the Deity.
~ Charles Harpur,#NFDB
1003:This was possibly the first time anyone had used the phrase "too cerebral" when describing Pinky's advertising. Because someone somewhere in the Pinky's marketing scheme had made the brilliant connection that sub sandwiches are vaguely phallic. And from that, all the penis-related Pinky sub campaigns were born.
Like the commercial where you see the guy standing from the back, and then a woman in front of him, and she says, "Nine inches????" in this insane lusty voice, and then they pan to the side and show he's holding a Pinky sub right at groin height? It's the worst. It is literally the worst. I'm a cog in the world's dumbest corporate sandwich machine. ~ Emma Mills,#NFDB
1004:There is a new wave of interest in exploring how to frame choices so that people make better decisions. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, professors of economics and law, respectively, teamed up to write Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, which advocates using defaults to nudge us to make better choices.9 Even when we are choosing in our own interests, we often choose unwisely. When employees have the option of participating in a retirement-savings scheme, many do not, despite the financial advantages of doing so. If their employer instead automatically enrolls them, giving them the choice of opting out, participation jumps dramatically ~ Peter Singer, #NFDB
1005:Within a few centuries, the new capitalist spirit challenged the basic Christian ethic: the boundless ego of Sir Gales Overreach and his fellows in the marketplace had no room for charity or love in any of their ancient senses. The capitalist scheme of values in fact transformed five of the seven deadly sins of Christianity-pride, envy, greed, avarice, and lust-into positive social virtues, treating them as necessary incentives to all economic enterprise; while the cardinal virtues, beginning with love and humility, were rejected as 'bad for business,' except in the degree that they made the working class more docile and more amenable to cold-blooded exploitation. ~ Lewis Mumford, #NFDB
1006:Admittedly, man is small and insignificant in nature's scheme; but he is part of it. And are we to think less of the man who exposes himself to nature's forces than of him who just delights in looking at her, safe from dangers and tempests? Even those ridiculous earthworms know that an icicle can "sneeze"; but they have learned by obervation when and where it happens, and will do their best to avoid the danger with clear-eyes alertness and which they owe to their own daring. They are not deaf; they too hear the mighty voice of the mountains, but they understand and interpret it in a different way from those who enjoy it so passively and with such self-satisfaction. ~ Heinrich Harrer, #NFDB
1007:From the day of their marriage she had realized that he did not love her in the same way as she loved him. But she thought it possible that he was actually incapable of such a love. That power of loving was her own unhappy heritage. To care with a desperation, an intensity that was, she knew, unusual among women! She would have died for him willingly; she was ready to lie for him, scheme for him, suffer for him! Instead she accepted with pride and reserve the place he wanted her to fill. He wanted her cooperation, her sympathy, her active and intellectual help. He wanted of her, not her heart, but her brains, and those material advantages which birth had given her. ~ Agatha Christie, #NFDB
1008:And it can also be hard to be a part of the oppressed culture, and stand up for your ownership over your cultural art and practices, and know that other people from your culture may disagree with you and give permission for what is sacred to you to be used and changed. However this debate plays out for the individual situations you may find yourself in, know that it cannot end well if it does not start with enough respect for the marginalized culture in question to listen when somebody says "this hurts me." And if that means that your conscience won't allow you to dress as a geisha for Halloween, know that even then, in the grand scheme of things - you are not the victim. ~ Ijeoma Oluo, #NFDB
1009:Science Fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story. In it, as in all fiction, there is room enough to keep even Man where he belongs, in his place in the scheme of things, there is time enough to gather plenty of wild oats and sow them, too, and sing to little Oom, and listen to Ool's joke, and watch newts, and still the story isn't over. Still there are seeds to be gathered and room in the bag of stars. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1010: The Hidden Plan
However long Night's hour, I will not dream
That the small ego and the person's mask
Are all that God reveals in our life-scheme,
The last result of Nature's cosmic task.
A greater Presence in her bosom works;
Long it prepares its far epiphany:
Even in the stone and beast the godhead lurks,
A bright Persona of eternity.
It shall burst out from the limit traced by Mind
And make a witness of the prescient heart;
It shall reveal even in this inert blind
Nature, long veiled in each inconscient part,
Fulfilling the occult magnificent plan,
The world-wide and immortal spirit in man.
~ Sri Aurobindo, - The Hidden Plan
,#NFDB
1011:The guild of New Testament studies has become so used to operating with a hermeneutic of suspicion that we find ourselves trapped in our own subtleties. If two ancient writers agree about something, that proves one got it from the other. If they seem to disagree, that proves that one or both are wrong. If they say an event fulfilled biblical prophecy, they made it up to look like that. If an event or saying fits a writer’s theological scheme, that writer invented it. If there are two accounts of similar events, they are a “doublet” (there was only one event); but if a single account has anything odd about it, there must have been two events, which are now conflated. And so on. ~ Marcus J Borg, #NFDB
1012:Herzen is terrified of the oppressors, but he is terrified of the liberators too. He is terrified of them because for him they are the secular heirs of the religious bigots of the ages of faith; because anybody who has a cut and dried scheme, a straitjacket which he wishes to impose on humanity as the sole possible remedy for all human ills, is ultimately bound to create a situation intolerable for free human beings, for men like himself who want to express themselves, who want to have some area in which to develop their own resources, and are prepared to respect the originality, the spontaneity, the natural impulse towards self-expression on the part of other human beings too. ~ Isaiah Berlin, #NFDB
1013:For so long, maybe all my life, I thought only a house could make you whole. I thought I was nothing without an interesting address. I thought I was only as good as my color scheme, my drawer pulls, my floors....it's the knowledge that a house can be as fragile as life itself. You'd think it would be stronger, since it can stand in one spot for centuries while generations of humans run through its rooms, grow up, move out, and eventually die. But a house is an inherently limited entity. It can't do everything, or even most things. It cannot give you a personality. It cannot bring you love. It cannot cure loneliness. It can provide comfort, safety, a sense of pride--that much I know. ~ Meghan Daum, #NFDB
1014:Meanwhile, the extraordinary measures we take to stay abreast of each minuscule change to the data stream end up magnifying the relative importance of these blips to the real scheme of things. Investors trade, politicians respond, and friends judge based on the micromovements of virtual needles. By dividing our attention between our digital extensions, we sacrifice our connection to the truer present in which we are living. The tension between the faux present of digital bombardment and the true now of a coherently living human generated the second kind of present shock, what we're calling digiphrenia—digi for "digital," and phrenia for "disordered condition of mental activity. ~ Douglas Rushkoff, #NFDB
1015:The avian court follows the Tuuli Thea. They would be hesitant to bring their families so close to the serpiente, at least at first, but hopefully future generations won’t be as frightened. And if we let it be known that we will raise our child there, I think that plenty of avian scholars would be willing to go, if only in hopes of ‘protecting’ the queen’s heir. Then of course there may be those who simply wish to curry favor with their monarch, even if it means supporting what they will doubtless see as another mad scheme by their Tuuli Thea.”
“Another?”
“Of course,” she answered sweetly. “You may recall the last one, since it involved announcing you as my alistair. ~ Amelia Atwater Rhodes,#NFDB
1016:For so long, maybe all my life, I thought only a house could make you whole. I thought I was nothing without an interesting address. I thought I was only as good as my color scheme, my drawer pulls, my floors....it's the knowledge that a house can be as fragile as life itself. You'd think it would be stronger, since it can stand in one spot for centuries while generations of humans run through tis rooms, grow up, move out, and eventually die. But a house is an inherently limited entity. It can't do everything, or even most things. I t cannot give you a personality. It cannot bring you love. It cannot cure loneliness. It can provide comfort, safety, a sense of pride--that much I know. ~ Meghan Daum, #NFDB
1017:The Warrior Woman Code:
A confident woman doesn't beg a man to stay, cry if they don't or need to tear down other women to be loved. She knows her value. When the person she is meant to be with finds her, that person will know it also. He won't be confused by it. He will fight for her because without her he feels incomplete. She will always be foremost in his mind above anyone else. She doesn't have to scheme to keep or entice him. She is okay walking away from him because she doesn't want to be seen as a choice or a woman that has some potential. She demands to be seen as "the one." To settle for anything less than that is an admission of insecurity and lack of self love. ~ Shannon L Alder,#NFDB
1018:I stared at the wooden door and practiced. “Hey, baby. I’ve missed you.” I did a delicate finger wave. “I love you, Maxie-Pooh.” “In the great scheme of things, Maxie-Pooh isn’t that bad. I’ve been called worse,” a deep voice murmured from behind me. Caught. Mortification swept over me. I spun around on the sidewalk to see Max and Tate, both clad in jeans and blue Leland shirts that clung to their sculpted chests. They towered over me, one dark with glossy hair that swung around his shoulders and the other slightly smaller with a headful of sandy blond hair. “Yeah,” Tate said, grinning. “Jock-ass is my favorite, though. I think you’re going to make me laugh a lot, new girlfriend. ~ Ilsa Madden Mills, #NFDB
1019:Like everything else at the Amazing Kingdom, the Vole Project had begun as a scheme to compete with Walt Disney World. Years earlier, Disney had tried to save the dusky seaside sparrow, a small marsh bird whose habitat was being wiped out by overdevelopment along Florida's coastline. With much fanfare, Disney had unveiled a captive-breeding program for the last two surviving specimens of the dusky. Unfortunately, the last two surviving specimens were both males, and even the wizards of Disney could not induce the scientific miracle of homosexual procreation. Eventually the sparrow fell to extinction, but the Disney organization won gobs of fawning publicity for its conservation efforts. ~ Carl Hiaasen, #NFDB
1020:My dear fellow " Said Albert, turning to Franz " here is an admirable adventure; we will fill our carriage with pistols, blunderbusses, and double-barreled shotguns. Luigi Vampa comes to take us, and we take him - we bring him back to Rome , and present him to him holiness the Pope, who asks how he can repay so great a service; Then we merely ask for a cariage and a pair of horses, and we will see the Carnival in the carriage , and doubtless the Roman people will crown us at the capitol , and proclaim us, like Curtius and the veiled Horatius, the preservers of there country."
Whilst Albert proposed this scheme, signor Pastrini's face assumed an expression impossible to describe. ~ Alexandre Dumas,#NFDB
1021:I wanted to know the best of the life of one who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind… I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the second volume (of the Prophet’s biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of that great life. ~ Mahatma Gandhi, #NFDB
1022:The claims of contemporary art cannot be ignored in any vital scheme of life. The art of to-day is that which really belongs to us: it is our own reflection. In condemning it we but condemn ourselves. We say that the present age possesses no art:—who is responsible for this? It is indeed a shame that despite all our rhapsodies about the ancients we pay so little attention to our own possibilities. Struggling artists, weary souls lingering in the shadow of cold disdain! In our self- centered century, what inspiration do we offer them? The past may well look with pity at the poverty of our civilisation; the future will laugh at the barrenness of our art. We are destroying the beautiful in life. ~ Kakuz Okakura, #NFDB
1023:In February 1957, Hoffa contacted a New York lawyer named John Cye Cheasty. Cheasty had been in the Navy and the Secret Service. His law practice had a subspecialty in conducting investigations. Hoffa told Cheasty that the committee was hiring investigators. If Cheasty would take a job with the committee and report on its activities to Hoffa there was $24,000 in cash in the deal for Cheasty at the rate of $2,000 a month for a year. Hoffa gave Cheasty a down payment of $1,000 for his expenses in getting the job. However, in his impatience, Hoffa had not sufficiently checked Cheasty out. This was an honest New York investigator and a patriot. Cheasty reported the bribery scheme straightaway. Bobby ~ Charles Brandt, #NFDB
1024:many people mistaken for entrepreneurs fail to have true skin in the game in the sense that their aim is to either cash out by selling the company they helped create to someone else, or “go public” by issuing shares in the stock market. The true value of the company, what it makes, and its long-term survival are of small relevance to them. This is a pure financing scheme and we will exclude this class of people from our “entrepreneur” risk-taker class (this form of entrepreneurship is the equivalent of bringing great-looking and marketable children into the world with the sole aim of selling them at age four). We can easily identify them by their ability to write a convincing business plan. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
1025:At its most simple, the notion underlying The Great Chain of Being, as identified in the first instance by Plato, is that the universe is essentially a rational place, in which all organisms are linked in a great chain, not on one scale of low to high (for Plato could see that even ‘lowly’ creatures were perfectly ‘adapted’, as we would say, to their niches in the scheme of things) but that there was in general terms a hierarchy which ranged from nothingness through the inanimate world, into the realm of plants, on up through animals and then humans, and above that through angels and other ‘immaterial and intellectual’ entities, reaching at the top a superior or supreme being, a terminus or Absolute. ~ Peter Watson, #NFDB
1026:Designed or planned social order is necessarily schematic; it always ignores essential features of any real, functioning social order. This truth is best illustrated in a work-to-rule strike, which turns on the fact that any production process depends on a host of informal practices and improvisations that could never be codified. By merely following the rules meticiously, the workforce can virtually halt production. In the same fashion, the simplified rules animating plans for, say, a city, a village or a collective farm were inadequate as a set of instructions for creating a functional social order, The formal scheme was parasitic on informal processes that, alone, it could not create or maintain. ~ James C Scott, #NFDB
1027:Now as you may know, Bon-bon, every pirate and privateer has lurking within him the soul of an accountant. Though some would say ’tis the other way round. This arises from the fact that their livelihood derives from sacking ships, which is a hurried, disorderly, murky sort of undertaking; one pirate may come up with some gentleman’s lucky rabbit’s foot while the fellow on his left pulls an emerald the size of a quail’s egg from a lady’s cleavage. The whole enterprise would dissolve into a melee unless all the takings were pooled, and meticulously sorted, appraised, tallied, and then divided according to a rigid scheme. That is why the English euphemism for going a-pirating is going on the account. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
1028:The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered...it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1029:THAT SPRING WASHINGTON received a letter from Lafayette, who had long since returned to France. Now that peace was looking like a certainty, he had a “wild scheme” to propose: the two of them should buy a small plantation together and “try the experiment to free the Negroes and use them only as tenants. Such an example as yours might render it a general practice.” Lafayette’s time in Virginia had given him a firsthand knowledge of the horrifying realities of southern slavery. He still loved Washington like a father, but something needed to be done to ensure that the promise of the Declaration of Independence—“liberty and justice for all”—applied to all Americans, no matter what their skin color. ~ Nathaniel Philbrick, #NFDB
1030:Under Grossman’s Regulation 2.0 scheme, government regulatory agencies would operate quite differently from the way they do today. Rather than establishing rules of market access, their primary job would be to establish and enforce requirements for after-the-fact transparency. Grossman imagines a city government responding to the arrival of Uber by passing an ordinance that states: “Anyone offering for-hire vehicle services may opt out of existing regulations as long as they implement mobile dispatch, e-hailing, and e-payments, 360-degree peer-review of drivers and passengers, and provide an open data API for public auditing of system performance with regards to equity, access, performance, and safety.”54 ~ Geoffrey G Parker, #NFDB
1031:Some of the key accomplishments of the executive system have been the time-bound realization of the metro railway system in Delhi; the successful, though partial, implementation of e-governance models in certain states, bringing about substantial transparency in the system; a working model of the railway reservation system; the virtual university initiatives of the three 150-year-old universities of the country, namely Madras, Calcutta and Mumbai; and the healthcare services provided through the Yeshaswini scheme. Innovative monitoring systems for electrical energy generation and distribution, leading to the reduction of losses and pilferage, have made a few state electricity boards profitable institutions. ~ A P J Abdul Kalam, #NFDB
1032:The number of seconds in half-a-day oscillates with a frequency of one million Hertz by a repeating scheme which equals to the natural logarithm constant (i.e., e) raised to the literal power of PI itself; the latter is nothing but a projection from a daily numerical phenomenon exhibiting its influence throughout the whole solar year using a binary temporal balance in two halves of a single day (i.e., a half equals to 43200 seconds) and of a single year (i.e., Equinoxes on March and September). That exact mathematical pattern was encoded into the structure of the Great Pyramid of Giza and was demonstrated through its height while being silent about its lunar foundation which is found in its base rather than its apex. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
1033:There is certainly something to ponder over in this man's state. Several points seem to make what the American interviewer calls "a story," if one could only get them in proper order. Here they are: Will not mention "drinking." Fears the thought of being burdened with the "soul" of anything. Has no dread of wanting "life" in the future. Despises the meaner forms of life altogether, though he dreads being haunted by their souls. Logically all these things point one way! He has assurance of some kind that he will acquire some higher life. He dreads the consequence, the burden of a soul. Then it is a human life he looks to! And the assurance…? Merciful God! The Count has been to him, and there is some new scheme of terror afoot! ~ Bram Stoker, #NFDB
1034:Philosophy finds religion, and modifies it; and conversely religion is among the data of experience which philosophy must weave into its own scheme. Religion is an ultimate craving to infuse into the insistent particularity of emotion that non-temporal generality which primarily belongs to conceptual thought alone. In the higher organisms the differences of tempo between the mere emotions and the conceptual experiences produce a life-tedium, unless this supreme fusion has been effected. The two sides of the organism require a reconciliation in which emotional experiences illustrate a conceptual justification, and conceptual experiences find an emotional illustration. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929), #NFDB
1035:We see but the ever changing forms, and catch glimpses of the steadily evolving life within those forms, but as yet have no clue to the principle which works through the shifting kaleidoscope of solar systems, rays, hierarchies, planets, planes, schemes, rounds, races, and sub-races. They interweave, interlock, and interpenetrate each other, and utter bewilderment is ours as the wonderful pattern they form unfolds before us. We know that somewhere in that scheme we, the human hierarchy, have our place. All, therefore, that we can do is to seize upon any data that seems to affect our own welfare, and concerns our own evolution, and from the study of the human being in the three worlds seek to understand somewhat the macrocosm. ~ Alice A Bailey, #NFDB
1036:In self-actualizing people, the orgasm is simultaneously more important and less important than in average people. It is often a profound and even mystical experience, and yet the absence of sexuality is more easily-tolerated by these people. Loving at a higher-need level makes the lower needs and their frustrations and satisfactions less important, less central, more easily neglected. But it also makes them more whole-heartedly enjoyed when gratified. Food is simultaneously enjoyed and yet regarded as relatively unimportant in the total scheme of life. Sex can be whole-heartedly enjoyed, enjoyed far beyond the possibility of the average person, even at the same time that it does not play a central role in the philosophy of life. ~ Betty Friedan, #NFDB
1037:Adora changed her color scheme from peach to yellow. She promised me she'd take me to the fabric store so I can make new coverings to match. This dollhouse is my fancy." She almost made it sound natural, my fancy. The words floated out of her mouth sweet and round like butterscotch, murmured with just a tilt of her head, but the phrase was definitely my mother's. Her little doll, learning to speak just like Adora.
"Looks like you do a very good job with it," I said, and motioned a weak wave good-bye.
"Thank you," she said. Her eyes focused on my room in the dollhouse. A small finger poked the bed. "I hope you enjoy your stay here," she murmured into the room, as if she were addressing a tiny Camille no one could see. ~ Gillian Flynn,#NFDB
1038:Alfonso Churchill
They laughed at me as "Prof. Moon,"
As a boy in Spoon River, born with the thirst
Of knowing about the stars.
They jeered when I spoke of the lunar mountains,
And the thrilling heat and cold,
And the ebon valleys by silver peaks,
And Spica quadrillions of miles away,
And the littleness of man.
But now that my grave is honored, friends,
Let it not be because I taught
The lore of the stars in Knox College,
But rather for this: that through the stars
I preached the greatness of man,
Who is none the less a part of the scheme of things
For the distance of Spica or the Spiral Nebulae;
Nor any the less a part of the question
Of what the drama means.
~ Edgar Lee Masters,#NFDB
1039:When doubt is present in your consciousness it indicates a much more profound problem. The real problem is the personal lie. Everyone has one: It is a story that we tell ourselves about who we are and what we do and do not deserve in life. Your personal lie is a function of all of the broken pieces of your puzzle—all of the elements of your history, all of your experiences, all that you have been taught about yourself merging with all that you have made up about yourself. Your personal lie circulates throughout your entire being and determines how you move, or if you can move at all. It is a function of what is stored on your internal landscape, your perceptions and misconceptions about life and how you fit into the scheme of things. ~ Iyanla Vanzant, #NFDB
1040:This process of wealth creation is offensive to levelers and planners because it yields mountains of new wealth in ways that could not possibly be planned. But unpredictability is fundamental to free human enterprise. It defies every econometric model and socialist scheme. It makes no sense to most professors, who attain their positions by the systematic acquisition of credentials pleasing to the establishment above them. By definition, innovations cannot be planned. Leading entrepreneurs—from Sam Walton to Mike Milken to Larry Page to Bill Gates— did not ascend a hierarchy; they created a new one. They did not climb to the top of anything. They were pushed to the top by their own success. They did not capture the pinnacle; they became it. ~ George Gilder, #NFDB
1041:This was 1849, a year when the frenzy to reach California gold was so intense that all wisdom had percolated from the American brain. Speed in reaching northern California was everything, and Turner and Allen were actually pikers in that department. The craziest westering scheme of all was devised by a head case New Yorker named Rufus Porter, an inventor and balloon enthusiast who was the founder of Scientific American magazine. Like many Americans, Porter was swept up by the visionary possibilities of a mass crossing to plunder the gold fields of the Pacific West. Porter became convinced that giant balloons, powered by twin steam engines borrowed from a paddle-wheeler, could loft as many as two hundred Gold Rush miners to California at once. ~ Rinker Buck, #NFDB
1042:He was saved not by the sky but by writing. He had written a number of books during his time in the re-education camp—always on the one piece of paper he possessed, page by page, chapter by chapter, an unending story. Without writing, he wouldn’t have heard the snow melting or leaves growing or clouds sailing through the sky. Nor would he have seen the dead end of a thought, the remains of a star or the texture of a comma. Nights when he was in his kitchen painting wooden ducks, Canada geese, loons, mallards, following the colour scheme provided by his other employer, he would recite for me the words in his personal dictionary: nummular, moan, quadraphony, in extremis, sacculina, logarithmic, hemorrhage—like a mantra, like a march towards the void. ~ Kim Th y, #NFDB
1043:Economic growth springs not chiefly from incentives—carrots and sticks, rewards and punishments for workers and entrepreneurs. The incentive theory of capitalism allows its critics to depict it as an inhumane scheme of clever manipulation of human needs and hungers scarcely superior to the more benign forms of slavery. Wealth actually springs from the expansion of information and learning, profits and creativity that enhance the human qualities of its beneficiaries as it enriches them. Workers’ learning increasingly compensates for their labor, which imparts knowledge as it extracts work. Joining knowledge and power, capitalism focuses on the entropy of human minds and the benefits of freedom. Thus it is the most humane of all economic systems. ~ George Gilder, #NFDB
1044:Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true. The whole defence of religious faith hinges upon action. If the action required or inspired by the religious hypothesis is in no way different from that dictated by the naturalistic hypothesis, then religious faith is a pure superfluity, better pruned away, and controversy about its legitimacy is a piece of idle trifling, unworthy of serious minds. I myself believe, of course, that the religious hypothesis gives to the world an expression which specifically determines our reactions, and makes them in a large part unlike what they might be on a purely naturalistic scheme of belief. ~ William James, #NFDB
1045:is commonplace today to find large groups of people who believe the government has a responsibility to take care of all the basic necessities of its citizens. Benjamin Franklin, however, wrote: To relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity; it is godlike; but, if we provide encouragement for laziness, and supports for folly, may we not be found fighting against the order of God and nature, which perhaps has appointed want and misery as the proper punishments for, and cautions against, as well as necessary consequences of, idleness and extravagance? Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence, and to interfere with the government of the world, we had need be very circumspect, lest we do more harm than good.3 ~ Ben Carson, #NFDB
1046:[...]virtue is not some kind of mode whose value is
incontestable, it is simply
a scheme of conduct, a way of getting along, which varies
according to accidents of geography and climate and which, consequently, has no
reality, the which alone exhibits its futility.
Only what is constant is really good; what changes perpetually cannot
claim that
characterization: that is why they have declared that immutability belongs to the
ranks of the Eternal's perfections; but virtue is completely without this quality: there
is not, upon the entire globe, two races which are virtuous in the same m
anner;
hence, virtue is not in any sense real, nor in any wise intrinsically good and in no sort
deserves our reverence. ~ Marquis de Sade,#NFDB
1047:The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1048:In Lisa’s lifetime, a galaxy of artistic stars—Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, Perugino, Filippino Lippi—rivaled the heavens with their brilliance. None outshone the incandescent genius of Leonardo, who emerges from the fog of history as more of a cultural force than a mere human being.
...
During Leonardo’s and Lisa’s lifetimes, largerthan-legend characters strutted across the Florentine stage: Lorenzo de’ Medici, whose magnificence rubbed off on everything he touched. The charismatic friar Savonarola, who inflamed souls before meeting his own fiery death. Ruthless Cesare Borgia, who hired Leonardo as his military engineer. Niccolò Machiavelli, who collaborated with the artist on an audacious scheme to change the course of the Arno River. ~ Dianne Hales,#NFDB
1049:We invoke the words of Jefferson and Lincoln because they say something about our legacy and our traditions. We do this because we recognize our links to the past--at least when they flatter us. But black history does not flatter American democracy; it chastens it. The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter. Black nationalists have always perceived something unmentionable about America that integrationists dare not acknowledge --that white supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it. ~ Ta Nehisi Coates, #NFDB
1050:Considering the tenor of the whole of Theodoric’s previous life, it is most improbable that he had any such wild scheme of intolerance in hand. But he had certainly grown gloomy, suspicious, and hard in his declining days, and it was well for his own fame, as well as for his subjects, that he was carried off by dysentery not long after the death of Pope John. It would have been still better, both for king and people, had the end come three years earlier, before his first harsh dealings with Boethius. His unpopularity at the moment of his death is shown by the survival of several curious legends, which tell how holy hermits saw his soul dragged down to hell by the injured ghosts of John and Symmachus, or carried off by the fiend himself. ~ Charles William Chadwick Oman, #NFDB
1051:As these contrasts show, capitalism has undergone enormous changes in the last two and a half centuries. While some of Smith’s basic principles remain valid, they do so only at very general levels.
For example, competition among profit-seeking firms may still be the key driving force of capitalism, as in Smith’s scheme. But it is not between small, anonymous firms which, accepting consumer tastes, fight it out by increasing the efficiency in the use of given technology. Today, competition is among huge multinational companies, with the ability not only to influence prices but to redefine technologies in a short span of time (think about the battle between Apple and Samsung) and to manipulate consumer tastes through brand-image building and advertising. ~ Ha Joon Chang,#NFDB
1052:Castle Bravo had been built according to the “Teller-Ulam” scheme—named for its co-designers, Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam—which meant, unlike with the far less powerful atomic bomb, this hydrogen bomb had been designed to hold itself together for an extra hundred-millionth of a second, thereby allowing its hydrogen isotopes to fuse and create a chain reaction of nuclear energy, called fusion, producing a potentially infinite amount of power, or yield. “What this meant,” Freedman explains, was that there was “a one-in-one-million chance that, given how much hydrogen [is] in the earth’s atmosphere, when Castle Bravo exploded, it could catch the earth’s atmosphere on fire. Some scientists were extremely nervous. Some made bets about the end of the world. ~ Annie Jacobsen, #NFDB
1053:It was in Las Vegas that Eisman and his associates’ attitude toward the U.S. bond market hardened into something like its final shape. As Vinny put it, “That was the moment when we said, ‘Holy shit, this isn’t just credit. This is a fictitious Ponzi scheme.’” In Vegas the question lingering at the back of their minds ceased to be, Do these bond market people know something we do not? It was replaced by, Do they deserve merely to be fired, or should they be put in jail? Are they delusional, or do they know what they’re doing? Danny thought that the vast majority of the people in the industry were blinded by their interests and failed to see the risks they had created. Vinny, always darker, said, “There were more morons than crooks, but the crooks were higher up. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
1054:Someone else knows,” I said. “The three most dangerous words in the secrecy business. But there it is. I know, and Ms. Nice knows. Which is why we came back with the RAF. Because where would your plane have landed? Guantanamo, maybe. But it didn’t, and we’re back in America, free and clear. And we know. I’m sure you could crush Ms. Nice’s career, but you’ll never find me. I’ll always be out there. And you know me, General. You’ve known me a long time. I don’t forgive, and I don’t forget. And I won’t have to do much. Talking might be enough. Suppose the SVR found out it was you who got Khenkin killed? Some of those IOUs might get canceled. And they might retaliate. Rumors might start, about poor old Tom O’Day, who got so desperate he came up with a cockamamie scheme. ~ Lee Child, #NFDB
1055:Improve performance through process improvements introduced with minimal resistance. Deliver with high quality. Deliver a predictable lead time by controlling the quantity of work-in-progress. Give team members a better life through an improved work/life balance. Provide slack in the system by balancing demand against throughput. Provide a simple prioritization mechanism that delays commitment and keeps options open. Provide a transparent scheme for seeing improvement opportunities, thereby enabling change to a more collaborative culture that encourages continuous improvement. Strive for a process that enables predictable results, business agility, good governance, and the development of what the Software Engineering Institute calls a high-maturity organization. ~ David J Anderson, #NFDB
1056:I prefer feeling insignificant," said Jess.
"I don't believe that."
"I didn't say worthless, I said insignificant, as in the grand scheme of things."
"But why?"
"Because humans have such a complex. We're so self-involved. You have to get out to a place like this to remember how small humanity really is."
And Jess was right. Numbers didn't matter here. Money didn't count, and all the words and glances, the quick exchanges that built or tore down reputations had no meaning in this place. The air was moist. Fallen leaves, spreading branches, and crisscrossing roots wicked water, so that the trees seemed to drink the misty air.
Jess said, "All your worries fade away, because..."
Emily finished her thought. "The trees put everything in perspective. ~ Allegra Goodman,#NFDB
1057:I’ve grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims, soul-searching fashionistas that stock so many books. I particularly mourn the lack of female villains — good, potent female villains. Not ill-tempered women who scheme about landing good men and better shoes (as if we had nothing more interesting to war over), not chilly WASP mothers (emotionally distant isn’t necessarily evil), not soapy vixens (merely bitchy doesn’t qualify either). I’m talking violent, wicked women. Scary women. Don’t tell me you don’t know some. The point is, women have spent so many years girl-powering ourselves — to the point of almost parodic encouragement — we’ve left no room to acknowledge our dark side. Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids. ~ Gillian Flynn, #NFDB
1058:One of the key moments in the creation of modernity occurs when production moves outside the household. So long as productive work occurs within the structure of households, it is easy and right to understand that work as part of the sustaining of the community of the household and of those wider forms of community which the household in turn sustains. As, and to the extent that, work moves outside the household and is put to the service of impersonal capital, the realm of work tends to become separated from everything but the service of biological survival and the reproduction of the labor force, on the one hand, and that of institutionalized acquisitiveness, on the other. Pleonexia, a vice in the Aristotelian scheme, is now the driving force of modern productive work. ~ Alasdair MacIntyre, #NFDB
1059:There have been proven instances of vote fraud in the past, but those cases involved election officials’ wrongdoing or the manipulation of absentee ballots. The kind of voter registration fraud that seized the imagination of GOP activists, on the other hand, which is based on stealing someone’s identity or creating a fake persona to cast a ballot, thus altering the results of an election, is in fact very rare. The convoluted scheme is not used because “it is an exceedingly dumb strategy.”25 To have real impact would require an improbable conspiracy involving millions of people. Robert Brandon, president of the Fair Elections Legal Network, notes, “You can’t steal an election one person at a time. You can by stuffing ballot boxes—but voter I.D.s won’t stop that.”26 Protecting ~ Carol Anderson, #NFDB
1060:The sensation of “I” as a lonely and isolated center of being is so powerful and commonsensical, and so fundamental to our modes of speech and thought, to our laws and social institutions, that we cannot experience selfhood except as something superficial in the scheme of the universe. I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time—a rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution, where the wave of life bursts into individual, sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment only to vanish forever. Under such conditioning it seems impossible and even absurd to realize that myself does not reside in the drop alone, but in the whole surge of energy which ranges from the galaxies to the nuclear fields in my body. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1061:The grand scheme of a life, maybe (just maybe), is not about knowing or not knowing, choosing or not choosing. Perhaps what is truly known can’t be described or articulated by creativity or logic, science or art — but perhaps it can be described by the most authentic and meaningful combination of the two: poetry: As Robert Frost wrote, a poem 'begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.'
I recommend the following course of action for those who are just beginning their careers or for those like me, who may be reconfiguring midway through: heed the words of Robert Frost. Start with a big, fat lump in your throat, start with a profound sense of wrong, a deep homesickness, or a crazy lovesickness, and run with it. ~ Debbie Millman,#NFDB
1062:Science proclaims that Planet Earth and its inhabitants are a meaningless speck in the grand scheme. A cosmic accident.” He paused. “Even the technology that promises to unite us, divides us. Each of us is now electronically connected to the globe, and yet we feel utterly alone. We are bombarded with violence, division, fracture, and betrayal. Skepticism has become a virtue. Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought. Is it any wonder that humans now feel more depressed and defeated than they have at any point in human history? Does science hold anything sacred? Science looks for answers by probing our unborn fetuses. Science even presumes to rearrange our own DNA. It shatters God’s world into smaller and smaller pieces in quest of meaning . . . and all it finds is more questions. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1063:Just because I, finite man, do not understand everything that God, the infinite, does is no reason to doubt God’s purpose. I may go into someone’s workshop and see all the tools and gadgets that are important to the man’s work. I may see laying on the table, for instance, a little tool that I can make nothing of and have no understanding of its purpose. But in the hands of the craftsman, that little tool has a well-defined purpose and does what it’s supposed to do. Just because the man’s worktable looks cluttered and as if everything is out of place does not mean in his mind there is not order and purpose. In the same regard, I am not going to accuse God of creating a lot of unnecessary things that have no purpose in God’s total scheme of things, just because I don’t understand them. I give you that ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1064:The problem is this: nature has assembled all these species on this planet. The human species is no more important than any other species on this planet. For some reason, man accorded himself a superior place in this scheme of things. He thinks that he is created for some grander purpose than, if I could give a crude example, the mosquito that is sucking his blood. What is responsible for this is the value system that we have created. And the value system has come out of the religious thinking of man. Man has created religion because it gives him a cover. This demand to fulfill himself, to seek something out there was made imperative because of this self-consciousness in you which occurred somewhere along the line of the evolutionary process. Man separated himself from the totality of nature. ~ U G Krishnamurti, #NFDB
1065:Well,” said Mrs. Wiggins, “I don’t think I agree with either of you. I don’t think Freddy has got any scheme up his sleeve. But on the other hand, I don’t think he’s making a mistake in being friendly with them. There are two things you can do if you have a disagreement with somebody. You can try to settle it by fighting, or you can try to settle it by being friendly with them. I don’t think we’d get anywhere by fighting with the Snedekers. They’d just take the teapot and walk off, and we couldn’t stop them. But if we make friends of them, they’re as likely as not to decide the teapot isn’t worth fighting about. As long as Aunt Effie feels we’re her enemies, she’s willing to fight with us. But if she feels we’re her friends, she might come to value our friendship more than she does the teapot. ~ Walter R Brooks, #NFDB
1066:This is the real thing. This is bedlam in bed. As Mr. Stevenson puts it: “. . . no civilization has ever had so haunting a sense of an ultimate order of goodness and rationality which can be known and achieved.” It makes me eager to rise and meet the new day, as Fred used to rise to his, with the complete conviction that through vigilance and good works all porcupines, all cats, all skunks, all squirrels, all houseflies, all footballs, all evil birds in the sky could be successfully brought to account and the scene made safe and pleasant for the sensible individual—namely, him. However distorted was his crazy vision of the beautiful world, however perverse his scheme for establishing an order of goodness by murdering every creature that seemed to him bad, I had to hand him this: he really worked at it. ~ E B White, #NFDB
1067:And what have I invested in interpreting disfocus for chaos? This threat: the only lesson is to wait. I crouch in the smoggy terminus. The streets lose edges, the rims of thought flake. What have I set myself to fix in this dirty notebook that is not mine? Does the revelation that, though it cannot be done with words, it might be accomplished in some lingual gap, give me the right, in injury, walking with a woman and her dog in pain? Rather the long doubts: that this labor tears up the mind's moorings; that, though life may be important in the scheme, awareness is an imperfect tool with which to face it. To reflect is to fight away the sheets of silver, the carbonated distractions, the feeling that, somehow, a thumb is pressed on the right eye. This exhaustion melts what binds, releases what flows. ~ Samuel R Delany, #NFDB
1068:The flood of money from Amway’s founders failed, though, to quash an investigation by the Canadian government into a tax-fraud scheme in which both DeVos and Van Andel were criminally charged in 1982. The scandal exploded when Kitty McKinsey and Paul Magnusson, then reporters for the Detroit Free Press, shocked readers accustomed to DeVos and Van Andel’s professions of patriotism and religiosity with an exposé tracing an elaborate, thirteen-year-long tax scam directly to the bosses’ offices. At its highest levels, they revealed, Amway had secretly authorized a scheme creating dummy invoices to deceive Canadian customs officials into accepting falsely low valuations on products the company imported into Canada. Amway had thus fraudulently lowered its tax bills by $26.4 million from 1965 until 1978. Amway ~ Jane Mayer, #NFDB
1069:The alternative Kennan described as the “particularized” approach. It was “skeptical of any scheme for compressing international affairs into legalist concepts. It holds that the content is more important than the form, and will force its way through any formal structure which is placed upon it. It considers that the thirst for power is still dominant among so many peoples that it cannot be assuaged or controlled by anything but counter-force.” Particularism would not reject the idea of joining with other governments to preserve world order, but to be effective such alliances would have to be based “upon real community of interest and outlook, which is to be found only among limited groups of governments, and not upon the abstract formalism of universal international law or international organization. ~ John Lewis Gaddis, #NFDB
1070:company? Damn right I could!! How dare he use me this way! He had no right to play with my emotions, hurting me, like I was merely a chess piece in his slimy scheme to take over the Baroness’ account and further his career, at my heart’s expense. Standing knee deep in the murky water of the Atlantic ocean, I felt completely numb. I was so desensitized that I couldn’t even feel Patrick’s hand on my shoulder. “Chloe, please let me explain,” he said in a soft voice. His words compelled me to turn around, and I could see the desperation and pleading in his eyes. My brain was on fire; my heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself into my throat. My entire body was wracked and wrenched with hurt! “Explain what, Patrick? That you used me and ~ Eve Carter, #NFDB
1071:The marketing techniques were getting refined. There had been a trend away from conventional political consultants and the traditional campaign philosophy of “getting our message out to the people.” Surveys showed the people were allergic to messages and refused to listen, even if the president was on TV saying the water supply was radioactive and giant spiders were running the government. The strategy shifted from “the message” to brand recognition after it was learned that most campaigns were decided during the selection of color scheme, typeface and logo. Campaigns began aggressively headhunting at Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble. They spent heavily on focus groups and test markets. Conference rooms full of average citizens ate potato chips and pickle spears while campaign workers auditioned fonts and swatches. ~ Tim Dorsey, #NFDB
1072:The allowance vanished absolutely; and in its place there came into being an arrangement. By this, his lordship was to have whatever money he wished, but he must ask for it, and state why it was needed. If the request were reasonable, the cash would be forthcoming; if preposterous, it would not. The flaw in the scheme, from his lordship's point of view, was the difference of opinion that can exist in the minds of two men as to what the words reasonable and preposterous may be taken to mean. Twenty pounds, for instance, would, in the lexicon of Sir Thomas Blunt, be perfectly reasonable for the current expenses of a man engaged to Molly McEachern, but preposterous for one to whom she had declined to remain engaged. It is these subtle shades of meaning that make the English language so full of pitfalls for the foreigner. ~ P G Wodehouse, #NFDB
1073:And so Leo and Silver’s beautiful scheme for peacefully detaching the downsiders, hammered out through four secret planning sessions, was blown away on a breath. Wasted was the flattery, the oblique suggestion, that had gone into convincing Van Atta that it was his idea to gather, unusually, the entire Habitat downsider staff at once and make his announcement in a speech persuading them all they were being commended, not condemned . . . The shaped charges to cut the lecture module away from the Habitat at the touch of a button were all in place. The emergency breath masks to supply the nearly three hundred bodies with oxygen for the few hours necessary to push the module around the planet to the transfer station were carefully hidden within. The two pusher crews were drilled, their pushers fueled and ready. Fool ~ Lois McMaster Bujold, #NFDB
1074:But again the facts did not tally with the scheme, and had to be explained away by ingenious reasoning. The 15-sided polygon, for instance, is construable, but does not produce a musical consonance. Moreover, the number of construable polygons is infinite, but Kepler only needed seven harmonic relations for his scale (octave, major and minor sixth, fifth, fourth, major, and minor third). Also, the harmonies had to be arranged into a hierarchy of varying degrees of 'knowability', or perfection. Kepler devoted as much labour to this fantastic enterprise as to the determination of the orbit of Mars. In the end he succeeded, to his own satisfaction, in deriving all his seven harmonies, by certain complicated rules of the game, from his perfect polygons. He had traced back the laws of music to the Supreme Geometer's mind. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
1075:To know a thing you have to trust what you know, and all that you know, and as far as you know in whatever direction your knowing drags you. I once had a pet pine squirrel named Omar who lived in the cotton secret and springy dark of our old green davenport; Omar knew that davenport; he knew from the Inside what I only sat on from the Out, and trusted his knowledge to keep from being squashed by my ignorance. He survived until a red plaid blanket--spread to camouflage the worn-out Outside--confused him so he lost his faith in his familiarity with the In. Instead of trying to incorporate a plaid exterior into the scheme of his world he moved to the rainspout at the back of the house and was drowned in the first fall shower, probably still blaming that blanket: damn this world that just won't hold still for us! Damn it anyway! ~ Ken Kesey, #NFDB
1076:The more my heart is parked in a place of thanksgiving and rejoicing, the less room I have for grumpiness.
My kids are driving me crazy? At least they are healthy enough to have that kind of energy. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
My laundry is piled to the ceiling? Every stitch of clothing is evidence of life in my home. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
My husband isn’t all skippy romantic about the two of us shopping together? In the grand scheme of life, so what? He’s a good man. Don’t miss this chance to rejoice.
I feel unorganized and behind and late on everything? Scale back, let unrealistic expectations go, and savor some happy moments today. Don’t miss this chance to rejoice.
The more I rejoice, the more I keep things in perspective. The more I keep things in perspective, the gentler I become. ~ Lysa TerKeurst,#NFDB
1077:Sometimes God will back you into a corner and take away all your other alternatives because He wants to show you His miracle-working power. Perhaps you are facing a difficult situation and have come to the place where you can say, “I’ve tried everything else. All I have now is what God has said to me.” Whenever God reduces you to His Word, if that’s all you have to go on, you’re about to receive a miracle! As long as you have a scheme to fall back on, you aren’t going to see the miracle. However, when you say, “I can’t do anything else; I don’t know what to do. If God doesn’t come through, I’m going under,” then God says, “I like this situation. I’m going to get involved in this, because I love to do the impossible!” If you have faith in God’s Word, God will take what is “impossible” and make it seem like an everyday thing. ~ Myles Munroe, #NFDB
1078:The trick is to find what you're good at. Plus you can be good at a lot of things...it doesn't have to be one thing. Sharing well-roundedness is just as important. You get my point?
No, honestly, I don't. You just said it yourself. Look around. We're just specks out here in the scheme of things. What does it matter?
I get what you're saying, but it does. It matters what you do with yourself. What kind of trajectory you send yourself on out here
This out here, he gestures to the lakes and the peaks, it's right in our faces that it's billions of years olld. And you're right, each of our imprints seems small against that, but really each one of our imprints is fascinating. And just like those rings in the water that those fish make, we make them too. And what we do reverberates way beyond what you can ever imagine. ~ Christine Carbo,#NFDB
1079:In confession occurs the break-through to the Cross. The root of all sin is pride, superbia. I want to be my own law, I have a right to my self, my hatred and my desires, my life and my death. The mind and flesh of man are set on fire by pride; for it is precisely in his wickedness that man wants to be as God. Confession in the presence of a brother is the profoundest kind of humiliation. It hurts, it cuts a man down, it is a dreadful blow to pride. To stand there before a brother as a sinner is an ignominy that is almost unbearable. In the confession of concrete sins the old man dies a painful, shameful death before the eyes of a brother. Because this humiliation is so hard we continually scheme to evade confessing to a brother. Our eyes are so blinded that they no longer see the promise and the glory in such abasement. ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, #NFDB
1080:I think I should learn to get along better with people," he explained to Miss Benson one day, when she came upon him in the corridor of the literature building and asked what he was doing wearing a fraternity pledge pin (wearing it on the chest of the new V-neck pullover in which his mother said he looked so collegiate). Miss Benson's response to his proposed scheme for self-improvement was at once so profound and so simply put that Zuckerman went around for days repeating the simple interrogative sentence to himself; like Of Times and the River, it verified something he had known in his bones all along, but in which he could not placed his faith until it had been articulated by someone of indisputable moral prestige and purity : "Why," Caroline Benson asked the seventeen-year-old boy, "should you want to learn a thing like that? ~ Philip Roth, #NFDB
1081:This could be the last night of our lives, certainly the last even barely ordinary one. The last night we go to sleep and get up just as we always have. And all I could think of was that I wanted to spend it with you."
Her heart skipped a beat. "Jace-"
"I don't mean it like that," he said. "I won't touch you, not if you don't want me to. I know it's wrong - God, it's all kinds of wrong - but I just want to lie down with you and wake up with you, just once, just once ever in my life." There was desperation in his voice. "It's just this one night. In the grand scheme of things, how much can this one night matter?"
...There was nothing she had ever wanted in her life more than she wanted this night with Jace.
"Close the curtains, then, before you come to bed," she said. "I can't sleep with this much light in the room. ~ Cassandra Clare,#NFDB
1082:Children learned about the adult world by participating in it in a small way, by doing a little work and making a little money—a much more effective, because pleasurable, and a much cheaper method than the present one of requiring the adult world to be learned in the abstract in school. One’s elders in those days were always admonishing one to save nickels and dimes, and there was tangible purpose in their advice: With enough nickels and dimes, one could buy a cow or a sow; with the income from a cow or a sow, one could begin to save to buy a farm. This scheme was plausible enough, evidently, for it seemed that all grown-ups had meditated on it. Now, according to the savants of agriculture—and most grown-ups now believe them—one does not start in farming with a sow or a cow; one must start with a quarter of a million dollars. What ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1083:She glanced pointedly at the flopping tadpole.
"What?"
"Take it back."
"You're kidding, right?" he said disbelievingly.
"Do we have time?"
He considered that. "Yes, but--"
"Then, no I'm not."
"That lake was three hops ago," he said impatiently.
"If you don't take it back it's going to die, and while you may think it's just a pathetic little thing with an abbreviated little life that hardly even signifies in the fairy scheme of things, I'll bet in the tadpole scheme of things it's really looking forward to becoming a frog. Now take it back. A life is a life. I don't care how tiny an almighty fairy thinks it is."
One dark brow arched and he inclined his head. "Yes, Gabrielle." Scooping up the tadpole in one big hand, gently enough that it gave her pause, he popped out.
-Gabrielle and Adam Black ~ Karen Marie Moning,#NFDB
1084:Ziggy is in front of the tube, as if nothing much has been happening in his day, watching Scooby Goes Latin! (1990). Maxine after a quick visit to the bathroom to reformat, knowing better than to start in with the Q&A, comes in and sits down next to him about the time it breaks for a commercial. “Hi, Mom.” She wants to enfold him forever. Instead lets him recap the plot for her. Shaggy, somehow allowed to drive the van, has become confused and made some navigational errors, landing the adventurous quintet eventually in Medellín, Colombia, home at the time to a notorious cocaine cartel, where they stumble onto a scheme by a rogue DEA agent to gain control of the cartel by pretending to be the ghost—what else—of an assassinated drug kingpin. With the help of a pack of local street urchins, however, Scooby and his pals foil the plan. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
1085:In 1872, Western Union (by then the dominant telegraph company in the United States) decided to implement a new, secure scheme to enable sums of up to $100 to be transferred between several hundred towns by telegraph. The system worked by dividing the company's network into twenty districts, each of which had its own superintendent. A telegram from the sender's office to the district superintendent confirmed that the money had been deposited; the superintendent would then send another telegram to the recipient's office authorizing the payment. Both of these messages used a code based on numbered codebooks. Each telegraph office had one of these books, with pages containing hundreds of words. But the numbers next to these words varied from office to office; only the district superintendent had copies of each office's uniquely numbered book. ~ Tom Standage, #NFDB
1086:To make matters worse, most companies use the same standards for evaluating both routine and innovative work. They use conventional idea #6: Reward success, punish failure and inaction. This is fine for routine tasks. When known procedures are used by well-trained people, failure does signal improper training, weak motivation, or poor leadership. But applying this standard to innovative work stifles intelligent risks. The usual reward scheme means that, because people who do routine work succeed most of the time, they are glorified as winners. In contrast, people who do innovative work fail a lot. So they not only get few rewards, they may be denigrated as losers. In many companies, people who do routine work complain that “if those creative types just acted more like us, they would be more efficient and wouldn’t make all those mistakes! ~ Robert I Sutton, #NFDB
1087:In this scheme of things we don’t create our lives; we are summoned by life. The important answers are not found inside, they are found outside. This perspective begins not within the autonomous self, but with the concrete circumstances in which you happen to be embedded. This perspective begins with an awareness that the world existed long before you and will last long after you, and that in the brief span of your life you have been thrown by fate, by history, by chance, by evolution, or by God into a specific place with specific problems and needs. Your job is to figure certain things out: What does this environment need in order to be made whole? What is it that needs repair? What tasks are lying around waiting to be performed? As the novelist Frederick Buechner put it, “At what points do my talents and deep gladness meet the world’s deep need? ~ David Brooks, #NFDB
1088:On the largest scales there can be little doubt that there is a directionality to human history. Foraging, agrarian, and modern societies have not appeared in a chronologically random jumble but rather in a clear sequence. And that sequence has an underlying logic that reflects changing human relations with the environment. On large chronological scales human technologies have changed so as to yield increasing amounts of energy, food, and other resources, which allowed human populations to increase. This, in turn, has given rise to larger and more complex communities, whose technologies and sheer numbers have given them many advantages whenever they have come into contact with smaller communities with less productive technologies. There is a shape to human history, and that is precisely why a global periodization scheme of some kind is so necessary. ~ David Christian, #NFDB
1089:The blood cyst works kind of like a whip, doesn’t it?” I asked. “For the sheep to manipulate the host.” “Exactly. Once that forms, there’s no escaping the sheep.” “So what on earth was the Boss after, doing what he was doing?” “He went mad. He probably couldn’t take the heat of that blast furnace. The sheep used him to build up a supreme power base. That’s why the sheep entered him. He was, in a word, disposable. The man was zero as a thinker, after all.” “So when the Boss died, you were earmarked to take over that power base.” “I’m afraid so.” “And what lay ahead after that?” “A realm of total conceptual anarchy. A scheme in which all opposites would be resolved into unity. With me and the sheep at the center.” “So why did you reject it?” Time trailed off into death. And over this dead time, a silent snow was falling. “I guess I felt attached to my ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1090:Persons like you say, ‘I’m an individual, therefore I oppose any power over me.’ That right there does not follow. How about ‘I’m an individual, therefore I notice and understand my place in the grand scheme of things’? I’ve heard of persons who don’t feel small in the vastness of Nature or intimidated by its challenges, and that strikes me as a lack of perspective. If all you can see is yourself, you’re not seeing very far. How about, ‘I’m an individual, therefore I notice and understand that my success depends on others’ success, because we’re all interconnected’? That does not negate my individuality or threaten my freedom. We support each other on a team. Your problem is you don’t know we’re all on the same team, because you’re too busy holding the ball, saying, ‘Mine!’, and not playing the game with good sportsmanship. Yeah, good sportsmanship. Ever heard of that? ~ Robert Peate, #NFDB
1091:If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things. Keeping that awestruck vision of the world ready to hand while dealing with the demands of daily living is no easy exercise, but it is definitely worth the effort, for if you can stay centered , and engaged , you will find the hard choices easier, the right words will come to you when you need them, and you will indeed be a better person. That, I propose, is the secret to spirituality, and it has nothing at all to do with believing in an immortal soul. ~ Daniel C Dennett, #NFDB
1092:If you can approach the world's complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things. Keeping that awestruck vision of the world ready to hand while dealing with the demands of daily living is no easy exercise, but it is definitely worth the effort, for if you can stay centered , and engaged , you will find the hard choices easier, the right words will come to you when you need them, and you will indeed be a better person. That, I propose, is the secret to spirituality, and it has nothing at all to do with believing in an immortal soul. ~ Daniel C Dennett, #NFDB
1093:If you killl yourself, Comorra, it will wreck him. Utterly. Believe me on this one. So there you go - there's another casualty of war. And sure, in the grand scheme of things, whoop-dee-doo, who gives a crap about some dude's broken heart. But what about the not-so-grand scheme? Doesn't love count for something? Do you think all this...this carnage would have happened if the Romans hadn't taken Prasutagus away from your mother? If she hadn't been so blinded by grief maybe she would have found a way to work things out with the governor instead of goading him to war." Clare shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe two people alone in the darkness can't generate enough light to drive it back. But maybe they can be a beacon for others. A candle in the window at midnight, you know? I mean, they can at least be there for each other, right? ~ Lesley Livingston, #NFDB
1094:Children learned about the adult world by participating in it in a small way, by doing a little work and making a little money—a much more effective, because pleasurable, and a much cheaper method than the present one of requiring the adult world to be learned in the abstract in school. One’s elders in those days were always admonishing one to save nickels and dimes, and there was tangible purpose in their advice: With enough nickels and dimes, one could buy a cow or a sow; with the income from a cow or a sow, one could begin to save to buy a farm. This scheme was plausible enough, evidently, for it seemed that all grown-ups had meditated on it. Now, according to the savants of agriculture—and most grown-ups now believe them—one does not start in farming with a sow or a cow; one must start with a quarter of a million dollars. What are the political implications of that economy? I ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1095:love to have pillows everywhere. They warm up a room so easily and without a lot of expense. I've discovered oversized pillows are a lot more comfortable than smaller ones. Make sure some of your pillows are filled with down. They're much more comfortable. (But know which ones they are in case some of your guests are allergic to down.) You can even have old ones restuffed. And don't be afraid to mix the patterns. Florals, stripes, bold colors-as long as they're in your color scheme go for it in every room. You'll be amazed at the transformation. Make your home the kind of place you and your family want to spend time in.
lear some time in your week for creative pursuits, whether it's writing poetry, performing music, or planting a garden. Most of all, open your
heart and let God fill you with His love and His creativity. He wants to nurture you, care for you, and help you grow. ~ Emilie Barnes,#NFDB
1096:The ticket to emotional health, like that to physical health, comes from eating your veggies—that is, accepting the bland and mundane truths of life: truths such as “Your actions actually don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things” and “The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy, and that’s okay.” This vegetable course will taste bad at first. Very bad. You will avoid accepting it. But once ingested, your body will wake up feeling more potent and more alive. After all, that constant pressure to be something amazing, to be the next big thing, will be lifted off your back. The stress and anxiety of always feeling inadequate and constantly needing to prove yourself will dissipate. And the knowledge and acceptance of your own mundane existence will actually free you to accomplish what you truly wish to accomplish, without judgment or lofty expectations. You ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
1097:Biology doesn't know in advance what the end product will be; there's no Stuffit Compressor to convert a human being into a genome. But the genome itself is very much akin to a compression scheme, a terrifically efficient description of how to build something of great complexity-perhaps more efficient than anything yet developed in the labs of computer scientists (never mind the complexities of the brain, there are trillions of cells in the rest of the body, and they are all supervised by the same 30,000-gene genome). And although there is no counterpart in nature to a program that compresses a picture into a compact description, there is a natural counterpart to the program that decompresses the compressed encoding, and that's the cell. Genome in, organism out. Through the logic of gene expression, cells are self-regulating factories that translate genomes into biological structure. ~ Gary F Marcus, #NFDB
1098:Browder told a Russian lawyer, Sergey Magnitsky, who worked for a Moscow-based law firm called Firestone and Duncan, to follow the trail. It turned out the investment companies were being illegally signed over by the cops to petty criminals, who would then ask for tax rebates on the companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which were then granted by corrupt tax officials, signed off on by the same cops who had taken the documents in the first place, and wired to two banks owned by a convicted fraudster, an old friend of the aforementioned cops and tax officials. Officially the tax officials and cops only earned a few thousand a year, but they had property worth hundreds of thousands, drove Porsches, and went on shopping trips to Harrods in London. And this was happening year after year. The biggest tax fraud scheme in history. Magnitsky thought he had caught a few bad apples. ~ Peter Pomerantsev, #NFDB
1099:The Outsider must make his position look more positive before we can seriously consider any claim as to his superiority over the man in the street. And at the present stage of our analysis, it is anything but positive. For what have we?—the assurance of several men that evil is universal and must be faced. Well, we don’t mind this; Hesse’s Emil Sinclair made a convincing case of it. But now we have a number of writers who inform us that evil is so universal, so unsusceptible to adaptation into a ‘higher scheme of good’, that the act of facing it honestly will bring the mind to the point of insanity. What are we to say to this ? What if the ‘brutal thunderclap of halt’ takes the form of the choice, Dishonesty or insanity ? What use is honesty to an insane mind ? Which of us would not choose dishonesty?
But if we choose dishonesty, what happens to our philosophers’ desire to get at fact ~ Colin Wilson,#NFDB
1100:Live, you say, in the present;
Live only in the present.
But I don’t want the present, I want reality;
I want things that exist, not time that measures them.
What is the present?
It’s something relative to the past and the future.
It’s a thing that exists in virtue of other things existing.
I only want reality, things without the present.
I don’t want to include time in my scheme.
I don’t want to think about things as present; I want to think of them as things.
I don’t want to separate them from themselves, treating them as present.
I shouldn’t even treat them as real.
I should treat them as nothing.
I should see them, only see them;
See them till I can’t think about them.
See them without time, without space,
To see, dispensing with everything but what you see.
And this is the science of seeing, which isn’t a science. ~ Alberto Caeiro,#NFDB
1101:Meanwhile, Blakeborough placed himself behind them like a guard. The investigator in Dom went to work analyzing the man’s attire--expensive but not ostentatious, studied but not affected--and Blakeborough’s wary stance, closed manner, and stiff expression. Was that just his usual response to strangers or a sign that he was bracing for trouble about his brother? Which could mean he was well aware of Barlow’s scheme.
But the man in Dom noticed none of that. It just wanted to march over and punch bloody Blakeborough in his perfect, unscarred face for being too rich, too eligible, and too thoroughly engaged to Jane. The man in him wanted to throttle the earl for standing guard over Jane when she should be Dom’s responsibility. Dom’s to protect. Dom’s to marry.
The man in him had to shut up, unfortunately. Or this investigation wouldn’t progress very far. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,#NFDB
1102:Men have a great deal of pleasure in human knowledge, in studies of natural things; but this is nothing to that joy which arises from divine light shining into the soul. This spiritual light is the dawning of the light of glory in the heart. There is nothing so powerful as this to support persons in affliction, and to give the mind peace and brightness in this stormy and dark world. This knowledge will wean from the world, and raise the inclination to heavenly things. It will turn the heart to God as the fountain of good, and to choose him for the only portion. This light, and this only, will bring the soul to a saving close with Christ. It conforms the heart to the gospel, mortifies its enmity and opposition against the scheme of salvation therein revealed: it causes the heart to embrace the joyful tidings, and entirely to adhere to, and acquiesce in the revelation of Christ as our Savior. ~ Jonathan Edwards, #NFDB
1103:In some environments in the universe, the most efficient way for humans to thrive might be to alter their own genes. Indeed, we are already doing that in our present environment, to eliminate diseases that have in the past blighted many lives. Some people object to this on the grounds (in effect) that a genetically altered human is no longer human. This is an anthropomorphic mistake. The only uniquely significant thing about humans (whether in the cosmic scheme of things or according to any rational human criterion) is our ability to create new explanations, and we have that in common with all people. You do not become less of a person if you lose a limb in an accident; it is only if you lose your brain that you do. Changing our genes in order to improve our lives and to facilitate further improvements is no different in this regard from augmenting our skin with clothes or our eyes with telescopes. ~ David Deutsch, #NFDB
1104:Mr F.'s Aunt, who had eaten her pie with great solemnity, and who had been elaborating some grievous scheme of injury in her mind since her first assumption of that public position on the Marshal's steps, took the present opportunity of addressing the following Sibyllic apostrophe to the relict of her late nephew.
'Bring him for'ard, and I'll chuck him out o' winder!'
Flora tried in vain to soothe the excellent woman by explaining that they were going home to dinner. Mr F.'s Aunt persisted in replying, 'Bring him for'ard and I'll chuck him out o' winder!' Having reiterated this demand an immense number of times, with a sustained glare of defiance at Little Dorrit, Mr F.'s Aunt folded her arms, and sat down in the corner of the pie-shop parlour; steadfastly refusing to budge until such time as 'he' should have been 'brought for'ard,' and the chucking portion of his destiny accomplished. ~ Charles Dickens,#NFDB
1105:It is a testament to the unsettling beauty of the genome that it can make the real world “stick.” Our genes do not keep spitting out stereotypical responses to idiosyncratic environments: if they did, we too would devolve into windup automatons. Hindu philosophers have long described the experience of “being” as a web—jaal. Genes form the threads of the web; the detritus that sticks is what transforms every individual web into a being. There is an exquisite precision in that mad scheme. Genes must carry out programmed responses to environments—otherwise, there would be no conserved form. But they must also leave exactly enough room for the vagaries of chance to stick. We call this intersection “fate.” We call our responses to it “choice.” An upright organism with opposable thumbs is thus built from a script, but built to go off script. We call one such unique variant of one such organism a “self. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
1106:At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages, mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have—I believe the English already use the phrase—"parity of esteem." An even more drastic scheme is not impossible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma—Beelzebub, what a useful word!—by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval's attempts to spell out 'A Cat Sat On A Mat'. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1107:The Fitzroy Blacksmith
Under the spreading deficit,
The Fitzroy Smithy stands;
The smith, a spendthrift man is he,
With too much on his hands;
But the muscles of his brawny jaw
Are strong as iron bands.
Pay out, pay put, from morn till night,
You can hear the sovereigns go;
Or you'll hear him singing "Old Folks at Home",
In a deep bass voice and slow,
Like a bullfrog down in the village well
When the evening sun is low.
The Australian going "home" for loans
Looks in at the open door;
He loves to see the imported plant,
And to hear the furnace roar,
And to watch the private firms smash up
Like chaff on the threshing-floor.
Toiling, rejoicing, borrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some scheme begun
That never sees its close.
Something unpaid for, someone done,
Has earned a night's repose.
~ Banjo Paterson,#NFDB
1108:I think that could go back to the time when people had to live in small groups of relatives—maybe fifty or a hundred people at the most. And evolution or God or whatever arranged things genetically, to keep the little families going, to cheer them up, so that they could all have somebody to tell stories around the campfire at night, and somebody else to paint pictures on the walls of the caves, and somebody else who wasn’t afraid of anything and so on. That’s what I think. And of course a scheme like that doesn’t make sense anymore, because simply moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world’s champions. ~ Kurt Vonnegut, #NFDB
1109:It is a testament to the unsettling beauty of the genome that it can make the real world "stick". Our genes do not keep spitting out stereotypical responses to idiosyncratic environments: if they did, we too would devolve into windup automatons. Hindu philosophers have long described the experience of "being" as a web - jaal. Genes form the threads of the web; the detritus that sticks is what transforms every individual web into a being. There is an exquisite precision in that mad scheme. Genes must carry out programmed responses to environments - otherwise, there would be no conserved form. But they must also leave exactly enough room for the vagaries of chance to stick. We call this intersection "fate". We call our responses to it "choice". An upright organism with opposable thumbs is thus built from a script, but built to go off script. We call one such unique variant of one such organism a "self. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
1110:But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people. If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular. Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause. Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards; and compromise as the prudence of traitors; until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper, and moderate, on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating doctrines, and establishing powers, that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
1111:While the Texas prison officials remained in the dark about what was going on, they were fortunate that William and Danny had benign motives. Imagine what havoc the two might have caused; it would have been child's play for these guys to develop a scheme for obtaining money or property from unsuspecting victims. The Internet had become their university and playground. Learning how to run scams against individuals or break in to corporate sites would have been a cinch; teenagers and preteens learn these methods every day from the hacker sites and elsewhere on the Web. And as prisoners, Danny and William had all the time in the world.
Maybe there's a lesson here: Two convicted murderers, but that didn't mean they were scum, rotten to the core. They were cheaters who hacked their way onto the Internet illegally, but that didn't mean they were willing to victimize innocent people or naively insecure companies. ~ Kevin D Mitnick,#NFDB
1112:Now, if two men have to walk along together for two or three hours at a time, even if they feel a really strong desire to communicate, they will inevitably, sooner or later, fall into awkward silences and possibly end up loathing each other. One of these men might be unable to resist the temptation to hurl his companion down a steep riverbank. People are quite right when they say that three is god’s number, the number of peace and concord. When there are three in a group, one of the three can remain silent for a few minutes without that silence being noticed. Trouble could arise, however, if one of the three men has been walking along plotting how best to get rid of his neighbor in order to make off with his share of the provisions, and then invites the third man in the group to collaborate in this reprehensible scheme, only to be met with the regretful answer, I can’t, I’m afraid, I’ve already agreed to help him kill you. ~ Jos Saramago, #NFDB
1113:The whole scheme of our mixed constitution is to prevent any one of its principles from being carried as far, as taken by itself, and theoretically, it would go.... To avoid the perfections of extreme, all its several parts are so constituted, as not alone to answer their own several ends, but also each to limit and control the others: insomuch, that take which of the principles you please — you will find its operation checked and stopped at a certain point. The whole movement stands still rather than that any part should proceed beyond its boundary. From thence it results, that in the British constitution, there is a perpetual treaty and compromise going on, sometimes openly, sometimes with less observation. To him who contemplates the British constitution, as to him who contemplates the subordinate material world, it will always be a matter of his most curious investigation, to discover the secret of this mutual limitation. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
1114:Your sister," I say evenly, "is incredibly sick. I'm sorry if that interferes with your dentist's appointment or your plan to go buy a pair of cleats. But those don't rate quite as high in the grand scheme of things right now. I'd think that since you're ten, you might be able to grow up enough to realize that the whole world doesn't always revolve around you."
Jesse looks out the window, where Kate straddles the arm of an oak tree, coaching Anna in how to climb up. "Yeah, right, she's sick," he says. "Why don't you grow up? Why don't you figure out that the world doesn't revolve around her?"
...
There is a scuffle on the other side of the door, and then it swings open. Blood covers Jesse's mouth, a vampire's lipstick; bits of wire stick out like a seamstress's pins. I notice the fork he is holding, and realize this is what he used to pull off his braces.
"Now you never have to take me anywhere," he says. ~ Jodi Picoult,#NFDB
1115:A loaf of bread cost a quarter of a sesterce. So did a glass of wine.2 We know from graffiti at Pompeii that a prostitute, perhaps not a very elegant one, charged half a sesterce for her services. Entrance to the public baths was just twice that. Roman soldiers earned 1,200 sesterces a year and although there were some perks, they had to buy their own equipment. A casual labourer earned perhaps 2-3 sesterces a day – when he got work. A charity scheme to support poor children, presumably at a fairly basic level, paid between 10 and 12 sesterces a month. A lecturer in rhetoric under Vespasian received 100,000 sesterces a year and this was considered remarkable. It was a similar amount to the purchase price of a first-rate, intelligent slave in the second century, when lessening warfare had reduced the market. One foot of road cost 22 sesterces to lay and a large and elaborate tomb anything from 100,000 to half a million sesterces. ~ Elizabeth Speller, #NFDB
1116:But was chance necessary? Hubbard, too, thought about the parallels between the Mandelbrot set and the biological encoding of information, but he bristled at any suggestion that such processes might depend on probability. "There is no randomness in the Mandelbrot set," Hubbard said. "There is no randomness in anything that I do. Neither do I think that the possibility of randomness has any direct relevance to biology. In biology randomness is death, chaos is death. Everything is highly structured. When you clone plants, the order in which the branches come out is exactly the same. The Mandelbrot set obeys an extraordinarily precise scheme leaving nothing to chance whatsoever. I strongly suspect that the day somebody actually figures out how the brain is organized they will discover to their amazement that there is a coding scheme for building the brain which is of extraordinary precision. The idea of randomness in biology is just reflex. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1117:Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an apparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
1118:But the devil is a subtle worm; he does not give up at one defeat, for he knows human nature, and the strength of the forces which battle for him. He failed to get Jesus, but he came again, to get Jesus' church. He came when, through the power of the new revolutionary idea, the Church had won a position of tremendous power in the decaying Roman Empire; and the subtle worm assumed the guise of no less a person than the Emperor himself, suggesting that he should become a convert to the new faith, so that the Church and he might work together for the greater glory of God. The bishops and fathers of the Church, ambitious for their organization, fell for this scheme, and Satan went off laughing to himself. He had got everything he had asked from Jesus three hundred years before; he had got the world's greatest religion. ~ Upton Sinclair, The Profits of Religion : An Essay in Economic Interpretation (1918), Book Seven : The Church of the Social Revolution, "Christ and Caesar", #NFDB
1119:If I were to name the one crying evil of American life, Mr. Derrick, it would be the indifference of the better people to public affairs. It is so in all our great centres. There are other great trusts, God knows, in the United States besides our own dear P. and S.W. Railroad. Every state has its own grievance. If it is not a railroad trust, it is a sugar trust, or an oil trust, or an industrial trust, that exploits the People, because the people allow it. The indifference of the People is the opportunity of the despot. It is as true as that the whole is greater than the part, and the maxim is so old that it is trite - it is laughable. It is neglected and disused for the sake of some new ingenious and complicated theory, some wonderful scheme of reorganization, the fact remains, nevertheless, simple, fundamental, everlasting. The People have but to say 'No' and not the strongest tyranny, political, religious, or financial, that was ever organized, could survive one week. ~ Frank Norris, #NFDB
1120:She sets the hard inventions of her brain
In a pattern of eternal fixity:
Indifferent to the cosmic dumb demand,
Unconscious of too close realities,
Of the unspoken thought, the voiceless heart,
She leans to forge her credos and iron codes
And metal structures to imprison life
And mechanic models of all things that are.
For the world seen she weaves a world conceived:
She spins in stiff but unsubstantial lines
Her gossamer word-webs of abstract thought,
Her segment systems of the Infinite,
Her theodicies and cosmogonic charts
And myths by which she explains the inexplicable.
At will she spaces in thin air of mind
Like maps in the school-house of intellect hung,
Forcing wide Truth into a narrow scheme,
Her numberless warring strict philosophies;
Out of Nature's body of phenomenon
She carves with Thought's keen edge in rigid lines,
Like rails for the World-Magician's power to run, ~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri,#NFDB
1121: What shall I do lest life in silence pass?
"And if it do,
And never prompt the bray of noisy brass,
What need'st thou rue?
Remember, aye the ocean-deeps are mute--
The shallows roar;
Worth is the ocean--fame is but the bruit
Along the shore."
What shall I do to be forever known?
"Thy duty ever!"
This did full many who yet slept unknown.
"O never, never!
Think'st thou perchance that they remain unknown
Whom thou know'st not?
By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown--
Divine their lot."
What shall I do, an heir of endless life?
"Discharge aright
The simple dues with which each day is rife,
Yea, with thy might.
Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise
Will life be fled,
While he who ever acts as conscience cries,
Shall live, though dead."
~ Friedrich Schiller, Fame And Duty
,#NFDB
1122:There had to be some meaning to it. Judgment, punishment, test, trial, strengthening—something that made sense out of it. Some scheme into which what was happening could all be fit—Rita, Urs, Tadeusz, Stefan, Erich, Freddy . . . A story from which she might at least learn something about herself and her life. At the end of it, when the war was over, if she survived, there would be a plot with a natural beginning, a long, painful, tension-filled middle, villains and heroes, and a satisfying end, or at least one that brought the story to a close—her survival. When it was all over, the story would stitch together everything that had happened—her perpetual discomfort and danger—even if it didn’t make sense of the horrors visited on the millions somehow suffering through the demented melodrama that would end with her survival. Yes, there would be a story at the end, if she did survive—a plot with dangers and escapes, in which her actions and everyone else’s would make sense. But ~ Alex Rosenberg, #NFDB
1123:The White Prophet's premise seems simple. He wished to set the world in a different path than the one it had rolled on through so many circuits of time. According to him, time always repeats itself, and in every repetition, people make most of the same foolish mistakes they've always made. They live from day to day, giving in to appetites and desires, convinced that what they do does not matter in the larger scheme of things.
According to the White Prophet, nothing could be further from the truth. Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path. An accumulation of small acts can change the world. The fate of the world can pivot on one man's death. Or turn a different way because of his survival. And who was I to the White Prophet? I was his Catalyst. The Changer. I was the stone he would set to bump time's wheels out of its rut. A small pebble can turn a wheel out of its path, he told me, but warned me that it was seldom a pleasant experience for the pebble. ~ Robin Hobb,#NFDB
1124:The question as to whether there is such a thing as divine right of kings is not settled in this book. It was found too difficult. That the executive head of a nation should be a person of lofty character and extraordinary ability, was manifest and indisputable; that none but the Deity could select that head unerringly, was also manifest and indisputable; that the Deity ought to make that selection, then, was likewise manifest and indisputable; consequently, that He does make it, as claimed, was an unavoidable deduction. I mean, until the author of this book encountered the Pompadour, and Lady Castlemaine, and some other executive heads of that kind; these were found so difficult to work into the scheme, that it was judged better to take the other tack in this book (which must be issued this fall), and then go into training and settle the question in another book. It is, of course, a thing which ought to be settled, and I am not going to have anything particular to do next winter anyway. ~ Mark Twain, #NFDB
1125:Once the person begins to look to his relationship to the Ultimate Power, to infinitude, and to refashion his links from those around him to that Ultimate Power, he opens up to himself the horizon of unlimited possibility, of real freedom.
This is Kierkegaard's message, the culmination of his whole argument about the dead-ends of character, the ideal of health, the school of anxiety, the nature of real possibility and freedom. One goes through it all to arrive at faith, the faith that one's very creatureliness has some meaning to a Creator; that despite one's true insignificance, weakness, death, one's existence has meaning in some ultimate sense because it exists within an eternal and infinite scheme of things brought about and maintained to some kind of design by some creative force. Again and again throughout his writings Kierkegaard repeats the basic formula of faith: one is a creature who can do nothing, but one exists over against a living God for whom "everything is possible. ~ Ernest Becker,#NFDB
1126:Classical mechanics has been developed continuously from the time of Newton and applied to an ever-widening range of dynamical systems, including the electromagnetic field in interaction with matter. The underlying ideas and the laws governing their application form a simple and elegant scheme, which one would be inclined to think could not be seriously modified without having all its attractive features spout. Nevertheless it has been found possible to set up a new scheme, called quantum mechanics, which is more suitable for the description of phenomena on the atomic scale and which is in some respects more elegant and satisfying than the classical scheme. This possibility is due to the changes which the new scheme involves being of a very profound character and not clashing with the features of the classical theory that make it so attractive, as a result of which all these features can be incorporated in the new scheme. ~ Paul Dirac, I. The Principle of Superposition - 1. The Need for a Quantum Theory, #NFDB
1127:Magellan’s sudden identification of millions of land forms fomented a crisis in nomenclature. The International Astronomical Union responded with an all-female naming scheme that evoked a goddess or giantess from every heritage and era, along with heroines real or invented. Thus the Venusian highlands, the counterparts to Earth’s continents, took the names of love goddesses — Aphrodite Terra, Ishtar Terra, Lada Terra, with hundreds of their hills and dales christened for fertility goddesses and sea goddesses. Large craters commemorate notable women (including American astronomer Maria Mitchell, who photographed the 1882 transit of Venus from the Vassar College Observatory), while small craters bear common first names for girls. Venus’s scarps hail seven goddesses of the hearth, small hills the goddesses of the sea, ridges the goddesses of the sky, and so on across low plains named from myth and legend for the likes of Helen and Guinevere, down canyons called after Moon goddesses and huntresses. ~ Dava Sobel, #NFDB
1128:This sadness lies at the heart of every merely positivistic, agnostic, or naturalistic scheme of philosophy. Let sanguine healthy-mindedness do its best with its strange power of living in the moment and ignoring and forgetting, still the evil background is really there to be thought of, and the skull will grin in at the banquet. In the practical life of the individual, we know how his whole gloom or glee about any present fact depends on the remoter schemes and hopes with which it stands related. Its significance and framing give it the chief part of its value. Let it be known to lead nowhere, and however agreeable it may be in its immediacy, its glow and gilding vanish. The old man, sick with an insidious internal disease, may laugh and quaff his wine at first as well as ever, but he knows his fate now, for the doctors have revealed it; and the knowledge knocks the satisfaction out of all these functions. They are partners of death and the worm is their brother, and they turn to a mere flatness. ~ William James, #NFDB
1129:But, Andromeda-" Peri exclaimed. "You are the 'most' important person in this scheme!"
"I- what?" she said. "You must be joking!"
Peri shook his massive head. "On the contrary. You are the only person here who has actually been inside the Palace. You know everything there is to know about it. Without that, we can't even begin to mount an attack, now, can we?"
"At least not the kind of attack we can manage with as few people as we have, and as untrained or half trained," Adam agreed. "You are the key to our plan."
Of all the things she had heard today this was the most astonishing. She was important. She was vital. She who had never been anything to anyone-
"Besides," Gina said with a grin, "I can teach you to use something that you won't have to get in close to use. A sling. Believe me, I've seen a good sling-man take down seasoned fighters many a time."
Andie raised her chin and looked into Peri's eyes. "Then you have me," she said, but could not help adding, "for what it's worth. ~ Mercedes Lackey,#NFDB
1130:On March 15, Washington addressed the officers, determined to squash a reported scheme to march on Congress. For the first time, he confronted a hostile audience of his own men. Washington sternly rebuked talk of rebellion, saying it would threaten the liberties for which they had fought. An insurrection would only "open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood." He then staged the most famous coup de théâtre of his career. He was about to read aloud a letter from a congressman when the words swam before his eyes. So he fished in his pockets for his glasses. "Gentlemen," he said, "you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in service to my country." The mutinous soldiers, inexpressibly moved, were shamed by their opposition to Washington and restored to their senses. Washington agreed to lobby Congress on their behalf, and a committee chaired by Hamilton granted the officers a pension payment equivalent to five years' full pay. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1131:A Marvel
Five months after being mauled by
his illusionist, Bernard J. Ebber reported
the scheme he’d devised. “I can gaze
out my window and see 10
people who look like stars: they build
a great part of my remote personality and make
life bearable on Mars for example – the last resort of
our cosmopolitan lifestyle. Successful applicants,
they play a key role, utilising the latest
scenes, mismanaging the lost, solo.”
A few grey hairs sprouted
casually through a tattoo as he spoke
and beamed at them from billboards
over the weeks that followed. How words
beat against the pane was his subject – and how,
when sidling up to the bar, he’d hitch his briefs,
screen his soliloquies and pass the legal
tender where they’d kicked him. But
the show he put on, though true, was
convincing. People marvelled
at the way he insisted on flickering
on and off he’d go, developing black
hole technology, keeping in touch
with old friends.
~ Chris Edwards,#NFDB
1132:It's easy to mistake being innocent for being simpleminded or naive. We all want to seem sophisticated; we all want to seem street-smart. To be innocent is to be "out of it."
Yet there is a deep truth in innocence. A baby looks in his mother's eyes, and all he sees is love. As innocence fades away, more complicated things take its place. We think we need to outwit others and scheme to get what we want. We begin to spend a lot of energy protecting ourselves. Then life turns into a struggle. People have no choice but to be street-smart. How else can they survive?
When you get right down to it, survival means seeing things the way they really are and responding. It means being open. And that's what innocence is. It's simple and trusting like a child, not judgmental and committed to one narrow point of view. If you are locked into a pattern of thinking and responding, your creativity gets blocked. You miss the freshness and magic of the moment. Learn to be innocent again, and that freshness never fades. ~ Michael Jackson,#NFDB
1133:So tell me about you. Who is Pippa, in the broad scheme of things?” He winks.
I return the smile. “Well, I’m an only child, born and raised in Chicago--”
“Ah, Chicago. That’s the accent.”
“I told you before, I don’t have an accent.”
“To your ears you don’t.” He laughs. “But it’s definitely there to the rest of us.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No,” he says. “It’s cute.”
Oh, I might die. A boy used the word “cute.” And when describing something about me. I can’t look at him.
“Well, I can’t really hear your accent,” I say.
“That’s what happens when you move all the time. I can sound like I’m from wherever I want.”
“Prove it. Let’s hear a British accent.”
“I think technically it’s called an English accent, and no. I don’t work on demand.”
I give Darren a little shove. “Come on, pansy. Just a wee little sampling,” I say, attempting the accent myself.
He bites back a laugh. “That was…rubbish. And Scottish, if we’re being picky.”
“Hey!” I say, shoving him harder like I’m twelve. ~ Kristin Rae,#NFDB
1134:If the family incentive scheme runs long enough, inequality may be increased even more if the children save part of their allowances. Even if all children save the same share of their allowances, one is regularly adding more to her wealth than the others, and she will get steadily richer than her siblings. Saving will ramp up the inequality in the allowances, and inequality in wealth will soon dwarf the inequality in allowances, just as, in the actual economy, inequality in wealth dwarfs inequality in earnings. This ramping up of inequality will be even faster if the children who are naturally inclined to be tidy are also those who are naturally inclined to save for the future. In the society at large, the same forces are at work if those who are more oriented to the future and have more self-control are the same people who are more able to benefit from education and more likely to accumulate wealth from their education-enhanced earnings. There is a deep conflict between incentives and inequality, in families and in countries. ~ Angus Deaton, #NFDB
1135:Instead, this time he made what he called a “slight modification” to his theory. To keep the matter in the universe from imploding, Einstein added a “repulsive” force: a little addition to his general relativity equations to counterbalance gravity in the overall scheme. In his revised equations, this modification was signified by the Greek letter lambda, , which he used to multiply his metric tensor gμv in a way that produced a stable, static universe. In his 1917 paper, he was almost apologetic: “We admittedly had to introduce an extension of the field equations that is not justified by our actual knowledge of gravitation.” He dubbed the new element the “cosmological term” or the “cosmological constant” (kosmologische Glied was the phrase he used). Later,* when it was discovered that the universe was in fact expanding, Einstein would call it his “biggest blunder.” But even today, in light of evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, it is considered a useful concept, indeed a necessary one after all.14 During ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1136:She was with me the day I went to the paint store to pick out the color. I had a nice tan color in mind, but May latched on to this sample called Caribbean Pink. She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish flamenco. I thought, "Well, this is the tackiest color I've ever seen, and we'll have half the town talking about us, but if it can lift May's heart like that, I guess she ought to live inside it."
"All this time I just figured you liked pink," I said.
She laughed again. "You know, some things don't matter that much, Lily.. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the over-all scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart-now, that matters. The whole problem with people is-"
"They don't know what matters and what doesn't," I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.
"I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters. ~ Sue Monk Kidd,#NFDB
1137:The larger truth that I failed to see turned out to be another of those paradoxes—like the discounters’ principle of the less you charge, the more you’ll earn. And here it is: the more you share profits with your associates—whether it’s in salaries or incentives or bonuses or stock discounts—the more profit will accrue to the company. Why? Because the way management treats the associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers. And if the associates treat the customers well, the customers will return again and again, and that is where the real profit in this business lies, not in trying to drag strangers into your stores for one-time purchases based on splashy sales or expensive advertising. Satisfied, loyal, repeat customers are at the heart of Wal-Mart’s spectacular profit margins, and those customers are loyal to us because our associates treat them better than salespeople in other stores do. So, in the whole Wal-Mart scheme of things, the most important contact ever made is between the associate in the store and the customer. I ~ Sam Walton, #NFDB
1138:And Schyogolev launched on a discussion of politics. Like many unpaid windbags he thought that he could combine the reports he read in the papers by paid windbags into an orderly scheme, upon following which a logical and sober mind (in this case his mind) could with no effort explain and foresee a multitude of world events. The names of countries and of their leading representatives became in his hands something in the nature of labels for more or less full but essentially identical vessels, whose contents he poured this way and that. France was AFRAID of something or other and therefore would never allow it. England was AIMING at something. This statesman CRAVED a rapprochement, while that one wanted to increase his PRESTIGE. Someone was PLOTTING and someone was STRIVING for something. In short, the world Schyogolev created came out as some kind of collection of limited, humorless, faceless and abstract bullies, and the more brains, cunning and circumspection he found in their mutual activities the more stupid, vulgar and simple his world became. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
1139:Immigration, exile, being uprooted and made a pariah may be the most effective way yet devised to impress on an individual the arbitrary nature of his or her own existence. Who needed a shrink of a guru when everyone we met asked us who we were the moment we opned our mouths and they heard the accent?
The truth is, we had no simple answers. Being rattled around in freight trains, open trucks, and ratty ocean-liners, we ended up being a puzzle even to ourselves. At first, that was hard to take; then we got used to the idea. We began to savor it, to enjoy it. Being nobody struck me personally as being far more interesting than being somebody. The streets were full of these "somebodys" putting on confident airs. Half the time I envied them; half the time I looked down on them with pity. I knew something they didn't, something hard to come by unless history gives you a good kick in the ass: how superfluous and insignificant in any grand scheme mere individuals are. And how pitiless are those who have no understanding that this could be their fate too. ~ Charles Simic,#NFDB
1140:Sunt oameni a căror prodigioasă viaţă creează aparenţa unui principiu cinetic şi progresiv.Oamenii unei idei,ai unei opere,creiere şi voinţe montate definitiv în aceeaşi schemă,fără putinţă de revizuit,de modelat altor experienţe;imuni şi absoluţi.Chiar după ce depăşesc instinctele,se lasă robi unor dogme pe care nu le mai pot însufleţi,unor scheme inerte sau supersitiţii mediocre.De pildă,superstiţia de a fi şi a rămâne raţionalist,de a fi pur şi bun,de a fi absolut,sau orricare altă schemă nefastă,ce ignoră fundamentala necesitate a omului întrucât vieţuieşte ca om:de a nu fi robul nici uneia din creaţiile sale,de a nu fi nici robul personalităţii sale deja realizate,ci de a încerca întodeauna depăşirea,creşterea,rodirea în pofida oricărei victorii sau agonii.Acesta este unul dintre sensurile existenţei:de a o epuiza conştient şi glorios,în cât mai multe văzduhuri,de a te împlini şi rotunji continuu,de a afla ascensiunea,iar nu circumferinţa,drum care să înfăptuiască toate virtuţile şi să reveleze nu o inteligenţă sau o încrengătură de instincte,ci omul. ~ Mircea Eliade, #NFDB
1141:You are a biznessman and I am a biznessman,” he went on. “Realistically, there should be nothing between us to discuss but bizness. Let us leave discussions regarding the unrealistic to others. Are we agreed?” “Certainly,” said my partner. “It is rather our role to take what unrealistic factors that exist and to work them into a more sophisticated form that might be grounded in the grand scheme of reality. The doings of men run to unrealities. Why is that?” the man asked, rhetorically. He fingered the green stone ring on the middle finger of his left hand. “Because it appears simpler. Added to which, there are circumstances whereby unreality contrives to create an impression that overwhelms reality. Nevertheless, business has no place in the world of unreality. In other words,” the man said, continuing to finger his ring, “we are a breed whose very existence consists in the rechanneling of difficulties. Therefore, should anything I say from this point forward demand difficult labors or decisions of you, I ask your forbearance. Such is the nature of things. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1142:From the twilight of day till the twilight of evening, a leopard, in the last years of the thirteenth century, would see some wooden planks, some vertical iron bars, men and women who changed, a wall and perhaps a stone gutter filled with dry leaves. He did not know, could not know, that he longed for love and cruelty and the hot pleasure of tearing things to pieces and the wind carrying the scent of a deer, but something suffocated and rebelled within him and God spoke to him in a dream: "You live and will die in this prison so that a man I know of may see you a certain number of times and not forget you and place your figure and symbol in a poem which has its precise place in the scheme of the universe. You suffer captivity, but you will have given a word to the poem." God, in the dream, illumined the animal's brutishness and the animal understood these reasons and accepted his destiny, but, when he awoke, there was in him only an obscure resignation, a valorous ignorance, for the machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of a beast. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
1143:I can’t help but think of one of my favorite moments in any Pixar movie, when Anton Ego, the jaded and much-feared food critic in Ratatouille, delivers his review of Gusteau’s, the restaurant run by our hero Remy, a rat. Voiced by the great Peter O’Toole, Ego says that Remy’s talents have “challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking … [and] have rocked me to my core.” His speech, written by Brad Bird, similarly rocked me—and, to this day, sticks with me as I think about my work. “In many ways, the work of a critic is easy,” Ego says. “We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
1144:From the twilight of day till the twilight of evening, a leopard, in the last years of the thirteenth century, would see some wooden planks, some vertical iron bars, men and women who changed, a wall and perhaps a stone gutter filled with dry leaves. He did not know, could not know, that he longed for love and cruelty and the hot pleasure of tearing things to pieces and the wind carrying the scent of a deer, but something suffocated and rebelled within him and God spoke to him in a dream: ""You live and will die in this prison so that a man I know of may see you a certain number of times and not forget you and place your figure and symbol in a poem which has its precise place in the scheme of the universe. You suffer captivity, but you will have given a word to the poem.
God, in the dream, illumined the animal's brutishness and the animal understood these reasons and accepted his destiny, but, when he awoke, there was in him only an obscure resignation, a valorous ignorance, for the machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of a beast. ~ Jorge Luis Borges,#NFDB
1145:Pete's Error
There’s a new grace up on Boot Hill, where we’ve planted Rowdy Pete;
He died one evenin’, sudden, with his leather on his feet;
He was Cactus Center’s terror with that work of art, the Colt,
But, somehow, without warnin’, he up and missed his holt.
His fav’rite trick in shootin’ was to grab his victim’s right,
Then draw his own revolver — and the rest was jest 'Good-night';
He worked it in succession on nine stout and well-armed men,
But a sickly-lookin’ stranger made Pete’s feet slip up at ten.
Pete had follered out his programme and had passed the fightin’ word;
He grabbed the stranger’s right hand, when a funny thing occurred;
The stranger was left-handed, which Pete hadn’t figgered out,
And, afore he fixed his error, Peter was dead beyond all doubt.
It was jest another instance of a flaw in work of man;
A lefty never figgered in the gunman’s battle plan;
There ain’t no scheme man thinks of that Dame Nature cannot beat —
So his pupils are unlearnin’ that cute trick they got from Pete.
~ Arthur Chapman,#NFDB
1146:life, Meeker continued on to New York, where he scuffled with police who wouldn’t allow him to run his oxen down Fifth Avenue. In Washington, D.C., he ran his rig onto the White House lawn and enlisted President Theodore Roosevelt to help him preserve the trail. Meeker was a big, visionary thinker. Not content with merely preserving the trail, he advocated the creation of a national commercial and military road across the West, linking growing cities like Denver and Salt Lake with the East, and spur roads that would connect with the vast national parks that had been created during the Progressive Era. Swimming and fishing facilities, hotels, and even towers with navigational beacons for passing airmail planes were all part of Meeker’s plan. None of this was built during his lifetime, and Meeker would receive no credit for his elaborate transportation dreams. But the national parks system built during the New Deal, and the interstate highways paved in the 1950s, eventually created a network of concrete and open spaces remarkably similar to Meeker’s original scheme. Meeker ~ Rinker Buck, #NFDB
1147:I opened the paper to an inner page where the piece continued. There were photos of two missing kids. Rafe and Nicole.
“How the hell did they get Rafe’s picture?” Sam muttered.
“Those aren’t us,” I said.
“Convenient,” the server muttered.
It wasn’t convenient. It was intentional. Submit photos of the kids they knew weren’t wandering around the forest.
There was a class picture at the bottom of the article. It was tiny and blurred, although my copy at home was perfect.
“We’re in this one.” I pointed to the class shot. “That’s me, and that’s Sam over there.”
“I think that’s Bryan,” Sam said.
“Is it?” I squinted. “Maybe…”
It was impossible to tell, really. I wouldn’t even be sure which one was me if I didn’t recognize my tie-dyed shirt.
“Okay,” I said. “Our pictures might not be recognizable, but come on. Why would we lie about it?”
“Same reason my own kids lie,” the server said. “To get attention.”
“Seriously?” Sam said. “We’re going to hatch this elaborate scheme, and launch it in your crappy little--?”
I stepped on Sam’s foot. ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1148:So tell me about yourself,” I say, mentally rolling my eyes for sounding like an interviewer. “Where’d you grow up? What’s your favorite color? Biggest fear? All the basics.”
He laughs, kicking at a cluster of broken flower petals on the ground. “I’d hardly put my biggest fear in the basics category.”
“You know what I mean. I feel like I don’t know that much about you, in the broad scheme of things.”
“Well, in the broad scheme,” he begins, “I grew up all over the world, my favorite color changes every day, and I’m terrified of green eyes.”
I raise my brows and imagine my eyes shooting him with green laser beams. “That’s--” I stop myself from saying weird. “Why?”
“It’s just this feeling I have.”
“My eyes are sort of greenish,” I say through a nervous laugh. “Am I that scary?”
He looks at me and we both slow to a stop. A Vespa shoots past, swirling our hair in the wind. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t blink, so I don’t either. I get the impression he’s trying to subliminally relay his answer to me. That I’m supposed to know what he’s thinking. I don’t. ~ Kristin Rae,#NFDB
1149:When I finished, Dr. Fellows said, "And this was a vision you had Corey?"
"Right."
"Are you sure?"
"Huh?"
She lowered her voice. "Is it possible that Derek... influenced this vision of yours?"
"What? No."
"Absolutely not," I said. "Derek's the one who cut it short. Accidentally, but still. And if by influence, you mean 'talked us into telling a lie to get everyone out tonight,' then I don't appreciate the insinuation, Dr. Fellows."
Her brows shot up to meet her hairline. Tori smirked and leaned back onto her pillow.
"Well, Maya, I don't know you yet, so you'll forgive me if I question you."
"I don't blame you. You don't know us. But you do know Derek and, sorry, but persuasion doesn't seem to be the guy's strong suit."
"She has a point, Lauren," Tori said.
Dr. Fellows shot her a look, which Tori met with a cool gaze.
"Also," Tori said, "I really think you'd know your niece better than that. I wouldn't put it past Derek to lie to get us out of here, but no way would Chloe let him pull others into the scheme." ~ Kelley Armstrong,#NFDB
1150:If you are a monster, stand up.
If you are a monster, a trickster, a fiend,
If you’ve built a steam-powered wishing machine
If you have a secret, a dark past, a scheme,
If you kidnap maidens or dabble in dreams
Come stand by me.
If you have been broken, stand up.
If you have been broken, abandoned, alone
If you have been starving, a creature of bone
If you live in a tower, a dungeon, a throne
If you weep for wanting, to be held, to be known,
Come stand by me.
If you are a savage, stand up.
If you are a witch, a dark queen, a black knight,
If you are a mummer, a pixie, a sprite,
If you are a pirate, a tomcat, a wright,
If you swear by the moon and you fight the hard fight,
Come stand by me.
If you are a devil, stand up.
If you are a villain, a madman, a beast,
If you are a strowler, a prowler, a priest,
If you are a dragon come sit at our feast,
For we all have stripes, and we all have horns,
We all have scales, tails, manes, claws and thorns
And here in the dark is where new worlds are born.
Come stand by me. ~ Catherynne M Valente,#NFDB
1151:What had she been thinking, suggesting to Alicia, of all people, that a time-travel app was the solution to the problems of women in poverty? 'Are you talking about my community? You didn't even think highly enough of me to let me in on your little scheme, and now you think it will be God's gift to throw a bunch of poor women through a wormhole every day so they can take care of their children and collect their welfare checks at the same time? That's your solution? Time travel is easier than passing affordable child care?
Jennifer said nothing. Alicia, of course, was right. Years ago she had chosen to name the center It Takes a Village because, from the beginning, she had hated the every-person-for-herself attitude that isolated and blame so many of the residents the agency worked with. Yet she had just suggested that the answer to the multiplying burdens face by single mothers, in particular, was not for the village to gather around them, but for these women to multiply themselves instead.
The same answer, she thought, that she had applied to herself when her own burdens had seemed too much to bear. ~ Kamy Wicoff,#NFDB
1152:That individual philosophical concepts are not anything capricious or autonomously evolving, but grow up in connection and relationship with each other; that, however suddenly and arbitrarily they seem to appear in the history of thought, they nevertheless belong just as much to a system as all the members of the fauna of a continent - is betrayed in the end also by the fact that the most diverse philosophers keep filling in a definite fundamental scheme of possible philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always revolve once more in the same orbit; however independent of each other they may feel themselves with their critical or systematic wills, something within them leads them, something impels them in a definite order, one after the other - to wit, the innate systematic structure and relationship of their concepts. Their thinking is, in fact, far less a discovery than a recognition, a remembering, a return and a homecoming to a remote, primordial, and inclusive household of the soul, out of which those concepts grew originally: philosophizing is to this extent a kind of atavism of the highest order. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, #NFDB
1153:She pulls from a shelf certain rare spices and sugars that her successor is unlikely to use. Insulating the jars with softbound books and sheafs of cooking notes, she packs them in a carton that came to this kitchen holding boxes of Italian pasta. She examines the fanciful designs on a container of sugar imported from Turkey, a favorite finish for the surface of cookies: bearclaws, butter wafers. The large, faceted granules glitter like bluish rhinestones; children always choose those cookies first. She wonders if she will be able to get this sugar anymore, if borders will tighten so austerely that she will lose some of her most precious, treasured ingredients: the best dried lavender and mascarpone, pomegranate molasses. But in the scheme of things, does it matter?
She comes upon her collection of vinegars, which she uses to brighten the character of certain cakes, to hold the line between sweet and cloying. She takes down a spicy vinegar she bought at a nearby farm; inside the bottle, purple peppers, like sleeping bats, hang from the surface of the liquid. Greenie used it in a dark chocolate ice cream and molasses pie. ~ Julia Glass,#NFDB
1154:Franklin was concerning himself more and more with public affairs. He set forth a scheme for an Academy, which was taken up later and finally developed into the University of Pennsylvania; and he founded an "American Philosophical Society" for the purpose of enabling scientific men to communicate their discoveries to one another. He himself had already begun his electrical researches, which, with other scientific inquiries, he called on in the intervals of money-making and politics to the end of his life. In 1748 he sold his business in order to get leisure for study, having now acquired comparative wealth; and in a few years he had made discoveries that gave him a reputation with the learned throughout Europe. In politics he proved very able both as an administrator and as a controversialist; but his record as an office-holder is stained by the use he made of his position to advance his relatives. His most notable service in home politics was his reform of the postal system; but his fame as a statesman rests chiefly on his services in connection with the relations of the Colonies with Great Britain, and later with France. ~ Benjamin Franklin, #NFDB
1155:The ability of the Mystery Schools to communicate with the invisible worlds is the basis of their power; for all the creative hierarchies dwell in the unseen worlds, and there the disciple must go in order to consult them. The reason for this is that the human race is the only one in our scheme of things that is equipped with both a physical and a mental body. The gods, so-called, have never descended into physical substance. Consequently, having no body composed of dense chemical elements, they are incapable of manifesting here. In order to communicate with them, man must, therefore, learn to function consciously in his own invisible bodies. When he is capable of doing this, he can communicate with the spiritual beings who dwell in similar superphysical substances. Thus, while religion deals only with fancies, theorems, and beliefs, the initiates of the Ancient Wisdom go straight to the fountainhead of wisdom and, learning the will of the gods, make that will the law of their lives. The initiate does not guess, wonder or soliloquize; he labors with facts for he is one with the truths of Nature. ~ Manly P Hall, What the Ancient Wisdom Expects of Its Disciples, #NFDB
1156:Ed
Ed was a man that played for keeps, 'nd when he tuk the notion,
You cudn't stop him any more'n a dam 'ud stop the ocean;
For when he tackled to a thing 'nd sot his mind plum to it,
You bet yer boots he done that thing though it broke the bank to do it!
So all us boys uz knowed him best allowed he wuzn't jokin'
When on a Sunday he remarked uz how he'd gin up smokin'.
Now this remark, that Ed let fall, fell, ez I say, on Sunday-Which is the reason we wuz shocked to see him sail in Monday
A-puffin' at a snipe that sizzled like a Chinese cracker
An' smelt fur all the world like rags instead uv like terbacker;
Recoverin' from our first surprise, us fellows fell to pokin'
A heap uv fun at "folks uz said how they had gin up smokin'."
But Ed--sez he: "I found my work cud not be done without it-Jes' try the scheme yourselves, my friends, ef any uv you doubt it!
It's hard, I know, upon one's health, but there's a certain beauty
In makin' sackerfices to the stern demands uv duty!
So, wholly in a sperrit uv denial 'nd concession,
I mortify the flesh 'nd smoke for the sake uv my perfession!"
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
1157:Why should men in the name of religion try to harmonize the contradictions that exist between Nature and a book? Why should philosophers be denounced for placing more reliance upon what they know than upon what they have been told? If there is a God, it is reasonably certain that he made the world, but it is by no means certain that he is the author of the bible. Why then should we not place greater confidence in Nature than in a book? And even if this God made not only the world but the book besides, it does not follow that the book is the best part of Creation, and the only part that we will be eternally punished for denying. It seems to me that it is quite as important to know something of the solar system, something of the physical history of this globe, as it is to know the adventures of Jonah or the diet of Ezekiel. (...) It seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to God even if he denies the rotundity of the earth,(...) and yet, for failing to believe in the „scheme of salvation” another may be eternally lost. ~ Robert G Ingersoll, #NFDB
1158:Athena
Force of reason, who shut up the shrill
foul Furies in the dungeon of the Parthenon,
led whimpering to the cave they live in still,
beneath the rock your city foundered on:
who, equivocating, taught revenge to sing
(or seem to, or be about to) a kindlier tune:
mind that can make a scheme of anything—
a game, a grid, a system, a mere folder
in the universal file drawer: uncompromising
mediatrix, virgin married to the welfare
of the body politic: deific contradiction,
warbonnet-wearing olive-bearer, author
of the law's delays, you who as talisman
and totem still wear the aegis, baleful
with Medusa's scowl (though shrunken
and self-mummified, a Gorgon still): cool
guarantor of the averted look, the guide
of Perseus, who killed and could not kill
the thing he'd hounded to its source, the dread
thing-in-itself none can elude, whose counterfeit we halfway hanker for: aware (gone mad
with clarity) we have invented all you stand for,
though we despise the artifice—a space to savor
horror, to pre-enact our own undoing in—
living, we stare into the mirror of the Gorgon.
~ Amy Clampitt,#NFDB
1159:All of this “every person can be extraordinary and achieve greatness” stuff is basically just jerking off your ego. It’s a message that tastes good going down, but in reality is nothing more than empty calories that make you emotionally fat and bloated, the proverbial Big Mac for your heart and your brain. The ticket to emotional health, like that to physical health, comes from eating your veggies—that is, accepting the bland and mundane truths of life: truths such as “Your actions actually don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things” and “The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy, and that’s okay.” This vegetable course will taste bad at first. Very bad. You will avoid accepting it. But once ingested, your body will wake up feeling more potent and more alive. After all, that constant pressure to be something amazing, to be the next big thing, will be lifted off your back. The stress and anxiety of always feeling inadequate and constantly needing to prove yourself will dissipate. And the knowledge and acceptance of your own mundane existence will actually free you to accomplish what you truly wish to accomplish, without judgment or lofty expectations. ~ Mark Manson, #NFDB
1160:A sob pops in my throat. I choke it, and look around for a harmless visual distraction, but all I see is a stocky young woman with a baby, a few seats up. The baby is pulling the woman's hair, and she is faking this look of terror.
'Oh no', she says, 'How can you do that to mommy?'
She pretends to bawl, but the baby laughs and gurgles like a psycho, and pulls even harder. I'm witnessing a fresh knife being laid into a brand-new soul. A training dagger. A maternity blade. Here's his mom quietly opening up the control incision, completely innocent in her dumbness to the world.
'Oh no, you've killed Mommy, Mommy's gone!' She plays dead.
The little guy giggles for a minute, but only that long. Then he senses something's wrong. She ain't waking up. He killed her, she abandoned him, just like that, over a pull of hair. He pokes her with his finger, he gets ready to bawl. And there you have it: he takes the handle into his own tiny hands and pulls in his first blade, right up to the hilt. Just to bring her back. And sure enough, with the splash of his first tear, she wakes right up.
'Ha, ha, I'm still here! Ha, ha it's Mommy!'
Ha, ha, that's the Scheme of Things. ~ D B C Pierre,#NFDB
1161:Tegularius was a willful, moody person who refused to fit into his society. Every so often he would display the liveliness of his intellect. When highly stimulated he could be entrancing; his mordant wit sparkled and he overwhelmed everyone with the audacity and richness of his sometimes somber inspirations. But basically he was incurable, for he did not want to be cured; he cared nothing for co-ordination and a place in the scheme of things. He loved nothing but his freedom, his perpetual student status, and preferred spending his whole life as the unpredictable and obstinate loner, the gifted fool and nihilist, to following the path of subordination to the hierarchy and thus attaining peace. He cared nothing for peace, had no regard for the hierarchy, hardly minded reproof and isolation. Certainly he was a most inconvenient and indigestible component in a community whose idea was harmony and orderliness. But because of this very troublesomeness and indigestibility he was, in the midst of such a limpid and prearranged little world, a constant source of vital unrest, a reproach, an admonition and warning, a spur to new, bold, forbidden, intrepid ideas, an unruly, stubborn sheep in the herd. ~ Hermann Hesse, #NFDB
1162:There is a saturation of books on Amazon due to a sudden get-rich-quick surge in "everyone can be authors" seminars similar to the house flipping ones in the early 2000s which led to the housing bubble and an economic slowdown in the U.S. To distinguish quality books from those get-rich-quick ones, look at the author's track record - worldwide recognition as books that garnered credible awards, authors who speak at book industry events, authors who speak at schools, authors whose books are reference materials and reading sources at school and libraries. Get-rich books have a system to get over 500 reviews quickly, manipulates the Kindle Unlimited algorithm, and encourage collusion in the marketplace to knock out rivals. Be wary of trolls who are utilized to knock down the rankings of rival's books too. Once people have heard there is money to be made as a self-published author, just like house flipping, a cottage industry has risen to take advantage of it and turn book publishing into a get rich scheme, which is a shame for all the book publishers and authors, like me, who had published for the love of books, to write to help society, and for the love of literature. Kailin Gow, Parents and Books ~ Kailin Gow, #NFDB
1163:In pre-Indira Gandhi days the IB was basically guided by the ‘ear marking’ scheme. This scheme enabled the IB to earmark certain IPS officers while they were under training in the Police Academy. They were earmarked on the basis of their performance in the All India Services Examination, performance in the academy and confidential reports on their shaping up process. A number of brilliant officers, including the illustrious Directors like Hari Anand Barari, M. K. Narayanan, and V. G. Vaidya were inducted through the earmarking scheme. The humble author of this book was also an earmarked officer. Of course, some officers also were inducted on ‘deputation’ from state cadres. They were later absorbed as ‘hard core’ officers. This system was abandoned after 1970 to accommodate ‘loyal and committed officers’ and also to bring the IB at par with other Central Police Organisations (CPO), like the CRPF, BSF. The IB was opened up as a waiting room for IPS officers from the less glamorous state cadres like Manipur and Tripura, Assam, West Bengal and any other state where the prevailing political culture did not suit certain officers. They used the IB to cool off and to catch up with other opportunities. ~ Maloy Krishna Dhar, #NFDB
1164:Oh, Zachary, you're such a beautiful man.” She gathered herself against the wonderful wealth of hair on his chest, playing with the dark curls, brushing her mouth and fingers through them. A faint groan came from over her head. “You're the beautiful one.” His hands moved gently over her back and hips, savoring the texture of her skin. “I never recovered from my first glance at you, at the Bellemont ball.” “You saw me then? But it was dark outside.” “I followed you after I kissed you in the conservatory.” He pushed her to her back, his gaze sweeping over her naked body. “I watched as you went to your carriage, and I thought you were the loveliest thing I had ever seen.” He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, his tongue touching the fragile curve, and Holly trembled. “And you began to scheme,” she said breathlessly. “That's right. I thought of a hundred ways to get under your skirts, and I decided the best plan was to hire you. But somewhere in the middle of my efforts to seduce you, I fell in love with you.” “And your intentions became honorable,” she said, pleased. “No, I still wanted to get under your skirts.” “Zachary Bronson,” she exclaimed, and he grinned, bracing his forearms on either side of her head. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
1165:If we now consider what it means to perform a quantum computation in such a situation, we apparently come to the conclusion that non-computable operations can be performed! This arises from the fact that in the space-time geometries with closed timelike lines, a Turing-machine operation can feed on to its own output, running around indefinitely, if necessary, so that the answer to the question 'does that computation ever stop' has an actual influence on the final result of the quantum computation. Deutsch comes to the conclusion that in his quantum gravity scheme, quantum oracle machines are possible. As far as I can make out, his arguments would apply just as well to higher-order oracle machines also.
Of course, many readers may feel that all this should be taken with an appropriate amount of salt. Indeed, there is no real suggestion that the scheme provides us with a consistent (or even plausible) theory of quantum gravity. Nonetheless, the ideas are logical within their own framework and are suggestively interesting-and it seems quite reasonable to me that when the appropriate scheme for quantum gravity is eventually found, then some important vestiges of Deutsch's proposal will indeed survive. ~ Roger Penrose,#NFDB
1166:There is nothing called 'Islamic State' in religion because no State has ever been mandated over mankind by God - taking into consideration that the hearts and offices of men are different and they change. The constitution was called after all [God's Law] and not {Israel's Law} or the like. This is why the name 'Mosaic Law' for Torah is nothing but a gentile scholarship effort; it does not even show up in the Torah itself but rather in the 'Book of Joshua' - something that a Jew has no grasp of as a Pharaonic/Roman subject. However, God has allowed man to temporarily build her/his own state while warning her/him of its inevitable destruction and irrelevant context to His divine mandate over Adam's children. Spiritual slaves (to any other entity than God) are bound to materialism (e.g., countries and lands) and as a consequence thereof they try in vain to animate lifeless beings and constructions through unnatural magic (i.e., sorcery) invoking thereby the demons (i.e., satan's tribe) to assist them in creating the necessary illusions; a deception scheme which is needed to be planted in other gentiles' perceptions (as a last -yet false- hope) to illegally perpetuate the legacy of the plotters through time. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
1167:The rare people who do become truly exceptional at something do so not because they Believe they’re exceptional. On the contrary, they become amazing because they’re obsessed with improvement. And that obsession with improvement stems from an unerring belief that they are, in fact, not that great at all. It’s anti-entitlement. People who become great at something become great because they understand that they’re not already great—they are mediocre, they are average—and that they could be so much better.
All of this “every person can be extraordinary and achieve greatness” stuff is basically just jerking off your ego. It’s a message that tastes good going down, but in reality is nothing more than empty calories that make you emotionally fat and bloated, the proverbial Big Mac for your heart and your brain.
The ticket to emotional health, like that to physical health, comes from eating your veggies—that is, accepting the bland and mundane truths of life: truths such as “Your actions actually don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things” and “The vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy, and that’s okay.” This vegetable course will taste bad at first. Very bad. You will avoid accepting it. ~ Mark Manson,#NFDB
1168:Men And Dreamers
IT'S one o' my idees that men ain't all of fightin' stock,
They ain't all built fer ploughin' or fer hewin' out a rock;
An' they ain't all made fer battlin' up against life's steady stream,
There must be some of us on earth God put here jes' to dream;
Leastwise it strikes me that way — if it wasn't so, I guess,
Instead o' dreamin' here I 'd be out hustlin' fer success.
There's men that's fond o' money and there's men in love with fame,
An' there's others seekin' glory an' a great an' honored name;
There's men that's built fer fightin', men who love to plan an' scheme,
Men that's born with love o' conquest, an' there's men that love to dream;
Men who 'd rather spend a life time where the roses bloom and nod
Than win prizes on the highways where the fightin' brothers plod.
Folks may call me shiftless, maybe, an' may sneer when they go by
In their autos big an' splendid, while I'm gazin' at the sky,
An' perhaps they think I envy 'em the luxuries they know.
But I don't. My soul don't need 'em, an' I 'd gladly tell 'em so.
Fer I 'm happier with the roses, an' the hollyhocks an' trees
Than I would be makin' money — that is why I take my ease.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
1169:She suffers a week of food brought in by a silent guard in a rent-a-cop uniform. She knows she’s no longer in the hands of the Juvenile Authority, but who her new captors are is a mystery. These new jailers ask no questions, and that concerns her the same way that Connor is always concerned by the fact that the Graveyard has never been taken out. Are they so unimportant in the grand scheme of things that the Juvenile Authority won’t even torture her to get the information they want? Have they been deluding themselves into thinking they’re making a difference?
All this time she’s forced out thoughts of Connor, because it simply hurt too much to think about him. How horrified he must have been when she turned herself in. Horrified and stunned. Well, fine, let him be; he’ll get over it. She did it for him just as much as she did it for the injured boy, because as painful as it is to admit, Risa knows she had become just a distraction to Connor. If he’s truly going to lead those kids in the Graveyard like the Admiral did, he can’t be giving Risa leg massages and worrying whether her emotional needs are being met. Maybe he does love her, but it’s obvious there’s no room in his life at this moment to pay it any more than lip service. ~ Neal Shusterman,#NFDB
1170:He then transferred the potency of those dusty green eyes on Jessica, took her hand, and made a low bow over it. At least he hadn’t kissed it, Richard noted. Kendrick had spared himself being run through. “Jessica,” Kendrick purred. “A lovely name for an even more beautiful woman.” Jessica laughed as she pulled her hand away. “That’s pretty good. Would it be rude to label you a womanizer right now?” Richard almost gasped at her cheek but Kendrick laughed. “Astute and beautiful. Tell me, Lady Jessica. Whence do you hail?” “’Tis on no map you’ll ever see,” Richard interrupted with a grumble. Jessica smiled serenely. “It is rather far away.” “Then it will obviously require a great deal of time to explain where it is,” Kendrick said delightedly, as if he’d just come up with a brilliant scheme. “Richard, fetch some weak wine and join us in your solar. I’m sure being out in this sun cannot be good for this sweet maid.” Richard took Jessica’s hand and pulled her away. “This sweet maid, as you call her, has work to do. Go finish my floor, Jessica. I’m sure Kendrick will survive without your attentions for the next little while.” “How possessive you are, my lord,” Kendrick said, his eyes twinkling. “This is a new side of you, Richard. It’s charming, truly. ~ Lynn Kurland, #NFDB
1171:He Earned His Way
rose unto the bights of fame
And with the great men stood,
He heard the people cheer his name
And speak of him as good.
Success at last he had attained
By toiling day by day;
His father's name was unprofaned,
His crest of honor was unstained,
He earned his way.
He had not sought the easy road
Nor tried a doubtful scheme,
But he had borne his heavy load
Up hill and over stream.
He had not stooped to do a wrong
That might not be unlearned;
But though the way at times seemed long
He plodded on with courage strong
And every victory earned.
He heard men whisper in the night,
That venturing disgrace,
And stepping from the path of right
But hiding every trace,
Were all he had to do to win,
That honor could be feigned,
But still he kept a lifted chin,
Filled with the holy thought within,
To earn whate'er he gained.
He rose unto the hights of fame,
And with the great men stood;
He never compromised with shame,
Nor bartered what was good.
With head erect he toiled along,
With clean hands for the fray,
He heard the gossip of the throng
That many profited by wrong,
But earned his way.
318
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
1172:The Jaffa And Jerusalem Railway
A tortuous double iron track; a station here, a station there;
A locomotive, tender, tanks; a coach with stiff reclining chair;
Some postal cars, and baggage, too; a vestibule of patent make;
With buffers, duffers, switches, and the soughing automatic brake-This is the Orient's novel pride, and Syria's gaudiest modern gem:
The railway scheme that is to ply 'twixt Jaffa and Jerusalem.
Beware, O sacred Mooley cow, the engine when you hear its bell;
Beware, O camel, when resounds the whistle's shrill, unholy swell;
And, native of that guileless land, unused to modern travel's snare,
Beware the fiend that peddles books--the awful peanut-boy beware.
Else, trusting in their specious arts, you may have reason to condemn
The traffic which the knavish ply 'twixt Jaffa and Jerusalem.
And when, ah, when the bonds fall due, how passing wroth will wax the
state
From Nebo's mount to Nazareth will spread the cry "Repudiate"!
From Hebron to Tiberius, from Jordan's banks unto the sea,
Will rise profuse anathemas against "that ---- monopoly!"
And F.M.B.A. shepherd-folk, with Sockless Jerry leading them,
Will swamp that corporation line 'twixt Jaffa and Jerusalem.
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
1173:Therefore, in reality what the English word 'Consciousness' refers to is a subcategory of quantitative (rather than what modern dictionaries claim it to be: qualitative) awareness. And if the English language were technically viable (as German claims to be, despite the fact that it is only so in a relative context), we would have witnessed -after removing the 'con'- the existence of a derivative of the word 'scire' to signal the verb 'to know' in modern dictionaries; but that is not the case. The conclusion that we now can draw, is that the English language intentionally inherited the word 'conscire' to signal to its speakers the real existence of the 'mutual knowing' paradigm in the universe, but it has left its own nation prone to ceaseless interpretation schemes rather than being established in linguistical rigidity on this specific topic. This explains the presence of the word/expression of 'self-consciousness' in the dictionary; it is certainly an oxymoron which has been relatively overcome by intending it to refer to a converging scheme of awareness. However it becomes incoherent with the word 'self-conscious' despite the fact that all what we took away was the suffix which is supposed to only signal a state or a condition rather than a vectorial form. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
1174:The real difference is this: the Christian says that he has knowledge; the Agnostic admits that he has none; and yet the Christian accuses the Agnostic of arrogance, and asks him how he has the impudence to admit the limitations of his mind. To the Agnostic every fact is a torch, and by this light, and this light only, he walks.
The Agnostic knows that the testimony of man is not sufficient to establish what is known as the miraculous. We would not believe to-day the testimony of millions to the effect that the dead had been raised. The church itself would be the first to attack such testimony. If we cannot believe those whom we know, why should we believe witnesses who have been dead thousands of years, and about whom we know nothing?
The Agnostic takes the ground that human experience is the basis of morality. Consequently, it is of no importance who wrote the gospels, or who vouched or vouches for the genuineness of the miracles. In his scheme of life these things are utterly unimportant. He is satisfied that “the miraculous” is the impossible. He knows that the witnesses were wholly incapable of examining the questions involved, that credulity had possession of their minds, that 'the miraculous' was expected, that it was their daily food. ~ Robert G Ingersoll,#NFDB
1175:But Linnaeus took one bold step which changed humankind’s view of our place in nature for ever. He was the first person to include ‘man’ (as they referred to humankind in those days) in a system of biological classification. Just how man fitted in to the biological scheme of things took him some time to decide, and the whole idea of classifying man in the same way as the animals was, of course, controversial in the eighteenth century. ========== Science: a History (John Gribbin) - Your Highlight on page 236 | location 3612-3618 | Added on Thursday, 5 June 2014 18:13:24 He also agonized about whether there ought to be a separate genus for Homo at all. In the foreword to his Fauna Svecica, published in 1746, he said ‘the fact is that as a natural historian I have yet to find any characteristics which enable man to be distinguished on scientific principles from an ape’, and in response to criticism of this position he wrote to a colleague, Johann Gmelin, in 1747: I ask you and the whole world for a generic differentia between man and ape which conforms to the principles of natural history. I certainly know of none… If I were to call man ape or vice versa, I should bring down all the theologians on my head. But perhaps I should still do it according to the rules of science.1 ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1176:1013
The World Is Against Me
'The world is against me,' he said with a sigh.
'Somebody stops every scheme that I try.
The world has me down and it's keeping me there;
I don't get a chance. Oh, the world is unfair!
When a fellow is poor then he can't get a show;
The world is determined to keep him down low.'
'What of Abe Lincoln?' I asked. 'Would you say
That he was much richer than you are to-day?
He hadn't your chance of making his mark,
And his outlook was often exceedingly dark;
Yet he clung to his purpose with courage most grim
And he got to the top. Was the world against him?'
'What of Ben Franklin? I've oft heard it said
That many a time he went hungry to bed.
He started with nothing but courage to climb,
But patiently struggled and waited his time.
He dangled awhile from real poverty's limb,
Yet he got to the top. Was the world against him?
'I could name you a dozen, yes, hundreds, I guess,
Of poor boys who've patiently climbed to success;
All boys who were down and who struggled alone,
Who'd have thought themselves rich if your fortune they'd known;
Yet they rose in the world you're so quick to condemn,
And I'm asking you now, was the world against them?'
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
1177:How unwise had the wanderers been, who had deserted its shelter, entangled themselves in the web of society, and entered on what men of the world call "life,"—that labyrinth of evil, that scheme of mutual torture. To live, according to this sense of the word, we must not only observe and learn, we must also feel; we must not be mere spectators of action, we must act; we must not describe, but be subjects of description. Deep sorrow must have been the inmate of our bosoms; fraud must have lain in wait for us; the artful must have deceived us; sickening doubt and false hope must have chequered our days; hilarity and joy, that lap the soul in ecstasy, must at times have possessed us. Who that knows what "life" is, would pine for this feverish species of existence? I have lived. I have spent days and nights of festivity; I have joined in ambitious hopes, and exulted in victory: now,—shut the door on the world, and build high the wall that is to separate me from the troubled scene enacted within its precincts. Let us live for each other and for happiness; let us seek peace in our dear home, near the inland murmur of streams, and the gracious waving of trees, the beauteous vesture of earth, and sublime pageantry of the skies. Let us leave "life," that we may live. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, #NFDB
1178:Two Sonnets
Just as I wonder at the twofold screen
Of twisted innocence that you would plait
For eyes that uncourageously await
The coming of a kingdom that has been,
So do I wonder what God’s love can mean
To you that all so strangely estimate
The purpose and the consequent estate
Of one short shuddering step to the Unseen.
No, I have not your backward faith to shrink
Lone-faring from the doorway of God’s home
To find Him in the names of buried men;
Nor your ingenious recreance to think
We cherish, in the life that is to come,
The scattered features of dead friends again.
IL
Never until our souls are strong enough
To plunge into the crater of the Scheme—
Triumphant in the flash there to redeem
Love’s handsel and forevermore to slough,
Like cerements at a played-out masque, the rough
And reptile skins of us whereon we set
The stigma of scared years—are we to get
Where atoms and the ages are one stuff.
Nor ever shall we know the cursed waste
Of life in the beneficence divine
Of starlight and of sunlight and soul-shine
That we have squandered in sin’s frail distress,
Till we have drunk, and trembled at the taste,
The mead of Thought’s prophetic endlessness.
~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,#NFDB
1179:Volume II, Chapter 4
"How unwise had the wanderers been, who had deserted its shelter, entangled themselves in the web of society, and entered on what men of the world call "life,"—that labyrinth of evil, that scheme of mutual torture. To live, according to this sense of the word, we must not only observe and learn, we must also feel; we must not be mere spectators of action, we must act; we must not describe, but be subjects of description. Deep sorrow must have been the inmate of our bosoms; fraud must have lain in wait for us; the artful must have deceived us; sickening doubt and false hope must have chequered our days; hilarity and joy, that lap the soul in ecstasy, must at times have possessed us. Who that knows what "life" is, would pine for this feverish species of existence? I have lived. I have spent days and nights of festivity; I have joined in ambitious hopes, and exulted in victory: now,—shut the door on the world, and build high the wall that is to separate me from the troubled scene enacted within its precincts. Let us live for each other and for happiness; let us seek peace in our dear home, near the inland murmur of streams, and the gracious waving of trees, the beauteous vesture of earth, and sublime pageantry of the skies. Let us leave "life," that we may live. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley,#NFDB
1180:But if there is one thing we’ve learned from a lifetime of designing and analyzing incentives, the best way to get what you want is to treat other people with decency. Decency can push almost any interaction into the cooperative frame. It is most powerful when least expected, like when things have gone wrong. Some of the most loyal customers any company has are the ones who had a big problem but got treated incredibly well as it was being resolved. So while designing the right incentive scheme certainly isn’t easy, here’s a simple set of rules that usually point us in the right direction: 1. Figure out what people really care about, not what they say they care about. 2. Incentivize them on the dimensions that are valuable to them but cheap for you to provide. 3. Pay attention to how people respond; if their response surprises or frustrates you, learn from it and try something different. 4. Whenever possible, create incentives that switch the frame from adversarial to cooperative. 5. Never, ever think that people will do something just because it is the “right” thing to do. 6. Know that some people will do everything they can to game the system, finding ways to win that you never could have imagined. If only to keep yourself sane, try to applaud their ingenuity rather than curse their greed. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
1181:Suddenly he spotted Gran deep in conversation with Kitty’s closest friend, and relief coursed through him. Gran would squelch the tale at once. And once she tried to quash the gossip, he would win-because he could then threaten to send notice to the papers of his betrothal if she didn’t back down. She’d have no choice but to give up on her scheme.
Except…she wasn’t acting as if she meant to squelch it. She was talking to the other woman with great animation. And when she met his gaze from across the room, beaming from ear to ear, he realized in a flash that he’d misunderstood everything. Everything.
She hadn’t been bluffing him. All the rot about trying to buy Maria off, the disapproving looks and snide remarks…all along, Gran had been goading him toward what she wanted. God preserve him.
With a sickening sense of inevitability, he saw her go to the duchess’s side and whisper a few words, then saw the duchess rise and tap her glass to indicate she had an announcement to make. With a triumphant smile, Gran announced the engagement of her grandson, the Marquess of Stoneville, to Miss Maria Butterfield of Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
All eyes turned to him, and the whispers began anew.
He couldn’t believe it. How could he have been so blind? He’d lost the battle, maybe even the war. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,#NFDB
1182:I have known fantaisistes in whom phantasy was as it were organic and who died of it. I felt in them a kind of mild madness very dangerous both for themselves and for their friends. Despite the respect which all existence that does not spare itself inspires in us, none the less they fill us with uneasiness. For these fantaisistes are usually mythomaniacs, and sometimes their aim is to hold not our attention but our hearts. If they succeed in this, it means that they are neither frivolous nor given to phantasy, but that they appear so because of their clumsiness in convincing us, from a modesty of spirit which impels them to try to appear exceptional, from a desire to enter into our scheme of things from their remorse at having thought themselves indiscreet. This remorse inveigles them into flights, into total eclipses, into punishments which they inflict upon themselves and of which I could quote appalling instances. The world in which they live makes contact with them very difficult for us, since the least word, the least gesture on our part (and which we thought of no significance) sets in motion in them incredible deviations which may lead them even to suicide. One must therefore shun them from the beginning, however much they may beguile us in a world where fire is rare and never fails to attract us. ~ Jean Cocteau, #NFDB
1183:Miss Marks.” She turned to the familiar masculine voice. Leo was there, breathtaking in the formal evening scheme of black and white, his blue eyes sparkling wickedly. “Would you do me the honor?” he asked, gesturing to the whirl of waltzing couples. He was asking her to dance. As he had once promised. Catherine blanched as she became aware of the multitude of gazes on them. It was one thing for the host of the evening to confer briefly with his sister’s companion. It was something else entirely for him to dance with her. He knew it, and he didn’t give a damn. “Go away,” she said in a sharp whisper, her heart beating wildly. A faint smile touched his lips. “I can’t. Everyone’s watching. Are you going to give me a public setdown?” She could not embarrass him that way. It was a violation of etiquette to refuse a man’s invitation to dance if it could have been construed that she didn’t wish to dance with him personally. And yet to be the focus of attention … to set tongues wagging … it was contrary to every instinct for self-preservation. “Oh, why are you doing this?” she whispered again, desperate and furious … and yet somewhere in the midst of her inner tumult, there was a tingle of delight. “Because I want to,” he said, his smile widening. “And so do you.” He was unforgivably arrogant. He also happened to be right. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
1184:Nevertheless, it strikes me more and more that America’s reputation for materialism is unfounded—that is, if a materialist is a person who thoroughly enjoys the physical world and loves material things. In this sense, we are superb materialists when it comes to the construction of jet aircraft, but when we decorate the inside of these magnificent monsters for the comfort of passengers it is nothing but frippery. High-heeled, narrow-hipped, doll-type girls serving imitation, warmed-over meals. For our pleasures are not material pleasures but symbols of pleasure—attractively packaged but inferior in content. The explanation is simple: most of our products are being made by people who do not enjoy making them, whether as owners or workers. Their aim in the enterprise is not the product but money, and therefore every trick is used to cut the cost of production and hoodwink the buyer, by coloring and packaging chicanery, into the belief that the product is well and truly made. The only exceptions are those products which simply must be excellent for reasons of safety or high cost of purchase—aircraft, computers, space-rockets, scientific instruments, and so forth. But the whole scheme is a vicious circle, for when you have made the money what will you buy with it? Other pretentious fakes made by other money-mad manufacturers. The ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1185:As is so often the way, what we have suppressed and overlooked is
something startlingly obvious. The difficulty is that it is so obvious and
basic that one can hardly find the words for it. The Germans call it a
Hintergedanke, an apprehension lying tacitly in the back of our minds
which we cannot easily admit, even to ourselves. The sensation of "I" as
a lonely and isolated center of being is so powerful and
commonsensical, and so fundamental to our modes of speech and
thought, to our laws and social institutions, that we cannot experience
selfhood except as something superficial in the scheme of the universe. I
seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time—a
rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of
biological evolution, where the wave of life bursts into individual,
sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment only to
vanish forever. Under such conditioning it seems impossible and even
absurd to realize that myself does not reside in the drop alone, but in the
whole surge of energy which ranges from the galaxies to the nuclear
fields in my body. At this level of existence "I" am immeasurably old;
my forms are infinite and their comings and goings are simply the
pulses or vibrations of a single and eternal flow of energy. ~ Alan W Watts,#NFDB
1186:He put a fresh sheet in and, after spending a few moments wishing he were doing something quite different, typed:
Gregory: But this is really qutie farcical.
Like all the other lines of dialogue he had so far evolved, it struck him as not only in need of instant replacement, but as requiring a longish paragraph of negative stage direction in the faint hope of getting it said ordinarily, and not ordinarily in inverted commas, either. Experimentally, he typed:
(Say this without raising your chin or opening your eyes wide or tilting your face or putting on that look of vague affront you use when you think you are "underlining the emergence of a new balance of forces in the scheme of the action" like the producer told you or letting your mind focus more than you can help on sentences like "Mr. Recktham managed to breathe some life into the wooden and conventional part of Gregory" or putting any more expression into it than as if you were reading aloud something you thought was pretty boring (and not as if you were doing an imitation of someone on a stage reading aloud something he thought was pretty boring, either) or hesitating before or after "quite" or saying "fusskle" instead of "farcical".)
Breathing heavily, Bowen now x-ed out his original line of dialogue and typed:
Gregory: You're just pulling my leg. ~ Kingsley Amis,#NFDB
1187:Let schools specialize, as private schools would, and common interest would overcome bias of color and lead to more integration than now occurs. The integration would be real, not merely on paper. The voucher scheme would eliminate the forced busing that a large majority of both blacks and whites object to. Busing would occur, and might indeed increase, but it would be voluntary—just as the busing of children to music and dance classes is today. The failure of black leaders to espouse vouchers has long puzzled us. Their constituents would benefit most. It would give them control over the schooling of their children, eliminate domination by both the city-wide politicians and, even more important, the entrenched educational bureaucracy. Black leaders frequently send their own children to private schools. Why do they not help others to do the same? Our tentative answer is that vouchers would also free the black man from domination by his own political leaders, who currently see control over schooling as a source of political patronage and power. However, as the educational opportunities open to the mass of black children have continued to deteriorate, an increasing number of black educators, columnists, and other community leaders have started to support vouchers. The Congress of Racial Equality has made the support of vouchers a major plank in its agenda. ~ Milton Friedman, #NFDB
1188:The first condition, then, of what is called a selfish love among men is lacking with God. He has no natural necessities, no passion, to compete with His wish for the beloved's welfare; or if there is in Him something which we have to imagine after the analogy of a passion, a want it is there by His own will and for our sakes. And the second condition is lacking too. The real interests of a child may differ from that which his father's affection instinctively demands, because the child is a separate being from the father with a nature which has its own needs and does not exist solely for the father nor find its whole perfection in being loved by him and which the father does not fully understand. But creatures are not thus separate from their Creator, nor can He misunderstand them. The place for which He designs them in His scheme of things is the place they are made for. When they reach it their nature is fulfilled and their happiness attained: a broken bone in the universe has been set, the anguish is over. When we want to be something other than the thing God wants us to be, we must be wanting what, in fact, will not make us happy. Those Divine demands which sound to our natural ears most like those of a despot and least like those of a lover, in fact marshal us where we should want to go, if we knew what we wanted. He demands our worship, our obedience, our prostration. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1189:It was, as Berlin remembered it: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” 2 The passage survives only as a fragment, so its context has long been lost. But the Renaissance scholar Erasmus played around with it, 3 and Berlin couldn’t help doing the same. Might it become a scheme for classifying great writers? If so, Plato, Dante, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, and Proust would all have been hedgehogs. Aristotle, Shakespeare, Goethe, Pushkin, and Joyce were obviously foxes. So was Berlin, who distrusted most big things—like logical positivism—but felt fully at ease with smaller ones. 4 Diverted by World War II, Berlin didn’t return to his quadrupeds until 1951, when he used them to frame an essay he was preparing on Tolstoy’s philosophy of history. It appeared two years later as a short book, The Hedgehog and the Fox. Hedgehogs, Berlin explained, “relate everything to a single central vision” through which “all that they say and do has significance.” Foxes, in contrast, “pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way.” The distinction was simple but not frivolous: it offered “a point of view from which to look and compare, a starting point for genuine investigation.” It might even reflect “one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general. ~ John Lewis Gaddis, #NFDB
1190:We have come to understand the phenomena of life only as an assemblage of the lifeless. We take the mechanistic abstractions of our technical calculation to be ultimately concrete and "fundamentally real," while our most intimate experiences are labelled "mere appearance" and something having reality only within the closet of the isolated mind.
Suppose however we were to invert this whole scheme, reverse the order in which it assigns abstract and concrete. What is central to our experience, then, need not be peripheral to nature. This sunset now, for example, caught within the network of bare winter branches, seems like a moment of benediction in which the whole of nature collaborates. Why should not these colours and these charging banners of light be as much a part of the universe as the atoms and molecules that make them up? If they were only "in my mind," then I and my mind would no longer be a part of nature. Why should the pulse of life toward beauty and value not be a part of things?
Following this path, we do not vainly seek to assemble the living out of configurations of dead stuff, but we descend downwards from more complex to simpler grades of the organic. From humans to trees to rocks; from "higher grade" to "lower grade" organisms. In the universe of energy, any individual thing is a pattern of activity within the flux, and thereby an organism at some level. ~ William Barrett,#NFDB
1191:I'll never come to you willingly."
When he caught her hand, the jolt of heat threatened to blast his control to ashes. He drew her down beside him on the window seat. "I'd like the chance to convince you otherwise, bella."
When had her willingness become so important? Sometime since he'd kissed her and caught a hint of how sweet she'd be in his arms when she finally gave herself up.
She tried and failed to pull away. "Only a swaggering coxcomb would hope to change my mind in a mere week. I won't change my mind in a hundred years."
He fought another smile. Did she feel the vivid energy flickering between them? He couldn't believe he burned alone, for all she denied him with words. "You make the challenge so delicious."
"I'm not... flirting with you, Mr. Merrick. I'm pointing out you waste your time with this absurd scheme."
"In which case, you'll return to your sister none the worse," he said calmly, efficiently stripping her glove away. He ached to touch her skin.
The cynicism in her expression made her look older than her twenty-four years. "You don't for one moment expect to lose, do you?"
He raised her hand to his lips and pressed a fervent kiss to her soft palm. Her scent filled his head, intoxicating him like the finest wine. "I rely upon my fatal charm."
She tugged at her hand. Her cheeks were pink with outrage and what unfounded optimism read as grudging pleasure. ~ Anna Campbell,#NFDB
1192:Past the old brick walls and lovely close-clipped hedges separating the different parts of the Italian gardens, the young people strolled to the rose arbors, scenes of a thousand thousand blossoms in the earlier part of the year. Retracing their steps back past the geranium beds, they walked on over the lush green grass to a sundial. Simultaneously and haltingly, as they made out the hewn words, they began to read aloud the quaint inscription cut from the gray stone:
"Hours Fly, Flowers Die...
New Days, New Ways, Love Stays."
The spoken words, deep with meaning, seemed to ring reverberatingly for a moment over the old timepiece which had seen so many hours fly, and so many flowers die.
Still facing the old sundial together, Allen slipped an arm about Laura and drew her close. "Stay Laura," he said suddenly. "Don't go. Stay and make a home with me . . . as they did. After all,--it's best."
For a brief moment Laura rested her check against Allen's arm, felt the touch of something big and beyond her. In that fraction of a minute she had the sensation of being swept on to some new existence, in which she was greater than herself, larger than humanity. The feeling of a great contentment came upon her. In that brief space of time she seemed to have slipped into her place in the scheme of things. It was as though she were the center of all existence, the reason for a Great Plan. ~ Bess Streeter Aldrich,#NFDB
1193:His baseline attitude toward humans was that they could all just go fuck themselves and that he was not going to expend any effort whatsoever getting them to change the way they thought. This was probably rooted in the belief that had been inculcated to him from the get-go: that there was an objective reality, which all people worth talking to could observe and understand, and there was no point in arguing about anything that would be so observed and so understood. As long as you made a point of hanging out exclusively with people who had the wit to see and understand that objective reality, you didn't have to waste a lot of time talking. When a thunderstorm was headed your way across the prairie, you took the washing down from the line and closed the windows. It wasn't necessary to have a meeting about it. The sales force didn't need to get involved...
...It was time, in other words, to call out the sales force, take Jones to lunch, begin gardening personal contacts, shape his perception of the competitive landscape. Forge a partnership. Exactly the kind of work from which Richard had always found some way to excuse himself, even when large amounts of money were at stake. Yet now his life was at stake, and no one was around to help him, and he still wasn't doing it. He simply couldn't get past his conviction that Jones could go fuck himself and that he wasn't going to angle and scheme and maneuver for Jones' sake. ~ Neal Stephenson,#NFDB
1194:Zachary had never accepted defeat before. He'd tolerated it in small doses, perhaps, always knowing that in the larger scheme of things, he would have what he wanted. But he'd never been truly vanquished, never known a real loss. Until this, the biggest loss of all. It made him feel vicious and a bit crazed. He wanted to kill someone. He wanted to weep. Most of all he wanted to laugh at himself for being a big sodding fool. In the nonsensical stories that Holly read aloud some evenings about Greeks and their amorous, carelessly cruel gods, mortals were always punished for reaching too high. Hubris, Holly had once explained. Too much prideful ambition. Zachary knew he had been guilty of hubris, and now he was paying the price. He should never have let himself want a woman who was clearly not meant for him. What tormented him the most was the suspicion that he might actually still be able to obtain her, if he bullied and tormented and bribed her into it. But he wouldn't do that to her, or to himself. He wanted her to love him as willingly and joyously as she had loved George. The very idea would have made most people laugh. It even amused him. What must Holly think when she compared him to her saintly husband? Zachary was a scoundrel, an opportunist, a rough-mannered scavenger—the definitive opposite of a gentleman. Clearly Ravenhill was the right choice, the only choice, if she wanted a life similar to the one she'd had with George. ~ Lisa Kleypas, #NFDB
1195:When a general examination of the rhyme scheme in the Qur'an is
made, we see that around 80% of the rhymes consist of just three
sounds (n, m, a) consisting of the letters Alif, Mim, Ya and Nun258.
Excluding the letter "Nun," 30% of the verses are rhymed with "Mim,"
"Alif" or "Ya."
The formation of rhymed prose with just two or three sounds in a
poem of 200-300 lines may give that work an important quality, sufficient
for it to be described as a masterpiece by literary critics today.
However, bearing in mind the length of the Qur'an, the information it
contains and its wise exposition, the extraordinary manner in which its
rhymed prose system is used becomes even clearer and more beautiful.
The Qur'an indeed contains an ocean of information relating to a wide
variety of subjects. They include: religious and moral guidance, lessons
from the lives of the peoples of the past, the message of the prophets
and messengers of Allah, the physical sciences and historical accounts
of important events. But all of this, although wonderful in itself, is
delivered with the most fantastic literary rhythm and excellence. It is
simply not possible for so much rhymed prose by use of so few sounds
in the Qur'an, with its varied and knowledgeable subject matter, to be
achieved by human endeavour. From that point of view, it is not surprising
that Arab linguists describe the Qur'an as "very definitely inimitable. ~ Harun Yahya,#NFDB
1196:Charles And Peter
Ere Gabriel's note to silence died
All graves of men were gaping wide.
Then Charles A. Dana, of 'The Sun,'
Rose slowly from the deepest one.
'The dead in Christ rise first, 't is writ,'
Quoth he-'ick, bick, ban, doe,-I'm It!'
(His headstone, footstone, counted slow,
Were 'ick' and 'bick,' he 'ban' and 'doe':
Of beating Nick the subtle art
Was part of his immortal part.)
Then straight to Heaven he took his flight,
Arriving at the Gates of Light.
There Warden Peter, in the throes
Of sleep, lay roaring in the nose.
'Get up, you sluggard!' Dana cried
'I've an engagement there inside.'
The Saint arose and scratched his head.
'I recollect your face,' he said.
'(And, pardon me, 't is rather hard),
But--' Dana handed him a card.
'Ah, yes, I now remember-bless
My soul, how dull I am I-yes, yes,
'We've nothing better here than bliss.
Walk in. But I must tell you this:
'We've rest and comfort, though, and peace.'
'H'm-puddles,' Dana said, 'for geese.
217
'Have you in Heaven no Hell?' 'Why, no,'
Said Peter, 'nor, in truth, below.
''T is not included in our scheme'T is but a preacher's idle dream.'
The great man slowly moved away.
'I'll call,' he said, 'another day.
'On earth I played it, o'er and o'er,
And Heaven without it were a bore.'
'O, stuff!-come in. You'll make,' said Pete,
'A hell where'er you set your feet.'
1885.
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
1197:Not very long after this a very exciting thing happened. Not only Sara, but the entire school, found it exciting, and made it the chief subject of conversation for weeks after it occurred. In one of his letters Captain Crewe told a most interesting story. A friend who had been at school with him when he was a boy had unexpectedly come to see him in India. He was the owner of a large tract of land upon which diamonds had been found, and he was engaged in developing the mines. If all went as was confidently expected, he would become possessed of such wealth as it made one dizzy to think of; and because he was fond of the friend of his school days, he had given him an opportunity to share in this enormous fortune by becoming a partner in his scheme. This, at least, was what Sara gathered from his letters. It is true that any other business scheme, however magnificent, would have had but small attraction for her or for the schoolroom; but "diamond mines" sounded so like the Arabian Nights that no one could be indifferent. Sara thought them enchanting, and painted pictures, for Ermengarde and Lottie, of labyrinthine passages in the bowels of the earth, where sparkling stones studded the walls and roofs and ceilings, and strange, dark men dug them out with heavy picks. Ermengarde delighted in the story, and Lottie insisted on its being retold to her every evening. Lavinia was very spiteful about it, and told Jessie that she didn't believe such things as diamond mines existed. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, #NFDB
1198:committed a small oversight, and yet one that almost destroyed their venture. They had assumed that they would deliver the kerosene in bulk to various localities, and that the eager customers would line up with their own receptacles to be filled. The customers were expected to use old Standard Oil tin cans. But they did not. Throughout the Far East, Standard’s blue oil tins had become a prized mainstay of the local economies, used to construct everything from roofing to birdcages to opium cups, hibachis, tea strainers, and egg beaters. They were not about to give up such a valuable product. The whole scheme was now threatened—not by the machinations of 26 Broadway or by the politics of the Suez Canal, but by the habits and predilections of the peoples of Asia. A local crisis was created in each port, as the kerosene went unsold, and despairing telegrams began to flow into Houndsditch. In the quickness and ingenuity of his response to the crisis, Marcus proved his entrepreneurial genius. He sent out a chartered ship, filled with tinplate, to the Far East, and simply instructed his partners in Asia to begin manufacturing tin receptacles for the kerosene. No matter that no one knew how to do so; no matter that no one had the facilities. Marcus persuaded them they could do it. “How do you stick on the wire handles?” the agent in Singapore wrote to Samuel’s representative in Japan. Instructions were sent. “What color do you suggest?” cabled the agent in Shanghai. Mark gave the answer—“Red! ~ Daniel Yergin, #NFDB
1199:The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be ‘undemocratic’. These differences between the pupils—for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences—must be disguised. This can be done on various levels. At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. Entrance examinations must be framed so that all, or nearly all, citizens can go to universities, whether they have any power (or wish) to profit by higher education or not. At schools, the children who are too stupid or lazy to learn languages and mathematics and elementary science can be set to doing the things that children used to do in their spare time. Let them, for example, make mud-pies and call it modelling. But all the time there must be no faintest hint that they are inferior to the children who are at work. Whatever nonsense they are engaged in must have—I believe the English already use the phrase—‘parity of esteem’. An even more drastic scheme is not impossible. Children who are fit to proceed to a higher class may be artificially kept back, because the others would get a trauma—Beelzebub, what a useful word!—by being left behind. The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age-group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coaeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON THE MAT. ~ C S Lewis, #NFDB
1200:So, this being the content of your happy hour, you decide to break your iron-clad rule, that rule of rules, and have eleven drinks instead of the modest nine with which you had been wont to stave off the song of twilight, when the lights are low, and the flickering shadows, etc., etc. But, opening the refrigerator, you discover that the slovely bitch has failed to fill up the ice trays so there is no more ice for your tenth and eleventh sloshes. On discovering this you are just about ready to throw in the entire enterprise, happy home, and go to the bordel for the evening, where at least you can be sure that everyone will be kind to you, and not ask you for a horse, and the floor will not be a muck of sauce diable and pork chops. But when you put your hand in your pocket you discover that there are only three dollars there - not enough to cover a sortie to the bordel, where Master Charge is not accepted, so that the entire scheme, going to the bordel, is blasted. Upon making these determinations, which are not such as to bring the hot flush of excitement to the old cheek, you measure out your iceless over-the-limit drinks, using a little cold water as a make-do, and return to what is called the "living" room, and prepare to live, for a little while longer in a truce with your circumstances - aware that there are wretches worse off than you, people whose trepanations have not been successful, girls who have not been invited to the sexual revolution, priests still frocked. It is seven-thirty. ~ Donald Barthelme, #NFDB
1201:February led to excited calls for war in the press, the monthly journal of the International Association of Machinists agreed it was a terrible disaster, but it noted that the deaths of workers in industrial accidents drew no such national clamor. It pointed to the Lattimer Massacre of September 10, 1897, during a coal strike in Pennsylvania. Miners marching on a highway to the Lattimer mine—Austrians, Hungarians, Italians, Germans—who had originally been imported as strikebreakers but then organized themselves, refused to disperse, whereupon the sheriff and his deputies opened fire, killing nineteen of them, most shot in the back, with no outcry in the press. The labor journal said that the . . . carnival of carnage that takes place every day, month and year in the realm of industry, the thousands of useful lives that are annually sacrificed to the Moloch of greed, the blood tribute paid by labor to capitalism, brings forth no shout for vengeance and reparation. . . . Death comes in thousands of instances in mill and mine, claims his victims, and no popular uproar is heard. The official organ of the Connecticut AFL, The Craftsman, also warned about the hysteria worked up by the sinking of the Maine: A gigantic . . . and cunningly-devised scheme is being worked ostensibly to place the United States in the front rank as a naval and military power. The real reason is that the capitalists will have the whole thing and, when any workingmen dare to ask for the living wage . . . they will be shot down like dogs in the streets. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
1202:Yet I have reflected on the fact that for most of use, there is a hard, impassable barrier between the most imaginatively detailed depravity and its real-life execution. It's the same solid steel wall that inserts itself between a kinife and my wrist even when I'm at my most disconsolate. So how was Kevin able to raise that crossbow, point it at Laura's breastbone, and then really, actually, in time and space, squeeze the release? I can only assume that he discovered what I never wish to. That there is no barrier. That like my trips abroad or this ludicrous scheme of bike locks and invitations on school stationaery, the very squeezing of that release can be broken down into a series of simple constituent parts. It may be no more miraculous to pull the trigger of a bow or a gun than it is to reach for a glass of water. I fear that crossing into the "unthinkable" turns out to be no more athletic than stepping across the threshold of an ordinary room; and that, if you will, is the trick. The secret. As ever, the secret is that there is no secret. He must almost have wanted to giggle, though that is not his style; those Columbine kids did giggle. And once you have found out that there is nothing to stop you—that the barrier, so seemingly uncrossable, is all in your head—it must be possible to step back and forth across that threshold again and again, shot after shot, as if an unintimidating pipsqueak has drawn a line across the carpet that you must not pass and you launch tauntingly over it, back and over it, in a mocking little dance. ~ Lionel Shriver, #NFDB
1203:In California, after weeks of meeting transported Americans from practically every state in the Union, I announced to Kareem that I liked these strange loud people, the Americans. When he asked me why, I had difficulty in voicing what I felt in my heart. I finally said: 'I believe this marvellous mixture of cultures has brought civilization closer to reality than in any other culture in history.' I was certain Kareem did not understand what I meant and I tried to explain. 'So few countries manage complete freedom for all their citizens without chaos; this has been accomplished in this huge land. It appears impossible for large numbers of people to stay on a course of freedom for all when so many options are available. Just imagine what would happen in the Arab world; a country the size of America would have a war a minute, with each man certain he had the only correct answer for the good of all! In our lands, men look no farther than their own noses for a solution. Here, it is different.'
Kareem looked at me in amazement. Not used to a woman interested in the greater scheme of things, he questioned me into the night to learn my thoughts on various matters. It was obvious that my husband was not accustomed to a woman with opinions of her own. He seemed in utter shock that I thought of political issues and the state of the world. Finally, he kissed me on the neck and said that I would continue my education once we returned to Riyadh. Irritated at his tone of permission, I told him I was not aware that my education was up for discussion. ~ Jean Sasson,#NFDB
1204:Curiously enough, it seems that at times the spiritual side prevails, and then the materialistic side—in wave-like motions following each other. ...At one time the full flood of materialistic ideas prevails, and everything in this life—prosperity, the education which procures more pleasures, more food—will become glorious at first and then that will degrade and degenerate. Along with the prosperity will rise to white heat all the inborn jealousies and hatreds of the human race. Competition and merciless cruelty will be the watchword of the day. To quote a very commonplace and not very elegant English proverb, "Everyone for himself, and the devil take the hindmost", becomes the motto of the day. Then people think that the whole scheme of life is a failure. And the world would be destroyed had not spirituality come to the rescue and lent a helping hand to the sinking world. Then the world gets new hope and finds a new basis for a new building, and another wave of spirituality comes, which in time again declines. As a rule, spirituality brings a class of men who lay exclusive claim to the special powers of the world. The immediate effect of this is a reaction towards materialism, which opens the door to scores of exclusive claims, until the time comes when not only all the spiritual powers of the race, but all its material powers and privileges are centered in the hands of a very few; and these few, standing on the necks of the masses of the people, want to rule them. Then society has to help itself, and materialism comes to the rescue. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
1205:Lottie left the room, her gown swishing and rustling as she moved. As she descended the grand staircase, she saw Nick waiting in the entrance hall, his body as tense as that of a panther about to strike. His broad-shouldered form was dressed to perfection in the formal scheme of a dark coat, silver waistcoat, and a charcoal silk necktie. With his dark brown hair neatly brushed and his face gleaming from a close shave, he was both virile and elegant. His head turned toward her, and suddenly his narrow-eyed impatience was replaced by an arrested expression.
Lottie felt a rush of elation at the look in his eyes. She deliberately took her time about reaching him. “Do I look like a viscountess?” she asked.
His lips quirked wryly. “No viscountess I’ve ever seen looks like you, Lottie.”
She smiled. “Is that a compliment?”
“Oh, yes. In fact…” Nick took her gloved hand and assisted her down the last step. He held her gaze compulsively, his fingers tightening around hers, and he answered her light question with a gravity that stunned her. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said huskily.
“The world?” she repeated with a laugh.
“When I say you’re beautiful,” he murmured, “I refuse to qualify the statement in any way. Except to add that the only way you could be more so is if you were naked.”
She laughed at his audacity. “I am afraid that you will have to reconcile yourself to the fact that I’m going to remain fully clothed tonight.”
“Until after the ball,” he countered.
-Lottie & Nick ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
1206:In country after country where local moneys were abolished in favor of interest-bearing central currency, people fell into poverty, health declined, and society deteriorated12 by all measures. Even the plague can be traced to the collapse of the marketplace of the late Middle Ages and the shift toward extractive currencies and urban wage labor. The new scheme instead favored bigger players, such as chartered monopolies, which had better access to capital than regular little businesses and more means of paying back the interest. When monarchs and their favored merchants founded the first corporations, the idea that they would be obligated to grow didn’t look like such a problem. They had their nations’ governments and armies on their side—usually as direct investors in their projects. For the Dutch East India Company to grow was as simple as sending a few warships to a new region of the world, taking the land, and enslaving its people. If this sounds a bit like the borrowing advantages enjoyed today by companies like Walmart and Amazon, that’s because it’s essentially the same money system in operation, favoring the same sorts of players. Yet however powerful the favored corporations may appear, they are really just the engines through which the larger money system extracts value from everyone’s economic activity. Even megacorporations are like competing apps on a universally accepted, barely acknowledged smartphone operating system. Their own survival is utterly dependent on their ability to grow capital for their debtors and investors. ~ Douglas Rushkoff, #NFDB
1207:Because you do not happen to be married does not make you essentially different from others. All of us are very much alike in appearance and emotional responses, in our capacity to think, to reason, to be miserable, to be happy, to love and be loved.
You are just as important as any others in the scheme of our Father in Heaven, and under His mercy no blessing to which you otherwise might be entitled will forever be withheld from you. . . .
I do not worry about you young men who have recently returned from the mission field. You know as well as I what you ought to do. It is your responsibility and opportunity, under the natural process of dating and courting, to find a wonderful companion and marry in the house of the Lord. Don’t rush it unduly and don’t delay it unduly. “Marry in haste and repent at leisure” is an old proverb that still has meaning in our time. But do not dally along in a fruitless, frustrating, and frivolous dating game that only raises hopes and brings disappointment and in some cases heartache.
Yours is the initiative in this matter. Act on it in the spirit that ought to prompt every honorable man who holds the priesthood of God. Live worthy of the companionship of a wonderful partner. Put aside any thought of selfish superiority and recognize and follow the teaching of the Church that the husband and wife walk side by side with neither one ahead nor behind.
Happy marriage is based on a foundation of equal yoking. Let virtue garnish your courtship, and absolute fidelity be the crown jewel of your marriage. ~ Gordon B Hinckley,#NFDB
1208:How about transparency and honesty? Bill Clinton lied under oath repeatedly during the Monica investigation, to the point of being disbarred and fined. Subpoenaed legal records of Hillary Clinton turned up (too late) mysteriously in the White House. In the latest email scandal, the mystery was not that Hillary set up a stealthy private communication system to facilitate the Clinton scheme of offering foreign zillionaires the opportunity to give money to the family foundation and huge cash speaking fees for Bill, in exchange for likely favorable U.S. government decisions affecting billions of dollars in international trade and commerce — and perhaps the very security of the United States. We expected even that from Hillary Clinton the moment that she assumed office — in the manner that her husband had once pardoned convicted FALN Puerto Rican terrorists in hopes of winning bloc votes for her New York Senate campaign, in addition to snagging money from convicted felons. That Mrs. Clinton refused to sign disclosure forms and to follow government protocols about donations and correspondence, as she promised she would, was also nothing new. But what was novel was Hillary Clinton’s ability to hold a press conference and lie about every single aspect of her email crimes. Everything she said was untrue: from the nature of smart phones and email accounts, to the email habits of other cabinet officers, to the methods of securing a server, to the mix between public and private communications, to the method of adjudicating her behavior. All were untruths offered without a shred of remorse. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1209:Bohm believes the same is true at our own level of existence. Space is not empty. It is full, a plenum as opposed to a vacuum, and is the ground for the existence of everything, including ourselves. The universe is not separate from this cosmic sea of energy, it is a ripple on its surface, a comparatively small "pattern of excitation" in the midst of an unimaginably vast ocean. "This excitation pattern is relatively autonomous and gives rise to approximately recurrent, stable and separable projections into a three-dimensional explicate order of manifestation, " states Bohm.1 2 In other words, despite its apparent materiality and enormous size, the universe does not exist in and of itself, but is the stepchild of something far vaster and more ineffable. More than that, it is not even a major production of this vaster something, but is only a passing shadow, a mere hiccup in the greater scheme of things. This infinite sea of energy is not all that is enfolded in the implicate order. Because the implicate order is the foundation that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it also contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be; every configuration of matter, energy, life, and consciousness that is possible, from quasars to the brain of Shakespeare, from the double helix, to the forces that control the sizes and shapes of galaxies. And even this is not all it may contain. Bohm concedes that there is no reason to believe the implicate order is the end of things. There may be other undreamed of orders beyond it, infinite stages of further development. ~ Michael Talbot, #NFDB
1210:Hamilton argued that the security of liberty and property were inseparable and that governments should honor their debts because contracts formed the basis of public and private morality: “States, like individuals, who observe their engagements are respected and trusted, while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct.”23 The proper handling of government debt would permit America to borrow at affordable interest rates and would also act as a tonic to the economy. Used as loan collateral, government bonds could function as money—and it was the scarcity of money, Hamilton observed, that had crippled the economy and resulted in severe deflation in the value of land. America was a young country rich in opportunity. It lacked only liquid capital, and government debt could supply that gaping deficiency. The secret of managing government debt was to fund it properly by setting aside revenues at regular intervals to service interest and pay off principal. Hamilton refuted charges that his funding scheme would feed speculation. Quite the contrary: if investors knew for sure that government bonds would be paid off, the prices would not fluctuate wildly, depriving speculators of opportunities to exploit. What mattered was that people trusted the government to make good on repayment: “In nothing are appearances of greater moment than in whatever regards credit. Opinion is the soul of it and this is affected by appearances as well as realities.”24 Hamilton intuited that public relations and confidence building were to be the special burdens of every future treasury secretary. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1211: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,#NFDB
1212:The crowd began to murmur in the indistinguishable syllables of backstage banter. As the ball ascended, so did the volume of the murmurs. Words could be made out. Then phrases. “Lovely golf stroke.” “Super golf shot.” “Beautiful golf shot.” “Truly fine golf stroke.” They always said golf stroke, like someone might mistake it for a swim stroke, or—as Myron was currently contemplating in this blazing heat—a sunstroke. “Mr. Bolitar?” Myron took the periscope away from his eyes. He was tempted to yell “Up periscope,” but feared some at stately, snooty Merion Golf Club would view the act as immature. Especially during the U.S. Open. He looked down at a ruddy-faced man of about seventy. “Your pants,” Myron said. “Pardon me?” “You’re afraid of getting hit by a golf cart, right?” They were orange and yellow in a hue slightly more luminous than a bursting supernova. To be fair, the man’s clothing hardly stood out. Most in the crowd seemed to have woken up wondering what apparel they possessed that would clash with, say, the free world. Orange and green tints found exclusively in several of your tackiest neon signs adorned many. Yellow and some strange shades of purple were also quite big—usually together—like a color scheme rejected by a Midwest high school cheerleading squad. It was as if being surrounded by all this God-given natural beauty made one want to do all in his power to offset it. Or maybe there was something else at work here. Maybe the ugly clothes had a more functional origin. Maybe in the old days, when animals roamed free, golfers dressed this way to ward off dangerous wildlife. Good ~ Harlan Coben, #NFDB
1213:Philosophy, then, is not a doctrine, not some simplistic scheme for orienting oneself in the world, certainly not an instrument or achievement of human Dasein. Rather, it is this Dasein itself insofar as it comes to be, in freedom, from out of its own ground. Whoever, by stint of research, arrives at this self-understanding of philosophy is granted the basic experience of all philosophizing, namely that the more fully and originally research comes into its own, the more surely is it "nothing but" the transformation of the same few simple questions. But those who wish to transform must bear within themselves the power of a fidelity that knows how to preserve. And one cannot feel this power growing within unless one is up in wonder. And no one can be caught up in wonder without travelling to the outermost limits of the possible. But no one will ever become the friend of the possible without remaining open to dialogue with the powers that operate in the whole of human existence. But that is the comportment of the philosopher: to listen attentively to what is already sung forth, which can still be perceived in each essential happening of world. And in such comportment the philosopher enters the core of what is truly at stake in the task he has been given to do. Plato knew of that and spoke of it in his Seventh Letter:
'In no way can it be uttered, as can other things, which one can learn. Rather, from out of a full, co-existential dwelling with the thing itself - as when a spark, leaping from the fire, flares into light - so it happens, suddenly, in the soul, there to grow, alone with itself. ~ Martin Heidegger,#NFDB
1214:Said Red Molly to James that's a fine motorbike
A girl could feel special on any such like
Said James to Red Molly, my hat's off to you
It's a Vincent Black Lightning, 1952
And I've seen you at the corners and cafes it seems
Red hair and black leather, my favourite colour scheme
And he pulled her on behind
And down to Boxhill they did ride
Said James to Red Molly, here's a ring for your right hand
But I'll tell you in earnest I'm a dangerous man
I've fought with the law since I was seventeen
I robbed many a man to get my Vincent machine
Now I'm 21 years, I might make 22
And I don't mind dying, but for the love of you
And if fate should break my stride
Then I'll give you my Vincent to ride
Come down, come down, Red Molly, called Sergeant McRae
For they've taken young James Adie for armed robbery
Shotgun blast hit his chest, left nothing inside
Oh, come down, Red Molly to his dying bedside
When she came to the hospital, there wasn't much left
He was running out of road, he was running out of breath
But he smiled to see her cry
And said I'll give you my Vincent to ride
Says James, in my opinion, there's nothing in this world
Beats a 52 Vincent and a red headed girl
Now Nortons and Indians and Greeveses won't do
They don't have a soul like a Vincent 52
He reached for her hand and he slipped her the keys
He said I've got no further use for these
I see angels on Ariels in leather and chrome
Swooping down from heaven to carry me home
And he gave her one last kiss and died
And he gave her his Vincent to ride ~ Richard L Thompson,#NFDB
1215:Billjim
Down to it is Plugger Bill,
Lyin' crumpled, white 'n' still.
Me 'n' him
Chips in when the scrap begins,
Carin' nothin' for our skins,
Chi-iked as the 'Eavenly TwinsBill 'n' Jim.
They 'ave outed Bill at last,
Slugged me cobber hard 'n' fast.
It's a kill.
See the purple of his lip
'N' the red 'n' oozy drip!
Ends our great ole partnershipJim 'n' Bill
Mates we was when we was kids;
Camp, 'n' ship, 'n' Pyramids,
Him 'n' me
Hung together, 'n' we tore
Up the heights from Helles shore,
Bill a long 'arf head afore,
Fine to see!
Then it was we took a touchSimple puncture, nothin' much;
But we lay
'N' we stays the count, it seems,
In a sorter realm of dreams
Where the sun infernal gleams
Night 'n' day;
Boilin', fryin' achin', dumb,
Waitin' till the stretchers come,
Patiently.
I hangs on to 'arf a cup.
Which I wants ole Bill to sup.
Damn if he ain't savin' up
His for me!
25
When they come to lift my head
I am softly kiddin' dead,
For a game,
So's they'll first take on his gills.
Over, though, me scheme he spillsBli'me, this ole take-down Bill's
Done the same!
But he isn't kiddin' now,
And it knocks me anyhow
Seein' him.
We was both agreed before,
Though it got 'em by the score,
Two was goin' to beat this warBut 'n' Jim.
Mate o' mine, yiv stayed it through.
Hard luck, Bill-for me 'n' you
Hard 'n' grim.
They have got me Cobber true,
But I'm stickin' tight ez glue….
Bill, there's one who'll plug for twoIt is Jim!
~ Edward George Dyson,#NFDB
1216:In focusing on “cultural change” and “conflict between cultures,” these studies avoid fundamental questions about the formation of the United States and its implications for the present and future. This approach to history allows one to safely put aside present responsibility for continued harm done by that past and the questions of reparations, restitution, and reordering society.9 Multiculturalism became the cutting edge of post-civil-rights-movement US history revisionism. For this scheme to work—and affirm US historical progress—Indigenous nations and communities had to be left out of the picture. As territorially and treaty-based peoples in North America, they did not fit the grid of multiculturalism but were included by transforming them into an inchoate oppressed racial group, while colonized Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans were dissolved into another such group, variously called “Hispanic” or “Latino.” The multicultural approach emphasized the “contributions” of individuals from oppressed groups to the country’s assumed greatness. Indigenous peoples were thus credited with corn, beans, buckskin, log cabins, parkas, maple syrup, canoes, hundreds of place names, Thanksgiving, and even the concepts of democracy and federalism. But this idea of the gift-giving Indian helping to establish and enrich the development of the United States is an insidious smoke screen meant to obscure the fact that the very existence of the country is a result of the looting of an entire continent and its resources. The fundamental unresolved issues of Indigenous lands, treaties, and sovereignty could not but scuttle the premises of multiculturalism. ~ Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, #NFDB
1217:All of this was happening in private. U.S. electors knew nothing of Sater’s Kremlin outreach scheme. Trump did, though. So did Cohen. Cohen said he talked to Trump about the Moscow tower three times. When it appeared that the project was faltering, despite a letter of intent, Cohen took a bold step. He sent an email to someone big: Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov. The email was a petition, a meekly phrased plea for help. It was sent in mid-January 2016. Cohen wrote: Over the past few months I have been working with a company based in Russia regarding the development of a Trump Tower-Moscow project in Moscow City. Without getting into lengthy specifics, the communication between our two sides has stalled. As this project is too important, I am hereby requesting your assistance. I respectfully request someone, preferably you, contact me so that I might discuss the specifics as well as arranging meetings with the appropriate individuals. I thank you in advance for your assistance and look forward to hearing from you soon. Cohen dispatched the email to a generic address, rather than to Peskov’s personal account. Nonetheless, the email would have been found and closely examined. The email’s recipient, Peskov, wasn’t only Putin’s long-serving mouthpiece—he was also in charge of the operation to compromise Clinton, according to the Steele dossier, and someone who saw Russia’s president practically every day. Cohen insisted there was no collusion. And yet this is precisely what his email looked like: a direct (and covert) request for assistance from Team Trump to Team Putin. Was this politics or business or both? As always with Trump, it was hard to tell. ~ Luke Harding, #NFDB
1218:I think of Baghdad years ago, when I met Professor Al-Rawi for the first time to discuss The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, his favorite book by his favorite American.
He awarded me the task of reading it in the off-term, when the other students of English relaxed at home. Each day, I went to his office on the Karada campus and he explained to me things which I could not have possibly understood then.
Truly, I did not comprehend a single thing at first. How Mark Twain wrote. How these Americans spoke, so ignorant and rough. Why Americans today thought of this story of terribly behaved children as high art.
"Kateb, you must understand the context," Professor Al-Rawi said. "What the American reader knew then, what Americans today do not remember, and what you certainly cannot understand. These were not just boys making silly plans in caves. These were boys growing up just in time for their war. Sitting there, making plans to start this robber's gang, this was quite humorous to Americans reading the book in the nineteenth century."
"But not Americans of today?"
He lit a cigarette. "Humorous, yes. But for other reasons. You see, Americans today...forget. Ten years after these boys met to scheme in caves, their civil war fell upon them. These boys, these Missouri boys, they would have cut each other's throats in that war. And the sides they would pick? This was determined in their youth, you see."
We were silent for a moment as I considered this.
"Have you thought about Huck Finn cutting Tom Sawyer's throat?" he asked.
"No."
"You should, Kateb. You should think about that." Then he smiled, like he knew all along what would come for us. ~ Michael Pitre,#NFDB
1219:scope and aim of the works of sacrifice :::
Into the third and last category of the works of sacrifice can be gathered all that is directly proper to the Yoga of works; for here is its field of effectuation and major province. It covers the entire range of lifes more visible activities; under it fall the multiform energies of the Will-to-Life throwing itself outward to make the most of material existence. It is here that an ascetic or other-worldly spirituality feels an insurmountable denial of the Truth which it seeks after and is compelled to turn away from terrestrial existence, rejecting it as for ever the dark playground of an incurable Ignorance. Yet it is precisely these activities that are claimed for a spiritual conquest and divine transformation by the integral Yoga. Abandoned altogether by the more ascetic disciplines, accepted by others only as a field of temporary ordeal or a momentary, superficial and ambiguous play of the concealed spirit, this existence is fully embraced and welcomed by the integral seeker as a field of fulfilment, a field for divine works, a field of the total self-discovery of the concealed and indwelling Spirit. A discovery of the Divinity in oneself is his first object, but a total discovery too of the Divinity in the world behind the apparent denial offered by its scheme and figures and, last, a total discovery of the dynamism of some transcendent Eternal; for by its descent this world and self-will be empowered to break their disguising envelopes and become divine in revealing form and manifesting process as they now are secretly in their hidden essence.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Ascent of the Sacrifice - 2, 169,#NFDB
1220:history—what had happened between me and David. Further disregarding the Gilbert Family Standard Communications Rule-book, I actually told her. I told her everything. I told her how much I loved David, but how lonely and heartsick it made me to be with this person who was always disappearing from the room, from the bed, from the planet. “He sounds kind of like your father,” she said. A brave and generous admission. “The problem is,” I said, “I’m not like my mother. I’m not as tough as you, Mom. There’s a constant level of closeness that I really need from the person I love. I wish I could be more like you, then I could have this love story with David. But it just destroys me to not be able to count on that affection when I need it.” Then my mother shocked me. She said, “All those things that you want from your relationship, Liz? I have always wanted those things, too.” In that moment, it was as if my strong mother reached across the table, opened her fist and finally showed me the handful of bullets she’d had to bite over the decades in order to stay happily married (and she is happily married, all considerations weighed) to my father. I had never seen this side of her before, not ever. I had never imagined what she might have wanted, what she might have been missing, what she might have decided not to fight for in the larger scheme of things. Seeing all this, I could feel my worldview start to make a radical shift. If even she wants what I want, then…? Continuing with this unprecedented string of intimacies, my mother said, “You have to understand how little I was raised to expect that I deserved in life, honey. Remember—I come from a different time and place than you do. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, #NFDB
1221:It had personally pained Trump not to be able to give it to him. But if the Republican establishment had not wanted Trump, they had not wanted Christie almost as much. So Christie got the job of leading the transition and the implicit promise of a central job—attorney general or chief of staff. But when he was the federal prosecutor in New Jersey, Christie had sent Jared’s father, Charles Kushner, to jail in 2005. Charlie Kushner, pursued by the feds for an income tax cheat, set up a scheme with a prostitute to blackmail his brother-in-law, who was planning to testify against him. Various accounts, mostly offered by Christie himself, make Jared the vengeful hatchet man in Christie’s aborted Trump administration career. It was a kind of perfect sweet-revenge story: the son of the wronged man (or, in this case—there’s little dispute—the guilty-as-charged man) uses his power over the man who wronged his family. But other accounts offer a subtler and in a way darker picture. Jared Kushner, like sons-in-law everywhere, tiptoes around his father-in-law, carefully displacing as little air as possible: the massive and domineering older man, the reedy and pliant younger one. In the revised death-of-Chris-Christie story, it is not the deferential Jared who strikes back, but—in some sense even more satisfying for the revenge fantasy—Charlie Kushner himself who harshly demands his due. It was his daughter-in-law who held the real influence in the Trump circle, who delivered the blow. Ivanka told her father that Christie’s appointment as chief of staff or to any other high position would be extremely difficult for her and her family, and it would be best that Christie be removed from the Trump orbit altogether. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
1222:I was already an atheist, and by my senior year I had became obsessed with the question “What is the meaning of life?” I wrote my personal statement for college admissions on the meaninglessness of life. I spent the winter of my senior year in a kind of philosophical depression—not a clinical depression, just a pervasive sense that everything was pointless. In the grand scheme of things, I thought, it really didn’t matter whether I got into college, or whether the Earth was destroyed by an asteroid or by nuclear war. My despair was particularly strange because, for the first time since the age of four, my life was perfect. I had a wonderful girlfriend, great friends, and loving parents. I was captain of the track team, and, perhaps most important for a seventeen-year-old boy, I got to drive around in my father’s 1966 Thunderbird convertible. Yet I kept wondering why any of it mattered. Like the author of Ecclesiastes, I thought that “all is vanity and a chasing after wind” (ECCLESIASTES 1:14) . I finally escaped when, after a week of thinking about suicide (in the abstract, not as a plan), I turned the problem inside out. There is no God and no externally given meaning to life, I thought, so from one perspective it really wouldn’t matter if I killed myself tomorrow. Very well, then everything beyond tomorrow is a gift with no strings and no expectations. There is no test to hand in at the end of life, so there is no way to fail. If this really is all there is, why not embrace it, rather than throw it away? I don’t know whether this realization lifted my mood or whether an improving mood helped me to reframe the problem with hope; but my existential depression lifted and I enjoyed the last months of high school. ~ Jonathan Haidt, #NFDB
1223:IN BRAZIL, where the state collects a hefty 36% of GDP in taxes and offers mediocre public services in return, tax-dodging is a national sport. The latest scam unearthed by police, treasury and finance-ministry sleuths sets a record. On March 26th they revealed that over the past ten years the government had been cheated of at least 5.7 billion reais ($1.8 billion) in back taxes and fines from firms, and perhaps as much as 19 billion reais. That would be enough to pay three-quarters of the bill for last year’s football World Cup. It is nearly twice the suspicious payments in a separate corruption scheme involving Petrobras, a state-controlled oil company. Unlike the petrolão, the tax imbroglio does not implicate top politicians. It centres instead on the Administrative Council of Fiscal Resources (CARF), part of the finance ministry, which hears appeals by firms that feel wronged by the tax collectors. Some of its 216 councillors, who decide cases in teams of six, allegedly promised to slash companies’ bills for various taxes, including sales and industrial tax, or make them disappear altogether. In exchange they apparently received 1-10% of the value of the forgone revenue. The bribes were paid in the form of bogus consulting contracts with law firms. To deflect suspicion, the conspirators used firms that do not specialise in tax law. The identity of the suspects remains secret for now. But leaks published in the press suggest that some of Brazil’s biggest firms, in industries ranging from banking to manufacturing, are involved. So, apparently, are a handful of multinationals. There is also much speculation that the dimensions of the scandal will grow: CARF has 105,000 cases pending, with a total value of 520 billion reais. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1224:Snooping 'Round
Last night I caught him on his knees and looking underneath the bed,
And oh, the guilty look he wore, and oh, the stammered words he said,
When I, pretending to be cross, said: 'Hey, young fellow, what's your
game?'
As if, back in the long ago, I hadn't also played the same;
As if, upon my hands and knees, I hadn't many a time been found
When, thinking of the Christmas Day, I'd gone upstairs to snoop around.
But there he stood and hung his head; the rascal knew it wasn't fair.
'I jes' was wonderin',' he said, 'jes' what it was that's under there.
It's somepin' all wrapped up an' I thought mebbe it might be a sled,
Becoz I saw a piece of wood 'at's stickin' out all painted red.'
'If mother knew,' I said to him, 'you'd get a licking, I'll be bound,
But just clear out of here at once, and don't you ever snoop around.'
And as he scampered down the stairs I stood and chuckled to myself,
As I remembered how I'd oft explored the topmost closet shelf.
It all came back again to me- with what a shrewd and cunning way
I, too, had often sought to solve the mysteries of Christmas Day.
How many times my daddy, too, had come upstairs without a sound
And caught me, just as I'd begun my clever scheme to snoop around.
And oh, I envied him his plight; I envied him the joy he feels
Who knows that every drawer that's locked some treasure dear to him
conceals;
I envied him his Christmas fun and wished that it again were mine
To seek to solve the mysteries by paper wrapped and bound by twine.
Some day he'll come to understand that all the time I stood and frowned,
I saw a boy of years ago who also used to snoop around.
~ Edgar Albert Guest,#NFDB
1225:The Western Front was at all times, according to this view, the decisive theatre of the war, and all the available forces should continually have been concentrated there. The only method of waging war on the Western Front was by wearing down the enemy by ‘killing Germans in a war of attrition.’ This we are assured was always Sir Douglas Haig’s scheme; he pursued it unswervingly throughout his whole Command. Whether encouraged or impeded by the Cabinet, his policy was always the same: ‘Gather together every man and gun and wear down the enemy by constant and if possible by ceaseless attacks.’ This in the main, it is contended, he succeeded in doing, with the result, it is claimed, that in August, 1918, the enemy, at last worn down, lost heart, crumpled, and finally sued for peace. Viewing the events in retrospect, Colonel Boraston invites us to see, not only each of the various prolonged offensives as an integral operation, but the whole four years, 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918, as if they were one single enormous battle every part of which was a necessary factor in the final victory. We wore the enemy down, we are told, upon the Somme in 1916, we wore him down at Arras in the spring, we continued to wear him down at Passchendaele in the winter of 1917. If the army had been properly reinforced by the politicians we should have persisted in wearing him down in the spring of 1918. Finally, as the fruits of all this process of attrition and ‘killing Germans’ by offensive operations, the enemy’s spirit was quelled, his man power was exhausted, and the war was won. Thus a great design, measured, foreseen and consciously prepared, reached its supreme accomplishment. Such is the theory. These views are supported in the two important ~ Winston S Churchill, #NFDB
1226:1. Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create
you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist.
For endless eons there was no you. Before you know it, you will cease to be again. And in between you have this wonderful opportunity to see and feel and think and do. Whatever else you do with your life,nothing will remotely compare with the incredible accomplishment of having managed to get yourself born.
Congratulations. Well done. You really are special.
2. But not that special. There are five billion other people on this planet, every one of them just as important, just as central to the great scheme of things, as you are. Don't ever make the horrible, unworthy mistake of thinking yourself more vital and significant than anyone else. Nearly all the people you encounter in life merit your consideration. Many of them will be there to help you-to deliver your pizza, bag your groceries, clean up the motel room you have made such a lavish mess of. If you are not in the habit of being extremely nice to these people, then get in the habit now.
Millions more people, most of whom you will never meet or even see, won't help you, indeed can't help you, may not even be able to help themselves. They deserve your compassion. We live in a sadly heartless age, when we seem to have less and less space in our consciences and our pocketbooks for the poor and lame and dispossessed, particularly those in far-off lands. ~ Bill Bryson,#NFDB
1227:Plato is the first writer who distinctly says that education is to comprehend the whole of life, and to be a preparation for another in which education begins again... He has long given up the notion that virtue cannot be taught; and he is disposed to modify the thesis of the Protagoras, that the virtues are one and not many. He is not unwilling to admit the sensible world into his scheme of truth. Nor does he assert in the Republic the involuntariness of vice, which is maintained by him in the Timaeus, Sophist, and Laws... Still, we observe in him the remains of the old Socratic doctrine, that true knowledge must be elicited from within, and is to be sought for in ideas, not in particulars of sense. Education, as he says, will implant a principle of intelligence which is better than ten thousand eyes. The paradox that the virtues are one, and the kindred notion that all virtue is knowledge, are not entirely renounced; the first is seen in the supremacy given to justice over the rest; the second in the tendency to absorb the moral virtues in the intellectual, and to centre all goodness in the contemplation of the idea of good. The world of sense is still depreciated and identified with opinion, though omitted to be a shadow of the true. In the Republic he is evidently impressed with the conviction that vice arises chiefly from ignorance and may be cured by education; the multitude are hardly to be deemed responsible for what they do ... he only proposes to elicit from the mind that which is there already. Education is represented by him, not as the filling of a vessel, but as the turning the eye of the soul towards the light. ~ Benjamin Jowett, "Introduction and Analyisis," (1892) p. cc, The Dialogues of Plato: Republic. Timaeus. Critias. Vol. 3 The Republic, #NFDB
1228:I was obviously born to draw better than most people, just as the widow Berman and Paul Slazinger were obviously born to tell stories better than most people can. Other people are obviously born to sing and dance or explain the stars in the sky or do magic tricks or be great leaders or athletes, and so on.
I think that could go back to the time when people had to live in small groups of relatives -- maybe fifty or a hundred people at the most. And evolution or God or whatever arranged things genetically to keep the little families going, to cheer them up, so that they could all have somebody to tell stories around the campfire at night, and somebody else to paint pictures on the walls of the caves, and somebody else who wasn't afraid of anything and so on.
That's what I think. And of course a scheme like that doesn't make sense anymore, because simply moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world's champions.
The entire planet can get along nicely now with maybe a dozen champion performers in each area of human giftedness. A moderately gifted person has to keep his or her gifts all bottled up until, in a manner of speaking, he or she gets drunk at a wedding and tapdances on the coffee table like Fred Astair or Ginger Rogers. We have a name for him or her. We call him or her an 'exhibitionist.'
How do we reward such an exhibitionist? We say to him or her the next morning, 'Wow! Were you ever drunk last night! ~ Kurt Vonnegut,#NFDB
1229:Do you want to be a professor too?”
He shrugs. “Maybe one day. I’d like to travel more first though, work on dig sites in places like Greece or Central America. Ancient civilizations are buried everywhere. It’s, like, no matter where you walk, you never know what could be under your feet. I want a job that lets me see all the things I want to see before I get stuck behind a desk.”
“I know what you mean. I can’t wait to see the world and document it, photojournalist style.” An image of the two of us traveling together pops into my mind: him digging up the world and me taking pictures of it. I squash those butterflies too.
“Yeah?” he asks, his smile finally revealing teeth. “I can see you doing that, like for National Geographic or something.”
“You haven’t even seen any of my pictures,” I scoff. “ Besides, can you imagine how competitive a job that would be? Those photographers are incredible. They have years of experience under their belts. I’m not even eighteen years old yet.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’ve got time,” he says. “You know what someone said to me once? Figure out what you love doing, then figure out how to make money doing it.”
I turn the thought over in my head. “I like that.”
He smiles, plunging his hands into his pockets. “So tell me about you. Who is Pippa, in the broad scheme of things?” He winks.
I return the smile. “Well, I’m an only child, born and raised in Chicago--”
“Ah, Chicago. That’s the accent.”
“I told you before, I don’t have an accent.”
“To your ears you don’t.” He laughs. “But it’s definitely there to the rest of us.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No,” he says. “It’s cute.”
Oh, I might die. A boy used the word “cute.” And when describing something about me. I can’t look at him. ~ Kristin Rae,#NFDB
1230:A relationship between us would never work," Ísa blurted out, terrified of how fast she was falling for this gorgeous, driven man. The way he'd been with Catie, it was exactly>/i> how she'd imagined the man of her dreams would be with her baby sister. Comfortable, affectionate, amazing.
Catie was already half in love with him.
Just like Ísa.
"Why not?" he asked with a black scowl. "Are you still hung up on the age thing?"
"You're twenty-three. I'm ready to settle down, have a child, build a life with someone."
Tipping up her chin, he pressed his nose to hers. "Yeah? And who's this perfect man you're going to dump me for?" It was a growl of sound.
Ísa scowled back at him. "I haven't met him yet."
"So you're dumping me for an imaginary man?"
"You're deliberately misunderstanding." She glared. "How am I supposed to find him when I'm with you?"
A shrug. "I don't care. I'm not going to cooperate in your dump-Sailor-for-an-imaginary-man scheme."
"You're infuriating." Fisting her hands in his hair, she kissed him, releasing all her fear, all her need, all her worry.
His hands powerful and warm at her hips, he pulled her up against the hard length of his body and met her tongue lash for lash.
Heart pounding when it was over, she broke the kiss--and he said, "Want to hear my suggestion?"
"No." She folded her arms and drew her eyebrows together.
"Too bad." A kiss on the nose again, the affectionate act smashing her walls to tiny fragments. "I say we don't run, we don't hide. We try. No laughter in his expression now, only a passionate tenderness. "I'm no poet, Ísa. I can't give you fancy words. But I know what we have is special. It's worth a fight. ~ Nalini Singh,#NFDB
1231:Gather close, and let us speak of nasty little shits. Oh, come now, we are no strangers to the vicious demons in placid disguises, innocent eyes so wide, hidden minds so dark. Does evil exist? Is it a force, some deadly possession that slips into the unwary? Is it a thing separate and thus subject to accusation and blame, distinct from the one it has used? Does it flit from soul to soul, weaving its diabolical scheme in all the unseen places, snarling into knots tremulous fears and appalling opportunity, stark terrors and brutal self-interest? Or is the dread word nothing more than a quaint and oh so convenient encapsulation of all those traits distinctly lacking moral context, a sweeping generalization embracing all things depraved and breath takingly cruel, a word to define that peculiar glint in the eye—the voyeur to one’s own delivery of horror, of pain and anguish and impossible grief?
Give the demon crimson scales, slashing talons. Tentacles and dripping poison. Three eyes and six slithering tongues. As it crouches there in the soul, its latest abode in an eternal succession of abodes, may every god kneel in prayer.
But really. Evil is nothing but a word, an objectification where no objectification is necessary. Cast aside this notion of some external agency as the source of inconceivable inhumanity—the sad truth is our possession of an innate proclivity towards indifference, towards deliberate denial of mercy, towards disengaging all that is moral within us.
But if that is too dire, let’s call it evil. And paint it with fire and venom.
There are extremities of behaviour that seem, at the time, perfectly natural, indeed reasonable. They are arrived at suddenly, or so it might seem, but if one looks the progression reveals itself, step by step, and that is a most sad truth. ~ Steven Erikson,#NFDB
1232:Among these have been an unhealthy number of near-death moments, many of which I look back on now and wince. But I guess our training in life never really ends--and experience is always the best tutor of all.
Then there are the most bizarre: like jet-skiing around Britain in aid of the UK lifeboats. Day after day, hour after hour, pounding the seas like little ants battling around the wild coast of Scotland and Irish Sea. (I developed a weird bulging muscle in my forearm that popped out and has stayed with me ever since after that one!)
Or hosting the highest open-air dinner party, suspended under a high-altitude hot-air balloon, in support of the Duke of Edinburgh’s kids awards scheme.
That mission also became a little hairy, rappelling down to this tiny metal table suspended fifty feet underneath the basket in minus forty degrees, some twenty-five thousand feet over the UK.
Dressed in full naval mess kit, as required by the Guinness Book of World Records--along with having to eat three courses and toast the Queen, and breathing from small supplementary oxygen canisters--we almost tipped the table over in the early dawn, stratosphere dark. Everything froze, of course, but finally we achieved the mission and skydived off to earth--followed by plates of potatoes and duck à l-orange falling at terminal velocity.
Or the time Charlie Mackesy and I rowed the Thames naked in a bathtub to raise funds for a friend’s new prosthetic legs. The list goes on and on, and I am proud to say, it continues. But I will tell all those stories properly some other place, some other time.
They vary from the tough to the ridiculous, the dangerous to the embarrassing. But in this book I wanted to show my roots: the early, bigger missions that shaped me, and the even earlier, smaller moments that steered me. ~ Bear Grylls,#NFDB
1233:Since 'Panther' is an ambiguous word that can refer to different leopards, jaguars, or mountain lions, it can also refer to a melanistic or black cat; hence, the name 'black panther'. It can also be crossed with a lioness for example which gives us an indication of the role which the lion had in ancient Egyptian symbolism in relation with the black panther on feminine figures. Panther/Lioness feminine emblems for Sekhmet, Bastet and Maftet were portaying that aggressive and wild nature of the big cats; they served as guardians and the latter was called as 'slayer of serpents' and protected against snakes. That was also a role which Atem played, therefore, they represent the perpendicular authority in contrast to that of the Sun (i.e., parallel authority). What proves my assertion that the Sun cult showed up later on in opposition to the upper heavens' authority is to be witnessed on the figurine which shows Tutankhamun subjugating a black panther using a sceptre which looks different than that of Thoth (stripped off from its fork and top ends); avenging thereby his cult. The Egyptian Museum guide does state that he is [assimilated to the Sun by the golden tan of his skin] and the [panther represented the night sky]. So it is evident that the warriors of the upper heavens on Earth were feminine who tried to resurrect their legacy in contrast to Isis who restores her husband's body to allow for his resurrection (referring to Sirius and Orion); intending probably thereby to give him back his role as a lion hunter. The task on the lionesses is therefore reduced to protection and guardianship against this scheme but there were no resurrection of some entity for them to take part into since the authority on whose behalf they fight were already present even though no complete submission to it were delivered. ~ Ibrahim Ibrahim, #NFDB
1234:I want to go with you, Dom,” Jane said.
Her uncle put his arm about her shoulders. “Let the men do their work, my dear. You should stay here with your fiancé.”
The reminder of her still-standing betrothal made Dom want to smash something. But her uncle was right--she would only get in the way if she joined them. And there was the problem of her riding off unchaperoned with two gentlemen.
“Listen to your uncle,” Dom said. “It’s best if you remain here with your…friends.” He couldn’t bring himself to use the word fiancé.
Her eyes sparked fire. “So you mean to just go rushing off with your mind set? You’ll almost certainly put Nancy in danger if you continue assuming she’s part of the scheme.”
“You must trust me, Jane.” When the word must made her flinch, he cursed his quick tongue and deliberately softened his tone. “I know it’s hard for you to believe sometimes, but I do know what I’m doing. No matter what my opinions, I’ll let the facts stand for themselves. I promise I won’t harm her or allow anyone else to harm her, sweeting.”
Only after a stunned silence fell on the room did he realize what he’d called Jane. She did, too, for her eyes went wide and a blush stained her cheeks again.
Blakeborough’s eyes glittered like sleet on slate as he strode over to Dom and thrust the piece of paper at him. “Here’s the list of Samuel’s haunts. You’d best go if you mean to catch them.”
They stared each other down, silently acknowledging their status as rivals for Jane’s hand. How Dom wished he could set everyone straight, tell them that he and Jane were going to be married, and to blazes with Sadler and Blakeborough and anyone who stood in their way.
But he’d tried to force the issue once and that had only muddied the waters. It was time to let Jane make up her own mind. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,#NFDB
1235:Fear and desire for pleasure. Aggressiveness comes out of fear, predominantly, and sexuality predominantly out of the other. But they mix in the middle. Anyway, both of these impulses can destroy order, which comes out of both drives, and which is another human need I haven't yet fit into my scheme. So both have to be controlled. But in fact, despite religious commands to the contrary, aggressiveness has never really been condemned. It's been exalted, from the Bible through Homer and Virgil right down to Humbert Hemingway. Have you ever heard of a John Wayne movie being censored? did you ever see them take war books off the bookstands? They leave the genitals off Barbie and Ken, but they manufacture every kind of war toy. Because sex is more threatening to us than aggression. There have been strict rules about sex since the beginning of written rules, and even before, if we can believe myth. I think that's because it's in sex that men feel most vulnerable. In war they can hype themselves up, or they have a weapon. Sex means being literally naked and exposing your feelings. And that's more terrifying to most men than the risk of dying while fighting a bear or a soldier. Look at the rules! You can have sex if you're married, and you have to marry a person of the opposite gender, the same color and religion, an age close to your own, of the right social and economic background, even the right height, for God's sake, or else everybody gets up in arms, they disinherit you or threaten not to come to the wedding or they make nasty cracks behind your back. Or worse, if you cross color or gender lines. And once you're married, you're supposed to do only certain things when you make love: the others all have nasty names. When after all, sex itself, in itself, is harmless, and aggression is harmful. Sex never hurt anyone. ~ Marilyn French, #NFDB
1236:Harvard University biologist David Haig has spent the last few years systematically debunking the notion that the relationship between a mother and her unborn child is anything like the rose-tinted idyll that one usually finds on the glossy covers of maternity magazines. In fact, it is anything but. Pre-eclampsia, a condition of dangerously high blood pressure in pregnant women, is brutally kick-started by nothing short of a foetal coup d’état. It begins with the placenta invading the maternal bloodstream and initiating what, in anyone’s book, is a ruthless biological heist – an in utero sting operation to draw out vital nutrients. And I’m not just talking about baby Gordon Gekkos here – I’m talking about all of us. The curtain-raiser is well known to obstetricians. The foetus begins by injecting a crucial protein into the mother’s circulation which forces her to drive more blood, and therefore more nourishment, into the relatively low-pressure placenta. It’s a scam, pure and simple, which poses a significant and immediate risk to the mother’s life. ‘The bastard!’ says Andy. ‘Shall we get some olives?’ ‘And it’s by no means the only one,’ I continue. In another embryonic Ponzi scheme, foetal release of placental lactogen counteracts the effect of maternal insulin thereby increasing the mother’s blood sugar level and providing an excess for the foetus’s own benefit. ‘A bowl of the citrus and chilli and a bowl of the sweet pepper and basil,’ Andy says to the waiter. Then he peers at me over the menu. ‘So basically what you’re saying then is this: forget the Gaddafis and the Husseins. When it comes to chemical warfare it’s the unborn child that’s top dog!’ ‘Well they definitely nick stuff that isn’t theirs,’ I say. ‘And they don’t give a damn about the consequences.’ Andy smiles. ‘So in other words they’re psychopaths!’ he says. BABY ~ Andy McNab, #NFDB
1237:The call for justice was a protest as fierce as those of the biblical prophets and of Jesus, and the similarity of the call was no coincidence. As with early Judaism and early Christianity, early Islam would be rooted in opposition to a corrupt status quo. Its protest of inequity would be an integral part of the demand for inclusiveness, for unity and equality under the umbrella of the one god regardless of lineage, wealth, age, or gender. This is what would make it so appealing to the disenfranchised, those who didn't matter in the grand Meccan scheme of things, like slaves and freedmen, widows and orphans, all those cut out of the elite by birth or circumstance. And it spoke equally to the young and idealistic, those who had not yet learned to knuckle under to the way things were and who responded to the deeply egalitarian strain of the verses. All were equal before God, the thirteen-year-old Ali as important as the most respected graybeard, the daughter as much as the son, the African slave as much as the highborn noble. It was a potent and potentially radical re-envisioning of society.
This was a matter of politics as much as of faith. The scriptures of all three of the great monotheisms show that they began similarly as popular movements in protest against the privilege and arrogance of power, whether that of kings as in the Hebrew bible, or the Roman Empire as in the Gospels, or a tribal elite as in the Quran. All three, that is, were originally driven by ideals of justice and egalitarianism, rejecting the inequities of human power in favor of a higher and more just one. No matter how far they might have strayed from their origins as they became institutionalized over time, the historical record clearly indicates that what we now call the drive for social justice was the idealistic underpinning of monotheistic faith. ~ Lesley Hazleton,#NFDB
1238:Off Monomoy
HAVE you sailed Nantucket Sound
By lightship, buoy, and bell,
And lain becalmed at noon
On an oily summer swell?
Lazily drooped the sail,
Moveless the pennant hung,
Sagging over the rail
Idle the main boom swung;
The sea, one mirror of shine
A single breath would destroy,
Save for the far low line
Of treacherous Monomoy.
Yet eastward there toward Spain,
What castled cities rise
From the Atlantic plain,
To our enchanted eyes!
Turret and spire and roof
Looming out of the sea,
Where the prosy chart gives proof
No cape nor isle can be!
Can a vision shine so clear
Wherein no substance dwells?
One almost harks to hear
The sound of the city's bells.
And yet no pealing notes
Within those belfries be,
Save echoes from the throats
Of ship-bells lost at sea.
For none shall anchor there
Save those who long of yore,
When tide and wind were fair,
Sailed and came back no more.
And none shall climb the stairs
Within those ghostly towers,
Save those for whom sad prayers
Went up through fateful hours.
O image of the world,
O mirage of the sea,
Cloud-built and foam-impearled,
120
What sorcery fashioned thee?
What architect of dream,
What painter of desire,
Conceived that fairy scheme
Touched with fantastic fire?
Even so our city of hope
We mortal dreamers rear
Upon the perilous slope
Above the deep of fear;
Leaving half-known the good
Our kindly earth bestows,
For the feigned beatitude
Of a future no man knows.
Lord of the summer sea,
Whose tides are in thy hand,
Into immensity
The vision at thy command
Fades now, and leaves no sign, —
No light nor bell nor buoy, —
Only the faint low line
Of dangerous Monomoy.
~ Bliss William Carman,#NFDB
1239:As I understand things,’ Cotillion replied, ‘once these dragons did what K’rul asked of them, they were compelled to return to Starvald Demelain. As the sources of sorcery, they could not be permitted to interfere or remain active across the realms, lest sorcery cease to be predictable, which in turn would feed Chaos – the eternal enemy in this grand scheme. But the Soletaken proved a problem. They possessed the blood of Tiam, and with it the vast power of the Eleint. Yet, they could travel as they pleased. They could interfere, and they did. For obvious reasons. Scabandari was originally Edur, and so he became their champion—’ ‘After murdering the royal line of the Edur!’ Eloth said in a hiss. ‘After spilling draconean blood in the heart of Kurald Emurlahn! After opening the first, fatal wound upon that warren! What did he think gates were?’ ‘The Tiste Andii for Anomandaris,’ Cotillion continued. ‘Tiste Liosan for Osserc. The T’lan Imass for Olar Ethil. These connections and the loyalties born of them are obvious. Draconus is more of a mystery, of course, since he has been gone a long time—’ ‘The most reviled of them all!’ Eloth shrieked, the voice filling Cotillion’s skull so that he winced. Stepping back, he raised a hand. ‘Spare me, please. I am not really interested in all that, to be honest. Apart from discovering if there was enmity between Eleint and Soletaken. It seems there is, with the possible exception of Silanah—’ ‘Seduced by Anomandaris’s charms,’ snapped Eloth. ‘And Olar Ethil’s endless pleadings…’ ‘To bring fire to the world of the Imass,’ Cotillion said. ‘For that is her aspect, is it not? Thyr?’ Ampelas observed, ‘He is not so uncomprehending as you believed, Kalse.’ ‘Then again,’ Cotillion continued, ‘you too claim Thyr, Eloth. Ah, that was clever of K’rul, forcing you to share power.’ ‘Unlike Tiam,’ Ampelas said, ‘when we’re killed we stay dead. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
1240:Whatever doesn’t kill you only serves to make you stronger. And in the grand scheme of life, I had survived and grown stronger, at least mentally, if not physically.
I had come within an inch of losing all my movement and, by the grace of God, still lived to tell the tale. I had learned so much, but above all, I had gained an understanding of the cards I had been playing with.
The problem now was that I had no job and no income.
Earning a living and following your heart can so often pull you in different directions, and I knew I wasn’t the first person to feel that strain.
My decision to climb Everest was a bit of a “do or die” mission.
If I climbed it and became one of the youngest climbers ever to have reached the summit, then I had at least a sporting chance of getting some sort of job in the expedition world afterward--either doing talks or leading treks.
I would be able to use it as a springboard to raise sponsorship to do some other expeditions.
But on the other hand, if I failed, I would either be dead on the mountain or back home and broke--with no job and no qualifications.
The reality was that it wasn’t a hard decision for me to make. Deep down in my bones, I just knew it was the right thing to do: to go for it.
Plus I have never been one to be too scared of that old imposter: failure.
I had never climbed for people’s admiration; I had always climbed because I was half-decent at it--and now I had an avenue, through Everest, to explore that talent further.
I also figured that if I failed, well at least I would fail while attempting something big and bold. I liked that.
What’s more, if I could start a part-time university degree course at the same time (to be done by e-mail from Everest), then whatever the outcome on the mountain, at least I had an opening back at M15. (It’s sometimes good to not entirely burn all your bridges.) ~ Bear Grylls,#NFDB
1241:Of The True Endeavour
HAPPY he in whom the honest love of fair endeavour lingers,
Who has strength to do his labour, and has pride to do it well,
Carve he gems of purest water with an artist’s cunning fingers,
Hew the granite, forge the beam, or make a simple tale to tell
His to feel a glow ecstatic of the mighty exhultation
That arose when out of chaos all the wheeling planets stood.
Since when God beheld the wonder, saw the stir of His creation
In the busy scheme of heaven, and He said that it was good,
Never man has made with willing hands some thing of true intention—
Cut in bone a strange, rude picture to inspire the naked hordes,
Or contrived a subtle engine with laborious invention—
But has entered straight and freely to the joy that was the Lord’s
Those so blessed have with them solace, balm to still the ache of sorrow,
One companion who will cleave when friends and kindred turn away;
But a jealous mistress is she, and be sure again to-morrow
She will draw you back repentant if ye wander far to-day.
Few there are that know the ardour. Some are weaving songs of beauty,
Some have harped the living music, some have built with noblest skill,
Some are simple men exulting in the moiler’s primal duty,
When they swing their axes high or ring the hammer on the drill.
Not to all that love is given art, the clear, unfailing vision,
Not power to carve the perfect form, the bravest lances hurled,
But the humblest hand sincere desire has quickened to decision
Beats a line of grace eternal in the metal of the world.
Men have prayed for many blessings, for the boon of ease have ever
Plagued the God that drave out Adam to the tilling of the soil—
Speak a prayer of honest effort to the God of Vast Endeavour:
Give for each his toil, O Lord—for each the pride and joy of toil!
~ Edward George Dyson,#NFDB
1242:In One's Age to One's Youth
Listen, thou child I used to be!
I know what thou didst fret to knowKnowledge thou couldst not lure to thee,
Whatever bribe thou wouldst bestow.
That knowledge but a waymark plants
Along the road of ignorance.
Listen, thou child I used to be!
I am enlarged where thou wert bound,
Though vaunting still that thou wast free,
And lord of thine own pleasure crowned.
True freedom heeds a hidden stress,
Whereby desire to range grows less.
Listen, thou child I used to be!
Unmoved I meet thy fear of old,
Where thou, but masked with bravery,
Didst ever charge thyself, Be bold!
True courage owns a dread extremeLed blind through the blind battle's scheme!
Listen, thou child I used to be!
I love, I serve with proffered veins,
Where thou demandest praise thy fee,
And grateful solace for thy pains.
True love and service do but win
That I may more exceed therein.
Listen, thou child I used to be!
My soul to wrath 'gainst wrong is used,
Where thy rash combat utterly
The doer and the deed confused.
Right wrath the deed stabs soon or late,
The doer spares, his deed to hate.
Listen, thou child I used to be!
Unproud I move, and yet unbowed,
Where thou wast fed with vanity,
Thy chiefest pride- thou wast not proud!
True lowliness forgets its state,
And equal trains with small or great.
Listen, thou child I used to be!
I am what thy dream-wandering sense
Did shape, and thy fresh will decree,
Yet all with subtle difference:
Where heaven's arc did seem to end,
Still on and on fair fields extend.
Yet listen, child I used to be!
Nothing of thine I dare despise,
Nor passion, deed, nor fantasy;
For lo! the soul's far years shall rise
And with unripeness charge this hour
Would boast o'er thine its riper power.
~ Edith Matilda Thomas,#NFDB
1243:I opened the curtain and entered the confessional, a dark wooden booth built into the side wall of the church. As I knelt on the small worn bench, I could hear a boy's halting confession through the wall, his prescribed penance inaudible as the panel slid open on my side and the priest directed his attention to me.
"Yes, my child," he inquired softly.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my First Confession."
"Yes, my child, and what sins have you committed?"
....
"I talked in church twenty times, I disobeyed my mother five times, I wished harm to others several times, I told a fib three times, I talked back to my teacher twice." I held my breath.
"And to whom did you wish harm?"
My scheme had failed. He had picked out the one group of sins that most troubled me. Speaking as softly as I could, I made my admission.
"I wished harm to Allie Reynolds."
"The Yankee pitcher?" he asked, surprise and concern in his voice. "And how did you wish to harm him?"
"I wanted him to break his arm."
"And how often did you make this wish?"
"Every night," I admitted, "before going to bed, in my prayers."
"And were there others?"
"Oh, yes," I admitted. "I wished that Robin Roberts of the Phillies would fall down the steps of his stoop, and that Richie Ashburn would break his hand."
"Is there anything else?"
"Yes, I wished that Enos Slaughter of the Cards would break his ankle, that Phil Rizzuto of the Yanks would fracture a rib, and that Alvin Dark of the Giants would hurt his knee." But, I hastened to add, "I wished that all these injuries would go away once the baseball season ended."
...
"Are there any other sins, my child?"
"No, Father."
"For your penance, say two Hail Mary's, three Our Fathers, and," he added with a chuckle, "say a special prayer for the Dodgers. ... ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin,#NFDB
1244:Stopping before them, St. Vincent confided, “I would have found you sooner, but I was attacked by a swarm of dingy-dippers.” His voice lowered with conspiratorial furtiveness. “And I don’t wish to alarm either of you, but I had to warn you…they’re planning to serve kidney pudding in the fifth course.”
“I can manage that,” Lillian said ruefully. “It is only animals served in their natural state that I seem to have difficulty with.”
“Of course you do, darling. We’re barbarians, the lot of us, and you were perfectly right to be appalled by the calves’ heads. I don’t like them either. In fact, I rarely consume beef in any form.”
“Are you a vegetarian, then?” Lillian asked, having heard the word frequently of late. Many discussions had centered on the topic of the vegetable system of diet that was being promoted by a hospital society in Ramsgate.
St. Vincent responded with a dazzling smile. “No, sweet, I’m a cannibal.”
“St. Vincent,” Westcliff growled in warning, seeing Lillian’s confusion.
The viscount grinned unrepentantly. “It’s a good thing I happened along, Miss Bowman. You’re not safe alone with Westcliff, you know.”
“I’m not?” Lillian parried, tensing inwardly as she reflected that he never would have made the glib comment had he known of the intimate encounters between her and the earl. She didn’t dare look at Westcliff, but she apprehended the immediate stillness of the masculine form so close to hers.
“No, indeed,” St. Vincent assured her. “It’s the morally upright ones who do the worst things in private. Whereas with an obvious reprobate such as myself, you couldn’t be in safer hands. Here, you had better return to the dining hall under my protection. God knows what sort of lascivious scheme is lurking in the earl’s mind.”
Giggling, Lillian stood from the bench, enjoying the sight of Westcliff being teased. He regarded his friend with a slight scowl as he too rose to his feet. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
1245:It was this hierarchy—so central to Western cosmology for so long that, even today, a ten-year-old could intuitively get much of it right—that was challenged by the most famous compendium of all: Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert’s eighteen-thousand-page Encyclopédie. Published between 1751 and 1772, the Encyclopédie was sponsored by neither the Catholic Church nor the French monarchy and was covertly hostile to both. It was intended to secularize as well as to popularize knowledge, and it demonstrated those Enlightenment commitments most radically through its organizational scheme. Rather than being structured, as it were, God-down, with the whole world flowing forth from a divine creator, it was structured human-out, with the world divided according to the different ways in which the mind engages with it: “memory,” “reason,” and “imagination,” or what we might today call history, science and philosophy, and the arts. Like alphabetical order, which effectively democratizes topics by abolishing distinctions based on power and precedent in favor of subjecting them all to the same rule, this new structure had the effect of humbling even the most exalted subjects. In producing the Encyclopédie, Diderot did not look up to the heavens but out toward the future; his goal, he wrote, was “that our descendants, by becoming more learned, may become more virtuous and happier.”
It is to Diderot’s Encyclopédie that we owe every modern one, from the Britannica and the World Book to Encarta and Wikipedia. But we also owe to it many other kinds of projects designed to, in his words, “assemble all the knowledge scattered on the surface of the earth.” It introduced not only new ways to do so but new reasons—chief among them, the diffusion of information prized by an élite class into the culture at large. The Encyclopédie was both the cause and the effect of a profoundly Enlightenment conviction: that, for books about everything, the best possible audience was the Everyman. ~ Kathryn Schulz,#NFDB
1246:Hypocrisy—in other words, the practice of lying about lying—shields us from seeing ourselves as we are: a collocation of fragments that fit together as a biological unit but not as anything else, not as that ghost which has been called a self, a phantasm whose ecotoplasmic unreality we can never see through. By staying true to the lie of the self, the ego, we can hold onto the illusion that we will be who we are all our lives and not see our selves die a thousand times before our death. While some have dedicated themselves to getting to the bottom of how these parts create the illusion of a whole, this is not how pyramids are built. To get a pyramid off the ground takes a lot of ego—the base material of those stacks of stones that tourists visit while on vacation. Of course, a pyramid is actually a polyhedron, that is, a mathematical conception which pyramids in the physical world resemble . . . at least from a distance. The nearer one gets to a pyramid, the more it reveals itself to be what it is: a roughly pyramidal conglomeration of bricks, a composition of fragments that is not what it seems to be. This is also how it works with humans. The world around us encourages the build up of our egos—those pyramids of self-esteem—as if we needed such encouragement. Although everyone is affected by this pyramid scheme, some participate in it more than others: they are observably more full of themselves and tend to their egos as they would exotic plants in a hothouse. It helps if they can wear down the self-esteem of others, or simply witness this erosion. As the American novelist and essayist Gore Vidal said famously and often: “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” None of this could work without the distance we put between what we are and what we think we are. Then we may appear to exist apart from our constituent elements. Self-esteem would evaporate without a self to esteem. As with pyramids, it is only at a distance that this illusion can be pulled off. Hypocrisy is that distance. ~ Thomas Ligotti, #NFDB
1247:At about this time David hit on a scheme to end their financial problems. With his growing family, their limited income must have been the cause of constant worry to him. Stories of the rich strikes in the Klondike a decade earlier, perhaps bolstered by his spell of active service in South Africa, seem to have persuaded him that gold-mining might be the answer. On hearing that a new goldfield had been discovered in Ontario, he staked several claims to forty acres near the small township of Swastika, in the Great Lakes area. Only small quantities of gold had been found there so far, but a big seam was believed to exist.
----
Over the next twenty years or so, David would travel to Ontario many times to work the claim. He had already been there alone when, in the spring of 1912, he and Sydney decided to go together and – the biggest treat — they were to sail on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. Fortunately, something happened to make this impossible, and their departure was delayed until autumn of the following year.
----
It is not difficult to see why David remained keen, although the mining project eventually came to nothing. Furthermore, he and Sydney were at their closest in the shack at Swastika through the winter in that inhospitable climate, and it was one of the happiest times of David’s life. It was there that Sydney conceived their fifth child.
----
The parents, still hoping for a second boy, were disappointed, but soon came round. There was time for another boy. In David’s absence Sydney called her Unity after an actress (Unity Moore) she admired, and then Grandfather Redesdale said that she must have a topically apposite second name so they added Valkyrie, after Wagner’s Norse war-maidens. Almost from the time of her birth she was known in family circles as ‘Bobo’, but with hindsight, Unity Valkyrie’s unusual name, combined with the place of her conception, Swastika, seems almost like an eerie prophecy which the fifth Mitford child had no alternative but to fulfil. ~ Mary S Lovell,#NFDB
1248:I barely remember drawing this." Daniel sounded disappointed in himself. "I don't know what it is any more than you do."
"I'm sure that once you get there, you'll be able to figure it out," Gabbe said, trying hard to be encouraging.
"We will," Luce said. "I'm sure we will."
Gabbe blinked, smile, and went on. "Roland, Annabelle, and Arriane-you three will go to Vienna. That leaves-" Her mouth twitched as she realized what she was about to say, but she put on a brave face anyway. "Molly, Cam, and I will take Avalon."
Cam rolled back his shoulders and let out his astoundingly golden wings with a great rush, slamming into Molly's face with his right wing tip and sending her lunging back five feet.
"Do that again and I will wreck you," Molly spat, glaring at a carpet burn on her elbow. "In fact-" She started to go for Cam with her fist raised but Gabbe intervened.
She wrenched Cam and Molly apart with a put-upon sigh. "Speaking of wrecking, I would really rather not have to wreck the next one of you who provokes the other"-she smiled sweetly at her two demon companions-"but I will. This is going to be a very long nine days."
"Let's hope its long," Daniel muttered under his breath.
Luce turned to him. The Venice in her mind was out of a guidebook: postcard of boats jostling down canals, sunsets over tall cathedral spires, and dark-haired girls licking gelato. That wasn't the trip they were about to take. Not with the end of the world reaching out for them with razor claws.
"And once we find all three of the relics?" Luce said.
"We'll meet at Mount Sinai," Daniel said, "unite the relics-"
"And say a little prayer that they shed any light whatsoever on where we landed when we fell," Cam muttered darkly, rubbing his forehead. "At which point, all that's left is somehow coaxing the psychopathic hellhound holding our entire existence in his jaw that he should just abandon his silly scheme for universal domination. What could be simpler? I think we have every reason to feel optimistic. ~ Lauren Kate,#NFDB
1249:Jael said grimly, "You're overconfident, Mallow. You're ignoring the possibility of a popular rebellion."
Mallow looked up, grim in his turn, "Once and for all, Jael, there is no possibility of a popular rebellion."
I'm sure of the Seldon crisis and the historical validity of their solutions, externally and internally. There are some things I didn't tell Suit right now. He tried to control the Foundation itself by religious forces as he controlled the outer worlds, and he failed, which is the surest sign that in the Seldon scheme, religion is played out.
"Economic control worked differently. And to paraphrase that famous Salvor Hardin quotation of yours, it's a poor nuclear blaster that won't point both ways. If Korell prospered with our trade, so did we. If Korellian factories fail without our trade; and if the prosperity of the outer worlds vanishes with commercial isolation; so will our factories fail and our prosperity vanish.
"And there isn't a factory, not a trading center. not a shipping line that isn't under my control; that I couldn't squeeze to nothing if Sutt attempts revolutionary propaganda. Where his propaganda succeeds, or even looks as though it might succeed, I will make certain that prosperity dies. Where it fails, prosperity will continue, because my factories will remain fully staffed.
"So by the same reasoning which makes me sure that the Korellians will revolt in favor of prosperity, I am sure we will not revolt against it. The game will be played out to its end."
"So then," said Jael, "you're establishing a plutocracy. You're making us a land of traders and merchant princes. Then what of the future?"
Mallow lifted his gloomy face, and exclaimed fiercely, "What business of mine is the future? No doubt Seldon has foreseen it and prepared against it. There will be other crises in the time to come when money power has become as dead a force as religion is now.
Let my successors solve those new problems, as I have solved the one of today. ~ Isaac Asimov,#NFDB
1250:Christ is all in the entire work of salvation. Let me just take you back to the period before this world was made. There was a time when this great world, the sun, the moon, the stars, and all which now exist throughout the whole of the vast universe, lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in an acorn cup. There was a time when the Great Creator lived alone, and yet he could foresee that he would make a world, and that men would be born to people it; and in that vast eternity a great scheme was devised, whereby he might save a fallen race. Do you know who devised it? God planned it from first to last. Neither Gabriel nor any of the holy angels had anything to do with it. I question whether they were even told how God might be just, and yet save the transgressors. God was all in the drawing up of the scheme, and Christ was all in carrying it out. There was a dark and doleful night! Jesus was in the garden, sweating great drops of blood, which fell to the ground; nobody then came to bear the load that had been laid upon him. An angel stood there to strengthen him, but not to bear the sentence. The cup was put into his hands, and Jesus said, "Father, must I drink it?" and his Father replied, "If thou dost not drink, sinners cannot be saved"; and he took the cup and drained it to its very dregs. No man helped him. And when he hung upon that accursed tree of Calvary, when his precious hands were pierced, when: "From his head, his hands, his feet, Sorrow and love flowed mingled down," there was nobody to help him. He was "all" in the work of salvation. And, my friends, if any of you shall be saved, it must be by Christ alone. There must be no patchwork; Christ did it all, and will not be helped in the matter. Christ will not allow you, as some say, to do what you can, and leave him to make up the rest. What can you do that is not sinful? Christ has done all for us; the work of redemption is all finished. Christ planned it all, and worked out all; and we, therefore, preach a full salvation through Jesus Christ. ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon, #NFDB
1251:Anyway, my dad gave me a whole birth-control kit for college, so we don’t even have to worry about it.”
Peter nearly chokes on his sandwich. “A birth-control kit?”
“Sure. Condoms and…” Dental dams. “Peter, do you know what a dental dam is?”
“A what? Is that what dentists use to keep your mouth open when they clean it?”
I giggle. “No. It’s for oral sex. And here I thought you were this big expert and you were going to be the one to teach me everything at college!”
My heart speeds up as I wait for him to make a joke about the two of us finally having sex at college, but he doesn’t. He frowns and says, “I don’t like the thought of your dad thinking we’re doing it when we’re not.”
“He just wants us to be careful is all. He’s a professional, remember?” I pat him on the knee. “Either way, I’m not getting pregnant, so it’s fine.”
He crumples up his napkin and tosses it in the paper bag, his eyes still on the road. “Your parents met in college, didn’t they?”
I’m surprised he remembers. I don’t remember telling him that. “Yeah.”
“So how old were they? Eighteen? Nineteen?” Peter’s headed somewhere with this line of questioning.
“Twenty, I think.”
His face dims but just slightly. “Okay, twenty. I’m eighteen and you’ll be eighteen next month. Twenty is just two years older. So what difference does two years make in the grand scheme of things?” He beams a smile at me. “Your parents met at twenty; we met at--”
“Twelve,” I supply.
Peter frowns, annoyed that I’ve messed up his argument. “Okay, so we met when were kids, but we didn’t get together until we were seventeen--”
“I was sixteen.”
“We didn’t get together for real until we were both basically seventeen. Which is basically the same thing as eighteen, which is basically the same thing as twenty.” He has the self-satisfied look of a lawyer who has just delivered a winning closing statement.
“That’s a very long and twisty line of logic,” I say. “Have you ever thought about being a lawyer?”
“No, but now I’m thinking maybe? ~ Jenny Han,#NFDB
1252:If we put this whole progression in terms of our discussion of the possibilities of heroism, it goes like this: Man breaks through the bounds of merely cultural heroism; he destroys the character lie that had him perform as a hero in the everyday social scheme of things; and by doing so he opens himself up to infinity, to the possibility of cosmic heroism, to the very service of God. His life thereby acquires ultimate value in place of merely social and cultural, historical value. He links his secret inner self, his authentic talent, his deepest feelings of uniqueness, his inner yearning for absolute significance, to the very ground of creation. Out of the ruins of the broken cultural self there remains the mystery of the private, invisible, inner self which yearned for ultimate significance, for cosmic heroism. This invisible mystery at the heart of every creature now attains cosmic significance by affirming its connection with the invisible mystery at the heart of creation. This is the meaning of faith. At the same time it is the meaning of the merger of psychology and religion in Kierkegaard's thought. The truly open person, the one who has shed his character armor, the vital lie of his cultural conditioning, is beyond the help of any mere "science," of any merely social standard of health. He is absolutely alone and trembling on the bring of oblivion-which is at the same time the brink of infinity. To give him the new support that he needs, the "courage to renounce dread without any dread...only faith is capable of," says Kierkegaard. Not that this is an easy out for man, or a cure-all for the human condition-Kierkegaard is never facile. He gives a strikingly beautiful idea:
not that [faith] annihilates dread, but remaining ever young, it is continually developing itself out of the death throe of dread.
In other words, as long as man is an ambiguous creature he can never banish anxiety; what he can do instead is to use anxiety as an eternal spring for growth into new dimensions of thought and trust. Faith poses a new life task, the adventure in openness to a multi-dimensional reality. ~ Ernest Becker,#NFDB
1253:When Dacey Rode The Mule
’TWAS to a small, up-country town,
When we were boys at school,
There came a circus with a clown,
Likewise a bucking mule.
The clown announced a scheme they had
Spectators for to bring—
They’d give a crown to any lad
Who’d ride him round the ring.
And, gentle reader, do not scoff
Nor think a man a fool—
To buck a porous-plaster off
Was pastime to that mule.
The boys got on he bucked like sin;
He threw them in the dirt.
What time the clown would raise a grin
By asking, “Are you hurt?”
But Johnny Dacey came one night,
The crack of all the school;
Said he, “I’ll win the crown all right;
Bring in your bucking mule.”
The elephant went off his trunk,
The monkey played the fool,
And all the band got blazing drunk
When Dacey rode the mule.
But soon there rose a galling shout
Of laughter, for the clown
From somewhere in his pants drew out
A little paper crown.
He placed the crown on Dacey’s head
While Dacey looked a fool;
“Now, there’s your crown, my lad,” he said,
“For riding of the mule!”
The band struck up with “Killaloe”,
And “Rule Britannia, Rule”,
And “Young Man from the Country”, too,
525
When Dacey rode the mule.
Then Dacey, in a furious rage,
For vengeance on the show
Ascended to the monkeys’ cage
And let the monkeys go;
The blue-tailed ape and the chimpanzee
He turned abroad to roam;
Good faith! It was a sight to see
The people step for home.
For big baboons with canine snout
Are spiteful, as a rule—
The people didn’t sit it out,
When Dacey rode the mule.
And from the beasts he let escape,
The bushmen all declare,
Were born some creatures partly ape
And partly native-bear.
They’re rather few and far between,
The race is nearly spent;
But some of them may still be seen
In Sydney Parliament.
And when those legislators fight,
And drink, and act the fool,
Just blame it on that torrid night
When Dacey rode the mule.
A.B. (Banjo) Pasterson
~ Banjo Paterson,#NFDB
1254:He was a good, even a shining light as a Castalian to the extent that he had a many-sided mind, tirelessly active in scholarship as well as in the art of the Glass Bead Game, and enormously hard-working; but in character, in his attitude toward the hierarchy and the morality of the Order he was a very mediocre, not to say bad Castalian. The greatest of his vices was a persistent neglect of meditation, which he refused to take seriously. The purpose of meditation, after all, is adaptation of the individual to the hierarchy, and application in it might very well have cured him of his neurasthenia. For it infallibly helped him whenever, after a period of bad conduct, excessive excitement, or melancholia, his superiors disciplined him by prescribing strict meditation exercises under supervision. Even Knecht, kindly disposed and forgiving though he was, frequently had to resort to this measure.
There was no question about it: Tegularius was a willful, moody person who refused to fit into his society. Every so often he would display the liveliness of his intellect. When highly stimulated he could be entrancing; his mordant wit sparkled and he overwhelmed everyone with the audacity and richness of his sometimes somber inspirations. But basically he was incurable, for he did not want to be cured; he cared nothing for co-ordination and a place in the scheme of things. He loved nothing but his freedom, his perpetual student status, and preferred spending his whole life as the unpredictable and obstinate loner, the gifted fool and nihilist, to following the path of subordination to the hierarchy and thus attaining peace. He cared nothing for peace, had no regard for the hierarchy, hardly minded reproof and isolation. Certainly he was a most inconvenient and indigestible component in a community whose idea was harmony and orderliness. But because of this very troublesomeness and indigestiblity he was, in the midst of such a limpid and prearranged little world, a constant source of vital unrest, a reproach, an admonition and warning, a spur to new, bold, forbidden, intrepid ideas, an unruly, stubborn sheep in the herd. And, to our mind, this was the very reason his friend cherished him. ~ Hermann Hesse,#NFDB
1255:Joy Seekers Certainly, every one of you will admit that what we seek in life is peace and joy. The way of seeking and the field in which we are seeking may be different from man to man, from place to place, and from era to era. But all of us are demanding the same joy everywhere and at all times. Joy or peace, as generally understood, is that which we experience when, in the external circumstances, we come to live a pattern which we have demanded for ourselves at a given period of time and place. That which was, in our childhood, a great happiness and joy, may not again provide for us an equal happiness or peace in our youth. A blue glass marble or a tennis ball would have been a joyous present when one was in one’s childhood. But the same present would not bring any happiness to us if it is presented to us at our diamond jubilee; conversely, it may even be painful, inasmuch as it would remind us of our old age and the impending ‘calamitous day’! Examples can be multiplied to justify the working definition of joy or peace that we have made just now. In this, the difficulty or the failure of man is mainly because the demand of the physical man is not necessarily the demand of the emotional; in the same individual the intellectual personality would still have a third type of demand and, perhaps, the spiritual seeker in him would have yet another demand. Thus, four distinct sets of demands are made by each individual at the same period of time and space. Certainly, no two happenings can come to pass at one and the same time and place, the happenings being conditioned by both time and place. Therefore, however much we may try to bring about, through certain new changes, a perfect scheme of things in our life and a hope to gain out of it a perfect satisfaction for all the four personalities in us, we shall only end up with sheer disappointment. Our Hope But, if there be a technique by which we can train, discipline and integrate all these wild and madly revolting personalities in us together into one unit, certainly, we can thereafter order much more freedom and happiness for ourselves in the outer world. These techniques are together termed as ‘religion’ by the great seers. ~ Chinmayananda Saraswati, #NFDB
1256:The Comet -1858
Erratic Soul of some great Purpose, doomed
To track the wild illimitable space,
Till sure propitiation has been made
For the divine commission unperformed!
What was thy crime? Ahasuerus' curse
Were not more stern on earth than thine in Heaven!
Art thou the Spirit of some Angel World,
For grave rebellion banished from thy peers,
Compelled to watch the calm, immortal stars,
Circling in rapture the celestial void,
While the avenger follows in thy train
To spur thee on to wretchedness eterne?
Or one of nature's wildest fantasies,
From which she flies in terror so profound,
And with such whirl of torment in her breast,
That mighty earthquakes yearn where'er she treads;
While War makes red its terrible right hand,
And Famine stalks abroad all lean and wan?
To us thou art as exquisitely fair
As the ideal visions of the seer,
Or gentlest fancy that e'er floated down
Imagination's bright, unruffled stream,
Wedding the thought that was too deep for words
To the low breathings of inspired song.
When the stars sang together o'er the birth
Of the poor Babe at Bethlehem, that lay
In the coarse manger at the crowded Inn,
Didst thou, perhaps a bright exalted star,
Refuse to swell the grand, harmonious lay,
Jealous as Herod of the birth divine?
Or when the crown of thorns on Calvary
Pierced the Redeemer's brow, didst thou disdain
To weep, when all the planetary worlds
Were blinded by the fulness of their tears?
138
E'en to the flaming sun, that hid his face
At the loud cry, 'Lama Sabachthani!'
No rest! No rest! the very damned have that
In the dark councils of remotest Hell,
Where the dread scheme was perfected that sealed
Thy disobedience and accruing doom.
Like Adam's sons, hast thou, too, forfeited
The blest repose that never pillowed Sin?
No! none can tell thy fate, thou wandering Sphinx!
Pale Science, searching by the midnight lamp
Through the vexed mazes of the human brain,
Still fails to read the secret of its soul
As the superb enigma flashes by,
A loosed Prometheus burning with disdain.
~ Charles Sangster,#NFDB
1257:Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated. But if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the past, or will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against the modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an apparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.
If then, I repeat, there is to be mental advance, it must be mental advance in the construction of a definite philosophy of life. ~ G K Chesterton,#NFDB
1258:I will never be a brain surgeon, and I will never play the piano like Glenn Gould.
But what keeps me up late at night, and constantly gives me reason to fret, is this: I don’t know what I don’t know. There are universes of things out there — ideas, philosophies, songs, subtleties, facts, emotions — that exist but of which I am totally and thoroughly unaware. This makes me very uncomfortable. I find that the only way to find out the fuller extent of what I don’t know is for someone to tell me, teach me or show me, and then open my eyes to this bit of information, knowledge, or life experience that I, sadly, never before considered.
Afterward, I find something odd happens. I find what I have just learned is suddenly everywhere: on billboards or in the newspaper or SMACK: Right in front of me, and I can’t help but shake my head and speculate how and why I never saw or knew this particular thing before. And I begin to wonder if I could be any different, smarter, or more interesting had I discovered it when everyone else in the world found out about this particular obvious thing. I have been thinking a lot about these first discoveries and also those chance encounters: those elusive happenstances that often lead to defining moments in our lives.
[…]
I once read that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I fundamentally disagree with this idea. I think that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of hope. We might keep making mistakes but the struggle gives us a sense of empathy and connectivity that we would not experience otherwise. I believe this empathy improves our ability to see the unseen and better know the unknown.
Lives are shaped by chance encounters and by discovering things that we don’t know that we don’t know. The arc of a life is a circuitous one. … In the grand scheme of things, everything we do is an experiment, the outcome of which is unknown.
You never know when a typical life will be anything but, and you won’t know if you are rewriting history, or rewriting the future, until the writing is complete.
This, just this, I am comfortable not knowing. ~ Debbie Millman,#NFDB
1259:There was a dragon who had a long-standing obsession with a queen's breasts," she said, growing breathless. "The dragon knew the penalty to touch her would mean death, yet he revealed his secret desire to the king's chief doctor. This man promised he could arrange for the dragon to satisfy his desire, but it would cost him one thousand gold coins." She spread her soapy hands over his nipples, then down his arms. "Though he didn't have the money, the dragon readily agreed to the scheme."
Grace," Darius moaned, his erection straining against her stomach.
She hid her smile, loving that she had this much power over such a strong man. That she, Grace Carlyle, made him ache with longing. "The next day the physician made a batch of itching powder and poured some into the queen's bra… uh, you might call it a brassiere… while she bathed. After she dressed, she began itching and itching and itching. The physician was summoned to the Royal Chambers, and he informed the king and queen that only a special saliva, if applied for several hours, would cure this type of itch. And only a dragon possessed this special saliva." Out of breath, she paused.
Continue," Darius said. His arms wound around her so tightly she could barely breathe. His skin blazed hot against hers, hotter than even the steamy water.
Are you sure?"
Continue." Taut lines bracketed his mouth.
Well, the king summoned the dragon. Meanwhile, the physician slipped him the antidote for the itching powder, which the dragon put into his mouth, and for the next few hours, the dragon worked passionately on the queen's breasts.
Anyway," she said, reaching around him and lathering the muscled mounds of his butt, "the queen's itching was eventually relieved, and the dragon left satisfied and touted as a hero."
This does not sound like a joke," Darius said.
I'm getting to the punch line. Hang on. When the physician demanded his payment, the now satisfied dragon refused. He knew that the physician could never report what really happened to the king. So the next day, the physician slipped a massive dose of the same itching powder into the king's loincloth. And the king immediately summoned the dragon."
-Heart of the Dragon ~ Gena Showalter,#NFDB
1260:It's a queer thing is a man's soul. It is the whole of him. Which means it is the unknown him, as well as the known. It seems to me just funny, professors and Benjamins fixing the functions of the soul. Why, the soul of man is a vast forest, and all Benjamin intended was a neat back garden. And we've all got to fit into his kitchen garden scheme of things. Hail Columbia !
The soul of man is a dark forest. The Hercynian Wood that scared the Romans so, and out of which came the white- skinned hordes of the next civilization.
Who knows what will come out of the soul of man? The soul of man is a dark vast forest, with wild life in it. Think of Benjamin fencing it off!
Oh, but Benjamin fenced a little tract that he called the soul of man, and proceeded to get it into cultivation. Providence, forsooth! And they think that bit of barbed wire is going to keep us in pound for ever? More fools they.
...
Man is a moral animal. All right. I am a moral animal. And I'm going to remain such. I'm not going to be turned into a virtuous little automaton as Benjamin would have me. 'This is good, that is bad. Turn the little handle and let the good tap flow,' saith Benjamin, and all America with him. 'But first of all extirpate those savages who are always turning on the bad tap.'
I am a moral animal. But I am not a moral machine. I don't work with a little set of handles or levers. The Temperance- silence-order- resolution-frugality-industry-sincerity - justice- moderation-cleanliness-tranquillity-chastity-humility keyboard is not going to get me going. I'm really not just an automatic piano with a moral Benjamin getting tunes out of me.
Here's my creed, against Benjamin's. This is what I believe:
'That I am I.'
' That my soul is a dark forest.'
'That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.'
'Thatgods, strange gods, come forth f rom the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.'
' That I must have the courage to let them come and go.'
' That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.'
There is my creed. He who runs may read. He who prefers to crawl, or to go by gasoline, can call it rot. ~ D H Lawrence,#NFDB
1261:In 1924, Nikola Tesla was asked why he never married?
His answer was this:
"I had always thought of woman as possessing those delicate qualities of mind and soul that made her in her respects far superior to man. I had put her on a lofty pedestal, figuratively speaking, and ranked her in certain important attributes considerably higher than man. I worshipped at the feet of the creature I had raised to this height, and, like every true worshiper, I felt myself unworthy of the object of my worship.
But all this was in the past. Now the soft voiced gentle woman of my reverent worship has all but vanished. In her place has come the woman who thinks that her chief success in life lies on making herself as much as possible like man - in dress, voice, and actions, in sports and achievements of every kind. The world has experience many tragedies, but to my mind the greatest tragedy of all is the present economic condition wherein women strive against men, and in many cases actually succeed in usurping their places in the professions and in industry. This growing tendency of women to overshadow the masculine is a sign of a deteriorating civilization.
Practically all the great achievements of man until now have been inspired by his love and devotion to woman. Man has aspired to great things because some woman believed in him, because he wished to command her admiration and respect. For these reasons he has fought for her and risked his life and his all for her time and time again.
Perhaps the male in society is useless. I am frank to admit that I don't know. If women are beginning to feel this way about it - and there is striking evidence at hand that they do - then we are entering upon the cruelest period of the world's history.
Our civilization will sink to a state like that which is found among the bees, ants, and other insects - a state wherein the male is ruthlessly killed off. In this matriarchal empire which will be established, the female rules. As the female predominates, the males are at her mercy. The male is considered important only as a factor in the general scheme of the continuity of life.
The tendency of women to push aside man, supplanting the old spirit of cooperation with him in all the affairs of life, is very disappointing to me."
Galveston Daily News, Galveston, Texas, page 23. August 10, 1924. ~ Nikola Tesla,#NFDB
1262:I can only imagine the sort of havoc Oliver must have wreaked as a boy.”
Oliver handed Minerva in, then climbed in to sit beside her. “We weren’t that bad.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Minerva exclaimed, her eyes twinkling. “One dull evening, he and his friends went to a ball dressed in the livery of the hired footmen. Then they proceeded to drink up the liquor, flirt and wink at the elderly ladies until they were all blushing, and make loud criticisms of the entertainment. After the lady of the house caught on to their scheme and rounded up some stout young men to throw them out, they stole a small stone cupid she had in her garden and sent her a ransom note for it.”
“How the devil do you know that?” Oliver asked. “You were, what, eleven?”
“Twelve,” Minerva said. “And it was all Gran’s servants could talk about. Made quite a stir in society, as I recall. What was the ransom? A kiss for each of you from the lady’s daughter?”
A faint smile touched Oliver’s lips. “And she never did pay it. Apparently her suitors took issue with it. Not to mention her parents.”
“Good heavens,” Maria said.
“Come to think of it,” Oliver mused aloud, “I believe Kirkwood still has that cupid somewhere. I should ask him.”
“You’re as bad as Freddy and my cousins,” Maria chided. “They put soap on all the windows of the mayor’s carriage on the very day he was supposed to lead a procession through Dartmouth. You should have seen him blustering when he discovered it.”
“Was he a pompous idiot?” Oliver asked.
“A lecher, actually. He tried to force a kiss on my aunt. And him a married man, too!”
“Then I hope they did more than soap his windows,” Oliver drawled.
The comment caught Maria by surprise. “And you, of course, have never kissed a married woman?”
“Not if they didn’t ask to be kissed,” he said, a strange tension in his voice. “But we weren’t speaking of me, we were speaking of Dartmouth’s dastardly mayor. Did soaping his windows teach him a lesson?”
“No, but the gift they left for him in the coach did the trick. They got it from the town’s largest cow.”
Oliver and Minerva both laughed. Mrs. Plumtree did not. She was as silent as death beside Maria, clearly scandalized by the entire conversation.
“Why do boys always feel an urgent need to create a mess others are forced to clean up?” Minerva asked.
“Because they know how it irritates us,” Maria said. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,#NFDB
1263:What would you have me do?
Seek for the patronage of some great man,
And like a creeping vine on a tall tree
Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone?
No thank you! Dedicate, as others do,
Poems to pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon
In the vile hope of teasing out a smile
On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad
For breakfast every morning? Make my knees
Callous, and cultivate a supple spine,-
Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust?
No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine
That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns
Of Mammon with my left hand, while my right
Too proud to know his partner's business,
Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire
God gave me to burn incense all day long
Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you!
Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps
And licking fingers?-or-to change the form-
Navigating with madrigals for oars,
My sails full of the sighs of dowagers?
No thank you! Publish verses at my own
Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint
Of a small group of literary souls
Who dine together every Tuesday? No
I thank you! Shall I labor night and day
To build a reputation on one song,
And never write another? Shall I find
True genius only among Geniuses,
Palpitate over little paragraphs,
And struggle to insinuate my name
In the columns of the Mercury?
No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be afraid,
Love more to make a visit than a poem,
Seek introductions, favors, influences?-
No thank you! No, I thank you! And again
I thank you!-But...
To sing, to laugh, to dream
To walk in my own way and be alone,
Free, with a voice that means manhood-to cock my hat
Where I choose-At a word, a Yes, a No,
To fight-or write.To travel any road
Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt
If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne-
Never to make a line I have not heard
In my own heart; yet, with all modesty
To say:"My soul, be satisfied with flowers,
With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them
In the one garden you may call your own."
So, when I win some triumph, by some chance,
Render no share to Caesar-in a word,
I am too proud to be a parasite,
And if my nature wants the germ that grows
Towering to heaven like the mountain pine,
Or like the oak, sheltering multitudes-
I stand, not high it may be-but alone! ~ Edmond Rostand,#NFDB
1264:An Old Doll
Low on her little stool she sits
To make a nursing lap,
And cares for nothing but the form
Her little arms enwrap.
With hairless skull that gapes apart,
A broken plaster ball,
One chipped glass eye that squints askew,
And ne'er a nose at all No raddle left on grimy cheek,
No mouth that one can see It scarce discloses, at a glance,
What it was meant to be.
But something in the simple scheme
As it extends below
(It is the 'tidy' from my chair
That she is rumpling so) A certain folding of the stuff
That winds the thing about
(But still permits the sawdust gore
To trickle down and out) The way it curves around her waist,
On little knees outspread Implies a body frail and dear,
Whence one infers a head.
She rocks the scarecrow to and fro,
With croonings soft and deep,
A lullaby designed to hush
The bunch of rags to sleep.
I ask what rubbish has she there.
'My dolly,' she replies,
But tone and smile and gesture say,
'My angel from the skies.'
57
Inefflable the look of love
Cast on the hideous blur
That somehow means a precious face,
Most beautiful, to her.
The deftness and the tenderness
Of her caressing hands . . . . . .
How can she possibly divine
For what the creature stands?
Herself a nurseling, that has seen
The summers and the snows
Of scarce five years of baby life.
And yet she knows - she knows.
Just as a puppy of the pack
Knows unheard huntsman's call,
And knows it is a running hound
Before it learns to crawl.
Just as she knew, when hardly born,
The breast unseen before,
And knew - how well! - before they touched,
What milk and mouth were for.
So! by some mystic extra-sense
Denied to eyes and ears,
Her spirit communes with its own
Beyond the veil of years.
She hears unechoing footsteps run
On floors she never trod,
Sees lineaments invisible
As is the face of God Forms she can recognise and greet,
Though wholly hid from me.
Alas! a treasure that is not,
And that may never be.
The majesty of motherhood
Sits on her baby brow;
58
Before her little three-legged throne
My grizzled head must bow.
That dingy bundle in her arms
Symbols immortal things A heritage, by right divine,
Beyond the claims of kings.
~ Ada Cambridge,#NFDB
1265:American culture quite naturally provides these ideological supports to those it favors and elects as fellow participants in the social and psychological institutions which regulate its established arrangements. Essentially, these favored persons have been middle-class white men. A middle-class white man's evolution out of embeddedness in the interpersonal is not a moving spectacle in our culture precisely because there is no spectacle - you cannot watch it (unless you look closely at a given individual over time". It will stand out in the private relations of the person's immediate network but it does not stand out as figure on the cultural ground precisely because it is embedded in the tacit ideology of the culture. This is one reason the tacit ideology is so powerful and insidious for those it excludes: it cannot be seen; it is not held up for examination. What may be the most important consequence of the upheavals of the last fifteen years - largely through the attention these upheavals brought to the arrangements between blacks and whites (the 'civil rights' movement'), men and women (the 'women's movement'), and the government and the governed (the 'anti-war movement') is that the ideological nature of American life was made explicit. (Evolutionarily, if I were to apply my scheme to the culture at large, I should have to say the upheavals of the sixties and early seventies represented the transitional angst of the emergences out of 'institutional' embeddedness; of course, from the point of view of the old world not yet left behind, this same upheaval must look like a collapse of our basic institutions, which is just what popular analyses says.) For persons excluded from the tacit culture of ideology to make this move, it is necessary for them to construct their own ideological support which will necessarily stand out. Whether the ideology is feminism or black power or gay rights, it will have common features which serve the absolutely crucial function of supporting the evolution of meaning. It holds and recognizes the group-extensiveness of the new differentiation ('black pride,' 'I am woman') and protects against reabsorption into the old embeddedness (whether by moratoria from intimate relations with men, say, or turning to women - one's comrades - for intimate relations; or the adoption of a strident language which can be as much an effort to hold off an old self as it is an address to others). ~ Robert Kegan, #NFDB
1266:So your theory is that Nancy plans to marry Samuel, pass off as her own the child he fathered on her maid, and then raise it, assuming it’s a boy, to be heir to the title. That doesn’t gain Nancy much, does it? It’s not her son, and she’s not Samuel’s only lover. He and his mistress and the son get everything; she gets only the privilege of knowing she’s married to a seducer.”
Dom ignored the fact that some of what she said made sense. “She gains an exalted rank as mother to the new viscount. She gains a husband she’s always coveted. And she might not even care if Samuel was having an affair with her maid--you said yourself that Nancy wasn’t fond of the intimate side of marriage.”
The moment Jane paled, he realized what he’d said. Something highly inappropriate. Something that revealed just how frank he and Jane had been in their conversations. God only knew what Blakeborough would make of that.
Bloody hell. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t help Dom’s situation with Jane any. Not that any of this would. Damn Nancy for coming between them yet again.
Jane’s gaze turned stormy as she poked him in the chest. “You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you? But as usual, you ignore all the ways that your theory doesn’t fit.”
He stared her down. “Such as what?”
Again she poked him in the chest. “Why did Samuel mention coming to London to see a doctor if they were sure that Nancy had lost the baby?” Another poke. “Why did she leave York in such strange circumstances that she roused our suspicions?” Poke. “Why did she not even pack bags for the journey?”
When she started to poke him once more, he grabbed her hand. “Perhaps she and Barlow worked up the scheme once she got to York.”
Jane snatched her hand free. “And she didn’t try to return to Rathmoor Park to allay the servants’ suspicions or pack or even take her dogs?”
“Nancy didn’t take her dogs?” Sadler echoed. “That’s not right, not right at all. That girl carries those deuced dogs everywhere. Many is the trip I’ve taken with her when I’ve had to endure the mutts in my lap.” Sadler approached to stand beside Jane. “I tell you, the only way she’d leave them behind is if Barlow abducted her and forced her to do his bidding. That’s what has happened. I know it!”
With a smug lift of her eyebrow, Jane crossed her arms over her chest and dared Dom to refute that.
He couldn’t. Because until he could investigate more, he simply couldn’t be sure of the truth, damn it. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,#NFDB
1267:As after any revolution, purists were vigilant for signs of ideological backsliding and departures from the one true faith. The 1780s and 1790s were to be especially rich in feverish witch hunts for traitors who allegedly sought to reverse the verdict of the war. For the radicals of the day, revolutionary purity meant a strong legislature that would overshadow a weak executive and judiciary. For Hamilton, this could only invite legislative tyranny. Rutgers v. Waddington represented his first major chance to expound the principle that the judiciary should enjoy coequal status with the other two branches of government. If Rutgers v. Waddington made Hamilton a controversial figure in city politics in 1784, the founding of the Bank of New York cast him in a more conciliatory role. The creation of New York’s first bank was a formative moment in the city’s rise as a world financial center. Banking was still a new phenomenon in America. The first such chartered institution, the Bank of North America, had been started in Philadelphia in 1781, and Hamilton had studied its affairs closely. It was the brainchild of Robert Morris, and its two biggest shareholders were Jeremiah Wadsworth and Hamilton’s brother-in-law John B. Church. These two men now cast about for fresh outlets for their capital. In 1783, John Church sailed for Europe with Angelica and their four children to settle wartime accounts with the French government. In his absence, Church named Hamilton as his American business agent, a task that was to consume a good deal of his time in coming years. When Church and Wadsworth deputized him to set up a private bank in New York, Hamilton warmed to it as a project that could help to rejuvenate New York commerce. He was stymied by a competing proposal from Robert R. Livingston to set up a “land bank”—so called because the initial capital would be pledged mostly in land, an idea Hamilton derided as a “wild and impracticable scheme.” 49 Since land is not a liquid asset and cannot be converted into ready cash in an emergency, Hamilton favored a more conservative bank that would conduct business exclusively in notes and gold and silver coins. When Livingston solicited the New York legislature for a charter, the tireless Hamilton swung into action and mobilized New York’s merchants against the effort. He informed Church that he had lobbied “some of the most intelligent merchants, who presently saw the matter in a proper light and began to take measures to defeat the plan. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1268:In 2005, when Congress still depended on Communist votes for a majority in Parliament, a National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was passed, assuring any household in the countryside a hundred days labour a year at the legal minimum wage on public works, with at least a third of these jobs for women. It is work for pay, rather than a direct cash transfer scheme as in Brazil, to minimize the danger of money going to those who are not actually the poor, and so ensure it reaches only those willing to do the work. Denounced by all right-thinking opinion as debilitating charity behind a façade of make-work, it was greeted by the middle-class like ‘a wet dog at a glamorous party’, in the words of one of its architects, the Belgian-Indian economist Jean Drèze. Unlike the Bolsa Família in Brazil, the application of NREGA was left to state governments rather than the centre, so its impact has been very uneven and incomplete, wages often paid lower than the legal minimum, for days many fewer than a hundred.75 Works performed are not always durable, and as with all other social programmes in India, funds are liable to local malversation. But in scale NREGA now represents the largest entitlement programme in the world, reaching some 40 million rural households, a quarter of the total in the country. Over half of these dalit or adivasi, and 48 per cent of its beneficiaries are women – double their share of casual labour in the private sector. Such is the demand for employment by NREGA in the countryside that it far outruns supply. A National Survey Sample for 2009–2010 has revealed that 45 per cent of all rural households wanted the work it offers, of whom only 56 per cent got it.76 What NREGA has started to do, in the formulation Drèze has taken from Ambedkar, is break the dictatorship of the private employer in the countryside, helping by its example to raise wages even of non-recipients. Since inception, its annual cost has risen from $2.5 to over $8 billion, a token of its popularity. This remains less than 1 per cent of GDP, and the great majority of rural labourers in the private sector are still not paid the minimum wage due them. Conceived outside the party system, and accepted by Congress only when it had little expectation of winning the elections of 2004, the Act eventually had such popular demand behind it that the Lok Sabha adopted it nem con. Three years later, with typical dishonesty, the Manmohan regime renamed it as ‘Gandhian’ to fool the masses that Congress inspired it. ~ Perry Anderson, #NFDB
1269:The world is so big, so complicated, so replete with marvels and surprises that it takes years for most people to begin to notice that it is, also, irretrievably broken. We call this period of research “childhood.”
There follows a program of renewed inquiry, often involuntary, into the nature and effects of mortality, entropy, heartbreak, violence, failure, cowardice, duplicity, cruelty, and grief; the researcher learns their histories, and their bitter lessons, by heart. Along the way, he or she discovers that the world has been broken for as long as anyone can remember, and struggles to reconcile this fact with the ache of cosmic nostalgia that arises, from time to time, in the researcher’s heart: an intimation of vanished glory, of lost wholeness, a memory of the world unbroken. We call the moment at which this ache first arises “adolescence.” The feeling haunts people all their lives.
Everyone, sooner or later, gets a thorough schooling in brokenness. The question becomes: What to do with the pieces? Some people hunker down atop the local pile of ruins and make do, Bedouin tending their goats in the shade of shattered giants. Others set about breaking what remains of the world into bits ever smaller and more jagged, kicking through the rubble like kids running through piles of leaves. And some people, passing among the scattered pieces of that great overturned jigsaw puzzle, start to pick up a piece here, a piece there, with a vague yet irresistible notion that perhaps something might be done about putting the thing back together again.
Two difficulties with this latter scheme at once present themselves. First of all, we have only ever glimpsed, as if through half-closed lids, the picture on the lid of the jigsaw puzzle box. Second, no matter how diligent we have been about picking up pieces along the way, we will never have anywhere near enough of them to finish the job. The most we can hope to accomplish with our handful of salvaged bits—the bittersweet harvest of observation and experience—is to build a little world of our own. A scale model of that mysterious original, unbroken, half—remembered. Of course the worlds we build out of our store of fragments can be only approximations, partial and inaccurate. As representations of the vanished whole that haunts us, they must be accounted failures. And yet in that very failure, in their gaps and inaccuracies, they may yet be faithful maps, accurate scale models, of this beautiful and broken world. We call these scale models “works of art. ~ Michael Chabon,#NFDB
1270:You don’t need to pity them. Really, let me tell you: don’t. The reality of the universe is not something to envy.” “Why?” Yifan lifted a hand and pointed at the stars of the galaxy. Then he let the 3G force pull his arm back to this chest. “Darkness. Only darkness.” “You mean the dark forest state?” Guan Yifan shook his head, a gesture that appeared to be a struggle in hypergravity. “For us, the dark forest state is all-important, but it’s just a detail of the cosmos. If you think of the cosmos as a great battlefield, dark forest strikes are nothing more than snipers shooting at the careless—messengers, mess men, etc. In the grand scheme of the battle, they are nothing. You have not seen what a true interstellar war is like.” “Have you?” “We’ve caught a few glimpses. But most things we know are just guesses.… Do you really want to know? The more you possess of this kind of knowledge, the less light remains in your heart.” “My heart is already completely dark. I want to know.” And so, more than six centuries after Luo Ji had fallen through ice into that lake, another dark veil hiding the truth about the universe was lifted before the gaze of one of the only survivors of Earth civilization. Yifan asked, “Why don’t you tell me what the most powerful weapon for a civilization possessing almost infinite technological prowess is? Don’t think of this as a technical question. Think philosophy.” Cheng Xin pondered for a while and then struggled to shake her head. “I don’t know.” “Your experiences should give you a hint.” What had she experienced? She had seen how a cruel attacker could lower the dimensions of space by one and destroy a solar system. What are dimensions? “The universal laws of physics,” Cheng Xin said. “That’s right. The universal laws of physics are the most terrifying weapons, and also the most effective defenses. Whether it’s by the Milky Way or the Andromeda Galaxy, at the scale of the local galactic group or the Virgo Supercluster, those warring civilizations possessing godlike technology will not hesitate to use the universal laws of physics as weapons. There are many laws that can be manipulated into weapons, but most commonly, the focus is on spatial dimensions and the speed of light. Typically, lowering spatial dimensions is a technique for attack, and lowering the speed of light is a technique for defense. Thus, the dimensional strike on the Solar System was an advanced attack method. A dimensional strike is a sign of respect. In this universe, respect is not easy to earn. I guess you could consider it an honor for Earth civilization. ~ Liu Cixin, #NFDB
1271:Old And New Year Ditties
New Year met me somewhat sad:
Old Year leaves me tired,
Stripped of favourite things I had
Baulked of much desired:
Yet farther on my road to-day
God willing, farther on my way.
New Year coming on apace
What have you to give me?
Bring you scathe, or bring you grace,
Face me with an honest face;
You shall not deceive me:
Be it good or ill, be it what you will,
It needs shall help me on my road,
My rugged way to heaven, please God.
Watch with me, men, women, and children dear,
You whom I love, for whom I hope and fear,
Watch with me this last vigil of the year.
Some hug their business, some their pleasure-scheme;
Some seize the vacant hour to sleep or dream;
Heart locked in heart some kneel and watch apart.
Watch with me blessed spirits, who delight
All through the holy night to walk in white,
Or take your ease after the long-drawn fight.
I know not if they watch with me: I know
They count this eve of resurrection slow,
And cry, 'How long?' with urgent utterance strong.
Watch with me Jesus, in my loneliness:
Though others say me nay, yet say Thou yes;
Though others pass me by, stop Thou to bless.
Yea, Thou dost stop with me this vigil night;
To-night of pain, to-morrow of delight:
I, Love, am Thine; Thou, Lord my God, art mine.
Passing away, saith the World, passing away:
Chances, beauty and youth sapped day by day:
304
Thy life never continueth in one stay.
Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey
That hath won neither laurel nor bay?
I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May:
Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay
On my bosom for aye.
Then I answered: Yea.
Passing away, saith my Soul, passing away:
With its burden of fear and hope, of labour and play;
Hearken what the past doth witness and say:
Rust in thy gold, a moth is in thine array,
A canker is in thy bud, thy leaf must decay.
At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain day
Lo, the Bridegroom shall come and shall not delay:
Watch thou and pray.
Then I answered: Yea.
Passing away, saith my God, passing away:
Winter passeth after the long delay:
New grapes on the vine, new figs on the tender spray,
Turtle calleth turtle in Heaven's May.
Though I tarry wait for Me, trust Me, watch and pray:
Arise, come away, night is past and lo it is day,
My love, My sister, My spouse, thou shalt hear Me say.
Then I answered: Yea.
~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,#NFDB
1272:All social orders command their members to imbibe in pipe dreams of posterity, the mirage of immortality, to keep them ahead of the extinction that would ensue in a few generations if the species did not replenish itself. This is the implicit, and most pestiferous, rationale for propagation: to become fully integrated into a society, one must offer it fresh blood. Naturally, the average set of parents does not conceive of their conception as a sacrificial act. These are civilized human beings we are talking about, and thus they are quite able to fill their heads with a panoply of less barbaric rationales for reproduction, among them being the consolidation of a spousal relationship; the expectation of new and enjoyable experiences in the parental role; the hope that one will pass the test as a mother or father; the pleasing of one’s own parents, not to forget their parents and possibly a great-grandparent still loitering about; the serenity of taking one’s place in the seemingly deathless lineage of a familial enterprise; the creation of individuals who will care for their paternal and maternal selves in their dotage; the quelling of a sense of guilt or selfishness for not having done their duty as human beings; and the squelching of that faint pathos that is associated with the childless. Such are some of the overpowering pressures upon those who would fertilize the future. These pressures build up in people throughout their lifetimes and must be released, just as everyone must evacuate their bowels or fall victim to a fecal impaction. And who, if they could help it, would suffer a building, painful fecal impaction? So we make bowel movements to relieve this pressure. Quite a few people make gardens because they cannot stand the pressure of not making a garden. Others commit murder because they cannot stand the pressure building up to kill someone, either a person known to them or a total stranger. Everything is like that. Our whole lives consist of metaphorical as well as actual bowel movements, one after the other. Releasing these pressures can have greater or lesser consequences in the scheme of our lives. But they are all pressures, all bowel movements of some kind. At a certain age, children are praised for making a bowel movement in the approved manner. Later on, the praise of others dies down for this achievement and our bowel movements become our own business, although we may continue to praise ourselves for them. But overpowering pressures go on governing our lives, and the release of these essentially bowel-movement pressures may once again come up for praise, congratulations, and huzzahs of all kinds. ~ Thomas Ligotti, #NFDB
1273:If a season like the Great Rebellion ever came to him again, he feared, it could never be in that same personal, random array of picaresque acts he was to recall and celebrate in later years at best furious and nostalgic; but rather with a logic that chilled the comfortable perversity of the heart, that substituted capability for character, deliberate scheme for political epiphany (so incomparably African); and for Sarah, the sjambok, the dances of death between Warmbad and Keetmanshoop, the taut haunches of his Firelily, the black corpse impaled on a thorn tree in a river swollen with sudden rain, for these the dearest canvases in his soul's gallery, it was to substitute the bleak, abstracted and for him rather meaningless hanging on which he now turned his back, but which was to backdrop his retreat until he reached the Other Wall, the engineering design for a world he knew with numb leeriness nothing could now keep from becoming reality, a world whose full despair he, at the vantage of eighteen years later, couldn't even find adequate parables for, but a design whose first fumbling sketches he thought must have been done the year after Jacob Marengo died, on that terrible coast, where the beach between Luderitzbucht and the cemetery was actually littered each morning with a score of identical female corpses, an agglomeration no more substantial-looking than seaweed against the unhealthy yellow sand; where the soul's passage was more a mass migration across that choppy fetch of Atlantic the wind never left alone, from an island of low cloud, like an anchored prison ship, to simple integration with the unimaginable mass of their continent; where the single line of track still edged toward a Keetmanshoop that could in no conceivable iconology be any part of the Kingdom of Death; where, finally, humanity was reduced, out of a necessity which in his loonier moments he could almost believe was only Deutsch-Sudwestafrika's (actually he knew better), out of a confrontation the young of one's contemporaries, God help them, had yet to make, humanity was reduced to a nervous, disquieted, forever inadequate but indissoluble Popular Front against deceptively unpolitical and apparently minor enemies, enemies that would be with him to the grave: a sun with no shape, a beach alien as the moon's antarctic, restless concubines in barbed wire, salt mists, alkaline earth, the Benguela Current that would never cease bringing sand to raise the harbor floor, the inertia of rock, the frailty of flesh, the structural unreliability of thorns; the unheard whimper of a dying woman; the frightening but necessary cry of the strand wolf in the fog. ~ Thomas Pynchon, #NFDB
1274:Christopher Phelan was talking with Prudence Mercer. The scheme of formal black and white was becoming to any man. On someone like Christopher, it was literally breathtaking. He wore the clothes with natural ease, his posture relaxed but straight, his shoulders broad. The crisp white of his starched cravat provided a striking contrast to his tawny skin, while the light of chandeliers glittered over his golden-bronze hair.
Following her gaze, Amelia lifted her brows. “What an attractive man,” she said. Her attention returned to Beatrix. “You like him, don’t you?”
Before Beatrix could help herself, she sent her sister a pained glance. Letting her gaze drop to the floor, she said, “There have been a dozen times in the past when I should have liked a particular gentleman. When it would have been convenient, and appropriate, and easy. But no, I had to wait for someone special. Someone who would make my heart feel as if it’s been trampled by elephants, thrown into the Amazon, and eaten by piranhas.”
Amelia smiled at her compassionately. Her gloved hand slipped over Beatrix’s. “Darling Bea. Would it console you to hear that such feelings of infatuation are perfectly ordinary?”
Beatrix turned her palm upward, returning the clasp of her sister’s hand. Since their mother had died when Bea was twelve, Amelia had been a source of endless love and patience. “Is it infatuation?” she heard herself asking softly. “Because it feels much worse than that. Like a fatal disease.”
“I don’t know, dear. It’s difficult to tell the difference between love and infatuation. Time will reveal it, eventually.” Amelia paused. “He is attracted to you,” she said. “We all noticed the other night. Why don’t you encourage him, dear?”
Beatrix felt her throat tighten. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t explain,” Beatrix said miserably, “except to say that I’ve deceived him.”
Amelia glanced at her in surprise. “That doesn’t sound like you. You’re the least deceptive person I’ve ever known.”
“I didn’t mean to do it. And he doesn’t know that it was me. But I think he suspects.”
“Oh.” Amelia frowned as she absorbed the perplexing statement. “Well. This does seem to be a muddle. Perhaps you should confide in him. His reaction may surprise you. What is it that Mother used to say whenever we pushed her to the limits of her patience?...’Love forgives all things.’ Do you remember?”
“Of course,” Beatrix said. She had written that exact phrase to Christopher in one of her letters. Her throat went very tight. “Amelia, I can’t discuss this now. Or I’ll start weeping and throw myself to the floor.”
“Heavens, don’t do that. Someone might trip over you. ~ Lisa Kleypas,#NFDB
1275:How exactly the debt should be funded was to be the most inflammatory political issue. During the Revolution, many affluent citizens had invested in bonds, and many war veterans had been paid with IOUs that then plummeted in price under the confederation. In many cases, these upright patriots, either needing cash or convinced they would never be repaid, had sold their securities to speculators for as little as fifteen cents on the dollar. Under the influence of his funding scheme, with government repayment guaranteed, Hamilton expected these bonds to soar from their depressed levels and regain their full face value. This pleasing prospect, however, presented a political quandary. If the bonds appreciated, should speculators pocket the windfall? Or should the money go to the original holders—many of them brave soldiers—who had sold their depressed government paper years earlier? The answer to this perplexing question, Hamilton knew, would define the future character of American capital markets. Doubtless taking a deep breath, he wrote that “after the most mature reflection” about whether to reward original holders and punish current speculators, he had decided against this approach as “ruinous to public credit.”25 The problem was partly that such “discrimination” in favor of former debt holders was unworkable. The government would have to track them down, ascertain their sale prices, then trace all intermediate investors who had held the debt before it was bought by the current owners—an administrative nightmare. Hamilton could have left it at that, ducking the political issue and taking refuge in technical jargon. Instead, he shifted the terms of the debate. He said that the first holders were not simply noble victims, nor were the current buyers simply predatory speculators. The original investors had gotten cash when they wanted it and had shown little faith in the country’s future. Speculators, meanwhile, had hazarded their money and should be rewarded for the risk. In this manner, Hamilton stole the moral high ground from opponents and established the legal and moral basis for securities trading in America: the notion that securities are freely transferable and that buyers assume all rights to profit or loss in transactions. The knowledge that government could not interfere retroactively with a financial transaction was so vital, Hamilton thought, as to outweigh any short-term expediency. To establish the concept of the “security of transfer,” Hamilton was willing, if necessary, to reward mercenary scoundrels and penalize patriotic citizens. With this huge gamble, Hamilton laid the foundations for America’s future financial preeminence. ~ Ron Chernow, #NFDB
1276:What the-“ he began, already heading toward the house, with Elizabeth walking quickly behind him.
Ian opened the front door just as Jake came hurrying in from the back of the cottage.
“I got some milk-“ Jake began, then he stopped abruptly as the stench hit him. His gaze snapped from Ian and Elizabeth, who were just rushing inside, to Lucinda, who was sitting exactly where she had been, serenely indifferent to the smell of burning bacon and incinerated eggs as she fanned herself with a black silk fan. “I took the liberty of removing the utensil from the stove,” she informed them. “However, I was not in time to save its contents, which I sincerely doubt were worth saving in any case.”
“Couldn’t you have moved ‘em before they burned?” Jake burst out.
“I cannot cook, sir.”
“Can you smell?” Ian demanded.
“Ian, there’s nothing for it-I’ll have to ride to the village and hire a pair o’ wenches to come up here and get this place in order for us or we’ll starve.”
“My thoughts exactly!” Lucinda seconded promptly, already standing up. “I shall accompany you.”
“Whaat?” Elizabeth burst out.
“What? Why?” Jake echoed, looking balky.
“Because selecting good female servants is best done by a woman. How far must we go?”
If Elizabeth weren’t so appalled, she’d have laughed at Jake Wiley’s expression. “We can be back late this afternoon, assumin’ there’s anyone in the village to do the work. But I-“
“Then we’d best be about it.” Lucinda paused and turned to Ian, passing a look of calculating consideration over hum; then she glanced at Elizabeth. Giving her a look that clearly said “Trust me and do not argue,” she said, “Elizabeth, if you would be so good as to excuse us, I’d like a word alone with Mr. Thornton.” With no choice but to do as bidden, Elizabeth went out the front door and stared in utter confusion at the trees, wondering what bizarre scheme Lucinda might have hatched to solve their problems.
In the cottage Ian watched through narrowed eyes as the gray-haired harpy fixed him with her basilisk stare. “Mr. Thornton,” she said finally, “I have decided you are a gentleman.”
She made that pronouncement as if she were a queen bestowing knighthood on a lowly, possibly undeserving serf. Fascinated and irritated at the same time, Ian leaned his hip against the table, waiting to discover what game she was playing by leaving Elizabeth alone here, unchaperoned. “Don’t keep me in suspense,” he said coolly. “What have I done to earn your good opinion?”
“Absolutely nothing,” she said without hesitation. “I’m basing my decision on my own excellent intuitive powers and on the fact that you were born a gentleman. ~ Judith McNaught,#NFDB
1277:Has creation a definite aim? Is there something like a final end to which it is moving?
The Mother: No, the universe is a movement that is eternally unrolling itself. There is nothing which you can fix upon as the end and one aim. But for the sake of action we have to section the movement, which is itself unending, and to say that this or that is the goal, for in action we need something upon which we can fix our aim. In a picture you need a definite scheme of composition and colour; you have to set a limit, to put the whole thing within a fixed framework; but the limit is illusory, the frame is a mere convention. There is a constant continuation of the picture that stretches beyond any particular frame, and each continuation can be drawn in the same conditions in an unending series of frames. Our aim is this or that, we say, but we know that it is only the beginning of another aim beyond it, and that in its turn leads to yet another; the series develop always and never stop.
What is the proper function of the intellect? Is it a help or a hindrance to Sadhana?
Whether the intellect is a help or a hindrance depends upon the person and upon the way in which it is used. There is a true movement of the intellect and there is a wrong movement; one helps, the other hinders. The intellect that believes too much in its own importance and wants satisfaction for its own sake, is an obstacle to the higher realisation.
But this is true not in any special sense or for the intellect alone, but generally and of other faculties as well. For example, people do not regard an all-engrossing satisfaction of the vital desires or the animal appetites as a virtue; the moral sense is accepted as a mentor to tell one the bounds that one may not transgress. It is only in his intellectual activities that man thinks he can do without any such mentor or censor!
Any part of the being that keeps to its proper place and plays its appointed role is helpful; but directly it steps beyond its sphere, it becomes twisted and perverted and therefore false. A power has the right movement when it is set into activity for the divine's purpose; it has the wrong movement when it is set into activity for its own satisfaction.
The intellect, in its true nature, is an instrument of expression and action. It is something like an intermediary between the true knowledge, whose seat is in the higher regions above the mind, and realisation here below. The intellect or, generally speaking, the mind gives the form; the vital puts in the dynamism and life-power; the material comes in last and embodies. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 28th April 1931 and 5th May 1929,#NFDB
1278:The House Of Dust: Part 04: 02: Death: And A
Derisive Chorus
The door is shut. She leaves the curtained office,
And down the grey-walled stairs comes trembling slowly
Towards the dazzling street.
Her withered hand clings tightly to the railing.
The long stairs rise and fall beneath her feet.
Here in the brilliant sun we jostle, waiting
To tear her secret out . . . We laugh, we hurry,
We go our way, revolving, sinister, slow.
She blinks in the sun, and then steps faintly downward.
We whirl her away, we shout, we spin, we flow.
Where have you been, old lady? We know your secret!—
Voices jangle about her, jeers, and laughter. . . .
She trembles, tries to hurry, averts her eyes.
Tell us the truth, old lady! where have you been?
She turns and turns, her brain grows dark with cries.
Look at the old fool tremble! She's been paying,—
Paying good money, too,—to talk to spirits. . . .
She thinks she's heard a message from one dead!
What did he tell you? Is he well and happy?
Don't lie to us—we all know what he said.
He said the one he murdered once still loves him;
He said the wheels in wheels of time are broken;
And dust and storm forgotten; and all forgiven. . . .
But what you asked he wouldn't tell you, though,—
Ha ha! there's one thing you will never know!
That's what you get for meddling so with heaven!
Where have you been, old lady? Where are you going?
We know, we know! She's been to gab with spirits.
Look at the old fool! getting ready to cry!
What have you got in an envelope, old lady?
A lock of hair? An eyelash from his eye?
282
How do you know the medium didn't fool you?
Perhaps he had no spirit—perhaps he killed it.
Here she comes! the old fool's lost her son.
What did he have—blue eyes and golden hair?
We know your secret! what's done is done.
Look out, you'll fall—and fall, if you're not careful,
Right into an open grave. . . .but what's the hurry?
You don't think you will find him when you're dead?
Cry! Cry! Look at her mouth all twisted,—
Look at her eyes all red!
We know you—know your name and all about you,
All you remember and think, and all you scheme for.
We tear your secret out, we leave you, go
Laughingly down the street. . . .Die, if you want to!
Die, then, if you're in such a hurry to know!—
. . . .She falls. We lift her head. The wasted body
Weighs nothing in our hands. Does no one know her?
Was no one with her when she fell? . . .
We eddy about her, move away in silence.
We hear slow tollings of a bell.
~ Conrad Potter Aiken,#NFDB
1279:In her hurry, though, she’d forgotten to grab her pajamas, which was a dilemma. She could either go out and get them and return to the bathroom to change, or she could go out there and put them on. If Sean didn’t like it, he didn’t have to watch.
After leaving the bathroom, she turned off the overhead light in the bedroom, but it didn’t do much good. The night was clear, the moon was bright, and she knew she was all too visible when she undid her jeans and shimmied them down over her hips.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Changing into my pajamas.”
“You always do that in the bathroom.” His voice was low and rough, but she noticed he didn’t look away.
“I forgot them, and there’s no point in going back in there.” She kicked off the jeans and was going to pull on the shorts before changing shirts, but then she remembered his stupid answers to the stupid questions in that game and changed her mind.
“The point is that you don’t do it in front of me.”
“Oh, did you forget? Being watched turns me on.” And she pulled her T-shirt over her head.
She had to bite down on a surprised yelp once she was free of it because suddenly Sean was standing in front of her, wearing nothing but blue boxer briefs and a scowl. “You said I had no imagination.”
“And having no imagination is so much worse than your best friend’s family thinking you’re an exhibitionist.”
“And we’re not ever going to talk about the other thing you said. Ever.”
He was crowding her personal space, so she put her hands on his chest to push him back, but he caught her wrists. Standing there with her palms pressed against his naked skin, she could feel his heart beating at a quickened pace that matched her own and she knew she had two choices. Walk away or end up in bed with him.
She leaned her body a little closer and splayed her fingers across his chest. “Which thing aren’t we talking about? The fast-food-joint bathroom or—”
“Don’t push me too far, Emma. It’s been a long time for me.”
“How long?”
“Too damn long.” He lifted her hands from his chest, but didn’t let go of her wrists. “And I never even got to scope out the dating situation here before you showed up at my door with this half-assed scheme.”
“And since we… You haven’t…”
“The last thing I need is to get caught cheating on a woman I can’t tell anybody I’m not really in a relationship with.” His gaze dropped from her face to her lacy white bra and he sighed. “You’re killing me.”
“Lying awake on the couch every night, wondering what it would be like to slide into bed with you has been killing me for two weeks.”
“Yeah.” He let go of her wrists and slid his hands up the back of her neck and into her hair. “I’ve thought about that, too. A lot. Pretty much constantly, actually. ~ Shannon Stacey,#NFDB
1280:"O Death, thou lookst on an unfinished world
Assailed by thee and of its road unsure,
Peopled by imperfect minds and ignorant lives,
And sayest God is not and all is vain.
How shall the child already be the man?
Because he is infant, shall he never grow?
Because he is ignorant, shall he never learn?
In a small fragile seed a great tree lurks,
In a tiny gene a thinking being is shut;
A little element in a little sperm,
It grows and is a conqueror and a sage.
Then wilt thou spew out, Death, God's mystic truth,
Deny the occult spiritual miracle?
Still wilt thou say there is no spirit, no God?
A mute material Nature wakes and sees;
She has invented speech, unveiled a will.
Something there waits beyond towards which she strives,
Something surrounds her into which she grows:
To uncover the spirit, to change back into God,
To exceed herself is her transcendent task.
In God concealed the world began to be,
Tardily it travels towards manifest God:
Our imperfection towards perfection toils,
The body is the chrysalis of a soul:
The infinite holds the finite in its arms,
Time travels towards revealed eternity.
A miracle structure of the eternal Mage,
Matter its mystery hides from its own eyes,
A scripture written out in cryptic signs,
An occult document of the All-Wonderful's art.
All here bears witness to his secret might,
In all we feel his presence and his power.
A blaze of his sovereign glory is the sun,
A glory is the gold and glimmering moon,
A glory is his dream of purple sky.
A march of his greatness are the wheeling stars.
His laughter of beauty breaks out in green trees,
His moments of beauty triumph in a flower;
The blue sea's chant, the rivulet's wandering voice
Are murmurs falling from the Eternal's harp.
This world is God fulfilled in outwardness.
His ways challenge our reason and our sense;
By blind brute movements of an ignorant Force,
By means we slight as small, obscure or base,
A greatness founded upon little things,
He has built a world in the unknowing Void.
His forms he has massed from infinitesimal dust;
His marvels are built from insignificant things.
If mind is crippled, life untaught and crude,
If brutal masks are there and evil acts,
They are incidents of his vast and varied plot,
His great and dangerous drama's needed steps;
He makes with these and all his passion-play,
A play and yet no play but the deep scheme
Of a transcendent Wisdom finding ways
To meet her Lord in the shadow and the Night:
Above her is the vigil of the stars;
Watched by a solitary Infinitude
She embodies in dumb Matter the Divine,
In symbol minds and lives the Absolute.
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The Debate of Love and Death,#NFDB
1281:Were these boys in their right minds? Here were two boys with good intellect, one eighteen and one nineteen. They had all the prospects that life could hold out for any of the young; one a graduate of Chicago and another of Ann Arbor; one who had passed his examination for the Harvard Law School and was about to take a trip in Europe,--another who had passed at Ann Arbor, the youngest in his class, with three thousand dollars in the bank. Boys who never knew what it was to want a dollar; boys who could reach any position that was to boys of that kind to reach; boys of distinguished and honorable families, families of wealth and position, with all the world before them. And they gave it all up for nothing, for nothing! They took a little companion of one of them, on a crowded street, and killed him, for nothing, and sacrificed everything that could be of value in human life upon the crazy scheme of a couple of immature lads.
Now, your Honor, you have been a boy; I have been a boy. And we have known other boys. The best way to understand somebody else is to put yourself in his place.
Is it within the realm of your imagination that a boy who was right, with all the prospects of life before him, who could choose what he wanted, without the slightest reason in the world would lure a young companion to his death, and take his place in the shadow of the gallows?
...No one who has the process of reasoning could doubt that a boy who would do that is not right.
How insane they are I care not, whether medically or legally. They did not reason; they could not reason; they committed the most foolish, most unprovoked, most purposeless, most causeless act that any two boys ever committed, and they put themselves where the rope is dangling above their heads....
Why did they kill little Bobby Franks?
Not for money, not for spite; not for hate. They killed him as they might kill a spider or a fly, for the experience. They killed him because they were made that way. Because somewhere in the infinite processes that go to the making up of the boy or the man something slipped, and those unfortunate lads sit here hated, despised, outcasts, with the community shouting for their blood.
. . . I know, Your Honor, that every atom of life in all this universe is bound up together. I know that a pebble cannot be thrown into the ocean without disturbing every drop of water in the sea. I know that every life is inextricably mixed and woven with every other life. I know that every influence, conscious and unconscious, acts and reacts on every living organism, and that no one can fix the blame. I know that all life is a series of infinite chances, which sometimes result one way and sometimes another. I have not the infinite wisdom that can fathom it, neither has any other human brain ~ Clarence Darrow,#NFDB
1282:A Ballad Of Pikeville
Down in Southern Arizona where the Gila monster thrives,
And the 'Mescalero,' gifted with a hundred thousand lives,
Every hour renounces one of them by drinking liquid flame
The assassinating wassail that has given him his name;
Where the enterprising dealer in Caucasian hair is seen
To hold his harvest festival upon his village-green,
While the late lamented tenderfoot upon the plain is spread
With a sanguinary circle on the summit of his head;
Where the cactuses (or cacti) lift their lances in the sun,
And incautious jackass-rabbits come to sorrow as they run,
Lived a colony of settlers-old Missouri was the State
Where they formerly resided at a prehistoric date.
Now, the spot that had been chosen for this colonizing scheme
Was as waterless, believe me, as an Arizona stream.
The soil was naught but ashes, by the breezes driven free,
And an acre and a quarter were required to sprout a pea.
So agriculture languished, for the land would not produce,
And for lack of water, whisky was the beverage in useCostly whisky, hauled in wagons many a weary, weary day,
Mostly needed by the drivers to sustain them on their way.
Wicked whisky! King of Evils! Why, O, why did God create
Such a curse and thrust it on us in our inoffensive state?
Once a parson came among them, and a holy man was he;
With his ailing stomach whisky wouldn't anywise agree;
So he knelt upon the _mesa_ and he prayed with all his chin
That the Lord would send them water or incline their hearts to gin.
Scarcely was the prayer concluded ere an earthquake shook the land,
And with copious effusion springs burst out on every hand!
Merrily the waters gurgled, and the shock which gave them birth
Fitly was by some declared a temperance movement of the earth.
Astounded by the miracle, the people met that night
To celebrate it properly by some religious rite;
And 'tis truthfully recorded that before the moon had sunk
Every man and every woman was devotionally drunk.
A half a standard gallon (says history) per head
15
Of the best Kentucky prime was at that ceremony shed.
O, the glory of that country! O, the happy, happy folk.
By the might of prayer delivered from Nature's broken yoke!
Lo! the plains to the horizon all are yellowing with rye,
And the corn upon the hill-top lifts its banners to the sky!
Gone the wagons, gone the drivers, and the road is grown to grass,
Over which the incalescent Bourbon did aforetime pass.
Pikeville (that's the name they've given, in their wild, romantic way,
To that irrigation district) now distills, statistics say,
Something like a hundred gallons, out of each recurrent crop,
To the head of population-and consumes it, every drop!
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
1283:The real problem here is that we’re all dying. All of us. Every day the cells weaken and the fibres stretch and the heart gets closer to its last beat. The real cost of living is dying, and we’re spending days like millionaires: a week here, a month there, casually spunked until all you have left are the two pennies on your eyes.
Personally, I like the fact we’re going to die. There’s nothing more exhilarating than waking up every morning and going ‘WOW! THIS IS IT! THIS IS REALLY IT!’ It focuses the mind wonderfully. It makes you love vividly, work intensely, and realise that, in the scheme of things, you really don’t have time to sit on the sofa in your pants watching Homes Under the Hammer.
Death is not a release, but an incentive. The more focused you are on your death, the more righteously you live your life. My traditional closing-time rant – after the one where I cry that they closed that amazing chippy on Tollington Road; the one that did the pickled eggs – is that humans still believe in an afterlife. I genuinely think it’s the biggest philosophical problem the earth faces. Even avowedly non-religious people think they’ll be meeting up with nana and their dead dog, Crackers, when they finally keel over. Everyone thinks they’re getting a harp.
But believing in an afterlife totally negates your current existence. It’s like an insidious and destabilising mental illness. Underneath every day – every action, every word – you think it doesn’t really matter if you screw up this time around because you can just sort it all out in paradise. You make it up with your parents, and become a better person and lose that final stone in heaven. And learn how to speak French. You’ll have time, after all! It’s eternity! And you’ll have wings, and it’ll be sunny! So, really, who cares what you do now? This is really just some lacklustre waiting room you’re only going to be in for 20 minutes, during which you will have no wings at all, and are forced to walk around, on your feet, like pigs do.
If we wonder why people are so apathetic and casual about every eminently avoidable horror in the world – famine, war, disease, the seas gradually turning piss-yellow and filling with ringpulls and shattered fax machines – it’s right there. Heaven. The biggest waste of our time we ever invented, outside of jigsaws.
Only when the majority of the people on this planet believe – absolutely – that they are dying, minute by minute, will we actually start behaving like fully sentient, rational and compassionate beings. For whilst the appeal of ‘being good’ is strong, the terror of hurtling, unstoppably, into unending nullity is a lot more effective. I’m really holding out for us all to get The Fear. The Fear is my Second Coming. When everyone in the world admits they’re going to die, we’ll really start getting some stuff done. ~ Caitlin Moran,#NFDB
1284:Association of dissimilar ideas “I had earlier devised an arrangement for beam steering on the two-mile accelerator which reduced the amount of hardware necessary by a factor of two…. Two weeks ago it was pointed out to me that this scheme would steer the beam into the wall and therefore was unacceptable. During the session, I looked at the schematic and asked myself how could we retain the factor of two but avoid steering into the wall. Again a flash of inspiration, in which I thought of the word ‘alternate.’ I followed this to its logical conclusion, which was to alternate polarities sector by sector so the steering bias would not add but cancel. I was extremely impressed with this solution and the way it came to me.” “Most of the insights come by association.” “It was the last idea that I thought was remarkable because of the way in which it developed. This idea was the result of a fantasy that occurred during Wagner…. [The participant had earlier listened to Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries.’] I put down a line which seemed to embody this…. I later made the handle which my sketches suggested and it had exactly the quality I was looking for…. I was very amused at the ease with which all of this was done.” 10. Heightened motivation to obtain closure “Had tremendous desire to obtain an elegant solution (the most for the least).” “All known constraints about the problem were simultaneously imposed as I hunted for possible solutions. It was like an analog computer whose output could not deviate from what was desired and whose input was continually perturbed with the inclination toward achieving the output.” “It was almost an awareness of the ‘degree of perfection’ of whatever I was doing.” “In what seemed like ten minutes, I had completed the problem, having what I considered (and still consider) a classic solution.” 11. Visualizing the completed solution “I looked at the paper I was to draw on. I was completely blank. I knew that I would work with a property three hundred feet square. I drew the property lines (at a scale of one inch to forty feet), and I looked at the outlines. I was blank…. Suddenly I saw the finished project. [The project was a shopping center specializing in arts and crafts.] I did some quick calculations …it would fit on the property and not only that …it would meet the cost and income requirements …it would park enough cars …it met all the requirements. It was contemporary architecture with the richness of a cultural heritage …it used history and experience but did not copy it.” “I visualized the result I wanted and subsequently brought the variables into play which could bring that result about. I had great visual (mental) perceptibility; I could imagine what was wanted, needed, or not possible with almost no effort. I was amazed at my idealism, my visual perception, and the rapidity with which I could operate. ~ James Fadiman, #NFDB
1285:Will they achieve a uniformity in censorship methods among the various regimes?” “Not uniformity. They will create a system in which the methods support and balance one another in turn....” The Director General invites you to examine the planisphere hanging on the wall. The varied color scheme indicates: the countries where all books are systematically confiscated; the countries where only books published or approved by the State may circulate; the countries where existing censorship is crude, approximate, and unpredictable; the countries where the censorship is subtle, informed, sensitive to implications and allusions, managed by meticulous and sly intellectuals; the countries where there are two networks of dissemination: one legal and one clandestine; the countries where there is no censorship because there are no books, but there are many potential readers; the countries where there are no books and nobody complains about their absence; the countries, finally, in which every day books are produced for all tastes and all ideas, amid general indifference. “Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do,” Arkadian Porphyrich says. “What statistic allows one to identify the nations where literature enjoys true consideration better than the sums appropriated for controlling it and suppressing it? Where it is the object of such attentions, literature gains an extraordinary authority, inconceivable in countries where it is allowed to vegetate as an innocuous pastime, without risks. To be sure, repression must also allow an occasional breathing space, must close an eye every now and then, alternate indulgence with abuse, with a certain unpredictability in its caprices; otherwise, if nothing more remains to be repressed, the whole system rusts and wears down. Let’s be frank: every regime, even the most authoritarian, survives in a situation of unstable equilibrium, whereby it needs to justify constantly the existence of its repressive apparatus, therefore of something to repress. The wish to write things that irk the established authorities is one of the elements necessary to maintain this equilibrium. Therefore, by a secret treaty with the countries whose social regime is opposed to ours, we have created a common organization, with which you have intelligently agreed to collaborate, to export the books banned here and import the books banned there.” “This would seem to imply that the books banned here are allowed there, and vice versa....” “Not on your life. The books banned here are superbanned there, and the books banned there are ultrabanned here. But from exporting to the adversary regime one’s own banned books and from importing theirs, each regime derives at least two important advantages: it encourages the opponents of the hostile regime and it establishes a useful exchange of experience between the police services.” “The ~ Italo Calvino, #NFDB
1286:L'Aube Spirituelle (Spiritual Dawn)
Quand chez les débauchés l'aube blanche et vermeille
Entre en société de l'Idéal rongeur,
Par l'opération d'un mystère vengeur
Dans la brute assoupie un ange se réveille.
Des Cieux Spirituels l'inaccessible azur,
Pour l'homme terrassé qui rêve encore et souffre,
S'ouvre et s'enfonce avec l'attirance du gouffre.
Ainsi, chère Déesse, Etre lucide et pur,
Sur les débris fumeux des stupides orgies
Ton souvenir plus clair, plus rose, plus charmant,
À mes yeux agrandis voltige incessamment.
Le soleil a noirci la flamme des bougies;
Ainsi, toujours vainqueur, ton fantôme est pareil,
Ame resplendissante, à l'immortel soleil!
Spiritual Dawn
When debauchees are roused by the white, rosy dawn,
Escorted by the Ideal which gnaws at their hearts
Through the action of a mysterious, vengeful law,
In the somnolent brute an Angel awakens.
The inaccessible blue of Spiritual Heavens,
For the man thrown to earth who suffers and still dreams,
Opens and yawns with the lure of the abyss.
Thus, dear Goddess, Being, lucid and pure,
Over the smoking ruins of stupid orgies,
Your memory, clearer, more rosy, more charming,
Hovers incessantly before my widened eyes.
The sunlight has darkened the flame of the candles;
Thus, ever triumphant, resplendent soul!
Your phantom is like the immortal sun!
263
— Translated by William Aggeler
Spiritual Dawn
When in the company of the Ideal
(That gnawing tooth) Dawn enters, white and pink,
The rooms of rakes — each sated beast can feel
An Angel waking through the fumes of drink.
For downcast Man, who dreams and suffers still,
The azure of the mystic heaven above,
With gulf-like vertigo, attracts his will.
So, Goddess, lucid Being of pure love,
Over the smoking wreck of feasts and scandals,
Your phantom, rosy and enchanting, flies
And still returns to my dilated eyes.
The sun has blackened out the flame of candles.
So your victorious phantom seems as one,
O blazing spirit, with the deathless Sun!
— Translated by Roy Campbell
L'Aube spirituelle
when to the drunkard's room the flushing East
comes with her comrade sharply-clawed, the Dream,
she wakens, by a dark avenging scheme,
an angel in the dull besotted beast.
deep vaults of inaccessible azure there,
before the dreamer sick with many a phasm,
open, abysmal as a beckoning chasm.
thus, deity, all pure clear light and air,
over the stupid orgy's reeking track
— brighter and lovelier yet, thine image flies
in fluttering rays before my widening eyes.
the sun has turned the candles' flame to black;
264
even so, victorious always, thou art one
— resplendent spirit! — with the eternal sun!
— Translated by Lewis Piaget Shanks
~ Charles Baudelaire,#NFDB
1287:Fundamentalist Christianity: fascinating. These people actually believe that the world is twelve thousand years old. Swear to God. Based on what? I asked them.
"Well, we looked at all the people in the Bible and we added 'em up all the way back to Adam and Eve, their ages? Twelve thousand years."
"Well, how fucking scientific, OK. I didn't know that you'd gone to so much trouble there. That's good. You believe the world's twelve thousand years old?"
"That's right."
"OK, I got one word to ask you, a one word question, ready?"
"Uh huh."
"Dinosaurs."
You know, the world's twelve thousand years old and dinosaurs existed, and existed in that time, you'd think it would been mentioned in the fucking Bible at some point:
And O, Jesus and the disciples walked to Nazareth. But the trail was blocked by a giant brontosaurus... with a splinter in its paw. And the disciples did run a-screamin'. "What a big fucking lizard, Lord!"
"I'm sure gonna mention this in my book," Luke said.
"Well, I'm sure gonna mention it in my book," Matthew said.
But Jesus was unafraid. And he took the splinter from the brontosaurus paw, and the brontosaurus became his friend. And Jesus sent him to Scotland where he lived in a loch, O so many years, attracting fat American families with their fat fuckin' dollars to look for the Loch Ness Monster. And O the Scots did praise the Lord: "Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!"
Twelve thousand years old. But I actually asked this guy, "OK, dinosaur fossils-- how does that fit into your scheme of life? What's the deal?" He goes:
"God put those here to test our faith."
"I think God put you here to test my faith, dude. I think I've figured this out."
Does that-- That's what this guy said. Does that bother anyone here? The idea that God might be fucking with our heads? Anyone have trouble sleeping restfully with that thought in their head? God's running around burying fossils: "Ho ho! We'll see who believes in me now, ha ha! I'm a prankster God. I am killing me, ho ho ho!" You know? You die, you go to St. Peter:
"Did you believe in dinosaurs?"
"Well, yeah. There were fossils everywhere. (trapdoor opens) Aaaaarhhh!"
"You fuckin' idiot! Flying lizards? You're a moron. God was fuckin' with you!"
"It seemed so plausible, aaaaaahh!"
"Enjoy the lake of fire, fucker!"
They believe this. But you ever notice how people who believe in Creationism usually look pretty unevolved. Eyes really close together, big furry hands and feet? "I believe God created me in one day." Yeah, looks like he rushed it.
Such a weird belief. Lots of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he's gonna want to see a fucking cross, man? "Ow." Might be why he hasn't shown up yet.
"Man, they're still wearing crosses. Fuck it, I'm not goin' back, Dad. No, they totally missed the point. When they start wearing fishes, I might show up again, but... let me bury fossils with you, Dad. Fuck 'em, let's fuck with 'em! Hand me that brontosaurus head, Dad. ~ Bill Hicks,#NFDB
1288:Pointsman is the only one here maintaining his calm. He appears unruffled and strong. His lab coats have even begun lately to take on a Savile Row serenity, suppressed waist, flaring vents, finer material, rather rakishly notched lapels. In this parched and fallow time, he gushes affluence. After the baying has quieted down at last, he speaks, soothing: “There’s no danger.”
“No danger?” screams Aaron Throwster, and the lot of them are off again muttering and growling.
“Slothrop’s knocked out Dodson-Truck and the girl in one day!”
“The whole thing’s falling apart, Pointsman!”
“Since Sir Stephen came back, Fitzmaurice House has dropped out of our scheme, and there’ve been embarrassing inquires down from Duncan Sandys—“
“That’s the P.M.’s son-in-law, Pointsman, not good, not good!”
“We’ve already begun to run into a deficit—“
“Funding,” IF you can keep your head, “is available, and will be coming in before long… certainly before we run into any serious trouble. Sir Stephen, far from being ‘knocked out,’ is quite happily at work at Fitzmaurice House, and is At Home there should any of you wish to confirm. Miss Borgesius is still active in the program, and Mr. Duncan Sandys is having all his questions answered. But best of all, we are budgeted well into fiscal ’46 before anything like a deficit begins to rear its head.”
“Your Interested Parties again?” sez Rollo Groast.
“Ah, I noticed Clive Mossmoon from Imperial Chemicals closeted with you day before yesterday,” Edwin Treacle mentions now. “Clive Mossmoon and I took an organic chemistry course or two together back at Manchester. Is ICI one of our, ah, sponsors, Pointsman?”
“No,” smoothly, “Mossmoon, actually, is working out of Malet Street these days. I’m afraid we were up to nothing more sinister than a bit of routine coordination over the Schwarzkommando business.”
“The hell you were. I happen to know Clive’s at ICI, managing some sort of polymer research.”
They stare at each other. One is lying, or bluffing, or both are, or all of the above. But whatever it is Pointsman has a slight advantage. By facing squarely the extinction of his program, he has gained a great of bit of Wisdom: that if there is a life force operating in Nature, still there is nothing so analogous in a bureaucracy. Nothing so mystical. It all comes down, as it must, to the desires of men. Oh, and women too of course, bless their empty little heads. But survival depends on having strong enough desires—on knowing the System better than the other chap, and how to use it. It’s work, that’s all it is, and there’s no room for any extrahuman anxieties—they only weaken, effeminize the will: a man either indulges them, or fights to win, und so weiter. “I do wish ICI would finance part of this,” Pointsman smiles.
“Lame, lame,” mutters the younger Dr. Groast.
“What’s it matter?” cries Aaron Throwster. “If the old man gets moody at the wrong time this whole show can prang.”
“Brigadier Pudding will not go back on any of his commitments,” Pointsman very steady, calm, “we have made arrangements with him. The details aren’t important.”
They never are, in these meetings of his. ~ Thomas Pynchon,#NFDB
1289:I took a shower after dinner and changed into comfortable Christmas Eve pajamas, ready to settle in for a couple of movies on the couch. I remembered all the Christmas Eves throughout my life--the dinners and wrapping presents and midnight mass at my Episcopal church. It all seemed so very long ago.
Walking into the living room, I noticed a stack of beautifully wrapped rectangular boxes next to the tiny evergreen tree, which glowed with little white lights. Boxes that hadn’t been there minutes before.
“What…,” I said. We’d promised we wouldn’t get each other any gifts that year. “What?” I demanded.
Marlboro Man smiled, taking pleasure in the surprise.
“You’re in trouble,” I said, glaring at him as I sat down on the beige Berber carpet next to the tree. “I didn’t get you anything…you told me not to.”
“I know,” he said, sitting down next to me. “But I don’t really want anything…except a backhoe.”
I cracked up. I didn’t even know what a backhoe was.
I ran my hand over the box on the top of the stack. It was wrapped in brown paper and twine--so unadorned, so simple, I imagined that Marlboro Man could have wrapped it himself. Untying the twine, I opened the first package. Inside was a pair of boot-cut jeans. The wide navy elastic waistband was a dead giveaway: they were made especially for pregnancy.
“Oh my,” I said, removing the jeans from the box and laying them out on the floor in front of me. “I love them.”
“I didn’t want you to have to rig your jeans for the next few months,” Marlboro Man said.
I opened the second box, and then the third. By the seventh box, I was the proud owner of a complete maternity wardrobe, which Marlboro Man and his mother had secretly assembled together over the previous couple of weeks. There were maternity jeans and leggings, maternity T-shirts and darling jackets. Maternity pajamas. Maternity sweats. I caressed each garment, smiling as I imagined the time it must have taken for them to put the whole collection together.
“Thank you…,” I began. My nose stung as tears formed in my eyes. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect gift.
Marlboro Man reached for my hand and pulled me over toward him. Our arms enveloped each other as they had on his porch the first time he’d professed his love for me. In the grand scheme of things, so little time had passed since that first night under the stars. But so much had changed. My parents. My belly. My wardrobe. Nothing about my life on this Christmas Eve resembled my life on that night, when I was still blissfully unaware of the brewing thunderstorm in my childhood home and was packing for Chicago…nothing except Marlboro Man, who was the only thing, amidst all the conflict and upheaval, that made any sense to me anymore.
“Are you crying?” he asked.
“No,” I said, my lip quivering.
“Yep, you’re crying,” he said, laughing. It was something he’d gotten used to.
“I’m not crying,” I said, snorting and wiping snot from my nose. “I’m not.”
We didn’t watch movies that night. Instead, he picked me up and carried me to our cozy bedroom, where my tears--a mixture of happiness, melancholy, and holiday nostalgia--would disappear completely. ~ Ree Drummond,#NFDB
1290:I felt a warm hand touch mine.
“Are you okay?”
“If you mean am I injured, then the answer is no. If you mean am I ‘okay’ as in am-I-confident-I’m-still-sane, the answer is still no.”
Ren frowned. “We have to find a way to get across the chasm.”
“You’re certainly welcome to give it a try.” I waved him off and went back to drinking my water.
He moved to the edge and peered across, looking speculatively at the distance. Changing back to a tiger, he trotted a few paces back in the direction we had come from, turned, and ran at full speed toward the hole.
“Ren, no!” I screamed.
He leapt, clearing the hole easily, and landed lightly on his front paws. Then he trotted a short distance away and did the same thing to come back. He landed at my feet and changed back to human form.
“Kells, I have an idea.”
“Oh, this I’ve got to hear. I just hope you don’t plan on including me in this scheme of yours. Ah. Let me guess. I know. You want to tie a rope to your tail, leap across, tie it off, and then have me pull my body across the rope, right?”
He cocked his head as if considering it, and then shook his head. “No, you don’t have the strength to do something like that. Plus, we have no rope and nothing to tie a rope to.”
“Right. So what’s the plan?”
He held my hands and explained. “What I’m proposing will be much easier. Do you trust me?”
I was going to be sick. “I trust you. It’s just-“ I looked into his concerned blue eyes and sighed. “Okay, what do I have to do?”
“You saw that I was able to clear the gap pretty well as a tiger, right? So what I need you to do is to stand right at the edge and wait for me. I’ll run to the end of the tunnel, build up speed, and leap as a tiger. At the same time, I want you to jump up and grab me around my neck. I’ll change to a man in midair so that I can hold onto you, and we’ll fall together to the other side.”
I snorted noisily and laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
He ignored my skepticism. “We’ll have to time it precisely, and you’ll have to jump too, in the same direction, because if you don’t, I’ll just hit you full power and drive us both over the edge.”
“You’re serious? You seriously want me to do this?”
“Yes, I’m serious. Now stand here while I make a few practice runs.”
“Can’t we just find another corridor or something?”
“There aren’t any. This is the right way.”
Reluctantly, I stood near the edge and watched him leap back and forth a few times. Observing the rhythm of his running and jumping, I began to grasp the idea of what he wanted me to do. All too quickly Ren was back in front of me again.
“I can’t believe you’ve talked me into doing this. Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m sure. Are you ready?”
“No! Give me a minute to mentally write a last will and testament.”
“Kells, it’ll be fine.”
“Sure it will. Alright, let me take in my surroundings. I want to make sure I can record every minute of this experience in my journal. Of course, that’s probably a moot point because I’m assuming that I’m going to die in the jump anyway.”
Ren put his hand on my cheek, looked in my eyes, and said fiercely, “Kelsey, trust me. I will not let you fall. ~ Colleen Houck,#NFDB
1291:This poem is very long
So long, in fact, that your attention span
May be stretched to its very limits
But that’s okay
It’s what’s so special about poetry
See, poetry takes time
We live in a time
Call it our culture or society
It doesn’t matter to me cause neither one rhymes
A time where most people don’t want to listen
Our throats wait like matchsticks waiting to catch fire
Waiting until we can speak
No patience to listen
But this poem is long
It’s so long, in fact, that during the time of this poem
You could’ve done any number of other wonderful things
You could’ve called your father
Call your father
You could be writing a postcard right now
Write a postcard
When was the last time you wrote a postcard?
You could be outside
You’re probably not too far away from a sunrise or a sunset
Watch the sun rise
Maybe you could’ve written your own poem
A better poem
You could have played a tune or sung a song
You could have met your neighbor
And memorized their name
Memorize the name of your neighbor
You could’ve drawn a picture
(Or, at least, colored one in)
You could’ve started a book
Or finished a prayer
You could’ve talked to God
Pray
When was the last time you prayed?
Really prayed?
This is a long poem
So long, in fact, that you’ve already spent a minute with it
When was the last time you hugged a friend for a minute?
Or told them that you love them?
Tell your friends you love them
…no, I mean it, tell them
Say, I love you
Say, you make life worth living
Because that, is what friends do
Of all of the wonderful things that you could’ve done
During this very, very long poem
You could have connected
Maybe you are connecting
Maybe we’re connecting
See, I believe that the only things that really matter
In the grand scheme of life are God and people
And if people are made in the image of God
Then when you spend your time with people
It’s never wasted
And in this very long poem
I’m trying to let a poem do what a poem does:
Make things simpler
We don’t need poems to make things more complicated
We have each other for that
We need poems to remind ourselves of the things that really matter
To take time
A long time
To be alive for the sake of someone else for a single moment
Or for many moments
Cause we need each other
To hold the hands of a broken person
All you have to do is meet a person
Shake their hand
Look in their eyes
They are you
We are all broken together
But these shattered pieces of our existence don’t have to be a mess
We just have to care enough to hold our tongues sometimes
To sit and listen to a very long poem
A story of a life
The joy of a friend and the grief of friend
To hold and be held
And be quiet
So, pray
Write a postcard
Call your parents and forgive them and then thank them
Turn off the TV
Create art as best as you can
Share as much as possible, especially money
Tell someone about a very long poem you once heard
And how afterward it brought you to them ~ Colleen Hoover,#NFDB
1292:But if her idiot suitors were staying at Halstead Hall with her, then by thunder, he'd be here, too. They wouldn't take advantage of her on his watch. "We're agreed that you won't do any of that foolish nonsense you mentioned, like spying on them, right?"
"Of course not. That's what I have you for."
Her private lackey to jump at her commands. He was already regretting this.
"Surely the gentlemen will accept the invitation," she went on, blithely ignoring his disgruntlement. "It's hunting season, and the estate has some excellent coveys."
"I wouldn't know."
She cast him an easy smile. "Because you generally hunt men, not grouse. And apparently you do it very well."
A compliment? From her "No need to flatter me, my lady," he said dryly. "I've already agreed to your scheme."
Her smile vanished. "Really, Mr. Pinter, sometimes you can be so..."
"Honest?" he prodded.
"Irritating." She tipped up her chin. "It will be easier to work together if you're not always so prickly."
He felt more than prickly, and for the most foolish reasons imaginable. Because he didn't like her trawling for suitors. Or using him to do it. And because he hated her "lady of the manor" role. It reminded him too forcibly of the difference in their stations.
"I am who I am, madam," he bit out, as much a reminder for himself as for her. "You knew what you were purchasing when you set out to do this."
She frowned. "Must you make it sound so sordid?"
He stepped as close as he dared. "You want me to gather information you can use in playing a false role to catch s husband. I am not the one making it sordid."
"Tell me, sir, will I have to endure your moralizing at every turn?" she said in a voice dripping with sugar. "Because I'd happily pay extra to have you keep your opinions to yourself."
"There isn't enough money in all the world for that."
Her eyes blazed up at him. Good. He much preferred her in a temper. At least then she was herself, not putting on some show.
She seemed to catch herself, pasting an utterly false smile to her lips. "I see. Well then, can you manage to be civil for the house party? It does me no good to bring suitors here if you'll be skulking about, making them uncomfortable."
He tamped down the urge to provoke her further. If he did she'd strike off on her own, and that would be disastrous. "I shall try to keep my 'skulking' to a minimum."
"Thank you." She thrust out her hand. "Shall we shake on it?"
The minute his fingers closed about hers, he wished he'd refused. Because having her soft hand in his roused everything he'd been trying to suppress during this interview.
He couldn't seem to let go. For such a small-boned female, she had a surprisingly firm grip. Her hand was like her-fragility and strength all wrapped in beauty. He had a mad impulse to lift it to his lips and press a kiss to her creamy skin.
But he was no Lancelot to her Guinevere. Only in legend did lowly knights dare to court queens.
Releasing her hand before he could do something stupid, he sketched a bow. "Good day, my lady. I'll begin my investigation at once and report to you as soon as I learn something."
He left her standing there, a goddess surrounded by the aging glories of an aristocrat's mansion. God save him-this had to be the worst mission he'd ever undertaken, one he was sure to regret. ~ Sabrina Jeffries,#NFDB
1293:There was one monk who never spoke up. His name was Vappa, and he seemed the most insecure about Gautama coming back to life. When he was taken aside and told that he would be enlightened, Vappa greeted the news with doubt. “If what you tell me is true, I would feel something, and I don’t,” he said. “When you dig a well, there is no sign of water until you reach it, only rocks and dirt to move out of the way. You have removed enough; soon the pure water will flow,” said Buddha. But instead of being reassured, Vappa threw himself on the ground, weeping and grasping Buddha’s feet. “It will never happen,” he moaned. “Don’t fill me with false hope.” “I’m not offering hope,” said Buddha. “Your karma brought you to me, along with the other four. I can see that you will soon be awake.” “Then why do I have so many impure thoughts?” asked Vappa, who was prickly and prone to outbursts of rage, so much so that the other monks were intimidated by him. “Don’t trust your thoughts,” said Buddha. “You can’t think yourself awake.” “I have stolen food when I was famished, and there were times when I stole away from my brothers and went to women,” said Vappa. “Don’t trust your actions. They belong to the body,” said Buddha. “Your body can’t wake you up.” Vappa remained miserable, his expression hardening the more Buddha spoke. “I should go away from here. You say there is no war between good and evil, but I feel it inside. I feel how good you are, and it only makes me feel worse.” Vappa’s anguish was so genuine that Buddha felt a twinge of temptation. He could reach out and take Vappa’s guilt from his shoulders with a touch of the hand. But making Vappa happy wasn’t the same as setting him free, and Buddha knew he couldn’t touch every person on earth. He said, “I can see that you are at war inside, Vappa. You must believe me when I say that you’ll never win.” Vappa hung his head lower. “I know that. So I must go?” “No, you misunderstand me,” Buddha said gently. “No one has ever won the war. Good opposes evil the way the summer sun opposes winter cold, the way light opposes darkness. They are built into the eternal scheme of Nature.” “But you won. You are good; I feel it,” said Vappa. “What you feel is the being I have inside, just as you have it,” said Buddha. “I did not conquer evil or embrace good. I detached myself from both.” “How?” “It wasn’t difficult. Once I admitted to myself that I would never become completely good or free from sin, something changed inside. I was no longer distracted by the war; my attention could go somewhere else. It went beyond my body, and I saw who I really am. I am not a warrior. I am not a prisoner of desire. Those things come and go. I asked myself: Who is watching the war? Who do I return to when pain is over, or when pleasure is over? Who is content simply to be? You too have felt the peace of simply being. Wake up to that, and you will join me in being free.” This lesson had an immense effect on Vappa, who made it his mission for the rest of his life to seek out the most miserable and hopeless people in society. He was convinced that Buddha had revealed a truth that every person could recognize: suffering is a fixed part of life. Fleeing from pain and running toward pleasure would never change that fact. Yet most people spent their whole lives avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure. To them, this was only natural, but in reality they were becoming deeply involved in a war they could never win. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1294:I’m at my locker; the door is jammed, and I’m trying to yank it open. I finally get the door loose and there’s Josh, standing right there.
“Lara Jean…” He has this shell-shocked, confused expression on his face. “I’ve been trying to talk to you since last night. I came by, and nobody could find you…” He holds out my letter. “I don’t understand. What is this?”
“I don’t know…,” I hear myself say. My voice feels far away. It’s like I’m floating above myself, watching it all unfold.
“I mean, it’s from you, right?”
“Oh, wow.” I take a deep breath and accept the letter. I fight the urge to tear it up. “Where did you even get this?”
“It got sent to me in the mail.” Josh jams his hands into his pockets. “When did you write this?”
“Like, a long time ago,” I say. I let out a fake little laugh. “I don’t even remember when. It might have been middle school.” Good job, Lara Jean. Keep it up.
Slowly he says, “Right…but you mention going to the movies with Margot and Mike and Ben that time. That was a couple of years ago.”
I bite my bottom lip. “Right. I mean, it was kind of a long time ago. In the grand scheme of things.” I can feel tears coming on so close that if I break concentration even for a second, if I waver, I will cry and that will make everything worse, if such a thing is possible. I must be cool and breezy and nonchalant now. Tears would ruin that.
Josh is staring at me so hard I have to look away. “So then…Do you…or did you have feelings for me or…?”
“I mean, yes, sure, I did have a crush on you at one point, before you and Margot ever started dating. A million years ago.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything? Because, Lara Jean…God. I don’t know.” His eyes are on me, and they’re confused, but there’s something else, too. “This is crazy. I feel kind of blindsided.”
The way he’s looking at me now, I’m suddenly in a time warp back to a summer day when I was fourteen and he was fifteen, and we were walking home from somewhere. He was looking at me so intently I was sure he was going to try to kiss me. I got nervous, so I picked a fight with him and he never looked at me like that again.
Until this moment.
Don’t. Just please, don’t.
Whatever he’s thinking, whatever he wants to say, I don’t want to hear it. I will do anything, literally anything, not to hear it.
Before he can, I say, “I’m dating someone.”
Josh’s jaw goes slack. “What?”
What?
“Yup. I’m dating someone, someone I really really like, so please don’t worry about this.” I wave the letter like it’s just paper, trash, like once upon a time I didn’t literally pour my heart onto this page. I stuff it into my bag. “I was really confused when I wrote this; I don’t even know how it got sent out. Honestly, it’s not worth talking about. So please, please don’t say anything to Margot about it.”
He nods, but that’s not good enough. I need a verbal commitment. I need to hear the words come out of his mouth. So I add, “Do you swear? On your life?” If Margot was to ever find out…I would want to die.
“All right, I swear. I mean, we haven’t even spoken since she left.”
I let out a huge breath. “Great. Thanks.” I’m about to walk away, but then Josh stops me.
“Who’s the guy?”
“What guy?”
“The guy you’re dating.”
That’s when I see him. Peter Kavinsky, walking down the hallway. Like magic. Beautiful, dark-haired Peter. He deserves background music, he looks so good. “Peter. Kavinsky. Peter Kavinsky! ~ Jenny Han,#NFDB
1295:The Tale of Human Evolution
The subject most often brought up by advocates of the
theory of evolution is the subject of the origin of man.
The Darwinist claim holds that modern man evolved from ape-like
creatures. During this alleged evolutionary process, which is
supposed to have started 4-5 million years ago, some "transitional
forms" between modern man and his ancestors are
supposed to have existed. According to this completely
imaginary scenario, four basic "categories" are listed:
1. Australopithecus
2. Homo habilis
3. Homo erectus
4. Homo sapiens
Evolutionists call man's so-called first ape-like ancestors
Australopithecus, which means "South African ape."
These living beings are actually nothing but an old ape
species that has become extinct.
Extensive research done on various Australopithecus specimens by two world famous anatomists from England and the USA, namely,
Lord Solly Zuckerman and Prof. Charles Oxnard, shows
that these apes belonged to an ordinary ape species that
became extinct and bore no resemblance to humans.
Evolutionists classify the next stage of human evolution
as "homo," that is "man." According to their claim, the living
beings in the Homo series are more developed than
Australopithecus. Evolutionists devise a fanciful evolution
scheme by arranging different fossils of these creatures in
a particular order. This scheme is imaginary because it has
never been proved that there is an evolutionary relation
between these different classes. Ernst Mayr, one of the
twentieth century's most important evolutionists, contends
in his book One Long Argument that "particularly historical
[puzzles] such as the origin of life or of Homo sapiens, are
extremely difficult and may even resist a final, satisfying
explanation."
By outlining the link chain as Australopithecus > Homo
habilis > Homo erectus > Homo sapiens, evolutionists
imply that each of these species is one another's ancestor.
However, recent findings of paleoanthropologists have
revealed that Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo
erectus lived at different parts of the world at the same
time.
Moreover, a certain segment of humans classified as
Homo erectus have lived up until very modern times.
Homo sapiens neandarthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens
(modern man) co-existed in the same region.
This situation apparently indicates the invalidity of the
claim that they are ancestors of one another. Stephen Jay
Gould explained this deadlock of the theory of evolution
although he was himself one of the leading advocates of
evolution in the twentieth century:
What has become of our ladder if there are three coexisting
lineages of hominids (A. africanus, the robust australopithecines,
and H. habilis), none clearly derived from
another? Moreover, none of the three display any evolutionary
trends during their tenure on earth.
Put briefly, the scenario of human evolution, which is
"upheld" with the help of various drawings of some "half
ape, half human" creatures appearing in the media and
course books, that is, frankly, by means of propaganda, is
nothing but a tale with no scientific foundation.
Lord Solly Zuckerman, one of the most famous and
respected scientists in the U.K., who carried out research
on this subject for years and studied Australopithecus fossils
for 15 years, finally concluded, despite being an evolutionist
himself, that there is, in fact, no such family tree
branching out from ape-like creatures to man. ~ Harun Yahya,#NFDB
1296:So far from a political ideology being the quasi-divine parent of political activity, it turns out to be its earthly stepchild. Instead of an independently premeditated scheme of ends to be pursued, it is a system of ideas abstracted from the manner in which people have been accustomed to go about the business of attending to the arrangements of their societies. The pedigree of every political ideology shows it to be the creature, not of premeditation in advance of political activity, but of meditation upon a manner of politics. In short, political activity comes first and a political ideology follows after; and the understanding of politics we are investigating has the disadvantage of being, in the strict sense, preposterous.
Let us consider the matter first in relation to scientific hypothesis, which I have taken to play a role in scientific activity in some respects similar to that of an ideology in politics. If a scientific hypothesis were a self-generated bright idea which owed nothing to scientific activity, then empiricism governed by hypothesis could be considered to compose a self-contained manner of activity; but this certainly is not its character. The truth is that only a man who is already a scientist can formulate a scientific hypothesis; that is, an hypothesis is not an independent invention capable of guiding scientific inquiry, but a dependent supposition which arises as an abstraction from within already existing scientific activity. Moreover, even when the specific hypothesis has in this manner been formulated, it is inoperative as a guide to research without constant reference to the traditions of scientific inquiry from which it was abstracted. The concrete situation does not appear until the specific hypothesis, which is the occasion of empiricism being set to work, is recognized as itself the creature of owing how to conduct a scientific inquiry.
Or consider the example of cookery. It might be supposed that an ignorant man, some edible materials, and a cookery book compose together the necessities of a self-moved (or concrete) activity called cooking. But nothing is further from the truth. The cookery book is not an independently generated beginning from which cooking can spring; it is nothing more than an abstract of somebody's knowledge of how to cook: it is the stepchild, not the parent of the activity. The book, in its tum, may help to set a man on to dressing a dinner, but if it were his sole guide he could never, in fact, begin: the book speaks only to those who know already the kind of thing to expect from it and consequently bow to interpret it.
Now, just as a cookery book presupposes somebody who knows how to cook, and its use presupposes somebody who already knows how to use it, and just as a scientific hypothesis springs from a knowledge of how to conduct a scientific investigation and separated from that knowledge is powerless to set empiricism profitably to work, so a political ideology must be understood, not as an independently premeditated beginning for political activity, but as knowledge (abstract and generalized) of a concrete manner of attending to the arrangements of a society. The catechism which sets out the purposes to be pursued merely abridges a concrete manner of behaviour in which those purposes are already hidden. It does not exist in advance of political activity, and by itself it is always an insufficient guide. Political enterprises, the ends to be pursued, the arrangements to be established (all the normal ingredients of a political ideology), cannot be premeditated in advance of a manner of attending to the arrangements of a society; what we do, and moreover what we want to do, is the creature of how we are accustomed to conduct our affairs. Indeed, it often reflects no more than a discovered ability to do something which is then translated into an authority to do it. ~ Michael Oakeshott,#NFDB
1297:In short the only fully rational world would be the world of wishing-caps, the world of telepathy, where every desire is fulfilled instanter, without having to consider or placate surrounding or intermediate powers. This is the Absolute's own world. He calls upon the phenomenal world to be, and it IS, exactly as he calls for it, no other condition being required. In our world, the wishes of the individual are only one condition. Other individuals are there with other wishes and they must be propitiated first. So Being grows under all sorts of resistances in this world of the many, and, from
compromise to compromise, only gets organized gradually into what may be called secondarily rational shape. We approach the wishing-cap type of organization only in a few departments of life. We want water and we turn a faucet. We want a kodak-picture and we press a button. We want information and we telephone. We want to travel and we buy a ticket. In these and similar cases, we hardly need to do more than the wishing—the world is rationally organized to do the rest.
But this talk of rationality is a parenthesis and a digression. What we were discussing was the idea of a world growing not integrally but piecemeal by the contributions of its several parts. Take the hypothesis seriously and as a live one. Suppose that the world's author put the case to you before creation, saying: "I am going to make a world not certain to be saved, a world the perfection of which shall be conditional merely, the condition being that each several agent does its own 'level best.' I offer you the chance of taking part in such a world. Its safety, you see, is unwarranted. It is a real adventure, with real danger, yet it may win through. It is a social scheme of co-operative work genuinely to be done. Will you join the procession? Will you trust yourself and trust the other agents enough to face the risk?"
Should you in all seriousness, if participation in such a world were proposed to you, feel bound to reject it as not safe enough? Would you say that, rather than be part and parcel of so fundamentally pluralistic and irrational a universe, you preferred to relapse into the slumber of nonentity from which you had been momentarily aroused by the tempter's voice?
Of course if you are normally constituted, you would do nothing of the sort. There is a healthy- minded buoyancy in most of us which such a universe would exactly fit. We would therefore accept the offer—"Top! und schlag auf schlag!" It would be just like the world we practically live in; and loyalty to our old nurse Nature would forbid us to say no. The world proposed would seem 'rational' to us in the most living way.
Most of us, I say, would therefore welcome the proposition and add our fiat to the fiat of the creator. Yet perhaps some would not; for there are morbid minds in every human collection, and to them the prospect of a universe with only a fighting chance of safety would probably make no appeal. There are moments of discouragement in us all, when we are sick of self and tired of vainly striving. Our own life breaks down, and we fall into the attitude of the prodigal son. We mistrust the chances of things. We want a universe where we can just give up, fall on our father's neck, and be absorbed into the absolute life as a drop of water melts into the river or the sea.
The peace and rest, the security desiderated at such moments is security against the bewildering accidents of so much finite experience. Nirvana means safety from this everlasting round of adventures of which the world of sense consists. The hindoo and the buddhist, for this is essentially their attitude, are simply afraid, afraid of more experience, afraid of life.
And to men of this complexion, religious monism comes with its consoling words: "All is needed and essential—even you with your sick soul and heart. All are one ~ William James,#NFDB
1298:The recurring beat that moments God in Time.
Only was missing the sole timeless Word
That carries eternity in its lonely sound,
The Idea self-luminous key to all ideas,
The integer of the Spirit's perfect sum
That equates the unequal All to the equal One,
The single sign interpreting every sign,
The absolute index to the Absolute.
There walled apart by its own innerness
In a mystical barrage of dynamic light
He saw a lone immense high-curved world-pile
Erect like a mountain-chariot of the Gods
Motionless under an inscrutable sky.
As if from Matter's plinth and viewless base
To a top as viewless, a carved sea of worlds
Climbing with foam-maned waves to the Supreme
Ascended towards breadths immeasurable;
It hoped to soar into the Ineffable's reign:
A hundred levels raised it to the Unknown.
So it towered up to heights intangible
And disappeared in the hushed conscious Vast
As climbs a storeyed temple-tower to heaven
Built by the aspiring soul of man to live
Near to his dream of the Invisible.
Infinity calls to it as it dreams and climbs;
Its spire touches the apex of the world;
Mounting into great voiceless stillnesses
It marries the earth to screened eternities.
Amid the many systems of the One
Made by an interpreting creative joy
Alone it points us to our journey back
Out of our long self-loss in Nature's deeps;
Planted on earth it holds in it all realms:
It is a brief compendium of the Vast.
This was the single stair to being's goal.
A summary of the stages of the spirit,
Its copy of the cosmic hierarchies
Refashioned in our secret air of self
A subtle pattern of the universe.
It is within, below, without, above.
Acting upon this visible Nature's scheme
It wakens our earth-matter's heavy doze
To think and feel and to react to joy;
It models in us our diviner parts,
Lifts mortal mind into a greater air,
Makes yearn this life of flesh to intangible aims,
Links the body's death with immortality's call:
Out of the swoon of the Inconscience
It labours towards a superconscient Light.
If earth were all and this were not in her,
Thought could not be nor life-delight's response:
Only material forms could then be her guests
Driven by an inanimate world-force.
Earth by this golden superfluity
Bore thinking man and more than man shall bear;
This higher scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate;
It calls out of our dense mortality
The conscious spirit nursed in Matter's house.
The living symbol of these conscious planes,
Its influences and godheads of the unseen,
Its unthought logic of Reality's acts
Arisen from the unspoken truth in things,
Have fixed our inner life's slow-scaled degrees.
Its steps are paces of the soul's return
From the deep adventure of material birth,
A ladder of delivering ascent
And rungs that Nature climbs to deity.
Once in the vigil of a deathless gaze
These grades had marked her giant downward plunge,
The wide and prone leap of a godhead's fall.
Our life is a holocaust of the Supreme.
The great World-Mother by her sacrifice
Has made her soul the body of our state;
Accepting sorrow and unconsciousness
Divinity's lapse from its own splendours wove
The many-patterned ground of all we are.
An idol of self is our mortality.
Our earth is a fragment and a residue;
Her power is packed with the stuff of greater worlds
And steeped in their colour-lustres dimmed by her drowse;
An atavism of higher births is hers,
Her sleep is stirred by their buried memories
Recalling the lost spheres from which they fell.
Unsatisfied forces in her bosom move;
They are partners of her greater growing fate
And her return to immortality;
They consent to share her doom of birth and death;
They kindle partial gleams of the All and drive
Her blind laborious spirit to compose
A meagre image of the mighty Whole.
The calm and luminous Intimacy within
~ Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, The World-Stair,#NFDB
1299:Mates
It boots not to retrace the path
To ages dim and hoar,
When Man, at the domestic hearth,
First learned the art of war,
And - since in battle one must fall Held his defeated spouse in thrall,
That she should fight no more;
And thereby doomed to sleep and sloth
Strength that in action strengthened both.
It boots not when the better day
First showed a glint of morn,
Nor whose the eye that, in its ray,
Saw Woman's chains outworn;
Nor which was first and which was last
When savage rivalry was past
And chivalry was born;
Enough for us that, free or pent,
Her primal treasure was misspent.
The waxing noontide sees them now
Joint sovereigns of the land,
No trace upon the gentler brow
Of the old helot brand.
Consenting that the right is right,
They walk as comrades - or they might For ever hand in hand.
Yet still a stronger leads and drags,
And still a weaker leans and lags.
Because we reap what we have sown,
And are as we were bred;
Because one passion, overgrown,
Since so long overfed,
Still works confusion to the scheme
Whereof both man and woman dream.
'T'is the unnumbered dead
That laid it on him for a curse,
And her, its immemorial nurse.
134
But, with these tyrants in the dust,
Why should their ghosts hold sway?
Cut the long entail of their lust,
Heirs of a cleaner day!
Lift the dead hand from living mind,
Break the old spells that bind and blind,
O Woman, far astray!
And march with Man the open road
Without a fetter or a load.
Our pioneer brothers can discern
The sunlit heights around;
We, that should likewise look and learn,
Keep eyes upon the ground;
And drug our feebleness with sweets
When needing tonic of strong meats;
And all our ways surround
With tangling trifles, gaud and toy,
That mock us with the name of joy.
What brains these fragile webs enmesh!
What soaring thought they tie!
What energies of soul and flesh
They still or stultify!
What wasted riches of the mind,
What wealth of genius, dumb and blind,
In shop and workroom lie,
While the great realms of life are stored
With such vast mystery unexplored!
Where were the sciences and arts
When men went plumed and curled?
Where were the brains, the hands, the hearts,
That now subdue the world The March of Progress, straight and true When men wore coats of every hue?
In childish swaddlings furled,
Their strength lay latent and unknown,
As ineffectual as our own.
Freed from this complicated coil
By mere vainglory spun,
135
Uprooted from this fruitless soil,
Unfed by rain or sun,
Where sleep the germs of noble deeds
In still unfructifying seeds,
Or leafage scarce begun This ash-heap of the poor and small
That chokes the greatness in us all Uplifted to the light - the place
Where Man his manhood found
When tyranny of silk and lace
No longer held him bound;
With eyes, from Fashion's witchcraft clear,
For Beauty, simple and sincere,
And, unbeguiled by sound
Of siren wooings, quiet ears
For the high message that he hears:
The swelling call to loftier life
That, like a distant bell,
Chimes through the traffic and the strife
Of those who buy and sell;
Through camp and temple, field and street,
The market where we game and cheat,
The home wherein we dwell: Here should we stand, as strong, as free,
For splendid enterprise as he.
To him no flowering parasite
That only sucks and clings
To drain and enervate and blight,
But impulse to his wings;
His mate in passion, mate in power,
His soul's wife, that for marriage dower
Exhaustless treasure brings The daily bread, the daily spur,
The day's reward for him - and her.
Like woodland creatures, that have willed
To pair by Nature's plan,
A woman finished and fulfilled
And a completed man;
136
To run together and abreast,
And side by side to fight or rest,
As when the world began;
Each bound to other, yet both free . . . .
It is not, but it ought to be.
~ Ada Cambridge,#NFDB
1300:A Dream Of Sunshine
I'm weary of this weather and I hanker for the ways
Which people read of in the psalms and preachers paraphrase-The grassy fields, the leafy woods, the banks where I can lie
And listen to the music of the brook that flutters by,
Or, by the pond out yonder, hear the redwing blackbird's call
Where he makes believe he has a nest, but hasn't one at all;
And by my side should be a friend--a trusty, genial friend,
With plenteous store of tales galore and natural leaf to lend;
Oh, how I pine and hanker for the gracious boon of spring-For _then_ I'm going a-fishing with John Lyle King!
How like to pigmies will appear creation, as we float
Upon the bosom of the tide in a three-by-thirteen boat-Forgotten all vexations and all vanities shall be,
As we cast our cares to windward and our anchor to the lee;
Anon the minnow-bucket will emit batrachian sobs,
And the devil's darning-needles shall come wooing of our bobs;
The sun shall kiss our noses and the breezes toss our hair
(This latter metaphoric--we've no fimbriae to spare!);
And I--transported by the bliss--shan't do a plaguey thing
But cut the bait and string the fish for John Lyle King!
Or, if I angle, it will be for bullheads and the like,
While he shall fish for gamey bass, for pickerel, and for pike;
I really do not care a rap for all the fish that swim-But it's worth the wealth of Indies just to be along with him
In grassy fields, in leafy woods, beside the water-brooks,
And hear him tell of things he's seen or read of in his books-To hear the sweet philosophy that trickles in and out
The while he is discoursing of the things we talk about;
A fountain-head refreshing--a clear, perennial spring
Is the genial conversation of John Lyle King!
Should varying winds or shifting tides redound to our despite-In other words, should we return all bootless home at night,
I'd back him up in anything he had a mind to say
Of mighty bass he'd left behind or lost upon the way;
I'd nod assent to every yarn involving piscine game-I'd cross my heart and make my affidavit to the same;
For what is friendship but a scheme to help a fellow out-And what a paltry fish or two to make such bones about!
Nay, Sentiment a mantle of sweet charity would fling
O'er perjuries committed for John Lyle King.
At night, when as the camp-fire cast a ruddy, genial flame,
He'd bring his tuneful fiddle out and play upon the same;
No diabolic engine this--no instrument of sin-No relative at all to that lewd toy, the violin!
But a godly hoosier fiddle--a quaint archaic thing
Full of all the proper melodies our grandmas used to sing;
With 'Bonnie Doon,' and 'Nellie Gray,' and 'Sitting on the Stile,'
'The Heart Bowed Down,' the 'White Cockade,' and 'Charming Annie Lisle'
Our hearts would echo and the sombre empyrean ring
Beneath the wizard sorcery of John Lyle King.
The subsequent proceedings should interest me no more-Wrapped in a woolen blanket should I calmly dream and snore;
The finny game that swims by day is my supreme delight-And _not_ the scaly game that flies in darkness of the night!
Let those who are so minded pursue this latter game
But not repine if they should lose a boodle in the same;
For an example to you all one paragon should serve-He towers a very monument to valor and to nerve;
No bob-tail flush, no nine-spot high, no measly pair can wring
A groan of desperation from John Lyle King!
A truce to badinage--I hope far distant is the day
When from these scenes terrestrial our friend shall pass away!
We like to hear his cheery voice uplifted in the land,
To see his calm, benignant face, to grasp his honest hand;
We like him for his learning, his sincerity, his truth,
His gallantry to woman and his kindliness to youth,
For the lenience of his nature, for the vigor of his mind,
For the fulness of that charity he bears to all mankind-That's why we folks who know him best so reverently cling
(And that is why I pen these lines) to John Lyle King.
And now adieu, a fond adieu to thee, O muse of rhyme-I do remand thee to the shades until that happier time
When fields are green, and posies gay are budding everywhere,
And there's a smell of clover bloom upon the vernal air;
When by the pond out yonder the redwing blackbird calls,
And distant hills are wed to Spring in veils of water-falls;
When from his aqueous element the famished pickerel springs
Two hundred feet into the air for butterflies and things-_Then_ come again, O gracious muse, and teach me how to sing
The glory of a fishing cruise with John Lyle King!
~ Eugene Field,#NFDB
1301:The Birth Of The Rail
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
LELAND, THE KID _a Road Agent_
COWBOY CHARLEY _Same Line of Business_
HAPPY HUNTY _Ditto in All Respects_
SOOTYMUG _a Devil_
_Scene_-the Dutch Flat Stage Road, at 12 P.M., on a Night
of 1864.
COWBOY CHARLEY:
My boss, I fear she is delayed to-night.
Already it is past the hour, and yet
My ears have reached no sound of wheels; no note
Melodious, of long, luxurious oaths
Betokens the traditional dispute
(Unsettled from the dawn of time) between
The driver and off wheeler; no clear chant
Nor carol of Wells Fargo's messenger
Unbosoming his soul upon the air
his prowess to the tender-foot,
And how at divers times in sundry ways
He strewed the roadside with our carcasses.
Clearly, the stage will not come by to-night.
LELAND, THE KID:
I now remember that but yesterday
I saw three ugly looking fellows start
From Colfax with a gun apiece, and they
Did seem on business of importance bent.
Furtively casting all their eyes about
And covering their tracks with all the care
That business men do use. I think perhaps
They were Directors of that rival line,
The great Pacific Mail. If so, they have
Indubitably taken in that coach,
444
And we are overreached. Three times before
This thing has happened, and if once again
These outside operators dare to cut
Our rates of profit I shall quit the road
And take my money out of this concern.
When robbery no longer pays expense
It loses then its chiefest charm for me,
And I prefer to cheat-you hear me shout!
HAPPY HUNTY:
My chief, you do but echo back my thoughts:
This competition is the death of trade.
'Tis plain (unless we wish to go to work)
Some other business we must early find.
What shall it be? The field of usefulness
Is yearly narrowing with the advance
Of wealth and population on this coast.
There's little left that any man can do
Without some other fellow stepping in
And doing it as well. If one essay
To pick a pocket he is sure to feel
(With what disgust I need not say to you)
Another hand inserted in the same.
You crack a crib at dead of night, and lo!
As you explore the dining-room for plate
You find, in session there, a graceless band
Stuffing their coats with spoons, their skins with wine.
And so it goes. Why even undertake
To salt a mine and you will find it rich
With noble specimens placed there before!
LELAND, THE KID:
And yet this line of immigration has
Advantages superior to aught
That elsewhere offers: all these passengers,
If punched with careCOWBOY CHARLEY:
Significant remark!
445
It opens up a prospect wide and fair,
Suggesting to the thoughtful mind-_my_ mindA scheme that is the boss lay-out. Instead
Of stopping passengers, let's carry them.
Instead of crying out: 'Throw up your hands!'
Let's say: 'Walk up and buy a ticket!' Why
Should we unwieldy goods and bullion take,
Watches and all such trifles, when we might
Far better charge their value three times o'er
For carrying them to market?
LELAND, THE KID:
Put it there,
Old son!
HAPPY HUNTY:
You take the cake, my dear. We'll build
A mighty railroad through this pass, and then
The stage folk will come up to us and squeal,
And say: 'It is bad medicine for both:
What will you give or take?' And then we'll sell.
COWBOY CHARLEY:
Enlarge your notions, little one; this is
No petty, slouching, opposition scheme,
To be bought off like honest men and fools;
Mine eye prophetic pierces through the mists
That cloud the future, and I seem to see
A well-devised and executed scheme
Of wholesale robbery within the law
(Made by ourselves)-great, permanent, sublime,
And strong to grapple with the public throatShaking the stuffing from the public purse,
The tears from bankrupt merchants' eyes, the blood
From widows' famished carcasses, the bread
From orphans' mouths!
HAPPY HUNTY:
446
Hooray!
LELAND, THE; KID:
Hooray!
ALL:
Hooray!
_(They tear the masks from their faces, and discharging their
shotguns, throw them into the chapparal. Then they join hands,
dance and sing the following song:)_
Ah! blessed to measure
The glittering treasure!
Ah! blessed to heap up the gold
Untold
That flows in a wide
And deepening tideRolled, rolled, rolled
From multifold sources,
Converging its courses
Upon ourLELAND, THE KID:
Just wait a bit, my pards, I thought I heard
A sneaking grizzly cracking the dry twigs.
Such an intrusion might deprive the State
Of all the good that we intend it. Ha!
_(Enter Sootymug. He saunters carelessly in and gracefully
leans his back against a redwood.)_
SOOTYMUG:
My boys, I thought I heard
Some careless revelry,
As if your minds were stirred
By some new devilry.
I too am in that line. Indeed, the mission
447
On which I comeHAPPY HUNTY:
Here's more damned competition!
_(Curtain.)_
~ Ambrose Bierce,#NFDB
1302:The Angel In The House. Book Ii. Canto Iv.
Preludes.
I Honour and Desert
O queen, awake to thy renown,
Require what 'tis our wealth to give,
And comprehend and wear the crown
Of thy despised prerogative!
I, who in manhood's name at length
With glad songs come to abdicate
The gross regality of strength,
Must yet in this thy praise abate,
That, through thine erring humbleness
And disregard of thy degree,
Mainly, has man been so much less
Than fits his fellowship with thee.
High thoughts had shaped the foolish brow,
The coward had grasp'd the hero's sword,
The vilest had been great, hadst thou,
Just to thyself, been worth's reward.
But lofty honours undersold
Seller and buyer both disgrace;
And favours that make folly bold
Banish the light from virtue's face.
II Love and Honour
What man with baseness so content,
Or sick with false conceit of right,
As not to know that the element
And inmost warmth of love's delight
Is honour? Who'd not rather kiss
A duchess than a milkmaid, prank
The two in equal grace, which is
Precedent Nature's obvious rank?
Much rather, then, a woman deck'd
With saintly honours, chaste and good,
Whose thoughts celestial things affect,
Whose eyes express her heavenly mood!
Those lesser vaunts are dimm'd or lost
139
Which plume her name or paint her lip,
Extinct in the deep-glowing boast
Of her angelic fellowship.
III Valour misdirected
‘I'll hunt for dangers North and South,
‘To prove my love, which sloth maligns!’
What seems to say her rosy mouth?
‘I'm not convinced by proofs but signs.’
Love In Idleness.
What should I do? In such a wife
Fortune had lavish'd all her store,
And nothing now seem'd left for life
But to deserve her more and more.
To this I vow'd my life's whole scope;
And Love said, ‘I forewarn you now,
‘The Maiden will fulfil your hope
‘Only as you fulfil your vow.’
II
A promised service, (task for days),
Was done this morning while she slept,
With that full heart which thinks no praise
Of vows which are not more than kept;
But loftier work did love impose,
And studious hours. Alas, for these,
While she from all my thoughts arose
Like Venus from the restless seas!
III
I conn'd a scheme, with mind elate:
My Uncle's land would fall to me,
My skill was much in school debate,
My friends were strong in Salisbury;
A place in Parliament once gain'd,
Thro' saps first labour'd out of sight,
Far loftier peaks were then attain'd
140
With easy leaps from height to height;
And that o'erwhelming honour paid,
Or recognised, at least, in life,
Which this most sweet and noble Maid
Should yield to him who call'd her Wife.
IV
I fix'd this rule: in Sarum Close
To make two visits every week,
The first to-day; and, save on those,
I nought would do, think, read, or speak,
Which did not help my settled will
To earn the Statesman's proud applause.
And now, forthwith, to mend my skill
In ethics, politics, and laws,
The Statesman's learning! Flush'd with power
And pride of freshly-form'd resolve,
I read Helvetius half-an-hour;
But, halting in attempts to solve
Why, more than all things else that be,
A lady's grace hath force to move
That sensitive appetency
Of intellectual good, call'd love,
Took Blackstone down, only to draw
My swift-deriving thoughts ere long
To love, which is the source of law,
And, like a king, can do no wrong;
Then open'd Hyde, where loyal hearts,
With faith unpropp'd by precedent,
Began to play rebellious parts.
O, mighty stir that little meant!
How dull the crude, plough'd fields of fact
To me who trod the Elysian grove!
How idle all heroic act
By the least suffering of love!
I could not read; so took my pen,
And thus commenced, in form of notes,
A Lecture for the Salisbury men,
With due regard to Tory votes:
‘A road's a road, though worn to ruts;
‘They speed who travel straight therein;
‘But he who tacks and tries short cuts
141
‘Gets fools' praise and a broken shin—’
And here I stopp'd in sheer despair;
But, what to-day was thus begun,
I vow'd, up starting from my chair,
To-morrow should indeed be done;
So loosed my chafing thoughts from school,
To play with fancy as they chose,
And then, according to my rule,
I dress'd, and came to Sarum Close.
Ah, that sweet laugh! Diviner sense
Did Nature, forming her, inspire
To omit the grosser elements,
And make her all of air and fire!
VII
To-morrow, Cowes Regatta fell:
The Dean would like his girls to go,
If I went too. ‘Most gladly.’ Well,
I did but break a foolish vow!
Unless Love's toil has love for prize,
(And then he's Hercules), above
All other contrarieties
Is labour contrary to love.
No fault of Love's, but nature's laws!
And Love, in idleness, lies quick;
For as the worm whose powers make pause,
And swoon, through alteration sick,
The soul, its wingless state dissolved,
Awaits its nuptial life complete,
All indolently self-convolved,
Cocoon'd in silken fancies sweet.
~ Coventry Patmore,#NFDB
1303:Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
Man, brute, reptile, fly,alien of end and of aim,
Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,
Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,
And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!
Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine,
This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise!
Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine,
Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise!
And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell,
Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things,
Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well,
Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs.
And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was,
Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest,
Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass,
Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest:
For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire,
When a great illumination surprises a festal night
Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire)
Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight.
In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth,
Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I;
And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth,
As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky:
Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine,
Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star;
Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine,
For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far.
Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow,
Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast,
Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow,
Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last;
Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone,
But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new:
What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;
And what is,shall I say, matched both? for I was made perfect too.
All through my keys that gave their sounds to a wish of my soul,
All through my soul that praised as its wish flowed visibly forth,
All through music and me! For think, had I painted the whole,
Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth:
Had I written the same, made versestill, effect proceeds from cause,
Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told;
It is all triumphant art, but art in obedience to laws,
Painter and poet are proud in the artist-list enrolled:
But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are!
And I know not if, save in this, such gift be allowed to man,
That out of three sounds he frame, not a fourth sound, but a star.
Consider it well: each tone of our scale in itself is nought;
It is everywhere in the worldloud, soft, and all is said:
Give it to me to use! I mix it with two in my thought:
And, there! Ye have heard and seen: consider and bow the head!
Well, it is gone at last, the palace of music I reared;
Gone! and the good tears start, the praises that come too slow;
For one is assured at first, one scarce can say that he feared,
That he even gave it a thought, the gone thing was to go.
Never to be again! But many more of the kind
As good, nay, better, perchance: is this your comfort to me?
To me, who must be saved because I cling with my mind
To the same, same self, same love, same God: ay, what was, shall be.
Therefore to whom turn I but to thee, the ineffable Name?
Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands!
What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same?
Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power expands?
There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound;
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect round.
All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist;
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour.
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that he heard it once: we shall hear it by and by.
And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence
For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized?
Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence?
Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?
Sorrow is hard to bear, and doubt is slow to clear,
Each sufferer says his say, his scheme of the weal and woe:
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear;
The rest may reason and welcome; 'tis we musicians know.
Well, it is earth with me; silence resumes her reign:
I will be patient and proud, and soberly acquiesce.
Give me the keys. I feel for the common chord again,
Sliding by semitones till I sink to the minor,yes,
And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground,
Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep;
Which, hark, I have dared and done, for my resting-place is found,
The C Major of this life: so, now I will try to sleep.
~ Robert Browning, Abt Vogler
,#NFDB
1304:Attention on Hypnagogic Imagery The most common strategy for inducing WILDs is to fall asleep while focusing on the hypnagogic imagery that accompanies sleep onset. Initially, you are likely to see relatively simple images, flashes of light, geometric patterns, and the like.
Gradually more complicated forms appear: faces, people, and finally entire scenes. 6
The following account of what the Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky called “half-dream states” provides a vivid example of what hypnagogic imagery can be like:
I am falling asleep. Golden dots, sparks and tiny stars appear and disappear before my eyes. These sparks and stars gradually merge into a golden net with diagonal meshes which moves slowly and regularly in rhythm with the beating of my heart, which I feel quite distinctly. The next moment the golden net is transformed into rows of brass helmets belonging to Roman soldiers marching along the street below. I hear their measured tread and watch them from the window of a high house in Galata, in Constantinople, in a narrow lane, one end of which leads to the old wharf and the Golden Horn with its ships and steamers and the minarets of Stamboul behind them. I hear their heavy measured tread, and see the sun shining on their helmets. Then suddenly I detach myself from the window sill on which I am lying, and in the same reclining position fly slowly over the lane, over the houses, and then over the Golden Horn in the direction of Stamboul. I smell the sea, feel the wind, the warm sun. This flying gives me a wonderfully pleasant sensation, and I cannot help opening my eyes. 7
Ouspensky’s half-dream states developed out of a habit of observing the contents of his mind while falling asleep or in half-sleep after awakening from a dream. He notes that they were much easier to observe in the morning after awakening than before sleep at the beginning of the night and did not occur at all “without definite efforts.” 8
Dr. Nathan Rapport, an American psychiatrist, cultivated an approach to lucid dreaming very similar to Ouspensky’s: “While in bed awaiting sleep, the experimenter interrupts his thoughts every few minutes with an effort to recall the mental item vanishing before each intrusion that inquisitive attention.” 9 This habit is continued sleep itself, with results like the following:
Brilliant lights flashed, and a myriad of sparkles twinkled from a magnificent cut glass chandelier. Interesting as any stage extravaganza were the many quaintly detailed figurines upon a mantel against the distant, paneled wall adorned in rococo.
At the right a merry group of beauties and gallants in the most elegant attire of Victorian England idled away a pleasant occasion. This scene continued for [a] period of I was not aware, before I discovered that it was not reality, but a mental picture and that I was viewing it. Instantly it became an incommunicably beautiful vision. It was with the greatest stealth that my vaguely awakened mind began to peep: for I knew that these glorious shows end abruptly because of such intrusions.
I thought, “Have I here one of those mind pictures that are without motion?” As if in reply, one of the young ladies gracefully waltzed about the room. She returned to the group and immobility, with a smile lighting her pretty face, which was turned over her shoulder toward me. The entire color scheme was unobtrusive despite the kaleidoscopic sparkles of the chandelier, the exquisite blues and creamy pinks of the rich settings and costumes. I felt that only my interest in dreams brought my notice to the tints – delicate, yet all alive as if with inner illumination. 10
Hypnagogic Imagery Technique
1. Relax completely
While lying in bed, gently close your eyes and relax your head, neck, back, arms, and legs. Completely let go of all muscular and mental tension, and breathe slowly and restfully. Enjoy the feeling of relaxation and let go of your thoughts, worries, and concerns. If you have just awakened from sleep, you are probably sufficiently relaxed.
Otherwise, you may use either the progressive relaxation exercise (page 33) or the 61-point relaxation exercise (page 34) to relax more deeply. Let everything wind down,
slower and slower, more and more relaxed, until your mind becomes as serene as the calmest sea.
2. Observe the visual images
Gently focus your attention on the visual images that will gradually appear before your mind’s eye. Watch how the images begin and end. Try to observe the images as delicately as possible, allowing them to be passively reflected in your mind as they unfold. Do not attempt to hold onto the images, but instead just watch without attachment or desire for action. While doing this, try to take the perspective of a detached observer as much as possible. At first you will see a sequence of disconnected, fleeting patterns and images. The images will gradually develop into scenes that become more and more complex, finally joining into extended sequences.
3. Enter the dream
When the imagery becomes a moving, vivid scenario, you should allow yourself to be passively drawn into the dream world. Do not try to actively enter the dream scene,
but instead continue to take a detached interest in the imagery. Let your involvement with what is happening draw you into the dream. But be careful of too much involvement and too little attention. Don’t forget that you are dreaming now!
Commentary
Probably the most difficult part of this technique to master is entering the dream at Step 3. The challenge is to develop a delicate vigilance, an unobtrusive observer perspective, from which you let yourself be drawn into the dream. As Paul Tholey has emphasized, “It is not desirable to want actively to enter into the scenery,
since such an intention as a rule causes the scenery to disappear.” 11 A passive volition similar to that described in the section on autosuggestion in the previous chapter is required: in Tholey’s words, “Instead of actively wanting to enter into the scenery, the subject should attempt to let himself be carried into it passively.” 12 A Tibetan teacher advises a similar frame of mind: “While delicately observing the mind, lead it gently into the dream state, as though you were leading a child by the hand.” 13
Another risk is that, once you have entered into the dream, the world can seem so realistic that it is easy to lose lucidity, as happened in the beginning of Rapport’s WILD described above. As insurance in case this happens, Tholey recommends that you resolve to carry out a particular action in the dream, so that if you momentarily lose lucidity, you may remember your intention to carry out the action and thereby regain lucidity.
~ Stephen LaBerge, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming,#NFDB
1305:Octaves
We thrill too strangely at the master’s touch;
We shrink too sadly from the larger self
Which for its own completeness agitates
And undetermines us; we do not feel—
We dare not feel it yet—the splendid shame
Of uncreated failure; we forget,
The while we groan, that God’s accomplishment
Is always and unfailingly at hand.
II
Tumultously void of a clean scheme
Whereon to build, whereof to formulate,
The legion life that riots in mankind
Goes ever plunging upward, up and down,
Most like some crazy regiment at arms,
Undisciplined of aught but Ignorance,
And ever led resourcelessly along
To brainless carnage by drunk trumpeters.
III
To me the groaning of world-worshippers
Rings like a lonely music played in hell
By one with art enough to cleave the walls
Of heaven with his cadence, but without
The wisdom or the will to comprehend
The strangeness of his own perversity,
And all without the courage to deny
The profit and the pride of his defeat.
IV
While we are drilled in error, we are lost
202
Alike to truth and usefulness. We think
We are great warriors now, and we can brag
Like Titans; but the world is growing young,
And we, the fools of time, are growing with it:—
We do not fight to-day, we only die;
We are too proud of death, and too ashamed
Of God, to know enough to be alive.
There is one battle-field whereon we fall
Triumphant and unconquered; but, alas!
We are too fleshly fearful of ourselves
To fight there till our days are whirled and blurred
By sorrow, and the ministering wheels
Of anguish take us eastward, where the clouds
Of human gloom are lost against the gleam
That shines on Thought’s impenetrable mail.
VI
When we shall hear no more the cradle-songs
Of ages—when the timeless hymns of Love
Defeat them and outsound them—we shall know
The rapture of that large release which all
Right science comprehends; and we shall read,
With unoppressed and unoffended eyes,
That record of All-Soul whereon God writes
In everlasting runes the truth of Him.
VII
The guerdon of new childhood is repose:—
Once he has read the primer of right thought,
A man may claim between two smithy strokes
Beatitude enough to realize
God’s parallel completeness in the vague
And incommensurable excellence
That equitably uncreates itself
203
And makes a whirlwind of the Universe.
VIII
There is no loneliness:—no matter where
We go, nor whence we come, nor what good friends
Forsake us in the seeming, we are all
At one with a complete companionship;
And though forlornly joyless be the ways
We travel, the compensate spirit-gleams
Of Wisdom shaft the darkness here and there,
Like scattered lamps in unfrequented streets.
IX
When one that you and I had all but sworn
To be the purest thing God ever made
Bewilders us until at last it seems
An angel has come back restigmatized,—
Faith wavers, and we wonder what there is
On earth to make us faithful any more,
But never are quite wise enough to know
The wisdom that is in that wonderment.
Where does a dead man go?—The dead man dies;
But the free life that would no longer feed
On fagots of outburned and shattered flesh
Wakes to a thrilled invisible advance,
Unchained (or fettered else) of memory;
And when the dead man goes it seems to me
’T were better for us all to do away
With weeping, and be glad that he is gone.
XI
Still through the dusk of dead, blank-legended,
204
And unremunerative years we search
To get where life begins, and still we groan
Because we do not find the living spark
Where no spark ever was; and thus we die,
Still searching, like poor old astronomers
Who totter off to bed and go to sleep,
To dream of untriangulated stars.
XII
With conscious eyes not yet sincere enough
To pierce the glimmered cloud that fluctuates
Between me and the glorifying light
That screens itself with knowledge, I discern
The searching rays of wisdom that reach through
The mist of shame’s infirm credulity,
And infinitely wonder if hard words
Like mine have any message for the dead.
XIII
I grant you friendship is a royal thing,
But none shall ever know that royalty
For what it is till he has realized
His best friend in himself. ’T is then, perforce,
That man’s unfettered faith indemnifies
Of its own conscious freedom the old shame,
And love’s revealed infinitude supplants
Of its own wealth and wisdom the old scorn.
XIV
Though the sick beast infect us, we are fraught
Forever with indissoluble Truth,
Wherein redress reveals itself divine,
Transitional, transcendent. Grief and loss,
Disease and desolation, are the dreams
Of wasted excellence; and every dream
Has in it something of an ageless fact
205
That flouts deformity and laughs at years.
XV
We lack the courage to be where we are:—
We love too much to travel on old roads,
To triumph on old fields; we love too much
To consecrate the magic of dead things,
And yieldingly to linger by long walls
Of ruin, where the ruinous moonlight
That sheds a lying glory on old stones
Befriends us with a wizard’s enmity.
XVI
Something as one with eyes that look below
The battle-smoke to glimpse the foeman’s charge,
We through the dust of downward years may scan
The onslaught that awaits this idiot world
Where blood pays blood for nothing, and where life
Pays life to madness, till at last the ports
Of gilded helplessness be battered through
By the still crash of salvatory steel.
XVII
To you that sit with Sorrow like chained slaves,
And wonder if the night will ever come,
I would say this: The night will never come,
And sorrow is not always. But my words
Are not enough; your eyes are not enough;
The soul itself must insulate the Real,
Or ever you do cherish in this life—
In this life or in any life—repose.
XVIII
Like a white wall whereon forever breaks
206
Unsatisfied the tumult of green seas,
Man’s unconjectured godliness rebukes
With its imperial silence the lost waves
Of insufficient grief. This mortal surge
That beats against us now is nothing else
Than plangent ignorance. Truth neither shakes
Nor wavers; but the world shakes, and we shriek.
XIX
Nor jewelled phrase nor mere mellifluous rhyme
Reverberates aright, or ever shall,
One cadence of that infinite plain-song
Which is itself all music. Stronger notes
Than any that have ever touched the world
Must ring to tell it—ring like hammer-blows,
Right-echoed of a chime primordial,
On anvils, in the gleaming of God’s forge.
XX
The Prophet of dead words defeats himself:
Whoever would acknowledge and include
The foregleam and the glory of the real,
Must work with something else than pen and ink
And painful preparation: he must work
With unseen implements that have no names,
And he must win withal, to do that work,
Good fortitude, clean wisdom, and strong skill.
XXI
To curse the chilled insistence of the dawn
Because the free gleam lingers; to defraud
The constant opportunity that lives
Unchallenged in all sorrow; to forget
For this large prodigality of gold
That larger generosity of thought,—
These are the fleshly clogs of human greed,
207
The fundamental blunders of mankind.
XXII
Forebodings are the fiends of Recreance;
The master of the moment, the clean seer
Of ages, too securely scans what is,
Ever to be appalled at what is not;
He sees beyond the groaning borough lines
Of Hell, God’s highways gleaming, and he knows
That Love’s complete communion is the end
Of anguish to the liberated man.
XXIII
Here by the windy docks I stand alone,
But yet companioned. There the vessel goes,
And there my friend goes with it; but the wake
That melts and ebbs between that friend and me
Love’s earnest is of Life’s all-purposeful
And all-triumphant sailing, when the ships
Of Wisdom loose their fretful chains and swing
Forever from the crumbled wharves of Time.
~ Edwin Arlington Robinson,#NFDB
1306:When on high the heaven had not been named,
Firm ground below had not been called by name,
Naught but primordial Apsu, their begetter,
(And) Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all,
Their waters commingling as a single body;
No reed hut had been matted, no marsh land had appeared,
When no gods whatever had been brought into being,
Uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined-
Then it was that the gods were formed within them.
Lahmu and Lahamu were brought forth, by name they were called.
For aeons they grew in age and stature.
Anshar and Kishar were formed, surpassing the others.
They prolonged the days, added on the years.
Anu was their son, of his fathers the rival;
Yea, Anshar's first born, Anu was his equal.
Anu begot in his image Nudimmud.
This Nudimmud was of his fathers the master;
Of broad wisdom, understanding, mighty in strength,
Mightier by far than his grandfather, Anshar.
He had no rival among the gods, his brothers.
The divine brothers banded together,
They disturbed Tiamat as they surged back and forth,
Yea, they troubled the mood of Tiamat
By their hilarity in the Abode of Heaven.
Apsu could not lessen their clamour
And Tiamat was speechless at their ways.
Their doings were loathsome unto (. . .).
Unsavory were their ways; they were overbearing.
Then Apsu, the begetter of the great gods,
Cried out, addressing Mummu, his vizier:
"O Mummu. my vizier, who rejoicest my spirit,
Come hither and let us go to Tiamat!"
They went and sat down before Tiamat,
Exchanging counsel about the gods, their first born.
Apsu, opening his mouth,
Said unto resplendent Tiamat:
"Their ways are verily loathsome unto me.
By day I find no relief, nor repose by night.
I will destroy, I will wreck their ways,
That quiet may be restored. Let us have rest!"
As soon as Tiamat heard this,
She was wroth and called out to her husband.
She cried out aggrieved, as she raged all alone,
Injecting woe into her mood:
"What? Should we destroy what we have built?
Their ways are indeed troublesome, but let us attend kindly!"
Ill wishing and ungracious was Mummu's advice:
"Do destroy, my father, the mutinous ways.
Then shalt thou have relief by day and rest by night!"
When Apsu heard this, his face grew radiant
Because of the evil he planned against the gods, his sons.
As for Mummu, by the neck he embraced him
As (that one) sat down on his knees to kiss him.
(Now) whatever they plotted between them
Was repeated unto the gods, their first born.
When the gods heard (this), they were astir,
(Then) lapsed into silence and remained speechless,
Surpassing in wisdom, accomplished, resourceful,
Ea, the all wise, saw through their scheme.
A master design against it he devised and setup,
Made artful his spell against it, surpassing and holy.
He recited it and made it subsist in the deep,
As he poured sleep upon him. Sound asleep he lay.
When Apsu he made prone, drenched with sleep,
Mummu, the adviser, was impotent to move,
He loosened his band, tore off his tiara,
Removed his halo (and) put it on himself.
Having fettered Apsu, he slew him.
Mummu he bound and left behind lock.
Having thus upon Apsu established his dwelling,
He laid hold on Mummu, holding him by the nose rope.
After he vanquished and trodden down his foes,
Ea, his triumph over his enemies secured,
In his sacred chamber in profound sleep he rested.
He named it "Apsu," for shrines he assigned (it).
In that same place his cult hut he founded.
Ea and Damkina, his wife, dwelled (there) in splendor.
In the chamber of fates, the abode of destinies,
A god was engendered, most potent and wisest of gods.
In the heart of Apsu was Marduk created,
In the heart of holy Apsu was Marduk created.
He who begot him was Ea, his father;
She who conceived him was Damkina, his mother.
The breast of goddesses did she suck.
The nurse that nursed him filled him with awesomeness.
Alluring was his figure, sparkling the lift in his eyes.
Lordly was his gait, commanding from of old.
When Ea saw him, the father who begot him,
He exulted and glowed, his heart filled with gladness.
He rendered him perfect and endowed him with a double godhead.
Greatly exalted was he above them, exceeding throughout.
Perfect were his members beyond comprehension,
Unsuited for understanding, difficult to perceive.
Four were his eyes, four were his ears;
When he moved his lips, fire blazed forth.
Large were all hearing organs,
And the eyes, in like number, scanned all things.
He was the loftiest of the gods, surpassing was his stature;
His members were enormous, he was exceedingly tall.
"My little son, my little son!
My son, the Sun! Sun of the heavens!"
Clothed with the halo of the ten gods, he was strong to the utmost,
As their awesome flashes were heaped upon him.
Disturbed was Tiamat, astir night and day.
The gods, in malice, contributed to the storm.
Their insides having plotted evil.
To Tiamat these brothers said:
"When they slew Apsu, thy consort,
Thou didst not aid him but remaindest still.
Although he fashioned the awesome Saw,
Thy insides are diluted and so we can have no rest.
Let Apsu, thy consort, be in thy mind
And Mummu, who has been vanquished! Thou are left alone.
Then joined issue Tiamat and Marduk, wisest of gods,
They swayed in single combat, locked in battle.
The lord spread out his net to enfold her,
The Evil Wind, which followed behind, he let loose in her face.
When Tiamat opened her mouth to consume him,
He drove the Evil Wind that she close not her lips.
As the fierce winds charged her belly,
Her body was distended and her mouth was wide open.
He released the arrow, it tore her belly,
It cut through her insides, splitting the heart.
Having thus subdued her, he extinguished her life.
He cast down her carcass to stand upon it
The lord trod on the legs of Tiamat,
With his unsparing mace he crushed her skull.
When the arteries of her blood he had severed,
The North Wind bore (it) to places undisclosed.
On seeing this, his fathers were joyful and jubilant,
They brought gifts of homage, they to him.
Then the lord paused to view her dead body,
That he might divide the monster and do artful works.
He split her like a shellfish into two parts:
Half of her he set up and ceiled as sky,
Pulled down the bar and posted guards.
He bade them to allow not her waters to escape.
He crossed the heavens and surveyed (its) regions.
He squared Apsu's quarter, the abode of Nudimmud,
As the lord measured the dimensions of Apsu.
The Great Abode, its likeness, he fixed as Esharra,
The Great Abode, Esharra, which he made as the firmament.
Anu, Enlil, and Ea he made occupy their places.
When Marduk hears the words of the gods,
His heart prompts (him) to fashion artful works.
Opening his mouth he addresses EA
To impart the plan he addresses EA
To impart the plan he had conceived in his heart:
"Blood I will mass and cause boned to be.
I will establish a savage, 'man' shall be his name.
Verily, savage man I will create.
He shall be charged with the service of the gods
That they might be at ease! The ways of the gods I will artfully alter.
Though alike revered, into two (groups) they shall be divided."
Ea answered him, speaking a word to him.
To relate to him a scheme for the relief of the gods:
"Let but one of their brothers be handed over;"
He alone shall perish that mankind may be fashioned.
Let the great gods be here in Assembly,
Let the guilty be handed over that they may endure."
Marduk summoned the great gods to Assembly;
Presiding graciously, he issued instructions.
This utterance the gods pay heed.
The king addresses a word to the Anunnaki:
"If your former statement was true,
Do (now) the truth on oath by me declare!
Who was it that contrived the uprising,
And made Tiamat rebel, and joined battle?
Let him be handed over who contrived the uprising.
His guilt I will make him bear that you may dwell in peace!"
The Igigi, the great gods, replied to him,
To Lugaldimmerankia, counsellor of the gods, their lord:
"It was Kingu who contrived the uprising,
And made Tiamat rebel, and joined battle."
The bound him holding him before Ea.
They imposed on him his guilt and severed his blood (vessels).
Out of his blood they fashioned mankind.
He imposed the service and let free the gods.
The origin of this The Babylonian Epic of Creation and its translator are both unknown. The original story is from the time of the Sumerians. This was written about the time of Nebuchadrezzar in the 12th century B.C.
~ Anonymous, Enuma Elish (When on high)
,#NFDB
1307:
Can a Yogi attain to a state of consciousness in which he can know all things, answer all questions, relating even to abstruse scientific problems, such as, for example, the theory of relativity?
Theoretically and in principle it is not impossible for a Yogi to know everything; all depends upon the Yogi.
But there is knowledge and knowledge. The Yogi does not know in the way of the mind. He does not know everything in the sense that he has access to all possible information or because he contains all the facts of the universe in his mind or because his consciousness is a sort of miraculous encyclopaedia. He knows by his capacity for a containing or dynamic identity with things and persons and forces. Or he knows because he lives in a plane of consciousness or is in contact with a consciousness in which there is the truth and the knowledge.
If you are in the true consciousness, the knowledge you have will also be of the truth. Then, too, you can know directly, by being one with what you know. If a problem is put before you, if you are asked what is to be done in a particular matter, you can then, by looking with enough attention and concentration, receive spontaneously the required knowledge and the true answer. It is not by any careful application of theory that you reach the knowledge or by working it out through a mental process. The scientific mind needs these methods to come to its conclusions. But the Yogi's knowledge is direct and immediate; it is not deductive. If an engineer has to find out the exact position for the building of an arch, the line of its curve and the size of its opening, he does it by calculation, collating and deducing from his information and data. But a Yogi needs none of these things; he looks, has the vision of the thing, sees that it is to be done in this way and not in another, and this seeing is his knowledge.
Although it may be true in a general way and in a certain sense that a Yogi can know all things and can answer all questions from his own field of vision and consciousness, yet it does not follow that there are no questions whatever of any kind to which he would not or could not answer. A Yogi who has the direct knowledge, the knowledge of the true truth of things, would not care or perhaps would find it difficult to answer questions that belong entirely to the domain of human mental constructions. It may be, he could not or would not wish to solve problems and difficulties you might put to him which touch only the illusion of things and their appearances. The working of his knowledge is not in the mind. If you put him some silly mental query of that character, he probably would not answer. The very common conception that you can put any ignorant question to him as to some super-schoolmaster or demand from him any kind of information past, present or future and that he is bound to answer, is a foolish idea. It is as inept as the expectation from the spiritual man of feats and miracles that would satisfy the vulgar external mind and leave it gaping with wonder.
Moreover, the term "Yogi" is very vague and wide. There are many types of Yogis, many lines or ranges of spiritual or occult endeavour and different heights of achievement, there are some whose powers do not extend beyond the mental level; there are others who have gone beyond it. Everything depends on the field or nature of their effort, the height to which they have arrived, the consciousness with which they have contact or into which they enter.
Do not scientists go sometimes beyond the mental plane? It is said that Einstein found his theory of relativity not through any process of reasoning, but through some kind of sudden inspiration. Has that inspiration anything to do with the Supermind?
The scientist who gets an inspiration revealing to him a new truth, receives it from the intuitive mind. The knowledge comes as a direct perception in the higher mental plane illumined by some other light still farther above. But all that has nothing to do with the action of Supermind and this higher mental level is far removed from the supramental plane. Men are too easily inclined to believe that they have climbed into regions quite divine when they have only gone above the average level. There are many stages between the ordinary human mind and the Supermind, many grades and many intervening planes. If an ordinary man were to get into direct contact even with one of these intermediate planes, he would be dazzled and blinded, would be crushed under the weight of the sense of immensity or would lose his balance; and yet it is not the Supermind.
Behind the common idea that a Yogi can know all things and answer all questions is the actual fact that there is a plane in the mind where the memory of everything is stored and remains always in existence. All mental movements that belong to the life of the earth are memorised and registered in this plane. Those who are capable of going there and care to take the trouble, can read in it and learn anything they choose. But this region must not be mistaken for the supramental levels. And yet to reach even there you must be able to silence the movements of the material or physical mind; you must be able to leave aside all your sensations and put a stop to your ordinary mental movements, whatever they are; you must get out of the vital; you must become free from the slavery of the body. Then only you can enter into that region and see. But if you are sufficiently interested to make this effort, you can arrive there and read what is written in the earth's memory.
Thus, if you go deep into silence, you can reach a level of consciousness on which it is not impossible for you to receive answers to all your questions. And if there is one who is consciously open to the plenary truth of the supermind, in constant contact with it, he can certainly answer any question that is worth an answer from the supramental Light. The queries put must come from some sense of the truth and reality behind things. There are many questions and much debated problems that are cobwebs woven of mere mental abstractions or move on the illusory surface of things. These do not pertain to real knowledge; they are a deformation of knowledge, their very substance is of the ignorance. Certainly the supramental knowledge may give an answer, its own answer, to the problems set by the mind's ignorance; but it is likely that it would not be at all satisfactory or perhaps even intelligible to those who ask from the mental level. You must not expect the supramental to work in the way of the mind or demand that the knowledge in truth should be capable of being pieced together with the half-knowledge in ignorance. The scheme of the mind is one thing, but Supermind is quite another and it would no longer be supramental if it adapted itself to the exigencies of the mental scheme. The two are incommensurable and cannot be put together.
When the consciousness has attained to supramental joys, does it no longer take interest in the things of the mind?
The supramental does not take interest in mental things in the same way as the mind. It takes its own interest in all the movements of the universe, but it is from a different point of view and with a different vision. The world presents to it an entirely different appearance; there is a reversal of outlook and everything is seen from there as other than what it seems to the mind and often even the opposite. Things have another meaning; their aspect, their motion and process, everything about them, are watched with other eyes. Everything here is followed by the supermind; the mind movements and not less the vital, the material movements, all the play of the universe have for it a very deep interest, but of another kind. It is about the same difference as that between the interest taken in a puppet-play by one who holds the strings and knows what the puppets are to do and the will that moves them and that they can do only what it moves them to do, and the interest taken by another who observes the play but sees only what is happening from moment to moment and knows nothing else. The one who follows the play and is outside its secret has a stronger, an eager and passionate interest in what will happen and he gives an excited attention to its unforeseen or dramatic events; the other, who holds the strings and moves the show, is unmoved and tranquil. There is a certain intensity of interest which comes from ignorance and is bound up with illusion, and that must disappear when you are out of the ignorance. The interest that human beings take in things founds itself on the illusion; if that were removed, they would have no interest at all in the play; they would find it dry and dull. That is why all this ignorance, all this illusion has lasted so long; it is because men like it, because they cling to it and its peculiar kind of appeal that it endures.
~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1929-1931, 93?
,#NFDB
1308:The Red Lacquer Music-Stand
A music-stand of crimson lacquer, long since brought
In some fast clipper-ship from China, quaintly wrought
With bossed and carven flowers and fruits in blackening gold,
The slender shaft all twined about and thickly scrolled
With vine leaves and young twisted tendrils, whirling, curling,
Flinging their new shoots over the four wings, and swirling
Out on the three wide feet in golden lumps and streams;
Petals and apples in high relief, and where the seams
Are worn with handling, through the polished crimson sheen,
Long streaks of black, the under lacquer, shine out clean.
Four desks, adjustable, to suit the heights of players
Sitting to viols or standing up to sing, four layers
Of music to serve every instrument, are there,
And on the apex a large flat-topped golden pear.
It burns in red and yellow, dusty, smouldering lights,
When the sun flares the old barn-chamber with its flights
And skips upon the crystal knobs of dim sideboards,
Legless and mouldy, and hops, glint to glint, on hoards
Of scythes, and spades, and dinner-horns, so the old tools
Are little candles throwing brightness round in pools.
With Oriental splendour, red and gold, the dust
Covering its flames like smoke and thinning as a gust
Of brighter sunshine makes the colours leap and range,
The strange old music-stand seems to strike out and change;
To stroke and tear the darkness with sharp golden claws;
To dart a forked, vermilion tongue from open jaws;
To puff out bitter smoke which chokes the sun; and fade
Back to a still, faint outline obliterate in shade.
Creeping up the ladder into the loft, the Boy
Stands watching, very still, prickly and hot with joy.
He sees the dusty sun-mote slit by streaks of red,
He sees it split and stream, and all about his head
Spikes and spears of gold are licking, pricking, flicking,
Scratching against the walls and furniture, and nicking
The darkness into sparks, chipping away the gloom.
The Boy's nose smarts with the pungence in the room.
The wind pushes an elm branch from before the door
And the sun widens out all along the floor,
Filling the barn-chamber with white, straightforward light,
389
So not one blurred outline can tease the mind to fright.
'O All ye Works of the Lord, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O let the Earth Bless the Lord; Yea, let it Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O ye Mountains and Hills, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O All ye Green Things upon the Earth, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him,
and Magnify Him for ever.'
The Boy will praise his God on an altar builded fair,
Will heap it with the Works of the Lord. In the morning air,
Spices shall burn on it, and by their pale smoke curled,
Like shoots of all the Green Things, the God of this bright World
Shall see the Boy's desire to pay his debt of praise.
The Boy turns round about, seeking with careful gaze
An altar meet and worthy, but each table and chair
Has some defect, each piece is needing some repair
To perfect it; the chairs have broken legs and backs,
The tables are uneven, and every highboy lacks
A handle or a drawer, the desks are bruised and worn,
And even a wide sofa has its cane seat torn.
Only in the gloom far in the corner there
The lacquer music-stand is elegant and rare,
Clear and slim of line, with its four wings outspread,
The sound of old quartets, a tenuous, faint thread,
Hanging and floating over it, it stands supreme Black, and gold, and crimson, in one twisted scheme!
A candle on the bookcase feels a draught and wavers,
Stippling the white-washed walls with dancing shades and quavers.
A bed-post, grown colossal, jigs about the ceiling,
And shadows, strangely altered, stain the walls, revealing
Eagles, and rabbits, and weird faces pulled awry,
And hands which fetch and carry things incessantly.
Under the Eastern window, where the morning sun
Must touch it, stands the music-stand, and on each one
Of its broad platforms is a pyramid of stones,
And metals, and dried flowers, and pine and hemlock cones,
An oriole's nest with the four eggs neatly blown,
The rattle of a rattlesnake, and three large brown
390
Butternuts uncracked, six butterflies impaled
With a green luna moth, a snake-skin freshly scaled,
Some sunflower seeds, wampum, and a bloody-tooth shell,
A blue jay feather, all together piled pell-mell
The stand will hold no more. The Boy with humming head
Looks once again, blows out the light, and creeps to bed.
The Boy keeps solemn vigil, while outside the wind
Blows gustily and clear, and slaps against the blind.
He hardly tries to sleep, so sharp his ecstasy
It burns his soul to emptiness, and sets it free
For adoration only, for worship. Dedicate,
His unsheathed soul is naked in its novitiate.
The hours strike below from the clock on the stair.
The Boy is a white flame suspiring in prayer.
Morning will bring the sun, the Golden Eye of Him
Whose splendour must be veiled by starry cherubim,
Whose Feet shimmer like crystal in the streets of Heaven.
Like an open rose the sun will stand up even,
Fronting the window-sill, and when the casement glows
Rose-red with the new-blown morning, then the fire which flows
From the sun will fall upon the altar and ignite
The spices, and his sacrifice will burn in perfumed light.
Over the music-stand the ghosts of sounds will swim,
`Viols d'amore' and `hautbois' accorded to a hymn.
The Boy will see the faintest breath of angels' wings
Fanning the smoke, and voices will flower through the strings.
He dares no farther vision, and with scalding eyes
Waits upon the daylight and his great emprise.
The cold, grey light of dawn was whitening the wall
When the Boy, fine-drawn by sleeplessness, started his ritual.
He washed, all shivering and pointed like a flame.
He threw the shutters open, and in the window-frame
The morning glimmered like a tarnished Venice glass.
He took his Chinese pastilles and put them in a mass
Upon the mantelpiece till he could seek a plate
Worthy to hold them burning. Alas! He had been late
In thinking of this need, and now he could not find
Platter or saucer rare enough to ease his mind.
The house was not astir, and he dared not go down
Into the barn-chamber, lest some door should be blown
391
And slam before the draught he made as he went out.
The light was growing yellower, and still he looked about.
A flash of almost crimson from the gilded pear
Upon the music-stand, startled him waiting there.
The sun would rise and he would meet it unprepared,
Labelled a fool in having missed what he had dared.
He ran across the room, took his pastilles and laid
Them on the flat-topped pear, most carefully displayed
To light with ease, then stood a little to one side,
Focussed a burning-glass and painstakingly tried
To hold it angled so the bunched and prismed rays
Should leap upon each other and spring into a blaze.
Sharp as a wheeling edge of disked, carnation flame,
Gem-hard and cutting upward, slowly the round sun came.
The arrowed fire caught the burning-glass and glanced,
Split to a multitude of pointed spears, and lanced,
A deeper, hotter flame, it took the incense pile
Which welcomed it and broke into a little smile
Of yellow flamelets, creeping, crackling, thrusting up,
A golden, red-slashed lily in a lacquer cup.
'O ye Fire and Heat, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O ye Winter and Summer, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O ye Nights and Days, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.
O ye Lightnings and Clouds, Bless ye the Lord; Praise Him, and Magnify Him
for ever.'
A moment so it hung, wide-curved, bright-petalled, seeming
A chalice foamed with sunrise. The Boy woke from his dreaming.
A spike of flame had caught the card of butterflies,
The oriole's nest took fire, soon all four galleries
Where he had spread his treasures were become one tongue
Of gleaming, brutal fire. The Boy instantly swung
His pitcher off the wash-stand and turned it upside down.
The flames drooped back and sizzled, and all his senses grown
Acute by fear, the Boy grabbed the quilt from his bed
And flung it over all, and then with aching head
He watched the early sunshine glint on the remains
Of his holy offering. The lacquer stand had stains
392
Ugly and charred all over, and where the golden pear
Had been, a deep, black hole gaped miserably. His dear
Treasures were puffs of ashes; only the stones were there,
Winking in the brightness.
The clock upon the stair
Struck five, and in the kitchen someone shook a grate.
The Boy began to dress, for it was getting late.
~ Amy Lowell,#NFDB
1309:The Enchanted Ring
A Tale of Halloween
You ask me for a tale of Halloween?
'Tis well. I lately read a treasure tome
Within whose legend-haunted lone demesne
The free, wild Fancy finds herself at home.
Now, while the night wind wings the starlit dome,
And while the dead leaves eerie converse hold,
Through the rich Conjurer's Kingdom with me roam;
And, wandering there, the story shall be told
Of what befell in Leinster in the days of old.
II
In Leinster in the days of old, I wis,
There was no maiden of the countryside
But on All Hallows (such a night as this!)
In Love's dim chancery her fortune tried.
The bursting nut upon the hearth she plied;
Or, while a lighted candle she would bear,
Gazed in her glass with eyes intent and wide;
Or, with weird mutterings, like a witch's prayer,
She sowed three rows of nothing on the empty air!
III
All rites had little Barbara performed,
Yet nothing did she see, and nothing hear;
Her busy thoughts soon into dreamland swarmed.
The rosy apple lay, untasted, near
For him who, ere another rounded year,
Should taste Love's feast with her. And now the wind
(As on this very night) with sighings drear,
Spake close beneath her latticed window-blind
Such dreamwise things as it hath spoke time out of mind.
IV
16
Why moans our little sister? 'Rest thee, rest!
Fear naught.' Soon careful arms have clasp'd her round,
And a soft cheek against her own is pressed.
For thus, since childhood, Barbara hath found
In mother-love with sister's love upbound,
Swift respite from the terrors of the night.
But now, what sleep so restless, yet so sound,
That not for touch or tone will take its flight,
Or aught at all except the broadcast morning light!
'My precious one, such troubled dreams were thine;
Yet, though I strove, I could not waken thee.'
'Dear mother-sister- dearest sister mineMethought an unknown guide did beckon me
Far, far from here. My will I could not free;
I needs must follow through weald and waste.
Outworn I reached a manor fair to see;
Outworn, alone, through a long hall I paced,
That was with many a speaking, stately portrait graced.
VI
'Then, stilly as a spirit loosed from earth,
I climbed a stair, and to a chamber came,
Rich hung with broidered cloths. Upon the hearth
Dull embers held a little fitful flame.
A sudden trembling ran through all my frame,
When, from amidst those silken hangings rare,
A voice pronounced: 'Reveal thy face and name,
I conjure thee! At least, some token spare
That I may trace thee when thou goest I know not where!'
VII
'It was a grievous and a sinful thingBut over me was sovereign, stern command
I must obey. Thy gift, the birthday ring,
With my own name engraved within the bandThe ring, alas! I drew it from my hand,
17
And laid it on the marble mantel high.
Then died the flame from out the falling brand,
Then were the four walls darkling earth and sky;
And, once again, till dawn a wanderer was I.
VIII
'But, Agatha, thou art not vexed at me?
Thou dost not mourn the ring? 'Twas mine last eve,
This morning it is gone, as thou canst see!'
'Nay, darling, thou no reason hast to grieve:
I may not tell thee why, but I believe
That ere another wingèd year is flown
Some brightest threads for thee will Fortune weave.'
So spake her sister, sage of look and tone,
And held the little, fevered hand within her own.
IX
The Winter long is over in the land,
And mellow is the furrowed soil, and quick
With hopeful promise to the toiler's hand.
He, too, that toils not, leaning on his stick,
Is cheered to see the bean-flowers set so thick,
And thick the blossoms on the orchard bough.
How sweet the air! Hath any soul been sick?
Oh, let that soul drink health from beauty now;
Stand forth beneath the sky; unknit the careworn brow!
'Say, children, if ye guess, what aileth himThe stranger who oft leans beyond the hedge
To see our budding roses? Yet so dim
His eye, he knows them not from ragged sedge!
The black ox's hoof hath trod on him, I pledge
My hopes beyond the grave, he seeketh aye
For that which flees him to the world's far edge!
Come, children, tell me what the gossips say:
Your grandsire nothing hears- the old at home must stay!'
XI
18
Good Agatha replies with playful look:
'Let Barbara speak. And if she be the rose
(To us the sweetest flower in any nookOr tame or wild- that in our Leinster grows)
Hath drawn the stranger to our garden-close,
With what true eye hath he the best discerned.'
(A blush-rose, on the moment, springs and blows!)
'Ay, sister, grandsire, all that I have learned,
I freely tell you; since deceit I always spurned.
XII
'But twice have I had speech with him- no more,
First time he asked a rose, and spake me fair,
I gave it him, so sad a look he wore;
And on he passed, as one who doth not care.
Again, as I was searching everywhere
My bracelet that had fallen to the ground,
He leaped the hedge-row ere I was aware;
And he it was that, searching, quickly found
My bracelet. Surely, I to courtesy was bound.'
XIII
'Ay, surely, child. Your grandsire taught you that,
What said you then?' 'I bade him stay and rest;
And down upon the old oak bench we sat.
He spake of losses- how another's quest
'Twas ever his to aid, for he was blest
With wizard sight, save for the thing he soughtA thing not lost, since never yet possessed;
He had but dreamed of it! I answered naught;
But much, in truth, since then of what he said have thought.'
XIV
By this time closed are the ears of age,
And lid-fast are the eyes. And now, alone,
Spake carelessly good Agatha the sage:
'Great prudence, little Barbe, thou hast shown;
But I have heard the stranger well is known,
19
That gentle is his birth, and the estate
Is broad and fair, which singly he doth own.
'Tis said his health hath suffered much of late;
Wholesome this air; so he prolongs his visit's date.'
XV
Then subtly did fond Agatha contrive:
'Thou dost but a charitable deed,
If from his soul this withering gloom thou drive.
Lightly along the self-same channel lead
Thy talk. Say that thou gav'st his words good heed;
Since back to thee thy bracelet he could bring,
Thou would'st, once more, consult his wizard rede,
For thou hast lost a yet more precious thingThy sister's gift to thee- the name, too, on the ring!'
XVI
'That dare I not- !' broke in the little maid;
'For well thou knowest how the ring was lost,
And all the tricks at Halloween I played.
Alas, those charms were wrought at heavy cost,
To be, as I have been, a homeless ghostA shadow of myself- of self bereft!'
'Then, child, tell only what importeth mostA ring of thine was somewhere lost, or left;
And thou, once more, art fain to seek his counsel deft.'
XVII
The Rose sends challenge to the flower-world all:
What bloom like mint- at once both proud and sweet?
Unstored to the Rose's burning accents fall
Upon the twain within the garden-seat.
Yet, what can make the Rose's color fleet
From a young maiden's cheek- what sudden stress?
What words are these a young man may repeat,
While light springs up in eyes long lustreless?
But come, let us o'erhear- 'twere idle, still to guess?
XVIII
20
It thus had chanced: when came the moment fit,
Full simply little Barbara broached the theme
Directed by her sister's subtler wit:
Since he had found her bracelet, it would seem
A yet mor precious loss he might redeem:
A ring of hers had vanished- left no trace.
So great a wizard might some potent scheme
Devise, to bring it from its hiding-place.'
She lightly spake. Intent, her comrade scanned her face.
XIX
'Speak thou the truth, no word from me withhold;
Lift up thine eyes, and they the truth shall speak,
For it must be that slender ring of gold
Bounds the whole world of happiness I seek.
Tell me when thou this ring didst lose, and eke
All circumstance that did the time attend.'
'Twas then the Rose's color fled her cheek;
But since her tongue to guile she could not lend,
She told straightforwardly her story to the end.
XX
'As thou hast spoken truth, and naught beside'
He said, 'I'll speak the living truth to thee.
That night some charms of Halloween I tried,
Dared thus to do by a blithe company
In mine old hall, far in the West Country.
The charms performed, I thought of them no more;
Yet deemed it strange that sleep came not to me;
And as the rising wind shook blind and door,
I watched with half-shut eyes the firelight on the floor.
XXI
'Then glidingly, and noiseless as a dream,
A figure stoled in white, with floating hair,
Touched faintly by the embers' fitful gleam,
Approached the fireplace and stood wavering thereStood piteously, with tender feet all bare,
21
And tender palms reached out above the coals
(As they had borne too long the frosty air).
Then, I remembered me the time- All Souls,
When visions vanish as the hour of midnight tolls!
XXII
'Already was the clock upon the stroke,
Already had the vision turned to go
When, in a voice I scarcely knew, I spoke,
Desiring that the presence should bestow
Some sign, or constant pledge of truth, to show
When daylight should to disbelief incline.
The vision faded. On the mantel, lo!
This ring I found. And surely, it is thine,
And surely, maiden, both the ring and thou art mine!'
XXIII
Needs not to say what afterwards befellHow smiled the mother-sister sage and dear,
When came the fine confession, guessed full well;
Or how, before the rounding of the year,
She saw- through many a rainbow-lighted tearHer darling pace the aisle, a happy bride!
Nay!- rather must I counsel all who hear
Leave juggling wiles of Halloween untried,
Lest no such powers benign your doubtful venture guide!
~ Edith Matilda Thomas,#NFDB
1310:The Shadow
1.
A vision haunts me, love, when thou art near,
Chilling my heart as frost nips April flowers;
A covering cloud, when all is fair and clear,
That takes the sweetness from our happiest hours.
2.
It steals the colour from our brightest sky;
It mars my soul's content when all seems well;
It quenches laughter in a shuddering sigh —
In thoughts that thrill me like a tolling bell.
3.
It numbs my passion when I love thee most;
It dims my eyes — it veils thy face; it slips,
An unseen shadow, like a creeping ghost,
Betwixt thy kisses and my hungering lips.
4.
What, amid richest plenty, starves me thus?
What is it draws my trustful hand from thine?
That sits a guest at marriage feast with us,
And mixes poison with the food and wine?
5.
In broad noonday — in dark hours long and lone —
252
A small green mound, a lettered name, I see.
There love is symboled in a graven stone —
There I lie dead, worth nothing more to thee.
6.
There weep the dews, and winds of winter blow;
The soft breeze rustles in the bending grass;
The cold rain falls there, and the drifting snow —
But tears fall not, nor lovers' footsteps pass.
7.
Bees hum all day amid the young spring leaves;
The rooks caw loud from every elm- tree bough;
The sparrows twitter in the old church eaves —
But no voice cries for me or calls me now.
8.
Bright beams of morn encompass me about;
The stars shine o'er me, and the pale moonlight;
But I, that lit and warmed thee, am gone out,
Like a burnt candle, in eternal night.
9.
Earth to the earth upon this churchyard slope.
We made no tryst for happier time and place;
And in thy sky gleams no immortal hope,
No distant radiance from my vanished face.
10.
253
And still the sands between thy fingers run —
Desires, delights, ambitions — days and years,
Rich hours of life for thee, though mine are done —
Too full for vain regrets, too brief for tears.
11.
I have lost all, but thou dost hold and save,
Adding new treasure to thy rifled store,
While weeds grow long on the neglected grave
Where sleeps thy mate who may be thine no more.
12.
This is the fate I feel, the ghost I see,
The dream I dream at night, the thought I dread —
That thus 'twill be some day with thee and me,
Thou fain to live while I am doubly dead.
13.
Thou still defiant of our common foe;
I vanquished quite — the once- resplendent crown
Of all thy joys become a dragging woe,
To be lopped off, lest it should weigh thee down.
14.
I, once thy sap of life, a wasteful drain
On thy green vigour, like a rotten branch;
I, once thy health, a paralyzing pain,
A bleeding wound that thou must haste to stanch.
254
15.
Because the dead are dead — the past is gone;
Because dear life is sweet and time is brief,
And some must fall, and some must still press on,
Nor waste scant strength in unavailing grief.
16.
I blame thee not. I know what must be must.
Nor shall I suffer when apart from thee.
I shall not care, when I am mouldering dust,
That once quick love is in the grave with me.
17.
Cast me away — thou knowest I shall not fret;
Take thy due joys — I shall not bear the cost.
I, that am thus forgotten, shall forget,
Nor shed one tear for all that I have lost.
18.
Not then, not then shall sting of death and dole,
The penal curse of life and love, befall;
'Tis now I wear the sackcloth on my soul,
Bereaved and lonely, while possessed of all.
19.
0, wert thou dead, should I, beloved, turn
Deaf heart to memory when of thee she spake?
Should I, when this pure fire had ceased to burn,
255
Seek other hearths, for sordid comfort's sake?
20.
No — no! Yet I am mortal — I am weak —
In need of warmth when wintry winds are cold;
And fateful years and circumstance will wreak
Their own stern will on mine, when all is told.
21.
How can I keep thee? Day and night I grope
In Nature's book, and in all books beside,
For but one touch of a substantial hope.
But all is vague and void on every side.
22.
Whence did we come? And is it there we go?
We look behind — night hides our place of birth;
The blank before hides heaven, for aught we know.
But what is heaven to us, whose home is earth?
23.
Flesh may be gross — the husk that holds the seed —
And gold and gems worth more than common bread;
But flesh is us, and bread is what we need,
And, changed and glorious, we should still be dead.
24.
What is the infinite universe to him
Who has no home? Eternal Future seems,
256
Like the Eternal Past, unreal and dim —
The airy region of a poet's dreams.
25.
What spirit essence, howsoe'er divine,
Can our lost selves restore from dusty grave?
Thy mortal mind and body — thine and mine —
Make all the joys I know, and all I crave.
26.
No fair romance of transcendental bliss,
No tale of palms and crowns my dull heart stirs,
That only hungers for a woman's kiss,
And asks no life that is not one with hers.
27.
Not such Hereafter can I wish to see;
Not this pale hope my sinking soul exalts;
I want no sexless angel — only thee,
My human love, with all thy human faults.
28.
Just as thou art — not beautiful or wise,
But prone to simple sins and sad unrest;
With thy warm lips and arms, and thy sweet eyes —
Sweeter for tears they weep upon my breast.
29.
257
Just as thou art — with thy soft household ways,
Thy noble failures and thy poor success,
Thy love that fits me for my strenuous days —
A mortal woman — neither more nor less.
30.
And thou must pass with these too rapid hours
To that great deep from whence we both were brought;
Thy sentient flesh must turn to grass and flowers,
To birds and beasts, to dust — to air — to naught.
31.
I know the parable. The great oaks grow
To their vast stature from an acorn grain,
And mightiest man was once an embryo.
But how can nothing bring thee forth again?
32.
And is the new oak tree the old oak tree?
And is the son the father? And wouldst thou,
If thou couldst rise from nothing, be to me
Thy present self, that satisfies me now?
33.
Words — words! A dream that fades in Faith's embrace,
And melts in Reason's all- refining fires;
The cherished hope of every age and race;
Born of man's fancy and his own desires.
258
34.
Here in our little island- home we bide
Our few brief years — 'tis all that we possess.
The Infinite lies around on every side,
But what it holds no mortal mind may guess.
35.
Say we remain — a lasting miracle —
As well we may; for this small world is rife
With mystic wonders that no tongue may tell,
And all things teem and travail with new life.
36.
Say we awake — ineffably alive,
Divinely perfect — in some higher sphere!
'Twill not be we — the we who strain and strive,
And love and learn, and joy and suffer, here.
37.
What is our hope, if any hope there be?
'Tis for some bliss uncared for and unknown,
That some strange beings, yet unborn, shall see.
Alas! And all we cry for is our own!
38.
Only to be ourselves — not cast abroad
In space and time, for either bliss or woe —
Only to keep the treasures we have stored!
And they must pass away. And we must go.
259
39.
How can we bear it? How can we submit?
Like a wild beast imprisoned, in our pain
We rave and rage for some way out of it,
But bruise and bleed against the bars in vain.
40.
All — all is dark. Beyond our birth and death —
At either end — the same unyielding door.
We live, we love, while we draw human breath.
This much we know — but we can know no more.
41.
The stars shine down upon the minster spires,
Silent, and pale, and still, like watching eyes.
Think of the tumult of those spinning fires —
Think of the vastness of those midnight skies!
42.
Think of our world in the immense unknown —
Only a grain of stellar dust; and man,
Wanting a God, a Saviour, all his own —
Wanting to break the universal plan!
43.
He but a phase of planetary change,
260
That once was not, and will give place anon
To other forms, more beautiful and strange —
To pass in turn — till earth herself is gone.
44.
Earth, that is next to nothing in the sum
Of things created — a brief mote in space,
With all her aeons past and yet to come.
Ah, think of it! How we forget our place!
45.
Casual atoms in the mighty scheme
That needs us not, we dimly wax and wane,
Dissolving ever like a passing dream —
A breath breathed forth and then drawn back again.
46.
Lone in these infinite realms, perchance unseen —
Unheard. And yet not lost. And not so small,
So feebly futile, pitifully mean,
As our poor creeds would make us, after all.
47.
Still are we details of the great design,
Set to our course, like circling sun and star;
Mortal, infinitesimal — yet divine,
Like Him — or It — that made us what we are.
48.
261
Let manhood, God- begotten, have its due.
'Tis God — whate'er He be — hath made us thus,
Ourselves as gods to know the right and true.
Shall He not, then, be justified in us?
49.
The warm sap runs; the tender leaves unfold;
Ant helps his brother ant; birds build in spring;
The patient earthworm sifts the crumbled mould; —
A sacred instinct guides each living thing.
50.
Shall we, its born interpreters, not heed?
Shall we confess us failures, whom He lifts
So high above these creatures that succeed?
Or prove us worthy of our nobler gifts?
51.
Shall we not prove us worthy? Ay, we will
Because we can, we must — through peace and strife,
Bright hope and black despair, come good, come ill.
'Tis man's sole title to his place in life.
52.
To stand upright in all the winds that blow,
Unbeaten as a tree in driving rain;
In all our doubts, to do the best we know,
From no base fear of loss or hope of gain.
262
53.
To still the cry of self — give listening ears
To stern Truth's message, whatsoe'er it be;
To share our brother's toil and dry his tears —
This is the task set forth for thee and me.
54.
This is the lesson that we live to learn,
And, by brave thought, by word and deed, to teach;
These are the heights our lifted eyes discern
Through cloud and darkness, that our souls must reach.
55.
Not less am I in wisdom and in will
Than ants and worms. I am full- furnished too
My arduous errand hither to fulfil.
I know my work, and what a man can do.
56.
My God, I ask Thee nothing. Thou hast given
This conscious mind, this brain without a flaw;
And I will strive, as I have humbly striven,
To make them serve their purpose and Thy law.
57.
But thee, my soul's companion — thee I seek
For daily courage to support my lot.
In thee hath Nature made me strong or weak.
My human comforter, forsake me not!
263
58.
My nobler self, in whom I live my best,
Strengthen me! Raise me! Help me to the last!
Lay thy dear head upon my throbbing breast —
Give me thy hands, that I may hold thee fast!
59.
Come close — come closer! Let me feel thy heart,
Thy pulsing heart, thy breathing lips, on mine.
O love, let only death and graveyard part —
If they must part — my flesh and soul from thine!
60.
Let no mistrust, no doubt, no poor caprice
Darken for me in thy transparent gaze;
Let no self- wrought estrangement wreck our peace,
Nor vain dissension waste our precious days.
61.
Be thou my purer eyes, my keener ears,
My finer conscience, steadfast, unafraid —
Till these few, swift, inexorable years
Have borne us both beyond the reach of aid.
62.
Be thou my staff upon this lonely way.
Be thou my lamp till need of light is past —
Till the dark shadow, lengthening day by day,
264
Spreads over all and quenches us at last.
63.
Keep me from falling! Keep me from despair!
Keep me true man, if only man I be,
Faithful and brave to bear what I must bear.
For what else have I, if I have not thee?
~ Ada Cambridge,#NFDB
1311:Rubáiyát Of Omar Khayyám
AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
II
Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
"Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
III
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before
The Tavern shouted--"Open then the Door!
You know how little while we have to stay,
And, once departed, may return no more."
IV
Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.
Irám indeed is gone with all its Rose,
And Jamsh{'y}d's Sev'n-ring'd Cup where no one knows;
But still the Vine her ancient Ruby yields,
And still a Garden by the Water blows.
VI
And David's Lips are lock't; but in divine
High piping Pehleví, with "Wine! Wine! Wine!
Red Wine!"--the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That yellow Cheek of hers to' incarnadine.
55
VII
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly--and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.
VIII
And look--a thousand Blossoms with the Day
Woke--and a thousand scatter'd into Clay:
And this first Summer Month that brings the Rose
Shall take Jamsh{'y}d and Kaikobád away.
IX
But come with old Khayyám, and leave the Lot
Of Kaikobád and Kaikhosrú forgot:
Let Rustum lay about him as he will,
Or Hátim Tai cry Supper--heed them not.
With me along some Strip of Herbage strown
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of Slave and Sultán scarce is known,
And pity Sultán Mahmúd on his Throne.
XI
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness-And Wilderness is Paradise enow.
XII
"How sweet is mortal Sovranty!"--think some:
Others--"How blest the Paradise to come!"
Ah, take the Cash in hand and wave the Rest;
Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!
56
XIII
Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo,
Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow:
At once the silken Tassel of my Purse
Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."
XIV
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two--is gone.
XV
And those who husbanded the Golden Grain,
And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain,
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd
As, buried once, Men want dug up again.
XVI
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.
XVII
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamsh{'y}d gloried and drank deep:
And Bahrám, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head, and he lies fast asleep.
XVIII
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head.
XIX
57
And this delightful Herb whose tender Green
Fledges the River's Lip on which we lean-Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!
XX
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears-To-morrow?--Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years.
XXI
Lo! some we lov'd, the loveliest and best
That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to Rest.
XXII
And we, that now make merry in the Room
They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom,
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth
Descend, ourselves to make a Couch--for whom?
XXIII
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!
XXIV
Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare,
And those that after a TO-MORROW stare,
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries
"Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There!"
XXV
58
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
XXVI
Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.
XXVII
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.
XXVIII
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with my own hand labour'd it to grow:
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd-"I came like Water, and like Wind I go."
XXIX
Into this Universe, and why not knowing,
Nor whence like Water willy-nilly flowing:
And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,
I know not whither willy-nilly blowing.
XXX
What, without asking, hither hurried whence?
59
And, without asking, whither hurried hence!
Another and another Cup to drown
The Memory of this Impertinence!
XXXI
Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel'd by the Road;
But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.
XXXII
There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of ME and THEE
There seem'd--and then no more of THEE and ME.
XXXIII
Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
Asking, "What Lamp had Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?"
And--"A blind Understanding!" Heav'n replied.
XXXIV
Then to this earthen Bowl did I adjourn
My Lip the secret Well of Life to learn:
And Lip to Lip it murmur'd--"While you live
Drink!--for once dead you never shall return."
XXXV
I think the Vessel, that with fugitive
Articulation answer'd, once did live,
And merry-make; and the cold Lip I kiss'd
60
How many Kisses might it take--and give!
XXXVI
For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all obliterated Tongue
It murmur'd--"Gently, Brother, gently, pray!"
XXXVII
Ah, fill the Cup:--what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn TO-MORROW, and dead YESTERDAY,
Why fret about them if TO-DAY be sweet!
XXXVIII
One Moment in Annihilation's Waste,
One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste-The Stars are setting and the Caravan
Starts for the Dawn of Nothing--Oh, make haste!
XXXIX
How long, how long, in infinite Pursuit
Of This and That endeavour and dispute?
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
XL
You know, my Friends, how long since in my House
For a new Marriage I did make Carouse:
Divorc'd old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.
61
XLI
For "Is" and "IS-NOT" though with Rule and Line,
And "UP-AND-DOWN" without I could define,
I yet in all I only cared to know,
Was never deep in anything but--Wine.
XLII
And lately, by the Tavern Door agape,
Came stealing through the Dusk an Angel Shape
Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and
He bid me taste of it; and 'twas--the Grape!
XLIII
The Grape that can with Logic absolute
The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute:
The subtle Alchemist that in a Trice
Life's leaden Metal into Gold transmute:
XLIV
The mighty Mahmúd, the victorious Lord,
That all the misbelieving and black Horde
Of Fears and Sorrows that infest the Soul
Scatters and slays with his enchanted Sword.
XLV
But leave the Wise to wrangle, and with me
The Quarrel of the Universe let be:
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee.
XLVI
62
For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
XLVII
And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,
End in the Nothing all Things end in--Yes-Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
Thou shalt be--Nothing--Thou shalt not be less.
XLVIII
While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyám the Ruby Vintage drink:
And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to Thee--take that, and do not shrink.
XLIX
'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;
And He that toss'd Thee down into the Field,
He knows about it all--HE knows--HE knows!
LI
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
63
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
LII
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help--for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
LIII
With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man's knead,
And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
LIV
I tell Thee this--When, starting from the Goal,
Over the shoulders of the flaming Foal
Of Heav'n Parwín and Mushtara they flung,
In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul
LV
The Vine had struck a Fibre; which about
If clings my Being--let the Súfi flout;
Of my Base Metal may be fil'd a Key
That shall unlock the Door he howls without.
LVI
And this I know: whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath consume me quite,
One Glimpse of It within the Tavern caught
64
Better than in the Temple lost outright.
LVII
Oh Thou, who didst with Pitfall and with Gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestination round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?
LVIII
Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And who with Eden didst devise the Snake;
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd, Man's Forgiveness give--and take!
KÚZA-NÁMALIX
Listen again. One Evening at the Close
Of Ramazán, ere the better Moon arose,
In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone
With the clay Population round in Rows.
LX
And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly one more impatient cried-"Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?"
LXI
Then said another--"Surely not in vain
My Substance from the common Earth was ta'en,
That He who subtly wrought me into Shape
Should stamp me back to common Earth again."
LXII
65
Another said--"Why, ne'er a peevish Boy
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy;
Shall He that made the Vessel in pure Love
And Fancy, in an after Rage destroy!"
LXIII
None answer'd this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of a more ungainly Make:
"They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"
LXIV
Said one--"Folks of a surly Tapster tell,
And daub his Visage with the Smoke of Hell;
They talk of some strict Testing of us--Pish!
He's a Good Fellow, and 'twill all be well."
LXV
Then said another with a long-drawn Sigh,
"My Clay with long oblivion is gone dry:
But, fill me with the old familiar Juice,
Methinks I might recover by-and-bye!"
LXVI
So while the Vessels one by one were speaking,
One spied the little Crescent all were seeking:
And then they jogg'd each other, "Brother! Brother!
Hark to the Porter's Shoulder-knot a-creaking!"
LXVII
66
Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,
And wash my Body whence the Life has died,
And in a Windingsheet of Vine-leaf wrapt,
So bury me by some sweet Garden-side.
LXVIII
That ev'n my buried Ashes such a Snare
Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air,
As not a True Believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware.
LXIX
Indeed the Idols I have lov'd so long
Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong:
Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song.
LXX
Indeed, indeed, Repentance oft before
I swore--but was I sober when I swore?
And then and then came Spring, and Rose-in-hand
My thread-bare Penitence apieces tore.
LXXI
And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour--well
I often wonder what the Vintners buy
One half so precious as the Goods they sell.
LXXII
Alas, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
67
The Nightingale that in the Branches sang,
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows!
LXXIII
Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
LXXIV
Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me in vain!
LXXV
And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass
And in thy joyous Errand reach the Spot
Where I made one--turn down an empty Glass!TAMÁM SHUD
~ Edward Fitzgerald,#NFDB
1312:PART 1.
A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.
And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.
And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earths dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
But none ever trembled and panted with bliss
In the garden, the field, or the wilderness,
Like a doe in the noontide with loves sweet want,
As the companionless Sensitive Plant.
The snowdrop, and then the violet,
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,
And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.
Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the streams recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness;
And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,
Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;
And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense;
And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare:
And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,
As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup,
Till the fiery star, which is its eye,
Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky;
And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,
The sweetest flower for scent that blows;
And all rare blossoms from every clime
Grew in that garden in perfect prime.
And on the stream whose inconstant bosom
Was pranked, under boughs of embowering blossom,
With golden and green light, slanting through
Their heaven of many a tangled hue,
Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,
And starry river-buds glimmered by,
And around them the soft stream did glide and dance
With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.
And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss,
Which led through the garden along and across,
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,
Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells
As fair as the fabulous asphodels,
And flowrets which, drooping as day drooped too,
Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue,
To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.
And from this undefiled Paradise
The flowers (as an infants awakening eyes
Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet
Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),
When Heavens blithe winds had unfolded them,
As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem,
Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one
Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;
For each one was interpenetrated
With the light and the odour its neighbour shed,
Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear
Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere.
But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit
Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root,
Received more than all, it loved more than ever,
Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,
For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower;
Radiance and odour are not its dower;
It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full,
It desires what it has not, the Beautiful!
The light winds which from unsustaining wings
Shed the music of many murmurings;
The beams which dart from many a star
Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar;
The plumed insects swift and free,
Like golden boats on a sunny sea,
Laden with light and odour, which pass
Over the gleam of the living grass;
The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high,
Then wander like spirits among the spheres,
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;
The quivering vapours of dim noontide,
Which like a sea oer the warm earth glide,
In which every sound, and odour, and beam,
Move, as reeds in a single stream;
Each and all like ministering angels were
For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear,
Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by
Like windless clouds oer a tender sky.
And when evening descended from Heaven above,
And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love,
And delight, though less bright, was far more deep,
And the days veil fell from the world of sleep,
And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned
In an ocean of dreams without a sound;
Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress
The light sand which paves it, consciousness;
(Only overhead the sweet nightingale
Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail,
And snatches of its Elysian chant
Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant);--
The Sensitive Plant was the earliest
Upgathered into the bosom of rest;
A sweet child weary of its delight,
The feeblest and yet the favourite,
Cradled within the embrace of Night.
PART 2.
There was a Power in this sweet place,
An Eve in this Eden; a ruling Grace
Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream,
Was as God is to the starry scheme.
A Lady, the wonder of her kind,
Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind
Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion
Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean,
Tended the garden from morn to even:
And the meteors of that sublunar Heaven,
Like the lamps of the air when Night walks forth,
Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth!
She had no companion of mortal race,
But her tremulous breath and her flushing face
Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes,
That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise:
As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake
Had deserted Heaven while the stars were awake,
As if yet around her he lingering were,
Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her.
Her step seemed to pity the grass it pressed;
You might hear by the heaving of her breast,
That the coming and going of the wind
Brought pleasure there and left passion behind.
And wherever her aery footstep trod,
Her trailing hair from the grassy sod
Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep,
Like a sunny storm oer the dark green deep.
I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet
Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet;
I doubt not they felt the spirit that came
From her glowing fingers through all their frame.
She sprinkled bright water from the stream
On those that were faint with the sunny beam;
And out of the cups of the heavy flowers
She emptied the rain of the thunder-showers.
She lifted their heads with her tender hands,
And sustained them with rods and osier-bands;
If the flowers had been her own infants, she
Could never have nursed them more tenderly.
And all killing insects and gnawing worms,
And things of obscene and unlovely forms,
She bore, in a basket of Indian woof,
Into the rough woods far aloof,--
In a basket, of grasses and wild-flowers full,
The freshest her gentle hands could pull
For the poor banished insects, whose intent,
Although they did ill, was innocent.
But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris
Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that kiss
The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she
Make her attendant angels be.
And many an antenatal tomb,
Where butterflies dream of the life to come,
She left clinging round the smooth and dark
Edge of the odorous cedar bark.
This fairest creature from earliest Spring
Thus moved through the garden ministering
Mi the sweet season of Summertide,
And ere the first leaf looked brownshe died!
PART 3.
Three days the flowers of the garden fair,
Like stars when the moon is awakened, were,
Or the waves of Baiae, ere luminous
She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius.
And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant
Felt the sound of the funeral chant,
And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow,
And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low;
The weary sound and the heavy breath,
And the silent motions of passing death,
And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank,
Sent through the pores of the coffin-plank;
The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass,
Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass;
From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone,
And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan.
The garden, once fair, became cold and foul,
Like the corpse of her who had been its soul,
Which at first was lovely as if in sleep,
Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap
To make men tremble who never weep.
Swift Summer into the Autumn flowed,
And frost in the mist of the morning rode,
Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright,
Mocking the spoil of the secret night.
The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow,
Paved the turf and the moss below.
The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan,
Like the head and the skin of a dying man.
And Indian plants, of scent and hue
The sweetest that ever were fed on dew,
Leaf by leaf, day after day,
Were massed into the common clay.
And the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray, and red,
And white with the whiteness of what is dead,
Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed;
Their whistling noise made the birds aghast.
And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds,
Out of their birthplace of ugly weeds,
Till they clung round many a sweet flowers stem,
Which rotted into the earth with them.
The water-blooms under the rivulet
Fell from the stalks on which they were set;
And the eddies drove them here and there,
As the winds did those of the upper air.
Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks
Were bent and tangled across the walks;
And the leafless network of parasite bowers
Massed into ruin; and all sweet flowers.
Between the time of the wind and the snow
All loathliest weeds began to grow,
Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck,
Like the water-snakes belly and the toads back.
And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank,
And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank,
Stretched out its long and hollow shank,
And stifled the air till the dead wind stank.
And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath,
Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth,
Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue,
Livid, and starred with a lurid dew.
And agarics, and fungi, with mildew and mould
Started like mist from the wet ground cold;
Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead
With a spirit of growth had been animated!
Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum,
Made the running rivulet thick and dumb,
And at its outlet flags huge as stakes
Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes.
And hour by hour, when the air was still,
The vapours arose which have strength to kill;
At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt,
At night they were darkness no star could melt.
And unctuous meteors from spray to spray
Crept and flitted in broad noonday
Unseen; every branch on which they alit
By a venomous blight was burned and bit.
The Sensitive Plant, like one forbid,
Wept, and the tears within each lid
Of its folded leaves, which together grew,
Were changed to a blight of frozen glue.
For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon
By the heavy axe of the blast were hewn;
The sap shrank to the root through every pore
As blood to a heart that will beat no more.
For Winter came: the wind was his whip:
One choppy finger was on his lip:
He had torn the cataracts from the hills
And they clanked at his girdle like manacles;
His breath was a chain which without a sound
The earth, and the air, and the water bound;
He came, fiercely driven, in his chariot-throne
By the tenfold blasts of the Arctic zone.
Then the weeds which were forms of living death
Fled from the frost to the earth beneath.
Their decay and sudden flight from frost
Was but like the vanishing of a ghost!
And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant
The moles and the dormice died for want:
The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air
And were caught in the branches naked and bare.
First there came down a thawing rain
And its dull drops froze on the boughs again;
Then there steamed up a freezing dew
Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew;
And a northern whirlwind, wandering about
Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out,
Shook the boughs thus laden, and heavy, and stiff,
And snapped them off with his rigid griff.
When Winter had gone and Spring came back
The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck;
But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels,
Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels.
CONCLUSION.
Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that
Which within its boughs like a Spirit sat,
Ere its outward form had known decay,
Now felt this change, I cannot say.
Whether that Ladys gentle mind,
No longer with the form combined
Which scattered love, as stars do light,
Found sadness, where it left delight,
I dare not guess; but in this life
Of error, ignorance, and strife,
Where nothing is, but all things seem,
And we the shadows of the dream,
It is a modest creed, and yet
Pleasant if one considers it,
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.
That garden sweet, that lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odours there,
In truth have never passed away:
Tis we, tis ours, are changed; not they.
For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death nor change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.
Composed at Pisa, early in 1820 (dated 'March, 1820,' in Harvard manuscript), and published, with Prometheus Unbound, the same year: included in the Harvard College manuscript book. Reprinted in the Poetical Works, 1839, both editions.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant
,#NFDB
1313:Epochs
'The epochs of our life are not in the facts, but in the
silent thought by the wayside as we walk.'-Emerson
I. Youth.
Sweet empty sky of June without a stain,
Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills,
Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain,
That each dark copse and hollow overfills;
The rippling laugh of unseen, rain-fed rills,
Weeds delicate-flowered, white and pink and gold,
A murmur and a singing manifold.
The gray, austere old earth renews her youth
With dew-lines, sunshine, gossamer, and haze.
How still she lies and dreams, and veils the truth,
While all is fresh as in the early days!
What simple things be these the soul to raise
To bounding joy, and make young pulses beat,
With nameless pleasure finding life so sweet.
On such a golden morning forth there floats,
Between the soft earth and the softer sky,
In the warm air adust with glistening motes,
The mystic winged and flickering butterfly,
A human soul, that hovers giddily
Among the gardens of earth's paradise,
Nor dreams of fairer fields or loftier skies.
II. Regret.
Thin summer rain on grass and bush and hedge,
Reddening the road and deepening the green
On wide, blurred lawn, and in close-tangled sedge;
Veiling in gray the landscape stretched between
These low broad meadows and the pale hills seen
But dimly on the far horizon's edge.
63
In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies,
Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sun
Might any moment break, no sorrow lies,
No note of grief in swollen brooks that run,
No hint of woe in this subdued, calm tone
Of all the prospect unto dreamy eyes.
Only a tender, unnamed half-regret
For the lost beauty of the gracious morn;
A yearning aspiration, fainter yet,
For brighter suns in joyous days unborn,
Now while brief showers ruffle grass and corn,
And all the earth lies shadowed, grave, and wet;
Space for the happy soul to pause again
From pure content of all unbroken bliss,
To dream the future void of grief and pain,
And muse upon the past, in reveries
More sweet for knowledge that the present is
Not all complete, with mist and clouds and rain.
III. Longing.
Look westward o'er the steaming rain-washed slopes,
Now satisfied with sunshine, and behold
Those lustrous clouds, as glorious as our hopes,
Softened with feathery fleece of downy gold,
In all fantastic, huddled shapes uprolled,
Floating like dreams, and melting silently,
In the blue upper regions of pure sky.
The eye is filled with beauty, and the heart
Rejoiced with sense of life and peace renewed;
And yet at such an hour as this, upstart
Vague myriad longing, restless, unsubdued,
And causeless tears from melancholy mood,
Strange discontent with earth's and nature's best,
Desires and yearnings that may find no rest.
64
IV. Storm.
Serene was morning with clear, winnowed air,
But threatening soon the low, blue mass of cloud
Rose in the west, with mutterings faint and rare
At first, but waxing frequent and more loud.
Thick sultry mists the distant hill-tops shroud;
The sunshine dies; athwart black skies of lead
Flash noiselessly thin threads of lightning red.
Breathless the earth seems waiting some wild blow,
Dreaded, but far too close to ward or shun.
Scared birds aloft fly aimless, and below
Naught stirs in fields whence light and life are gone,
Save floating leaves, with wisps of straw and down,
Upon the heavy air; 'neath blue-black skies,
Livid and yellow the green landscape lies.
And all the while the dreadful thunder breaks,
Within the hollow circle of the hills,
With gathering might, that angry echoes wakes,
And earth and heaven with unused clamor fills.
O'erhead still flame those strange electric thrills.
A moment more,-behold! yon bolt struck home,
And over ruined fields the storm hath come!
V. Surprise.
When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyes
On her changed world of ruin, waste and wrack,
Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surprise
Brings all sweet memories of the lost past back,
With wild self-pitying grief of one betrayed,
Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead!
Are these the heavens that she deemed were kind?
Is this the world that yesterday was fair?
What painted images of folk half-blind
Be these who pass her by, as vague as air?
What go they seeking? there is naught to find.
Let them come nigh and hearken her despair.
65
A mocking lie is all she once believed,
And where her heart throbbed, is a cold dead stone.
This is a doom we never preconceived,
Yet now she cannot fancy it undone.
Part of herself, part of the whole hard scheme,
All else is but the shadow of a dream.
VI. Grief.
There is a hungry longing in the soul,
A craving sense of emptiness and pain,
She may not satisfy nor yet control,
For all the teeming world looks void and vain.
No compensation in eternal spheres,
She knows the loneliness of all her years.
There is no comfort looking forth nor back,
The present gives the lie to all her past.
Will cruel time restore what she doth lack?
Why was no shadow of this doom forecast?
Ah! she hath played with many a keen-edged thing;
Naught is too small and soft to turn and sting.
In the unnatural glory of the hour,
Exalted over time, and death, and fate,
No earthly task appears beyond her power,
No possible endurance seemeth great.
She knows her misery and her majesty,
And recks not if she be to live or die.
VII. Acceptance.
Yea, she hath looked Truth grimly face to face,
And drained unto the lees the proffered cup.
This silence is not patience, nor the grace
Of recognition, meekly offered up,
But mere acceptance fraught with keenest pain,
Seeing that all her struggles must be vain.
66
Her future clear and terrible outlies,This burden to be borne through all her days,
This crown of thorns pressed down above her eyes,
This weight of trouble she may never raise.
No reconcilement doth she ask nor wait;
Knowing such things are, she endures her fate.
No brave endeavor of the broken will
To cling to such poor stays as will abide
(Although the waves be wild and angry still)
After the lapsing of the swollen tide.
No fear of further loss, no hope of gain,
Naught but the apathy of weary pain.
VIII. Loneliness.
All stupor of surprise hath passed away;
She sees, with clearer vision than before,
A world far off of light and laughter gay,
Herself alone and lonely evermore.
Folk come and go, and reach her in no wise,
Mere flitting phantoms to her heavy eyes.
All outward things, that once seemed part of her,
Fall from her, like the leaves in autumn shed.
She feels as one embalmed in spice and myrrh,
With the heart eaten out, a long time dead;
Unchanged without, the features and the form;
Within, devoured by the thin red worm.
By her own prowess she must stand or fall,
This grief is to be conquered day by day.
Who could befriend her? who could make this small,
Or her strength great? she meets it as she may.
A weary struggle and a constant pain,
She dreams not they may ever cease nor wane.
IX. Sympathy.
It comes not in such wise as she had deemed,
67
Else might she still have clung to her despair.
More tender, grateful than she could have dreamed,
Fond hands passed pitying over brows and hair,
And gentle words borne softly through the air,
Calming her weary sense and wildered mind,
By welcome, dear communion with her kind.
Ah! she forswore all words as empty lies;
What speech could help, encourage, or repair?
Yet when she meets these grave, indulgent eyes,
Fulfilled with pity, simplest words are fair,
Caressing, meaningless, that do not dare
To compensate or mend, but merely soothe
With hopeful visions after bitter Truth.
One who through conquered trouble had grown wise,
To read the grief unspoken, unexpressed,
The misery of the blank and heavy eyes,Or through youth's infinite compassion guessed
The heavy burden,-such a one brought rest,
And bade her lay aside her doubts and fears,
While the hard pain dissolved in blessed tears.
X. Patience.
The passion of despair is quelled at last;
The cruel sense of undeserved wrong,
The wild self-pity, these are also past;
She knows not what may come, but she is strong;
She feels she hath not aught to lose nor gain,
Her patience is the essence of all pain.
As one who sits beside a lapsing stream,
She sees the flow of changeless day by day,
Too sick and tired to think, too sad to dream,
Nor cares how soon the waters slip away,
Nor where they lead; at the wise God's decree,
She will depart or bide indifferently.
There is deeper pathos in the mild
And settled sorrow of the quiet eyes,
68
Than in the tumults of the anguish wild,
That made her curse all things beneath the skies;
No question, no reproaches, no complaint,
Hers is the holy calm of some meek saint.
XI. Hope.
Her languid pulses thrill with sudden hope,
That will not be forgot nor cast aside,
And life in statelier vistas seems to ope,
Illimitably lofty, long, and wide.
What doth she know? She is subdued and mild,
Quiet and docile 'as a weaned child.'
If grief came in such unimagined wise,
How may joy dawn? In what undreamed-of hour,
May the light break with splendor of surprise,
Disclosing all the mercy and the power?
A baseless hope, yet vivid, keen, and bright,
As the wild lightning in the starless night.
She knows not whence it came, nor where it passed,
But it revealed, in one brief flash of flame,
A heaven so high, a world so rich and vast,
That, full of meek contrition and mute shame,
In patient silence hopefully withdrawn,
She bows her head, and bides the certain dawn.
XII. Compensation.
'T is not alone that black and yawning void
That makes her heart ache with this hungry pain,
But the glad sense of life hath been destroyed,
The lost delight may never come again.
Yet myriad serious blessings with grave grace
Arise on every side to fill their place.
For much abides in her so lonely life,The dear companionship of her own kind,
Love where least looked for, quiet after strife,
69
Whispers of promise upon every wind,
A quickened insight, in awakened eyes,
For the new meaning of the earth and skies.
The nameless charm about all things hath died,
Subtle as aureole round a shadow's head,
Cast on the dewy grass at morning-tide;
Yet though the glory and the joy be fled,
'T is much her own endurance to have weighed,
And wrestled with God's angels, unafraid.
XIII. Faith.
She feels outwearied, as though o'er her head
A storm of mighty billows broke and passed.
Whose hand upheld her? Who her footsteps led
To this green haven of sweet rest at last?
What strength was hers, unreckoned and unknown?
What love sustained when she was most alone?
Unutterably pathetic her desire,
To reach, with groping arms outstretched in prayer,
Something to cling to, to uplift her higher
From this low world of coward fear and care,
Above disaster, that her will may be
At one with God's, accepting his decree.
Though by no reasons she be justified,
Yet strangely brave in Evil's very face,
She deems this want must needs be satisfied,
Though here all slips from out her weak embrace.
And in blind ecstasy of perfect faith,
With her own dream her prayer she answereth.
XIV. Work.
Yet life is not a vision nor a prayer,
But stubborn work; she may not shun her task.
After the first compassion, none will spare
Her portion and her work achieved, to ask.
70
She pleads for respite,-she will come ere long
When, resting by the roadside, she is strong.
Nay, for the hurrying throng of passers-by
Will crush her with their onward-rolling stream.
Much must be done before the brief light die;
She may not loiter, rapt in the vain dream.
With unused trembling hands, and faltering feet,
She staggers forth, her lot assigned to meet.
But when she fills her days with duties done,
Strange vigor comes, she is restored to health.
New aims, new interests rise with each new sun,
And life still holds for her unbounded wealth.
All that seemed hard and toilsome now proves small,
And naught may daunt her,-she hath strength for all.
XV. Victory.
How strange, in some brief interval of rest,
Backward to look on her far-stretching past.
To see how much is conquered and repressed,
How much is gained in victory at last!
The shadow is not lifted,-but her faith,
Strong from life's miracles, now turns toward death.
Though much be dark where once rare splendor shone,
Yet the new light has touched high peaks unguessed
In her gold, mist-bathed dawn, and one by one
New outlooks loom from many a mountain crest.
She breathes a loftier, purer atmosphere,
And life's entangled paths grow straight and clear.
Nor will Death prove an all-unwelcome guest;
The struggle has been toilsome to this end,
Sleep will be sweet, and after labor rest,
And all will be atoned with him to friend.
Much must be reconciled, much justified,
And yet she feels she will be satisfied.
71
XVI. Peace.
The calm outgoing of a long, rich day,
Checkered with storm and sunshine, gloom and light,
Now passing in pure, cloudless skies away,
Withdrawing into silence of blank night.
Thick shadows settle on the landscape bright,
Like the weird cloud of death that falls apace
On the still features of the passive face.
Soothing and gentle as a mother's kiss,
The touch that stopped the beating of the heart.
A look so blissfully serene as this,
Not all the joy of living could impart.
With dauntless faith and courage therewithal,
The Master found her ready at his call.
On such a golden evening forth there floats,
Between the grave earth and the glowing sky
In the clear air, unvexed with hazy motes,
The mystic-winged and flickering butterfly,
A human soul, that drifts at liberty,
Ah! who can tell to what strange paradise,
To what undreamed-of fields and lofty skies.!
~ Emma Lazarus,#NFDB
1314:Under The Rose
'The iniquity of the fathers upon the children.'
Oh the rose of keenest thorn!
One hidden summer morn
Under the rose I was born.
I do not guess his name
Who wrought my Mother's shame,
And gave me life forlorn,
But my Mother, Mother, Mother,
I know her from all other.
My Mother pale and mild,
Fair as ever was seen,
She was but scarce sixteen,
Little more than a child,
When I was born
To work her scorn.
With secret bitter throes,
In a passion of secret woes,
She bore me under the rose.
One who my Mother nursed
Took me from the first:—
'O nurse, let me look upon
This babe that costs so dear;
To-morrow she will be gone:
Other mothers may keep
Their babes awake and asleep,
But I must not keep her here.'—
Whether I know or guess,
I know this not the less.
So I was sent away
That none might spy the truth:
And my childhood waxed to youth
And I left off childish play.
I never cared to play
With the village boys and girls;
And I think they thought me proud,
424
I found so little to say
And kept so from the crowd:
But I had the longest curls
And I had the largest eyes
And my teeth were small like pearls;
The girls might flout and scout me,
But the boys would hang about me
In sheepish mooning wise.
Our one-street village stood
A long mile from the town,
A mile of windy down
And bleak one-sided wood,
With not a single house.
Our town itself was small,
With just the common shops,
And throve in its small way.
Our neighbouring gentry reared
The good old-fashioned crops,
And made old-fashioned boasts
Of what John Bull would do
If Frenchman Frog appeared,
And drank old-fashioned toasts,
And made old-fashioned bows
To my Lady at the Hall.
My Lady at the Hall
Is grander than they all:
Hers is the oldest name
In all the neighbourhood;
But the race must die with her
Though she's a lofty dame,
For she's unmarried still.
Poor people say she's good
And has an open hand
As any in the land,
And she's the comforter
Of many sick and sad;
My nurse once said to me
That everything she had
Came of my Lady's bounty:
'Though she's greatest in the county
425
She's humble to the poor,
No beggar seeks her door
But finds help presently.
I pray both night and day
For her, and you must pray:
But she'll never feel distress
If needy folk can bless.'
I was a little maid
When here we came to live
From somewhere by the sea.
Men spoke a foreign tongue
There where we used to be
When I was merry and young,
Too young to feel afraid;
The fisher folk would give
A kind strange word to me,
There by the foreign sea:
I don't know where it was,
But I remember still
Our cottage on a hill,
And fields of flowering grass
On that fair foreign shore.
I liked my old home best,
But this was pleasant too:
So here we made our nest
And here I grew.
And now and then my Lady
In riding past our door
Would nod to Nurse and speak,
Or stoop and pat my cheek;
And I was always ready
To hold the field-gate wide
For my Lady to go through;
My Lady in her veil
So seldom put aside,
My Lady grave and pale.
I often sat to wonder
Who might my parents be,
For I knew of something under
426
My simple-seeming state.
Nurse never talked to me
Of mother or of father,
But watched me early and late
With kind suspicious cares:
Or not suspicious, rather
Anxious, as if she knew
Some secret I might gather
And smart for unawares.
Thus I grew.
But Nurse waxed old and grey,
Bent and weak with years.
There came a certain day
That she lay upon her bed
Shaking her palsied head,
With words she gasped to say
Which had to stay unsaid.
Then with a jerking hand
Held out so piteously
She gave a ring to me
Of gold wrought curiously,
A ring which she had worn
Since the day I was born,
She once had said to me:
I slipped it on my finger;
Her eyes were keen to linger
On my hand that slipped it on;
Then she sighed one rattling sigh
And stared on with sightless eye:—
The one who loved me was gone.
How long I stayed alone
With the corpse I never knew,
For I fainted dead as stone:
When I came to life once more
I was down upon the floor,
With neighbours making ado
To bring me back to life.
I heard the sexton's wife
Say: 'Up, my lad, and run
To tell it at the Hall;
427
She was my Lady's nurse,
And done can't be undone.
I'll watch by this poor lamb.
I guess my Lady's purse
Is always open to such:
I'd run up on my crutch
A cripple as I am,'
(For cramps had vexed her much)
'Rather than this dear heart
Lack one to take her part.'
For days day after day
On my weary bed I lay
Wishing the time would pass;
Oh, so wishing that I was
Likely to pass away:
For the one friend whom I knew
Was dead, I knew no other,
Neither father nor mother;
And I, what should I do?
One day the sexton's wife
Said: 'Rouse yourself, my dear:
My Lady has driven down
From the Hall into the town,
And we think she's coming here.
Cheer up, for life is life.'
But I would not look or speak,
Would not cheer up at all.
My tears were like to fall,
So I turned round to the wall
And hid my hollow cheek
Making as if I slept,
As silent as a stone,
And no one knew I wept.
What was my Lady to me,
The grand lady from the Hall?
She might come, or stay away,
I was sick at heart that day:
The whole world seemed to be
Nothing, just nothing to me,
428
For aught that I could see.
Yet I listened where I lay:
A bustle came below,
A clear voice said: 'I know;
I will see her first alone,
It may be less of a shock
If she's so weak to-day:'—
A light hand turned the lock,
A light step crossed the floor,
One sat beside my bed:
But never a word she said.
For me, my shyness grew
Each moment more and more:
So I said never a word
And neither looked nor stirred;
I think she must have heard
My heart go pit-a-pat:
Thus I lay, my Lady sat,
More than a mortal hour—
(I counted one and two
By the house-clock while I lay):
I seemed to have no power
To think of a thing to say,
Or do what I ought to do,
Or rouse myself to a choice.
At last she said: 'Margaret,
Won't you even look at me?'
A something in her voice
Forced my tears to fall at last,
Forced sobs from me thick and fast;
Something not of the past,
Yet stirring memory;
A something new, and yet
Not new, too sweet to last,
Which I never can forget.
I turned and stared at her:
Her cheek showed hollow-pale;
Her hair like mine was fair,
429
A wonderful fall of hair
That screened her like a veil;
But her height was statelier,
Her eyes had depth more deep;
I think they must have had
Always a something sad,
Unless they were asleep.
While I stared, my Lady took
My hand in her spare hand
Jewelled and soft and grand,
And looked with a long long look
Of hunger in my face;
As if she tried to trace
Features she ought to know,
And half hoped, half feared, to find.
Whatever was in her mind
She heaved a sigh at last,
And began to talk to me.
'Your nurse was my dear nurse,
And her nursling's dear,' said she:
'I never knew that she was worse
Till her poor life was past'
(Here my Lady's tears dropped fast):
'I might have been with her,
But she had no comforter.
She might have told me much
Which now I shall never know,
Never never shall know.'
She sat by me sobbing so,
And seemed so woe-begone,
That I laid one hand upon
Hers with a timid touch,
Scarce thinking what I did,
Not knowing what to say:
That moment her face was hid
In the pillow close by mine,
Her arm was flung over me,
She hugged me, sobbing so
As if her heart would break,
And kissed me where I lay.
430
After this she often came
To bring me fruit or wine,
Or sometimes hothouse flowers.
And at nights I lay awake
Often and often thinking
What to do for her sake.
Wet or dry it was the same:
She would come in at all hours,
Set me eating and drinking
And say I must grow strong;
At last the day seemed long
And home seemed scarcely home
If she did not come.
Well, I grew strong again:
In time of primroses,
I went to pluck them in the lane;
In time of nestling birds,
I heard them chirping round the house;
And all the herds
Were out at grass when I grew strong,
And days were waxen long,
And there was work for bees
Among the May-bush boughs,
And I had shot up tall,
And life felt after all
Pleasant, and not so long
When I grew strong.
I was going to the Hall
To be my Lady's maid:
'Her little friend,' she said to me,
'Almost her child,'
She said and smiled
Sighing painfully;
Blushing, with a second flush
As if she blushed to blush.
Friend, servant, child: just this
My standing at the Hall;
The other servants call me 'Miss,'
431
My Lady calls me 'Margaret,'
With her clear voice musical.
She never chides when I forget
This or that; she never chides.
Except when people come to stay,
(And that's not often) at the Hall,
I sit with her all day
And ride out when she rides.
She sings to me and makes me sing;
Sometimes I read to her,
Sometimes we merely sit and talk.
She noticed once my ring
And made me tell its history:
That evening in our garden walk
She said she should infer
The ring had been my father's first,
Then my mother's, given for me
To the nurse who nursed
My mother in her misery,
That so quite certainly
Some one might know me, who…
Then she was silent, and I too.
I hate when people come:
The women speak and stare
And mean to be so civil.
This one will stroke my hair,
That one will pat my cheek
And praise my Lady's kindness,
Expecting me to speak;
I like the proud ones best
Who sit as struck with blindness,
As if I wasn't there.
But if any gentleman
Is staying at the Hall
(Though few come prying here),
My Lady seems to fear
Some downright dreadful evil,
And makes me keep my room
As closely as she can:
So I hate when people come,
It is so troublesome.
432
In spite of all her care,
Sometimes to keep alive
I sometimes do contrive
To get out in the grounds
For a whiff of wholesome air,
Under the rose you know:
It's charming to break bounds,
Stolen waters are sweet,
And what's the good of feet
If for days they mustn't go?
Give me a longer tether,
Or I may break from it.
Now I have eyes and ears
And just some little wit:
'Almost my Lady's child;'
I recollect she smiled,
Sighed and blushed together;
Then her story of the ring
Sounds not improbable,
She told it me so well
It seemed the actual thing:—
Oh, keep your counsel close,
But I guess under the rose,
In long past summer weather
When the world was blossoming,
And the rose upon its thorn:
I guess not who he was
Flawed honour like a glass,
And made my life forlorn,
But my Mother, Mother, Mother,
Oh, I know her from all other.
My Lady, you might trust
Your daughter with your fame.
Trust me, I would not shame
Our honourable name,
For I have noble blood
Though I was bred in dust
And brought up in the mud.
I will not press my claim,
Just leave me where you will:
433
But you might trust your daughter,
For blood is thicker than water
And you're my mother still.
So my Lady holds her own
With condescending grace,
and fills her lofty place
With an untroubled face
As a queen may fill a throne.
While I could hint a tale—
(But then I am her child)—
Would make her quail;
Would set her in the dust,
Lorn with no comforter,
Her glorious hair defiled
And ashes on her cheek:
The decent world would thrust
Its finger out at her,
Not much displeased I think
To make a nine days' stir;
The decent world would sink
Its voice to speak of her.
Now this is what I mean
To do, no more, no less:
Never to speak, or show
Bare sign of what I know.
Let the blot pass unseen;
Yea, let her never guess
I hold the tangled clue
She huddles out of view.
Friend, servant, almost child,
So be it and nothing more
On this side of the grave.
Mother, in Paradise,
You'll see with clearer eyes;
Perhaps in this world even
When you are like to die
And face to face with Heaven
You'll drop for once the lie:
But you must drop the mask, not I.
434
My Lady promises
Two hundred pounds with me
Whenever I may wed
A man she can approve:
And since besides her bounty
I'm fairest in the county
(For so I've heard it said,
Though I don't vouch for this),
Her promised pounds may move
Some honest man to see
My virtues and my beauties;
Perhaps the rising grazier,
Or temperance publican,
May claim my wifely duties.
Meanwhile I wait their leisure
And grace-bestowing pleasure,
I wait the happy man;
But if I hold my head
And pitch my expectations
Just higher than their level,
They must fall back on patience:
I may not mean to wed,
Yet I'll be civil.
Now sometimes in a dream
My heart goes out of me
To build and scheme,
Till I sob after things that seem
So pleasant in a dream:
A home such as I see
My blessed neighbours live in
With father and with mother,
All proud of one another,
Named by one common name
From baby in the bud
To full-blown workman father;
It's little short of Heaven.
I'd give my gentle blood
To wash my special shame
And drown my private grudge;
I'd toil and moil much rather
The dingiest cottage drudge
435
Whose mother need not blush,
Than live here like a lady
And see my Mother flush
And hear her voice unsteady
Sometimes, yet never dare
Ask to share her care.
Of course the servants sneer
Behind my back at me;
Of course the village girls,
Who envy me my curls
And gowns and idleness,
Take comfort in a jeer;
Of course the ladies guess
Just so much of my history
As points the emphatic stress
With which they laud my Lady;
The gentlemen who catch
A casual glimpse of me
And turn again to see,
Their valets on the watch
To speak a word with me,
All know and sting me wild;
Till I am almost ready
To wish that I were dead,
No faces more to see,
No more words to be said,
My Mother safe at last
Disburdened of her child,
And the past past.
'All equal before God'—
Our Rector has it so,
And sundry sleepers nod:
It may be so; I know
All are not equal here,
And when the sleepers wake
They make a difference.
'All equal in the grave'—
That shows an obvious sense:
Yet something which I crave
Not death itself brings near;
436
Now should death half atone
For all my past; or make
The name I bear my own?
I love my dear old Nurse
Who loved me without gains;
I love my mistress even,
Friend, Mother, what you will:
But I could almost curse
My Father for his pains;
And sometimes at my prayer
Kneeling in sight of Heaven
I almost curse him still:
Why did he set his snare
To catch at unaware
My Mother's foolish youth;
Load me with shame that's hers,
And her with something worse,
A lifelong lie for truth?
I think my mind is fixed
On one point and made up:
To accept my lot unmixed;
Never to drug the cup
But drink it by myself.
I'll not be wooed for pelf;
I'll not blot out my shame
With any man's good name;
But nameless as I stand,
My hand is my own hand,
And nameless as I came
I go to the dark land.
'All equal in the grave'—
I bide my time till then:
'All equal before God'—
To-day I feel His rod,
To-morrow He may save:
Amen.
~ Christina Georgina Rossetti,#NFDB
1315:"As certain also of your own poets have said"
(Acts 17.28)
Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea
And laugh their pride when the light wave lisps "Greece")
To Protus in his Tyranny: much health!
They give thy letter to me, even now:
I read and seem as if I heard thee speak.
The master of thy galley still unlades
Gift after gift; they block my court at last
And pile themselves along its portico
Royal with sunset, like a thought of thee:
And one white she-slave from the group dispersed
Of black and white slaves (like the chequer-work
Pavement, at once my nation's work and gift,
Now covered with this settle-down of doves),
One lyric woman, in her crocus vest
Woven of sea-wools, with her two white hands
Commends to me the strainer and the cup
Thy lip hath bettered ere it blesses mine.
Well-counselled, king, in thy munificence!
For so shall men remark, in such an act
Of love for him whose song gives life its joy,
Thy recognition of the use of life;
Nor call thy spirit barely adequate
To help on life in straight ways, broad enough
For vulgar souls, by ruling and the rest.
Thou, in the daily building of thy tower,
Whether in fierce and sudden spasms of toil,
Or through dim lulls of unapparent growth,
Or when the general work 'mid good acclaim
Climbed with the eye to cheer the architect,
Didst ne'er engage in work for mere work's sake
Hadst ever in thy heart the luring hope
Of some eventual rest a-top of it,
Whence, all the tumult of the building hushed,
Thou first of men might'st look out to the East:
The vulgar saw thy tower, thou sawest the sun.
For this, I promise on thy festival
To pour libation, looking o'er the sea,
Making this slave narrate thy fortunes, speak
Thy great words, and describe thy royal face
Wishing thee wholly where Zeus lives the most,
Within the eventual element of calm.
Thy letter's first requirement meets me here.
It is as thou hast heard: in one short life
I, Cleon, have effected all those things
Thou wonderingly dost enumerate.
That epos on thy hundred plates of gold
Is mine,and also mine the little chant,
So sure to rise from every fishing-bark
When, lights at prow, the seamen haul their net.
The image of the sun-god on the phare,
Men turn from the sun's self to see, is mine;
The Po'er-storied its whole length,
As thou didst hear, with painting, is mine too.
I know the true proportions of a man
And woman also, not observed before;
And I have written three books on the soul,
Proving absurd all written hitherto,
And putting us to ignorance again.
For music,why, I have combined the moods,
Inventing one. In brief, all arts are mine;
Thus much the people know and recognize,
Throughout our seventeen islands. Marvel not.
We of these latter days, with greater mind
Than our forerunners, since more composite,
Look not so great, beside their simple way,
To a judge who only sees one way at once,
One mind-point and no other at a time,
Compares the small part of a man of us
With some whole man of the heroic age,
Great in his waynot ours, nor meant for ours.
And ours is greater, had we skill to know:
For, what we call this life of men on earth,
This sequence of the soul's achievements here
Being, as I find much reason to conceive,
Intended to be viewed eventually
As a great whole, not analyzed to parts,
But each part having reference to all,
How shall a certain part, pronounced complete,
Endure effacement by another part?
Was the thing done?then, what's to do again?
See, in the chequered pavement opposite,
Suppose the artist made a perfect rhomb,
And next a lozenge, then a trapezoid
He did not overlay them, superimpose
The new upon the old and blot it out,
But laid them on a level in his work,
Making at last a picture; there it lies.
So, first the perfect separate forms were made,
The portions of mankind; and after, so,
Occurred the combination of the same.
For where had been a progress, otherwise?
Mankind, made up of all the single men,
In such a synthesis the labour ends.
Now mark me! those divine men of old time
Have reached, thou sayest well, each at one point
The outside verge that rounds our faculty;
And where they reached, who can do more than reach?
It takes but little water just to touch
At some one point the inside of a sphere,
And, as we turn the sphere, touch all the rest
In due succession: but the finer air
Which not so palpably nor obviously,
Though no less universally, can touch
The whole circumference of that emptied sphere,
Fills it more fully than the water did;
Holds thrice the weight of water in itself
Resolved into a subtler element.
And yet the vulgar call the sphere first full
Up to the visible heightand after, void;
Not knowing air's more hidden properties.
And thus our soul, misknown, cries out to Zeus
To vindicate his purpose in our life:
Why stay we on the earth unless to grow?
Long since, I imaged, wrote the fiction out,
That he or other god descended here
And, once for all, showed simultaneously
What, in its nature, never can be shown,
Piecemeal or in succession;showed, I say,
The worth both absolute and relative
Of all his children from the birth of time,
His instruments for all appointed work.
I now go on to image,might we hear
The judgment which should give the due to each,
Show where the labour lay and where the ease,
And prove Zeus' self, the latent everywhere!
This is a dream:but no dream, let us hope,
That years and days, the summers and the springs,
Follow each other with unwaning powers.
The grapes which dye thy wine are richer far,
Through culture, than the wild wealth of the rock;
The suave plum than the savage-tasted drupe;
The pastured honey-bee drops choicer sweet;
The flowers turn double, and the leaves turn flowers;
That young and tender crescent-moon, thy slave,
Sleeping above her robe as buoyed by clouds,
Refines upon the women of my youth.
What, and the soul alone deteriorates?
I have not chanted verse like Homer, no
Nor swept string like Terpander, nonor carved
And painted men like Phidias and his friend:
I am not great as they are, point by point.
But I have entered into sympathy
With these four, running these into one soul,
Who, separate, ignored each other's art.
Say, is it nothing that I know them all?
The wild flower was the larger; I have dashed
Rose-blood upon its petals, pricked its cup's
Honey with wine, and driven its seed to fruit,
And show a better flower if not so large:
I stand myself. Refer this to the gods
Whose gift alone it is! which, shall I dare
(All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext
That such a gift by chance lay in my hand,
Discourse of lightly or depreciate?
It might have fallen to another's hand: what then?
I pass too surely: let at least truth stay!
And next, of what thou followest on to ask.
This being with me as I declare, O king,
My works, in all these varicoloured kinds,
So done by me, accepted so by men
Thou askest, if (my soul thus in men's hearts)
I must not be accounted to attain
The very crown and proper end of life?
Inquiring thence how, now life closeth up,
I face death with success in my right hand:
Whether I fear death less than dost thyself
The fortunate of men? "For" (writest thou)
"Thou leavest much behind, while I leave nought.
Thy life stays in the poems men shall sing,
The pictures men shall study; while my life,
Complete and whole now in its power and joy,
Dies altogether with my brain and arm,
Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself?
The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave,
Set on the promontory which I named.
And thatsome supple courtier of my heir
Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps,
To fix the rope to, which best drags it down.
I go then: triumph thou, who dost not go!"
Nay, thou art worthy of hearing my whole mind.
Is this apparent, when thou turn'st to muse
Upon the scheme of earth and man in chief,
That admiration grows as knowledge grows?
That imperfection means perfection hid,
Reserved in part, to grace the after-time?
If, in the morning of philosophy,
Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived,
Thou, with the light now in thee, couldst have looked
On all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird,
Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage
Thou wouldst have seen them perfect, and deduced
The perfectness of others yet unseen.
Conceding which,had Zeus then questioned thee,
"Shall I go on a step, improve on this,
Do more for visible creatures than is done?"
Thou wouldst have answered, "Ay, by making each
Grow conscious in himselfby that alone.
All's perfect else: the shell sucks fast the rock,
The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both swims
And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight,
Till life's mechanics can no further go
And all this joy in natural life is put
Like fire from off thy finger into each,
So exquisitely perfect is the same.
But 'tis pure fire, and they mere matter are;
It has them, not they it: and so I choose
For man, thy last premeditated work
(If I might add a glory to the scheme),
That a third thing should stand apart from both,
A quality arise within his soul,
Which, intro-active, made to supervise
And feel the force it has, may view itself,
And so be happy." Man might live at first
The animal life: but is there nothing more?
In due time, let him critically learn
How he lives; and, the more he gets to know
Of his own life's adaptabilities,
The more joy-giving will his life become.
Thus man, who hath this quality, is best.
But thou, king, hadst more reasonably said:
Let progress end at once,man make no step
Beyond the natural man, the better beast,
Using his senses, not the sense of sense."
In man there's failure, only since he left
The lower and inconscious forms of life.
We called it an advance, the rendering plain
Man's spirit might grow conscious of man's life,
And, by new lore so added to the old,
Take each step higher over the brute's head.
This grew the only life, the pleasure-house,
Watch-tower and treasure-fortress of the soul,
Which whole surrounding flats of natural life
Seemed only fit to yield subsistence to;
A tower that crowns a country. But alas,
The soul now climbs it just to perish there!
For thence we have discovered ('tis no dream
We know this, which we had not else perceived)
That there's a world of capability
For joy, spread round about us, meant for us,
Inviting us; and still the soul craves all,
And still the flesh replies, "Take no jot more
Than ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad!
Nay, so much less as that fatigue has brought
Deduction to it." We struggle, fain to enlarge
Our bounded physical recipiency,
Increase our power, supply fresh oil to life,
Repair the waste of age and sickness: no,
It skills not! life's inadequate to joy,
As the soul sees joy, tempting life to take.
They praise a fountain in my garden here
Wherein a Naiad sends the water-bow
Thin from her tube; she smiles to see it rise.
What if I told her, it is just a thread
From that great river which the hills shut up,
And mock her with my leave to take the same?
The artificer has given her one small tube
Past power to widen or exchangewhat boots
To know she might spout oceans if she could?
She cannot lift beyond her first thin thread:
And so a man can use but a man's joy
While he sees God's. Is it for Zeus to boast,
"See, man, how happy I live, and despair
That I may be still happierfor thy use!"
If this were so, we could not thank our lord,
As hearts beat on to doing; 'tis not so
Malice it is not. Is it carelessness?
Still, no. If carewhere is the sign? I ask,
And get no answer, and agree in sum,
O king, with thy profound discouragement,
Who seest the wider but to sigh the more.
Most progress is most failure: thou sayest well.
The last point now:thou dost except a case
Holding joy not impossible to one
With artist-giftsto such a man as I
Who leave behind me living works indeed;
For, such a poem, such a painting lives.
What? dost thou verily trip upon a word,
Confound the accurate view of what joy is
(Caught somewhat clearer by my eyes than thine)
With feeling joy? confound the knowing how
And showing how to live (my faculty)
With actually living?Otherwise
Where is the artist's vantage o'er the king?
Because in my great epos I display
How divers men young, strong, fair, wise, can act
Is this as though I acted? if I paint,
Carve the young Ph{oe}bus, am I therefore young?
Methinks I'm older that I bowed myself
The many years of pain that taught me art!
Indeed, to know is something, and to prove
How all this beauty might be enjoyed, is more:
But, knowing nought, to enjoy is something too.
Yon rower, with the moulded muscles there,
Lowering the sail, is nearer it than I.
I can write love-odes: thy fair slave's an ode.
I get to sing of love, when grown too grey
For being beloved: she turns to that young man,
The muscles all a-ripple on his back.
I know the joy of kingship: well, thou art king!
"But," sayest thou(and I marvel, I repeat,
To find thee trip on such a mere word) "what
Thou writest, paintest, stays; that does not die:
Sappho survives, because we sing her songs,
And Aeschylus, because we read his plays!"
Why, if they live still, let them come and take
Thy slave in my despite, drink from thy cup,
Speak in my place. Thou diest while I survive?
Say rather that my fate is deadlier still,
In this, that every day my sense of joy
Grows more acute, my soul (intensified
By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen;
While every day my hairs fall more and more,
My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase
The horror quickening still from year to year,
The consummation coming past escape,
When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy
When all my works wherein I prove my worth,
Being present still to mock me in men's mouths,
Alive still, in the praise of such as thou,
I, I the feeling, thinking, acting man,
The man who loved his life so over-much,
Sleep in my urn. It is so horrible,
I dare at times imagine to my need
Some future state revealed to us by Zeus,
Unlimited in capability
For joy, as this is in desire for joy,
To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us:
That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait
On purpose to make prized the life at large
Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death,
We burst there as the worm into the fly,
Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no!
Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas,
He must have done so, were it possible!
Live long and happy, and in that thought die:
Glad for what was! Farewell. And for the rest,
I cannot tell thy messenger aright
Where to deliver what he bears of thine
To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame
Indeed, if Christus be not one with him
I know not, nor am troubled much to know.
Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew,
As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised,
Hath access to a secret shut from us?
Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king,
In stooping to inquire of such an one,
As if his answer could impose at all!
He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write.
Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves
Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ;
And (as I gathered from a bystander)
Their doctrine could be held by no sane man.
NOTES
Form:
unrhyming
1.
The motto is from St. Paul's speech to the philosophers
of Athens, Acts. 17: 28. Cleon and King Protus are both
imaginary characters.
sprinkled isles: the Sporades, near Crete.
4.
tyranny: kingdom. In the Greek sense, tyrant simply
means absolute ruler, and implies no misgovernment or oppressions.
53.
P\;cile: the Portico in Athens.
140.
Terpander: founder of the first Greek School of
music (late seventh century B.C.).
141.
Phidias: famous Greek sculptor who supervised the
construction of the Parthenon, and made the great statue of
Pallas Athene for it. Died 432 B.C. "His friend" was Pericles,
ruler of Athens from 460-429 B.C.
305.
Aeschylus: the earliest of the great writers of Greek tragedy
(525-456 B.C.).
~ Robert Browning, Cleon
,#NFDB
1316:The Duellist - Book Iii
Ah me! what mighty perils wait
The man who meddles with a state,
Whether to strengthen, or oppose!
False are his friends, and firm his foes:
How must his soul, once ventured in,
Plunge blindly on from sin to sin!
What toils he suffers, what disgrace,
To get, and then to keep, a place!
How often, whether wrong or right,
Must he in jest or earnest fight,
Risking for those both life and limb
Who would not risk one groat for him!
Under the Temple lay a Cave,
Made by some guilty, coward slave,
Whose actions fear'd rebuke: a maze
Of intricate and winding ways,
Not to be found without a clue;
One passage only, known to few,
In paths direct led to a cell,
Where Fraud in secret loved to dwell,
With all her tools and slaves about her,
Nor fear'd lest Honesty should rout her.
In a dark corner, shunning sight
Of man, and shrinking from the light,
One dull, dim taper through the cell
Glimmering, to make more horrible
The face of darkness, she prepares,
Working unseen, all kinds of snares,
With curious, but destructive art:
Here, through the eye to catch the heart,
Gay stars their tinsel beams afford,
Neat artifice to trap a lord;
There, fit for all whom Folly bred,
Wave plumes of feathers for the head;
Garters the hag contrives to make,
Which, as it seems, a babe might break,
But which ambitious madmen feel
More firm and sure than chains of steel;
Which, slipp'd just underneath the knee,
153
Forbid a freeman to be free.
Purses she knew, (did ever curse
Travel more sure than in a purse?)
Which, by some strange and magic bands,
Enslave the soul, and tie the hands.
Here Flattery, eldest-born of Guile,
Weaves with rare skill the silken smile,
The courtly cringe, the supple bow,
The private squeeze, the levee vow,
With which--no strange or recent case-Fools in, deceive fools out of place.
Corruption, (who, in former times,
Through fear or shame conceal'd her crimes,
And what she did, contrived to do it
So that the public might not view it)
Presumptuous grown, unfit was held
For their dark councils, and expell'd,
Since in the day her business might
Be done as safe as in the night.
Her eye down-bending to the ground,
Planning some dark and deadly wound,
Holding a dagger, on which stood,
All fresh and reeking, drops of blood,
Bearing a lantern, which of yore,
By Treason borrow'd, Guy Fawkes bore,
By which, since they improved in trade,
Excisemen have their lanterns made,
Assassination, her whole mind
Blood-thirsting, on her arm reclined;
Death, grinning, at her elbow stood,
And held forth instruments of blood,-Vile instruments, which cowards choose,
But men of honour dare not use;
Around, his Lordship and his Grace,
Both qualified for such a place,
With many a Forbes, and many a Dun,
Each a resolved, and pious son,
Wait her high bidding; each prepared,
As she around her orders shared,
Proof 'gainst remorse, to run, to fly,
And bid the destined victim die,
Posting on Villany's black wing,
154
Whether he patriot is, or king.
Oppression,--willing to appear
An object of our love, not fear,
Or, at the most, a reverend awe
To breed, usurp'd the garb of Law.
A book she held, on which her eyes
Were deeply fix'd, whence seem'd to rise
Joy in her breast; a book, of might
Most wonderful, which black to white
Could turn, and without help of laws,
Could make the worse the better cause.
She read, by flattering hopes deceived;
She wish'd, and what she wish'd, believed,
To make that book for ever stand
The rule of wrong through all the land;
On the back, fair and worthy note,
At large was Magna Charta wrote;
But turn your eye within, and read,
A bitter lesson, Norton's Creed.
Ready, e'en with a look, to run,
Fast as the coursers of the sun,
To worry Virtue, at her hand
Two half-starved greyhounds took their stand.
A curious model, cut in wood,
Of a most ancient castle stood
Full in her view; the gates were barr'd,
And soldiers on the watch kept guard;
In the front, openly, in black
Was wrote, The Tower: but on the back,
Mark'd with a secretary's seal,
In bloody letters, The Bastile.
Around a table, fully bent
On mischief of most black intent,
Deeply determined that their reign
Might longer last, to work the bane
Of one firm patriot, whose heart, tied
To Honour, all their power defied,
And brought those actions into light
They wish'd to have conceal'd in night,
Begot, born, bred to infamy,
A privy-council sat of three:
Great were their names, of high repute
155
And favour through the land of Bute.
The first (entitled to the place
Of Honour both by gown and grace,
Who never let occasion slip
To take right-hand of fellowship,
And was so proud, that should he meet
The twelve apostles in the street,
He'd turn his nose up at them all,
And shove his Saviour from the wall!
Who was so mean (Meanness and Pride
Still go together side by side)
That he would cringe, and creep, be civil,
And hold a stirrup for the Devil;
If in a journey to his mind,
He'd let him mount and ride behind;
Who basely fawn'd through all his life,
For patrons first, then for a wife:
Wrote Dedications which must make
The heart of every Christian quake;
Made one man equal to, or more
Than God, then left him, as before
His God he left, and, drawn by pride,
Shifted about to t' other side)
Was by his sire a parson made,
Merely to give the boy a trade;
But he himself was thereto drawn
By some faint omens of the lawn,
And on the truly Christian plan
To make himself a gentleman,-A title in which Form array'd him,
Though Fate ne'er thought on 't when she made him.
The oaths he took, 'tis very true,
But took them as all wise men do,
With an intent, if things should turn,
Rather to temporise, than burn;
Gospel and loyalty were made
To serve the purposes of trade;
Religions are but paper ties,
Which bind the fool, but which the wise,
Such idle notions far above,
Draw on and off, just like a glove;
All gods, all kings (let his great aim
156
Be answer'd) were to him the same.
A curate first, he read and read,
And laid in, whilst he should have fed
The souls of his neglected flock,
Of reading such a mighty stock,
That he o'ercharged the weary brain
With more than she could well contain;
More than she was with spirits fraught
To turn and methodise to thought,
And which, like ill-digested food,
To humours turn'd, and not to blood.
Brought up to London, from the plough
And pulpit, how to make a bow
He tried to learn; he grew polite,
And was the poet's parasite.
With wits conversing, (and wits then
Were to be found 'mongst noblemen)
He caught, or would have caught, the flame,
And would be nothing, or the same.
He drank with drunkards, lived with sinners,
Herded with infidels for dinners;
With such an emphasis and grace
Blasphemed, that Potter kept not pace:
He, in the highest reign of noon,
Bawled bawdy songs to a psalm tune;
Lived with men infamous and vile,
Truck'd his salvation for a smile;
To catch their humour caught their plan,
And laugh'd at God to laugh with man;
Praised them, when living, in each breath,
And damn'd their memories after death.
To prove his faith, which all admit
Is at least equal to his wit,
And make himself a man of note,
He in defence of Scripture wrote:
So long he wrote, and long about it,
That e'en believers 'gan to doubt it:
He wrote, too, of the inward light,
Though no one knew how he came by 't,
And of that influencing grace
Which in his life ne'er found a place:
He wrote, too, of the Holy Ghost,
157
Of whom no more than doth a post
He knew; nor, should an angel show him,
Would he, or know, or choose to know him.
Next (for he knew 'twixt every science
There was a natural alliance)
He wrote, to advance his Maker's praise,
Comments on rhymes, and notes on plays,
And with an all-sufficient air
Placed himself in the critic's chair;
Usurp'd o'er Reason full dominion,
And govern'd merely by Opinion.
At length dethroned, and kept in awe
By one plain simple man of law,
He arm'd dead friends, to vengeance true,
To abuse the man they never knew.
Examine strictly all mankind,
Most characters are mix'd, we find;
And Vice and Virtue take their turn
In the same breast to beat and burn.
Our priest was an exception here,
Nor did one spark of grace appear,
Not one dull, dim spark in his soul;
Vice, glorious Vice, possess'd the whole,
And, in her service truly warm,
He was in sin most uniform.
Injurious Satire! own at least
One snivelling virtue in the priest,
One snivelling virtue, which is placed,
They say, in or about the waist,
Call'd Chastity; the prudish dame
Knows it at large by Virtue's name.
To this his wife (and in these days
Wives seldom without reason praise)
Bears evidence--then calls her child,
And swears that Tom was vastly wild.
Ripen'd by a long course of years,
He great and perfect now appears.
In shape scarce of the human kind,
A man, without a manly mind;
No husband, though he's truly wed;
Though on his knees a child is bred,
No father; injured, without end
158
A foe; and though obliged, no friend;
A heart, which virtue ne'er disgraced;
A head, where learning runs to waste;
A gentleman well-bred, if breeding
Rests in the article of reading;
A man of this world, for the next
Was ne'er included in his text;
A judge of genius, though confess'd
With not one spark of genius bless'd;
Amongst the first of critics placed,
Though free from every taint of taste;
A Christian without faith or works,
As he would be a Turk 'mongst Turks;
A great divine, as lords agree,
Without the least divinity;
To crown all, in declining age,
Inflamed with church and party rage,
Behold him, full and perfect quite,
A false saint, and true hypocrite.
Next sat a lawyer, often tried
In perilous extremes; when Pride
And Power, all wild and trembling, stood,
Nor dared to tempt the raging flood;
This bold, bad man arose to view,
And gave his hand to help them through:
Steel'd 'gainst compassion, as they pass'd
He saw poor Freedom breathe her last;
He saw her struggle, heard her groan;
He saw her helpless and alone,
Whelm'd in that storm, which, fear'd and praised
By slaves less bold, himself had raised.
Bred to the law, he from the first
Of all bad lawyers was the worst.
Perfection (for bad men maintain
In ill we may perfection gain)
In others is a work of time,
And they creep on from crime to crime;
He, for a prodigy design'd,
To spread amazement o'er mankind,
Started full ripen'd all at once
A perfect knave, and perfect dunce.
Who will, for him, may boast of sense,
159
His better guard is impudence;
His front, with tenfold plates of brass
Secured, Shame never yet could pass,
Nor on the surface of his skin
Blush for that guilt which dwelt within.
How often, in contempt of laws,
To sound the bottom of a cause,
To search out every rotten part,
And worm into its very heart,
Hath he ta'en briefs on false pretence,
And undertaken the defence
Of trusting fools, whom in the end
He meant to ruin, not defend!
How often, e'en in open court,
Hath the wretch made his shame his sport,
And laugh'd off, with a villain's ease,
Throwing up briefs, and keeping fees!
Such things as, though to roguery bred,
Had struck a little villain dead!
Causes, whatever their import,
He undertakes, to serve a court;
For he by art this rule had got,
Power can effect what Law cannot.
Fools he forgives, but rogues he fears;
If Genius, yoked with Worth, appears,
His weak soul sickens at the sight,
And strives to plunge them down in night.
So loud he talks, so very loud,
He is an angel with the crowd;
Whilst he makes Justice hang her head,
And judges turn from pale to red.
Bid all that Nature, on a plan
Most intimate, makes dear to man,
All that with grand and general ties
Binds good and bad, the fool and wise,
Knock at his heart; they knock in vain;
No entrance there such suitors gain;
Bid kneeling kings forsake the throne,
Bid at his feet his country groan;
Bid Liberty stretch out her hands,
Religion plead her stronger bands;
Bid parents, children, wife, and friends,
160
If they come 'thwart his private ends-Unmoved he hears the general call,
And bravely tramples on them all.
Who will, for him, may cant and whine,
And let weak Conscience with her line
Chalk out their ways; such starving rules
Are only fit for coward fools;
Fellows who credit what priests tell,
And tremble at the thoughts of Hell;
His spirit dares contend with Grace,
And meets Damnation face to face.
Such was our lawyer; by his side,
In all bad qualities allied,
In all bad counsels, sat a third,
By birth a lord. Oh, sacred word!
Oh, word most sacred! whence men get
A privilege to run in debt;
Whence they at large exemption claim
From Satire, and her servant Shame;
Whence they, deprived of all her force,
Forbid bold Truth to hold her course.
Consult his person, dress, and air,
He seems, which strangers well might swear,
The master, or, by courtesy,
The captain of a colliery.
Look at his visage, and agree
Half-hang'd he seems, just from the tree
Escaped; a rope may sometimes break,
Or men be cut down by mistake.
He hath not virtue (in the school
Of Vice bred up) to live by rule,
Nor hath he sense (which none can doubt
Who know the man) to live without.
His life is a continued scene
Of all that's infamous and mean;
He knows not change, unless, grown nice
And delicate, from vice to vice;
Nature design'd him, in a rage,
To be the Wharton of his age;
But, having given all the sin,
Forgot to put the virtues in.
To run a horse, to make a match,
161
To revel deep, to roar a catch,
To knock a tottering watchman down,
To sweat a woman of the town;
By fits to keep the peace, or break it,
In turn to give a pox, or take it;
He is, in faith, most excellent,
And, in the word's most full intent,
A true choice spirit, we admit;
With wits a fool, with fools a wit:
Hear him but talk, and you would swear
Obscenity herself was there,
And that Profaneness had made choice,
By way of trump, to use his voice;
That, in all mean and low things great,
He had been bred at Billingsgate;
And that, ascending to the earth
Before the season of his birth,
Blasphemy, making way and room,
Had mark'd him in his mother's womb.
Too honest (for the worst of men
In forms are honest, now and then)
Not to have, in the usual way,
His bills sent in; too great to pay:
Too proud to speak to, if he meets
The honest tradesman whom he cheats:
Too infamous to have a friend;
Too bad for bad men to commend,
Or good to name; beneath whose weight
Earth groans; who hath been spared by Fate
Only to show, on Mercy's plan,
How far and long God bears with man.
Such were the three, who, mocking sleep,
At midnight sat, in counsel deep,
Plotting destruction 'gainst a head
Whose wisdom could not be misled;
Plotting destruction 'gainst a heart
Which ne'er from honour would depart.
'Is he not rank'd amongst our foes?
Hath not his spirit dared oppose
Our dearest measures, made our name
Stand forward on the roll of Shame
Hath he not won the vulgar tribes,
162
By scorning menaces and bribes,
And proving that his darling cause
Is, of their liberties and laws
To stand the champion? In a word,
Nor need one argument be heard
Beyond this to awake our zeal,
To quicken our resolves, and steel
Our steady souls to bloody bent,
(Sure ruin to each dear intent,
Each flattering hope) he, without fear,
Hath dared to make the truth appear.'
They said, and, by resentment taught,
Each on revenge employ'd his thought;
Each, bent on mischief, rack'd his brain
To her full stretch, but rack'd in vain;
Scheme after scheme they brought to view;
All were examined; none would do:
When Fraud, with pleasure in her face,
Forth issued from her hiding-place,
And at the table where they meet,
First having bless'd them, took her seat.
'No trifling cause, my darling boys,
Your present thoughts and cares employs;
No common snare, no random blow,
Can work the bane of such a foe:
By nature cautious as he's brave,
To Honour only he's a slave;
In that weak part without defence,
We must to honour make pretence;
That lure shall to his ruin draw
The wretch, who stands secure in law.
Nor think that I have idly plann'd
This full-ripe scheme; behold at hand,
With three months' training on his head,
An instrument, whom I have bred,
Born of these bowels, far from sight
Of Virtue's false but glaring light,
My youngest-born, my dearest joy,
Most like myself, my darling boy!
He, never touch'd with vile remorse,
Resolved and crafty in his course,
Shall work our ends, complete our schemes,
163
Most mine, when most he Honour's seems;
Nor can be found, at home, abroad,
So firm and full a slave of Fraud.'
She said, and from each envious son
A discontented murmur run
Around the table; all in place
Thought his full praise their own disgrace,
Wondering what stranger she had got,
Who had one vice that they had not;
When straight the portals open flew,
And, clad in armour, to their view
Martin, the Duellist, came forth.
All knew, and all confess'd his worth;
All justified, with smiles array'd,
The happy choice their dam had made.
~ Charles Churchill,#NFDB
1317:The Ghost - Book I
With eager search to dart the soul,
Curiously vain, from pole to pole,
And from the planets' wandering spheres
To extort the number of our years,
And whether all those years shall flow
Serenely smooth, and free from woe,
Or rude misfortune shall deform
Our life with one continual storm;
Or if the scene shall motley be.
Alternate joy and misery,
Is a desire which, more or less.
All men must feel, though few confess.
Hence, every place and every age
Affords subsistence to the sage,
Who, free from this world and its cares,
Holds an acquaintance with the stars,
From whom he gains intelligence
Of things to come some ages hence,
Which unto friends, at easy rates.
He readily communicates.
At its first rise, which all agree on,
This noble science was Chaldean;
That ancient people, as they fed
Their flocks upon the mountain's head,
Gazed on the stars, observed their motions,
And suck'd in astrologic notions,
Which they so eagerly pursue,
As folks are apt whate'er is new,
That things below at random rove,
Whilst they're consulting things above;
And when they now so poor were grown,
That they'd no houses of their own,
They made bold with their friends the stars,
And prudently made use of theirs.
To Egypt from Chaldee it travell'd,
And Fate at Memphis was unravell'd:
The exotic science soon struck root,
And flourish'd into high repute.
Each learned priest, oh strange to tell!
177
Could circles make, and cast a spell;
Could read and write, and taught the nation
The holy art of divination.
Nobles themselves, for at that time
Knowledge in nobles was no crime,
Could talk as learned as the priest,
And prophesy as much, at least.
Hence all the fortune-telling crew,
Whose crafty skill mars Nature's hue,
Who, in vile tatters, with smirch'd face,
Run up and down from place to place,
To gratify their friends' desires,
From Bampfield Carew, to Moll Squires,
Are rightly term'd Egyptians all;
Whom we, mistaking, Gypsies call.
The Grecian sages borrow'd this,
As they did other sciences,
From fertile Egypt, though the loan
They had not honesty to own.
Dodona's oaks, inspired by Jove,
A learned and prophetic grove,
Turn'd vegetable necromancers,
And to all comers gave their answers.
At Delphos, to Apollo dear,
All men the voice of Fate might hear;
Each subtle priest on three-legg'd stool,
To take in wise men, play'd the fool.
A mystery, so made for gain,
E'en now in fashion must remain;
Enthusiasts never will let drop
What brings such business to their shop;
And that great saint we Whitefield call,
Keeps up the humbug spiritual.
Among the Romans, not a bird
Without a prophecy was heard;
Fortunes of empires often hung
On the magician magpie's tongue,
And every crow was to the state
A sure interpreter of Fate.
Prophets, embodied in a college
(Time out of mind your seat of knowledge;
For genius never fruit can bear
178
Unless it first is planted there,
And solid learning never falls
Without the verge of college walls)
Infallible accounts would keep
When it was best to watch or sleep,
To eat or drink, to go or stay,
And when to fight or run away;
When matters were for action ripe,
By looking at a double tripe;
When emperors would live or die,
They in an ass's skull could spy;
When generals would their station keep,
Or turn their backs, in hearts of sheep.
In matters, whether small or great,
In private families or state
As amongst us, the holy seer
Officiously would interfere;
With pious arts and reverend skill
Would bend lay bigots to his will;
Would help or injure foes or friends,
Just as it served his private ends.
Whether in honest way of trade
Traps for virginity were laid;
Or if, to make their party great,
Designs were form'd against the state,
Regardless of the common weal,
By interest led, which they call zeal,
Into the scale was always thrown
The will of Heaven to back their own.
England--a happy land we know,
Where follies naturally grow,
Where without culture they arise
And tower above the common size;
England, a fortune-telling host,
As numerous as the stars, could boast,-Matrons, who toss the cup, and see
The grounds of Fate in grounds of tea,
Who, versed in every modest lore,
Can a lost maidenhead restore,
Or, if their pupils rather choose it,
Can show the readiest way to lose it;
Gypsies, who every ill can cure,
179
Except the ill of being poor,
Who charms 'gainst love and agues sell,
Who can in hen-roost set a spell,
Prepared by arts, to them best known,
To catch all feet except their own,
Who, as to fortune, can unlock it
As easily as pick a pocket;
Scotchmen, who, in their country's right,
Possess the gift of second-sight,
Who (when their barren heaths they quit,
Sure argument of prudent wit,
Which reputation to maintain,
They never venture back again)
By lies prophetic heap up riches,
And boast the luxury of breeches.
Amongst the rest, in former years,
Campbell (illustrious name!) appears,
Great hero of futurity,
Who, blind, could every thing foresee,
Who, dumb, could every thing foretell,
Who, Fate with equity to sell,
Always dealt out the will of Heaven
According to what price was given.
Of Scottish race, in Highlands born,
Possess'd with native pride and scorn,
He hither came, by custom led,
To curse the hands which gave him bread.
With want of truth, and want of sense,
Amply made up by impudence
(A succedaneum, which we find
In common use with all mankind);
Caress'd and favour'd too by those
Whose heart with patriot feelings glows,
Who foolishly, where'er dispersed,
Still place their native country first;
(For Englishmen alone have sense
To give a stranger preference,
Whilst modest merit of their own
Is left in poverty to groan)
Campbell foretold just what he would,
And left the stars to make it good,
On whom he had impress'd such awe,
180
His dictates current pass'd for law;
Submissive, all his empire own'd;
No star durst smile, when Campbell frown'd.
This sage deceased,--for all must die,
And Campbell's no more safe than I,
No more than I can guard the heart,
When Death shall hurl the fatal dart,-Succeeded, ripe in art and years,
Another favourite of the spheres;
Another and another came,
Of equal skill, and equal fame;
As white each wand, as black each gown,
As long each beard, as wise each frown,
In every thing so like, you'd swear
Campbell himself was sitting there:
To all the happy art was known,
To tell our fortunes, make their own.
Seated in garret,--for, you know,
The nearer to the stars we go
The greater we esteem his art,-Fools, curious, flock'd from every part;
The rich, the poor, the maid, the married,
And those who could not walk, were carried.
The butler, hanging down his head,
By chambermaid, or cookmaid led,
Inquires, if from his friend the Moon
He has advice of pilfer'd spoon.
The court-bred woman of condition,
(Who, to approve her disposition
As much superior as her birth
To those composed of common earth,
With double spirit must engage
In every folly of the age)
The honourable arts would buy,
To pack the cards, and cog a die.
The hero--who, for brawn and face,
May claim right honourable place
Amongst the chiefs of Butcher-row:
Who might, some thirty years ago,
If we may be allow'd to guess
At his employment by his dress,
Put medicines off from cart or stage,
181
The grand Toscano of the age;
Or might about the country go
High-steward of a puppet-show,-Steward and stewardship most meet,
For all know puppets never eat:
Who would be thought (though, save the mark!
That point is something in the dark)
The man of honour, one like those
Renown'd in story, who loved blows
Better than victuals, and would fight,
Merely for sport, from morn to night:
Who treads like Mavors firm, whose tongue
Is with the triple thunder hung,
Who cries to Fear, 'Stand off--aloof,'
And talks as he were cannon-proof;
Would be deem'd ready, when you list,
With sword and pistol, stick and fist,
Careless of points, balls, bruises, knocks,
At once to fence, fire, cudgel, box,
But at the same time bears about,
Within himself, some touch of doubt,
Of prudent doubt, which hints--that fame
Is nothing but an empty name;
That life is rightly understood
By all to be a real good;
That, even in a hero's heart,
Discretion is the better part;
That this same honour may be won,
And yet no kind of danger run-Like Drugger comes, that magic powers
May ascertain his lucky hours;
For at some hours the fickle dame,
Whom Fortune properly we name,
Who ne'er considers wrong or right,
When wanted most, plays least in sight,
And, like a modern court-bred jilt,
Leaves her chief favourites in a tilt.
Some hours there are, when from the heart
Courage into some other part,
No matter wherefore, makes retreat,
And Fear usurps the vacant seat;
Whence, planet-struck, we often find
182
Stuarts and Sackvilles of mankind.
Farther, he'd know (and by his art
A conjurer can that impart)
Whether politer it is reckon'd
To have, or not to have, a second;
To drag the friends in, or alone
To make the danger all their own;
Whether repletion is not bad,
And fighters with full stomachs mad;
Whether, before he seeks the plain,
It were not well to breathe a vein;
Whether a gentle salivation,
Consistently with reputation,
Might not of precious use be found,
Not to prevent, indeed, a wound,
But to prevent the consequence
Which oftentimes arises thence,
Those fevers, which the patient urge on
To gates of death, by help of surgeon;
Whether a wind at east or west
Is for green wounds accounted best;
Whether (was he to choose) his mouth
Should point towards the north or south;
Whether more safely he might use,
On these occasions, pumps or shoes;
Whether it better is to fight
By sunshine or by candlelight;
Or, lest a candle should appear
Too mean to shine in such a sphere,
For who could of a candle tell
To light a hero into hell;
And, lest the sun should partial rise
To dazzle one or t'other's eyes,
Or one or t'other's brains to scorch,
Might not Dame Luna hold a torch?
These points with dignity discuss'd,
And gravely fix'd,--a task which must
Require no little time and pains,
To make our hearts friends with our brains,-The man of war would next engage
The kind assistance of the sage,
Some previous method to direct,
183
Which should make these of none effect.
Could he not, from the mystic school
Of Art, produce some sacred rule,
By which a knowledge might be got
Whether men valiant were, or not;
So he that challenges might write
Only to those who would not fight?
Or could he not some way dispense
By help of which (without offence
To Honour, whose nice nature's such
She scarce endures the slightest touch)
When he, for want of t'other rule,
Mistakes his man, and, like a fool,
With some vain fighting blade gets in,
He fairly may get out again?
Or should some demon lay a scheme
To drive him to the last extreme,
So that he must confess his fears,
In mercy to his nose and ears,
And like a prudent recreant knight,
Rather do anything than fight,
Could he not some expedient buy
To keep his shame from public eye?
For well he held,--and, men review,
Nine in ten hold the maxim too,-That honour's like a maidenhead,
Which, if in private brought to bed,
Is none the worse, but walks the town,
Ne'er lost, until the loss be known.
The parson, too, (for now and then
Parsons are just like other men,
And here and there a grave divine
Has passions such as yours and mine)
Burning with holy lust to know
When Fate preferment will bestow,
'Fraid of detection, not of sin,
With circumspection sneaking in
To conjurer, as he does to whore,
Through some bye-alley or back-door,
With the same caution orthodox
Consults the stars, and gets a pox.
The citizen, in fraud grown old,
184
Who knows no deity but gold,
Worn out, and gasping now for breath,
A medicine wants to keep off death;
Would know, if that he cannot have,
What coins are current in the grave;
If, when the stocks (which, by his power,
Would rise or fall in half an hour;
For, though unthought of and unseen,
He work'd the springs behind the screen)
By his directions came about,
And rose to par, he should sell out;
Whether he safely might, or no,
Replace it in the funds below?
By all address'd, believed, and paid,
Many pursued the thriving trade,
And, great in reputation grown,
Successive held the magic throne.
Favour'd by every darling passion,
The love of novelty and fashion,
Ambition, avarice, lust, and pride,
Riches pour'd in on every side.
But when the prudent laws thought fit
To curb this insolence of wit;
When senates wisely had provided,
Decreed, enacted, and decided,
That no such vile and upstart elves
Should have more knowledge than themselves;
When fines and penalties were laid
To stop the progress of the trade,
And stars no longer could dispense,
With honour, further influence;
And wizards (which must be confess'd
Was of more force than all the rest)
No certain way to tell had got
Which were informers, and which not;
Affrighted sages were, perforce,
Obliged to steer some other course.
By various ways, these sons of Chance
Their fortunes labour'd to advance,
Well knowing, by unerring rules,
Knaves starve not in the land of fools.
Some, with high titles and degrees,
185
Which wise men borrow when they please,
Without or trouble, or expense,
Physicians instantly commence,
And proudly boast an Equal skill
With those who claim the right to kill.
Others about the country roam,
(For not one thought of going home)
With pistol and adopted leg,
Prepared at once to rob or beg.
Some, the more subtle of their race,
(Who felt some touch of coward grace,
Who Tyburn to avoid had wit,
But never fear'd deserving it)
Came to their brother Smollett's aid,
And carried on the critic trade.
Attach'd to letters and the Muse,
Some verses wrote, and some wrote news;
Those each revolving month are seen,
The heroes of a magazine;
These, every morning, great appear
In Ledger, or in Gazetteer,
Spreading the falsehoods of the day,
By turns for Faden and for Say.
Like Swiss, their force is always laid
On that side where they best are paid:
Hence mighty prodigies arise,
And daily monsters strike our eyes;
Wonders, to propagate the trade,
More strange than ever Baker made,
Are hawk'd about from street to street,
And fools believe, whilst liars eat.
Now armies in the air engage,
To fright a superstitious age;
Now comets through the ether range,
In governments portending change;
Now rivers to the ocean fly
So quick, they leave their channels dry;
Now monstrous whales on Lambeth shore
Drink the Thames dry, and thirst for more;
And every now and then appears
An Irish savage, numbering years
More than those happy sages could
186
Who drew their breath before the flood;
Now, to the wonder of all people,
A church is left without a steeple;
A steeple now is left in lurch,
And mourns departure of the church,
Which, borne on wings of mighty wind,
Removed a furlong off we find;
Now, wrath on cattle to discharge,
Hailstones as deadly fall, and large,
As those which were on Egypt sent,
At once their crime and punishment;
Or those which, as the prophet writes,
Fell on the necks of Amorites,
When, struck with wonder and amaze,
The sun, suspended, stay'd to gaze,
And, from her duty longer kept,
In Ajalon his sister slept.
But if such things no more engage
The taste of a politer age,
To help them out in time of need
Another Tofts must rabbits breed:
Each pregnant female trembling hears,
And, overcome with spleen and fears,
Consults her faithful glass no more,
But, madly bounding o'er the floor,
Feels hairs all o'er her body grow,
By Fancy turn'd into a doe.
Now, to promote their private ends,
Nature her usual course suspends,
And varies from the stated plan
Observed e'er since the world began.
Bodies--which foolishly we thought,
By Custom's servile maxims taught,
Needed a regular supply,
And without nourishment must die-With craving appetites, and sense
Of hunger easily dispense,
And, pliant to their wondrous skill,
Are taught, like watches, to stand still,
Uninjured, for a month or more,
Then go on as they did before.
The novel takes, the tale succeeds,
187
Amply supplies its author's needs,
And Betty Canning is at least,
With Gascoyne's help, a six months' feast.
Whilst, in contempt of all our pains,
The tyrant Superstition reigns
Imperious in the heart of man,
And warps his thoughts from Nature's plan;
Whilst fond Credulity, who ne'er
The weight of wholesome doubts could bear,
To Reason and herself unjust,
Takes all things blindly upon trust;
Whilst Curiosity, whose rage
No mercy shows to sex or age,
Must be indulged at the expense
Of judgment, truth, and common sense,
Impostures cannot but prevail;
And when old miracles grow stale,
Jugglers will still the art pursue,
And entertain the world with new.
For them, obedient to their will,
And trembling at their mighty skill,
Sad spirits, summon'd from the tomb,
Glide, glaring ghastly, through the gloom;
In all the usual pomp of storms,
In horrid customary forms,
A wolf, a bear, a horse, an ape,
As Fear and Fancy give them shape,
Tormented with despair and pain,
They roar, they yell, and clank the chain.
Folly and Guilt (for Guilt, howe'er
The face of Courage it may wear,
Is still a coward at the heart)
At fear-created phantoms start.
The priest--that very word implies
That he's both innocent and wise-Yet fears to travel in the dark,
Unless escorted by his clerk.
But let not every bungler deem
Too lightly of so deep a scheme;
For reputation of the art,
Each ghost must act a proper part,
Observe Decorum's needful grace,
188
And keep the laws of Time and Place;
Must change, with happy variation,
His manners with his situation;
What in the country might pass down,
Would be impertinent in town.
No spirit of discretion here
Can think of breeding awe and fear;
'Twill serve the purpose more by half
To make the congregation laugh.
We want no ensigns of surprise,
Locks stiff with gore, and saucer eyes;
Give us an entertaining sprite,
Gentle, familiar, and polite,
One who appears in such a form
As might an holy hermit warm,
Or who on former schemes refines,
And only talks by sounds and signs,
Who will not to the eye appear,
But pays her visits to the ear,
And knocks so gently, 't would not fright
A lady in the darkest night.
Such is our Fanny, whose good-will,
Which cannot in the grave lie still,
Brings her on earth to entertain
Her friends and lovers in Cock-lane.
~ Charles Churchill,#NFDB
1318:How gracefully, O man, with thy palm-bough,
Upon the waning century standest thou,
In proud and noble manhood's prime,
With unlocked senses, with a spirit freed,
Of firmness mild,though silent, rich in deed,
The ripest son of Time,
Through meekness great, through precepts strong,
Through treasures rich, that time had long
Hid in thy bosom, and through reason free,
Master of Nature, who thy fetters loves,
And who thy strength in thousand conflicts proves,
And from the desert soared in pride with thee!
Flushed with the glow of victory,
Never forget to prize the hand
That found the weeping orphan child
Deserted on life's barren strand,
And left a prey to hazard wild,
That, ere thy spirit-honor saw the day,
Thy youthful heart watched over silently,
And from thy tender bosom turned away
Each thought that might have stained its purity;
That kind one ne'er forget who, as in sport,
Thy youth to noble aspirations trained,
And who to thee in easy riddles taught
The secret how each virtue might be gained;
Who, to receive him back more perfect still,
E'en into strangers' arms her favorite gave
Oh, may'st thou never with degenerate will,
Humble thyself to be her abject slave!
In industry, the bee the palm may bear;
In skill, the worm a lesson may impart;
With spirits blest thy knowledge thou dost share,
But thou, O man, alone hast art!
Only through beauty's morning gate
Didst thou the land of knowledge find.
To merit a more glorious fate,
In graces trains itself the mind.
What thrilled thee through with trembling blessed,
When erst the Muses swept the chord,
That power created in thy breast,
Which to the mighty spirit soared.
When first was seen by doting reason's ken,
When many a thousand years had passed away,
A symbol of the fair and great e'en then,
Before the childlike mind uncovered lay.
Its blessed form bade us honor virtue's cause,
The honest sense 'gainst vice put forth its powers,
Before a Solon had devised the laws
That slowly bring to light their languid flowers.
Before Eternity's vast scheme
Was to the thinker's mind revealed,
Was't not foreshadowed in his dream,
Whose eyes explored yon starry field?
Urania,the majestic dreaded one,
Who wears a glory of Orions twined
Around her brow, and who is seen by none
Save purest spirits, when, in splendor shrined,
She soars above the stars in pride,
Ascending to her sunny throne,
Her fiery chaplet lays aside,
And now, as beauty, stands alone;
While, with the Graces' girdle round her cast,
She seems a child, by children understood;
For we shall recognize as truth at last,
What here as beauty only we have viewed.
When the Creator banished from his sight
Frail man to dark mortality's abode,
And granted him a late return to light,
Only by treading reason's arduous road,
When each immortal turned his face away,
She, the compassionate, alone
Took up her dwelling in that house of clay,
With the deserted, banished one.
With drooping wing she hovers here
Around her darling, near the senses' land,
And on his prison-walls so drear
Elysium paints with fond deceptive hand.
While soft humanity still lay at rest,
Within her tender arms extended,
No flame was stirred by bigots' murderous zest,
No guiltless blood on high ascended.
The heart that she in gentle fetters binds,
Views duty's slavish escort scornfully;
Her path of light, though fairer far it winds,
Sinks in the sun-track of morality.
Those who in her chaste service still remain,
No grovelling thought can tempt, no fate affright;
The spiritual life, so free from stain,
Freedom's sweet birthright, they receive again,
Under the mystic sway of holy might.
The purest among millions, happy they
Whom to her service she has sanctified,
Whose mouths the mighty one's commands convey,
Within whose breasts she deigneth to abide;
Whom she ordained to feed her holy fire
Upon her altar's ever-flaming pyre,
Whose eyes alone her unveiled graces meet,
And whom she gathers round in union sweet
In the much-honored place be glad
Where noble order bade ye climb,
For in the spirit-world sublime,
Man's loftiest rank ye've ever had!
Ere to the world proportion ye revealed,
That every being joyfully obeys,
A boundless structure, in night's veil concealed,
Illumed by naught but faint and languid rays,
A band of phantoms, struggling ceaselessly,
Holding his mind in slavish fetters bound,
Unsociable and rude as be,
Assailing him on every side around,
Thus seemed to man creation in that day!
United to surrounding forms alone
By the blind chains the passions had put on,
Whilst Nature's beauteous spirit fled away
Unfelt, untasted, and unknown.
And, as it hovered o'er with parting ray,
Ye seized the shades so neighborly,
With silent hand, with feeling mind,
And taught how they might be combined
In one firm bond of harmony.
The gaze, light-soaring, felt uplifted then,
When first the cedar's slender trunk it viewed;
And pleasingly the ocean's crystal flood
Reflected back the dancing form again.
Could ye mistake the look, with beauty fraught,
That Nature gave to help ye on your way?
The image floating on the billows taught
The art the fleeting shadow to portray.
From her own being torn apart,
Her phantom, beauteous as a dream,
She plunged into the silvery stream,
Surrendering to her spoiler's art.
Creative power soon in your breast unfolded;
Too noble far, not idly to conceive,
The shadow's form in sand, in clay ye moulded,
And made it in the sketch its being leave.
The longing thirst for action then awoke,
And from your breast the first creation broke.
By contemplation captive made,
Ensnared by your discerning eye,
The friendly phantom's soon betrayed
The talisman that roused your ecstasy.
The laws of wonder-working might,
The stores by beauty brought to light,
Inventive reason in soft union planned
To blend together 'neath your forming hand.
The obelisk, the pyramid ascended,
The Hermes stood, the column sprang on high,
The reed poured forth the woodland melody,
Immortal song on victor's deeds attended.
The fairest flowers that decked the earth,
Into a nosegay, with wise choice combined,
Thus the first art from Nature had its birth;
Into a garland then were nosegays twined,
And from the works that mortal hands had made,
A second, nobler art was now displayed.
The child of beauty, self-sufficient now,
That issued from your hands to perfect day,
Loses the chaplet that adorned its brow,
Soon as reality asserts its sway.
The column, yielding to proportion's chains,
Must with its sisters join in friendly link,
The hero in the hero-band must sink,
The Muses' harp peals forth its tuneful strains.
The wondering savages soon came
To view the new creation's plan
"Behold!"the joyous crowds exclaim,
"Behold, all this is done by man!"
With jocund and more social aim
The minstrel's lyre their awe awoke,
Telling of Titans, and of giant's frays
And lion-slayers, turning, as he spoke,
Even into heroes those who heard his lays.
For the first time the soul feels joy,
By raptures blessed that calmer are,
That only greet it from afar,
That passions wild can ne'er destroy,
And that, when tasted, do not cloy.
And now the spirit, free and fair,
Awoke from out its sensual sleep;
By you unchained, the slave of care
Into the arms of joy could leap.
Each brutish barrier soon was set at naught,
Humanity first graced the cloudless brow,
And the majestic, noble stranger, thought,
From out the wondering brain sprang boldly now.
Man in his glory stood upright,
And showed the stars his kingly face;
His speaking glance the sun's bright light
Blessed in the realms sublime of space.
Upon the cheek now bloomed the smile,
The voice's soulful harmony
Expanded into song the while,
And feeling swam in the moist eye;
And from the mouth, with spirit teeming o'er,
Jest, sweetly linked with grace, began to pour.
Sunk in the instincts of the worm,
By naught but sensual lust possessed,
Ye recognized within his breast
Love-spiritual's noble germ;
And that this germ of love so blest
Escaped the senses' abject load,
To the first pastoral song he owed.
Raised to the dignity of thought,
Passions more calm to flow were taught
From the bard's mouth with melody.
The cheeks with dewy softness burned;
The longing that, though quenched, still yearned,
Proclaimed the spirit-harmony.
The wisest's wisdom, and the strongest's vigor,
The meekest's meekness, and the noblest's grace,
By you were knit together in one figure,
Wreathing a radiant glory round the place.
Man at the Unknown's sight must tremble,
Yet its refulgence needs must love;
That mighty Being to resemble,
Each glorious hero madly strove;
The prototype of beauty's earliest strain
Ye made resound through Nature's wide domain.
The passions' wild and headlong course,
The ever-varying plan of fate,
Duty and instinct's twofold force,
With proving mind and guidance straight
Ye then conducted to their ends.
What Nature, as she moves along,
Far from each other ever rends,
Become upon the stage, in song,
Members of order, firmly bound.
Awed by the Furies' chorus dread,
Murder draws down upon its head
The doom of death from their wild sound.
Long e'er the wise to give a verdict dared,
An Iliad had fate's mysteries declared
To early ages from afar;
While Providence in silence fared
Into the world from Thespis' car.
Yet into that world's current so sublime
Your symmetry was borne before its time,
When the dark hand of destiny
Failed in your sight to part by force.
What it had fashioned 'neath your eye,
In darkness life made haste to die,
Ere it fulfilled its beauteous course.
Then ye with bold and self-sufficient might
Led the arch further through the future's night:
Then, too, ye plunged, without a fear,
Into Avernus' ocean black,
And found the vanished life so dear
Beyond the urn, and brought it back.
A blooming Pollux-form appeared now soon,
On Castor leaning, and enshrined in light
The shadow that is seen upon the moon,
Ere she has filled her silvery circle bright!
Yet higher,higher still above the earth
Inventive genius never ceased to rise:
Creations from creations had their birth,
And harmonies from harmonies.
What here alone enchants the ravished sight,
A nobler beauty yonder must obey;
The graceful charms that in the nymph unite,
In the divine Athene melt away;
The strength with which the wrestler is endowed,
In the god's beauty we no longer find:
The wonder of his timeJove's image proud
In the Olympian temple is enshrined.
The world, transformed by industry's bold hand,
The human heart, by new-born instincts moved,
That have in burning fights been fully proved,
Your circle of creation now expand.
Advancing man bears on his soaring pinions,
In gratitude, art with him in his flight,
And out of Nature's now-enriched dominions
New worlds of beauty issue forth to light.
The barriers upon knowledge are o'erthrown;
The spirit that, with pleasure soon matured,
Has in your easy triumphs been inured
To hasten through an artist-whole of graces,
Nature's more distant columns duly places.
And overtakes her on her pathway lone.
He weighs her now with weights that human are,
Metes her with measures that she lent of old;
While in her beauty's rites more practised far,
She now must let his eye her form behold.
With youthful and self-pleasing bliss,
He lends the spheres his harmony,
And, if he praise earth's edifice,
'Tis for its wondrous symmetry.
In all that now around him breathes,
Proportion sweet is ever rife;
And beauty's golden girdle wreathes
With mildness round his path through life;
Perfection blest, triumphantly,
Before him in your works soars high;
Wherever boisterous rapture swells,
Wherever silent sorrow flees,
Where pensive contemplation dwells,
Where he the tears of anguish sees,
Where thousand terrors on him glare,
Harmonious streams are yet behind
He sees the Graces sporting there,
With feeling silent and refined.
Gentle as beauty's lines together linking,
As the appearances that round him play,
In tender outline in each other sinking,
The soft breath of his life thus fleets away.
His spirit melts in the harmonious sea,
That, rich in rapture, round his senses flows,
And the dissolving thought all silently
To omnipresent Cytherea grows.
Joining in lofty union with the Fates,
On Graces and on Muses calm relying,
With freely-offered bosom he awaits
The shaft that soon against him will be flying
From the soft bow necessity creates.
Favorites beloved of blissful harmony,
Welcome attendants on life's dreary road,
The noblest and the dearest far that she,
Who gave us life, to bless that life bestowed!
That unyoked man his duties bears in mind,
And loves the fetters that his motions bind,
That Chance with brazen sceptre rules him not,
For this eternity is now your lot,
Your heart has won a bright reward for this.
That round the cup where freedom flows,
Merrily sport the gods of bliss,
The beauteous dream its fragrance throws,
For this, receive a loving kiss!
The spirit, glorious and serene,
Who round necessity the graces trains,
Who bids his ether and his starry plains
Upon us wait with pleasing mien,
Who, 'mid his terrors, by his majesty gives joy,
And who is beauteous e'en when seeking to destroy,
Him imitate, the artist good!
As o'er the streamlet's crystal flood
The banks with checkered dances hover,
The flowery mead, the sunset's light,
Thus gleams, life's barren pathway over,
Poesy's shadowy world so bright.
In bridal dress ye led us on
Before the terrible Unknown,
Before the inexorable fate,
As in your urns the bones are laid,
With beauteous magic veil ye shade
The chorus dread that cares create.
Thousands of years I hastened through
The boundless realm of vanished time
How sad it seems when left by you
But where ye linger, how sublime!
She who, with fleeting wing, of yore
From your creating hand arose in might,
Within your arms was found once more,
When, vanquished by Time's silent flight,
Life's blossoms faded from the cheek,
And from the limbs all vigor went,
And mournfully, with footstep weak,
Upon his staff the gray-beard leant.
Then gave ye to the languishing,
Life's waters from a new-born spring;
Twice was the youth of time renewed,
Twice, from the seeds that ye had strewed.
When chased by fierce barbarian hordes away,
The last remaining votive brand ye tore
From Orient's altars, now pollution's prey,
And to these western lands in safety bore.
The fugitive from yonder eastern shore,
The youthful day, the West her dwelling made;
And on Hesperia's plains sprang up once more
Ionia's flowers, in pristine bloom arrayed.
Over the spirit fairer Nature shed,
With soft refulgence, a reflection bright,
And through the graceful soul with stately tread
Advanced the mighty Deity of light.
Millions of chains were burst asunder then,
And to the slave then human laws applied,
And mildly rose the younger race of men,
As brethren, gently wandering side by side,
With noble inward ecstasy,
The bliss imparted ye receive,
And in the veil of modesty,
With silent merit take your leave.
If on the paths of thought, so freely given,
The searcher now with daring fortune stands,
And, by triumphant Paeans onward driven,
Would seize upon the crown with dauntless hands
If he with grovelling hireling's pay
Thinks to dismiss his glorious guide
Or, with the first slave's-place array
Art near the throne his dream supplied
Forgive him!O'er your head to-day
Hovers perfection's crown in pride,
With you the earliest plant Spring had,
Soul-forming Nature first began;
With you, the harvest-chaplet glad,
Perfected Nature ends her plan.
The art creative, that all-modestly arose
From clay and stone, with silent triumph throws
Its arms around the spirit's vast domain.
What in the land of knowledge the discoverer knows,
He knows, discovers, only for your gain
The treasures that the thinker has amassed,
He will enjoy within your arms alone,
Soon as his knowledge, beauty-ripe at last.
To art ennobled shall have grown,
Soon as with you he scales a mountain-height,
And there, illumined by the setting sun,
The smiling valley bursts upon his sight.
The richer ye reward the eager gaze
The higher, fairer orders that the mind
May traverse with its magic rays,
Or compass with enjoyment unconfined
The wider thoughts and feelings open lie
To more luxuriant floods of harmony.
To beauty's richer, more majestic stream,
The fair members of the world's vast scheme,
That, maimed, disgrace on his creation bring,
He sees the lofty forms then perfecting
The fairer riddles come from out the night
The richer is the world his arms enclose,
The broader stream the sea with which he flows
The weaker, too, is destiny's blind might
The nobler instincts does he prove
The smaller he himself, the greater grows his love.
Thus is he led, in still and hidden race,
By poetry, who strews his path with flowers,
Through ever-purer forms, and purer powers,
Through ever higher heights, and fairer grace.
At length, arrived at the ripe goal of time,
Yet one more inspiration all-sublime,
Poetic outburst of man's latest youth,
Andhe will glide into the arms of truth!
Herself, the gentle Cypria,
Illumined by her fiery crown,
Then stands before her full-grown son
Unveiledas great Urania;
The sooner only by him caught,
The fairer he had fled away!
Thus stood, in wonder rapture-fraught,
Ulysses' noble son that day,
When the sage mentor who his youth beguiled;
Herself transfigured as Jove's glorious child!
Man's honor is confided to your hand,
There let it well protected be!
It sinks with you! with you it will expand!
Poesy's sacred sorcery
Obeys a world-plan wise and good;
In silence let it swell the flood
Of mighty-rolling harmony.
By her own time viewed with disdain,
Let solemn truth in song remain,
And let the Muses' band defend her!
In all the fullness of her splendor,
Let her survive in numbers glorious,
More dread, when veiled her charms appear,
And vengeance take, with strains victorious,
On her tormentor's ear!
The freest mother's children free,
With steadfast countenance then rise
To highest beauty's radiancy,
And every other crown despise!
The sisters who escaped you here,
Within your mother's arms ye'll meet;
What noble spirits may revere,
Must be deserving and complete.
High over your own course of time
Exalt yourselves with pinion bold,
And dimly let your glass sublime
The coming century unfold!
On thousand roads advancing fast
Of ever-rich variety,
With fond embraces meet at last
Before the throne of harmony!
As into seven mild rays we view
With softness break the glimmer white,
As rainbow-beams of sevenfold hue
Dissolve again in that soft light,
In clearness thousandfold thus throw
Your magic round the ravished gaze,
Into one stream of light thus flow,
One bond of truth that ne'er decays!
~ Friedrich Schiller, The Artists
,#NFDB
1319:The Tower Of The Dream
Part I
HOW wonderful are dreams! If they but be
As some have said, the thin disjoining shades
Of thoughts or feelings, long foregone or late,
All interweaving, set in ghostly act
And strange procession, fair, grotesque, or grim,
By mimic fancy; wonderful no less
Are they though this be true and wondrous more
Is she, who in the dark, and stript of sense,
Can wield such sovereignty—the Queen of Art!
For what a cunning painter is she then,
Who hurriedly embodying, from the waste
Of things memorial littering life’s dim floor,
The forms and features, manifold and quaint,
That crowd the timeless vistas of a dream,
Fails in no stroke, but breathes Pygmalion-like
A soul of motion into all her work;
And doth full oft in magic mood inspire
Her phantom creatures with more eloquent tones
Than ever broke upon a waking ear.
But are they more? True glimpses oft, though vague,
Over that far unnavigable sea
Of mystic being, where the impatient soul
Is sometimes wont to stray and roam at large?
No answer comes. Yet are they wonderful
However we may rank them in our lore,
And worthy some fond record are these dreams
That with so capable a wand can bring
Back to the faded heart the rosy flush
And sweetness of a long-fled love, or touch
The eyes of an old enmity with tears
Of a yet older friendship; or restore
A world-lost mate, or reunite in joy
The living and the dead!—can, when so wills
Their wand’s weird wielder, whatsoe’er it be,
Lift up the fallen—fallen however low!
Give youth unto the worn, enrich the poor;
Build in the future higher than the hope
200
Of power, when boldest, ever dared to soar;
Annul the bars of space, the dens of time,
Giving the rigid and cold-clanking chain
Which force, that grey iniquity, hath clenched
About its captive, to relent,—yea, stretch
Forth into fairy-land, or melt like wax
In that fierce life whose spirit lightens wide
Round freedom, seated on her mountain throne.
But not thus always are our dreams benign;
Oft are they miscreations—gloomier worlds,
Crowded tempestuously with wrongs and fears,
More ghastly than the actual ever knew,
And rent with racking noises, such as should
Go thundering only through the wastes of hell.
Yes, wonderful are dreams: and I have known
Many most wild and strange. And once, long since,
As in the death-like mystery of sleep
My body lay impalled, my soul arose
And journeyed outward in a wondrous dream.
In the mid-hour of a dark night, methought
I roamed the margin of a waveless lake,
That in the knotted forehead of the land
Deep sunken, like a huge Cyclopean eye,
Lidless and void of speculation, stared
Glassily up—for ever sleepless—up
At the wide vault of heaven; and vaguely came
Into my mind a mystic consciousness
That over against me, on the farther shore
Which yet I might not see, there stood a tower.
The darkness darkened, until overhead
Solidly black the starless heaven domed,
And earth was one wide blot;—when, as I looked,
A light swung blazing from the tower (as yet
Prophesied only in my inner thought),
And brought at once its rounded structure forth
Massive and tall out of the mighty gloom.
On the broad lake that streaming radiance fell,
Through the lit fluid like a shaft of fire,
Burning its sullen depths with one red blaze.
201
Long at that wild light was I gazing held
In speechless wonder, till I thence could feel
A strange and thrillingly attractive power;
My bodily weight seemed witched away, aloft
I mounted, poised within the passive air,
Then felt I through my veins a branching warmth,
The herald of some yet unseen content,
The nearness of some yet inaudible joy,
As if some spell of golden destiny
Lifted me onwards to the fateful tower.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part II
High up the tower, a circling balcony
Emporched a brazen door. The silver roof
Rested on shafts of jet, and ivory work
Made a light fence against the deep abyss.
Before that portal huge a lady stood
In radiant loveliness, serene and bright,
Yet as it seemed expectant; for as still
She witched me towards her, soft she beckon’d me
With tiny hand more splendid than a star;
And then she smiled, not as a mortal smiles
With visible throes, to the mere face confined,
But with her whole bright influence all at once
In gracious act, as the Immortals might,
God-happy, or as smiles the morning, when
Its subtle lips in rosy beauty part
Under a pearly cloud, and breathe the while
A golden prevalence of power abroad,
That taketh all the orient heaven and earth
Into the glory of its own delight.
Then in a voice, keen, sweet, and silvery clear,
And intimately tender as the first
Fine feeling of a love-born bliss, she spoke,
“Where hast thou stayed so long? Oh, tell me where?”
202
With thrilling ears and heart I heard, but felt
Pass from me forth a cry of sudden fear,
As swooning through the wildness of my joy,
Methought I drifted,—whither? All was now
One wide cold blank; the lady and the tower,
The gleaming lake, with all around it, one
Wide dreary blank;—the drearier for that still
A dizzy, clinging, ghostly consciousness
Kept flickering from mine inmost pulse of life,
Like a far meteor in some dismal marsh;
How long I knew not, but the thrilling warmth
That, like the new birth of a passionate bliss,
Erewhile had searched me to the quick, again
Shuddered within me, more and more, until
Mine eyes had opened under two that made
All else like darkness; and upon my cheek
A breath that seemed the final spirit of health
And floral sweetness, harbingered once more
The silver accents of that wondrous voice,
Which to have heard was never to forget;
And with her tones came, warbled as it seemed,
In mystical respondence to her voice,
Still music, such as Eolus gives forth,
But purer, deeper;—warbled as from some
Unsearchable recess of soul supreme,
Some depth of the Eternal! echoing thence
Through the sweet meanings of its spirit speech.
I answered not, but followed in mute love
The beamy glances of her eyes; methought
Close at her side I lay upon a couch
Of purple, blazoned all with stars of gold
Tremblingly rayed with spiculated gems;
Thus sat we, looking forth; nor seemed it strange
That the broad lake, with its green shelving shores,
And all the hills and woods and winding vales,
Were basking in the beauty of a day
So goldenly serene, that never yet
The perfect power of life-essential light
Had so enrobed, since paradise was lost,
The common world inhabited by man.
203
I saw this rare surpassing beauty;—yea,
But saw it all through her superior life,
Orbing mine own in love; I felt her life,
The source of holiest and truth-loving thoughts,
Breathing abroad like odours from a flower,
Enriched with rosy passion, and pure joy
And earnest tenderness. Nor ever might
The glassy lake below more quickly give
Nimble impressions of the coming wind’s
Invisible footsteps, dimpling swift along,
Than instant tokens of communion sweet
With outward beauty’s subtle spirit, passed
Forth from her eyes, and thence in lambent waves
Suffused and lightened o’er her visage bright.
But as upon the wonder of her face
My soul now feasted, even till it seemed
Instinct with kindred lustre, lo! her eyes
Suddenly saddened; then abstractedly
Outfixing them as on some far wild thought
That darkened up like a portentous cloud
Over the morning of our peace, she flung
Her silver voice into a mystic song
Of many measures, which, as forth they went,
Slid all into a sweet abundant flood
Of metric melody! And to her voice
As still she sung, invisible singers joined
A choral burden that prolonged the strain’s
Rich concords, till the echoes of the hills
Came forth in tidal flow, and backward then
Subsiding like a refluent wave, died down
In one rich harmony. It strangely seemed
As though the song were ware that I but slept,
And that its utterer was but a dream;
’Tis traced upon the tablet of my soul
In shining lines that intonate themselves—
Not sounding to the ear but to the thought—
Out of the vague vast of the wonderful,
And might, when hardened into mortal speech,
And narrowed from its wide and various sweep
Into such flows as make our waking rhymes
Most wildly musical, be written thus:—
204
The Song
Wide apart, wide apart,
In old Time’s dim heart
One terrible Fiend doth his stern watch keep
Over the mystery
Lovely and deep,
Locked in thy history,
Beautiful Sleep!
Could we disarm him,
Could we but charm him,
The soul of the sleeper might happily leap,
Through the dark of the dim waste so deathly and deep
That shroudeth the triple divinity,
The three of thy mystical Trinity:
Gratitude, Liberty,
Joy from all trammels free,
Beautiful Spirit of Sleep!
Beautiful Spirit!
Could we confound him
Who darkens thy throne,
Could we surround him
With spells like thine own
For the divinity
Then of thy Trinity,
Oh, what a blesseder reign were begun!
For then it were evermore one,
With all that soul, freed from the body’s strait scheme,
Inherits of seer-light and mystical dream.
And to sleep were to die
Into life in the Infinite,
Holy and high,
Spotless and bright,
Calmly, peacefully deep
Ah then! that dread gulf should be crossed by a mortal,
Ah then! to what life were thy bright arch the portal,
Beautiful Spirit of Sleep.
205
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Part III
She ceased, and a deep tingling silence fell
Instantly round,—silence complete, and yet
Instinct as with a breathing sweetness, left
By the rare spirit of her voice foregone;
Even as the fragrance of a flower were felt
Pervading the mute air through which erewhile,
It had been borne by the delighted hand
Of some sweet-thoughted maiden. Turning then
Her bright face towards me, as I stood entranced,
Yet with keen wonder stung, she said, “I love thee
As first love loveth—utterly! But ah
This love itself—this purple-wingéd love—
This life-enriching spirit of delight
Is but a honey-bee of paradise,
That only in the morning glory dares
To range abroad, only in vagrant mood,
Adventures out into the common world
Of man and woman, thither lured by sight
Of some sweet human soul that blooms apart,
Untainted by a rank soil’s weedy growths
Lured thither thus, yet being even then
A wilful wanderer from its birthplace pure,
Whereto it sadly must return again,
Or forfeit else its natal passport, ere
The dread night cometh. Yet of how great worth
Is love within the world! By the fair spring
Of even the lowliest love, how many rich
And gracious things that could not else have been,
Grow up like flowers, and breathe a perfume forth
That never leaves again the quickened sense
It once hath hit, as with a fairy’s wand!”
She spoke in mournful accents wild and sweet,
And lustrous tears brimmed over from the eyes
That met my own now melancholy gaze.
206
But not all comfortless is grief that sees
Itself reflected in another’s eyes,
And love again grew glad: alas, not long
For with a short low gasp of sudden fear
She started back, and hark! within the tower
A sound of strenuous steps approaching fast
Rang upwards, as it seemed, from the hard slabs
Of a steep winding stair; and soon the huge
And brazen portal, that behind us shut,
Burst open with a clang of loosened bolts—
A clang like thunder, that went rattling out
Against the echoes of the distant hills.
With deafened ears and looks aghast I turned
Towards the harsh noise, there to behold, between
The mighty jambs in the strong wall from which
The door swung inward, a tremendous form!
A horrid gloomy form that shapeless seemed,
And yet, in all its monstrous bulk, to man
A hideous likeness bare! Still more and more
Deformed it grew, as forth it swelled, and then
Its outlines melted in a grizzly haze,
That hung about them, even as grey clouds
Beskirt a coming tempest’s denser mass,
That thickens still internally, and shows
The murkiest in the midst—yea, murkiest there,
Where big with fate, and hid in solid gloom,
The yet still spirit of the thunder broods,
And menaces the world.
Beholding that dread form, the lady of light
Had rushed to my extended arms, and hid
Her beamy face, fright-harrowed, in my breast!
And thus we stood, made one in fear; while still
That terrible vision out upon us glared
With horny eyeballs—horrible the more
For that no evidence of conscious will,
No touch of passion, vitalized their fixed
Eumenidèan, stone-cold stare, as towards
Some surely destined task they seemed to guide
Its shapeless bulk and awful ruthless strength.
207
Then with a motion as of one dark stride
Shadowing forward, and outstretching straight
One vague-seen arm, from my reluctant grasp
It tore the radiant lady, saying “This
Is love forbidden!” in a voice whose tones
Were like low guttural thunders heard afar,
Outgrowling from the clouded gorges wild
Of steep-cragged mountains, when a sultry storm
Is pondering in its dark pavilions there.
Me then he seized, and threw me strongly back
Within the brazen door; its massive beam
Dropped with a wall-quake, and the bolts were shot
Into their sockets with a shattering jar.
I may not paint the horrible despair
That froze me now; more horrible than aught
In actual destiny, in waking life,
Could give the self -possession of my soul.
Within, without,—all silent, stirless, cold
Whither was she, my lady of delight
Reft terribly away? Time—every drip of which
Was as an age—kept trickling on and on,
Brought no release, no hope; brought not a breath
That spake of fellowship, or even of life
Out of myself. Utterly blank I stood
In marble-cold astonishment of heart!
And when at length I cast despairing eyes—
Eyes so despairing that the common gift
Of vision stung me like a deadly curse—
The dungeon round, pure pity of myself
So warmed and loosened from my brain, the pent
And icy anguish, that its load at once
Came like an Alp-thaw streaming through my eyes;
Till resignation, that balm-fragrant flower
Of meek pale grief that hath its root in tears,
Grew out of mine, and dewed my soul with peace.
My dungeon was a half-round lofty cell,
Massively set within the crossing wall
That seemed to cut the tower’s whole round in twain;
A door with iron studs and brazen clamps
Shut off the inner stairway of the tower;
And by this door a strange and mystic thing,
208
A bat-winged steed on scaly dragon claws,
Stood mute and rigid in the darkening cell.
The night came on; I saw the bat-winged steed
Fade, melt and die into the gathering gloom,
Then in the blackness hour by hour I paced,
And heard my step—the only sound to me
In all the wide world—throb with a dull blow
Down through the hollow tower that seemed to yawn.
A monstrous well beneath, with wide waste mouth
Bridged only by the quaking strip of floor
On which I darkling strode. Then hour on hour
Paused as if clotting at the heart of time,
And yet no other sound had being there
And still that strange, mute, mystic, bat-winged steed
Stood waiting near me by the inner door.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Part IV
At last, all suddenly, in the air aloft
Over the tower a wild wailful song
Woke, flying many-voiced, then sweeping off
Far o’er the echoing hills, so passed away
In dying murmurs through the hollow dark.
Song
In vain was the charm sought
In vain was our spell wrought
Which that dread watcher’s eyes drowsy might keep;
In vain was the dragon-steed
There at the hour of need
Out with his double freight blissward to sweep.
Lost—lost—lost—lost!
In vain were our spells of an infinite cost
Lost—lost—lost—lost!
Yon gulf by a mortal may never be crossed
209
Never, ah never!
The doom holds for ever
For ever! for ever!
Away, come away!
For see, wide uprolling, the white front of day!
Away to the mystic mid-regions of sleep,
Of the beautiful Spirit of sleep.
Lost—lost—lost—lost!
The gulf we are crossing may never be crossed
By a mortal, ah, never!
The doom holds for ever!
For ever! for ever!
So passed that song (of which the drift alone
Is here reached after in such leaden speech
As uncharmed mortals use). And when its tones
Out towards the mountains in the dark afar
Had wasted, light began to pierce the gloom,
Marbling the dusk with grey; and then the steed,
With his strange dragon-claws and half-spread wings,
Grew slowly back into the day again.
The sunrise! Oh, it was a desolate pass
Immured in that relentless keep, to feel
How o’er the purple hills came the bright sun,
Rejoicing in his strength; and then to know
That he was wheeling up the heaven, and o’er
My prison roof, tracking his midway course
With step of fire, loud rolling through the world
The thunder of its universal life!
Thus seven times wore weary day and night
Wearily on, and still I could not sleep.
And still through this drear time the wintry tooth
Of hunger never gnawed my corporal frame;
No thirst inflamed me; while by the grim door
That strange, unmoving, dragon-footed steed
Stood as at first. Mere wonder at my doom
Relieved the else-fixed darkness of despair!
But on the seventh night at midnight—hark!
210
What might I hear? A step?—a small light step,
That by the stair ascending, swiftly came
Straight to the inner door—then stopped. Alas!
The black leaf opened not; and yet, the while,
A rainbow radiance through its solid breadth
Came flushing bright, in subtle wave on wave,
As sunset glow in swift rich curves wells forth
Through some dense cloud upon the verge of heaven:
So came it, filling all the cell at length
With rosy lights; and then the mystic steed
Moved, and spread wide his glimmering bat-like wings.
When hark! deep down in the mysterious tower
Another step! Yea, the same strenuous tramp
That once before I heard, big beating up—
A cry, a struggle, and retreating steps!
And that fair light had faded from the air.
Again the hateful tramp came booming up;
The great door opened, and the monster-fiend
Filled all the space between the mighty jambs.
My heart glowed hot with rage and hate at once;
Fiercely I charged him, but his horrible glooms
Enwrapped me closer, in yet denser coils
Every dread moment! But my anguish now,
My pain, and hate, and loathing, all had grown
Into so vast a horror that methought
I burst with irresistible strength away—
Rushed through the door and down the stairway—down
An endless depth—till a portcullis, hinged
In the tower’s basement, opened to my flight
It fell behind me, and my passage lay
By the long ripples of the rock-edged lake.
Then, breathless, pausing in my giddy flight,
I saw the lustrous lady upward pass
Through the lit air, with steadfast downward look
Of parting recognition—full of love,
But painless, passionless. Above the tower
And o’er the clouds her radiance passed away,
And melted into heaven’s marble dome!
Then fell there on my soul a sense of loss
So bleak, so desolate, that with a wild
211
Sleep-startling outcry, sudden I awoke
Awoke to find it but a wondrous dream;
Yet ever since to feel as if some pure
And guardian soul, out of the day and night,
Had passed for ever from the reach of love!
~ Charles Harpur,#NFDB
1320: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
,#NFDB
1321:Custer: Book Second
Oh, for the power to call to aid, of mine
Own humble Muse, the famed and sacred nine.
Then might she fitly sing, and only then,
Of those intrepid and unflinching men
Who knew no homes save ever moving tents,
And who 'twixt fierce unfriendly elements
And wild barbarians warred. Yet unfraid,
Since love impels thy strains, sing, sing, my modest maid.
II
Relate how Custer in midwinter sought
Far Washita's cold shores; tell why he fought
With savage nomads fortressed in deep snows.
Woman, thou source of half the sad world's woes
And all its joys, what sanguinary strife
Has vexed the earth and made contention rife
Because of thee! For, hidden in man's heart,
Ay, in his very soul, of his true self a part,
III
The natural impulse and the wish belongs
To win thy favor and redress thy wrongs.
Alas! for woman, and for man, alas!
If that dread hour should ever come to pass,
When, through her new-born passion for control,
She drives that beauteous impulse from his soul.
What were her vaunted independence worth
If to obtain she sells her sweetest rights of birth?
IV
God formed fair woman for her true estateMan's tender comrade, and his equal mate,
Not his competitor in toil and trade.
While coarser man, with greater strength was made
183
To fight her battles and her rights protect.
Ay! to protect the rights of earth's elect
(The virgin maiden and the spotless wife)
From immemorial time has man laid down his life.
And now brave Custer's valiant army pressed
Across the dangerous desert of the West,
To rescue fair white captives from the hands
Of brutal Cheyenne and Comanche bands,
On Washita's bleak banks. Nine hundred strong
It moved its slow determined way along,
Past frontier homes left dark and desolate
By the wild Indians' fierce and unrelenting hate;
VI
Past forts where ranchmen, strong of heart and bold,
Wept now like orphaned children as they told,
With quivering muscles and with anguished breath,
Of captured wives, whose fate was worse than death;
Past naked bodies whose disfiguring wounds
Spoke of the hellish hate of human hounds;
Past bleaching skeleton and rifled grave,
On pressed th' avenging host, to rescue and to save.
VII
Uncertain Nature, like a fickle friend,
(Worse than the foe on whom we may depend)
Turned on these dauntless souls a brow of wrath
And hurled her icy jav'lins in their path.
With treacherous quicksands, and with storms that blight,
Entrapped their footsteps and confused their sight.
'Yet on,' urged Custer, 'on at any cost,
No hour is there to waste, no moment to be lost.'
VIII
Determined, silent, on they rode, and on,
Like fabled Centaurs, men and steeds seemed one.
184
No bugle echoed and no voice spoke near,
Lest on some lurking Indian's list'ning ear
The sound might fall. Through swift descending snow
The stealthy guides crept, tracing out the foe;
No fire was lighted, and no halt was made
From haggard gray-lipped dawn till night lent friendly shade.
IX
Then, by the shelt'ring river's bank at last,
The weary warriors paused for their repast.
A couch of ice and falling shows for spread
Made many a suffering soldier's chilling bed.
They slept to dream of glory and delight,
While the pale fingers of the pitying night
Wove ghostly winding sheets for that doomed score
Who, ere another eve, should sleep to wake no more.
But those who slept not, saw with startled eyes
Far off, athwart dim unprotecting skies,
Ascending slowly with majestic grace,
A lustrous rocket, rising out of space.
'Behold the signal of the foe,' cried one,
The field is lost before the strife's begun.
Yet no! for see! yon rays spread near and far;
It is the day's first smile, the radiant morning star.
XI
The long hours counting till the daylight broke,
In whispered words the restless warriors spoke.
They talked of battles, but they thought of home
(For hearts are faithful though the feet may roam).
Brave Hamilton, all eager for the strife,
Mused o'er that two-fold mystery-death and life;
'And when I die,' quoth he, 'mine be the part
To fall upon the field, a bullet in my heart.'
XII
185
At break of dawn the scouts crept in to say
The foe was camped a rifle shot away.
The baying of a dog, an infant's cry
Pierced through the air; sleep fled from every eye.
To horse! to arms! the dead demand the dead!
Let the grand charge upon the lodge be led!
Let the Mosaic law, life for a life
Pay the long standing debt of blood. War to the knife!
XIII
So spake each heart in that unholy rage
Which fires the brain, when war the thoughts engage.
War, hideous war, appealing to the worst
In complex man, and waking that wild thirst
For human blood which blood alone can slake.
Yet for their country's safety, and the sake
Of tortured captives moaning in alarm
The Indian must be made to fear the law's strong arm.
XIV
A noble vengeance burned in Custer's breast,
But, as he led his army to the crest,
Above the wigwams, ready for the charge
He felt the heart within him, swelling large
With human pity, as an infant's wail
Shrilled once again above the wintry gale.
Then hosts of murdered children seemed to rise;
And shame his halting thought with sad accusing eyes,
XV
And urge him on to action. Stern of brow
The just avenger, and the General now,
He gives the silent signal to the band
Which, all impatient, waits for his command.
Cold lips to colder metal press; the air
Echoes those merry strains which mean despair
For sleeping chieftain and for toiling squaw,
But joy to those stern hearts which glory in the law
186
XVI
Of murder paying murder's awful debt.
And now four squadrons in one charge are met.
From east and west, from north and south they come,
At call of bugle and at roll of drum.
Their rifles rain hot hail upon the foe,
Who flee from danger in death's jaws to go.
The Indians fight like maddened bulls at bay,
And dying shriek and groan, wound the young ear of day.
XVII
A pallid captive and a white-browed boy
Add to the tumult piercing cries of joy,
As forth they fly, with high hope animate.
A hideous squaw pursues them with her hate;
Her knife descends with sickening force and sound;
Their bloody entrails stain the snow-clad ground.
She shouts with glee, then yells with rage and falls
Dead by her victims' side, pierced by avenging balls.
XVIII
Now war runs riot, carnage reigns supreme.
All thoughts of mercy fade from Custer's scheme.
Inhuman methods for inhuman foes,
Who feed on horrors and exult in woes.
To conquer and subdue alone remains
In dealing with the red man on the plains.
The breast that knows no conscience yields to fear,
Strike! let the Indian meet his master now and here.
XIX
With thoughts like these was Custer's mind engaged.
The gentlest are the sternest when enraged.
All felt the swift contagion of his ire,
For he was one who could arouse and fire
The coldest heart, so ardent was his own.
His fearless eye, his calm intrepid tone,
Bespoke the leader, strong with conscious power,
187
Whom following friends will bless, while foes will curse and cower.
XX
Again they charge! and now among the killed
Lies Hamilton, his wish so soon fulfilled,
Brave Elliott pursues across the field
The flying foe, his own young life to yield.
But like the leaves in some autumnal gale
The red men fall in Washita's wild vale.
Each painted face and black befeathered head
Still more repulsive seems with death's grim pallor wed.
XXI
New forces gather on surrounding knolls,
And fierce and fiercer war's red river rolls.
With bright-hued pennants flying from each lance
The gayly costumed Kiowas advance.
And bold Comanches (Bedouins of the land)
Infuse fresh spirit in the Cheyenne band.
While from the ambush of some dark ravine
Flash arrows aimed by hands, unerring and unseen.
XXIII
The hours advance; the storm clouds roll away;
Still furious and more furious grows the fray.
The yellow sun makes ghastlier still the sight
Of painted corpses, staring in its light.
No longer slaves, but comrades of their griefs,
The squaws augment the forces of their chiefs.
They chant weird dirges in a minor key,
While from the narrow door of wigwam and tepee
XXIII
Cold glittering eyes above cold glittering steel
Their deadly purpose and their hate reveal.
The click of pistols and the crack of guns
Proclaim war's daughters dangerous as her sons.
She who would wield the soldier's sword and lance
188
Must be prepared to take the soldier's chance.
She who would shoot must serve as target, too;
The battle-frenzied men, infuriate now pursue.
XXIV
And blood of warrior, woman and papoose,
Flow free as waters when some dam breaks loose;
Consuming fire, the wanton friend of war
(Whom allies worship and whom foes abhor)
Now trails her crimson garments through the street,
And ruin marks the passing of her feet.
Full three-score lodges smoke upon the plain,
And all the vale is strewn with bodies of the slain.
XXV
And those who are not numbered with the dead
Before all-conquering Custer now are led.
To soothe their woes, and calm their fears he seeks;
An Osage guide interprets while he speaks.
The vanquished captives, humbled, cowed and spent
Read in the victor's eye his kind intent.
The modern victor is as kind as brave;
His captive is his guest, not his insulted slave.
XXVI
Mahwissa, sister of the slaughtered chief
Of all the Cheyennes, listens; and her grief
Yields now to hope; and o'er her withered face
There flits the stealthy cunning of her race.
Then forth she steps, and thus begins to speak:
'To aid the fallen and support the weak
Is man's true province; and to ease the pain
Of those o'er whom it is his purpose now to reign.
XXVII
'Let the strong chief unite with theirs his life,
And take this black-eyed maiden for a wife.'
Then, moving with an air of proud command,
189
She leads a dusky damsel by the hand,
And places her at wondering Custer's side,
Invoking choicest blessings on the bride
And all unwilling groom, who thus replies.
'Fair is the Indian maid, with bright bewildering eyes,
XXVIII
'But fairer still is one who, year on year,
Has borne man's burdens, conquered woman's fear;
And at my side rode mile on weary mile,
And faced all deaths, all dangers, with a smile,
Wise as Minerva, as Diana brave,
Is she whom generous gods in kindness gave
To share the hardships of my wandering life,
Companion, comrade, friend, my loved and loyal wife.
XXIX
'The white chief weds but one. Take back thy maid.'
He ceased, and o'er Mahwissa's face a shade
Of mingled scorn and pity and surprise
Sweeps as she slow retreats, and thus replies:
'Rich is the pale-faced chief in battle fame,
But poor is he who but one wife may claim.
Wives are the red-skinned heroes' rightful spoil;
In war they prove his strength, in times of peace they toil.'
XXX
But hark! The bugle echoes o'er the plains
And sounds again those merry Celtic strains
Which oft have called light feet to lilting dance,
But now they mean the order to advance.
Along the river's bank, beyond the hill
Two thousand foemen lodge, unconquered still.
Ere falls night's curtain on this bloody play,
The army must proceed, with feint of further fray.
XXXI
The weary warriors mount their foam-flecked steeds,
190
With flags unfurled the dauntless host proceeds.
What though the foe outnumbers two to one?
Boldness achieves what strength oft leaves undone;
A daring mein will cause brute force to cower,
And courage is the secret source of power.
As Custer's column wheels upon their sight
The frightened red men yield the untried field by flight.
XXXII
Yet when these conquering heroes sink to rest,
Dissatisfaction gnaws the leader's breast,
For far away across vast seas of snows
Held prisoners still by hostile Arapahoes
And Cheyennes unsubdued, two captives wait.
On God and Custer hangs their future fate.
May the Great Spirit nerve the mortal's arm
To rescue suffering souls from worse than death's alarm.
XXXIII
But ere they seek to rescue the oppressed,
The valiant dead, in state, are laid to rest.
Mourned Hamilton, the faithful and the brave,
Nine hundred comrades follow to the grave;
And close behind the banner-hidden corse
All draped in black, walks mournfully his horse;
While tears of sound drip through the sunlit day.
A soldier may not weep, but drums and bugles may.
XXXIV
Now, Muse, recount, how after long delays
And dangerous marches through untrodden ways,
Where cold and hunger on each hour attend,
At last the army gains the journey's end.
An Indian village bursts upon the eye;
Two hundred lodges, sleep-encompassed lie,
There captives moan their anguished prayers through tears,
While in the silent dawn the armied answer nears.
XXXV
191
To snatch two fragile victims from the foe
Nine hundred men have traversed leagues of snow.
Each woe they suffered in a hostile land
The flame of vengeance in their bosoms fanned.
They thirst for slaughter, and the signal wait
To wrest the captives from their horrid fate.
Each warrior's hand upon his rifle falls,
Each savage soldier's heart for awful bloodshed calls.
XXXVI
And one, in years a youth, in woe a man,
Sad Brewster, scarred by sorrow's blighting ban,
Looks, panting, where his captive sister sleeps,
And o'er his face the shade of murder creeps.
His nostrils quiver like a hungry beast
Who scents anear the bloody carnal feast.
He longs to leap down in that slumbering vale
And leave no foe alive to tell the awful tale.
XXXVII
Not so, calm Custer. Sick of gory strife,
He hopes for rescue with no loss of life;
And plans that bloodless battle of the plains
Where reasoning mind outwits mere savage brains.
The sullen soldiers follow where he leads;
No gun is emptied, and no foeman bleeds.
Fierce for the fight and eager for the fray
They look upon their Chief in undisguised dismay.
XXXVIII
He hears the murmur of their discontent,
But sneers can never change a strong mind's bent.
He knows his purpose and he does not swerve.
And with a quiet mien and steady nerve
He meets dark looks where'er his steps may go,
And silence that is bruising as a blow,
Where late were smiles and words of ardent praise.
So pass the lagging weeks of wearying delays.
192
XXXIX
Inaction is not always what it seems,
And Custer's mind with plan and project teems.
Fixed in his peaceful purpose he abides
With none takes counsel and in none confides;
But slowly weaves about the foe a net
Which leaves them wholly at his mercy, yet
He strikes no fateful blow; he takes no life,
And holds in check his men, who pant for bloody strife.
XL
Intrepid warrior and skilled diplomate,
In his strong hands he holds the red man's fate.
The craftiest plot he checks with counterplot,
Till tribe by tribe the tricky foe is brought
To fear his vengeance and to know his power.
As man's fixed gaze will make a wild beast cower,
So these crude souls feel that unflinching will
Which draws them by its force, yet does not deign to kill.
XLI
And one by one the hostile Indians send
Their chiefs to seek a peaceful treaty's end.
Great councils follow; skill with cunning copes
And conquers it; and Custer sees his hopes
So long delayed, like stars storm hidden, rise
To radiate with splendor all his skies.
The stubborn Cheyennes, cowed at last by fear,
Leading the captive pair, o'er spring-touched hills appear.
XLII
With breath suspended, now the whole command
Waits the approach of that equestrian band.
Nearer it comes, still nearer, then a cry,
Half sob, half shriek, goes piercing God's blue sky,
And Brewster, like a nimble-footed doe,
Or like an arrow hurrying from a bow,
193
Shoots swiftly through the intervening space
And that lost sister clasps, in sorrowing love's embrace.
XLIII
And men who leaned o'er Hamilton's rude bier
And saw his dead dear face without a tear,
Strong souls who early learned the manly art
Of keeping from the eye what's in the heart,
Soldiers who look unmoved on death's pale brow,
Avert their eyes, to hide their moisture now.
The briny flood forced back from shores of woe,
Needs but to touch the strands of joy to overflow.
XLIV
About the captives welcoming warriors crowd,
All eyes are wet, and Brewster sobs aloud.
Alas, the ravage wrought by toil and woe
On faces that were fair twelve moons ago.
Bronzed by exposure to the heat and cold,
Still young in years, yet prematurely old,
By insults humbled and by labor worn,
They stand in youth's bright hour, of all youth's graces shorn.
XLV
A scanty garment rudely made of sacks
Hangs from their loins; bright blankets drape their backs;
About their necks are twisted tangled strings
Of gaudy beads, while tinkling wire and rings
Of yellow brass on wrists and fingers glow.
Thus, to assuage the anger of the foe
The cunning Indians decked the captive pair
Who in one year have known a lifetime of despair.
XLVI
But love can resurrect from sorrow's tomb
The vanished beauty and the faded bloom,
As sunlight lifts the bruised flower from the sod,
Can lift crushed hearts to hope, for love is God.
194
Already now in freedom's glad release
The hunted look of fear gives place to peace,
And in their eyes at thought of home appears
That rainbow light of joy which brightest shines through tears.
XLVII
About the leader thick the warriors crowd;
Late loud in censure, now in praises loud,
They laud the tactics, and the skill extol
Which gained a bloodless yet a glorious goal.
Alone and lonely in the path of right
Full many a brave soul walks. When gods requite
And crown his actions as their worth demands,
Among admiring throngs the hero always stands.
XLVIII
Back to the East the valorous squadrons sweep;
The earth, arousing from her long, cold sleep,
Throws from her breast the coverlet of snow,
Revealing Spring's soft charms which lie below.
Suppressed emotions in each heart arise,
The wooer wakens and the warrior dies.
The bird of prey is vanquished by the dove,
And thoughts of bloody strife give place to thoughts of love.
XLIX
The mighty plains, devoid of whispering trees,
Guard well the secrets of departed seas.
Where once great tides swept by with ebb and flow
The scorching sun looks down in tearless woe.
And fierce tornadoes in ungoverned pain
Mourn still the loss of that mysterious main.
Across this ocean bed the soldiers flyHome is the gleaming goal that lures each eager eye.
Like some elixir which the gods prepare,
195
They drink the viewless tonic of the air,
Sweet with the breath of startled antelopes
Which speed before them over swelling slopes.
Now like a serpent writhing o'er the moor,
The column curves and makes a slight detour,
As Custer leads a thousand men away
To save a ground bird's nest which in the footpath lay.
LI
Mile following mile, against the leaning skies
Far off they see a dull dark cloud arise.
The hunter's instinct in each heart is stirred,
Beholding there in one stupendous herd
A hundred thousand buffaloes. Oh great
Unwieldy proof of Nature's cruder state,
Rough remnant of a prehistoric day,
Thou, with the red man, too, must shortly pass away.
LII
Upon those spreading plains is there not room
For man and bison, that he seals its doom?
What pleasure lies and what seductive charm
In slaying with no purpose but to harm?
Alas, that man, unable to create,
Should thirst forever to exterminate,
And in destruction find his fiercest joy.
The gods alone create, gods only should destroy.
LIII
The flying hosts a straggling bull pursue;
Unerring aim, the skillful Custer drew.
The wounded beast turns madly in despair
And man and horse are lifted high in air.
The conscious steed needs not the guiding rein;
Back with a bound and one quick cry of pain
He springs, and halts, well knowing where must fall
In that protected frame, the sure death dealing ball.
LIV
196
With minds intent upon the morrow's feast,
The men surround the carcass of the beast.
Rolled on his back, he lies with lolling tongue,
Soon to the saddle savory steaks are hung.
And from his mighty head, great tufts of hair
Are cut as trophies for some lady fair.
To vultures then they leave the torn remains
Of what an hour ago was monarch of the plains.
LV
Far off, two bulls in jealous war engage,
Their blood-shot eye balls roll in furious rage;
With maddened hoofs they mutilate the ground
And loud their angry bellowings resound;
With shaggy heads bent low they plunge and roar,
Till both broad bellies drip with purple gore.
Meanwhile, the heifer, whom the twain desire,
Stands browsing near the pair, indifferent to their ire.
LVI
At last she lifts her lazy head and heeds
The clattering hoofs of swift advancing steeds.
Off to the herd with cumb'rous gait she runs
And leaves the bulls to face the threatening guns.
No more for them the free life of the plains,
Its mating pleasures and its warring pains.
Their quivering flesh shall feed unnumbered foes,
Their tufted tails adorn the soldiers' saddle bows.
LVII
Now into camp the conquering hosts advance;
On burnished arms the brilliant sunbeams glance.
Brave Custer leads, blonde as the gods of old;
Back from his brow blow clustering locks of gold,
And, like a jewel in a brook, there lies,
Far in the depths of his blue guarded eyes,
The thought of one whose smiling lips upcurled,
Mean more of joy to him than plaudits of the world.
197
LVIII
The troops in columns of platoons appear
Close to the leader following. Ah, here
The poetry of war is fully seen,
Its prose forgotten; as against the green
Of Mother Nature, uniformed in blue,
The soldiers pass for Sheridan's review.
The motion-music of the moving throng,
Is like a silent tune, set to a wordless song.
LIX
The guides and trailers, weird in war's array,
Precede the troops along the grassy way.
They chant wild songs, and with loud noise and stress,
In savage manner savage joy express.
The Indian captives, blanketed in red,
On ponies mounted, by the scouts are led.
Like sumach bushes, etched on evening skies,
Against the blue-clad troops, this patch of color lies.
LX
High o'er the scene vast music billows bound,
And all the air is liquid with the sound
Of those invisible compelling waves.
Perchance they reach the low and lonely graves
Where sleep brave Elliott and Hamilton,
And whisper there the tale of victory won;
Or do the souls of soldiers tried and true
Come at the bugle call, and march in grand review?
LXI
The pleased Commander watches in surprise
This splendid pageant surge before his eyes.
Not in those mighty battle days of old
Did scenes like this upon his sight unfold.
But now it passes. Drums and bugles cease
To dash war billows on the shores of Peace.
198
The victors smile on fair broad bosomed Sleep
While in her soothing arms, the vanquished cease to weep
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,#NFDB
1322:The Princess (Part 5)
Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound,
We stumbled on a stationary voice,
And 'Stand, who goes?' 'Two from the palace' I.
'The second two: they wait,' he said, 'pass on;
His Highness wakes:' and one, that clashed in arms,
By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led
Threading the soldier-city, till we heard
The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake
From blazoned lions o'er the imperial tent
Whispers of war.
Entering, the sudden light
Dazed me half-blind: I stood and seemed to hear,
As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes
A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies,
Each hissing in his neighbour's ear; and then
A strangled titter, out of which there brake
On all sides, clamouring etiquette to death,
Unmeasured mirth; while now the two old kings
Began to wag their baldness up and down,
The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth,
The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew,
And slain with laughter rolled the gilded Squire.
At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears,
Panted from weary sides 'King, you are free!
We did but keep you surety for our son,
If this be he,--or a dragged mawkin, thou,
That tends to her bristled grunters in the sludge:'
For I was drenched with ooze, and torn with briers,
More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath,
And all one rag, disprinced from head to heel.
Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm
A whispered jest to some one near him, 'Look,
He has been among his shadows.' 'Satan take
The old women and their shadows! (thus the King
Roared) make yourself a man to fight with men.
Go: Cyril told us all.'
As boys that slink
From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye,
764
Away we stole, and transient in a trice
From what was left of faded woman-slough
To sheathing splendours and the golden scale
Of harness, issued in the sun, that now
Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth,
And hit the Northern hills. Here Cyril met us.
A little shy at first, but by and by
We twain, with mutual pardon asked and given
For stroke and song, resoldered peace, whereon
Followed his tale. Amazed he fled away
Through the dark land, and later in the night
Had come on Psyche weeping: 'then we fell
Into your father's hand, and there she lies,
But will not speak, or stir.'
He showed a tent
A stone-shot off: we entered in, and there
Among piled arms and rough accoutrements,
Pitiful sight, wrapped in a soldier's cloak,
Like some sweet sculpture draped from head to foot,
And pushed by rude hands from its pedestal,
All her fair length upon the ground she lay:
And at her head a follower of the camp,
A charred and wrinkled piece of womanhood,
Sat watching like the watcher by the dead.
Then Florian knelt, and 'Come' he whispered to her,
'Lift up your head, sweet sister: lie not thus.
What have you done but right? you could not slay
Me, nor your prince: look up: be comforted:
Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought,
When fallen in darker ways.' And likewise I:
'Be comforted: have I not lost her too,
In whose least act abides the nameless charm
That none has else for me?' She heard, she moved,
She moaned, a folded voice; and up she sat,
And raised the cloak from brows as pale and smooth
As those that mourn half-shrouded over death
In deathless marble. 'Her,' she said, 'my friend-Parted from her--betrayed her cause and mine-Where shall I breathe? why kept ye not your faith?
O base and bad! what comfort? none for me!'
To whom remorseful Cyril, 'Yet I pray
765
Take comfort: live, dear lady, for your child!'
At which she lifted up her voice and cried.
'Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, my child,
My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more!
For now will cruel Ida keep her back;
And either she will die from want of care,
Or sicken with ill-usage, when they say
The child is hers--for every little fault,
The child is hers; and they will beat my girl
Remembering her mother: O my flower!
Or they will take her, they will make her hard,
And she will pass me by in after-life
With some cold reverence worse than were she dead.
Ill mother that I was to leave her there,
To lag behind, scared by the cry they made,
The horror of the shame among them all:
But I will go and sit beside the doors,
And make a wild petition night and day,
Until they hate to hear me like a wind
Wailing for ever, till they open to me,
And lay my little blossom at my feet,
My babe, my sweet Aglaïa, my one child:
And I will take her up and go my way,
And satisfy my soul with kissing her:
Ah! what might that man not deserve of me
Who gave me back my child?' 'Be comforted,'
Said Cyril, 'you shall have it:' but again
She veiled her brows, and prone she sank, and so
Like tender things that being caught feign death,
Spoke not, nor stirred.
By this a murmur ran
Through all the camp and inward raced the scouts
With rumour of Prince Arab hard at hand.
We left her by the woman, and without
Found the gray kings at parle: and 'Look you' cried
My father 'that our compact be fulfilled:
You have spoilt this child; she laughs at you and man:
She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him:
But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire;
She yields, or war.'
Then Gama turned to me:
766
'We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time
With our strange girl: and yet they say that still
You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large:
How say you, war or not?'
'Not war, if possible,
O king,' I said, 'lest from the abuse of war,
The desecrated shrine, the trampled year,
The smouldering homestead, and the household flower
Torn from the lintel--all the common wrong-A smoke go up through which I loom to her
Three times a monster: now she lightens scorn
At him that mars her plan, but then would hate
(And every voice she talked with ratify it,
And every face she looked on justify it)
The general foe. More soluble is this knot,
By gentleness than war. I want her love.
What were I nigher this although we dashed
Your cities into shards with catapults,
She would not love;--or brought her chained, a slave,
The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord,
Not ever would she love; but brooding turn
The book of scorn, till all my flitting chance
Were caught within the record of her wrongs,
And crushed to death: and rather, Sire, than this
I would the old God of war himself were dead,
Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills,
Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wreck,
Or like an old-world mammoth bulked in ice,
Not to be molten out.'
And roughly spake
My father, 'Tut, you know them not, the girls.
Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think
That idiot legend credible. Look you, Sir!
Man is the hunter; woman is his game:
The sleek and shining creatures of the chase,
We hunt them for the beauty of their skins;
They love us for it, and we ride them down.
Wheedling and siding with them! Out! for shame!
Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them
As he that does the thing they dare not do,
Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes
With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in
767
Among the women, snares them by the score
Flattered and flustered, wins, though dashed with death
He reddens what he kisses: thus I won
You mother, a good mother, a good wife,
Worth winning; but this firebrand--gentleness
To such as her! if Cyril spake her true,
To catch a dragon in a cherry net,
To trip a tigress with a gossamer
Were wisdom to it.'
'Yea but Sire,' I cried,
'Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier? No:
What dares not Ida do that she should prize
The soldier? I beheld her, when she rose
The yesternight, and storming in extremes,
Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down
Gagelike to man, and had not shunned the death,
No, not the soldier's: yet I hold her, king,
True woman: you clash them all in one,
That have as many differences as we.
The violet varies from the lily as far
As oak from elm: one loves the soldier, one
The silken priest of peace, one this, one that,
And some unworthily; their sinless faith,
A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty,
Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need
More breadth of culture: is not Ida right?
They worth it? truer to the law within?
Severer in the logic of a life?
Twice as magnetic to sweet influences
Of earth and heaven? and she of whom you speak,
My mother, looks as whole as some serene
Creation minted in the golden moods
Of sovereign artists; not a thought, a touch,
But pure as lines of green that streak the white
Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves; I say,
Not like the piebald miscellany, man,
Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire,
But whole and one: and take them all-in-all,
Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind,
As truthful, much that Ida claims as right
Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs
As dues of Nature. To our point: not war:
768
Lest I lose all.'
'Nay, nay, you spake but sense'
Said Gama. 'We remember love ourself
In our sweet youth; we did not rate him then
This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows.
You talk almost like Ida: ~she~ can talk;
And there is something in it as you say:
But you talk kindlier: we esteem you for it.-He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince,
I would he had our daughter: for the rest,
Our own detention, why, the causes weighed,
Fatherly fears--you used us courteously-We would do much to gratify your Prince-We pardon it; and for your ingress here
Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land,
you did but come as goblins in the night,
Nor in the furrow broke the ploughman's head,
Nor burnt the grange, nor bussed the milking-maid,
Nor robbed the farmer of his bowl of cream:
But let your Prince (our royal word upon it,
He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines,
And speak with Arac: Arac's word is thrice
As ours with Ida: something may be done-I know not what--and ours shall see us friends.
You, likewise, our late guests, if so you will,
Follow us: who knows? we four may build some plan
Foursquare to opposition.'
Here he reached
White hands of farewell to my sire, who growled
An answer which, half-muffled in his beard,
Let so much out as gave us leave to go.
Then rode we with the old king across the lawns
Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring
In every bole, a song on every spray
Of birds that piped their Valentines, and woke
Desire in me to infuse my tale of love
In the old king's ears, who promised help, and oozed
All o'er with honeyed answer as we rode
And blossom-fragrant slipt the heavy dews
Gathered by night and peace, with each light air
On our mailed heads: but other thoughts than Peace
769
Burnt in us, when we saw the embattled squares,
And squadrons of the Prince, trampling the flowers
With clamour: for among them rose a cry
As if to greet the king; they made a halt;
The horses yelled; they clashed their arms; the drum
Beat; merrily-blowing shrilled the martial fife;
And in the blast and bray of the long horn
And serpent-throated bugle, undulated
The banner: anon to meet us lightly pranced
Three captains out; nor ever had I seen
Such thews of men: the midmost and the highest
Was Arac: all about his motion clung
The shadow of his sister, as the beam
Of the East, that played upon them, made them glance
Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone,
That glitter burnished by the frosty dark;
And as the fiery Sirius alters hue,
And bickers into red and emerald, shone
Their morions, washed with morning, as they came.
And I that prated peace, when first I heard
War-music, felt the blind wildbeast of force,
Whose home is in the sinews of a man,
Stir in me as to strike: then took the king
His three broad sons; with now a wandering hand
And now a pointed finger, told them all:
A common light of smiles at our disguise
Broke from their lips, and, ere the windy jest
Had laboured down within his ample lungs,
The genial giant, Arac, rolled himself
Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words.
'Our land invaded, 'sdeath! and he himself
Your captive, yet my father wills not war:
And, 'sdeath! myself, what care I, war or no?
but then this question of your troth remains:
And there's a downright honest meaning in her;
She flies too high, she flies too high! and yet
She asked but space and fairplay for her scheme;
She prest and prest it on me--I myself,
What know I of these things? but, life and soul!
I thought her half-right talking of her wrongs;
770
I say she flies too high, 'sdeath! what of that?
I take her for the flower of womankind,
And so I often told her, right or wrong,
And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves,
And, right or wrong, I care not: this is all,
I stand upon her side: she made me swear it-'Sdeath--and with solemn rites by candle-light-Swear by St something--I forget her name-Her that talked down the fifty wisest men;
~She~ was a princess too; and so I swore.
Come, this is all; she will not: waive your claim:
If not, the foughten field, what else, at once
Decides it, 'sdeath! against my father's will.'
I lagged in answer loth to render up
My precontract, and loth by brainless war
To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet;
Till one of those two brothers, half aside
And fingering at the hair about his lip,
To prick us on to combat 'Like to like!
The woman's garment hid the woman's heart.'
A taunt that clenched his purpose like a blow!
For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff,
And sharp I answered, touched upon the point
Where idle boys are cowards to their shame,
'Decide it here: why not? we are three to three.'
Then spake the third 'But three to three? no more?
No more, and in our noble sister's cause?
More, more, for honour: every captain waits
Hungry for honour, angry for his king.
More, more some fifty on a side, that each
May breathe himself, and quick! by overthrow
Of these or those, the question settled die.'
'Yea,' answered I, 'for this wreath of air,
This flake of rainbow flying on the highest
Foam of men's deeds--this honour, if ye will.
It needs must be for honour if at all:
Since, what decision? if we fail, we fail,
And if we win, we fail: she would not keep
Her compact.' ''Sdeath! but we will send to her,'
771
Said Arac, 'worthy reasons why she should
Bide by this issue: let our missive through,
And you shall have her answer by the word.'
'Boys!' shrieked the old king, but vainlier than a hen
To her false daughters in the pool; for none
Regarded; neither seemed there more to say:
Back rode we to my father's camp, and found
He thrice had sent a herald to the gates,
To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim,
Or by denial flush her babbling wells
With her own people's life: three times he went:
The first, he blew and blew, but none appeared:
He battered at the doors; none came: the next,
An awful voice within had warned him thence:
The third, and those eight daughters of the plough
Came sallying through the gates, and caught his hair,
And so belaboured him on rib and cheek
They made him wild: not less one glance he caught
Through open doors of Ida stationed there
Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm
Though compassed by two armies and the noise
Of arms; and standing like a stately Pine
Set in a cataract on an island-crag,
When storm is on the heights, and right and left
Sucked from the dark heart of the long hills roll
The torrents, dashed to the vale: and yet her will
Bred will in me to overcome it or fall.
But when I told the king that I was pledged
To fight in tourney for my bride, he clashed
His iron palms together with a cry;
Himself would tilt it out among the lads:
But overborne by all his bearded lords
With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce
He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur:
And many a bold knight started up in heat,
And sware to combat for my claim till death.
All on this side the palace ran the field
Flat to the garden-wall: and likewise here,
Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts,
772
A columned entry shone and marble stairs,
And great bronze valves, embossed with Tomyris
And what she did to Cyrus after fight,
But now fast barred: so here upon the flat
All that long morn the lists were hammered up,
And all that morn the heralds to and fro,
With message and defiance, went and came;
Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand,
But shaken here and there, and rolling words
Oration-like. I kissed it and I read.
'O brother, you have known the pangs we felt,
What heats of indignation when we heard
Of those that iron-cramped their women's feet;
Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride
Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge;
Of living hearts that crack within the fire
Where smoulder their dead despots; and of those,-Mothers,--that, with all prophetic pity, fling
Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops
The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart
Made for all noble motion: and I saw
That equal baseness lived in sleeker times
With smoother men: the old leaven leavened all:
Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights,
No woman named: therefore I set my face
Against all men, and lived but for mine own.
Far off from men I built a fold for them:
I stored it full of rich memorial:
I fenced it round with gallant institutes,
And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey
And prospered; till a rout of saucy boys
Brake on us at our books, and marred our peace,
Masked like our maids, blustering I know not what
Of insolence and love, some pretext held
Of baby troth, invalid, since my will
Sealed not the bond--the striplings! for their sport!-I tamed my leopards: shall I not tame these?
Or you? or I? for since you think me touched
In honour--what, I would not aught of false-Is not our case pure? and whereas I know
Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood
773
You draw from, fight; you failing, I abide
What end soever: fail you will not. Still
Take not his life: he risked it for my own;
His mother lives: yet whatsoe'er you do,
Fight and fight well; strike and strike him. O dear
Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you
The sole men to be mingled with our cause,
The sole men we shall prize in the after-time,
Your very armour hallowed, and your statues
Reared, sung to, when, this gad-fly brushed aside,
We plant a solid foot into the Time,
And mould a generation strong to move
With claim on claim from right to right, till she
Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself;
And Knowledge in our own land make her free,
And, ever following those two crownèd twins,
Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain
Of freedom broadcast over all the orbs
Between the Northern and the Southern morn.'
Then came a postscript dashed across the rest.
See that there be no traitors in your camp:
We seem a nest of traitors--none to trust
Since our arms failed--this Egypt-plague of men!
Almost our maids were better at their homes,
Than thus man-girdled here: indeed I think
Our chiefest comfort is the little child
Of one unworthy mother; which she left:
She shall not have it back: the child shall grow
To prize the authentic mother of her mind.
I took it for an hour in mine own bed
This morning: there the tender orphan hands
Felt at my heart, and seemed to charm from thence
The wrath I nursed against the world: farewell.'
I ceased; he said, 'Stubborn, but she may sit
Upon a king's right hand in thunder-storms,
And breed up warriors! See now, though yourself
Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs
That swallow common sense, the spindling king,
This Gama swamped in lazy tolerance.
When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up,
774
And topples down the scales; but this is fixt
As are the roots of earth and base of all;
Man for the field and woman for the hearth:
Man for the sword and for the needle she:
Man with the head and woman with the heart:
Man to command and woman to obey;
All else confusion. Look you! the gray mare
Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills
From tile to scullery, and her small goodman
Shrinks in his arm-chair while the fires of Hell
Mix with his hearth: but you--she's yet a colt-Take, break her: strongly groomed and straitly curbed
She might not rank with those detestable
That let the bantling scald at home, and brawl
Their rights and wrongs like potherbs in the street.
They say she's comely; there's the fairer chance:
~I~ like her none the less for rating at her!
Besides, the woman wed is not as we,
But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace
Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy,
The bearing and the training of a child
Is woman's wisdom.'
Thus the hard old king:
I took my leave, for it was nearly noon:
I pored upon her letter which I held,
And on the little clause 'take not his life:'
I mused on that wild morning in the woods,
And on the 'Follow, follow, thou shalt win:'
I thought on all the wrathful king had said,
And how the strange betrothment was to end:
Then I remembered that burnt sorcerer's curse
That one should fight with shadows and should fall;
And like a flash the weird affection came:
King, camp and college turned to hollow shows;
I seemed to move in old memorial tilts,
And doing battle with forgotten ghosts,
To dream myself the shadow of a dream:
And ere I woke it was the point of noon,
The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed
We entered in, and waited, fifty there
Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared
At the barrier like a wild horn in a land
775
Of echoes, and a moment, and once more
The trumpet, and again: at which the storm
Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears
And riders front to front, until they closed
In conflict with the crash of shivering points,
And thunder. Yet it seemed a dream, I dreamed
Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed,
And into fiery splinters leapt the lance,
And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire.
Part sat like rocks: part reeled but kept their seats:
Part rolled on the earth and rose again and drew:
Part stumbled mixt with floundering horses. Down
From those two bulks at Arac's side, and down
From Arac's arm, as from a giant's flail,
The large blows rained, as here and everywhere
He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing lists,
And all the plain,--brand, mace, and shaft, and shield-Shocked, like an iron-clanging anvil banged
With hammers; till I thought, can this be he
From Gama's dwarfish loins? if this be so,
The mother makes us most--and in my dream
I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front
Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes,
And highest, among the statues, statuelike,
Between a cymballed Miriam and a Jael,
With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us,
A single band of gold about her hair,
Like a Saint's glory up in heaven: but she
No saint--inexorable--no tenderness-Too hard, too cruel: yet she sees me fight,
Yea, let her see me fall! and with that I drave
Among the thickest and bore down a Prince,
And Cyril, one. Yea, let me make my dream
All that I would. But that large-moulded man,
His visage all agrin as at a wake,
Made at me through the press, and, staggering back
With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came
As comes a pillar of electric cloud,
Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains,
And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes
On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits,
And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth
776
Reels, and the herdsmen cry; for everything
Game way before him: only Florian, he
That loved me closer than his own right eye,
Thrust in between; but Arac rode him down:
And Cyril seeing it, pushed against the Prince,
With Psyche's colour round his helmet, tough,
Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms;
But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote
And threw him: last I spurred; I felt my veins
Stretch with fierce heat; a moment hand to hand,
And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung,
Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanced,
I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth
Flowed from me; darkness closed me; and I fell.
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
'She must weep or she will die.'
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee-Like summer tempest came her tears-'Sweet my child, I live for thee.'
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,#NFDB
1323:The Princess (Part 4)
'There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun,
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound'
Said Ida; 'let us down and rest;' and we
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices,
By every coppice-feathered chasm and cleft,
Dropt through the ambrosial gloom to where below
No bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent
Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she leaned on me,
Descending; once or twice she lent her hand,
And blissful palpitations in the blood,
Stirring a sudden transport rose and fell.
But when we planted level feet, and dipt
Beneath the satin dome and entered in,
There leaning deep in broidered down we sank
Our elbows: on a tripod in the midst
A fragrant flame rose, and before us glowed
Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold.
Then she, 'Let some one sing to us: lightlier move
The minutes fledged with music:' and a maid,
Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang.
'Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
'Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
'Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
748
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
'Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.'
She ended with such passion that the tear,
She sang of, shook and fell, an erring pearl
Lost in her bosom: but with some disdain
Answered the Princess, 'If indeed there haunt
About the mouldered lodges of the Past
So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men,
Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool
And so pace by: but thine are fancies hatched
In silken-folded idleness; nor is it
Wiser to weep a true occasion lost,
But trim our sails, and let old bygones be,
While down the streams that float us each and all
To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice,
Throne after throne, and molten on the waste
Becomes a cloud: for all things serve their time
Toward that great year of equal mights and rights,
Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end
Found golden: let the past be past; let be
Their cancelled Babels: though the rough kex break
The starred mosaic, and the beard-blown goat
Hang on the shaft, and the wild figtree split
Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear
A trumpet in the distance pealing news
Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns
Above the unrisen morrow:' then to me;
'Know you no song of your own land,' she said,
'Not such as moans about the retrospect,
But deals with the other distance and the hues
Of promise; not a death's-head at the wine.'
Then I remembered one myself had made,
What time I watched the swallow winging south
749
From mine own land, part made long since, and part
Now while I sang, and maidenlike as far
As I could ape their treble, did I sing.
'O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South,
Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.
'O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,
That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,
And dark and true and tender is the North.
'O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.
'O were I thou that she might take me in,
And lay me on her bosom, and her heart
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died.
'Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love,
Delaying as the tender ash delays
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?
'O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown:
Say to her, I do but wanton in the South,
But in the North long since my nest is made.
'O tell her, brief is life but love is long,
And brief the sun of summer in the North,
And brief the moon of beauty in the South.
'O Swallow, flying from the golden woods,
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine,
And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.'
I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each,
Like the Ithacensian suitors in old time,
Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips,
And knew not what they meant; for still my voice
750
Rang false: but smiling 'Not for thee,' she said,
O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan
Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid,
Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake
Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this
A mere love-poem! O for such, my friend,
We hold them slight: they mind us of the time
When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men,
That lute and flute fantastic tenderness,
And dress the victim to the offering up,
And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise,
And play the slave to gain the tyranny.
Poor soul! I had a maid of honour once;
She wept her true eyes blind for such a one,
A rogue of canzonets and serenades.
I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead.
So they blaspheme the muse! But great is song
Used to great ends: ourself have often tried
Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dashed
The passion of the prophetess; for song
Is duer unto freedom, force and growth
Of spirit than to junketing and love.
Love is it? Would this same mock-love, and this
Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats,
Till all men grew to rate us at our worth,
Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes
To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered
Whole in ourselves and owed to none. Enough!
But now to leaven play with profit, you,
Know you no song, the true growth of your soil,
That gives the manners of your country-women?'
She spoke and turned her sumptuous head with eyes
Of shining expectation fixt on mine.
Then while I dragged my brains for such a song,
Cyril, with whom the bell-mouthed glass had wrought,
Or mastered by the sense of sport, began
To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch
Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences
Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him,
I frowning; Psyche flushed and wanned and shook;
The lilylike Melissa drooped her brows;
751
'Forbear,' the Princess cried; 'Forbear, Sir' I;
And heated through and through with wrath and love,
I smote him on the breast; he started up;
There rose a shriek as of a city sacked;
Melissa clamoured 'Flee the death;' 'To horse'
Said Ida; 'home! to horse!' and fled, as flies
A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk,
When some one batters at the dovecote-doors,
Disorderly the women. Alone I stood
With Florian, cursing Cyril, vext at heart,
In the pavilion: there like parting hopes
I heard them passing from me: hoof by hoof,
And every hoof a knell to my desires,
Clanged on the bridge; and then another shriek,
'The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head!'
For blind with rage she missed the plank, and rolled
In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom:
There whirled her white robe like a blossomed branch
Rapt to the horrible fall: a glance I gave,
No more; but woman-vested as I was
Plunged; and the flood drew; yet I caught her; then
Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left
The weight of all the hopes of half the world,
Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree
Was half-disrooted from his place and stooped
To wrench his dark locks in the gurgling wave
Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught,
And grasping down the boughs I gained the shore.
There stood her maidens glimmeringly grouped
In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew
My burthen from mine arms; they cried 'she lives:'
They bore her back into the tent: but I,
So much a kind of shame within me wrought,
Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes,
Nor found my friends; but pushed alone on foot
(For since her horse was lost I left her mine)
Across the woods, and less from Indian craft
Than beelike instinct hiveward, found at length
The garden portals. Two great statues, Art
And Science, Caryatids, lifted up
A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves
752
Of open-work in which the hunter rued
His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows
Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon
Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates.
A little space was left between the horns,
Through which I clambered o'er at top with pain,
Dropt on the sward, and up the linden walks,
And, tost on thoughts that changed from hue to hue,
Now poring on the glowworm, now the star,
I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheeled
Through a great arc his seven slow suns.
A step
Of lightest echo, then a loftier form
Than female, moving through the uncertain gloom,
Disturbed me with the doubt 'if this were she,'
But it was Florian. 'Hist O Hist,' he said,
'They seek us: out so late is out of rules.
Moreover "seize the strangers" is the cry.
How came you here?' I told him: 'I' said he,
'Last of the train, a moral leper, I,
To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, returned.
Arriving all confused among the rest
With hooded brows I crept into the hall,
And, couched behind a Judith, underneath
The head of Holofernes peeped and saw.
Girl after girl was called to trial: each
Disclaimed all knowledge of us: last of all,
Melissa: trust me, Sir, I pitied her.
She, questioned if she knew us men, at first
Was silent; closer prest, denied it not:
And then, demanded if her mother knew,
Or Psyche, she affirmed not, or denied:
From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her,
Easily gathered either guilt. She sent
For Psyche, but she was not there; she called
For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors;
She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face;
And I slipt out: but whither will you now?
And where are Psyche, Cyril? both are fled:
What, if together? that were not so well.
Would rather we had never come! I dread
753
His wildness, and the chances of the dark.'
'And yet,' I said, 'you wrong him more than I
That struck him: this is proper to the clown,
Though smocked, or furred and purpled, still the clown,
To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame
That which he says he loves: for Cyril, howe'er
He deal in frolic, as tonight--the song
Might have been worse and sinned in grosser lips
Beyond all pardon--as it is, I hold
These flashes on the surface are not he.
He has a solid base of temperament:
But as the waterlily starts and slides
Upon the level in little puffs of wind,
Though anchored to the bottom, such is he.'
Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near
Two Proctors leapt upon us, crying, 'Names:'
He, standing still, was clutched; but I began
To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind
And double in and out the boles, and race
By all the fountains: fleet I was of foot:
Before me showered the rose in flakes; behind
I heard the puffed pursuer; at mine ear
Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not,
And secret laughter tickled all my soul.
At last I hooked my ankle in a vine,
That claspt the feet of a Mnemosyne,
And falling on my face was caught and known.
They haled us to the Princess where she sat
High in the hall: above her drooped a lamp,
And made the single jewel on her brow
Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head,
Prophet of storm: a handmaid on each side
Bowed toward her, combing out her long black hair
Damp from the river; and close behind her stood
Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men,
Huge women blowzed with health, and wind, and rain,
And labour. Each was like a Druid rock;
Or like a spire of land that stands apart
Cleft from the main, and wailed about with mews.
754
Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove
An advent to the throne: and therebeside,
Half-naked as if caught at once from bed
And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay
The lily-shining child; and on the left,
Bowed on her palms and folded up from wrong,
Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs,
Melissa knelt; but Lady Blanche erect
Stood up and spake, an affluent orator.
'It was not thus, O Princess, in old days:
You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips:
I led you then to all the Castalies;
I fed you with the milk of every Muse;
I loved you like this kneeler, and you me
Your second mother: those were gracious times.
Then came your new friend: you began to change-I saw it and grieved--to slacken and to cool;
Till taken with her seeming openness
You turned your warmer currents all to her,
To me you froze: this was my meed for all.
Yet I bore up in part from ancient love,
And partly that I hoped to win you back,
And partly conscious of my own deserts,
And partly that you were my civil head,
And chiefly you were born for something great,
In which I might your fellow-worker be,
When time should serve; and thus a noble scheme
Grew up from seed we two long since had sown;
In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd,
Up in one night and due to sudden sun:
We took this palace; but even from the first
You stood in your own light and darkened mine.
What student came but that you planed her path
To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise,
A foreigner, and I your countrywoman,
I your old friend and tried, she new in all?
But still her lists were swelled and mine were lean;
Yet I bore up in hope she would be known:
Then came these wolves: ~they~ knew her: ~they~ endured,
Long-closeted with her the yestermorn,
755
To tell her what they were, and she to hear:
And me none told: not less to an eye like mine
A lidless watcher of the public weal,
Last night, their mask was patent, and my foot
Was to you: but I thought again: I feared
To meet a cold "We thank you, we shall hear of it
From Lady Psyche:" you had gone to her,
She told, perforce; and winning easy grace
No doubt, for slight delay, remained among us
In our young nursery still unknown, the stem
Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat
Were all miscounted as malignant haste
To push my rival out of place and power.
But public use required she should be known;
And since my oath was ta'en for public use,
I broke the letter of it to keep the sense.
I spoke not then at first, but watched them well,
Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done;
And yet this day (though you should hate me for it)
I came to tell you; found that you had gone,
Ridden to the hills, she likewise: now, I thought,
That surely she will speak; if not, then I:
Did she? These monsters blazoned what they were,
According to the coarseness of their kind,
For thus I hear; and known at last (my work)
And full of cowardice and guilty shame,
I grant in her some sense of shame, she flies;
And I remain on whom to wreak your rage,
I, that have lent my life to build up yours,
I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time,
And talent, I--you know it--I will not boast:
Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan,
Divorced from my experience, will be chaff
For every gust of chance, and men will say
We did not know the real light, but chased
The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread.'
She ceased: the Princess answered coldly, 'Good:
Your oath is broken: we dismiss you: go.
For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child)
Our mind is changed: we take it to ourself.'
756
Thereat the Lady stretched a vulture throat,
And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile.
'The plan was mine. I built the nest' she said
'To hatch the cuckoo. Rise!' and stooped to updrag
Melissa: she, half on her mother propt,
Half-drooping from her, turned her face, and cast
A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer,
Which melted Florian's fancy as she hung,
A Niobëan daughter, one arm out,
Appealing to the bolts of Heaven; and while
We gazed upon her came a little stir
About the doors, and on a sudden rushed
Among us, out of breath as one pursued,
A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear
Stared in her eyes, and chalked her face, and winged
Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell
Delivering sealed dispatches which the Head
Took half-amazed, and in her lion's mood
Tore open, silent we with blind surmise
Regarding, while she read, till over brow
And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom
As of some fire against a stormy cloud,
When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick
Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens;
For anger most it seemed, while now her breast,
Beaten with some great passion at her heart,
Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard
In the dead hush the papers that she held
Rustle: at once the lost lamb at her feet
Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam;
The plaintive cry jarred on her ire; she crushed
The scrolls together, made a sudden turn
As if to speak, but, utterance failing her,
She whirled them on to me, as who should say
'Read,' and I read--two letters--one her sire's.
'Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way,
We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt,
We, conscious of what temper you are built,
Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell
Into his father's hands, who has this night,
You lying close upon his territory,
757
Slipt round and in the dark invested you,
And here he keeps me hostage for his son.'
The second was my father's running thus:
'You have our son: touch not a hair of his head:
Render him up unscathed: give him your hand:
Cleave to your contract: though indeed we hear
You hold the woman is the better man;
A rampant heresy, such as if it spread
Would make all women kick against their Lords
Through all the world, and which might well deserve
That we this night should pluck your palace down;
And we will do it, unless you send us back
Our son, on the instant, whole.'
So far I read;
And then stood up and spoke impetuously.
'O not to pry and peer on your reserve,
But led by golden wishes, and a hope
The child of regal compact, did I break
Your precinct; not a scorner of your sex
But venerator, zealous it should be
All that it might be: hear me, for I bear,
Though man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs,
From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life
Less mine than yours: my nurse would tell me of you;
I babbled for you, as babies for the moon,
Vague brightness; when a boy, you stooped to me
From all high places, lived in all fair lights,
Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south
And blown to inmost north; at eve and dawn
With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods;
The leader wildswan in among the stars
Would clang it, and lapt in wreaths of glowworm light
The mellow breaker murmured Ida. Now,
Because I would have reached you, had you been
Sphered up with Cassiopëia, or the enthroned
Persephonè in Hades, now at length,
Those winters of abeyance all worn out,
A man I came to see you: but indeed,
Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue,
O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait
758
On you, their centre: let me say but this,
That many a famous man and woman, town
And landskip, have I heard of, after seen
The dwarfs of presage: though when known, there grew
Another kind of beauty in detail
Made them worth knowing; but in your I found
My boyish dream involved and dazzled down
And mastered, while that after-beauty makes
Such head from act to act, from hour to hour,
Within me, that except you slay me here,
According to your bitter statute-book,
I cannot cease to follow you, as they say
The seal does music; who desire you more
Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips,
With many thousand matters left to do,
The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth,
Than sick men health--yours, yours, not mine--but half
Without you; with you, whole; and of those halves
You worthiest; and howe'er you block and bar
Your heart with system out from mine, I hold
That it becomes no man to nurse despair,
But in the teeth of clenched antagonisms
To follow up the worthiest till he die:
Yet that I came not all unauthorized
Behold your father's letter.'
On one knee
Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dashed
Unopened at her feet: a tide of fierce
Invective seemed to wait behind her lips,
As waits a river level with the dam
Ready to burst and flood the world with foam:
And so she would have spoken, but there rose
A hubbub in the court of half the maids
Gathered together: from the illumined hall
Long lanes of splendour slanted o'er a press
Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes,
And rainbow robes, and gems and gemlike eyes,
And gold and golden heads; they to and fro
Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale,
All open-mouthed, all gazing to the light,
Some crying there was an army in the land,
And some that men were in the very walls,
759
And some they cared not; till a clamour grew
As of a new-world Babel, woman-built,
And worse-confounded: high above them stood
The placid marble Muses, looking peace.
Not peace she looked, the Head: but rising up
Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so
To the open window moved, remaining there
Fixt like a beacon-tower above the waves
Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye
Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light
Dash themselves dead. She stretched her arms and called
Across the tumult and the tumult fell.
'What fear ye, brawlers? am not I your Head?
On me, me, me, the storm first breaks: ~I~ dare
All these male thunderbolts: what is it ye fear?
Peace! there are those to avenge us and they come:
If not,--myself were like enough, O girls,
To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights,
And clad in iron burst the ranks of war,
Or, falling, promartyr of our cause,
Die: yet I blame you not so much for fear:
Six thousand years of fear have made you that
From which I would redeem you: but for those
That stir this hubbub--you and you--I know
Your faces there in the crowd--tomorrow morn
We hold a great convention: then shall they
That love their voices more than duty, learn
With whom they deal, dismissed in shame to live
No wiser than their mothers, household stuff,
Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame,
Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown,
The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time,
Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels
But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum,
To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour,
For ever slaves at home and fools abroad.'
She, ending, waved her hands: thereat the crowd
Muttering, dissolved: then with a smile, that looked
A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cliff,
760
When all the glens are drowned in azure gloom
Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said:
'You have done well and like a gentleman,
And like a prince: you have our thanks for all:
And you look well too in your woman's dress:
Well have you done and like a gentleman.
You saved our life: we owe you bitter thanks:
Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood-Then men had said--but now--What hinders me
To take such bloody vengeance on you both?-Yet since our father--Wasps in our good hive,
You would-be quenchers of the light to be,
Barbarians, grosser than your native bears-O would I had his sceptre for one hour!
You that have dared to break our bound, and gulled
Our servants, wronged and lied and thwarted us-~I~ wed with thee! ~I~ bound by precontract
Your bride, our bondslave! not though all the gold
That veins the world were packed to make your crown,
And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir,
Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us:
I trample on your offers and on you:
Begone: we will not look upon you more.
Here, push them out at gates.'
In wrath she spake.
Then those eight mighty daughters of the plough
Bent their broad faces toward us and addressed
Their motion: twice I sought to plead my cause,
But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands,
The weight of destiny: so from her face
They pushed us, down the steps, and through the court,
And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates.
We crossed the street and gained a petty mound
Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard the voices murmuring. While I
listened, came
On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt:
I seemed to move among a world of ghosts;
The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard,
The jest and earnest working side by side,
The cataract and the tumult and the kings
761
Were shadows; and the long fantastic night
With all its doings had and had not been,
And all things were and were not.
This went by
As strangely as it came, and on my spirits
Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy;
Not long; I shook it off; for spite of doubts
And sudden ghostly shadowings I was one
To whom the touch of all mischance but came
As night to him that sitting on a hill
Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun
Set into sunrise; then we moved away.
Thy voice is heard through rolling drums,
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands:
A moment, while the trumpets blow,
He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire he meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee.
So Lilia sang: we thought her half-possessed,
She struck such warbling fury through the words;
And, after, feigning pique at what she called
The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime-Like one that wishes at a dance to change
The music--clapt her hands and cried for war,
Or some grand fight to kill and make an end:
And he that next inherited the tale
Half turning to the broken statue, said,
'Sir Ralph has got your colours: if I prove
Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me?'
It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb
Lay by her like a model of her hand.
She took it and she flung it. 'Fight' she said,
'And make us all we would be, great and good.'
He knightlike in his cap instead of casque,
A cap of Tyrol borrowed from the hall,
Arranged the favour, and assumed the Prince.
762
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,#NFDB
1324:BY MICHING MALLECHO, Esq.
Is it a party in a parlour,
Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,
Some sipping punchsome sipping tea;
But, as you by their faces see,
All silent, and alldamned!
Peter Bell, by W. Wordsworth.
Ophelia.What means this, my lord?
Hamlet.Marry, this is Miching Mallecho; it means mischief. ~Shakespeare.
PROLOGUE
Peter Bells, one, two and three,
O'er the wide world wandering be.
First, the antenatal Peter,
Wrapped in weeds of the same metre,
The so-long-predestined raiment
Clothed in which to walk his way meant
The second Peter; whose ambition
Is to link the proposition,
As the mean of two extremes
(This was learned from Aldric's themes)
Shielding from the guilt of schism
The orthodoxal syllogism;
The First Peterhe who was
Like the shadow in the glass
Of the second, yet unripe,
His substantial antitype.
Then came Peter Bell the Second,
Who henceforward must be reckoned
The body of a double soul,
And that portion of the whole
Without which the rest would seem
Ends of a disjointed dream.
And the Third is he who has
O'er the grave been forced to pass
To the other side, which is,
Go and try else,just like this.
Peter Bell the First was Peter
Smugger, milder, softer, neater,
Like the soul before it is
Born from that world into this.
The next Peter Bell was he,
Predevote, like you and me,
To good or evil as may come;
His was the severer doom,
For he was an evil Cotter,
And a polygamic Potter.
And the last is Peter Bell,
Damned since our first parents fell,
Damned eternally to Hell
Surely he deserves it well!
PART THE FIRST
DEATH
And Peter Bell, when he had been
With fresh-imported Hell-fire warmed,
Grew seriousfrom his dress and mien
'Twas very plainly to be seen
Peter was quite reformed.
His eyes turned up, his mouth turned down;
His accent caught a nasal twang;
He oiled his hair; there might be heard
The grace of God in every word
Which Peter said or sang.
But Peter now grew old, and had
An ill no doctor could unravel;
His torments almost drove him mad;
Some said it was a fever bad
Some swore it was the gravel.
His holy friends then came about,
And with long preaching and persuasion
Convinced the patient that, without
The smallest shadow of a doubt,
He was predestined to damnation.
They said'Thy name is Peter Bell;
Thy skin is of a brimstone hue;
Alive or deaday, sick or well
The one God made to rhyme with hell;
The other, I think, rhymes with you.'
Then Peter set up such a yell!
The nurse, who with some water gruel
Was climbing up the stairs, as well
As her old legs could climb themfell,
And broke them boththe fall was cruel.
The Parson from the casement lept
Into the lake of Windermere
And many an eelthough no adept
In God's right reason for itkept
Gnawing his kidneys half a year.
And all the rest rushed through the door,
And tumbled over one another,
And broke their skulls.Upon the floor
Meanwhile sat Peter Bell, and swore,
And cursed his father and his mother;
And raved of God, and sin, and death,
Blaspheming like an infidel;
And said, that with his clenchd teeth
He'd seize the earth from underneath,
And drag it with him down to hell.
As he was speaking came a spasm,
And wrenched his gnashing teeth asunder;
Like one who sees a strange phantasm
He lay,there was a silent chasm
Between his upper jaw and under.
And yellow death lay on his face;
And a fixed smile that was not human
Told, as I understand the case,
That he was gone to the wrong place:
I heard all this from the old woman.
Then there came down from Langdale Pike
A cloud, with lightning, wind and hail;
It swept over the mountains like
An ocean,and I heard it strike
The woods and crags of Grasmere vale.
And I saw the black storm come
Nearer, minute after minute;
Its thunder made the cataracts dumb;
With hiss, and clash, and hollow hum,
It neared as if the Devil was in it.
The Devil was in it:he had bought
Peter for half-a-crown; and when
The storm which bore him vanished, nought
That in the house that storm had caught
Was ever seen again.
The gaping neighbours came next day
They found all vanished from the shore:
The Bible, whence he used to pray,
Half scorched under a hen-coop lay;
Smashed glassand nothing more!
PART THE SECOND
THE DEVIL
The Devil, I safely can aver,
Has neither hoof, nor tail, nor sting;
Nor is he, as some sages swear,
A spirit, neither here nor there,
In nothingyet in everything.
He iswhat we are; for sometimes
The Devil is a gentleman;
At others a bard bartering rhymes
For sack; a statesman spinning crimes;
A swindler, living as he can;
A thief, who cometh in the night,
With whole boots and net pantaloons,
Like some one whom it were not right
To mention;or the luckless wight
From whom he steals nine silver spoons.
But in this case he did appear
Like a slop-merchant from Wapping,
And with smug face, and eye severe,
On every side did perk and peer
Till he saw Peter dead or napping.
He had on an upper Benjamin
(For he was of the driving schism)
In the which he wrapped his skin
From the storm he travelled in,
For fear of rheumatism.
He called the ghost out of the corse;
It was exceedingly like Peter,
Only its voice was hollow and hoarse
It had a queerish look of course
Its dress too was a little neater.
The Devil knew not his name and lot;
Peter knew not that he was Bell:
Each had an upper stream of thought,
Which made all seem as it was not;
Fitting itself to all things well.
Peter thought he had parents dear,
Brothers, sisters, cousins, cronies,
In the fens of Lincolnshire;
He perhaps had found them there
Had he gone and boldly shown his
Solemn phiz in his own village;
Where he thought oft when a boy
He'd clomb the orchard walls to pillage
The produce of his neighbour's tillage,
With marvellous pride and joy.
And the Devil thought he had,
'Mid the misery and confusion
Of an unjust war, just made
A fortune by the gainful trade
Of giving soldiers rations bad
The world is full of strange delusion
That he had a mansion planned
In a square like Grosvenor Square,
That he was aping fashion, and
That he now came to Westmoreland
To see what was romantic there.
And all this, though quite ideal,
Ready at a breath to vanish,
Was a state not more unreal
Than the peace he could not feel,
Or the care he could not banish.
After a little conversation,
The Devil told Peter, if he chose,
He'd bring him to the world of fashion
By giving him a situation
In his own serviceand new clothes.
And Peter bowed, quite pleased and proud,
And after waiting some few days
For a new liverydirty yellow
Turned up with blackthe wretched fellow
Was bowled to Hell in the Devil's chaise.
PART THE THIRD
HELL
Hell is a city much like London
A populous and a smoky city;
There are all sorts of people undone,
And there is little or no fun done;
Small justice shown, and still less pity.
There is a Castles, and a Canning,
A Cobbett, and a Castlereagh;
All sorts of caitiff corpses planning
All sorts of cozening for trepanning
Corpses less corrupt than they.
There is a -, who has lost
His wits, or sold them, none knows which;
He walks about a double ghost,
And though as thin as Fraud almost
Ever grows more grim and rich.
There is a Chancery Court; a King;
A manufacturing mob; a set
Of thieves who by themselves are sent
Similar thieves to represent;
An army; and a public debt.
Which last is a scheme of paper money,
And meansbeing interpreted
'Bees, keep your waxgive us the honey,
And we will plant, while skies are sunny,
Flowers, which in winter serve instead.'
There is a great talk of revolution
And a great chance of despotism
German soldierscampsconfusion
Tumultslotteriesragedelusion
Ginsuicideand methodism;
Taxes too, on wine and bread,
And meat, and beer, and tea, and cheese,
From which those patriots pure are fed,
Who gorge before they reel to bed
The tenfold essence of all these.
There are mincing women, mewing,
(Like cats, who amant miser,)
Of their own virtue, and pursuing
Their gentler sisters to that ruin,
Without whichwhat were chastity?
Lawyersjudgesold hobnobbers
Are therebailiffschancellors
Bishopsgreat and little robbers
Rhymesterspamphleteersstock-jobbers
Men of glory in the wars,
Things whose trade is, over ladies
To lean, and flirt, and stare, and simper,
Till all that is divine in woman
Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman,
Crucified 'twixt a smile and whimper.
Thrusting, toiling, wailing, moiling,
Frowning, preachingsuch a riot!
Each with never-ceasing labour,
Whilst he thinks he cheats his neighbour,
Cheating his own heart of quiet.
And all these meet at levees;
Dinners convivial and political;
Suppers of epic poets;teas,
Where small talk dies in agonies;
Breakfasts professional and critical;
Lunches and snacks so aldermanic
That one would furnish forth ten dinners,
Where reigns a Cretan-tongud panic,
Lest news Russ, Dutch, or Alemannic
Should make some losers, and some winners;
At conversazioniballs
Conventiclesand drawing-rooms
Courts of lawcommitteescalls
Of a morningclubsbook-stalls
Churchesmasqueradesand tombs.
And this is Helland in this smother
All are damnable and damned;
Each one damning, damns the other
They are damned by one another,
By none other are they damned.
'Tis a lie to say, 'God damns!'
Where was Heaven's Attorney General
When they first gave out such flams?
Let there be an end of shams,
They are mines of poisonous mineral.
Statesmen damn themselves to be
Cursed; and lawyers damn their souls
To the auction of a fee;
Churchmen damn themselves to see
God's sweet love in burning coals.
The rich are damned, beyond all cure,
To taunt, and starve, and trample on
The weak and wretched; and the poor
Damn their broken hearts to endure
Stripe on stripe, with groan on groan.
Sometimes the poor are damned indeed
To take,not means for being blessed,
But Cobbett's snuff, revenge; that weed
From which the worms that it doth feed
Squeeze less than they before possessed.
And some few, like we know who,
Damnedbut God alone knows why
To believe their minds are given
To make this ugly Hell a Heaven;
In which faith they live and die.
Thus, as in a town, plague-stricken,
Each man be he sound or no
Must indifferently sicken;
As when day begins to thicken,
None knows a pigeon from a crow,
So good and bad, sane and mad,
The oppressor and the oppressed;
Those who weep to see what others
Smile to inflict upon their brothers;
Lovers, haters, worst and best;
All are damnedthey breathe an air,
Thick, infected, joy-dispelling:
Each pursues what seems most fair,
Mining like moles, through mind, and there
Scoop palace-caverns vast, where Care
In thrond state is ever dwelling.
PART THE FOURTH
SIN
Lo, Peter in Hell's Grosvenor Square,
A footman in the Devil's service!
And the misjudging world would swear
That every man in service there
To virtue would prefer vice.
But Peter, though now damned, was not
What Peter was before damnation.
Men oftentimes prepare a lot
Which ere it finds them, is not what
Suits with their genuine station.
All things that Peter saw and felt
Had a peculiar aspect to him;
And when they came within the belt
Of his own nature, seemed to melt,
Like cloud to cloud, into him.
And so the outward world uniting
To that within him, he became
Considerably uninviting
To those who, meditation slighting,
Were moulded in a different frame.
And he scorned them, and they scorned him;
And he scorned all they did; and they
Did all that men of their own trim
Are wont to do to please their whim,
Drinking, lying, swearing, play.
Such were his fellow-servants; thus
His virtue, like our own, was built
Too much on that indignant fuss
Hypocrite Pride stirs up in us
To bully one another's guilt.
He had a mind which was somehow
At once circumference and centre
Of all he might or feel or know;
Nothing went ever out, although
Something did ever enter.
He had as much imagination
As a pint-pot;he never could
Fancy another situation,
From which to dart his contemplation,
Than that wherein he stood.
Yet his was individual mind,
And new created all he saw
In a new manner, and refined
Those new creations, and combined
Them, by a master-spirit's law.
Thusthough unimaginative
An apprehension clear, intense,
Of his mind's work, had made alive
The things it wrought on; I believe
Wakening a sort of thought in sense.
But from the first 'twas Peter's drift
To be a kind of moral eunuch,
He touched the hem of Nature's shift,
Felt faintand never dared uplift
The closest, all-concealing tunic.
She laughed the while, with an arch smile,
And kissed him with a sister's kiss,
And said'My best Diogenes,
I love you wellbut, if you please,
Tempt not again my deepest bliss.
''Tis you are coldfor I, not coy,
Yield love for love, frank, warm, and true;
And Burns, a Scottish peasant boy
His errors prove itknew my joy
More, learnd friend, than you.
'Bocca bacciata non perde ventura,
Anzi rinnuova come fa la luna:
So thought Boccaccio, whose sweet words might cure a
Male prude, like you, from what you now endure, a
Low-tide in soul, like a stagnant laguna.'
Then Peter rubbed his eyes severe,
And smoothed his spacious forehead down
With his broad palm;'twixt love and fear,
He looked, as he no doubt felt, queer,
And in his dream sate down.
The Devil was no uncommon creature;
A leaden-witted thiefjust huddled
Out of the dross and scum of nature;
A toad-like lump of limb and feature,
With mind, and heart, and fancy muddled.
He was that heavy, dull, cold thing,
The spirit of evil well may be:
A drone too base to have a sting;
Who gluts, and grimes his lazy wing,
And calls lust, luxury.
Now he was quite the kind of wight
Round whom collect, at a fixed aera,
Venison, turtle, hock, and claret,
Good cheerand those who come to share it
And best East Indian madeira!
It was his fancy to invite
Men of science, wit, and learning,
Who came to lend each other light;
He proudly thought that his gold's might
Had set those spirits burning.
And men of learning, science, wit,
Considered him as you and I
Think of some rotten tree, and sit
Lounging and dining under it,
Exposed to the wide sky.
And all the while, with loose fat smile,
The willing wretch sat winking there,
Believing 'twas his power that made
That jovial sceneand that all paid
Homage to his unnoticed chair.
Though to be sure this place was Hell;
He was the Deviland all they
What though the claret circled well,
And wit, like ocean, rose and fell?
Were damned eternally.
PART THE FIFTH
GRACE
Among the guests who often stayed
Till the Devil's petits-soupers,
A man there came, fair as a maid,
And Peter noted what he said,
Standing behind his master's chair.
He was a mighty poetand
A subtle-souled psychologist;
All things he seemed to understand,
Of old or newof sea or land
But his own mindwhich was a mist.
This was a man who might have turned
Hell into Heavenand so in gladness
A Heaven unto himself have earned;
But he in shadows undiscerned
Trusted,and damned himself to madness.
He spoke of poetry, and how
'Divine it wasa lighta love
A spirit which like wind doth blow
As it listeth, to and fro;
A dew rained down from God above;
'A power which comes and goes like dream,
And which none can ever trace
Heaven's light on earthTruth's brightest beam.'
And when he ceased there lay the gleam
Of those words upon his face.
Now Peter, when he heard such talk,
Would, heedless of a broken pate,
Stand like a man asleep, or balk
Some wishing guest of knife or fork,
Or drop and break his master's plate.
At night he oft would start and wake
Like a lover, and began
In a wild measure songs to make
On moor, and glen, and rocky lake,
And on the heart of man
And on the universal sky
And the wide earth's bosom green,
And the sweet, strange mystery
Of what beyond these things may lie,
And yet remain unseen.
For in his thought he visited
The spots in which, ere dead and damned,
He his wayward life had led;
Yet knew not whence the thoughts were fed
Which thus his fancy crammed.
And these obscure remembrances
Stirred such harmony in Peter,
That, whensoever he should please,
He could speak of rocks and trees
In poetic metre.
For though it was without a sense
Of memory, yet he remembered well
Many a ditch and quick-set fence;
Of lakes he had intelligence,
He knew something of heath and fell.
He had also dim recollections
Of pedlars tramping on their rounds;
Milk-pans and pails; and odd collections
Of saws, and proverbs; and reflections
Old parsons make in burying-grounds.
But Peter's verse was clear, and came
Announcing from the frozen hearth
Of a cold age, that none might tame
The soul of that diviner flame
It augured to the Earth:
Like gentle rains, on the dry plains,
Making that green which late was gray,
Or like the sudden moon, that stains
Some gloomy chamber's window-panes
With a broad light like day.
For language was in Peter's hand
Like clay while he was yet a potter;
And he made songs for all the land,
Sweet both to feel and understand,
As pipkins late to mountain Cotter.
And Mr. -, the bookseller,
Gave twenty pounds for some;then scorning
A footman's yellow coat to wear,
Peter, too proud of heart, I fear,
Instantly gave the Devil warning.
Whereat the Devil took offence,
And swore in his soul a great oath then,
'That for his damned impertinence
He'd bring him to a proper sense
Of what was due to gentlemen!'
PART THE SIXTH
DAMNATION
'O that mine enemy had written
A book!'cried Job:a fearful curse,
If to the Arab, as the Briton,
'Twas galling to be critic-bitten:
The Devil to Peter wished no worse.
When Peter's next new book found vent,
The Devil to all the first Reviews
A copy of it slyly sent,
With five-pound note as compliment,
And this short notice'Pray abuse.'
Then seriatim, month and quarter,
Appeared such mad tirades.One said
'Peter seduced Mrs. Foy's daughter,
Then drowned the mother in Ullswater,
The last thing as he went to bed.'
Another'Let him shave his head!
Where's Dr. Willis?Or is he joking?
What does the rascal mean or hope,
No longer imitating Pope,
In that barbarian Shakespeare poking?'
One more, 'Is incest not enough?
And must there be adultery too?
Grace after meat? Miscreant and Liar!
Thief! Blackguard! Scoundrel! Fool! Hell-fire
Is twenty times too good for you.
'By that last book of yours we think
You've double damned yourself to scorn;
We warned you whilst yet on the brink
You stood. From your black name will shrink
The babe that is unborn.'
All these Reviews the Devil made
Up in a parcel, which he had
Safely to Peter's house conveyed.
For carriage, tenpence Peter paid
Untied themread themwent half mad.
'What!' cried he, 'this is my reward
For nights of thought, and days of toil?
Do poets, but to be abhorred
By men of whom they never heard,
Consume their spirits' oil?
'What have I done to them?and who
Is Mrs. Foy? 'Tis very cruel
To speak of me and Betty so!
Adultery! God defend me! Oh!
I've half a mind to fight a duel.
'Or,' cried he, a grave look collecting,
'Is it my genius, like the moon,
Sets those who stand her face inspecting,
That face within their brain reflecting,
Like a crazed bell-chime, out of tune?'
For Peter did not know the town,
But thought, as country readers do,
For half a guinea or a crown,
He bought oblivion or renown
From God's own voice in a review.
All Peter did on this occasion
Was, writing some sad stuff in prose.
It is a dangerous invasion
When poets criticize; their station
Is to delight, not pose.
The Devil then sent to Leipsic fair
For Born's translation of Kant's book;
A world of words, tail foremost, where
Rightwrongfalsetrueand fouland fair
As in a lottery-wheel are shook.
Five thousand crammed octavo pages
Of German psychologics,he
Who his furor verborum assuages
Thereon, deserves just seven months' wages
More than will e'er be due to me.
I looked on them nine several days,
And then I saw that they were bad;
A friend, too, spoke in their dispraise,
He never read them;with amaze
I found Sir William Drummond had.
When the book came, the Devil sent
It to P. Verbovale, Esquire,
With a brief note of compliment,
By that night's Carlisle mail. It went,
And set his soul on fire.
Fire, which ex luce praebens fumum,
Made him beyond the bottom see
Of truth's clear wellwhen I and you, Ma'am,
Go, as we shall do, subter humum,
We may know more than he.
Now Peter ran to seed in soul
Into a walking paradox;
For he was neither part nor whole,
Nor good, nor badnor knave nor fool;
Among the woods and rocks
Furious he rode, where late he ran,
Lashing and spurring his tame hobby;
Turned to a formal puritan,
A solemn and unsexual man,
He half believed White Obi.
This steed in vision he would ride,
High trotting over nine-inch bridges,
With Flibbertigibbet, imp of pride,
Mocking and mowing by his side
A mad-brained goblin for a guide
Over corn-fields, gates, and hedges.
After these ghastly rides, he came
Home to his heart, and found from thence
Much stolen of its accustomed flame;
His thoughts grew weak, drowsy, and lame
Of their intelligence.
To Peter's view, all seemed one hue;
He was no Whig, he was no Tory;
No Deist and no Christian he;
He got so subtle, that to be
Nothing, was all his glory.
One single point in his belief
From his organization sprung,
The heart-enrooted faith, the chief
Ear in his doctrines' blighted sheaf,
That 'Happiness is wrong';
So thought Calvin and Dominic;
So think their fierce successors, who
Even now would neither stint nor stick
Our flesh from off our bones to pick,
If they might 'do their do.'
His morals thus were undermined:
The old Peterthe hard, old Potter
Was born anew within his mind;
He grew dull, harsh, sly, unrefined,
As when he tramped beside the Otter.
In the death hues of agony
Lambently flashing from a fish,
Now Peter felt amused to see
Shades like a rainbow's rise and flee,
Mixed with a certain hungry wish.
So in his Country's dying face
He lookedand, lovely as she lay,
Seeking in vain his last embrace,
Wailing her own abandoned case,
With hardened sneer he turned away:
And coolly to his own soul said;
'Do you not think that we might make
A poem on her when she's dead:
Or, noa thought is in my head
Her shroud for a new sheet I'll take:
'My wife wants one.Let who will bury
This mangled corpse! And I and you,
My dearest Soul, will then make merry,
As the Prince Regent did with Sherry,'
'Ayand at last desert me too.'
And so his Soul would not be gay,
But moaned within him; like a fawn
Moaning within a cave, it lay
Wounded and wasting, day by day,
Till all its life of life was gone.
As troubled skies stain waters clear,
The storm in Peter's heart and mind
Now made his verses dark and queer:
They were the ghosts of what they were,
Shaking dim grave-clothes in the wind.
For he now raved enormous folly,
Of Baptisms, Sunday-schools, and Graves,
'Twould make George Colman melancholy
To have heard him, like a male Molly,
Chanting those stupid staves.
Yet the Reviews, who heaped abuse
On Peter while he wrote for freedom,
So soon as in his song they spy
The folly which soothes tyranny,
Praise him, for those who feed 'em.
'He was a man, too great to scan;
A planet lost in truth's keen rays:
His virtue, awful and prodigious;
He was the most sublime, religious,
Pure-minded Poet of these days.'
As soon as he read that, cried Peter,
'Eureka! I have found the way
To make a better thing of metre
Than e'er was made by living creature
Up to this blessd day.'
Then Peter wrote odes to the Devil;
In one of which he meekly said:
'May Carnage and Slaughter,
Thy niece and thy daughter,
May Rapine and Famine,
Thy gorge ever cramming,
Glut thee with living and dead!
'May Death and Damnation,
And Consternation,
Flit up from Hell with pure intent!
Slash them at Manchester,
Glasgow, Leeds, and Chester;
Drench all with blood from Avon to Trent.
'Let thy body-guard yeomen
Hew down babes and women,
And laugh with bold triumph till Heaven be rent!
When Moloch in Jewry
Munched children with fury,
It was thou, Devil, dining with pure intent.'
PART THE SEVENTH
DOUBLE DAMNATION
The Devil now knew his proper cue.
Soon as he read the ode, he drove
To his friend Lord MacMurderchouse's,
A man of interest in both houses,
And said:'For money or for love,
'Pray find some cure or sinecure;
To feed from the superfluous taxes
A friend of oursa poetfewer
Have fluttered tamer to the lure
Than he.' His lordship stands and racks his
Stupid brains, while one might count
As many beads as he had boroughs,
At length replies; from his mean front,
Like one who rubs out an account,
Smoothing away the unmeaning furrows:
'It happens fortunately, dear Sir,
I can. I hope I need require
No pledge from you, that he will stir
In our affairs;like Oliver,
That he'll be worthy of his hire.'
These words exchanged, the news sent off
To Peter, home the Devil hied,
Took to his bed; he had no cough,
No doctor,meat and drink enough,
Yet that same night he died.
The Devil's corpse was leaded down;
His decent heirs enjoyed his pelf,
Mourning-coaches, many a one,
Followed his hearse along the town:
Where was the Devil himself?
When Peter heard of his promotion,
His eyes grew like two stars for bliss:
There was a bow of sleek devotion
Engendering in his back; each motion
Seemed a Lord's shoe to kiss.
He hired a house, bought plate, and made
A genteel drive up to his door,
With sifted gravel neatly laid,
As if defying all who said,
Peter was ever poor.
But a disease soon struck into
The very life and soul of Peter
He walked aboutslepthad the hue
Of health upon his cheeksand few
Dug betternone a heartier eater.
And yet a strange and horrid curse
Clung upon Peter, night and day;
Month after month the thing grew worse,
And deadlier than in this my verse
I can find strength to say.
Peter was dullhe was at first
Dulloh, so dullso very dull!
Whether he talked, wrote, or rehearsed
Still with this dulness was he cursed
Dullbeyond all conceptiondull.
No one could read his booksno mortal,
But a few natural friends, would hear him;
The parson came not near his portal;
His state was like that of the immortal
Described by Swiftno man could bear him.
His sister, wife, and children yawned,
With a long, slow, and drear ennui,
All human patience far beyond;
Their hopes of Heaven each would have pawned,
Anywhere else to be.
But in his verse, and in his prose,
The essence of his dulness was
Concentred and compressed so close,
'Twould have made Guatimozin doze
On his red gridiron of brass.
A printer's boy, folding those pages,
Fell slumbrously upon one side;
Like those famed Seven who slept three ages.
To wakeful frenzy's vigil-rages,
As opiates, were the same applied.
Even the Reviewers who were hired
To do the work of his reviewing,
With adamantine nerves, grew tired;
Gaping and torpid they retired,
To dream of what they should be doing.
And worse and worse, the drowsy curse
Yawned in him, till it grew a pest
A wide contagious atmosphere,
Creeping like cold through all things near;
A power to infect and to infest.
His servant-maids and dogs grew dull;
His kitten, late a sportive elf;
The woods and lakes, so beautiful,
Of dim stupidity were full,
All grew dull as Peter's self.
The earth under his feetthe springs,
Which lived within it a quick life,
The air, the winds of many wings,
That fan it with new murmurings,
Were dead to their harmonious strife.
The birds and beasts within the wood,
The insects, and each creeping thing,
Were now a silent multitude;
Love's work was left unwroughtno brood
Near Peter's house took wing.
And every neighbouring cottager
Stupidly yawned upon the other:
No jackass brayed; no little cur
Cocked up his ears;no man would stir
To save a dying mother.
Yet all from that charmed district went
But some half-idiot and half-knave,
Who rather than pay any rent,
Would live with marvellous content,
Over his father's grave.
No bailiff dared within that space,
For fear of the dull charm, to enter;
A man would bear upon his face,
For fifteen months in any case,
The yawn of such a venture.
Seven miles abovebelowaround
This pest of dulness holds its sway;
A ghastly life without a sound;
To Peter's soul the spell is bound
How should it ever pass away?
'Composed at Florence, October 1819, and forwarded to Hunt (Nov. 2) to be published by C. & J. Ollier without the author's name; ultimately printed by Mrs. Shelley in the second edition of the Poetical Works, 1839. A skit by John Hamilton Reynolds, Peter Bell, A Lyrical Ballad, had already appeared (April, 1819), a few days before the publication of Wordsworth's Peter Bell, A Tale. These productions were reviewed in Leigh Hunt's Examiner (April 26, May 3, 1819); and to the entertainment derived from his perusal of Hunt's criticisms the composition of Shelley's Peter Bell the Third is chiefly owing.' ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Peter Bell The Third
,#NFDB
1325:The Great Adventure Of Max Breuck
A yellow band of light upon the street
Pours from an open door, and makes a wide
Pathway of bright gold across a sheet
Of calm and liquid moonshine. From inside
Come shouts and streams of laughter, and a snatch
Of song, soon drowned and lost again in mirth,
The clip of tankards on a table top,
And stir of booted heels. Against the patch
Of candle-light a shadow falls, its girth
Proclaims the host himself, and master of his shop.
This is the tavern of one Hilverdink,
Jan Hilverdink, whose wines are much esteemed.
Within his cellar men can have to drink
The rarest cordials old monks ever schemed
To coax from pulpy grapes, and with nice art
Improve and spice their virgin juiciness.
Here froths the amber beer of many a brew,
Crowning each pewter tankard with as smart
A cap as ever in his wantonness
Winter set glittering on top of an old yew.
Tall candles stand upon the table, where
Are twisted glasses, ruby-sparked with wine,
Clarets and ports. Those topaz bumpers were
Drained from slim, long-necked bottles of the Rhine.
The centre of the board is piled with pipes,
Slender and clean, the still unbaptized clay
Awaits its burning fate. Behind, the vault
Stretches from dim to dark, a groping way
Bordered by casks and puncheons, whose brass stripes
326
And bands gleam dully still, beyond the gay tumult.
'For good old Master Hilverdink, a toast!'
Clamoured a youth with tassels on his boots.
'Bring out your oldest brandy for a boast,
From that small barrel in the very roots
Of your deep cellar, man. Why here is Max!
Ho! Welcome, Max, you're scarcely here in time.
We want to drink to old Jan's luck, and smoke
His best tobacco for a grand climax.
Here, Jan, a paper, fragrant as crushed thyme,
We'll have the best to wish you luck, or may we choke!'
Max Breuck unclasped his broadcloth cloak, and sat.
'Well thought of, Franz; here's luck to Mynheer Jan.'
The host set down a jar; then to a vat
Lost in the distance of his cellar, ran.
Max took a pipe as graceful as the stem
Of some long tulip, crammed it full, and drew
The pungent smoke deep to his grateful lung.
It curled all blue throughout the cave and flew
Into the silver night. At once there flung
Into the crowded shop a boy, who cried to them:
'Oh, sirs, is there some learned lawyer here,
Some advocate, or all-wise counsellor?
My master sent me to inquire where
Such men do mostly be, but every door
Was shut and barred, for late has grown the hour.
I pray you tell me where I may now find
One versed in law, the matter will not wait.'
'I am a lawyer, boy,' said Max, 'my mind
Is not locked to my business, though 'tis late.
327
I shall be glad to serve what way is in my power.
Then once more, cloaked and ready, he set out,
Tripping the footsteps of the eager boy
Along the dappled cobbles, while the rout
Within the tavern jeered at his employ.
Through new-burst elm leaves filtered the white moon,
Who peered and splashed between the twinkling boughs,
Flooded the open spaces, and took flight
Before tall, serried houses in platoon,
Guarded by shadows. Past the Custom House
They took their hurried way in the Spring-scented night.
Before a door which fronted a canal
The boy halted. A dim tree-shaded spot.
The water lapped the stones in musical
And rhythmic tappings, and a galliot
Slumbered at anchor with no light aboard.
The boy knocked twice, and steps approached. A flame
Winked through the keyhole, then a key was turned,
And through the open door Max went toward
Another door, whence sound of voices came.
He entered a large room where candelabra burned.
An aged man in quilted dressing gown
Rose up to greet him. 'Sir,' said Max, 'you sent
Your messenger to seek throughout the town
A lawyer. I have small accomplishment,
But I am at your service, and my name
Is Max Breuck, Counsellor, at your command.'
'Mynheer,' replied the aged man, 'obliged
Am I, and count myself much privileged.
I am Cornelius Kurler, and my fame
328
Is better known on distant oceans than on land.
10
My ship has tasted water in strange seas,
And bartered goods at still uncharted isles.
She's oft coquetted with a tropic breeze,
And sheered off hurricanes with jaunty smiles.'
'Tush, Kurler,' here broke in the other man,
'Enough of poetry, draw the deed and sign.'
The old man seemed to wizen at the voice,
'My good friend, Grootver, --' he at once began.
'No introductions, let us have some wine,
And business, now that you at last have made your choice.'
11
A harsh and disagreeable man he proved to be,
This Grootver, with no single kindly thought.
Kurler explained, his old hands nervously
Twisting his beard. His vessel he had bought
From Grootver. He had thought to soon repay
The ducats borrowed, but an adverse wind
Had so delayed him that his cargo brought
But half its proper price, the very day
He came to port he stepped ashore to find
The market glutted and his counted profits naught.
12
Little by little Max made out the way
That Grootver pressed that poor harassed old man.
His money he must have, too long delay
Had turned the usurer to a ruffian.
'But let me take my ship, with many bales
Of cotton stuffs dyed crimson, green, and blue,
Cunningly patterned, made to suit the taste
Of mandarin's ladies; when my battered sails
Open for home, such stores will I bring you
329
That all your former ventures will be counted waste.
13
Such light and foamy silks, like crinkled cream,
And indigo more blue than sun-whipped seas,
Spices and fragrant trees, a massive beam
Of sandalwood, and pungent China teas,
Tobacco, coffee!' Grootver only laughed.
Max heard it all, and worse than all he heard
The deed to which the sailor gave his word.
He shivered, 'twas as if the villain gaffed
The old man with a boat-hook; bleeding, spent,
He begged for life nor knew at all the road he went.
14
For Kurler had a daughter, young and gay,
Carefully reared and shielded, rarely seen.
But on one black and most unfriendly day
Grootver had caught her as she passed between
The kitchen and the garden. She had run
In fear of him, his evil leering eye,
And when he came she, bolted in her room,
Refused to show, though gave no reason why.
The spinning of her future had begun,
On quiet nights she heard the whirring of her doom.
15
Max mended an old goosequill by the fire,
Loathing his work, but seeing no thing to do.
He felt his hands were building up the pyre
To burn two souls, and seized with vertigo
He staggered to his chair. Before him lay
White paper still unspotted by a crime.
'Now, young man, write,' said Grootver in his ear.
'`If in two years my vessel should yet stay
From Amsterdam, I give Grootver, sometime
330
A friend, my daughter for his lawful wife.' Now swear.'
16
And Kurler swore, a palsied, tottering sound,
And traced his name, a shaking, wandering line.
Then dazed he sat there, speechless from his wound.
Grootver got up: 'Fair voyage, the brigantine!'
He shuffled from the room, and left the house.
His footsteps wore to silence down the street.
At last the aged man began to rouse.
With help he once more gained his trembling feet.
'My daughter, Mynheer Breuck, is friendless now.
Will you watch over her? I ask a solemn vow.'
17
Max laid his hand upon the old man's arm,
'Before God, sir, I vow, when you are gone,
So to protect your daughter from all harm
As one man may.' Thus sorrowful, forlorn,
The situation to Max Breuck appeared,
He gave his promise almost without thought,
Nor looked to see a difficulty. 'Bred
Gently to watch a mother left alone;
Bound by a dying father's wish, who feared
The world's accustomed harshness when he should be dead;
18
Such was my case from youth, Mynheer Kurler.
Last Winter she died also, and my days
Are passed in work, lest I should grieve for her,
And undo habits used to earn her praise.
My leisure I will gladly give to see
Your household and your daughter prosperous.'
The sailor said his thanks, but turned away.
He could not brook that his humility,
So little wonted, and so tremulous,
331
Should first before a stranger make such great display.
19
'Come here to-morrow as the bells ring noon,
I sail at the full sea, my daughter then
I will make known to you. 'Twill be a boon
If after I have bid good-by, and when
Her eyeballs scorch with watching me depart,
You bring her home again. She lives with one
Old serving-woman, who has brought her up.
But that is no friend for so free a heart.
No head to match her questions. It is done.
And I must sail away to come and brim her cup.
20
My ship's the fastest that owns Amsterdam
As home, so not a letter can you send.
I shall be back, before to where I am
Another ship could reach. Now your stipend --'
Quickly Breuck interposed. 'When you once more
Tread on the stones which pave our streets. -- Good night!
To-morrow I will be, at stroke of noon,
At the great wharf.' Then hurrying, in spite
Of cake and wine the old man pressed upon
Him ere he went, he took his leave and shut the door.
21
'Twas noon in Amsterdam, the day was clear,
And sunshine tipped the pointed roofs with gold.
The brown canals ran liquid bronze, for here
The sun sank deep into the waters cold.
And every clock and belfry in the town
Hammered, and struck, and rang. Such peals of bells,
To shake the sunny morning into life,
And to proclaim the middle, and the crown,
Of this most sparkling daytime! The crowd swells,
332
Laughing and pushing toward the quays in friendly strife.
22
The 'Horn of Fortune' sails away to-day.
At highest tide she lets her anchor go,
And starts for China. Saucy popinjay!
Giddy in freshest paint she curtseys low,
And beckons to her boats to let her start.
Blue is the ocean, with a flashing breeze.
The shining waves are quick to take her part.
They push and spatter her. Her sails are loose,
Her tackles hanging, waiting men to seize
And haul them taut, with chanty-singing, as they choose.
23
At the great wharf's edge Mynheer Kurler stands,
And by his side, his daughter, young Christine.
Max Breuck is there, his hat held in his hands,
Bowing before them both. The brigantine
Bounces impatient at the long delay,
Curvets and jumps, a cable's length from shore.
A heavy galliot unloads on the walls
Round, yellow cheeses, like gold cannon balls
Stacked on the stones in pyramids. Once more
Kurler has kissed Christine, and now he is away.
24
Christine stood rigid like a frozen stone,
Her hands wrung pale in effort at control.
Max moved aside and let her be alone,
For grief exacts each penny of its toll.
The dancing boat tossed on the glinting sea.
A sun-path swallowed it in flaming light,
Then, shrunk a cockleshell, it came again
Upon the other side. Now on the lee
It took the 'Horn of Fortune'. Straining sight
333
Could see it hauled aboard, men pulling on the crane.
25
Then up above the eager brigantine,
Along her slender masts, the sails took flight,
Were sheeted home, and ropes were coiled. The shine
Of the wet anchor, when its heavy weight
Rose splashing to the deck. These things they saw,
Christine and Max, upon the crowded quay.
They saw the sails grow white, then blue in shade,
The ship had turned, caught in a windy flaw
She glided imperceptibly away,
Drew farther off and in the bright sky seemed to fade.
26
Home, through the emptying streets, Max took Christine,
Who would have hid her sorrow from his gaze.
Before the iron gateway, clasped between
Each garden wall, he stopped. She, in amaze,
Asked, 'Do you enter not then, Mynheer Breuck?
My father told me of your courtesy.
Since I am now your charge, 'tis meet for me
To show such hospitality as maiden may,
Without disdaining rules must not be broke.
Katrina will have coffee, and she bakes today.'
27
She straight unhasped the tall, beflowered gate.
Curled into tendrils, twisted into cones
Of leaves and roses, iron infoliate,
It guards the pleasance, and its stiffened bones
Are budded with much peering at the rows,
And beds, and arbours, which it keeps inside.
Max started at the beauty, at the glare
Of tints. At either end was set a wide
Path strewn with fine, red gravel, and such shows
334
Of tulips in their splendour flaunted everywhere!
28
From side to side, midway each path, there ran
A longer one which cut the space in two.
And, like a tunnel some magician
Has wrought in twinkling green, an alley grew,
Pleached thick and walled with apple trees; their flowers
Incensed the garden, and when Autumn came
The plump and heavy apples crowding stood
And tapped against the arbour. Then the dame
Katrina shook them down, in pelting showers
They plunged to earth, and died transformed to sugared food.
29
Against the high, encircling walls were grapes,
Nailed close to feel the baking of the sun
From glowing bricks. Their microscopic shapes
Half hidden by serrated leaves. And one
Old cherry tossed its branches near the door.
Bordered along the wall, in beds between,
Flickering, streaming, nodding in the air,
The pride of all the garden, there were more
Tulips than Max had ever dreamed or seen.
They jostled, mobbed, and danced. Max stood at helpless stare.
30
'Within the arbour, Mynheer Breuck, I'll bring
Coffee and cakes, a pipe, and Father's best
Tobacco, brought from countries harbouring
Dawn's earliest footstep. Wait.' With girlish zest
To please her guest she flew. A moment more
She came again, with her old nurse behind.
Then, sitting on the bench and knitting fast,
She talked as someone with a noble store
Of hidden fancies, blown upon the wind,
335
Eager to flutter forth and leave their silent past.
31
The little apple leaves above their heads
Let fall a quivering sunshine. Quiet, cool,
In blossomed boughs they sat. Beyond, the beds
Of tulips blazed, a proper vestibule
And antechamber to the rainbow. Dyes
Of prismed richness: Carmine. Madder. Blues
Tinging dark browns to purple. Silvers flushed
To amethyst and tinct with gold. Round eyes
Of scarlet, spotting tender saffron hues.
Violets sunk to blacks, and reds in orange crushed.
32
Of every pattern and in every shade.
Nacreous, iridescent, mottled, checked.
Some purest sulphur-yellow, others made
An ivory-white with disks of copper flecked.
Sprinkled and striped, tasselled, or keenest edged.
Striated, powdered, freckled, long or short.
They bloomed, and seemed strange wonder-moths new-fledged,
Born of the spectrum wedded to a flame.
The shade within the arbour made a port
To o'ertaxed eyes, its still, green twilight rest became.
33
Her knitting-needles clicked and Christine talked,
This child matured to woman unaware,
The first time left alone. Now dreams once balked
Found utterance. Max thought her very fair.
Beneath her cap her ornaments shone gold,
And purest gold they were. Kurler was rich
And heedful. Her old maiden aunt had died
Whose darling care she was. Now, growing bold,
She asked, had Max a sister? Dropped a stitch
336
At her own candour. Then she paused and softly sighed.
34
Two years was long! She loved her father well,
But fears she had not. He had always been
Just sailed or sailing. And she must not dwell
On sad thoughts, he had told her so, and seen
Her smile at parting. But she sighed once more.
Two years was long; 'twas not one hour yet!
Mynheer Grootver she would not see at all.
Yes, yes, she knew, but ere the date so set,
The 'Horn of Fortune' would be at the wall.
When Max had bid farewell, she watched him from the door.
35
The next day, and the next, Max went to ask
The health of Jufvrouw Kurler, and the news:
Another tulip blown, or the great task
Of gathering petals which the high wind strews;
The polishing of floors, the pictured tiles
Well scrubbed, and oaken chairs most deftly oiled.
Such things were Christine's world, and his was she
Winter drew near, his sun was in her smiles.
Another Spring, and at his law he toiled,
Unspoken hope counselled a wise efficiency.
36
Max Breuck was honour's soul, he knew himself
The guardian of this girl; no more, no less.
As one in charge of guineas on a shelf
Loose in a china teapot, may confess
His need, but may not borrow till his friend
Comes back to give. So Max, in honour, said
No word of love or marriage; but the days
He clipped off on his almanac. The end
Must come! The second year, with feet of lead,
337
Lagged slowly by till Spring had plumped the willow sprays.
37
Two years had made Christine a woman grown,
With dignity and gently certain pride.
But all her childhood fancies had not flown,
Her thoughts in lovely dreamings seemed to glide.
Max was her trusted friend, did she confess
A closer happiness? Max could not tell.
Two years were over and his life he found
Sphered and complete. In restless eagerness
He waited for the 'Horn of Fortune'. Well
Had he his promise kept, abating not one pound.
38
Spring slipped away to Summer. Still no glass
Sighted the brigantine. Then Grootver came
Demanding Jufvrouw Kurler. His trespass
Was justified, for he had won the game.
Christine begged time, more time! Midsummer went,
And Grootver waxed impatient. Still the ship
Tarried. Christine, betrayed and weary, sank
To dreadful terrors. One day, crazed, she sent
For Max. 'Come quickly,' said her note, 'I skip
The worst distress until we meet. The world is blank.'
39
Through the long sunshine of late afternoon
Max went to her. In the pleached alley, lost
In bitter reverie, he found her soon.
And sitting down beside her, at the cost
Of all his secret, 'Dear,' said he, 'what thing
So suddenly has happened?' Then, in tears,
She told that Grootver, on the following morn,
Would come to marry her, and shuddering:
'I will die rather, death has lesser fears.'
338
Max felt the shackles drop from the oath which he had sworn.
40
'My Dearest One, the hid joy of my heart!
I love you, oh! you must indeed have known.
In strictest honour I have played my part;
But all this misery has overthrown
My scruples. If you love me, marry me
Before the sun has dipped behind those trees.
You cannot be wed twice, and Grootver, foiled,
Can eat his anger. My care it shall be
To pay your father's debt, by such degrees
As I can compass, and for years I've greatly toiled.
41
This is not haste, Christine, for long I've known
My love, and silence forced upon my lips.
I worship you with all the strength I've shown
In keeping faith.' With pleading finger tips
He touched her arm. 'Christine! Beloved! Think.
Let us not tempt the future. Dearest, speak,
I love you. Do my words fall too swift now?
They've been in leash so long upon the brink.'
She sat quite still, her body loose and weak.
Then into him she melted, all her soul at flow.
42
And they were married ere the westering sun
Had disappeared behind the garden trees.
The evening poured on them its benison,
And flower-scents, that only night-time frees,
Rose up around them from the beamy ground,
Silvered and shadowed by a tranquil moon.
Within the arbour, long they lay embraced,
In such enraptured sweetness as they found
Close-partnered each to each, and thinking soon
339
To be enwoven, long ere night to morning faced.
43
At last Max spoke, 'Dear Heart, this night is ours,
To watch it pale, together, into dawn,
Pressing our souls apart like opening flowers
Until our lives, through quivering bodies drawn,
Are mingled and confounded. Then, far spent,
Our eyes will close to undisturbed rest.
For that desired thing I leave you now.
To pinnacle this day's accomplishment,
By telling Grootver that a bootless quest
Is his, and that his schemes have met a knock-down blow.'
44
But Christine clung to him with sobbing cries,
Pleading for love's sake that he leave her not.
And wound her arms about his knees and thighs
As he stood over her. With dread, begot
Of Grootver's name, and silence, and the night,
She shook and trembled. Words in moaning plaint
Wooed him to stay. She feared, she knew not why,
Yet greatly feared. She seemed some anguished saint
Martyred by visions. Max Breuck soothed her fright
With wisdom, then stepped out under the cooling sky.
45
But at the gate once more she held him close
And quenched her heart again upon his lips.
'My Sweetheart, why this terror? I propose
But to be gone one hour! Evening slips
Away, this errand must be done.' 'Max! Max!
First goes my father, if I lose you now!'
She grasped him as in panic lest she drown.
Softly he laughed, 'One hour through the town
By moonlight! That's no place for foul attacks.
340
Dearest, be comforted, and clear that troubled brow.
46
One hour, Dear, and then, no more alone.
We front another day as man and wife.
I shall be back almost before I'm gone,
And midnight shall anoint and crown our life.'
Then through the gate he passed. Along the street
She watched his buttons gleaming in the moon.
He stopped to wave and turned the garden wall.
Straight she sank down upon a mossy seat.
Her senses, mist-encircled by a swoon,
Swayed to unconsciousness beneath its wreathing pall.
47
Briskly Max walked beside the still canal.
His step was firm with purpose. Not a jot
He feared this meeting, nor the rancorous gall
Grootver would spit on him who marred his plot.
He dreaded no man, since he could protect
Christine. His wife! He stopped and laughed aloud.
His starved life had not fitted him for joy.
It strained him to the utmost to reject
Even this hour with her. His heart beat loud.
'Damn Grootver, who can force my time to this employ!'
48
He laughed again. What boyish uncontrol
To be so racked. Then felt his ticking watch.
In half an hour Grootver would know the whole.
And he would be returned, lifting the latch
Of his own gate, eager to take Christine
And crush her to his lips. How bear delay?
He broke into a run. In front, a line
Of candle-light banded the cobbled street.
Hilverdink's tavern! Not for many a day
341
Had he been there to take his old, accustomed seat.
49
'Why, Max! Stop, Max!' And out they came pell-mell,
His old companions. 'Max, where have you been?
Not drink with us? Indeed you serve us well!
How many months is it since we have seen
You here? Jan, Jan, you slow, old doddering goat!
Here's Mynheer Breuck come back again at last,
Stir your old bones to welcome him. Fie, Max.
Business! And after hours! Fill your throat;
Here's beer or brandy. Now, boys, hold him fast.
Put down your cane, dear man. What really vicious whacks!'
50
They forced him to a seat, and held him there,
Despite his anger, while the hideous joke
Was tossed from hand to hand. Franz poured with care
A brimming glass of whiskey. 'Here, we've broke
Into a virgin barrel for you, drink!
Tut! Tut! Just hear him! Married! Who, and when?
Married, and out on business. Clever Spark!
Which lie's the likeliest? Come, Max, do think.'
Swollen with fury, struggling with these men,
Max cursed hilarity which must needs have a mark.
51
Forcing himself to steadiness, he tried
To quell the uproar, told them what he dared
Of his own life and circumstance. Implied
Most urgent matters, time could ill be spared.
In jesting mood his comrades heard his tale,
And scoffed at it. He felt his anger more
Goaded and bursting; -- 'Cowards! Is no one loth
To mock at duty --' Here they called for ale,
And forced a pipe upon him. With an oath
342
He shivered it to fragments on the earthen floor.
52
Sobered a little by his violence,
And by the host who begged them to be still,
Nor injure his good name, 'Max, no offence,'
They blurted, 'you may leave now if you will.'
'One moment, Max,' said Franz. 'We've gone too far.
I ask your pardon for our foolish joke.
It started in a wager ere you came.
The talk somehow had fall'n on drugs, a jar
I brought from China, herbs the natives smoke,
Was with me, and I thought merely to play a game.
53
Its properties are to induce a sleep
Fraught with adventure, and the flight of time
Is inconceivable in swiftness. Deep
Sunken in slumber, imageries sublime
Flatter the senses, or some fearful dream
Holds them enmeshed. Years pass which on the clock
Are but so many seconds. We agreed
That the next man who came should prove the scheme;
And you were he. Jan handed you the crock.
Two whiffs! And then the pipe was broke, and you were freed.'
54
'It is a lie, a damned, infernal lie!'
Max Breuck was maddened now. 'Another jest
Of your befuddled wits. I know not why
I am to be your butt. At my request
You'll choose among you one who'll answer for
Your most unseasonable mirth. Good-night
And good-by, -- gentlemen. You'll hear from me.'
But Franz had caught him at the very door,
'It is no lie, Max Breuck, and for your plight
343
I am to blame. Come back, and we'll talk quietly.
55
You have no business, that is why we laughed,
Since you had none a few minutes ago.
As to your wedding, naturally we chaffed,
Knowing the length of time it takes to do
A simple thing like that in this slow world.
Indeed, Max, 'twas a dream. Forgive me then.
I'll burn the drug if you prefer.' But Breuck
Muttered and stared, -- 'A lie.' And then he hurled,
Distraught, this word at Franz: 'Prove it. And when
It's proven, I'll believe. That thing shall be your work.
56
I'll give you just one week to make your case.
On August thirty-first, eighteen-fourteen,
I shall require your proof.' With wondering face
Franz cried, 'A week to August, and fourteen
The year! You're mad, 'tis April now.
April, and eighteen-twelve.' Max staggered, caught
A chair, -- 'April two years ago! Indeed,
Or you, or I, are mad. I know not how
Either could blunder so.' Hilverdink brought
'The Amsterdam Gazette', and Max was forced to read.
57
'Eighteen hundred and twelve,' in largest print;
And next to it, 'April the twenty-first.'
The letters smeared and jumbled, but by dint
Of straining every nerve to meet the worst,
He read it, and into his pounding brain
Tumbled a horror. Like a roaring sea
Foreboding shipwreck, came the message plain:
'This is two years ago! What of Christine?'
He fled the cellar, in his agony
344
Running to outstrip Fate, and save his holy shrine.
58
The darkened buildings echoed to his feet
Clap-clapping on the pavement as he ran.
Across moon-misted squares clamoured his fleet
And terror-winged steps. His heart began
To labour at the speed. And still no sign,
No flutter of a leaf against the sky.
And this should be the garden wall, and round
The corner, the old gate. No even line
Was this! No wall! And then a fearful cry
Shattered the stillness. Two stiff houses filled the ground.
59
Shoulder to shoulder, like dragoons in line,
They stood, and Max knew them to be the ones
To right and left of Kurler's garden. Spine
Rigid next frozen spine. No mellow tones
Of ancient gilded iron, undulate,
Expanding in wide circles and broad curves,
The twisted iron of the garden gate,
Was there. The houses touched and left no space
Between. With glassy eyes and shaking nerves
Max gazed. Then mad with fear, fled still, and left that place.
60
Stumbling and panting, on he ran, and on.
His slobbering lips could only cry, 'Christine!
My Dearest Love! My Wife! Where are you gone?
What future is our past? What saturnine,
Sardonic devil's jest has bid us live
Two years together in a puff of smoke?
It was no dream, I swear it! In some star,
Or still imprisoned in Time's egg, you give
Me love. I feel it. Dearest Dear, this stroke
345
Shall never part us, I will reach to where you are.'
61
His burning eyeballs stared into the dark.
The moon had long been set. And still he cried:
'Christine! My Love! Christine!' A sudden spark
Pricked through the gloom, and shortly Max espied
With his uncertain vision, so within
Distracted he could scarcely trust its truth,
A latticed window where a crimson gleam
Spangled the blackness, and hung from a pin,
An iron crane, were three gilt balls. His youth
Had taught their meaning, now they closed upon his dream.
62
Softly he knocked against the casement, wide
It flew, and a cracked voice his business there
Demanded. The door opened, and inside
Max stepped. He saw a candle held in air
Above the head of a gray-bearded Jew.
'Simeon Isaacs, Mynheer, can I serve
You?' 'Yes, I think you can. Do you keep arms?
I want a pistol.' Quick the old man grew
Livid. 'Mynheer, a pistol! Let me swerve
You from your purpose. Life brings often false alarms --'
63
'Peace, good old Isaacs, why should you suppose
My purpose deadly. In good truth I've been
Blest above others. You have many rows
Of pistols it would seem. Here, this shagreen
Case holds one that I fancy. Silvered mounts
Are to my taste. These letters `C. D. L.'
Its former owner? Dead, you say. Poor Ghost!
'Twill serve my turn though --' Hastily he counts
The florins down upon the table. 'Well,
346
Good-night, and wish me luck for your to-morrow's toast.'
64
Into the night again he hurried, now
Pale and in haste; and far beyond the town
He set his goal. And then he wondered how
Poor C. D. L. had come to die. 'It's grown
Handy in killing, maybe, this I've bought,
And will work punctually.' His sorrow fell
Upon his senses, shutting out all else.
Again he wept, and called, and blindly fought
The heavy miles away. 'Christine. I'm well.
I'm coming. My Own Wife!' He lurched with failing pulse.
65
Along the dyke the keen air blew in gusts,
And grasses bent and wailed before the wind.
The Zuider Zee, which croons all night and thrusts
Long stealthy fingers up some way to find
And crumble down the stones, moaned baffled. Here
The wide-armed windmills looked like gallows-trees.
No lights were burning in the distant thorps.
Max laid aside his coat. His mind, half-clear,
Babbled 'Christine!' A shot split through the breeze.
The cold stars winked and glittered at his chilling corpse.
~ Amy Lowell,#NFDB
1326:Scene. Colmar in Alsatia: an Inn. 1528.
Paracelsus, Festus.
Paracelsus
[to Johannes Oporinus, his Secretary].
Sic itur ad astra! Dear Von Visenburg
Is scandalized, and poor Torinus paralysed,
And every honest soul that Basil holds
Aghast; and yet we live, as one may say,
Just as though Liechtenfels had never set
So true a value on his sorry carcass,
And learned Ptter had not frowned us dumb.
We live; and shall as surely start to morrow
For Nuremberg, as we drink speedy scathe
To Basil in this mantling wine, suffused
A delicate blush, no fainter tinge is born
I' the shut heart of a bud. Pledge me, good John
"Basil; a hot plague ravage it, and Ptter
"Oppose the plague!" Even so? Do you too share
Their panic, the reptiles? Ha, ha; faint through these,
Desist for these! They manage matters so
At Basil, 't is like: but others may find means
To bring the stoutest braggart of the tribe
Once more to crouch in silencemeans to breed
A stupid wonder in each fool again,
Now big with admiration at the skill
Which stript a vain pretender of his plumes:
And, that done,means to brand each slavish brow
So deeply, surely, ineffaceably,
That henceforth flattery shall not pucker it
Out of the furrow; there that stamp shall stay
To show the next they fawn on, what they are,
This Basil with its magnates,fill my cup,
Whom I curse soul and limb. And now despatch,
Despatch, my trusty John; and what remains
To do, whate'er arrangements for our trip
Are yet to be completed, see you hasten
This night; we'll weather the storm at least: to-morrow
For Nuremberg! Now leave us; this grave clerk
Has divers weighty matters for my ear:
[Oporinus goes out.
And spare my lungs. At last, my gallant Festus,
I am rid of this arch-knave that dogs my heels
As a gaunt crow a gasping sheep; at last
May give a loose to my delight. How kind,
How very kind, my first best only friend!
Why, this looks like fidelity. Embrace me!
Not a hair silvered yet? Right! you shall live
Till I am worth your love; you shall be pround,
And Ibut let time show! Did you not wonder?
I sent to you because our compact weighed
Upon my conscience(you recall the night
At Basil, which the gods confound!)because
Once more I aspire. I call you to my side:
You come. You thought my message strange?
Festus.
So strange
That I must hope, indeed, your messenger
Has mingled his own fancies with the words
Purporting to be yours.
Paracelsus.
He said no more,
'T is probable, than the precious folk I leave
Said fiftyfold more roughly. Well-a-day,
'T is true! poor Paracelsus is exposed
At last; a most egregious quack he proves:
And those he overreached must spit their hate
On one who, utterly beneath contempt,
Could yet deceive their topping wits. You heard
Bare truth; and at my bidding you come here
To speed me on my enterprise, as once
Your lavish wishes sped me, my own friend!
Festus.
What is your purpose, Aureole?
Paracelsus.
Oh, for purpose,
There is no lack of precedents in a case
Like mine; at least, if not precisely mine,
The case of men cast off by those they sought
To benefit.
Festus.
They really cast you off?
I only heard a vague tale of some priest,
Cured by your skill, who wrangled at your claim,
Knowing his life's worth best; and how the judge
The matter was referred to, saw no cause
To interfere, nor you to hide your full
Contempt of him; nor he, again, to smother
His wrath thereat, which raised so fierce a flame
That Basil soon was made no place for you.
Paracelsus.
The affair of Liechtenfels? the shallowest fable,
The last and silliest outragemere pretence!
I knew it, I foretold it from the first,
How soon the stupid wonder you mistook
For genuine loyaltya cheering promise
Of better things to comewould pall and pass;
And every word comes true. Saul is among
The prophets! Just so long as I was pleased
To play off the mere antics of my art,
Fantastic gambols leading to no end,
I got huge praise: but one can ne'er keep down
Our foolish nature's weakness. There they flocked,
Poor devils, jostling, swearing and perspiring,
Till the walls rang again; and all for me!
I had a kindness for them, which was right;
But then I stopped not till I tacked to that
A trust in them and a respecta sort
Of sympathy for them; I must needs begin
To teach them, not amaze them, "to impart
"The spirit which should instigate the search
"Of truth," just what you bade me! I spoke out.
Forthwith a mighty squadron, in disgust,
Filed off"the sifted chaff of the sack," I said,
Redoubling my endeavours to secure
The rest. When lo! one man had tarried so long
Only to ascertain if I supported
This tenet of his, or that; another loved
To hear impartially before he judged,
And having heard, now judged; this bland disciple
Passed for my dupe, but all along, it seems,
Spied error where his neighbours marvelled most;
That fiery doctor who had hailed me friend,
Did it because my by-paths, once proved wrong
And beaconed properly, would commend again
The good old ways our sires jogged safely o'er,
Though not their squeamish sons; the other worthy
Discovered divers verses of St. John,
Which, read successively, refreshed the soul,
But, muttered backwards, cured the gout, the stone,
The colic and what not. Quid multa? The end
Was a clear class-room, and a quiet leer
From grave folk, and a sour reproachful glance
From those in chief who, cap in hand, installed
The new professor scarce a year before;
And a vast flourish about patient merit
Obscured awhile by flashy tricks, but sure
Sooner or later to emerge in splendour
Of which the example was some luckless wight
Whom my arrival had discomfited,
But now, it seems, the general voice recalled
To fill my chair and so efface the stain
Basil had long incurred. I sought no better,
Only a quiet dismissal from my post,
And from my heart I wished them better suited
And better served. Good night to Basil, then!
But fast as I proposed to rid the tribe
Of my obnoxious back, I could not spare them
The pleasure of a parting kick.
Festus.
You smile:
Despise them as they merit!
Paracelsus.
If I smile,
'T is with as very contempt as ever turned
Flesh into stone. This courteous recompense,
This grateful . . . Festus, were your nature fit
To be defiled, your eyes the eyes to ache
At gangrene-blotches, eating poison-blains,
The ulcerous barky scurf of leprosy
Which findsa man, and leavesa hideous thing
That cannot but be mended by hell fire,
I would lay bare to you the human heart
Which God cursed long ago, and devils make since
Their pet nest and their never-tiring home.
Oh, sages have discovered we are born
For various endsto love, to know: has ever
One stumbled, in his search, on any signs
Of a nature in us formed to hate? To hate?
If that be our true object which evokes
Our powers in fullest strength, be sure 't is hate!
Yet men have doubted if the best and bravest
Of spirits can nourish him with hate alone.
I had not the monopoly of fools,
It seems, at Basil.
Festus.
But your plans, your plans!
I have yet to learn your purpose, Aureole!
Paracelsus.
Whether to sink beneath such ponderous shame,
To shrink up like a crushed snail, undergo
In silence and desist from further toil,
and so subside into a monument
Of one their censure blasted? or to bow
Cheerfully as submissively, to lower
My old pretensions even as Basil dictates,
To drop into the rank her wits assign me
And live as they prescribe, and make that use
Of my poor knowledge which their rules allow,
Proud to be patted now and then, and careful
To practise the true posture for receiving
The amplest benefit from their hoofs' appliance
When they shall condescend to tutor me?
Then, one may feel resentment like a flame
Within, and deck false systems in truth's garb,
And tangle and entwine mankind with error,
And give them darkness for a dower and falsehood
For a possession, ages: or one may mope
Into a shade through thinking, or else drowse
Into a dreamless sleep and so die off.
But I,now Festus shall divine!but I
Am merely setting out once more, embracing
My earliest aims again! What thinks he now?
Festus.
Your aims? the aims?to Know? and where is found
The early trust . . .
Paracelsus.
Nay, not so fast; I say,
The aimsnot the old means. You know they made me
A laughing-stock; I was a fool; you know
The when and the how: hardly those means again!
Not but they had their beauty; who should know
Their passing beauty, if not I? Still, dreams
They were, so let them vanish, yet in beauty
If that may be. Stay: thus they pass in song!
[He sings.
Heap cassia, sandal-buds and stripes
Of labdanum, and aloe-balls,
Smeared with dull nard an Indian wipes
From out her hair: such balsam falls
Down sea-side mountain pedestals,
From tree-tops where tired winds are fain,
Spent with the vast and howling main,
To treasure half their island-gain.
And strew faint sweetness from some old
Egyptian's fine worm-eaten shroud
Which breaks to dust when once unrolled;
Or shredded perfume, like a cloud
From closet long to quiet vowed,
With mothed and dropping arras hung,
Mouldering her lute and books among,
As when a queen, long dead, was young.
Mine, every word! And on such pile shall die
My lovely fancies, with fair perished things,
Themselves fair and forgotten; yes, forgotten,
Or why abjure them? So, I made this rhyme
That fitting dignity might be preserved;
No little proud was I; though the list of drugs
Smacks of my old vocation, and the verse
Halts like the best of Luther's psalms.
Festus.
But, Aureole,
Talk not thus wildly and madly. I am here
Did you know all! I have travelled far, indeed,
To learn your wishes. Be yourself again!
For in this mood I recognize you less
Than in the horrible despondency
I witnessed last. You may account this, joy;
But rather let me gaze on that despair
Than hear these incoherent words and see
This flushed cheek and intensely-sparkling eye.
Paracelsus.
Why, man, I was light-hearted in my prime
I am light-hearted now; what would you have?
Aprile was a poet, I make songs
'T is the very augury of success I want!
Why should I not be joyous now as then?
Festus.
Joyous! and how? and what remains for joy?
You have declared the ends (which I am sick
Of naming) are impracticable.
Paracelsus.
Ay,
Pursued as I pursued themthe arch-fool!
Listen: my plan will please you not, 't is like,
But you are little versed in the world's ways.
This is my plan(first drinking its good luck)
I will accept all helps; all I despised
So rashly at the outset, equally
With early impulses, late years have quenched:
I have tried each way singly: now for both!
All helps! no one sort shall exclude the rest.
I seek to know and to enjoy at once,
Not one without the other as before.
Suppose my labour should seem God's own cause
Once more, as first I dreamed,it shall not baulk me
Of the meanest earthliest sensualest delight
That may be snatched; for every joy is gain,
And gain is gain, however small. My soul
Can die then, nor be taunted"what was gained?"
Nor, on the other hand, should pleasure follow
As though I had not spurned her hitherto,
Shall she o'ercloud my spirit's rapt communion
With the tumultuous past, the teeming future,
Glorious with visions of a full success.
Festus.
Success!
Paracelsus.
And wherefore not? Why not prefer
Results obtained in my best state of being,
To those derived alone from seasons dark
As the thoughts they bred? When I was best, my youth
Unwasted, seemed success not surest too?
It is the nature of darkness to obscure.
I am a wanderer: I remember well
One journey, how I feared the track was missed,
So long the city I desired to reach
Lay hid; when suddenly its spires afar
Flashed through the circling clouds; you may conceive
My transport. Soon the vapours closed again,
But I had seen the city, and one such glance
No darkness could obscure: nor shall the present
A few dull hours, a passing shame or two,
Destroy the vivid memories of the past.
I will fight the battle out; a little spent
Perhaps, but still an able combatant.
You look at my grey hair and furrowed brow?
But I can turn even weakness to account:
Of many tricks I know, 't is not the least
To push the ruins of my frame, whereon
The fire of vigour trembles scarce alive,
Into a heap, and send the flame aloft.
What should I do with age? So, sickness lends
An aid; it being, I fear, the source of all
We boast of: mind is nothing but disease,
And natural health is ignorance.
Festus.
I see
But one good symptom in this notable scheme.
I feared your sudden journey had in view
To wreak immediate vengeance on your foes
'T is not so: I am glad.
Paracelsus.
And if I please
To spit on them, to trample them, what then?
'T is sorry warfare truly, but the fools
Provoke it. I would spare their self-conceit
But if they must provoke me, cannot suffer
Forbearance on my part, if I may keep
No quality in the shade, must needs put forth
Power to match power, my strength against their strength,
And teach them their own game with their own arms
Why, be it so and let them take their chance!
I am above them like a god, there's no
Hiding the fact: what idle scruples, then,
Were those that ever bade me soften it,
Communicate it gently to the world,
Instead of proving my supremacy,
Taking my natural station o'er their head,
Then owning all the glory was a man's!
And in my elevation man's would be.
But live and learn, though life's short, learning, hard!
And therefore, though the wreck of my past self,
I fear, dear Ptter, that your lecture-room
Must wait awhile for its best ornament,
The penitent empiric, who set up
For somebody, but soon was taught his place;
Now, but too happy to be let confess
His error, snuff the candles, and illustrate
(Fiat experientia corpore vili)
Your medicine's soundness in his person. Wait,
Good Ptter!
Festus.
He who sneers thus, is a god!
Paracelsus.
Ay, ay, laugh at me! I am very glad
You are not gulled by all this swaggering; you
Can see the root of the matter!how I strive
To put a good face on the overthrow
I have experienced, and to bury and hide
My degradation in its length and breadth;
How the mean motives I would make you think
Just mingle as is due with nobler aims,
The appetites I modestly allow
May influence me as being mortal still
Do goad me, drive me on, and fast supplant
My youth's desires. You are no stupid dupe:
You find me out! Yes, I had sent for you
To palm these childish lies upon you, Festus!
Laughyou shall laugh at me!
Festus.
The past, then, Aureole,
Proves nothing? Is our interchange of love
Yet to begin? Have I to swear I mean
No flattery in this speech or that? For you,
Whate'er you say, there is no degradation;
These low thoughts are no inmates of your mind,
Or wherefore this disorder? You are vexed
As much by the intrusion of base views,
Familiar to your adversaries, as they
Were troubled should your qualities alight
Amid their murky souls; not otherwise,
A stray wolf which the winter forces down
From our bleak hills, suffices to affright
A village in the valeswhile foresters
Sleep calm, though all night long the famished troop
Snuff round and scratch against their crazy huts.
These evil thoughts are monsters, and will flee.
Paracelsus.
May you be happy, Festus, my own friend!
Festus.
Nay, further; the delights you fain would think
The superseders of your nobler aims,
Though ordinary and harmless stimulants,
Will ne'er content you. . . .
Paracelsus.
Hush! I once despised them,
But that soon passes. We are high at first
In our demand, nor will abate a jot
Of toil's strict value; but time passes o'er,
And humbler spirits accept what we refuse:
In short, when some such comfort is doled out
As these delights, we cannot long retain
Bitter contempt which urges us at first
To hurl it back, but hug it to our breast
And thankfully retire. This life of mine
Must be lived out and a grave thoroughly earned:
I am just fit for that and nought beside.
I told you once, I cannot now enjoy,
Unless I deem my knowledge gains through joy;
Nor can I know, but straight warm tears reveal
My need of linking also joy to knowledge:
So, on I drive, enjoying all I can,
And knowing all I can. I speak, of course,
Confusedly; this will better explainfeel here!
Quick beating, is it not?a fire of the heart
To work off some way, this as well as any.
So, Festus sees me fairly launched; his calm
Compassionate look might have disturbed me once,
But now, far from rejecting, I invite
What bids me press the closer, lay myself
Open before him, and be soothed with pity;
I hope, if he command hope, and believe
As he directs mesatiating myself
With his enduring love. And Festus quits me
To give place to some credulous disciple
Who holds that God is wise, but Paracelsus
Has his peculiar merits: I suck in
That homage, chuckle o'er that admiration,
And then dismiss the fool; for night is come.
And I betake myself to study again,
Till patient searchings after hidden lore
Half wring some bright truth from its prison; my frame
Trembles, my forehead's veins swell out, my hair
Tingles for triumph. Slow and sure the morn
Shall break on my pent room and dwindling lamp
And furnace dead, and scattered earths and ores;
When, with a failing heart and throbbing brow,
I must review my captured truth, sum up
Its value, trace what ends to what begins,
Its present power with its eventual bearings,
Latent affinities, the views it opens,
And its full length in perfecting my scheme.
I view it sternly circumscribed, cast down
From the high place my fond hopes yielded it,
Proved worthlesswhich, in getting, yet had cost
Another wrench to this fast-falling frame.
Then, quick, the cup to quaff, that chases sorrow!
I lapse back into youth, and take again
My fluttering pulse for evidence that God
Means good to me, will make my cause his own.
See! I have cast off this remorseless care
Which clogged a spirit born to soar so free,
And my dim chamber has become a tent,
Festus is sitting by me, and his Michal . . .
Why do you start? I say, she listening here,
(For yonderWrzburg through the orchard-bough!)
Motions as though such ardent words should find
No echo in a maiden's quiet soul,
But her pure bosom heaves, her eyes fill fast
With tears, her sweet lips tremble all the while!
Ha, ha!
Festus.
It seems, then, you expect to reap
No unreal joy from this your present course,
But rather . . .
Paracelsus.
Death! To die! I owe that much
To what, at least, I was. I should be sad
To live contented after such a fall,
To thrive and fatten after such reverse!
The whole plan is a makeshift, but will last
My time.
Festus.
And you have never mused and said,
"I had a noble purpose, and the strength
"To compass it; but I have stopped half-way,
"And wrongly given the first-fruits of my toil
"To objects little worthy of the gift.
"Why linger round them still? why clench my fault?
"Why seek for consolation in defeat,
"In vain endeavours to derive a beauty
"From ugliness? why seek to make the most
"Of what no power can change, nor strive instead
"With mighty effort to redeem the past
"And, gathering up the treasures thus cast down,
"To hold a steadfast course till I arrive
"At their fit destination and my own?"
You have never pondered thus?
Paracelsus.
Have I, you ask?
Often at midnight, when most fancies come,
Would some such airy project visit me:
But ever at the end . . . or will you hear
The same thing in a tale, a parable?
You and I, wandering over the world wide,
Chance to set foot upon a desert coast.
Just as we cry, "No human voice before
"Broke the inveterate silence of these rocks!"
Their querulous echo startles us; we turn:
What ravaged structure still looks o'er the sea?
Some characters remain, too! While we read,
The sharp salt wind, impatient for the last
Of even this record, wistfully comes and goes,
Or sings what we recover, mocking it.
This is the record; and my voice, the wind's.
[He sings.
Over the sea our galleys went,
With cleaving prows in order brave
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave,
A gallant armament:
Each bark built out of a forest-tree
Left leafy and rough as first it grew,
And nailed all over the gaping sides,
Within and without, with black bull-hides,
Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,
To bear the playful billows' game:
So, each good ship was rude to see,
Rude and bare to the outward view,
But each upbore a stately tent
Where cedar pales in scented row
Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,
And an awning drooped the mast below,
In fold on fold of the purple fine,
That neither noontide nor starshine
Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,
Might pierce the regal tenement.
When the sun dawned, oh, gay and glad
We set the sail and plied the oar;
But when the night-wind blew like breath,
For joy of one day's voyage more,
We sang together on the wide sea,
Like men at peace on a peaceful shore;
Each sail was loosed to the wind so free,
Each helm made sure by the twilight star,
And in a sleep as calm as death,
We, the voyagers from afar,
Lay stretched along, each weary crew
In a circle round its wondrous tent
Whence gleamed soft light and curled rich scent,
And with light and perfume, music too:
So the stars wheeled round, and the darkness past,
And at morn we started beside the mast,
And still each ship was sailing fast.
Now, one morn, land appeareda speck
Dim trembling betwixt sea and sky:
"Avoid it," cried our pilot, "check
"The shout, restrain the eager eye!"
But the heaving sea was black behind
For many a night and many a day,
And land, though but a rock, drew nigh;
So, we broke the cedar pales away,
Let the purple awning flap in the wind,
And a statute bright was on every deck!
We shouted, every man of us,
And steered right into the harbour thus,
With pomp and pan glorious.
A hundred shapes of lucid stone!
All day we built its shrine for each,
A shrine of rock for every one,
Nor paused till in the westering sun
We sat together on the beach
To sing because our task was done.
When lo! what shouts and merry songs!
What laughter all the distance stirs!
A loaded raft with happy throngs
Of gentle islanders!
"Our isles are just at hand," they cried,
"Like cloudlets faint in even sleeping
"Our temple-gates are opened wide,
"Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping
"For these majestic forms"they cried.
Oh, then we awoke with sudden start
From our deep dream, and knew, too late,
How bare the rock, how desolate,
Which had received our precious freight:
Yet we called out"Depart!
"Our gifts, once given, must here abide.
"Our work is done; we have no heart
"To mar our work,"we cried.
Festus.
In truth?
Paracelsus.
Nay, wait: all this in tracings faint
On rugged stones strewn here and there, but piled
In order once: then followsmark what follows!
"The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clung
"To their first fault, and withered in their pride."
Festus.
Come back then, Aureole; as you fear God, come!
This is foul sin; come back! Renounce the past,
Forswear the future; look for joy no more,
But wait death's summons amid holy sights,
And trust me for the eventpeace, if not joy.
Return with me to Einsiedeln, dear Aureole!
Paracelsus.
No way, no way! it would not turn to good.
A spotless child sleeps on the flowering moss
'T is well for him; but when a sinful man,
Envying such slumber, may desire to put
His guilt away, shall he return at once
To rest by lying there? Our sires knew well
(Spite of the grave discoveries of their sons)
The fitting course for such: dark cells, dim lamps,
A stone floor one may writhe on like a worm:
No mossy pillow blue with violets!
Festus.
I see no symptom of these absolute
And tyrannous passions. You are calmer now.
This verse-making can purge you well enough
Without the terrible penance you describe.
You love me still: the lusts you fear will never
Outrage your friend. To Einsiedeln, once more!
Say but the word!
Paracelsus.
No, no; those lusts forbid:
They crouch, I know, cowering with half-shut eye
Beside you; 't is their nature. Thrust yourself
Between them and their prey; let some fool style me
Or king or quack, it matters notthen try
Your wisdom, urge them to forego their treat!
No, no; learn better and look deeper, Festus!
If you knew how a devil sneers within me
While you are talking now of this, now that,
As though we differed scarcely save in trifles!
Festus.
Do we so differ? True, change must proceed,
Whether for good or ill; keep from me, which!
Do not confide all secrets: I was born
To hope, and you . . .
Paracelsus.
To trust: you know the fruits!
Festus.
Listen: I do believe, what you call trust
Was self-delusion at the best: for, see!
So long as God would kindly pioneer
A path for you, and screen you from the world,
Procure you full exemption from man's lot,
Man's common hopes and fears, on the mere pretext
Of your engagement in his serviceyield you
A limitless licence, make you God, in fact,
And turn your slaveyou were content to say
Most courtly praises! What is it, at last,
But selfishness without example? None
Could trace God's will so plain as you, while yours
Remained implied in it; but now you fail,
And we, who prate about that will, are fools!
In short, God's service is established here
As he determines fit, and not your way,
And this you cannot brook. Such discontent
Is weak. Renounce all creatureship at once!
Affirm an absolute right to have and use
Your energies; as though the rivers should say
"We rush to the ocean; what have we to do
"With feeding streamlets, lingering in the vales,
"Sleeping in lazy pools?" Set up that plea,
That will be bold at least!
Paracelsus.
'T is like enough.
The serviceable spirits are those, no doubt,
The East produces: lo, the master bids,
They wake, raise terraces and garden-grounds
In one night's space; and, this done, straight begin
Another century's sleep, to the great praise
Of him that framed them wise and beautiful,
Till a lamp's rubbing, or some chance akin,
Wake them again. I am of different mould.
I would have soothed my lord, and slaved for him
And done him service past my narrow bond,
And thus I get rewarded for my pains!
Beside, 't is vain to talk of forwarding
God's glory otherwise; this is alone
The sphere of its increase, as far as men
Increase it; why, then, look beyond this sphere?
We are his glory; and if we be glorious,
Is not the thing achieved?
Festus.
Shall one like me
Judge hearts like yours? Though years have changed you much,
And you have left your first love, and retain
Its empty shade to veil your crooked ways,
Yet I still hold that you have honoured God.
And who shall call your course without reward?
For, wherefore this repining at defeat
Had triumph ne'er inured you to high hopes?
I urge you to forsake the life you curse,
And what success attends me?simply talk
Of passion, weakness and remorse; in short,
Anything but the naked truthyou choose
This so-despised career, and cheaply hold
My happiness, or rather other men's.
Once more, return!
Paracelsus.
And quickly. John the thief
Has pilfered half my secrets by this time:
And we depart by daybreak. I am weary,
I know not how; not even the wine-cup soothes
My brain to-night . . .
Do you not thoroughly despise me, Festus?
No flattery! One like you needs not be told
We live and breathe deceiving and deceived.
Do you not scorn me from your heart of hearts,
Me and my cant, each petty subterfuge,
My rhymes and all this frothy shower of words,
My glozing self-deceit, my outward crust
Of lies which wrap, as tetter, morphew, furfair
Wrapt the sound flesh?so, see you flatter not!
Even God flatters: but my friend, at least,
Is true. I would depart, secure henceforth
Against all further insult, hate and wrong
From puny foes; my one friend's scorn shall brand me:
No fear of sinking deeper!
Festus.
No, dear Aureole!
No, no; I came to counsel faithfully.
There are old rules, made long ere we were born,
By which I judge you. I, so fallible,
So infinitely low beside your mighty
Majestic spirit!even I can see
You own some higher law than ours which call
Sin, what is no sinweakness, what is strength.
But I have only these, such as they are,
To guide me; and I blame you where they bid,
Only so long as blaming promises
To win peace for your soul: the more, that sorrow
Has fallen on me of late, and they have helped me
So that I faint not under my distress.
But wherefore should I scruple to avow
In spite of all, as brother judging brother,
Your fate is most inexplicable to me?
And should you perish without recompense
And satisfaction yettoo hastily
I have relied on love: you may have sinned,
But you have loved. As a mere human matter
As I would have God deal with fragile men
In the endI say that you will triumph yet!
Paracelsus.
Have you felt sorrow, Festus?'t is because
You love me. Sorrow, and sweet Michal yours!
Well thought on: never let her know this last
Dull winding-up of all: these miscreants dared
Insult meme she loved:so, grieve her not!
Festus.
Your ill success can little grieve her now.
Paracelsus.
Michal is dead! pray Christ we do not craze!
Festus.
Aureole, dear Aureole, look not on me thus!
Fool, fool! this is the heart grown sorrow-proof
I cannot bear those eyes.
Paracelsus.
Nay, really dead?
Festus.
'T is scarce a month.
Paracelsus.
Stone dead!then you have laid her
Among the flowers ere this. Now, do you know,
I can reveal a secret which shall comfort
Even you. I have no julep, as men think,
To cheat the grave; but a far better secret.
Know, then, you did not ill to trust your love
To the cold earth: I have thought much of it:
For I believe we do not wholly die.
Festus.
Aureole!
Paracelsus.
Nay, do not laugh; there is a reason
For what I say: I think the soul can never
Taste death. I am, just now, as you may see,
Very unfit to put so strange a thought
In an intelligible dress of words;
But take it as my trust, she is not dead.
Festus.
But not on this account alone? you surely,
Aureole, you have believed this all along?
Paracelsus.
And Michal sleeps among the roots and dews,
While I am moved at Basil, and full of schemes
For Nuremberg, and hoping and despairing,
As though it mattered how the farce plays out,
So it be quickly played. Away, away!
Have your will, rabble! while we fight the prize,
Troop you in safety to the snug back-seats
And leave a clear arena for the brave
About to perish for your sport!Behold!
~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part IV - Paracelsus Aspires
,#NFDB
1327: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
,#NFDB
1328:Scene. Wrzburg; a garden in the environs. 1512.
Festus, Paracelsus, Michal.
Paracelsus.
Come close to me, dear friends; still closer; thus!
Close to the heart which, though long time roll by
Ere it again beat quicker, pressed to yours,
As now it beatsperchance a long, long time
At least henceforth your memories shall make
Quiet and fragrant as befits their home.
Nor shall my memory want a home in yours
Alas, that it requires too well such free
Forgiving love as shall embalm it there!
For if you would remember me aright,
As I was born to be, you must forget
All fitful strange and moody waywardness
Which e'er confused my better spirit, to dwell
Only on moments such as these, dear friends!
My heart no truer, but my words and ways
More true to it: as Michal, some months hence,
Will say, "this autumn was a pleasant time,"
For some few sunny days; and overlook
Its bleak wind, hankering after pining leaves.
Autumn would fain be sunny; I would look
Liker my nature's truth: and both are frail,
And both beloved, for all our frailty.
Michal.
Aureole!
Paracelsus.
Drop by drop! she is weeping like a child!
Not so! I am contentmore than content;
Nay, autumn wins you best by this its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay:
Look up, sweet Michal, nor esteem the less
Your stained and drooping vines their grapes bow down,
Nor blame those creaking trees bent with their fruit,
That apple-tree with a rare after-birth
Of peeping blooms sprinkled its wealth among!
Then for the windswhat wind that ever raved
Shall vex that ash which overlooks you both,
So proud it wears its berries? Ah, at length,
The old smile meet for her, the lady of this
Sequestered nest!this kingdom, limited
Alone by one old populous green wall
Tenanted by the ever-busy flies,
Grey crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders,
Each family of the silver-threaded moss
Which, look through near, this way, and it appears
A stubble-field or a cane-brake, a marsh
Of bulrush whitening in the sun: laugh now!
Fancy the crickets, each one in his house,
Looking out, wondering at the worldor best,
Yon painted snail with his gay shell of dew,
Travelling to see the glossy balls high up
Hung by the caterpillar, like gold lamps.
Michal.
In truth we have lived carelessly and well.
Paracelsus.
And shall, my perfect pair!each, trust me, born
For the other; nay, your very hair, when mixed,
Is of one hue. For where save in this nook
Shall you two walk, when I am far away,
And wish me prosperous fortune? Stay: that plant
Shall never wave its tangles lightly and softly,
As a queen's languid and imperial arm
Which scatters crowns among her lovers, but you
Shall be reminded to predict to me
Some great success! Ah see, the sun sinks broad
Behind Saint Saviour's: wholly gone, at last!
Festus.
Now, Aureole, stay those wandering eyes awhile!
You are ours to-night, at least; and while you spoke
Of Michal and her tears, I thought that none
Could willing leave what he so seemed to love:
But that last look destroys my dreamthat look
As if, where'er you gazed, there stood a star!
How far was Wrzburg with its church and spire
And garden-walls and all things they contain,
From that look's far alighting?
Paracelsus.
I but spoke
And looked alike from simple joy to see
The beings I love best, shut in so well
From all rude chances like to be my lot,
That, when afar, my weary spirit,disposed
To lose awhile its care in soothing thoughts
Of them, their pleasant features, looks and words,
Needs never hesitate, nor apprehend
Encroaching trouble may have reached them too,
Nor have recourse to fancy's busy aid
And fashion even a wish in their behalf
Beyond what they possess already here;
But, unobstructed, may at once forget
Itself in them, assured how well they fare.
Beside, this Festus knows he holds me one
Whom quiet and its charms arrest in vain,
One scarce aware of all the joys I quit,
Too filled with airy hopes to make account
Of soft delights his own heart garners up:
Whereas behold how much our sense of all
That's beauteous proves alike! When Festus learns
That every common pleasure of the world
Affects me as himself; that I have just
As varied appetite for joy derived
From common things; a stake in life, in short,
Like his; a stake which rash pursuit of aims
That life affords not, would as soon destroy;
He may convince himself that, this in view,
I shall act well advised. And last, because,
Though heaven and earth and all things were at stake,
Sweet Michal must not weep, our parting eve.
Festus.
True: and the eve is deepening, and we sit
As little anxious to begin our talk
As though to-morrow I could hint of it
As we paced arm-in-arm the cheerful town
At sun-dawn; or could whisper it by fits
(Trithemius busied with his class the while)
In that dim chamber where the noon-streaks peer
Half-frightened by the awful tomes around;
Or in some grassy lane unbosom all
From even-blush to midnight: but, to-morrow!
Have I full leave to tell my inmost mind?
We have been brothers, and henceforth the world
Will rise between us:all my freest mind?
'T is the last night, dear Aureole!
Paracelsus.
Oh, say on!
Devise some test of love, some arduous feat
To be performed for you: say on! If night
Be spent the while, the better! Recall how oft
My wondrous plans and dreams and hopes and fears
Havenever wearied you, oh no!as I
Recall, and never vividly as now,
Your true affection, born when Einsiedeln
And its green hills were all the world to us;
And still increasing to this night which ends
My further stay at Wrzburg. Oh, one day
You shall be very proud! Say on, dear friends!
Festus.
In truth? 'T is for my proper peace, indeed,
Rather than yours; for vain all projects seem
To stay your course: I said my latest hope
Is fading even now. A story tells
Of some far embassy despatched to win
The favour of an eastern king, and how
The gifts they offered proved but dazzling dust
Shed from the ore-beds native to his clime.
Just so, the value of repose and love,
I meant should tempt you, better far than I
You seem to comprehend; and yet desist
No whit from projects where repose nor love
Has part.
Paracelsus.
Once more? Alas! As I foretold.
Festus.
A solitary briar the bank puts forth
To save our swan's nest floating out to sea.
Paracelsus.
Dear Festus, hear me. What is it you wish?
That I should lay aside my heart's pursuit,
Abandon the sole ends for which I live,
Reject God's great commission, and so die!
You bid me listen for your true love's sake:
Yet how has grown that love? Even in a long
And patient cherishing of the self-same spirit
It now would quell; as though a mother hoped
To stay the lusty manhood of the child
Once weak upon her knees. I was not born
Informed and fearless from the first, but shrank
From aught which marked me out apart from men:
I would have lived their life, and died their death,
Lost in their ranks, eluding destiny:
But you first guided me through doubt and fear,
Taught me to know mankind and know myself;
And now that I am strong and full of hope,
That, from my soul, I can reject all aims
Save those your earnest words made plain to me,
Now that I touch the brink of my design,
When I would have a triumph in their eyes,
A glad cheer in their voicesMichal weeps,
And Festus ponders gravely!
Festus.
When you deign
To hear my purpose . . .
Paracelsus.
Hear it? I can say
Beforehand all this evening's conference!
'T is this way, Michal, that he uses: first,
Or he declares, or I, the leading points
Of our best scheme of life, what is man's end
And what God's will; no two faiths e'er agreed
As his with mine. Next, each of us allows
Faith should be acted on as best we may;
Accordingly, I venture to submit
My plan, in lack of better, for pursuing
The path which God's will seems to authorize.
Well, he discerns much good in it, avows
This motive worthy, that hope plausible,
A danger here to be avoided, there
An oversight to be repaired: in fine
Our two minds go togetherall the good
Approved by him, I gladly recognize,
All he counts bad, I thankfully discard,
And nought forbids my looking up at last
For some stray comfort in his cautious brow.
When, lo! I learn that, spite of all, there lurks
Some innate and inexplicable germ
Of failure in my scheme; so that at last
It all amounts to thisthe sovereign proof
That we devote ourselves to God, is seen
In living just as though no God there were;
A life which, prompted by the sad and blind
Folly of man, Festus abhors the most;
But which these tenets sanctify at once,
Though to less subtle wits it seems the same,
Consider it how they may.
Michal.
Is it so, Festus
He speaks so calmly and kindly: is it so?
Paracelsus.
Reject those glorious visions of God's love
And man's design; laugh loud that God should send
Vast longings to direct us; say how soon
Power satiates these, or lust, or gold; I know
The world's cry well, and how to answer it.
But this ambiguous warfare . . .
Festus.
. . . Wearies so
That you will grant no last leave to your friend
To urge it?for his sake, not yours? I wish
To send my soul in good hopes after you;
Never to sorrow that uncertain words
Erringly apprehended, a new creed
Ill understood, begot rash trust in you,
Had share in your undoing.
Paracelsus.
Choose your side,
Hold or renounce: but meanwhile blame me not
Because I dare to act on your own views,
Nor shrink when they point onward, nor espy
A peril where they most ensure success.
Festus.
Prove that to mebut that! Prove you abide
Within their warrant, nor presumptuous boast
God's labour laid on you; prove, all you covet
A mortal may expect; and, most of all,
Prove the strange course you now affect, will lead
To its attainmentand I bid you speed,
Nay, count the minutes till you venture forth!
You smile; but I had gathered from slow thought
Much musing on the fortunes of my friend
Matter I deemed could not be urged in vain;
But it all leaves me at my need: in shreds
And fragments I must venture what remains.
Michal.
Ask at once, Festus, wherefore he should scorn . . .
Festus.
Stay, Michal: Aureole, I speak guardedly
And gravely, knowing well, whate'er your error,
This is no ill-considered choice of yours,
No sudden fancy of an ardent boy.
Not from your own confiding words alone
Am I aware your passionate heart long since
Gave birth to, nourished and at length matures
This scheme. I will not speak of Einsiedeln,
Where I was born your elder by some years
Only to watch you fully from the first:
In all beside, our mutual tasks were fixed
Even then't was mine to have you in my view
As you had your own soul and those intents
Which filled it when, to crown your dearest wish,
With a tumultuous heart, you left with me
Our childhood's home to join the favoured few
Whom, here, Trithemius condescends to teach
A portion of his lore: and not one youth
Of those so favoured, whom you now despise,
Came earnest as you came, resolved, like you,
To grasp all, and retain all, and deserve
By patient toil a wide renown like his.
Now, this new ardour which supplants the old
I watched, too; 't was significant and strange,
In one matched to his soul's content at length
With rivals in the search for wisdom's prize,
To see the sudden pause, the total change;
From contest, the transition to repose
From pressing onward as his fellows pressed,
To a blank idleness, yet most unlike
The dull stagnation of a soul, content,
Once foiled, to leave betimes a thriveless quest.
That careless bearing, free from all pretence
Even of contempt for what it ceased to seek
Smiling humility, praising much, yet waiving
What it professed to praisethough not so well
Maintained but that rare outbreaks, fierce and brief,
Revealed the hidden scorn, as quickly curbed.
That ostentatious show of past defeat,
That ready acquiescence in contempt,
I deemed no other than the letting go
His shivered sword, of one about to spring
Upon his foe's throat; but it was not thus:
Not that way looked your brooding purpose then.
For after-signs disclosed, what you confirmed,
That you prepared to task to the uttermost
Your strength, in furtherance of a certain aim
Whichwhile it bore the name your rivals gave
Their own most puny effortswas so vast
In scope that it included their best flights,
Combined them, and desired to gain one prize
In place of many,the secret of the world,
Of man, and man's true purpose, path and fate.
That you, not nursing as a mere vague dream
This purpose, with the sages of the past,
Have struck upon a way to this, if all
You trust be true, which following, heart and soul,
You, if a man may, dare aspire to know:
And that this aim shall differ from a host
Of aims alike in character and kind,
Mostly in this,that in itself alone
Shall its reward be, not an alien end
Blending therewith; no hope nor fear nor joy
Nor woe, to elsewhere move you, but this pure
Devotion to sustain you or betray:
Thus you aspire.
Paracelsus.
You shall not state it thus:
I should not differ from the dreamy crew
You speak of. I profess no other share
In the selection of my lot, than this
My ready answer to the will of God
Who summons me to be his organ. All
Whose innate strength supports them shall succeed
No better than the sages.
Festus.
Such the aim, then,
God sets before you; and't is doubtless need
That he appoint no less the way of praise
Than the desire to praise; for, though I hold
With you, the setting forth such praise to be
The natural end and service of a man,
And hold such praise is best attained when man
Attains the general welfare of his kind
Yet this, the end, is not the instrument.
Presume not to serve God apart from such
Appointed channel as he wills shall gather
Imperfect tributes, for that sole obedience
Valued perchance! He seeks not that his altars
Blaze, careless how, so that they do but blaze.
Suppose this, then; that God selected you
To know (heed well your answers, for my faith
Shall meet implicitly what they affirm)
I cannot think you dare annex to such
Selection aught beyond a steadfast will,
An intense hope; nor let your gifts create
Scorn or neglect of ordinary means
Conducive to success, make destiny
Dispense with man's endeavour. Now, dare you search
Your inmost heart, and candidly avow
Whether you have not rather wild desire
For this distinction than security
Of its existence? whether you discern
The path to the fulfilment of your purpose
Clear as that purposeand again, that purpose
Clear as your yearning to be singled out
For its pursuer. Dare you answer this?
Paracelsus
[after a pause].
No, I have nought to fear! Who will may know
The secret'st workings of my soul. What though
It be so?if indeed the strong desire
Eclipse the aim in me?if splendour break
Upon the outset of my path alone,
And duskest shade succeed? What fairer seal
Shall I require to my authentic mission
Than this fierce energy?this instinct striving
Because its nature is to strive?enticed
By the security of no broad course,
Without success forever in its eyes!
How know I else such glorious fate my own,
But in the restless irresistible force
That works within me? Is it for human will
To institute such impulses?still less,
To disregard their promptings! What should I
Do, kept among you all; your loves, your cares,
Your lifeall to be mine? Be sure that God
Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns impart!
Ask the geier-eagle why she stoops at once
Into the vast and unexplored abyss,
What full-grown power informs her from the first,
Why she not marvels, strenuously beating
The silent boundless regions of the sky!
Be sure they sleep not whom God needs! Nor fear
Their holding light his charge, when every hour
That finds that charge delayed, is a new death.
This for the faith in which I trust; and hence
I can abjure so well the idle arts
These pedants strive to learn and teach; Black Arts,
Great Works, the Secret and Sublime, forsooth
Let others prize: too intimate a tie
Connects me with our God! A sullen fiend
To do my bidding, fallen and hateful sprites
To help mewhat are these, at best, beside
God helping, God directing everywhere,
So that the earth shall yield her secrets up,
And every object there be charged to strike,
Teach, gratify her master God appoints?
And I am young, my Festus, happy and free!
I can devote myself; I have a life
To give; I, singled out for this, the One!
Think, think! the wide East, where all Wisdom sprung;
The bright South, where she dwelt; the hopeful North,
All are passed o'erit lights on me! 'T is time
New hopes should animate the world, new light
Should dawn from new revealings to a race
Weighed down so long, forgotten so long; thus shall
The heaven reserved for us at last receive
Creatures whom no unwonted splendours blind,
But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze.
Whose beams not seldom blessed their pilgrimage,
Not seldom glorified their life below.
Festus.
My words have their old fate and make faint stand
Against your glowing periods. Call this, truth
Why not pursue it in a fast retreat,
Some one of Learning's many palaces,
After approved example?seeking there
Calm converse with the great dead, soul to soul,
Who laid up treasure with the like intent
So lift yourself into their airy place,
And fill out full their unfulfilled careers,
Unravelling the knots their baffled skill
Pronounced inextricable, true!but left
Far less confused. A fresh eye, a fresh hand,
Might do much at their vigour's waning-point;
Succeeding with new-breathed new-hearted force,
As at old games the runner snatched the torch
From runner still: this way success might be.
But you have coupled with your enterprise,
An arbitrary self-repugnant scheme
Of seeking it in strange and untried paths.
What books are in the desert? Writes the sea
The secret of her yearning in vast caves
Where yours will fall the first of human feet?
Has wisdom sat there and recorded aught
You press to read? Why turn aside from her
To visit, where her vesture never glanced,
Nowsolitudes consigned to barrenness
By God's decree, which who shall dare impugn?
Nowruins where she paused but would not stay,
Old ravaged cities that, renouncing her,
She called an endless curse on, so it came:
Or worst of all, nowmen you visit, men,
Ignoblest troops who never heard her voice
Or hate it, men without one gift from Rome
Or Athens,these shall Aureole's teachers be!
Rejecting past example, practice, precept,
Aidless'mid these he thinks to stand alone:
Thick like a glory round the Stagirite
Your rivals throng, the sages: here stand you!
Whatever you may protest, knowledge is not
Paramount in your love; or for her sake
You would collect all help from every source
Rival, assistant, friend, foe, all would merge
In the broad class of those who showed her haunts,
And those who showed them not.
Paracelsus.
What shall I say?
Festus, from childhood I have been possessed
By a fireby a true fire, or faint or fierce,
As from without some master, so it seemed,
Repressed or urged its current: this but ill
Expresses what would I convey: but rather
I will believe an angel ruled me thus,
Than that my soul's own workings, own high nature,
So became manifest. I knew not then
What whispered in the evening, and spoke out
At midnight. If some mortal, born too soon,
Were laid away in some great trancethe ages
Coming and going all the whiletill dawned
His true time's advent; and could then record
The words they spoke who kept watch by his bed,
Then I might tell more of the breath so light
Upon my eyelids, and the fingers light
Among my hair. Youth is confused; yet never
So dull was I but, when that spirit passed,
I turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns
A water-snake when fairies cross his sleep.
And having this within me and about me
While Einsiedeln, its mountains, lakes and woods
Confined mewhat oppressive joy was mine
When life grew plain, and I first viewed the thronged,
The everlasting concourse of mankind!
Believe that ere I joined them, ere I knew
The purpose of the pageant, or the place
Consigned me in its rankswhile, just awake,
Wonder was freshest and delight most pure
'T was then that least supportable appeared
A station with the brightest of the crowd,
A portion with the proudest of them all.
And from the tumult in my breast, this only
Could I collect, that I must thenceforth die
Or elevate myself far, far above
The gorgeous spectacle. I seemed to long
At once to trample on, yet save mankind,
To make some unexampled sacrifice
In their behalf, to wring some wondrous good
From heaven or earth for them, to perish, winning
Eternal weal in the act: as who should dare
Pluck out the angry thunder from its cloud,
That, all its gathered flame discharged on him,
No storm might threaten summer's azure sleep:
Yet never to be mixed with men so much
As to have part even in my own work, share
In my own largess. Once the feat achieved,
I would withdraw from their officious praise,
Would gently put aside their profuse thanks.
Like some knight traversing a wilderness,
Who, on his way, may chance to free a tribe
Of desert-people from their dragon-foe;
When all the swarthy race press round to kiss
His feet, and choose him for their king, and yield
Their poor tents, pitched among the sand-hills, for
His realm: and he points, smiling, to his scarf
Heavy with riveled gold, his burgonet
Gay set with twinkling stonesand to the East,
Where these must be displayed!
Festus.
Good: let us hear
No more about your nature, "which first shrank
"From all that marked you out apart from men!"
Paracelsus.
I touch on that; these words but analyse
The first mad impulse: 't was as brief as fond,
For as I gazed again upon the show,
I soon distinguished here and there a shape
Palm-wreathed and radiant, forehead and full eye.
Well pleased was I their state should thus at once
Interpret my own thoughts:"Behold the clue
"To all," I rashly said, "and what I pine
"To do, these have accomplished: we are peers.
"They know and therefore rule: I, too, will know!"
You were beside me, Festus, as you say;
You saw me plunge in their pursuits whom fame
Is lavish to attest the lords of mind,
Not pausing to make sure the prize in view
Would satiate my cravings when obtained,
But since they strove I strove. Then came a slow
And strangling failure. We aspired alike,
Yet not the meanest plodder, Tritheim counts
A marvel, but was all-sufficient, strong,
Or staggered only at his own vast wits;
While I was restless, nothing satisfied,
Distrustful, most perplexed. I would slur over
That struggle; suffice it, that I loathed myself
As weak compared with them, yet felt somehow
A mighty power was brooding, taking shape
Within me; and this lasted till one night
When, as I sat revolving it and more,
A still voice from without said"Seest thou not,
"Desponding child, whence spring defeat and loss?
"Even from thy strength. Consider: hast thou gazed
"Presumptuously on wisdom's countenance,
"No veil between; and can thy faltering hands,
"Unguided by the brain the sight absorbs,
"Pursue their task as earnest blinkers do
"Whom radiance ne'er distracted? Live their life
"If thou wouldst share their fortune, choose their eyes
"Unfed by splendour. Let each task present
"Its petty good to thee. Waste not thy gifts
"In profitless waiting for the gods' descent,
"But have some idol of thine own to dress
"With their array. Know, not for knowing's sake,
"But to become a star to men for ever;
"Know, for the gain it gets, the praise it brings,
"The wonder it inspires, the love it breeds:
"Look one step onward, and secure that step!"
And I smiled as one never smiles but once,
Then first discovering my own aim's extent,
Which sought to comprehend the works of God,
And God himself, and all God's intercourse
With the human mind; I understood, no less,
My fellows' studies, whose true worth I saw,
But smiled not, well aware who stood by me.
And softer came the voice"There is a way:
"'T is hard for flesh to tread therein, imbued
"With frailtyhopeless, if indulgence first
"Have ripened inborn germs of sin to strength:
"Wilt thou adventure for my sake and man's,
"Apart from all reward?" And last it breathed
"Be happy, my good soldier; I am by thee,
"Be sure, even to the end!"I answered not,
Knowing him. As he spoke, I was endued
With comprehension and a steadfast will;
And when he ceased, my brow was sealed his own.
If there took place no special change in me,
How comes it all things wore a different hue
Thenceforward?pregnant with vast consequence,
Teeming with grand result, loaded with fate?
So that when, quailing at the mighty range
Of secret truths which yearn for birth, I haste
To contemplate undazzled some one truth,
Its bearings and effects aloneat once
What was a speck expands into a star,
Asking a life to pass exploring thus,
Till I near craze. I go to prove my soul!
I see my way as birds their trackless way.
I shall arrive! what time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send his hail
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive:
He guides me and the bird. In his good time!
Michal.
Vex him no further, Festus; it is so!
Festus.
Just thus you help me ever. This would hold
Were it the trackless air, and not a path
Inviting you, distinct with footprints yet
Of many a mighty marcher gone that way.
You may have purer views than theirs, perhaps,
But they were famous in their daythe proofs
Remain. At least accept the light they lend.
Paracelsus.
Their light! the sum of all is briefly this:
They laboured and grew famous, and the fruits
Are best seen in a dark and groaning earth
Given over to a blind and endless strife
With evils, what of all their lore abates?
No; I reject and spurn them utterly
And all they teach. Shall I still sit beside
Their dry wells, with a white lip and filmed eye,
While in the distance heaven is blue above
Mountains where sleep the unsunned tarns?
Festus.
And yet
As strong delusions have prevailed ere now.
Men have set out as gallantly to seek
Their ruin. I have heard of such: yourself
Avow all hitherto have failed and fallen.
Michal.
Nay, Festus, when but as the pilgrims faint
Through the drear way, do you expect to see
Their city dawn amid the clouds afar?
Paracelsus.
Ay, sounds it not like some old well-known tale?
For me, I estimate their works and them
So rightly, that at times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages' way,
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light let in by death,
That life was blotted outnot so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again. All which, indeed,
Is foolish, and only meansthe flesh I wear,
The earth I tread, are not more clear to me
Than my belief, explained to you or no.
Festus.
And who am I, to challenge and dispute
That clear belief? I will divest all fear.
Michal.
Then Aureole is God's commissary! he shall
Be great and grandand all for us!
Paracelsus.
No, sweet!
Not great and grand. If I can serve mankind
'T is well; but there our intercourse must end:
I never will be served by those I serve.
Festus.
Look well to this; here is a plague-spot, here,
Disguise it how you may! 'T is true, you utter
This scorn while by our side and loving us;
'T is but a spot as yet: but it will break
Into a hideous blotch if overlooked.
How can that course be safe which from the first
Produces carelessness to human love?
It seems you have abjured the helps which men
Who overpass their kind, as you would do,
Have humbly sought; I dare not thoroughly probe
This matter, lest I learn too much. Let be
That popular praise would little instigate
Your efforts, nor particular approval
Reward you; put reward aside; alone
You shall go forth upon your arduous task,
None shall assist you, none partake your toil,
None share your triumph: still you must retain
Some one to cast your glory on, to share
Your rapture with. Were I elect like you,
I would encircle me with love, and raise
A rampart of my fellows; it should seem
Impossible for me to fail, so watched
By gentle friends who made my cause their own.
They should ward off fate's envythe great gift,
Extravagant when claimed by me alone,
Being so a gift to them as well as me.
If danger daunted me or ease seduced,
How calmly their sad eyes should gaze reproach!
Michal.
O Aureole, can I sing when all alone,
Without first calling, in my fancy, both
To listen by my sideeven I! And you?
Do you not feel this? Say that you feel this!
Paracelsus.
I feel't is pleasant that my aims, at length
Allowed their weight, should be supposed to need
A further strengthening in these goodly helps!
My course allures for its own sake, its sole
Intrinsic worth; and ne'er shall boat of mine
Adventure forth for gold and apes at once.
Your sages say, "if human, therefore weak:"
If weak, more need to give myself entire
To my pursuit; and by its side, all else . . .
No matter! I deny myself but little
In waiving all assistance save its own.
Would there were some real sacrifice to make!
Your friends the sages threw their joys away,
While I must be content with keeping mine.
Festus.
But do not cut yourself from human weal!
You cannot thrivea man that dares affect
To spend his life in service to his kind
For no reward of theirs, unbound to them
By any tie; nor do so, Aureole! No
There are strange punishments for such. Give up
(Although no visible good flow thence) some part
Of the glory to another; hiding thus,
Even from yourself, that all is for yourself.
Say, say almost to God"I have done all
"For her, not for myself!"
Paracelsus.
And who but lately
Was to rejoice in my success like you?
Whom should I love but both of you?
Festus.
I know not:
But know this, you, that't is no will of mine
You should abjure the lofty claims you make;
And this the causeI can no longer seek
To overlook the truth, that there would be
A monstrous spectacle upon the earth,
Beneath the pleasant sun, among the trees:
A being knowing not what love is. Hear me!
You are endowed with faculties which bear
Annexed to them as't were a dispensation
To summon meaner spirits to do their will
And gather round them at their need; inspiring
Such with a love themselves can never feel,
Passionless'mid their passionate votaries.
I know not if you joy in this or no,
Or ever dream that common men can live
On objects you prize lightly, but which make
Their heart's sole treasure: the affections seem
Beauteous at most to you, which we must taste
Or die: and this strange quality accords,
I know not how, with you; sits well upon
That luminous brow, though in another it scowls
An eating brand, a shame. I dare not judge you.
The rules of right and wrong thus set aside,
There's no alternativeI own you one
Of higher order, under other laws
Than bind us; therefore, curb not one bold glance!
'T is best aspire. Once mingled with us all . . .
Michal.
Stay with us, Aureole! cast those hopes away,
And stay with us! An angel warns me, too,
Man should be humble; you are very proud:
And God, dethroned, has doleful plagues for such!
Warns me to have in dread no quick repulse,
No slow defeat, but a complete success:
You will find all you seek, and perish so!
Paracelsus
[after a pause].
Are these the barren firstfruits of my quest?
Is love like this the natural lot of all?
How many years of pain might one such hour
O'erbalance? Dearest Michal, dearest Festus,
What shall I say, if not that I desire
To justify your love; and will, dear friends,
In swerving nothing from my first resolves.
See, the great moon! and ere the mottled owls
Were wide awake, I was to go. It seems
You acquiesce at last in all save this
If I am like to compass what I seek
By the untried career I choose; and then,
If that career, making but small account
Of much of life's delight, will yet retain
Sufficient to sustain my soul: for thus
I understand these fond fears just expressed.
And first; the lore you praise and I neglect,
The labours and the precepts of old time,
I have not lightly disesteemed. But, friends,
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fulness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perceptionwhich is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error: and to know
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without. Watch narrowly
The demonstration of a truth, its birth,
And you trace back the effluence to its spring
And source within us; where broods radiance vast,
To be elicited ray by ray, as chance
Shall favour: chancefor hitherto, your sage
Even as he knows not how those beams are born,
As little knows he what unlocks their fount:
And men have oft grown old among their books
To die case-hardened in their ignorance,
Whose careless youth had promised what long years
Of unremitted labour ne'er performed:
While, contrary, it has chanced some idle day,
To autumn loiterers just as fancy-free
As the midges in the sun, gives birth at last
To truthproduced mysteriously as cape
Of cloud grown out of the invisible air.
Hence, may not truth be lodged alike in all,
The lowest as the highest? some slight film
The interposing bar which binds a soul
And makes the idiot, just as makes the sage
Some film removed, the happy outlet whence
Truth issues proudly? See this soul of ours!
How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed
In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled
By age and waste, set free at last by death:
Why is it, flesh enthrals it or enthrones?
What is this flesh we have to penetrate?
Oh, not alone when life flows still, do truth
And power emerge, but also when strange chance
Ruffles its current; in unused conjuncture,
When sickness breaks the bodyhunger, watching,
Excess or languoroftenest death's approach,
Peril, deep joy or woe. One man shall crawl
Through life surrounded with all stirring things,
Unmoved; and he goes mad: and from the wreck
Of what he was, by his wild talk alone,
You first collect how great a spirit he hid.
Therefore, set free the soul alike in all,
Discovering the true laws by which the flesh
Accloys the spirit! We may not be doomed
To cope with seraphs, but at least the rest
Shall cope with us. Make no more giants, God,
But elevate the race at once! We ask
To put forth just our strength, our human strength,
All starting fairly, all equipped alike,
Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted
See if we cannot beat thine angels yet!
Such is my task. I go to gather this
The sacred knowledge, here and there dispersed
About the world, long lost or never found.
And why should I be sad or lorn of hope?
Why ever make man's good distinct from God's,
Or, finding they are one, why dare mistrust?
Who shall succeed if not one pledged like me?
Mine is no mad attempt to build a world
Apart from his, like those who set themselves
To find the nature of the spirit they bore,
And, taught betimes that all their gorgeous dreams
Were only born to vanish in this life,
Refused to fit them to its narrow sphere,
But chose to figure forth another world
And other frames meet for their vast desires,
And all a dream! Thus was life scorned; but life
Shall yet be crowned: twine amaranth! I am priest!
And all for yielding with a lively spirit
A poor existence, parting with a youth
Like those who squander every energy
Convertible to good, on painted toys,
Breath-bubbles, gilded dust! And though I spurn
All adventitious aims, from empty praise
To love's award, yet whoso deems such helps
Important, and concerns himself for me,
May know even these will follow with the rest
As in the steady rolling Mayne, asleep
Yonder, is mixed its mass of schistous ore.
My own affections laid to rest awhile,
Will waken purified, subdued alone
By all I have achieved. Till thentill then . . .
Ah, the time-wiling loitering of a page
Through bower and over lawn, till eve shall bring
The stately lady's presence whom he loves
The broken sleep of the fisher whose rough coat
Enwraps the queenly pearlthese are faint types!
See, see, they look on me: I triumph now!
But one thing, Festus, Michal! I have told
All I shall e'er disclose to mortal: say
Do you believe I shall accomplish this?
Festus.
I do believe!
Michal.
I ever did believe!
Paracelsus.
Those words shall never fade from out my brain!
This earnest of the end shall never fade!
Are there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michal,
Two points in the adventure of the diver,
Onewhen, a beggar, he prepares to plunge,
Onewhen, a prince, he rises with his pearl?
Festus, I plunge!
Festus.
We wait you when you rise!
~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part I - Paracelsus Aspires
,#NFDB
1329:The thought of Eglamor's least like a thought,
And yet a false one, was, "Man shrinks to nought
"If matched with symbols of immensity;
"Must quail, forsooth, before a quiet sky
"Or sea, too little for their quietude:"
And, truly, somewhat in Sordello's mood
Confirmed its speciousness, while eve slow sank
Down the near terrace to the farther bank,
And only one spot left from out the night
Glimmered upon the river opposite
A breadth of watery heaven like a bay,
A sky-like space of water, ray for ray,
And star for star, one richness where they mixed
As this and that wing of an angel, fixed,
Tumultuary splendours folded in
To die. Nor turned he till Ferrara's din
(Say, the monotonous speech from a man's lip
Who lets some first and eager purpose slip
In a new fancy's birththe speech keeps on
Though elsewhere its informing soul be gone)
Aroused him, surely offered succour. Fate
Paused with this eve; ere she precipitate
Herself,best put off new strange thoughts awhile,
That voice, those large hands, that portentous smile,
What help to pierce the future as the past
Lay in the plaining city?
And at last
The main discovery and prime concern,
All that just now imported him to learn,
Truth's self, like yonder slow moon to complete
Heaven, rose again, and, naked at his feet,
Lighted his old life's every shift and change,
Effort with counter-effort; nor the range
Of each looked wrong except wherein it checked,
Some otherwhich of these could he suspect,
Prying into them by the sudden blaze?
The real way seemed made up of all the ways
Mood after mood of the one mind in him;
Tokens of the existence, bright or dim,
Of a transcendent all-embracing sense
Demanding only outward influence,
A soul, in Palma's phrase, above his soul,
Power to uplift his power,such moon's control
Over such sea-depths,and their mass had swept
Onward from the beginning and still kept
Its course: but years and years the sky above
Held none, and so, untasked of any love,
His sensitiveness idled, now amort,
Alive now, and, to sullenness or sport
Given wholly up, disposed itself anew
At every passing instigation, grew
And dwindled at caprice, in foam-showers spilt,
Wedge-like insisting, quivered now a gilt
Shield in the sunshine, now a blinding race
Of whitest ripples o'er the reeffound place
For much display; not gathered up and, hurled
Right from its heart, encompassing the world.
So had Sordello been, by consequence,
Without a function: others made pretence
To strength not half his own, yet had some core
Within, submitted to some moon, before
Them still, superior still whate'er their force,
Were able therefore to fulfil a course,
Nor missed life's crown, authentic attribute.
To each who lives must be a certain fruit
Of having lived in his degree,a stage,
Earlier or later in men's pilgrimage,
To stop at; and to this the spirits tend
Who, still discovering beauty without end,
Amass the scintillations, make one star
Something unlike them, self-sustained, afar,
And meanwhile nurse the dream of being blest
By winning it to notice and invest
Their souls with alien glory, some one day
Whene'er the nucleus, gathering shape alway,
Round to the perfect circlesoon or late,
According as themselves are formed to wait;
Whether mere human beauty will suffice
The yellow hair and the luxurious eyes,
Or human intellect seem best, or each
Combine in some ideal form past reach
On earth, or else some shade of these, some aim,
Some love, hate even, take their place, the same,
So to be servedall this they do not lose,
Waiting for death to live, nor idly choose
What must be Hella progress thus pursued
Through all existence, still above the food
That 's offered them, still fain to reach beyond
The widened range, in virtue of their bond
Of sovereignty. Not that a Palma's Love,
A Salinguerra's Hate, would equal prove
To swaying all Sordello: but why doubt
Some love meet for such strength, some moon without
Would match his sea?or fear, Good manifest,
Only the Best breaks faith?Ah but the Best
Somehow eludes us ever, still might be
And is not! Crave we gems? No penury
Of their material round us! Pliant earth
And plastic flamewhat balks the mage his birth
Jacinth in balls or lodestone by the block?
Flinders enrich the strand, veins swell the rock;
Nought more! Seek creatures? Life 's i' the tempest, thought
Clothes the keen hill-top, mid-day woods are fraught
With fervours: human forms are well enough!
But we had hoped, encouraged by the stuff
Profuse at nature's pleasure, men beyond
These actual men!and thus are over-fond
In arguing, from Goodthe Best, from force
Dividedforce combined, an ocean's course
From this our sea whose mere intestine pants
Might seem at times sufficient to our wants.
External power! If none be adequate,
And he stand forth ordained (a prouder fate)
Himself a law to his own sphere? "Remove
"All incompleteness!" for that law, that love?
Nay, if all other laws be feints,truth veiled
Helpfully to weak vision that had failed
To grasp aught but its special want,for lure,
Embodied? Stronger vision could endure
The unbodied want: no partthe whole of truth!
The People were himself; nor, by the ruth
At their condition, was he less impelled
To alter the discrepancy beheld,
Than if, from the sound whole, a sickly part
Subtracted were transformed, decked out with art,
Then palmed on him as alien woethe Guelf
To succour, proud that he forsook himself.
All is himself; all service, therefore, rates
Alike, nor serving one part, immolates
The rest: but all in time! "That lance of yours
"Makes havoc soon with Malek and his Moors,
"That buckler 's lined with many a giant's beard
"Ere long, our champion, be the lance upreared,
"The buckler wielded handsomely as now!
"But view your escort, bear in mind your vow,
"Count the pale tracts of sand to pass ere that,
"And, if you hope we struggle through the flat,
"Put lance and buckler by! Next half-month lacks
"Mere sturdy exercise of mace and axe
"To cleave this dismal brake of prickly-pear
"Which bristling holds Cydippe by the hair,
"Lames barefoot Agathon: this felled, we 'll try
"The picturesque achievements by and by
"Next life!"
Ay, rally, mock, O People, urge
Your claims!for thus he ventured, to the verge,
Push a vain mummery which perchance distrust
Of his fast-slipping resolution thrust
Likewise: accordingly the Crowd(as yet
He had unconsciously contrived forget
I' the whole, to dwell o' the points . . . one might assuage
The signal horrors easier than engage
With a dim vulgar vast unobvious grief
Not to be fancied off, nor gained relief
In brilliant fits, cured by a happy quirk,
But by dim vulgar vast unobvious work
To correspond . . .) this Crowd then, forth they stood.
"And now content thy stronger vision, brood
"On thy bare want; uncovered, turf by turf,
"Study the corpse-face thro' the taint-worms' scurf!"
Down sank the People's Then; uprose their Now.
These sad ones render service to! And how
Piteously little must that service prove
Had surely proved in any case! for, move
Each other obstacle away, let youth
Become aware it had surprised a truth
'T were service to impartcan truth be seized,
Settled forthwith, and, of the captive eased,
Its captor find fresh prey, since this alit
So happily, no gesture luring it,
The earnest of a flock to follow? Vain,
Most vain! a life to spend ere this he chain
To the poor crowd's complacence: ere the crowd
Pronounce it captured, he descries a cloud
Its kin of twice the plume; which he, in turn,
If he shall live as many lives, may learn
How to secure: not else. Then Mantua called
Back to his mind how certain bards were thralled
Buds blasted, but of breath more like perfume
Than Naddo's staring nosegay's carrion bloom;
Some insane rose that burnt heart out in sweets,
A spendthrift in the spring, no summer greets;
Some Dularete, drunk with truths and wine,
Grown bestial, dreaming how become divine.
Yet to surmount this obstacle, commence
With the commencement, merits crowning! Hence
Must truth be casual truth, elicited
In sparks so mean, at intervals dispread
So rarely, that 't is like at no one time
Of the world's story has not truth, the prime
Of truth, the very truth which, loosed, had hurled
The world's course right, been really in the world
Content the while with some mean spark by dint
Of some chance-blow, the solitary hint
Of buried fire, which, rip earth's breast, would stream
Sky-ward!
Sordello's miserable gleam
Was looked for at the moment: he would dash
This badge. and all it brought, to earth,abash
Taurello thus, perhaps persuade him wrest
The Kaiser from his purpose,would attest
His own belief, in any case. Before
He dashes it however, think once more!
For, were that little, truly service? "Ay,
"I' the end, no doubt; but meantime? Plain you spy
"Its ultimate effect, but many flaws
"Of vision blur each intervening cause.
"Were the day's fraction clear as the life's sum
"Of service, Now as filled as teems To-come
"With evidence of goodnor too minute
"A share to vie with evil! No dispute,
"'T were fitliest maintain the Guelfs in rule:
"That makes your life's work: but you have to school
"Your day's work on these natures circumstanced
"Thus variously, which yet, as each advanced
"Or might impede the Guelf rule, must be moved
"Now, for the Then's sake,hating what you loved,
"Loving old hatreds! Nor if one man bore
"Brand upon temples while his fellow wore
"The aureole, would it task you to decide:
"But, portioned duly out, the future vied
"Never with the unparcelled present! Smite
"Or spare so much on warrant all so slight?
"The present's complete sympathies to break,
"Aversions bear with, for a future's sake
"So feeble? Tito ruined through one speck,
"The Legate saved by his sole lightish fleck?
"This were work, true, but work performed at cost
"Of other work; aught gained here, elsewhere lost.
"For a new segment spoil an orb half-done?
"Rise with the People one step, and sinkone?
"Were it but one step, less than the whole face
"Of things, your novel duty bids erase!
"Harms to abolish! What, the prophet saith,
"The minstrel singeth vainly then? Old faith,
"Old courage, only born because of harms,
"Were not, from highest to the lowest, charms?
"Flame may persist; but is not glare as staunch?
"Where the salt marshes stagnate, crystals branch;
"Blood dries to crimson; Evil 's beautified
"In every shape. Thrust Beauty then aside
"And banish Evil! Wherefore? After all,
"Is Evil a result less natural
"Than Good? For overlook the seasons' strife
"With tree and flower,the hideous animal life,
"(Of which who seeks shall find a grinning taunt
"For his solution, and endure the vaunt
"Of nature's angel, as a child that knows
"Himself befooled, unable to propose
"Aught better than the fooling)and but care
"For men, for the mere People then and there,
"In these, could you but see that Good and Ill
"Claimed you alike! Whence rose their claim but still
"From Ill, as fruit of Ill? What else could knit
"You theirs but Sorrow? Any free from it
"Were also free from you! Whose happiness
"Could be distinguished in this morning's press
"Of miseries?the fool's who passed a gibe
"'On thee,' jeered he, `so wedded to thy tribe,
"`Thou carriest green and yellow tokens in
"'Thy very face that thou art Ghibellin!'
"Much hold on you that fool obtained! Nay mount
"Yet higherand upon men's own account
"Must Evil stay: for, what is joy?to heave
"Up one obstruction more, and common leave
"What was peculiar, by such act destroy
"Itself; a partial death is every joy;
"The sensible escape, enfranchisement
"Of a sphere's essence: once the vexedcontent,
"The crampedat large, the growing circleround,
"All 's to begin againsome novel bound
"To break, some new enlargement to entreat;
"The sphere though larger is not more complete.
"Now for Mankind's experience: who alone
"Might style the unobstructed world his own?
"Whom palled Goito with its perfect things?
"Sordello's self: whereas for Mankind springs
"Salvation by each hindrance interposed.
"They climb; life's view is not at once disclosed
"To creatures caught up, on the summit left,
"Heaven plain above them, yet of wings bereft:
"But lower laid, as at the mountain's foot.
"So, range on range, the girdling forests shoot
"'Twixt your plain prospect and the throngs who scale
"Height after height, and pierce mists, veil by veil,
"Heartened with each discovery; in their soul,
"The Whole they seek by Partsbut, found that Whole,
"Could they revert, enjoy past gains? The space
"Of time you judge so meagre to embrace
"The Parts were more than plenty, once attained
"The Whole, to quite exhaust it: nought were gained
"But leave to looknot leave to do: Beneath
"Soon sates the lookerlook Above, and Death
"Tempts ere a tithe of Life be tasted. Live
"First, and die soon enough, Sordello! Give
"Body and spirit the first right they claim,
"And pasture soul on a voluptuous shame
"That you, a pageant-city's denizen,
"Are neither vilely lodged midst Lombard men
"Can force joy out of sorrow, seem to truck
"Bright attributes away for sordid muck,
"Yet manage from that very muck educe
"Gold; then subject nor scruple, to your cruce
"The world's discardings! Though real ingots pay
"Your pains, the clods that yielded them are clay
"To all beside,would clay remain, though quenched
"Your purging-fire; who 's robbed then? Had you wrenched
"An ampler treasure forth!As 't is, they crave
"A share that ruins you and will not save
"Them. Why should sympathy command you quit
"The course that makes your joy, nor will remit
"Their woe? Would all arrive at joy? Reverse
"The order (time instructs you) nor coerce
"Each unit till, some predetermined mode,
"The total be emancipate; men's road
"Is one, men's times of travel many; thwart
"No enterprising soul's precocious start
"Before the general march! If slow or fast
"All straggle up to the same point at last,
"Why grudge your having gained, a month ago,
"The brakes at balm-shed, asphodels in blow,
"While they were landlocked? Speed their Then, but how
"This badge would suffer you improve your Now!"
His time of action for, against, or with
Our world (I labour to extract the pith
Of this his problem) grew, that even-tide,
Gigantic with its power of joy, beside
The world's eternity of impotence
To profit though at his whole joy's expense.
"Make nothing of my day because so brief?
"Rather make more: instead of joy, use grief
"Before its novelty have time subside!
"Wait not for the late savour, leave untried
"Virtue, the creaming honey-wine, quick squeeze
"Vice like a biting spirit from the lees
"Of life! Together let wrath, hatred, lust,
"All tyrannies in every shape, be thrust
"Upon this Now, which time may reason out
"As mischiefs, far from benefits, no doubt;
"But long ere then Sordello will have slipt
"Away; you teach him at Goito's crypt,
"There 's a blank issue to that fiery thrill.
"Stirring, the few cope with the many, still:
"So much of sand as, quiet, makes a mass
"Unable to produce three tufts of grass,
"Shall, troubled by the whirlwind, render void
"The whole calm glebe's endeavour: be employed!
"And e'en though somewhat smart the Crowd for this,
"Contribute each his pang to make your bliss,
"'T is but one pangone blood-drop to the bowl
"Which brimful tempts the sluggish asp uncowl
"At last, stains ruddily the dull red cape,
"And, kindling orbs grey as the unripe grape
"Before, avails forthwith to disentrance
"The portent, soon to lead a mystic dance
"Among you! For, who sits alone in Rome?
"Have those great hands indeed hewn out a home,
"And set me there to live? Oh life, life-breath,
"Life-blood,ere sleep, come travail, life ere death!
"This life stream on my soul, direct, oblique,
"But always streaming! Hindrances? They pique:
"Helps? such . . . but why repeat, my soul o'ertops
"Each height, then every depth profoundlier drops?
"Enough that I can live, and would live! Wait
"For some transcendent life reserved by Fate
"To follow this? Oh, never! Fate, I trust
"The same, my soul to; for, as who flings dust,
"Perchance (so facile was the deed) she chequed
"The void with these materials to affect
"My soul diversely: these consigned anew
"To nought by death, what marvel if she threw
"A second and superber spectacle
"Before me? What may serve for sun, what still
"Wander a moon above me? What else wind
"About me like the pleasures left behind,
"And how shall some new flesh that is not flesh
"Cling to me? What 's new laughter? Soothes the fresh
"Sleep like sleep? Fate 's exhaustless for my sake
"In brave resource: but whether bids she slake
"My thirst at this first rivulet, or count
"No draught worth lip save from some rocky fount
"Above i' the clouds, while here she 's provident
"Of pure loquacious pearl, the soft tree-tent
"Guards, with its face of reate and sedge, nor fail
"The silver globules and gold-sparkling grail
"At bottom? Oh, 't were too absurd to slight
"For the hereafter the to-day's delight!
"Quench thirst at this, then seek next well-spring: wear
"Home-lilies ere strange lotus in my hair!
"Here is the Crowd, whom I with freest heart
"Offer to serve, contented for my part
"To give life up in service,only grant
"That I do serve; if otherwise, why want
"Aught further of me? If men cannot choose
"But set aside life, why should I refuse
"The gift? I take itI, for one, engage
"Never to falter through my pilgrimage
"Nor end it howling that the stock or stone
"Were enviable, truly: I, for one,
"Will praise the world, you style mere anteroom
"To palacebe it so! shall I assume
"My foot the courtly gait, my tongue the trope,
"My mouth the smirk, before the doors fly ope
"One moment? What? with guarders row on row,
"Gay swarms of varletry that come and go,
"Pages to dice with, waiting-girls unlace
"The plackets of, pert claimants help displace,
"Heart-heavy suitors get a rank for,laugh
"At yon sleek parasite, break his own staff
"'Cross Beetle-brows the Usher's shoulder,why
"Admitted to the presence by and by,
"Should thought of having lost these make me grieve
"Among new joys I reach, for joys I leave?
"Cool citrine-crystals, fierce pyropus-stone,
"Are floor-work there! But do I let alone
"That black-eyed peasant in the vestibule
"Once and for ever?Floor-work? No such fool!
"Rather, were heaven to forestall earth, I 'd say
"I, is it, must be blest? Then, my own way
"Bless me! Giver firmer arm and fleeter foot,
"I 'll thank you: but to no mad wings transmute
"These limbs of mineour greensward was so soft!
"Nor camp I on the thunder-cloud aloft:
"We feel the bliss distinctlier, having thus
"Engines subservient, not mixed up with us.
"Better move palpably through heaven: nor, freed
"Of flesh, forsooth, from space to space proceed
"'Mid flying synods of worlds! No: in heaven's marge
"Show Titan still, recumbent o'er his targe
"Solid with starsthe Centaur at his game,
"Made tremulously out in hoary flame!
"Life! Yet the very cup whose extreme dull
"Dregs, even, I would quaff, was dashed, at full,
"Aside so oft; the death I fly, revealed
"So oft a better life this life concealed,
"And which sage, champion, martyr, through each path
"Have hunted fearlesslythe horrid bath,
"The crippling-irons and the fiery chair.
"'T was well for them; let me become aware
"As they, and I relinquish life, too! Let
"What masters life disclose itself! Forget
"Vain ordinances, I have one appeal
"I feel, am what I feel, know what I feel;
"So much is truth to me. What Is, then? Since
"One object, viewed diversely, may evince
"Beauty and uglinessthis way attract,
"That way repel,why gloze upon the fact?
"Why must a single of the sides be right?
"What bids choose this and leave the opposite?
"Where 's abstract Right for me?in youth endued
"With Right still present, still to be pursued,
"Thro' all the interchange of circles, rife
"Each with its proper law and mode of life,
"Each to be dwelt at ease in: where, to sway
"Absolute with the Kaiser, or obey
"Implicit with his serf of fluttering heart,
"Or, like a sudden thought of God's, to start
"Up, Brutus in the presence, then go shout
"That some should pick the unstrung jewels out
"Each, well!"
And, as in moments when the past
Gave partially enfranchisement, he cast
Himself quite through mere secondary states
Of his soul's essence, little loves and hates,
Into the mid deep yearnings overlaid
By these; as who should pierce hill, plain, grove, glade,
And on into the very nucleus probe
That first determined there exist a globe.
As that were easiest, half the globe dissolved,
So seemed Sordello's closing-truth evolved
By his flesh-half's break-up; the sudden swell
Of his expanding soul showed Ill and Well,
Sorrow and Joy, Beauty and Ugliness,
Virtue and Vice, the Larger and the Less,
All qualities, in fine, recorded here,
Might be but modes of Time and this one sphere,
Urgent on these, but not of force to bind
Eternity, as Timeas MatterMind,
If Mind, Eternity, should choose assert
Their attributes within a Life: thus girt
With circumstance, next change beholds them cinct
Quite otherwisewith Good and Ill distinct,
Joys, sorrows, tending to a like result
Contrived to render easy, difficult,
This or the other course of . . . what new bond
In place of flesh may stop their flight beyond
Its new sphere, as that course does harm or good
To its arrangements. Once this understood,
As suddenly he felt himself alone,
Quite out of Time and this world: all was known.
What made the secret of his past despair?
Most imminent when he seemed most aware
Of his own self-sufficiency: made mad
By craving to expand the power he had,
And not new power to be expanded?just
This made it; Soul on Matter being thrust,
Joy comes when so much Soul is wreaked in Time
On Matter: let the Soul's attempt sublime
Matter beyond the scheme and so prevent
By more or less that deed's accomplishment,
And Sorrow follows: Sorrow how avoid?
Let the employer match the thing employed,
Fit to the finite his infinity,
And thus proceed for ever, in degree
Changed but in kind the same, still limited
To the appointed circumstance and dead
To all beyond. A sphere is but a sphere;
Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here;
Since to the spirit's absoluteness all
Are like. Now, of the present sphere we call
Life, are conditions; take but this among
Many; the body was to be so long
Youthful, no longer: but, since no control
Tied to that body's purposes his soul,
She chose to understand the body's trade
More than the body's selfhad fain conveyed
Her boundless to the body's bounded lot.
Hence, the soul permanent, the body not,
Scarcely its minute for enjoying here,
The soul must needs instruct her weak compeer,
Run o'er its capabilities and wring
A joy thence, she held worth experiencing:
Which, far from half discovered even,lo,
The minute gone, the body's power let go
Apportioned to that joy's acquirement! Broke
Morning o'er earth, he yearned for all it woke
From the volcano's vapour-flag, winds hoist
Black o'er the spread of sea,down to the moist
Dale's silken barley-spikes sullied with rain,
Swayed earthwards, heavily to rise again
The Small, a sphere as perfect as the Great
To the soul's absoluteness. Meditate
Too long on such a morning's cluster-chord
And the whole music it was framed afford,
The chord's might half discovered, what should pluck
One string, his finger, was found palsy-struck.
And then no marvel if the spirit, shown
A saddest sightthe body lost alone
Through her officious proffered help, deprived
Of this and that enjoyment Fate contrived,
Virtue, Good, Beauty, each allowed slip hence,
Vain-gloriously were fain, for recompense,
To stem the ruin even yet, protract
The body's term, supply the power it lacked
From her infinity, compel it learn
These qualities were only Time's concern,
And body may, with spirit helping, barred
Advance the same, vanquishedobtain reward,
Reap joy where sorrow was intended grow,
Of Wrong make Right, and turn Ill Good below.
And the result is, the poor body soon
Sinks under what was meant a wondrous boon,
Leaving its bright accomplice all aghast.
So much was plain then, proper in the past;
To be complete for, satisfy the whole
Series of spheresEternity, his soul
Needs must exceed, prove incomplete for, each
Single sphereTime. But does our knowledge reach
No farther? Is the cloud of hindrance broke
But by the failing of the fleshly yoke,
Its loves and hates, as now when death lets soar
Sordello, self-sufficient as before,
Though during the mere space that shall elapse
'Twixt his enthralment in new bonds perhaps?
Must life be ever just escaped, which should
Have been enjoyed?nay, might have been and would,
Each purpose ordered rightthe soul 's no whit
Beyond the body's purpose under it.
Like yonder breadth of watery heaven, a bay,
And that sky-space of water, ray for ray
And star for star, one richness where they mixed
As this and that wing of an angel, fixed,
Tumultuary splendours folded in
To diewould soul, proportioned thus, begin
Exciting discontent, or surelier quell
The body if, aspiring, it rebel?
But how so order life? Still brutalize
The soul, the sad world's way, with muffled eyes
To all that was before, all that shall be
After this sphereall and each quality
Save some sole and immutable Great, Good
And Beauteous whither fate has loosed its hood
To follow? Never may some soul see All
The Great Before and After, and the Small
Now, yet be saved by this the simplest lore,
And take the single course prescribed before,
As the king-bird with ages on his plumes
Travels to die in his ancestral glooms?
But where descry the Love that shall select
That course? Here is a soul whom, to affect,
Nature has plied with all her means, from trees
And flowers e'en to the Multitude!and these,
Decides he save or no? One word to end!
Ah my Sordello, I this once befriend
And speak for you. Of a Power above you still
Which, utterly incomprehensible,
Is out of rivalry, which thus you can
Love, tho' unloving all conceived by man
What need! And ofnone the minutest duct
To that out-nature, nought that would instruct
And so let rivalry begin to live
But of a Power its representative
Who, being for authority the same,
Communication different, should claim
A course, the first chose but this last revealed
This Human clear, as that Divine concealed
What utter need!
What has Sordello found?
Or can his spirit go the mighty round,
End where poor Eglamor begun? So, says
Old fable, the two eagles went two ways
About the world: where, in the midst, they met,
Though on a shifting waste of sand, men set
Jove's temple. Quick, what has Sordello found?
For they approachapproachthat foot's rebound
Palma? No, Salinguerra though in mail;
They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veil
Asideand you divine who sat there dead,
Under his foot the badge: still, Palma said,
A triumph lingering in the wide eyes,
Wider than some spent swimmer's if he spies
Help from above in his extreme despair,
And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns there
With short quick passionate cry: as Palma pressed
In one great kiss, her lips upon his breast,
It beat.
By this, the hermit-bee has stopped
His day's toil at Goito: the new-cropped
Dead vine-leaf answers, now 't is eve, he bit,
Twirled so, and filed all day: the mansion 's fit,
God counselled for. As easy guess the word
That passed betwixt them, and become the third
To the soft small unfrighted bee, as tax
Him with one faultso, no remembrance racks
Of the stone maidens and the font of stone
He, creeping through the crevice, leaves alone.
Alas, my friend, alas Sordello, whom
Anon they laid within that old font-tomb,
And, yet again, alas!
And now is 't worth
Our while bring back to mind, much less set forth
How Salinguerra extricates himself
Without Sordello? Ghibellin and Guelf
May fight their fiercest out? If Richard sulked
In durance or the Marquis paid his mulct,
Who cares, Sordello gone? The upshot, sure,
Was peace; our chief made some frank overture
That prospered; compliment fell thick and fast
On its disposer, and Taurello passed
With foe and friend for an outstripping soul,
Nine days at least. Then,fairly reached the goal,
He, by one effort, blotted the great hope
Out of his mind, nor further tried to cope
With Este, that mad evening's style, but sent
Away the Legate and the League, content
No blame at least the brothers had incurred,
Dispatched a message to the Monk, he heard
Patiently first to last, scarce shivered at,
Then curled his limbs up on his wolfskin mat
And ne'er spoke more,informed the Ferrarese
He but retained their rule so long as these
Lingered in pupilage,and last, no mode
Apparent else of keeping safe the road
From Germany direct to Lombardy
For Friedrich,none, that is, to guarantee
The faith and promptitude of who should next
Obtain Sofia's dowry,sore perplexed
(Sofia being youngest of the tribe
Of daughters, Ecelin was wont to bribe
The envious magnates withnor, since he sent
Henry of Egna this fair child, had Trent
Once failed the Kaiser's purposes"we lost
"Egna last year, and who takes Egna's post
"Opens the Lombard gate if Friedrich knock?")
Himself espoused the Lady of the Rock
In pure necessity, and, so destroyed
His slender last of chances, quite made void
Old prophecy, and spite of all the schemes
Overt and covert, youth's deeds, age's dreams,
Was sucked into Romano. And so hushed
He up this evening's work that, when 't was brushed
Somehow against by a blind chronicle
Which, chronicling whatever woe befell
Ferrara, noted this the obscure woe
Of "Salinguerra's sole son Giacomo
"Deceased, fatuous and doting, ere his sire,"
The townsfolk rubbed their eyes, could but admire
Which of Sofia's five was meant.
The chaps
Of earth's dead hope were tardy to collapse,
Obliterated not the beautiful
Distinctive features at a crash: but dull
And duller these, next year, as Guelfs withdrew
Each to his stronghold. Then (securely too
Ecelin at Campese slept; close by,
Who likes may see him in Solagna lie,
With cushioned head and gloved hand to denote
The cavalier he was)then his heart smote
Young Ecelin at last; long since adult.
And, save Vicenza's business, what result
In blood and blaze? (So hard to intercept
Sordello till his plain withdrawal!) Stepped
Then its new lord on Lombardy. I' the nick
Of time when Ecelin and Alberic
Closed with Taurello, come precisely news
That in Verona half the souls refuse
Allegiance to the Marquis and the Count
Have cast them from a throne they bid him mount,
Their Podest, thro' his ancestral worth.
Ecelin flew there, and the town henceforth
Was wholly hisTaurello sinking back
From temporary station to a track
That suited. News received of this acquist,
Friedrich did come to Lombardy: who missed
Taurello then? Another year: they took
Vicenza, left the Marquis scarce a nook
For refuge, and, when hundreds two or three
Of Guelfs conspired to call themselves "The Free,"
Opposing Alberic,vile Bassanese,
(Without Sordello!)Ecelin at ease
Slaughtered them so observably, that oft
A little Salinguerra looked with soft
Blue eyes up, asked his sire the proper age
To get appointed his proud uncle's page.
More years passed, and that sire had dwindled down
To a mere showy turbulent soldier, grown
Better through age, his parts still in repute,
Subtlehow else?but hardly so astute
As his contemporaneous friends professed;
Undoubtedly a brawler: for the rest,
Known by each neighbour, and allowed for, let
Keep his incorrigible ways, nor fret
Men who would miss their boyhood's bugbear: "trap
"The ostrich, suffer our bald osprey flap
"A battered pinion!"was the word. In fine,
One flap too much and Venice's marine
Was meddled with; no overlooking that!
She captured him in his Ferrara, fat
And florid at a banquet, more by fraud
Than force, to speak the truth; there 's slender laud
Ascribed you for assisting eighty years
To pull his death on such a man; fate shears
The life-cord prompt enough whose last fine threads
You fritter: so, presiding his board-head,
The old smile, your assurance all went well
With Friedrich (as if he were like to tell!)
In rushed (a plan contrived before) our friends,
Made some pretence at fighting, some amends
For the shame done his eighty years(apart
The principle, none found it in his heart
To be much angry with Taurello)gained
Their galleys with the prize, and what remained
But carry him to Venice for a show?
Set him, as 't were, down gentlyfree to go
His gait, inspect our square, pretend observe
The swallows soaring their eternal curve
'Twixt Theodore and Mark, if citizens
Gathered importunately, fives and tens,
To point their children the Magnifico,
All but a monarch once in firm-land, go
His gait among them now"it took, indeed,
"Fully this Ecelin to supersede
"That man," remarked the seniors. Singular!
Sordello's inability to bar
Rivals the stage, that evening, mainly brought
About by his strange disbelief that aught
Was ever to be done,this thrust the Twain
Under Taurello's tutelage,whom, brain
And heart and hand, he forthwith in one rod
Indissolubly bound to baffle God
Who loves the worldand thus allowed the thin
Grey wizened dwarfish devil Ecelin,
And massy-muscled big-boned Alberic
(Mere man, alas!) to put his problem quick
To demonstrationprove wherever's will
To do, there's plenty to be done, or ill
Or good. Anointed, then, to rend and rip
Kings of the gag and flesh-hook, screw and whip,
They plagued the world: a touch of Hildebrand
(So far from obsolete!) made Lombards band
Together, cross their coats as for Christ's cause,
And saving Milan win the world's applause.
Ecelin perished: and I think grass grew
Never so pleasant as in Valley R
By San Zenon where Alberic in turn
Saw his exasperated captors burn
Seven children and their mother; then, regaled
So far, tied on to a wild horse, was trailed
To death through raunce and bramble-bush. I take
God's part and testify that 'mid the brake
Wild o'er his castle on the pleasant knoll,
You hear its one tower left, a belfry, toll
The earthquake spared it last year, laying flat
The modern church beneath,no harm in that!
Chirrups the contumacious grasshopper,
Rustles the lizard and the cushats chirre
Above the ravage: there, at deep of day
A week since, heard I the old Canon say
He saw with his own eyes a barrow burst
And Alberic's huge skeleton unhearsed
Only five years ago. He added, "June 's
"The month for carding off our first cocoons
"The silkworms fabricate"a double news,
Nor he nor I could tell the worthier. Choose!
And Naddo gone, all's gone; not Eglamor!
Believe, I knew the face I waited for,
A guest my spirit of the golden courts!
Oh strange to see how, despite ill-reports,
Disuse, some wear of years, that face retained
Its joyous look of love! Suns waxed and waned,
And still my spirit held an upward flight,
Spiral on spiral, gyres of life and light
More and more gorgeousever that face there
The last admitted! crossed, too, with some care
As perfect triumph were not sure for all,
But, on a few, enduring damp must fall,
A transient struggle, haply a painful sense
Of the inferior nature's clingingwhence
Slight starting tears easily wiped away,
Fine jealousies soon stifled in the play
Of irrepressible admirationnot
Aspiring, all considered, to their lot
Who ever, just as they prepare ascend
Spiral on spiral, wish thee well, impend
Thy frank delight at their exclusive track,
That upturned fervid face and hair put back!
Is there no more to say? He of the rhymes
Many a tale, of this retreat betimes,
Was born: Sordello die at once for men?
The Chroniclers of Mantua tired their pen
Telling how Sordello Prince Visconti saved
Mantua, and elsewhere notably behaved
Who thus, by fortune ordering events,
Passed with posterity, to all intents,
For just the god he never could become.
As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb
In praise of him: while what he should have been,
Could be, and was notthe one step too mean
For him to take,we suffer at this day
Because of: Ecelin had pushed away
Its chance ere Dante could arrive and take
That step Sordello spurned, for the world's sake:
He did muchbut Sordello's chance was gone.
Thus, had Sordello dared that step alone,
Apollo had been compassed: 't was a fit
He wished should go to him, not he to it
As one content to merely be supposed
Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed
Really at homeone who was chiefly glad
To have achieved the few real deeds he had,
Because that way assured they were not worth
Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth
A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes
Never itself, itself. Had he embraced
Their cause then, men had plucked Hesperian fruit
And, praising that, just thrown him in to boot
All he was anxious to appear, but scarce
Solicitous to be. A sorry farce
Such life is, after all! Cannot I say
He lived for some one better thing? this way.
Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill
By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill,
Morning just up, higher and higher runs
A child barefoot and rosy. See! the sun's
On the square castle's inner-court's low wall
Like the chine of some extinct animal
Half turned to earth and flowers; and through the haze
(Save where some slender patches of grey maize
Are to be overleaped) that boy has crossed
The whole hill-side of dew and powder-frost
Matting the balm and mountain camomile.
Up and up goes he, singing all the while
Some unintelligible words to beat
The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet,
So worsted is he at "the few fine locks
"Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks
"Sun-blanched the livelong summer,"all that's left
Of the Goito lay! And thus bereft,
Sleep and forget, Sordello! In effect
He sleeps, the feverish poetI suspect
Not utterly companionless; but, friends,
Wake up! The ghost's gone, and the story ends
I'd fain hope, sweetly; seeing, peri or ghoul,
That spirits are conjectured fair or foul,
Evil or good, judicious authors think,
According as they vanish in a stink
Or in a perfume. Friends, be frank! ye snuff
Civet, I warrant. Really? Like enough!
Merely the savour's rareness; any nose
May ravage with impunity a rose:
Rifle a musk-pod and 't will ache like yours!
I'd tell you that same pungency ensures
An after-gust, but that were overbold.
Who would has heard Sordello's story told.
~ Robert Browning, Sordello - Book the Sixth
,#NFDB
1330:A TRAGEDY IN TWO ACTS
Translated from the Original Doric
'Choose Reform or Civil War,
When through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs,
A Consort-Queen shall hunt a King with hogs,
Riding on the IONIAN MINOTAUR.'
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Tyrant Swellfoot, King of Thebes.
Iona Taurina, his Queen.
Mammon, Arch-Priest of Famine.
Purganax Wizard, Minister of Swellfoot.
Dakry Wizard, Minister of Swellfoot.
Laoctonos Wizard, Minister of Swellfoot.
The Gadfly.
The Leech.
The Rat.
Moses, the Sow-gelder.
Solomon, the Porkman.
Zephaniah, Pig-butcher.
The Minotaur.
Chorus of the Swinish Multitude.
Guards, Attendants, Priests, etc., etc.
SCENE.--THEBES
ACT I.
Scene I.-- A magnificent Temple, built of thigh-bones and death's-heads, and tiled with scalps. Over the Altar the statue of Famine, veiled; a number of Boars, Sows, and Sucking-Pigs, crowned with thistle, shamrock, and oak, sitting on the steps, and clinging round the Altar of the Temple.
Enter Swellfoot, in his Royal robes, without perceiving the Pigs.
Swellfoot.
Thou supreme Goddess! by whose power divine
These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array [He contemplates himself with satisfaction.
Of gold and purple, and this kingly paunch
Swells like a sail before a favouring breeze,
And these most sacred nether promontories
Lie satisfied with layers of fat; and these
Boeotian cheeks, like Egypt's pyramid,
(Nor with less toil were their foundations laid)[1],
Sustain the cone of my untroubled brain,
That point, the emblem of a pointless nothing!
Thou to whom Kings and laurelled Emperors,
Radical-butchers, Paper-money-millers,
Bishops and Deacons, and the entire army
Of those fat martyrs to the persecution
Of stifling turtle-soup, and brandy-devils,
Offer their secret vows! Thou plenteous Ceres
Of their Eleusis, hail!
The Swine.
Eigh! eigh! eigh! eigh!
Swellfoot.
Ha! what are ye,
Who, crowned with leaves devoted to the Furies,
Cling round this sacred shrine?
Swine.
Aigh! aigh! aigh!
Swellfoot.
What! ye that are
The very beasts that, offered at her altar
With blood and groans, salt-cake, and fat, and inwards,
Ever propitiate her reluctant will
When taxes are withheld?
Swine.
Ugh! ugh! ugh!
Swellfoot.
What! ye who grub
With filthy snouts my red potatoes up
In Allan's rushy bog? Who eat the oats
Up, from my cavalry in the Hebrides?
Who swill the hog-wash soup my cooks digest
From bones, and rags, and scraps of shoe-leather,
Which should be given to cleaner Pigs than you?
The Swine.Semichorus I.
The same, alas! the same;
Though only now the name
Of Pig remains to me.
Semichorus II.
If 'twere your kingly will
Us wretched Swine to kill,
What should we yield to thee?
Swellfoot.
Why, skin and bones, and some few hairs for mortar.
Chorus of Swine.
I have heard your Laureate sing,
That pity was a royal thing;
Under your mighty ancestors, we Pigs
Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs,
Or grasshoppers that live on noonday dew,
And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too;
But now our sties are fallen in, we catch
The murrain and the mange, the scab and itch;
Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch,
And then we seek the shelter of a ditch;
Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga, none
Has yet been ours since your reign begun.
First Sow.
My Pigs, 'tis in vain to tug.
Second Sow.
I could almost eat my litter.
First Pig.
I suck, but no milk will come from the dug.
Second Pig.
Our skin and our bones would be bitter.
The Boars.
We fight for this rag of greasy rug,
Though a trough of wash would be fitter.
Semichorus.
Happier Swine were they than we,
Drowned in the Gadarean sea
I wish that pity would drive out the devils,
Which in your royal bosom hold their revels,
And sink us in the waves of thy compassion!
Alas! the Pigs are an unhappy nation!
Now if your Majesty would have our bristles
To bind your mortar with, or fill our colons
With rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles,
In policyask else your royal Solons
You ought to give us hog-wash and clean straw,
And sties well thatched; besides it is the law!
Swellfoot.
This is sedition, and rank blasphemy!
Ho! there, my guards!
Enter a Guard.
Guard.
Your sacred Majesty.
Swellfoot.
Call in the Jews, Solomon the court porkman,
Moses the sow-gelder, and Zephaniah
The hog-butcher.
Guard.
They are in waiting, Sire.
Enter Solomon, Moses, and Zephaniah.
Swellfoot.
Out with your knife, old Moses, and spay those Sows [The Pigs run about in consternation.
That load the earth with Pigs; cut close and deep.
Moral restraint I see has no effect,
Nor prostitution, nor our own example,
Starvation, typhus-fever, war, nor prison
This was the art which the arch-priest of Famine
Hinted at in his charge to the Theban clergy
Cut close and deep, good Moses.
Moses.
Let your Majesty
Keep the Boars quiet, else
Swellfoot.
Zephaniah, cut
That fat Hog's throat, the brute seems overfed;
Seditious hunks! to whine for want of grains.
Zephaniah.
Your sacred Majesty, he has the dropsy;
We shall find pints of hydatids in's liver,
He has not half an inch of wholesome fat
Upon his carious ribs
Swellfoot.
'Tis all the same,
He'll serve instead of riot money, when
Our murmuring troops bivouac in Thebes' streets;
And January winds, after a day
Of butchering, will make them relish carrion.
Now, Solomon, I'll sell you in a lump
The whole kit of them.
Solomon.
Why, your Majesty,
I could not give
Swellfoot.
Kill them out of the way,
That shall be price enough, and let me hear
Their everlasting grunts and whines no more!
[Exeunt, driving in the Swine.
Enter Mammon, the Arch-Priest; and Purganax, Chief of the Council of Wizards.
Purganax.
The future looks as black as death, a cloud,
Dark as the frown of Hell, hangs over it
The troops grow mutinousthe revenue fails
There's something rotten in usfor the level
Of the State slopes, its very bases topple,
The boldest turn their backs upon themselves!
Mammon.
Why what's the matter, my dear fellow, now?
Do the troops mutiny?decimate some regiments;
Does money fail?come to my mintcoin paper,
Till gold be at a discount, and ashamed
To show his bilious face, go purge himself,
In emulation of her vestal whiteness.
Purganax.
Oh, would that this were all! The oracle!!
Mammon.
Why it was I who spoke that oracle,
And whether I was dead drunk or inspired,
I cannot well remember; nor, in truth,
The oracle itself!
Purganax.
The words went thus:
'Boeotia, choose reform or civil war!
When through the streets, instead of hare with dogs,
A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with Hogs,
Riding on the Ionian Minotaur.'
Mammon.
Now if the oracle had ne'er foretold
This sad alternative, it must arrive,
Or not, and so it must now that it has;
And whether I was urged by grace divine
Or Lesbian liquor to declare these words,
Which must, as all words must, be false or true,
It matters not: for the same Power made all,
Oracle, wine, and me and youor none
'Tis the same thing. If you knew as much
Of oracles as I do
Purganax.
You arch-priests
Believe in nothing; if you were to dream
Of a particular number in the Lottery,
You would not buy the ticket?
Mammon.
Yet our tickets
Are seldom blanks. But what steps have you taken?
For prophecies, when once they get abroad,
Like liars who tell the truth to serve their ends,
Or hypocrites who, from assuming virtue,
Do the same actions that the virtuous do,
Contrive their own fulfilment. This Iona
Wellyou know what the chaste Pasiphae did,
Wife to that most religious King of Crete,
And still how popular the tale is here;
And these dull Swine of Thebes boast their descent
From the free Minotaur. You know they still
Call themselves Bulls, though thus degenerate,
And everything relating to a Bull
Is popular and respectable in Thebes.
Their arms are seven Bulls in a field gules;
They think their strength consists in eating beef,
Now there were danger in the precedent
If Queen Iona
Purganax.
I have taken good care
That shall not be. I struck the crust o' the earth
With this enchanted rod, and Hell lay bare!
And from a cavern full of ugly shapes
I chose a Leech, a Gadfly, and a Rat.
The Gadfly was the same which Juno sent
To agitate Io[2], and which Ezekiel[3] mentions
That the Lord whistled for out of the mountains
Of utmost Aethiopia, to torment
Mesopotamian Babylon. The beast
Has a loud trumpet like the scarabee,
His crookd tail is barbed with many stings,
Each able to make a thousand wounds, and each
Immedicable; from his convex eyes
He sees fair things in many hideous shapes,
And trumpets all his falsehood to the world.
Like other beetles he is fed on dung
He has eleven feet with which he crawls,
Trailing a blistering slime, and this foul beast
Has tracked Iona from the Theban limits,
From isle to isle, from city unto city,
Urging her flight from the far Chersonese
To fabulous Solyma, and the Aetnean Isle,
Ortygia, Melite, and Calypso's Rock,
And the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez,
Aeolia and Elysium, and thy shores,
Parthenope, which now, alas! are free!
And through the fortunate Saturnian land,
Into the darkness of the West.
Mammon.
But if
This Gadfly should drive Iona hither?
Purganax.
Gods! what an if! but there is my gray Rat:
So thin with want, he can crawl in and out
Of any narrow chink and filthy hole,
And he shall creep into her dressing-room,
And
Mammon.
My dear friend, where are your wits? as if
She does not always toast a piece of cheese
And bait the trap? and rats, when lean enough
To crawl through such chinks
Purganax.
But my Leecha leech
Fit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings,
Capaciously expatiative, which make
His little body like a red balloon,
As full of blood as that of hydrogen,
Sucked from men's hearts; insatiably he sucks
And clings and pullsa horse-leech, whose deep maw
The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill,
And who, till full, will cling for ever.
Mammon.
This
For Queen Iona would suffice, and less;
But 'tis the Swinish multitude I fear,
And in that fear I have
Purganax.
Done what?
Mammon.
Disinherited
My eldest son Chrysaor, because he
Attended public meetings, and would always
Stand prating there of commerce, public faith,
Economy, and unadulterate coin,
And other topics, ultra-radical;
And have entailed my estate, called the Fool's Paradise,
And funds in fairy-money, bonds, and bills,
Upon my accomplished daughter Banknotina,
And married her to the gallows[4].
Purganax.
A good match!
Mammon.
A high connexion, Purganax. The bridegroom
Is of a very ancient family,
Of Hounslow Heath, Tyburn, and the New Drop,
And has great influence in both Houses;oh!
He makes the fondest husband; nay, too fond,
New-married people should not kiss in public;
But the poor souls love one another so!
And then my little grandchildren, the gibbets,
Promising children as you ever saw,
The young playing at hanging, the elder learning
How to hold radicals. They are well taught too,
For every gibbet says its catechism
And reads a select chapter in the Bible
Before it goes to play.
[A most tremendous humming is heard.
Purganax.
Ha! what do I hear?
Enter the Gadfly.
Mammon.
Your Gadfly, as it seems, is tired of gadding.
Gadfly.
Hum! hum! hum!
From the lakes of the Alps, and the cold gray scalps
Of the mountains, I come!
Hum! hum! hum!
From Morocco and Fez, and the high palaces
Of golden Byzantium;
From the temples divine of old Palestine,
From Athens and Rome,
With a ha! and a hum!
I come! I come!
All inn-doors and windows
Were open to me:
I saw all that sin does,
Which lamps hardly see
That burn in the night by the curtained bed,
The impudent lamps! for they blushed not red,
Dinging and singing,
From slumber I rung her,
Loud as the clank of an ironmonger;
Hum! hum! hum!
Far, far, far!
With the trump of my lips, and the sting at my hips,
I drove herafar!
Far, far, far!
From city to city, abandoned of pity,
A ship without needle or star;
Homeless she passed, like a cloud on the blast,
Seeking peace, finding war;
She is here in her car,
From afar, and afar;
Hum! hum!
I have stung her and wrung her,
The venom is working;
And if you had hung her
With canting and quirking,
She could not be deader than she will be soon;
I have driven her close to you, under the moon,
Night and day, hum! hum! ha!
I have hummed her and drummed her
From place to place, till at last I have dumbed her,
Hum! hum! hum!
Enter the Leech and the Rat.
Leech.
I will suck
Blood or muck!
The disease of the state is a plethory,
Who so fit to reduce it as I?
Rat.
I'll slily seize and
Let blood from her weasand,
Creeping through crevice, and chink, and cranny,
With my snaky tail, and my sides so scranny.
Purganax.
Aroint ye! thou unprofitable worm! [To the Leech.
And thou, dull beetle, get thee back to hell! [To the Gadfly.
To sting the ghosts of Babylonian kings,
And the ox-headed Io
Swine
(within).
Ugh, ugh, ugh!
Hail! Iona the divine,
We will be no longer Swine,
But Bulls with horns and dewlaps.
Rat.
For,
You know, my lord, the Minotaur
Purganax
(fiercely).
Be silent! get to hell! or I will call
The cat out of the kitchen. Well, Lord Mammon,
This is a pretty business.
[Exit the Rat.
Mammon.
I will go
And spell some scheme to make it ugly then.
[Exit.
Enter Swellfoot.
Swellfoot.
She is returned! Taurina is in Thebes,
When Swellfoot wishes that she were in hell!
Oh, Hymen, clothed in yellow jealousy,
And waving o'er the couch of wedded kings
The torch of Discord with its fiery hair;
This is thy work, thou patron saint of queens!
Swellfoot is wived! though parted by the sea,
The very name of wife had conjugal rights;
Her cursd image ate, drank, slept with me,
And in the arms of Adiposa oft
Her memory has received a husband's
[A loud tumult, and cries of 'Iona for ever!No Swellfoot!'!
Hark!
How the Swine cry Iona Taurina;
I suffer the real presence; Purganax,
Off with her head!
Purganax.
But I must first impanel
A jury of the Pigs.
Swellfoot.
Pack them then.
Purganax.
Or fattening some few in two separate sties,
And giving them clean straw, tying some bits
Of ribbon round their legsgiving their Sows
Some tawdry lace, and bits of lustre glass,
And their young Boars white and red rags, and tails
Of cows, and jay feathers, and sticking cauliflowers
Between the ears of the old ones; and when
They are persuaded, that by the inherent virtue
Of these things, they are all imperial Pigs,
Good Lord! they'd rip each other's bellies up,
Not to say, help us in destroying her.
Swellfoot.
This plan might be tried too;where's General
Laoctonos?
Enter Laoctonos and Dakry.
It is my royal pleasure
That you, Lord General, bring the head and body,
If separate it would please me better, hither
Of Queen Iona.
Laoctonos.
That pleasure I well knew,
And made a charge with those battalions bold,
Called, from their dress and grin, the royal apes,
Upon the Swine, who in a hollow square
Enclosed her, and received the first attack
Like so many rhinoceroses, and then
Retreating in good order, with bare tusks
And wrinkled snouts presented to the foe,
Bore her in triumph to the public sty.
What is still worse, some Sows upon the ground
Have given the ape-guards apples, nuts, and gin,
And they all whisk their tails aloft, and cry,
'Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!'
Purganax.
Hark!
The Swine
(without).
Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!
Dakry.
I
Went to the garret of the swineherd's tower,
Which overlooks the sty, and made a long
Harangue (all words) to the assembled Swine,
Of delicacy, mercy, judgement, law,
Morals, and precedents, and purity,
Adultery, destitution, and divorce,
Piety, faith, and state necessity,
And how I loved the Queen!and then I wept
With the pathos of my own eloquence,
And every tear turned to a mill-stone, which
Brained many a gaping Pig, and there was made
A slough of blood and brains upon the place,
Greased with the pounded bacon; round and round
The mill-stones rolled, ploughing the pavement up,
And hurling Sucking-Pigs into the air,
With dust and stones.
Enter Mammon.
Mammon.
I wonder that gray wizards
Like you should be so beardless in their schemes;
It had been but a point of policy
To keep Iona and the Swine apart.
Divide and rule! but ye have made a junction
Between two parties who will govern you
But for my art.Behold this BAG! it is
The poison BAG of that Green Spider huge,
On which our spies skulked in ovation through
The streets of Thebes, when they were paved with dead:
A bane so much the deadlier fills it now
As calumny is worse than death,for here
The Gadfly's venom, fifty times distilled,
Is mingled with the vomit of the Leech,
In due proportion, and black ratsbane, which
That very Rat, who, like the Pontic tyrant,
Nurtures himself on poison, dare not touch;
All is sealed up with the broad seal of Fraud,
Who is the Devil's Lord High Chancellor,
And over it the Primate of all Hell
Murmured this pious baptism:'Be thou called
The GREEN BAG; and this power and grace be thine:
That thy contents, on whomsoever poured,
Turn innocence to guilt, and gentlest looks
To savage, foul, and fierce deformity.
Let all baptized by thy infernal dew
Be called adulterer, drunkard, liar, wretch!
No name left out which orthodoxy loves,
Court Journal or legitimate Review!
Be they called tyrant, beast, fool, glutton, lover
Of other wives and husbands than their own
The heaviest sin on this side of the Alps!
Wither they to a ghastly caricature
Of what was human!let not man or beast
Behold their face with unaverted eyes!
Or hear their names with ears that tingle not
With blood of indignation, rage, and shame!'
This is a perilous liquor;good my Lords. [Swellfoot approaches to touch the GREEN BAG.
Beware! for God's sake, beware!if you should break
The seal, and touch the fatal liquor
Purganax.
There,
Give it to me. I have been used to handle
All sorts of poisons. His dread Majesty
Only desires to see the colour of it.
Mammon.
Now, with a little common sense, my Lords,
Only undoing all that has been done
(Yet so as it may seem we but confirm it),
Our victory is assured. We must entice
Her Majesty from the sty, and make the Pigs
Believe that the contents of the GREEN BAG
Are the true test of guilt or innocence.
And that, if she be guilty, 'twill transform her
To manifest deformity like guilt.
If innocent, she will become transfigured
Into an angel, such as they say she is;
And they will see her flying through the air,
So bright that she will dim the noonday sun;
Showering down blessings in the shape of comfits.
This, trust a priest, is just the sort of thing
Swine will believe. I'll wager you will see them
Climbing upon the thatch of their low sties,
With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail
Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps
Of one another's ears between their teeth,
To catch the coming hail of comfits in.
You, Purganax, who have the gift o' the gab,
Make them a solemn speech to this effect:
I go to put in readiness the feast
Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine,
Where, for more glory, let the ceremony
Take place of the uglification of the Queen.
Dakry
(to Swellfoot).
I, as the keeper of your sacred conscience,
Humbly remind your Majesty that the care
Of your high office, as Man-milliner
To red Bellona, should not be deferred.
Purganax.
All part, in happier plight to meet again.
[Exeunt.
END OF THE FIRST ACT.
ACT II
Scene I.
The Public Sty. The Boars in full Assembly.
Enter Purganax.
Purganax.
Grant me your patience, Gentlemen and Boars,
Ye, by whose patience under public burthens
The glorious constitution of these sties
Subsists, and shall subsist. The Lean-Pig rates
Grow with the growing populace of Swine,
The taxes, that true source of Piggishness
(How can I find a more appropriate term
To include religion, morals, peace, and plenty,
And all that fit Boeotia as a nation
To teach the other nations how to live?),
Increase with Piggishness itself; and still
Does the revenue, that great spring of all
The patronage, and pensions, and by-payments,
Which free-born Pigs regard with jealous eyes,
Diminish, till at length, by glorious steps,
All the land's produce will be merged in taxes,
And the revenue will amount tonothing!
The failure of a foreign market for
Sausages, bristles, and blood-puddings,
And such home manufactures, is but partial;
And, that the population of the Pigs,
Instead of hog-wash, has been fed on straw
And water, is a fact which isyou know
That isit is a state-necessity
Temporary, of course. Those impious Pigs,
Who, by frequent squeaks, have dared impugn
The settled Swellfoot system, or to make
Irreverent mockery of the genuflexions
Inculcated by the arch-priest, have been whipped
Into a loyal and an orthodox whine.
Things being in this happy state, the Queen
Iona
[A loud cry from the Pigs.
She is innocent! most innocent!
Purganax.
That is the very thing that I was saying,
Gentlemen Swine; the Queen Iona being
Most innocent, no doubt, returns to Thebes,
And the lean Sows and Boars collect about her,
Wishing to make her think that we believe
(I mean those more substantial Pigs, who swill
Rich hog-wash, while the others mouth damp straw)
That she is guilty; thus, the Lean-Pig faction
Seeks to obtain that hog-wash, which has been
Your immemorial right, and which I will
Maintain you in to the last drop of
A Boar
(interrupting him).
What
Does any one accuse her of?
Purganax.
Why, no one
Makes any positive accusation;but
There were hints dropped, and so the privy wizards
Conceived that it became them to advise
His Majesty to investigate their truth;
Not for his own sake; he could be content
To let his wife play any pranks she pleased,
If, by that sufferance, he could please the Pigs;
But then he fears the morals of the Swine,
The Sows especially, and what effect
It might produce upon the purity and
Religion of the rising generation
Of Sucking-Pigs, if it could be suspected
That Queen Iona
[A pause.
First Boar.
Well, go on; we long
To hear what she can possibly have done.
Purganax.
Why, it is hinted, that a certain Bull
Thus much is known:the milk-white Bulls that feed
Beside Clitumnus and the crystal lakes
Of the Cisalpine mountains, in fresh dews
Of lotus-grass and blossoming asphodel
Sleeking their silken hair, and with sweet breath
Loading the morning winds until they faint
With living fragrance, are so beautiful!
Well, I say nothing;but Europa rode
On such a one from Asia into Crete,
And the enamoured sea grew calm beneath
His gliding beauty. And Pasiphae,
Iona's grandmother,but she is innocent!
And that both you and I, and all assert.
First Boar.
Most innocent!
Purganax.
Behold this BAG; a bag
Second Boar.
Oh! no GREEN BAGS!! Jealousy's eyes are green,
Scorpions are green, and water-snakes, and efts,
And verdigris, and
Purganax.
Honourable Swine,
In Piggish souls can prepossessions reign?
Allow me to remind you, grass is green
All flesh is grass;no bacon but is flesh
Ye are but bacon. This divining BAG
(Which is not green, but only bacon colour)
Is filled with liquor, which if sprinkled o'er
A woman guilty ofwe all know what
Makes her so hideous, till she finds one blind
She never can commit the like again.
If innocent, she will turn into an angel,
And rain down blessings in the shape of comfits
As she flies up to heaven. Now, my proposal
Is to convert her sacred Majesty
Into an angel (as I am sure we shall do),
By pouring on her head this mystic water.[Showing the Bag.
I know that she is innocent; I wish
Only to prove her so to all the world.
First Boar.
Excellent, just, and noble Purganax.
Second Boar.
How glorious it will be to see her Majesty
Flying above our heads, her petticoats
Streaming likelikelike
Third Boar.
Anything.
Purganax.
Oh no!
But like a standard of an admiral's ship,
Or like the banner of a conquering host,
Or like a cloud dyed in the dying day,
Unravelled on the blast from a white mountain;
Or like a meteor, or a war-steed's mane,
Or waterfall from a dizzy precipice
Scattered upon the wind.
First Boar.
Or a cow's tail.
Second Boar.
Or anything, as the learned Boar observed.
Purganax.
Gentlemen Boars, I move a resolution,
That her most sacred Majesty should be
Invited to attend the feast of Famine,
And to receive upon her chaste white body
Dews of Apotheosis from this BAG.
[A great confusion is heard of the Pigs out of Doors, which communicates itself to those within. During the first Strophe, the doors of the Sty are staved in, and a number of exceedingly leanPigs and Sows and Boars rush in.
Semichorus I.
No! Yes!
Semichorus II.
Yes! No!
Semichorus I.
A law!
Semichorus II.
A flaw!
Semichorus I.
Porkers, we shall lose our wash,
Or must share it with the Lean-Pigs!
First Boar.
Order! order! be not rash!
Was there ever such a scene, Pigs!
An old Sow
(rushing in).
I never saw so fine a dash
Since I first began to wean Pigs.
Second Boar
(solemnly).
The Queen will be an angel time enough.
I vote, in form of an amendment, that
Purganax rub a little of that stuff
Upon his face.
Purganax
(his heart is seen to beat through his waistcoat).
Gods! What would ye be at?
Semichorus I.
Purganax has plainly shown a
Cloven foot and jackdaw feather.
Semichorus II.
I vote Swellfoot and Iona
Try the magic test together;
Whenever royal spouses bicker,
Both should try the magic liquor.
An old Boar
(aside).
A miserable state is that of Pigs,
For if their drivers would tear caps and wigs,
The Swine must bite each other's ear therefore.
An old Sow
(aside).
A wretched lot Jove has assigned to Swine,
Squabbling makes Pig-herds hungry, and they dine
On bacon, and whip Sucking-Pigs the more.
Chorus.
Hog-wash has been ta'en away:
If the Bull-Queen is divested,
We shall be in every way
Hunted, stripped, exposed, molested;
Let us do whate'er we may,
That she shall not be arrested.
Queen, we entrench you with walls of brawn,
And palisades of tusks, sharp as a bayonet:
Place your most sacred person here. We pawn
Our lives that none a finger dare to lay on it.
Those who wrong you, wrong us;
Those who hate you, hate us;
Those who sting you, sting us;
Those who bait you, bait us;
The oracle is now about to be
Fulfilled by circumvolving destiny;
Which says: 'Thebes, choose reform or civil war,
When through your streets, instead of hare with dogs,
A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with Hogs,
Riding upon the IONIAN MINOTAUR.'
Enter Iona Taurina.
Iona Taurina
(coming forward).
Gentlemen Swine, and gentle Lady-Pigs,
The tender heart of every Boar acquits
Their Queen, of any act incongruous
With native Piggishness, and she, reposing
With confidence upon the grunting nation,
Has thrown herself, her cause, her life, her all,
Her innocence, into their Hoggish arms;
Nor has the expectation been deceived
Of finding shelter there. Yet know, great Boars,
(For such whoever lives among you finds you,
And so do I), the innocent are proud!
I have accepted your protection only
In compliment of your kind love and care,
Not for necessity. The innocent
Are safest there where trials and dangers wait;
Innocent Queens o'er white-hot ploughshares tread
Unsinged, and ladies, Erin's laureate sings it[5],
Decked with rare gems, and beauty rarer still,
Walked from Killarney to the Giant's Causeway,
Through rebels, smugglers, troops of yeomanry,
White-boys and Orange-boys, and constables,
Tithe-proctors, and excise people, uninjured!
Thus I!
Lord Purganax, I do commit myself
Into your custody, and am prepared
To stand the test, whatever it may be!
Purganax.
This magnanimity in your sacred Majesty
Must please the Pigs. You cannot fail of being
A heavenly angel. Smoke your bits of glass,
Ye loyal Swine, or her transfiguration
Will blind your wondering eyes.
An old Boar
(aside).
Take care, my Lord,
They do not smoke you first.
Purganax.
At the approaching feast
Of Famine, let the expiation be.
Swine.
Content! content!
Iona Taurina
(aside).
I, most content of all,
Know that my foes even thus prepare their fall!
[Exeunt omnes.
Scene II.
The interior of the Temple of Famine. The statue of the Goddess, a skeleton clothed in parti-coloured rags, seated upon a heap of skulls and loaves intermingled. A number of exceedingly fat Priests in black garments arrayed on each side, with marrow-bones and cleavers in their hands. [Solomon, the Court Porkman.] A flourish of trumpets.
Enter Mammon as arch-priest, Swellfoot, Dakry, Purganax, Laoctonos, followed by Iona Taurina guarded. On the other side enter the Swine.
Chorus of Priests, accompanied by the Court Porkman on marrow-bones and cleavers.
Goddess bare, and gaunt, and pale,
Empress of the world, all hail!
What though Cretans old called thee
City-crested Cybele?
We call thee Famine!
Goddess of fasts and feasts, starving and cramming!
Through thee, for emperors, kings, and priests and lords,
Who rule by viziers, sceptres, bank-notes, words,
The earth pours forth its plenteous fruits,
Corn, wool, linen, flesh, and roots
Those who consume these fruits through thee grow fat,
Those who produce these fruits through thee grow lean,
Whatever change takes place, oh, stick to that!
And let things be as they have ever been;
At least while we remain thy priests,
And proclaim thy fasts and feasts.
Through thee the sacred Swellfoot dynasty
Is based upon a rock amid that sea
Whose waves are Swineso let it ever be!
[Swellfoot, etc., seat themselves at a table magnificently covered at the upper end of the Temple. Attendants pass over the stage with hog-wash in pails. A number of Pigs, exceedingly lean, follow them licking up the wash.
Mammon.
I fear your sacred Majesty has lost
The appetite which you were used to have.
Allow me now to recommend this dish
A simple kickshaw by your Persian cook,
Such as is served at the great King's second table.
The price and pains which its ingredients cost
Might have maintained some dozen families
A winter or twonot moreso plain a dish
Could scarcely disagree.
Swellfoot.
After the trial,
And these fastidious Pigs are gone, perhaps
I may recover my lost appetite,
I feel the gout flying about my stomach
Give me a glass of Maraschino punch.
Purganax
(filling his glass, and standing up).
The glorious Constitution of the Pigs!
All.
A toast! a toast! stand up, and three times three!
Dakry.
No heel-tapsdarken daylights!
Laoctonos.
Claret, somehow,
Puts me in mind of blood, and blood of claret!
Swellfoot.
Laoctonos is fishing for a compliment,
But 'tis his due. Yes, you have drunk more wine,
And shed more blood, than any man in Thebes. [To Purganax.
For God's sake stop the grunting of those Pigs!
Purganax.
We dare not, Sire, 'tis Famine's privilege.
Chorus of Swine.
Hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!
Thy throne is on blood, and thy robe is of rags;
Thou devil which livest on damning;
Saint of new churches, and cant, and GREEN BAGS,
Till in pity and terror thou risest,
Confounding the schemes of the wisest;
When thou liftest thy skeleton form,
When the loaves and the skulls roll about,
We will greet theethe voice of a storm
Would be lost in our terrible shout!
Then hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!
Hail to thee, Empress of Earth!
When thou risest, dividing possessions;
When thou risest, uprooting oppressions,
In the pride of thy ghastly mirth;
Over palaces, temples, and graves,
We will rush as thy minister-slaves,
Trampling behind in thy train,
Till all be made level again!
Mammon.
I hear a crackling of the giant bones
Of the dread image, and in the black pits
Which once were eyes, I see two livid flames.
These prodigies are oracular, and show
The presence of the unseen Deity.
Mighty events are hastening to their doom!
Swellfoot.
I only hear the lean and mutinous Swine
Grunting about the temple.
Dakry.
In a crisis
Of such exceeding delicacy, I think
We ought to put her Majesty, the Queen,
Upon her trial without delay.
Mammon.
THE BAG
Is here.
Purganax.
I have rehearsed the entire scene
With an ox-bladder and some ditchwater,
On Lady P-; it cannot fail. (Taking up the Bag.)
Your Majesty [To Swellfoot.
In such a filthy business had better
Stand on one side, lest it should sprinkle you.
A spot or two on me would do no harm,
Nay, it might hide the blood, which the sad Genius
Of the Green Isle has fixed, as by a spell,
Upon my browwhich would stain all its seas,
But which those seas could never wash away!
Iona Taurina.
My Lord, I am readynay, I am impatient
To undergo the test.
[A graceful figure in a semi-transparent veil passes unnoticed through the Temple; the word LIBERTY is seen through the veil, as if it were written in fire upon its forehead. Its words are almost drowned in the furious grunting of the Pigs, and the business of the trial. She kneels on the steps of the Altar, and speaks in tones at first faint and low, but which ever become louder and louder.
Mighty Empress! Death's white wife!
Ghastly mother-in-law of Life!
By the God who made thee such,
By the magic of thy touch,
By the starving and the cramming
Of fasts and feasts! by thy dread self, O Famine!
I charge thee! when thou wake the multitude,
Thou lead them not upon the paths of blood.
The earth did never mean her foison
For those who crown life's cup with poison
Of fanatic rage and meaningless revenge
But for those radiant spirits, who are still
The standard-bearers in the van of Change.
Be they th'appointed stewards, to fill
The lap of Pain, and Toil, and Age!
Remit, O Queen! thy accustomed rage!
Be what thou art not! In voice faint and low
Freedom calls Famine,her eternal foe,
To brief alliance, hollow truce.Rise now!
[Whilst the Veiled Figure has been chanting this strophe, Mammon, Dakry, Laoctonos, and Swellfoot, have surrounded Iona Taurina, who, with her hands folded on her breast, and her eyes lifted to Heaven, stands, as with saint-like resignation, to wait the issue of the business, in perfect confidence of her innocence.
[Purganax, after unsealing the Green Bag, is gravely about to pour the liquor upon her head, when suddenly the whole expression of her figure and countenance changes; she snatches it from his hand with a loud laugh of triumph, and empties it over Swellfoot and his whole Court, who are instantly changed into a number of filthy and ugly animals, and rush out of the Temple. The image of Famine then arises with a tremendous sound, the Pigs begin scrambling for the loaves, and are tripped up by the skulls; all those who eat the loaves are turned into Bulls, and arrange themselves quietly behind the altar. The image of Famine sinks through a chasm in the earth, and a Minotaur rises.
Minotaur.
I am the Ionian Minotaur, the mightiest
Of all Europa's taurine progeny
I am the old traditional Man-Bull;
And from my ancestors having been Ionian,
I am called Ion, which, by interpretation,
Is John; in plain Theban, that is to say,
My name's John Bull; I am a famous hunter,
And can leap any gate in all Boeotia,
Even the palings of the royal park,
Or double ditch about the new enclosures;
And if your Majesty will deign to mount me,
At least till you have hunted down your game,
I will not throw you.
Iona Taurina.
(During this speech she has been putting on boots and spurs, and a hunting-cap, buckishly cocked on one side, and tucking up her hair, she leaps nimbly on his back.)
Hoa! hoa! tallyho! tallyho! ho! ho!
Come, let us hunt these ugly badgers down,
These stinking foxes, these devouring otters,
These hares, these wolves, these anything but men.
Hey, for a whipper-in! my loyal Pigs,
Now let your noses be as keen as beagles',
Your steps as swift as greyhounds', and your cries
More dulcet and symphonious than the bells
Of village-towers, on sunshine holiday;
Wake all the dewy woods with jangling music.
Give them no law (are they not beasts of blood?)
But such as they gave you. Tallyho! ho!
Through forest, furze, and bog, and den, and desert,
Pursue the ugly beasts! tallyho! ho!
Full Chorus of Iona and the Swine.
Tallyho! tallyho!
Through rain, hail, and snow,
Through brake, gorse, and briar,
Through fen, flood, and mire,
We go! we go!
Tallyho! tallyho!
Through pond, ditch, and slough,
Wind them, and find them,
Like the Devil behind them,
Tallyho! tallyho!
[Exeunt, in full cry; Iona driving on the Swine, with the empty Green Bag.
THE END
'Begun at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 24, 1819; published anonymously by J. Johnston, Cheapside (imprint C. F. Seyfang,) 1820. On a threat of prosecution the publisher surrendered the whole impression, seven copies -- the total number sold -- excepted. Oedipus does not appear in the first edition of the Poetical Works, 1839, but it was included by Mrs. Shelley in the second edition of that year.' ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot The Tyrant
,#NFDB
1331:Custer
BOOK FIRST.
I.
ALL valor died not on the plains of Troy.
Awake, my Muse, awake! be thine the joy
To sing of deeds as dauntless and as brave
As e'er lent luster to a warrior's grave.
Sing of that noble soldier, nobler man,
Dear to the heart of each American.
Sound forth his praise from sea to listening seaGreece her Achilles claimed, immortal Custer, we.
II.
Intrepid are earth's heroes now as when
The gods came down to measure strength with men.
Let danger threaten or let duty call,
And self surrenders to the needs of all;
Incurs vast perils, or, to save those dear,
Embraces death without one sigh or tear.
Life's martyrs still the endless drama play
Though no great Homer lives to chant their worth to-day.
III.
And if he chanted, who would list his songs,
So hurried now the world's gold-seeking throngs?
And yet shall silence mantle mighty deeds?
Awake, dear Muse, and sing though no ear heeds!
Extol the triumphs, and bemoan the end
Of that true hero, lover, son and friend
Whose faithful heart in his last choice was shownDeath with the comrades dear, refusing flight alone.
IV.
He who was born for battle and for strife
Like some caged eagle frets in peaceful life;
152
So Custer fretted when detained afar
From scenes of stirring action and of war.
And as the captive eagle in delight,
When freedom offers, plumes himself for flight
And soars away to thunder clouds on high,
With palpitating wings and wild exultant cry,
V.
So lion-hearted Custer sprang to arms,
And gloried in the conflict's loud alarms.
But one dark shadow marred his bounding joy;
And then the soldier vanished, and the boy,
The tender son, clung close, with sobbing breath,
To her from whom each parting was new death;
That mother who like goddesses of old,
Gave to the mighty Mars, three warriors brave and bold,
VI.
Yet who, unlike those martial dames of yore,
Grew pale and shuddered at the sight of gore.
A fragile being, born to grace the hearth,
Untroubled by the conflicts of the earth.
Some gentle dove who reared young eaglets, might,
In watching those bold birdlings take their flight,
Feel what that mother felt who saw her sons
Rush from her loving arms, to face death-dealing guns.
VII.
But ere thy lyre is strung to martial strains
Of wars which sent our hero o'er the plains,
To add the cypress to his laureled brow,
Be brave, my Muse, and darker truths avow.
Let Justice ask a preface to thy songs,
Before the Indian's crimes declare his wrongs;
Before effects, wherein all horrors blend,
Declare the shameful cause, precursor of the end.
VIII.
153
When first this soil the great Columbus trod,
He was less like the image of his God
Than those ingenuous souls, unspoiled by art,
Who lived so near to Mother Nature's heart;
Those simple children of the wood and wave,
As frank as trusting, and as true as brave;
Savage they were, when on some hostile raid
(For where is he so high, whom war does not degrade?) .
IX.
But dark deceit and falsehood's shameless shame
They had not learned, until the white man came.
He taught them, too, the lurking devil's joy
In liquid lies, that lure but to destroy.
With wily words, as false as they were sweet,
He spread his snares for unsuspecting feet;
Paid truth with guile, and trampled in the dust
Their gentle childlike faith and unaffected trust.
X.
And for the sport of idle kings and knaves
Of Nature's greater noblemen, made slaves.
Alas, the hour, when the wronged Indian knows
His seeming benefactors are but foes.
His kinsmen kidnapped and his lands possessed,
The demon woke in that untutored breast.
Four hundred years have rolled upon their wayThe ruthless demon rules the red man to this day.
XI.
If, in the morning of success, that grand
Invincible discoverer of our land
Had made no lodge or wigwam desolate
To carry trophies to the proud and great;
If on our history's page there were no blot
Left by the cruel rapine of Cabot,
Of Verrazin, and Hudson, dare we claim
The Indian of the plains, to-day had been same?
154
XII.
For in this brief existence, not alone
Do our lives gather what our hands have sown,
But we reap, too, what others long ago
Sowed, careless of the harvests that might grow.
Thus hour by hour the humblest human souls
Inscribe in cipher on unending scrolls,
The history of nations yet to be;
Incite fierce bloody wars, to rage from sea to sea,
XIII.
Or pave the way to peace. There is no past,
So deathless are events-results so vast.
And he who strives to make one act or hour
Stand separate and alone, needs first the power
To look upon the breaking wave and say,
'These drops were bosomed by a cloud to-day,
And those from far mid-ocean's crest were sent.'
So future, present, past, in one wide sea are blent.
BOOK SECOND.
I.
Oh, for the power to call to aid, of mine
Own humble Muse, the famed and sacred nine.
Then might she fitly sing, and only then,
Of those intrepid and unflinching men
Who knew no homes save ever moving tents,
And who 'twixt fierce unfriendly elements
And wild barbarians warred. Yet unfraid,
Since love impels thy strains, sing, sing, my modest maid.
II.
Relate how Custer in midwinter sought
Far Washita's cold shores; tell why he fought
With savage nomads fortressed in deep snows.
Woman, thou source of half the sad world's woes
155
And all its joys, what sanguinary strife
Has vexed the earth and made contention rife
Because of thee! For, hidden in man's heart,
Ay, in his very soul, of his true self a part,
III.
The natural impulse and the wish belongs
To win thy favor and redress thy wrongs.
Alas! for woman, and for man, alas!
If that dread hour should ever come to pass,
When, through her new-born passion for control,
She drives that beauteous impulse from his soul.
What were her vaunted independence worth
If to obtain she sells her sweetest rights of birth?
IV.
God formed fair woman for her true estateMan's tender comrade, and his equal mate,
Not his competitor in toil and trade.
While coarser man, with greater strength was made
To fight her battles and her rights protect.
Ay! to protect the rights of earth's elect
(The virgin maiden and the spotless wife)
From immemorial time has man laid down his life.
V.
And now brave Custer's valiant army pressed
Across the dangerous desert of the West,
To rescue fair white captives from the hands
Of brutal Cheyenne and Comanche bands,
On Washita's bleak banks. Nine hundred strong
It moved its slow determined way along,
Past frontier homes left dark and desolate
By the wild Indians' fierce and unrelenting hate;
VI.
Past forts where ranchmen, strong of heart and bold,
Wept now like orphaned children as they told,
156
With quivering muscles and with anguished breath,
Of captured wives, whose fate was worse than death;
Past naked bodies whose disfiguring wounds
Spoke of the hellish hate of human hounds;
Past bleaching skeleton and rifled grave,
On pressed th' avenging host, to rescue and to save.
VII.
Uncertain Nature, like a fickle friend,
(Worse than the foe on whom we may depend)
Turned on these dauntless souls a brow of wrath
And hurled her icy jav'lins in their path.
With treacherous quicksands, and with storms that blight,
Entrapped their footsteps and confused their sight.
'Yet on, ' urged Custer, 'on at any cost,
No hour is there to waste, no moment to be lost.'
VIII.
Determined, silent, on they rode, and on,
Like fabled Centaurs, men and steeds seemed one.
No bugle echoed and no voice spoke near,
Lest on some lurking Indian's list'ning ear
The sound might fall. Through swift descending snow
The stealthy guides crept, tracing out the foe;
No fire was lighted, and no halt was made
From haggard gray-lipped dawn till night lent friendly shade.
IX.
Then, by the shelt'ring river's bank at last,
The weary warriors paused for their repast.
A couch of ice and falling shows for spread
Made many a suffering soldier's chilling bed.
They slept to dream of glory and delight,
While the pale fingers of the pitying night
Wove ghostly winding sheets for that doomed score
Who, ere another eve, should sleep to wake no more.
X.
157
But those who slept not, saw with startled eyes
Far off, athwart dim unprotecting skies,
Ascending slowly with majestic grace,
A lustrous rocket, rising out of space.
'Behold the signal of the foe, ' cried one,
The field is lost before the strife's begun.
Yet no! for see! yon rays spread near and far;
It is the day's first smile, the radiant morning star.
XI.
The long hours counting till the daylight broke,
In whispered words the restless warriors spoke.
They talked of battles, but they thought of home
(For hearts are faithful though the feet may roam) .
Brave Hamilton, all eager for the strife,
Mused o'er that two-fold mystery-death and life;
'And when I die, ' quoth he, ' mine be the part
To fall upon the field, a bullet in my heart.'
XII.
At break of dawn the scouts crept in to say
The foe was camped a rifle shot away.
The baying of a dog, an infant's cry
Pierced through the air; sleep fled from every eye.
To horse! to arms! the dead demand the dead!
Let the grand charge upon the lodge be led!
Let the Mosaic law, life for a life
Pay the long standing debt of blood. War to the knife!
XIII.
So spake each heart in that unholy rage
Which fires the brain, when war the thoughts engage.
War, hideous war, appealing to the worst
In complex man, and waking that wild thirst
For human blood which blood alone can slake.
Yet for their country's safety, and the sake
Of tortured captives moaning in alarm
The Indian must be made to fear the law's strong arm.
158
XIV.
A noble vengeance burned in Custer's breast,
But, as he led his army to the crest,
Above the wigwams, ready for the charge
He felt the heart within him, swelling large
With human pity, as an infant's wail
Shrilled once again above the wintry gale.
Then hosts of murdered children seemed to rise;
And shame his halting thought with sad accusing eyes,
XV.
And urge him on to action. Stern of brow
The just avenger, and the General now,
He gives the silent signal to the band
Which, all impatient, waits for his command.
Cold lips to colder metal press; the air
Echoes those merry strains which mean despair
For sleeping chieftain and for toiling squaw,
But joy to those stern hearts which glory in the law
XVI.
Of murder paying murder's awful debt.
And now four squadrons in one charge are met.
From east and west, from north and south they come,
At call of bugle and at roll of drum.
Their rifles rain hot hail upon the foe,
Who flee from danger in death's jaws to go.
The Indians fight like maddened bulls at bay,
And dying shriek and groan, wound the young ear of day.
XVII.
A pallid captive and a white-browed boy
Add to the tumult piercing cries of joy,
As forth they fly, with high hope animate.
159
A hideous squaw pursues them with her hate;
Her knife descends with sickening force and sound;
Their bloody entrails stain the snow-clad ground.
She shouts with glee, then yells with rage and falls
Dead by her victims' side, pierced by avenging balls.
XVIII.
Now war runs riot, carnage reigns supreme.
All thoughts of mercy fade from Custer's scheme.
Inhuman methods for inhuman foes,
Who feed on horrors and exult in woes.
To conquer and subdue alone remains
In dealing with the red man on the plains.
The breast that knows no conscience yields to fear,
Strike! let the Indian meet his master now and here,
XIX.
With thoughts like these was Custer's mind engaged.
The gentlest are the sternest when enraged.
All felt the swift contagion of his ire,
For he was one who could arouse and fire
The coldest heart, so ardent was his own.
His fearless eye, his calm intrepid tone,
Bespoke the leader, strong with conscious power,
Whom following friends will bless, while foes will curse and cower.
XX.
Again they charge! and now among the killed
Lies Hamilton, his wish so soon fulfilled,
Brave Elliott pursues across the field
The flying foe, his own young life to yield.
But like the leaves in some autumnal gale
The red men fall in Washita's wild vale.
Each painted face and black befeathered head
Still more repulsive seems with death's grim pallor wed.
160
XXI.
New forces gather on surrounding knolls,
And fierce and fiercer war's red river rolls.
With bright-hued pennants flying from each lance
The gayly costumed Kiowas advance.
And bold Comanches (Bedouins of the land)
Infuse fresh spirit in the Cheyenne band.
While from the ambush of some dark ravine
Flash arrows aimed by hands, unerring and unseen.
XXIII.
The hours advance; the storm clouds roll away;
Still furious and more furious grows the fray.
The yellow sun makes ghastlier still the sight
Of painted corpses, staring in its light.
No longer slaves, but comrades of their griefs,
The squaws augment the forces of their chiefs.
They chant weird dirges in a minor key,
While from the narrow door of wigwam and tepee
XXIII.
Cold glittering eyes above cold glittering steel
Their deadly purpose and their hate reveal.
The click of pistols and the crack of guns
Proclaim war's daughters dangerous as her sons.
She who would wield the soldier's sword and lance
Must be prepared to take the soldier's chance.
She who would shoot must serve as target, too;
The battle-frenzied men, infuriate now pursue.
XXIV.
And blood of warrior, woman and papoose,
Flow free as waters when some dam breaks loose;
Consuming fire, the wanton friend of war
(Whom allies worship and whom foes abhor)
161
Now trails her crimson garments through the street,
And ruin marks the passing of her feet.
Full three-score lodges smoke upon the plain,
And all the vale is strewn with bodies of the slain.
XXV.
And those who are not numbered with the dead
Before all-conquering Custer now are led.
To soothe their woes, and calm their fears he seeks;
An Osage guide interprets while he speaks.
The vanquished captives, humbled, cowed and spent
Read in the victor's eye his kind intent.
The modern victor is as kind as brave;
His captive is his guest, not his insulted slave.
XXVI.
Mahwissa, sister of the slaughtered chief
Of all the Cheyennes, listens; and her grief
Yields now to hope; and o'er her withered face
There flits the stealthy cunning of her race.
Then forth she steps, and thus begins to speak:
'To aid the fallen and support the weak
Is man's true province; and to ease the pain
Of those o'er whom it is his purpose now to reign.
XXVII.
'Let the strong chief unite with theirs his life,
And take this black-eyed maiden for a wife.'
Then, moving with an air of proud command,
She leads a dusky damsel by the hand,
And places her at wondering Custer's side,
Invoking choicest blessings on the bride
And all unwilling groom, who thus replies.
'Fair is the Indian maid, with bright bewildering eyes,
162
XXVIII.
'But fairer still is one who, year on year,
Has borne man's burdens, conquered woman's fear;
And at my side rode mile on weary mile,
And faced all deaths, all dangers, with a smile,
Wise as Minerva, as Diana brave,
Is she whom generous gods in kindness gave
To share the hardships of my wandering life,
Companion, comrade, friend, my loved and loyal wife.
XXIX.
'The white chief weds but one. Take back thy maid.'
He ceased, and o'er Mahwissa's face a shade
Of mingled scorn and pity and surprise
Sweeps as she slow retreats, and thus replies:
'Rich is the pale-faced chief in battle fame,
But poor is he who but one wife may claim.
Wives are the red-skinned heroes' rightful spoil;
In war they prove his strength, in times of peace they toil.'
XXX.
But hark! The bugle echoes o'er the plains
And sounds again those merry Celtic strains
Which oft have called light feet to lilting dance,
But now they mean the order to advance.
Along the river's bank, beyond the hill
Two thousand foemen lodge, unconquered still.
Ere falls night's curtain on this bloody play,
The army must proceed, with feint of further fray.
XXXI.
The weary warriors mount their foam-flecked steeds,
With flags unfurled the dauntless host proceeds.
What though the foe outnumbers two to one?
Boldness achieves what strength oft leaves undone;
A daring mein will cause brute force to cower,
163
And courage is the secret source of power.
As Custer's column wheels upon their sight
The frightened red men yield the untried field by flight.
XXXII.
Yet when these conquering heroes sink to rest,
Dissatisfaction gnaws the leader's breast,
For far away across vast seas of snows
Held prisoners still by hostile Arapahoes
And Cheyennes unsubdued, two captives wait.
On God and Custer hangs their future fate.
May the Great Spirit nerve the mortal's arm
To rescue suffering souls from worse than death's alarm.
XXXIII.
But ere they seek to rescue the oppressed,
The valiant dead, in state, are laid to rest.
Mourned Hamilton, the faithful and the brave,
Nine hundred comrades follow to the grave;
And close behind the banner-hidden corse
All draped in black, walks mournfully his horse;
While tears of sound drip through the sunlit day.
A soldier may not weep, but drums and bugles may.
XXXIV.
Now, Muse, recount, how after long delays
And dangerous marches through untrodden ways,
Where cold and hunger on each hour attend,
At last the army gains the journey's end.
An Indian village bursts upon the eye;
Two hundred lodges, sleep-encompassed lie,
There captives moan their anguished prayers through tears,
While in the silent dawn the armied answer nears.
XXXV.
164
To snatch two fragile victims from the foe
Nine hundred men have traversed leagues of snow.
Each woe they suffered in a hostile land
The flame of vengeance in their bosoms fanned.
They thirst for slaughter, and the signal wait
To wrest the captives from their horrid fate.
Each warrior's hand upon his rifle falls,
Each savage soldier's heart for awful bloodshed calls.
XXXVI.
And one, in years a youth, in woe a man,
Sad Brewster, scarred by sorrow's blighting ban,
Looks, panting, where his captive sister sleeps,
And o'er his face the shade of murder creeps.
His nostrils quiver like a hungry beast
Who scents anear the bloody carnal feast.
He longs to leap down in that slumbering vale
And leave no foe alive to tell the awful tale.
XXXVII.
Not so, calm Custer. Sick of gory strife,
He hopes for rescue with no loss of life;
And plans that bloodless battle of the plains
Where reasoning mind outwits mere savage brains.
The sullen soldiers follow where he leads;
No gun is emptied, and no foeman bleeds.
Fierce for the fight and eager for the fray
They look upon their Chief in undisguised dismay.
XXXVIII.
He hears the murmur of their discontent,
But sneers can never change a strong mind's bent.
He knows his purpose and he does not swerve,
And with a quiet mien and steady nerve
He meets dark looks where'er his steps may go,
And silence that is bruising as a blow,
165
Where late were smiles and words of ardent praise.
So pass the lagging weeks of wearying delays.
XXXIX.
Inaction is not always what it seems,
And Custer's mind with plan and project teems.
Fixed in his peaceful purpose he abides
With none takes counsel and in none confides;
But slowly weaves about the foe a net
Which leaves them wholly at his mercy, yet
He strikes no fateful blow; he takes no life,
And holds in check his men, who pant for bloody strife.
XL.
Intrepid warrior and skilled diplomate,
In his strong hands he holds the red man's fate.
The craftiest plot he checks with counterplot,
Till tribe by tribe the tricky foe is brought
To fear his vengeance and to know his power.
As man's fixed gaze will make a wild beast cower,
So these crude souls feel that unflinching will
Which draws them by its force, yet does not deign to kill.
XLI.
And one by one the hostile Indians send
Their chiefs to seek a peaceful treaty's end.
Great councils follow; skill with cunning copes
And conquers it; and Custer sees his hopes
So long delayed, like stars storm hidden, rise
To radiate with splendor all his skies.
The stubborn Cheyennes, cowed at last by fear,
Leading the captive pair, o'er spring-touched hills appear.
XLII.
166
With breath suspended, now the whole command
Waits the approach of that equestrian band.
Nearer it comes, still nearer, then a cry,
Half sob, half shriek, goes piercing God's blue sky,
And Brewster, like a nimble-footed doe,
Or like an arrow hurrying from a bow,
Shoots swiftly through the intervening space
And that lost sister clasps, in sorrowing love's embrace.
XLIII.
And men who leaned o'er Hamilton's rude bier
And saw his dead dear face without a tear,
Strong souls who early learned the manly art
Of keeping from the eye what's in the heart,
Soldiers who look unmoved on death's pale brow,
Avert their eyes, to hide their moisture now.
The briny flood forced back from shores of woe,
Needs but to touch the strands of joy to overflow.
XLIV.
About the captives welcoming warriors crowd,
All eyes are wet, and Brewster sobs aloud.
Alas, the ravage wrought by toil and woe
On faces that were fair twelve moons ago.
Bronzed by exposure to the heat and cold,
Still young in years, yet prematurely old,
By insults humbled and by labor worn,
They stand in youth's bright hour, of all youth's graces shorn.
XLV.
A scanty garment rudely made of sacks
Hangs from their loins; bright blankets drape their backs;
About their necks are twisted tangled strings
Of gaudy beads, while tinkling wire and rings
Of yellow brass on wrists and fingers glow.
Thus, to assuage the anger of the foe
The cunning Indians decked the captive pair
167
Who in one year have known a lifetime of despair.
XLVI.
But love can resurrect from sorrow's tomb
The vanished beauty and the faded bloom,
As sunlight lifts the bruised flower from the sod,
Can lift crushed hearts to hope, for love is God.
Already now in freedom's glad release
The hunted look of fear gives place to peace,
And in their eyes at thought of home appears
That rainbow light of joy which brightest shines through tears.
XLVII.
About the leader thick the warriors crowd;
Late loud in censure, now in praises loud,
They laud the tactics, and the skill extol
Which gained a bloodless yet a glorious goal.
Alone and lonely in the path of right
Full many a brave soul walks. When gods requite
And crown his actions as their worth demands,
Among admiring throngs the hero always stands.
A row of six asterisks is on the page at this point
XLVIII.
Back to the East the valorous squadrons sweep;
The earth, arousing from her long, cold sleep,
Throws from her breast the coverlet of snow,
Revealing Spring's soft charms which lie below.
Suppressed emotions in each heart arise,
The wooer wakens and the warrior dies.
The bird of prey is vanquished by the dove,
And thoughts of bloody strife give place to thoughts of love.
XLIX.
168
The mighty plains, devoid of whispering trees,
Guard well the secrets of departed seas.
Where once great tides swept by with ebb and flow
The scorching sun looks down in tearless woe.
And fierce tornadoes in ungoverned pain
Mourn still the loss of that mysterious main.
Across this ocean bed the soldiers flyHome is the gleaming goal that lures each eager eye.
L.
Like some elixir which the gods prepare,
They drink the viewless tonic of the air,
Sweet with the breath of startled antelopes
Which speed before them over swelling slopes.
Now like a serpent writhing o'er the moor,
The column curves and makes a slight detour,
As Custer leads a thousand men away
To save a ground bird's nest which in the footpath lay.
LI.
Mile following mile, against the leaning skies
Far off they see a dull dark cloud arise.
The hunter's instinct in each heart is stirred,
Beholding there in one stupendous herd
A hundred thousand buffaloes. Oh great
Unwieldy proof of Nature's cruder state,
Rough remnant of a prehistoric day,
Thou, with the red man, too, must shortly pass away.
LII.
Upon those spreading plains is there not room
For man and bison, that he seals its doom?
What pleasure lies and what seductive charm
In slaying with no purpose but to harm?
Alas, that man, unable to create,
Should thirst forever to exterminate,
And in destruction find his fiercest joy.
169
The gods alone create, gods only should destroy.
LIII.
The flying hosts a straggling bull pursue;
Unerring aim, the skillful Custer drew.
The wounded beast turns madly in despair
And man and horse are lifted high in air.
The conscious steed needs not the guiding rein;
Back with a bound and one quick cry of pain
He springs, and halts, well knowing where must fall
In that protected frame, the sure death dealing ball.
LIV.
With minds intent upon the morrow's feast,
The men surround the carcass of the beast.
Rolled on his back, he lies with lolling tongue,
Soon to the saddle savory steaks are hung.
And from his mighty head, great tufts of hair
Are cut as trophies for some lady fair.
To vultures then they leave the torn remains
Of what an hour ago was monarch of the plains.
LV.
Far off, two bulls in jealous war engage,
Their blood-shot eye balls roll in furious rage;
With maddened hoofs they mutilate the ground
And loud their angry bellowings resound;
With shaggy heads bent low they plunge and roar,
Till both broad bellies drip with purple gore.
Meanwhile, the heifer, whom the twain desire,
Stands browsing near the pair, indifferent to their ire.
LVI.
At last she lifts her lazy head and heeds
170
The clattering hoofs of swift advancing steeds.
Off to the herd with cumb'rous gait she runs
And leaves the bulls to face the threatening guns.
No more for them the free life of the plains,
Its mating pleasures and its warring pains.
Their quivering flesh shall feed unnumbered foes,
Their tufted tails adorn the soldiers' saddle bows.
LVII.
Now into camp the conquering hosts advance;
On burnished arms the brilliant sunbeams glance.
Brave Custer leads, blonde as the gods of old;
Back from his brow blow clustering locks of gold,
And, like a jewel in a brook, there lies,
Far in the depths of his blue guarded eyes,
The thought of one whose smiling lips upcurled,
Mean more of joy to him than plaudits of the world.
LVIII.
The troops in columns of platoons appear
Close to the leader following. Ah, here
The poetry of war is fully seen,
Its prose forgotten; as against the green
Of Mother Nature, uniformed in blue,
The soldiers pass for Sheridan's review.
The motion-music of the moving throng,
Is like a silent tune, set to a wordless song.
LIX.
The guides and trailers, weird in war's array,
Precede the troops along the grassy way.
They chant wild songs, and, with loud noise and stress,
In savage manner savage joy express.
The Indian captives, blanketed in red,
On ponies mounted, by the scouts are led.
Like sumach bushes, etched on evening skies,
171
Against the blue-clad troops, this patch of color lies.
LX.
High o'er the scene vast music billows bound,
And all the air is liquid with the sound
Of those invisible compelling waves.
Perchance they reach the low and lonely graves
Where sleep brave Elliott and Hamilton,
And whisper there the tale of victory won;
Or do the souls of soldiers tried and true
Come at the bugle call, and march in grand review?
LXI.
The pleased Commander watches in surprise
This splendid pageant surge before his eyes.
Not in those mighty battle days of old
Did scenes like this upon his sight unfold.
But now it passes. Drums and bugles cease
To dash war billows on the shores of Peace.
The victors smile on fair broad bosomed Sleep
While in her soothing arms, the vanquished cease to weep.
BOOK THIRD.
There is an interval of eight years between Books Second and Third.
I.
As in the long dead days marauding hosts
Of Indians came from far Siberian coasts,
And drove the peaceful Aztecs from their grounds,
Despoiled their homes (but left their tell-tale mounds) ,
So has the white man with the Indians done.
Now with their backs against the setting sun
The remnants of a dying nation stand
And view the lost domain, once their beloved land.
172
II.
Upon the vast Atlantic's leagues of shore
The happy red man's tent is seen no more;
And from the deep blue lakes which mirror heaven
His bounding bark canoe was long since driven.
The mighty woods, those temples where his God
Spoke to his soul, are leveled to the sod;
And in their place tall church spires point above,
While priests proclaim the law of Christ, the King of Love.
III.
The avaricious and encroaching rail
Seized the wide fields which knew the Indians' trail.
Back to the reservations in the West
The native owners of the land were pressed,
And selfish cities, harbingers of want,
Shut from their vision each accustomed haunt.
Yet hungry Progress, never satisfied,
Gazed on the western plains, and gazing, longed and sighed.
IV.
As some strange bullock in a pasture field
Compels the herds to fear him, and to yield
The juicy grass plots and the cooling shade
Until, despite their greater strength, afraid,
They huddle in some corner spot and cower
Before the monarch's all controlling power,
So has the white man driven from its place
By his aggressive greed, Columbia's native race.
V.
Yet when the bull pursues the herds at bay,
Incensed they turn, and dare dispute his sway.
And so the Indians turned, when men forgot
Their sacred word, and trespassed on the spot.
173
The lonely little spot of all their lands,
The reservation of the peaceful bands.
But lust for gold all conscience kills in man,
'Gold in the Black Hills, gold! ' the cry arose and ran
VI.
From lip to lip, as flames from tree to tree
Leap till the forest is one fiery sea,
And through the country surged that hot unrest
Which thirst for riches wakens in the breast.
In mighty throngs the fortune hunters came,
Despoiled the red man's lands and slew his game,
Broke solemn treaties and defied the law.
And all these ruthless acts the Nation knew and saw.
VII.
Man is the only animal that kills
Just for the wanton love of slaughter; spills
The blood of lesser things to see it flow;
Lures like a friend, to murder like a foe
The trusting bird and beast; and, coward like,
Deals covert blows he dare not boldly strike.
The brutes have finer souls, and only slay
When torn by hunger's pangs, or when to fear a prey.
VIII.
The pale-faced hunter, insolent and bold,
Pursued the bison while he sought for gold.
And on the hungry red man's own domains
He left the rotting and unused remains
To foul with sickening stench each passing wind
And rouse the demon in the savage mind,
Save in the heart where virtues dominate
Injustice always breeds its natural offspring- hate.
174
IX.
The chieftain of the Sioux, great Sitting Bull,
Mused o'er their wrongs, and felt his heart swell full
Of bitter vengeance. Torn with hate's unrest
He called a council and his braves addressed.
'From fair Wisconsin's shimmering lakes of blue
Long years ago the white man drove the Sioux.
Made bold by conquest, and inflamed by greed,
He still pursues our tribes, and still our ranks recede.
X.
'Fair are the White Chief's promises and words,
But dark his deeds who robs us of our herds.
He talks of treaties, asks the right to buy,
Then takes by force, not waiting our reply.
He grants us lands for pastures and abodes
To devastate them by his iron roads.
But now from happy Spirit Lands, a friend
Draws near the hunted Sioux, to strengthen and defend.
XI.
'While walking in the fields I saw a star;
Unconsciously I followed it afarIt led me on to valleys filled with light,
Where danced our noble chieftains slain in fight.
Black Kettle, first of all that host I knew,
He whom the strong armed Custer foully slew.
And then a spirit took me by the hand,
The Great Messiah King who comes to free the land.
XII.
'Suns were his eyes, a speaking tear his voice,
.Whose rainbow sounds made listening hearts rejoice
And thus he spake: 'The red man's hour draws near
When all his lost domains shall reappear.
The elk, the deer, the bounding antelope,
175
Shall here return to grace each grassy slope.'
He waved his hand above the fields, and lo!
Down through the valleys came a herd of buffalo.
XIII.
'The wondrous vision vanished, but I knew
That Sitting Bull must make the promise true.
Great Spirits plan what mortal man achieves,
The hand works magic when the heart believes.
Arouse, ye braves! let not the foe advance.
Arm for the battle and begin the danceThe sacred dance in honor of our slain,
Who will return to earth, ere many moons shall wane.'
XIV.
Thus Sitting Bull, the chief of wily knaves,
Worked on the superstitions of his braves.
Mixed truth with lies; and stirred to mad unrest
The warlike instinct in each savage breast.
A curious product of unhappy times,
The natural offspring of unnumbered crimes,
He used low cunning and dramatic arts
To startle and surprise those crude untutored hearts.
XV.
Out from the lodges pour a motley throng,
Slow measures chanting of a dirge-like song.
In one great circle dizzily they swing,
A squaw and chief alternate in the ring.
Coarse raven locks stream over robes of white,
Their deep set orbs emit a lurid light,
And as through pine trees moan the winds refrains,
So swells and dies away, the ghostly graveyard strains.
176
XVI.
Like worded wine is music to the ear,
And long indulged makes mad the hearts that hear.
The dancers, drunken with the monotone
Of oft repeated notes, now shriek and groan
And pierce their ruddy flesh with sharpened spears;
Still more excited when the blood appears,
With warlike yells, high in the air they bound,
Then in a deathlike trance fall prostrate on the ground.
XVII.
They wake to tell weird stories of the dead,
While fresh performers to the ring are led.
The sacred nature of the dance is lost,
War is their cry, red war, at any cost.
Insane for blood they wait for no command,
But plunge marauding through the frightened land.
Their demon hearts on devils' pleasures bent,
For each new foe surprised, new torturing deaths invent.
XVIII.
Staked to the earth one helpless creature lies,
Flames at his feet and splinters in his eyes.
Another groans with coals upon his breast,
While 'round the pyre the Indians dance and jest.
A crying child is brained upon a tree,
The swooning mother saved from death, to be
The slave and plaything of a filthy knave,
Whose sins would startle hell, whose clay defile a grave.
XIX.
Their cause was right, their methods all were wrong.
Pity and censure both to them belong.
Their woes were many, but their crimes were more.
The soulless Satan holds not in his store
Such awful tortures as the Indians' wrath
177
Keeps for the hapless victim in his path.
And if the last lone remnants of that race
Were by the white man swept from off the earth's fair face,
XX.
Were every red man slaughtered in a day,
Still would that sacrifice but poorly pay
For one insulted woman captive's woes.
Again great Custer in his strength arose,
More daring, more intrepid than of old.
The passing years had touched and turned to gold
The ever widening aureole of fame
That shone upon his brow, and glorified his name.
XXI.
Wise men make laws, then turn their eyes away,
While fools and knaves ignore them day by day;
And unmolested, fools and knaves at length
Induce long wars which sap a country's strength.
The sloth of leaders, ruling but in name,
Has dragged full many a nation down to shame.
A word unspoken by the rightful lips
Has dyed the land with blood, and blocked the sea with ships.
XXII.
The word withheld, when Indians asked for aid,
Came when the red man started on his raid.
What Justice with a gesture might have done
Was left for noisy war with bellowing gun.
And who save Custer and his gallant men
Could calm the tempest into peace again?
What other hero in the land could hope
With Sitting Bull, the fierce and lawless one to cope?
178
XXIII.
What other warrior skilled enough to dare
Surprise that human tiger in his lair?
Sure of his strength, unconscious of his fame
Out from the quiet of the camp he came;
And stately as Diana at his side
Elizabeth, his wife and alway bride,
And Margaret, his sister, rode apace;
Love's clinging arms he left to meet death's cold embrace.
XXIV.
As the bright column wound along its course,
The smiling leader turned upon his horse
To gaze with pride on that superb command.
Twelve hundred men, the picked of all the land,
Innured to hardship and made strong by strife
Their lithe limbed bodies breathed of out-door life;
While on their faces, resolute and brave,
Hope stamped its shining seal, although their thoughts were grave.
XXV.
The sad eyed women halted in the dawn,
And waved farewell to dear ones riding on.
The modest mist picked up her robes and ran
Before the Sun god's swift pursuing van.
And suddenly there burst on startled eyes,
The sight of soldiers, marching in the skies;
That phantom host, a phantom Custer led;
Mirage of dire portent, forecasting days ahead.
XXVI.
The soldiers' children, flaunting mimic flags,
Played by the roadside, striding sticks for nags.
Their mothers wept, indifferent to the crowd
Who saw their tears and heard them sob aloud.
Old Indian men and squaws crooned forth a rhyme
179
Sung by their tribes from immemorial time;
And over all the drums' incessant beat
Mixed with the scout's weird rune, and tramp of myriad feet.
XXVII.
So flawless was the union of each part
The mighty column (moved as by one heart)
Pulsed through the air, like some sad song well sung,
Which gives delight, although the soul is wrung.
Farther and fainter to the sight and sound
The beautiful embodied poem wound;
Till like a ribbon, stretched across the land
Seemed the long narrow line of that receding band.
XXVIII.
The lot of those who in the silence wait
Is harder than the fighting soldiers' fate.
Back to the lonely post two women passed,
With unaccustomed sorrow overcast.
Two sad for sighs, too desolate for tears,
The dark forebodings of long widowed years
In preparation for the awful blow
Hung on the door of hope the sable badge of woe.
XXIX.
Unhappy Muse! for thee no song remains,
Save the sad miséréré of the plains.
Yet though defeat, not triumph, ends the tale,
Great victors sometimes are the souls that fail.
All glory lies not in the goals we reach,
But in the lessons which our actions teach.
And he who, conquered, to the end believes
In God and in himself, though vanquished, still achieves.
180
XXX.
Ah, grand as rash was that last fatal raid
The little group of daring heroes made.
Two hundred and two score intrepid men
Rode out to war; not one came back again.
Like fiends incarnate from the depths of hell
Five thousand foemen rose with deafening yell,
And swept that vale as with a simoon's breath,
But like the gods of old, each martyr met his death.
XXXI.
Like gods they battled and like gods they died.
Hour following hour that little band defied
The hordes of red men swarming o'er the plain,
Till scarce a score stood upright 'mid the slain.
Then in the lull of battle, creeping near,
A scout breathed low in Custer's listening ear:
'Death lies before, dear life remains behind
Mount thy sure-footed steed, and hasten with the wind.'
XXXII.
A second's silence. Custer dropped his head,
His lips slow moving as when prayers are saidTwo words he breathed-'God and Elizabeth, '
Then shook his long locks in the face of death
And with a final gesture turned away
To join that fated few who stood at bay.
Ah! deeds like that the Christ in man reveal
Let Fame descend her throne at Custer's shrine to kneel.
XXXIII.
Too late to rescue, but in time to weep,
His tardy comrades came. As if asleep
He lay, so fair, that even hellish hate
Withheld its hand and dared not mutilate.
By fiends who knew not honor, honored still,
181
He smiled and slept on that far western hill.
Cast down thy lyre, oh Muse! thy song is done!
Let tears complete the tale of him who failed, yet won.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,#NFDB
1332:Scene. Salzburg; a cell in the Hospital of St. Sebastian. 1541.
Festus, Paracelsus.
Festus.
No change! The weary night is well-nigh spent,
The lamp burns low, and through the casement-bars
Grey morning glimmers feebly: yet no change!
Another night, and still no sigh has stirred
That fallen discoloured mouth, no pang relit
Those fixed eyes, quenched by the decaying body,
Like torch-flame choked in dust. While all beside
Was breaking, to the last they held out bright,
As a stronghold where life intrenched itself;
But they are dead nowvery blind and dead:
He will drowse into death without a groan.
My Aureolemy forgotten, ruined Aureole!
The days are gone, are gone! How grand thou wast!
And now not one of those who struck thee down
Poor glorious spiritconcerns him even to stay
And satisfy himself his little hand
Could turn God's image to a livid thing.
Another night, and yet no change! 'T is much
That I should sit by him, and bathe his brow,
And chafe his hands; 't is much: but he will sure
Know me, and look on me, and speak to me
Once morebut only once! His hollow cheek
Looked all night long as though a creeping laugh
At his own state were just about to break
From the dying man: my brain swam, my throat swelled,
And yet I could not turn away. In truth,
They told me how, when first brought here, he seemed
Resolved to live, to lose no faculty;
Thus striving to keep up his shattered strength,
Until they bore him to this stifling cell:
When straight his features fell, an hour made white
The flushed face, and relaxed the quivering limb,
Only the eye remained intense awhile
As though it recognized the tomb-like place,
And then he lay as here he lies.
Ay, here!
Here is earth's noblest, nobly garlanded
Her bravest champion with his well-won prize
Her best achievement, her sublime amends
For countless generations fleeting fast
And followed by no trace;the creature-god
She instances when angels would dispute
The title of her brood to rank with them.
Angels, this is our angel! Those bright forms
We clothe with purple, crown and call to thrones,
Are human, but not his; those are but men
Whom other men press round and kneel before;
Those palaces are dwelt in by mankind;
Higher provision is for him you seek
Amid our pomps and glories: see it here!
Behold earth's paragon! Now, raise thee, clay!
God! Thou art love! I build my faith on that
Even as I watch beside thy tortured child
Unconscious whose hot tears fall fast by him,
So doth thy right hand guide us through the world
Wherein we stumble. God! what shall we say?
How has he sinned? How else should he have done?
Surely he sought thy praisethy praise, for all
He might be busied by the task so much
As half forget awhile its proper end.
Dost thou well, Lord? Thou canst not but prefer
That I should range myself upon his side
How could he stop at every step to set
Thy glory forth? Hadst thou but granted him
Success, thy honour would have crowned success,
A halo round a star. Or, say he erred,
Save him, dear God; it will be like thee: bathe him
In light and life! Thou art not made like us;
We should be wroth in such a case; but thou
Forgivestso, forgive these passionate thoughts
Which come unsought and will not pass away!
I know thee, who hast kept my path, and made
Light for me in the darkness, tempering sorrow
So that it reached me like a solemn joy;
It were too strange that I should doubt thy love.
But what am I? Thou madest him and knowest
How he was fashioned. I could never err
That way: the quiet place beside thy feet,
Reserved for me, was ever in my thoughts:
But hethou shouldst have favoured him as well!
Ah! he wakens! Aureole, I am here! 't is Festus!
I cast away all wishes save one wish
Let him but know me, only speak to me!
He mutters; louder and louder; any other
Than I, with brain less laden, could collect
What he pours forth. Dear Aureole, do but look!
Is it talking or singing, this he utters fast?
Misery that he should fix me with his eye,
Quick talking to some other all the while!
If he would husband this wild vehemence
Which frustrates its intent!I heard, I know
I heard my name amid those rapid words.
Oh, he will know me yet! Could I divert
This current, lead it somehow gently back
Into the channels of the past!His eye
Brighter than ever! It must recognize me!
I am Erasmus: I am here to pray
That Paracelsus use his skill for me.
The schools of Paris and of Padua send
These questions for your learning to resolve.
We are your students, noble master: leave
This wretched cell, what business have you here?
Our class awaits you; come to us once more!
(O agony! the utmost I can do
Touches him not; how else arrest his ear?)
I am commissioned . . . I shall craze like him.
Better be mute and see what God shall send.
Paracelsus.
Stay, stay with me!
Festus.
I will; I am come here
To stay with youFestus, you loved of old;
Festus, you know, you must know!
Paracelsus.
Festus! Where's
Aprile, then? Has he not chanted softly
The melodies I heard all night? I could not
Get to him for a cold hand on my breast,
But I made out his music well enough,
O well enough! If they have filled him full
With magical music, as they freight a star
With light, and have remitted all his sin,
They will forgive me too, I too shall know!
Festus.
Festus, your Festus!
Paracelsus.
Ask him if Aprile
Knows as he Lovesif I shall Love and Know?
I try; but that cold hand, like leadso cold!
Festus.
My hand, see!
Paracelsus.
Ah, the curse, Aprile, Aprile!
We get so nearso very, very near!
'T is an old tale: Jove strikes the Titans down,
Not when they set about their mountain-piling
But when another rock would crown the work.
And Phaetondoubtless his first radiant plunge
Astonished mortals, though the gods were calm,
And Jove prepared his thunder: all old tales!
Festus.
And what are these to you?
Paracelsus.
Ay, fiends must laugh
So cruelly, so well! most like I never
Could tread a single pleasure underfoot,
But they were grinning by my side, were chuckling
To see me toil and drop away by flakes!
Hell-spawn! I am glad, most glad, that thus I fail!
Your cunning has o'ershot its aim. One year,
One month, perhaps, and I had served your turn!
You should have curbed your spite awhile. But now,
Who will believe 't was you that held me back?
Listen: there's shame and hissing and contempt,
And none but laughs who names me, none but spits
Measureless scorn upon me, me alone,
The quack, the cheat, the liar,all on me!
And thus your famous plan to sink mankind
In silence and despair, by teaching them
One of their race had probed the inmost truth,
Had done all man could do, yet failed no less
Your wise plan proves abortive. Men despair?
Ha, ha! why, they are hooting the empiric,
The ignorant and incapable fool who rushed
Madly upon a work beyond his wits;
Nor doubt they but the simplest of themselves
Could bring the matter to triumphant issue.
So, pick and choose among them all, accursed!
Try now, persuade some other to slave for you,
To ruin body and soul to work your ends!
No, no; I am the first and last, I think.
Festus.
Dear friend, who are accursed? who has done
Paracelsus.
What have I done? Fiends dare ask that? or you,
Brave men? Oh, you can chime in boldly, backed
By the others! What had you to do, sage peers?
Here stand my rivals; Latin, Arab, Jew,
Greek, join dead hands against me: all I ask
Is, that the world enrol my name with theirs,
And even this poor privilege, it seems,
They range themselves, prepared to disallow.
Only observe! why, fiends may learn from them!
How they talk calmly of my throes, my fierce
Aspirings, terrible watchings, each one claiming
Its price of blood and brain; how they dissect
And sneeringly disparage the few truths
Got at a life's cost; they too hanging the while
About my neck, their lies misleading me
And their dead names browbeating me! Grey crew,
Yet steeped in fresh malevolence from hell,
Is there a reason for your hate? My truths
Have shaken a little the palm about each prince?
Just think, Aprile, all these leering dotards
Were bent on nothing less than to be crowned
As we! That yellow blear-eyed wretch in chief
To whom the rest cringe low with feigned respect,
Galen of Pergamos and hellnay speak
The tale, old man! We met there face to face:
I said the crown should fall from thee. Once more
We meet as in that ghastly vestibule:
Look to my brow! Have I redeemed my pledge?
Festus.
Peace, peace; ah, see!
Paracelsus.
Oh, emptiness of fame!
Oh Persic Zoroaster, lord of stars!
Who said these old renowns, dead long ago,
Could make me overlook the living world
To gaze through gloom at where they stood, indeed,
But stand no longer? What a warm light life
After the shade! In truth, my delicate witch,
My serpent-queen, you did but well to hide
The juggles I had else detected. Fire
May well run harmless o'er a breast like yours!
The cave was not so darkened by the smoke
But that your white limbs dazzled me: oh, white,
And panting as they twinkled, wildly dancing!
I cared not for your passionate gestures then,
But now I have forgotten the charm of charms,
The foolish knowledge which I came to seek,
While I remember that quaint dance; and thus
I am come back, not for those mummeries,
But to love you, and to kiss your little feet
Soft as an ermine's winter coat!
Festus.
A light
Will struggle through these thronging words at last.
As in the angry and tumultuous West
A soft star trembles through the drifting clouds.
These are the strivings of a spirit which hates
So sad a vault should coop it, and calls up
The past to stand between it and its fate.
Were he at Einsiedelnor Michal here!
Paracelsus.
Cruel! I seek her nowI kneelI shriek
I clasp her vesturebut she fades, still fades;
And she is gone; sweet human love is gone!
'T is only when they spring to heaven that angels
Reveal themselves to you; they sit all day
Beside you, and lie down at night by you
Who care not for their presence, muse or sleep,
And all at once they leave you, and you know them!
We are so fooled, so cheated! Why, even now
I am not too secure against foul play;
The shadows deepen and the walls contract:
No doubt some treachery is going on.
'T is very dusk. Where are we put, Aprile?
Have they left us in the lurch? This murky loathsome
Death-trap, this slaughter-house, is not the hall
In the golden city! Keep by me, Aprile!
There is a hand groping amid the blackness
To catch us. Have the spider-fingers got you,
Poet? Hold on me for your life! If once
They pull you!Hold!
'Tis but a dreamno more!
I have you still; the sun comes out again;
Let us be happy: all will yet go well!
Let us confer: is it not like, Aprile,
That spite of trouble, this ordeal passed,
The value of my labours ascertained,
Just as some stream foams long among the rocks
But after glideth glassy to the sea,
So, full content shall henceforth be my lot?
What think you, poet? Louder! Your clear voice
Vibrates too like a harp-string. Do you ask
How could I still remain on earth, should God
Grant me the great approval which I seek?
I, you, and God can comprehend each other,
But men would murmur, and with cause enough;
For when they saw me, stainless of all sin,
Preserved and sanctified by inward light,
They would complain that comfort, shut from them,
I drank thus unespied; that they live on,
Nor taste the quiet of a constant joy,
For ache and care and doubt and weariness,
While I am calm; help being vouchsafed to me,
And hid from them.'T were best consider that!
You reason well, Aprile; but at least
Let me know this, and die! Is this too much?
I will learn this, if God so please, and die!
If thou shalt please, dear God, if thou shalt please!
We are so weak, we know our motives least
In their confused beginning. If at first
I sought . . . but wherefore bare my heart to thee?
I know thy mercy; and already thoughts
Flock fast about my soul to comfort it,
And intimate I cannot wholly fail,
For love and praise would clasp me willingly
Could I resolve to seek them. Thou art good,
And I should be content. Yetyet first show
I have done wrong in daring! Rather give
The supernatural consciousness of strength
Which fed my youth! Only one hour of that
With thee to helpO what should bar me then!
Lost, lost! Thus things are ordered here! God's creatures,
And yet he takes no pride in us!none, none!
Truly there needs another life to come!
If this be all(I must tell Festus that)
And other life await us notfor one,
I say 't is a poor cheat, a stupid bungle,
A wretched failure. I, for one, protest
Against it, and I hurl it back with scorn.
Well, onward though alone! Small time remains,
And much to do: I must have fruit, must reap
Some profit from my toils. I doubt my body
Will hardly serve me through; while I have laboured
It has decayed; and now that I demand
Its best assistance, it will crumble fast:
A sad thought, a sad fate! How very full
Of wormwood 't is, that just at altar-service,
The rapt hymn rising with the rolling smoke,
When glory dawns and all is at the best,
The sacred fire may flicker and grow faint
And die for want of a wood-piler's help!
Thus fades the flagging body, and the soul
Is pulled down in the overthrow. Well, well
Let men catch every word, let them lose nought
Of what I say; something may yet be done.
They are ruins! Trust me who am one of you!
All ruins, glorious once, but lonely now.
It makes my heart sick to behold you crouch
Beside your desolate fane: the arches dim,
The crumbling columns grand against the moon,
Could I but rear them up once morebut that
May never be, so leave them! Trust me, friends,
Why should you linger here when I have built
A far resplendent temple, all your own?
Trust me, they are but ruins! See, Aprile,
Men will not heed! Yet were I not prepared
With better refuge for them, tongue of mine
Should ne'er reveal how blank their dwelling is:
I would sit down in silence with the rest.
Ha, what? you spit at me, you grin and shriek
Contempt into my earmy ear which drank
God's accents once? you curse me? Why men, men,
I am not formed for it! Those hideous eyes
Will be before me sleeping, waking, praying,
They will not let me even die. Spare, spare me,
Sinning or no, forget that, only spare me
The horrible scorn! You thought I could support it.
But now you see what silly fragile creature
Cowers thus. I am not good nor bad enough,
Not Christ nor Cain, yet even Cain was saved
From Hate like this. Let me but totter back!
Perhaps I shall elude those jeers which creep
Into my very brain, and shut these scorched
Eyelids and keep those mocking faces out.
Listen, Aprile! I am very calm:
Be not deceived, there is no passion here
Where the blood leaps like an imprisoned thing:
I am calm: I will exterminate the race!
Enough of that: 't is said and it shall be.
And now be merry: safe and sound am I
Who broke through their best ranks to get at you.
And such a havoc, such a rout, Aprile!
Festus.
Have you no thought, no memory for me,
Aureole? I am so wretchedmy pure Michal
Is gone, and you alone are left me now,
And even you forget me. Take my hand
Lean on me thus. Do you not know me, Aureole?
Paracelsus.
Festus, my own friend, you are come at last?
As you say, 't is an awful enterprise;
But you believe I shall go through with it:
'T is like you, and I thank you. Thank him for me,
Dear Michal! See how bright St. Saviour's spire
Flames in the sunset; all its figures quaint
Gay in the glancing light: you might conceive them
A troop of yellow-vested white-haired Jews
Bound for their own land where redemption dawns.
Festus.
Not that blest timenot our youth's time, dear God!
Paracelsus.
Hastay! true, I forgetall is done since,
And he is come to judge me. How he speaks,
How calm, how well! yes, it is true, all true;
All quackery; all deceit; myself can laugh
The first at it, if you desire: but still
You know the obstacles which taught me tricks
So foreign to my natureenvy and hate,
Blind opposition, brutal prejudice,
Bald ignorancewhat wonder if I sunk
To humour men the way they most approved?
My cheats were never palmed on such as you,
Dear Festus! I will kneel if you require me,
Impart the meagre knowledge I possess,
Explain its bounded nature, and avow
My insufficiencywhate'er you will:
I give the fight up: let there be an end,
A privacy, an obscure nook for me.
I want to be forgotten even by God.
But if that cannot be, dear Festus, lay me,
When I shall die, within some narrow grave,
Not by itselffor that would be too proud
But where such graves are thickest; let it look
Nowise distinguished from the hillocks round,
So that the peasant at his brother's bed
May tread upon my own and know it not;
And we shall all be equal at the last,
Or classed according to life's natural ranks,
Fathers, sons, brothers, friendsnot rich, nor wise,
Nor gifted: lay me thus, then say, "He lived
"Too much advanced before his brother men;
"They kept him still in front: 't was for their good
"But yet a dangerous station. It were strange
"That he should tell God he had never ranked
"With men: so, here at least he is a man."
Festus.
That God shall take thee to his breast, dear spirit,
Unto his breast, be sure! and here on earth
Shall splendour sit upon thy name for ever.
Sun! all the heaven is glad for thee: what care
If lower mountains light their snowy phares
At thine effulgence, yet acknowledge not
The source of day? Their theft shall be their bale:
For after-ages shall retrack thy beams,
And put aside the crowd of busy ones
And worship thee alonethe master-mind,
The thinker, the explorer, the creator!
Then, who should sneer at the convulsive throes
With which thy deeds were born, would scorn as well
The sheet of winding subterraneous fire
Which, pent and writhing, sends no less at last
Huge islands up amid the simmering sea.
Behold thy might in me! thou hast infused
Thy soul in mine; and I am grand as thou,
Seeing I comprehend theeI so simple,
Thou so august. I recognize thee first;
I saw thee rise, I watched thee early and late,
And though no glance reveal thou dost accept
My homagethus no less I proffer it,
And bid thee enter gloriously thy rest.
Paracelsus.
Festus!
Festus.
I am for noble Aureole, God!
I am upon his side, come weal or woe.
His portion shall be mine. He has done well.
I would have sinned, had I been strong enough,
As he has sinned. Reward him or I waive
Reward! If thou canst find no place for him,
He shall be king elsewhere, and I will be
His slave for ever. There are two of us.
Paracelsus.
Dear Festus!
Festus.
Here, dear Aureole! ever by you!
Paracelsus.
Nay, speak on, or I dream again. Speak on!
Some story, anythingonly your voice.
I shall dream else. Speak on! ay, leaning so!
Festus.
Thus the Mayne glideth
Where my Love abideth.
Sleep's no softer: it proceeds
On through lawns, on through meads,
On and on, whate'er befall,
Meandering and musical,
Though the ****rd pasturage
Bears not on its shaven ledge
Aught but weeds and waving grasses
To view the river as it passes,
Save here and there a scanty patch
Of primroses too faint to catch
A weary bee.
Paracelsus.
More, more; say on!
Festus.
And scarce it pushes
Its gentle way through strangling rushes
Where the glossy kingfisher
Flutters when noon-heats are near,
Glad the shelving banks to shun,
Red and steaming in the sun,
Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat
Burrows, and the speckled stoat;
Where the quick sandpipers flit
In and out the marl and grit
That seems to breed them, brown as they:
Nought disturbs its quiet way,
Save some lazy stork that springs,
Trailing it with legs and wings,
Whom the shy fox from the hill
Rouses, creep he ne'er so still.
Paracelsus.
My heart! they loose my heart, those simple words;
Its darkness passes, which nought else could touch:
Like some dark snake that force may not expel,
Which glideth out to music sweet and low.
What were you doing when your voice broke through
A chaos of ugly images? You, indeed!
Are you alone here?
Festus.
All alone: you know me?
This cell?
Paracelsus.
An unexceptionable vault:
Good brick and stone: the bats kept out, the rats
Kept in: a snug nook: how should I mistake it?
Festus.
But wherefore am I here?
Paracelsus.
Ah, well remembered!
Why, for a purposefor a purpose, Festus!
'T is like me: here I trifle while time fleets,
And this occasion, lost, will ne'er return.
You are here to be instructed. I will tell
God's message; but I have so much to say,
I fear to leave half out. All is confused
No doubt; but doubtless you will learn in time.
He would not else have brought you here: no doubt
I shall see clearer soon.
Festus.
Tell me but this
You are not in despair?
Paracelsus.
I? and for what?
Festus.
Alas, alas! he knows not, as I feared!
Paracelsus.
What is it you would ask me with that earnest
Dear searching face?
Festus.
How feel you, Aureole?
Paracelsus.
Well:
Well. 'T is a strange thing: I am dying, Festus,
And now that fast the storm of life subsides,
I first perceive how great the whirl has been.
I was calm then, who am so dizzy now
Calm in the thick of the tempest, but no less
A partner of its motion and mixed up
With its career. The hurricane is spent,
And the good boat speeds through the brightening weather;
But is it earth or sea that heaves below?
The gulf rolls like a meadow-swell, o'erstrewn
With ravaged boughs and remnants of the shore;
And now some slet, loosened from the land,
Swims past with all its trees, sailing to ocean;
And now the air is full of uptorn canes,
Light strippings from the fan-trees, tamarisks
Unrooted, with their birds still clinging to them,
All high in the wind. Even so my varied life
Drifts by me; I am young, old, happy, sad,
Hoping, desponding, acting, taking rest,
And all at once: that is, those past conditions
Float back at once on me. If I select
Some special epoch from the crowd, 't is but
To will, and straight the rest dissolve away,
And only that particular state is present
With all its long-forgotten circumstance
Distinct and vivid as at firstmyself
A careless looker-on and nothing more,
Indifferent and amused, but nothing more.
And this is death: I understand it all.
New being waits me; new perceptions must
Be born in me before I plunge therein;
Which last is Death's affair; and while I speak,
Minute by minute he is filling me
With power; and while my foot is on the threshold
Of boundless lifethe doors unopened yet,
All preparations not complete within
I turn new knowledge upon old events,
And the effect is . . . but I must not tell;
It is not lawful. Your own turn will come
One day. Wait, Festus! You will die like me.
Festus.
'T is of that past life that I burn to hear.
Paracelsus.
You wonder it engages me just now?
In truth, I wonder too. What 's life to me?
Where'er I look is fire, where'er I listen
Music, and where I tend bliss evermore.
Yet how can I refrain? 'T is a refined
Delight to view those chances,one last view.
I am so near the perils I escape,
That I must play with them and turn them over,
To feel how fully they are past and gone.
Still, it is like, some further cause exists
For this peculiar moodsome hidden purpose;
Did I not tell you something of it, Festus?
I had it fast, but it has somehow slipt
Away from me; it will return anon.
Festus.
(Indeed his cheek seems young again, his voice
Complete with its old tones: that little laugh
Concluding every phrase, with upturned eye,
As though one stooped above his head to whom
He looked for confirmation and approval,
Where was it gone so long, so well preserved?
Then, the fore-finger pointing as he speaks,
Like one who traces in an open book
The matter he declares; 't is many a year
Since I remarked it last: and this in him,
But now a ghastly wreck!)
And can it be,
Dear Aureole, you have then found out at last
That worldly things are utter vanity?
That man is made for weakness, and should wait
In patient ignorance, till God appoint . . .
Paracelsus.
Ha, the purpose: the true purpose: that is it!
How could I fail to apprehend! You here,
I thus! But no more trifling: I see all,
I know all: my last mission shall be done
If strength suffice. No trifling! Stay; this posture
Hardly befits one thus about to speak:
I will arise.
Festus.
Nay, Aureole, are you wild?
You cannot leave your couch.
Paracelsus.
No help; no help;
Not even your hand. So! there, I stand once more!
Speak from a couch? I never lectured thus.
My gownthe scarlet lined with fur; now put
The chain about my neck; my signet-ring
Is still upon my hand, I thinkeven so;
Last, my good sword; ah, trusty Azoth, leapest
Beneath thy master's grasp for the last time?
This couch shall be my throne: I bid these walls
Be consecrate, this wretched cell become
A shrine, for here God speaks to men through me.
Now, Festus, I am ready to begin.
Festus.
I am dumb with wonder.
Paracelsus.
Listen, therefore, Festus!
There will be time enough, but none to spare.
I must content myself with telling only
The most important points. You doubtless feel
That I am happy, Festus; very happy.
Festus.
'T is no delusion which uplifts him thus!
Then you are pardoned, Aureole, all your sin?
Paracelsus.
Ay, pardoned: yet why pardoned?
Festus.
'T is God's praise
That man is bound to seek, and you . . .
Paracelsus.
Have lived!
We have to live alone to set forth well
God's praise. 'T is true, I sinned much, as I thought,
And in effect need mercy, for I strove
To do that very thing; but, do your best
Or worst, praise rises, and will rise for ever
Pardon from him, because of praise denied
Who calls me to himself to exalt himself?
He might laugh as I laugh!
Festus.
But all comes
To the same thing. 'T is fruitless for mankind
To fret themselves with what concerns them not;
They are no use that way: they should lie down
Content as God has made them, nor go mad
In thriveless cares to better what is ill.
Paracelsus.
No, no; mistake me not; let me not work
More harm than I have worked! This is my case:
If I go joyous back to God, yet bring
No offering, if I render up my soul
Without the fruits it was ordained to bear,
If I appear the better to love God
For sin, as one who has no claim on him,-
Be not deceived! It may be surely thus
With me, while higher prizes still await
The mortal persevering to the end.
Beside I am not all so valueless:
I have been something, though too soon I left
Following the instincts of that happy time.
Festus.
What happy time? For God's sake, for man's sake,
What time was happy? All I hope to know
That answer will decide. What happy time?
Paracelsus.
When but the time I vowed myself to man?
Festus.
Great God, thy judgments are inscrutable!
Paracelsus.
Yes, it was in me; I was born for it
I, Paracelsus: it was mine by right.
Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul
Might learn from its own motions that some task
Like this awaited it about the world;
Might seek somewhere in this blank life of ours
For fit delights to stay its longings vast;
And, grappling Nature, so prevail on her
To fill the creature full she dared thus frame
Hungry for joy; and, bravely tyrannous,
Grow in demand, still craving more and more,
And make each joy conceded prove a pledge
Of other joy to followbating nought
Of its desires, still seizing fresh pretence
To turn the knowledge and the rapture wrung
As an extreme, last boon, from destiny,
Into occasion for new coyetings,
New strifes, new triumphs:doubtless a strong soul,
Alone, unaided might attain to this,
So glorious is our nature, so august
Man's inborn uninstructed impulses,
His naked spirit so majestical!
But this was born in me; I was made so;
Thus much time saved: the feverish appeties,
The tumult of unproved desire, the unaimed
Uncertain yearnings, aspirations blind,
Distrust, mistake, and all that ends in tears
Were saved me; thus I entered on my course.
You may be sure I was not all exempt
From human trouble; just so much of doubt
As bade me plant a surer foot upon
The sun-road, kept my eye unruined 'mid
The fierce and flashing splendour, set my heart
Trembling so much as warned me I stood there
On sufferancenot to idly gaze, but cast
Light on a darkling race; save for that doubt,
I stood at first where all aspire at last
To stand: the secret of the world was mine.
I knew, I felt, (perception unexpressed,
Uncomprehended by our narrow thought,
But somehow felt and known in every shift
And change in the spirit,nay, in every pore
Of the body, even,)what God is, what we are,
What life ishow God tastes an infinite joy
In infinite waysone everlasting bliss,
From whom all being emanates, all power
Proceeds; in whom is life for evermore,
Yet whom existence in its lowest form
Includes; where dwells enjoyment there is he;
With still a flying point of bliss remote,
A happiness in store afar, a sphere
Of distant glory in full view; thus climbs
Pleasure its heights for ever and for ever.
The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,
And the earth changes like a human face;
The molten ore bursts up among the rocks,
Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds,
Crumbles into fine sand where sunbeams bask
God joys therein. The wroth sea's waves are edged
With foam, white as the bitten lip of hate,
When, in the solitary waste, strange groups
Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like,
Staring together with their eyes on flame
God tastes a pleasure in their uncouth pride.
Then all is still; earth is a wintry clod:
But spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes
Over its breast to waken it, rare verdure
Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between
The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost,
Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face;
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms
Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls
Flit where the strand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plainand God renews
His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all,
From life's minute beginnings, up at last
To manthe consummation of this scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
Of life: whose attributes had here and there
Been scattered o'er the visible world before,
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant
To be united in some wondrous whole,
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make,
Some point where all those scattered rays should meet
Convergent in the faculties of man.
Powerneither put forth blindly, nor controlled
Calmly by perfect knowledge; to be used
At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear:
Knowledgenot intuition, but the slow
Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil,
Strengthened by love: lovenot serenely pure,
But strong from weakness, like a chance-sown plant
Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth changed buds
And softer stains, unknown in happier climes;
Love which endures and doubts and is oppressed
And cherished, suffering much and much sustained,
And blind, oft-failing, yet believing love,
A half-enlightened, often-chequered trust:
Hints and previsions of which faculties,
Are strewn confusedly everywhere about
The inferior natures, and all lead up higher,
All shape out dimly the superior race,
The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false,
And man appears at last. So far the seal
Is put on life; one stage of being complete,
One scheme wound up: and from the grand result
A supplementary reflux of light,
Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains
Each back step in the circle. Not alone
For their possessor dawn those qualities,
But the new glory mixes with the heaven
And earth; man, once descried, imprints for ever
His presence on all lifeless things: the winds
Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout,
A querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh,
Never a senseless gust now man is born.
The herded pines commune and have deep thoughts
A secret they assemble to discuss
When the sun drops behind their trunks which glare
Like grates of hell: the peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn, some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head: no bird
Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above
That let light in upon the gloomy woods,
A shape peeps from the breezy forest-top,
Arch with small puckered mouth and mocking eye.
The morn has enterprise, deep quiet droops
With evening, triumph takes the sunset hour,
Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn
Beneath a warm moon like a happy face:
And this to fill us with regard for man.
With apprehension of his passing worth,
Desire to work his proper nature out,
And ascertain his rank and final place,
For these things tend still upward, progress is
The law of life, man is not Man as yet.
Nor shall I deem his object served, his end
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,
While only here and there a star dispels
The darkness, here and there a towering mind
O'erlooks its prostrate fellows: when the host
Is out at once to the despair of night,
When all mankind alike is perfected,
Equal in full-blown powersthen, not till then,
I say, begins man's general infancy.
For wherefore make account of feverish starts
Of restless members of a dormant whole,
Impatient nerves which quiver while the body
Slumbers as in a grave? Oh long ago
The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir,
The peaceful mouth disturbed; half-uttered speech
Ruffled the lip, and then the teeth were set,
The breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand clenched stronger,
As it would pluck a lion by the jaw;
The glorious creature laughed out even in sleep!
But when full roused, each giant-limb awake,
Each sinew strung, the great heart pulsing fast,
He shall start up and stand on his own earth,
Then shall his long triumphant march begin,
Thence shall his being date,thus wholly roused,
What he achieves shall be set down to him.
When all the race is perfected alike
As man, that is; all tended to mankind,
And, man produced, all has its end thus far:
But in completed man begins anew
A tendency to God. Prognostics told
Man's near approach; so in man's self arise
August anticipations, symbols, types
Of a dim splendour ever on before
In that eternal circle life pursues.
For men begin to pass their nature's bound,
And find new hopes and cares which fast supplant
Their proper joys and griefs; they grow too great
For narrow creeds of right and wrong, which fade
Before the unmeasured thirst for good: while peace
Rises within them ever more and more.
Such men are even now upon the earth,
Serene amid the half-formed creatures round
Who should be saved by them and joined with them.
Such was my task, and I was born to it
Free, as I said but now, from much that chains
Spirits, high-dowered but limited and vexed
By a divided and delusive aim,
A shadow mocking a reality
Whose truth avails not wholly to disperse
The flitting mimic called up by itself,
And so remains perplexed and nigh put out
By its fantastic fellow's wavering gleam.
I, from the first, was never cheated thus;
I never fashioned out a fancied good
Distinct from man's; a service to be done,
A glory to be ministered unto
With powers put forth at man's expense, withdrawn
From labouring in his behalf; a strength
Denied that might avail him. I cared not
Lest his success ran counter to success
Elsewhere: for God is glorified in man,
And to man's glory vowed I soul and limb.
Yet, constituted thus, and thus endowed,
I failed: I gazed on power till I grew blind.
Power; I could not take my eyes from that:
That only, I thought, should be preserved, increased
At any risk, displayed, struck out at once-
The sign and note and character of man.
I saw no use in the past: only a scene
Of degradation, ugliness and tears,
The record of disgraces best forgotten,
A sullen page in human chronicles
Fit to erase. I saw no cause why man
Should not stand all-sufficient even now,
Or why his annals should be forced to tell
That once the tide of light, about to break
Upon the world, was sealed within its spring:
I would have had one day, one moment's space,
Change man's condition, push each slumbering claim
Of mastery o'er the elemental world
At once to full maturity, then roll
Oblivion o'er the work, and hide from man
What night had ushered morn. Not so, dear child
Of after-days, wilt thou reject the past
Big with deep warnings of the proper tenure
By which thou hast the earth: for thee the present
Shall have distinct and trembling beauty, seen
Beside that past's own shade when, in relief,
Its brightness shall stand out: nor yet on thee
Shall burst the future, as successive zones
Of several wonder open on some spirit
Flying secure and glad from heaven to heaven:
But thou shalt painfully attain to joy,
While hope and fear and love shall keep thee man!
All this was hid from me: as one by one
My dreams grew dim, my wide aims circumscribed,
As actual good within my reach decreased,
While obstacles sprung up this way and that
To keep me from effecting half the sum,
Small as it proved; as objects, mean within
The primal aggregate, seemed, even the least,
Itself a match for my concentred strength
What wonder if I saw no way to shun
Despair? The power I sought for man, seemed God's.
In this conjuncture, as I prayed to die,
A strange adventure made me know, one sin
Had spotted my career from its uprise;
I saw Aprilemy Aprile there!
And as the poor melodious wretch disburthened
His heart, and moaned his weakness in my ear,
I learned my own deep error; love's undoing
Taught me the worth of love in man's estate,
And what proportion love should hold with power
In his right constitution; love preceding
Power, and with much power, always much more love;
Love still too straitened in his present means,
And earnest for new power to set love free.
I learned this, and supposed the whole was learned:
And thus, when men received with stupid wonder
My first revealings, would have worshipped me,
And I despised and loathed their proffered praise
When, with awakened eyes, they took revenge
For past credulity in casting shame
On my real knowledge, and I hated them
It was not strange I saw no good in man,
To overbalance all the wear and waste
Of faculties, displayed in vain, but born
To prosper in some better sphere: and why?
In my own heart love had not been made wise
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind,
To know even hate is but a mask of love's,
To see a good in evil, and a hope
In ill-success; to sympathize, be proud
Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies,
Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts;
All with a touch of nobleness, despite
Their error, upward tending all though weak,
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun,
But dream of him, and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him.
All this I knew not, and I failed. Let men
Regard me, and the poet dead long ago
Who loved too rashly; and shape forth a third
And better-tempered spirit, warned by both:
As from the over-radiant star too mad
To drink the life-springs, beamless thence itself
And the dark orb which borders the abyss,
Ingulfed in icy night,might have its course
A temperate and equidistant world.
Meanwhile, I have done well, though not all well.
As yet men cannot do without contempt;
'T is for their good, and therefore fit awhile
That they reject the weak, and scorn the false,
Rather than praise the strong and true, in me:
But after, they will know me. If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day.
You understand me? I have said enough?
Festus.
Now die, dear Aureole!
Paracelsus.
Festus, let my hand
This hand, lie in your own, my own true friend!
Aprile! Hand in hand with you, Aprile!
Festus.
And this was Paracelsus!
~ Robert Browning, Paracelsus - Part V - Paracelsus Attains
,#NFDB
1333:No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk.
A final glass for me, though: cool, i' faith!
We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.
It's different, preaching in basilicas,
And doing duty in some masterpiece
Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart!
I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes,
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere;
It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh?
These hot long ceremonies of our church
Cost us a littleoh, they pay the price,
You take meamply pay it! Now, we'll talk.
So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs.
No deprecation,nay, I beg you, sir!
Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know,
I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out,
We'd see truth dawn together?truth that peeps
Over the glasses' edge when dinners done.
And body gets its sop and holds its noise
And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time:
'T is break of day! You do despise me then.
And if I say, "despise me,"never fear!
I know you do not in a certain sense
Not in my arm-chair, for example: here,
I well imagine you respect my place
( Status, entourage , worldly circumstance)
Quite to its valuevery much indeed:
Are up to the protesting eyes of you
In pride at being seated here for once
You'll turn it to such capital account!
When somebody, through years and years to come,
Hints of the bishop,names methat's enough:
"Blougram? I knew him"(into it you slide)
"Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day,
"All alone, we two; he's a clever man:
"And after dinner,why, the wine you know,
"Oh, there was wine, and good!what with the wine . .
"'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk!
"He's no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen
"Something of mine he relished, some review:
"He's quite above their humbug in his heart,
"Half-said as much, indeedthe thing's his trade.
"I warrant, Blougram's sceptical at times:
"How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!"
Che che , my dear sir, as we say at Rome,
Don't you protest now! It's fair give and take;
You have had your turn and spoken your home-truths:
The hand's mine now, and here you follow suit.
Thus much conceded, still the first fact stays
You do despise me; your ideal of life
Is not the bishop's: you would not be I.
You would like better to be Goethe, now,
Or Buonaparte, or, bless me, lower still,
Count D'Orsay,so you did what you preferred,
Spoke as you thought, and, as you cannot help,
Believed or disbelieved, no matter what,
So long as on that point, whate'er it was,
You loosed your mind, were whole and sole yourself.
That, my ideal never can include,
Upon that element of truth and worth
Never be based! for say they make me Pope
(They can'tsuppose it for our argument!)
Why, there I'm at my tether's end, I've reached
My height, and not a height which pleases you:
An unbelieving Pope won't do, you say.
It's like those eerie stories nurses tell,
Of how some actor on a stage played Death,
With pasteboard crown, sham orb and tinselled dart,
And called himself the monarch of the world;
Then, going in the tire-room afterward,
Because the play was done, to shift himself,
Got touched upon the sleeve familiarly,
The moment he had shut the closet door,
By Death himself. Thus God might touch a Pope
At unawares, ask what his baubles mean,
And whose part he presumed to play just now?
Best be yourself, imperial, plain and true!
So, drawing comfortable breath again,
You weigh and find, whatever more or less
I boast of my ideal realized,
Is nothing in the balance when opposed
To your ideal, your grand simple life,
Of which you will not realize one jot.
I am much, you are nothing; you would be all,
I would be merely much: you beat me there.
No, friend, you do not beat me: hearken why!
The common problem, yours, mine, every one's,
Isnot to fancy what were fair in life
Provided it could be,but, finding first
What may be, then find how to make it fair
Up to our means: a very different thing!
No abstract intellectual plan of life
Quite irrespective of life's plainest laws,
But one, a man, who is man and nothing more,
May lead within a world which (by your leave)
Is Rome or London, not Fool's-paradise.
Embellish Rome, idealize away,
Make paradise of London if you can,
You're welcome, nay, you're wise.
A simile!
We mortals cross the ocean of this world
Each in his average cabin of a life;
The best's not big, the worst yields elbow-room.
Now for our six months' voyagehow prepare?
You come on shipboard with a landsman's list
Of things he calls convenient: so they are!
An India screen is pretty furniture,
A piano-forte is a fine resource,
All Balzac's novels occupy one shelf,
The new edition fifty volumes long;
And little Greek books, with the funny type
They get up well at Leipsic, fill the next:
Go on! slabbed marble, what a bath it makes!
And Parma's pride, the Jerome, let us add!
'T were pleasant could Correggio's fleeting glow
Hang full in face of one where'er one roams,
Since he more than the others brings with him
Italy's self,the marvellous Modenese!
Yet was not on your list before, perhaps.
Alas, friend, here's the agent . . . is't the name?
The captain, or whoever's master here
You see him screw his face up; what's his cry
Ere you set foot on shipboard? "Six feet square!"
If you won't understand what six feet mean,
Compute and purchase stores accordingly
And if, in pique because he overhauls
Your Jerome, piano, bath, you come on board
Barewhy, you cut a figure at the first
While sympathetic landsmen see you off;
Not afterward, when long ere half seas over,
You peep up from your utterly naked boards
Into some snug and well-appointed berth,
Like mine for instance (try the cooler jug
Put back the other, but don't jog the ice!)
And mortified you mutter "Well and good;
"He sits enjoying his sea-furniture;
"'T is stout and proper, and there's store of it:
"Though I've the better notion, all agree,
"Of fitting rooms up. Hang the carpenter,
"Neat ship-shape fixings and contrivances
"I would have brought my Jerome, frame and all!"
And meantime you bring nothing: never mind
You've proved your artist-nature: what you don't
You might bring, so despise me, as I say.
Now come, let's backward to the starting-place.
See my way: we're two college friends, suppose.
Prepare together for our voyage, then;
Each note and check the other in his work,
Here's mine, a bishop's outfit; criticize!
What's wrong? why won't you be a bishop too?
Why first, you don't believe, you don't and can't,
(Not statedly, that is, and fixedly
And absolutely and exclusively)
In any revelation called divine.
No dogmas nail your faith; and what remains
But say so, like the honest man you are?
First, therefore, overhaul theology!
Nay, I too, not a fool, you please to think,
Must find believing every whit as hard:
And if I do not frankly say as much,
The ugly consequence is clear enough.
Now wait, my friend: well, I do not believe
If you'll accept no faith that is not fixed,
Absolute and exclusive, as you say.
You're wrongI mean to prove it in due time.
Meanwhile, I know where difficulties lie
I could not, cannot solve, nor ever shall,
So give up hope accordingly to solve
(To you, and over the wine). Our dogmas then
With both of us, though in unlike degree,
Missing full credenceoverboard with them!
I mean to meet you on your own premise:
Good, there go mine in company with yours!
And now what are we? unbelievers both,
Calm and complete, determinately fixed
To-day, to-morrow and for ever, pray?
You'll guarantee me that? Not so, I think!
In no wise! all we've gained is, that belief,
As unbelief before, shakes us by fits,
Confounds us like its predecessor. Where's
The gain? how can we guard our unbelief,
Make it bear fruit to us?the problem here.
Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch,
A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death,
A chorus-ending from Euripides,
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as nature's self,
To rap and knock and enter in our soul,
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring,
Round the ancient idol, on his base again,
The grand Perhaps! We look on helplessly.
There the old misgivings, crooked questions are
This good God,what he could do, if he would,
Would, if he couldthen must have done long since:
If so, when, where and how? some way must be,
Once feel about, and soon or late you hit
Some sense, in which it might be, after all.
Why not, "The Way, the Truth, the Life?"
That way
Over the mountain, which who stands upon
Is apt to doubt if it be meant for a road;
While, if he views it from the waste itself,
Up goes the line there, plain from base to brow,
Not vague, mistakeable! what's a break or two
Seen from the unbroken desert either side?
And then (to bring in fresh philosophy)
What if the breaks themselves should prove at last
The most consummate of contrivances
To train a man's eye, teach him what is faith?
And so we stumble at truth's very test!
All we have gained then by our unbelief
Is a life of doubt diversified by faith,
For one of faith diversified by doubt:
We called the chess-board white,we call it black.
"Well," you rejoin, "the end's no worse, at least;
"We've reason for both colours on the board:
"Why not confess then, where I drop the faith
"And you the doubt, that I'm as right as you?"
Because, friend, in the next place, this being so,
And both things even,faith and unbelief
Left to a man's choice,we'll proceed a step,
Returning to our image, which I like.
A man's choice, yesbut a cabin-passenger's
The man made for the special life o' the world
Do you forget him? I remember though!
Consult our ship's conditions and you find
One and but one choice suitable to all;
The choice, that you unluckily prefer,
Turning things topsy-turvythey or it
Going to the ground. Belief or unbelief
Bears upon life, determines its whole course,
Begins at its beginning. See the world
Such as it is,you made it not, nor I;
I mean to take it as it is,and you,
Not so you'll take it,though you get nought else.
I know the special kind of life I like,
What suits the most my idiosyncrasy,
Brings out the best of me and bears me fruit
In power, peace, pleasantness and length of days.
I find that positive belief does this
For me, and unbelief, no whit of this.
For you, it does, however?that, we'll try!
'T is clear, I cannot lead my life, at least,
Induce the world to let me peaceably,
Without declaring at the outset, "Friends,
"I absolutely and peremptorily
"Believe!"I say, faith is my waking life:
One sleeps, indeed, and dreams at intervals,
We know, but waking's the main point with us
And my provision's for life's waking part.
Accordingly, I use heart, head and hand
All day, I build, scheme, study, and make friends;
And when night overtakes me, down I lie,
Sleep, dream a little, and get done with it,
The sooner the better, to begin afresh.
What's midnight doubt before the dayspring's faith?
You, the philosopher, that disbelieve,
That recognize the night, give dreams their weight
To be consistent you should keep your bed,
Abstain from healthy acts that prove you man,
For fear you drowse perhaps at unawares!
And certainly at night you'll sleep and dream,
Live through the day and bustle as you please.
And so you live to sleep as I to wake,
To unbelieve as I to still believe?
Well, and the common sense o' the world calls you
Bed-ridden,and its good things come to me.
Its estimation, which is half the fight,
That's the first-cabin comfort I secure:
The next . . . but you perceive with half an eye!
Come, come, it's best believing, if we may;
You can't but own that!
Next, concede again,
If once we choose belief, on all accounts
We can't be too decisive in our faith,
Conclusive and exclusive in its terms,
To suit the world which gives us the good things.
In every man's career are certain points
Whereon he dares not be indifferent;
The world detects him clearly, if he dare,
As baffled at the game, and losing life.
He may care little or he may care much
For riches, honour, pleasure, work, repose,
Since various theories of life and life's
Success are extant which might easily
Comport with either estimate of these;
And whoso chooses wealth or poverty,
Labour or quiet, is not judged a fool
Because his fellow would choose otherwise:
We let him choose upon his own account
So long as he's consistent with his choice.
But certain points, left wholly to himself,
When once a man has arbitrated on,
We say he must succeed there or go hang.
Thus, he should wed the woman he loves most
Or needs most, whatsoe'er the love or need
For he can't wed twice. Then, he must avouch,
Or follow, at the least, sufficiently,
The form of faith his conscience holds the best,
Whate'er the process of conviction was:
For nothing can compensate his mistake
On such a point, the man himself being judge:
He cannot wed twice, nor twice lose his soul.
Well now, there's one great form of Christian faith
I happened to be born inwhich to teach
Was given me as I grew up, on all hands,
As best and readiest means of living by;
The same on examination being proved
The most pronounced moreover, fixed, precise
And absolute form of faith in the whole world
Accordingly, most potent of all forms
For working on the world. Observe, my friend!
Such as you know me, I am free to say,
In these hard latter days which hamper one,
Myselfby no immoderate exercise
Of intellect and learning, but the tact
To let external forces work for me,
Bid the street's stones be bread and they are bread;
Bid Peter's creed, or rather, Hildebrand's,
Exalt me o'er my fellows in the world
And make my life an ease and joy and pride;
It does so,which for me's a great point gained,
Who have a soul and body that exact
A comfortable care in many ways.
There's power in me and will to dominate
Which I must exercise, they hurt me else:
In many ways I need mankind's respect,
Obedience, and the love that's born of fear:
While at the same time, there's a taste I have,
A toy of soul, a titillating thing,
Refuses to digest these dainties crude.
The naked life is gross till clothed upon:
I must take what men offer, with a grace
As though I would not, could I help it, take!
An uniform I wear though over-rich
Something imposed on me, no choice of mine;
No fancy-dress worn for pure fancy's sake
And despicable therefore! now folk kneel
And kiss my handof course the Church's hand.
Thus I am made, thus life is best for me,
And thus that it should be I have procured;
And thus it could not be another way,
I venture to imagine.
You'll reply,
So far my choice, no doubt, is a success;
But were I made of better elements,
With nobler instincts, purer tastes, like you,
I hardly would account the thing success
Though it did all for me I say.
But, friend,
We speak of what is; not of what might be,
And how't were better if't were otherwise.
I am the man you see here plain enough:
Grant I'm a beast, why, beasts must lead beasts' lives!
Suppose I own at once to tail and claws;
The tailless man exceeds me: but being tailed
I'll lash out lion fashion, and leave apes
To dock their stump and dress their haunches up.
My business is not to remake myself,
But make the absolute best of what God made.
Orour first similethough you prove me doomed
To a viler berth still, to the steerage-hole,
The sheep-pen or the pig-stye, I should strive
To make what use of each were possible;
And as this cabin gets upholstery,
That hutch should rustle with sufficient straw.
But, friend, I don't acknowledge quite so fast
I fail of all your manhood's lofty tastes
Enumerated so complacently,
On the mere ground that you forsooth can find
In this particular life I choose to lead
No fit provision for them. Can you not?
Say you, my fault is I address myself
To grosser estimators than should judge?
And that's no way of holding up the soul,
Which, nobler, needs men's praise perhaps, yet knows
One wise man's verdict outweighs all the fools'
Would like the two, but, forced to choose, takes that.
I pine among my million imbeciles
(You think) aware some dozen men of sense
Eye me and know me, whether I believe
In the last winking Virgin, as I vow,
And am a fool, or disbelieve in her
And am a knave,approve in neither case,
Withhold their voices though I look their way:
Like Verdi when, at his worst opera's end
(The thing they gave at Florence,what's its name?)
While the mad houseful's plaudits near out-bang
His orchestra of salt-box, tongs and bones,
He looks through all the roaring and the wreaths
Where sits Rossini patient in his stall.
Nay, friend, I meet you with an answer here
That even your prime men who appraise their kind
Are men still, catch a wheel within a wheel,
See more in a truth than the truth's simple self,
Confuse themselves. You see lads walk the street
Sixty the minute; what's to note in that?
You see one lad o'erstride a chimney-stack;
Him you must watchhe's sure to fall, yet stands!
Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things.
The honest thief, the tender murderer,
The superstitious atheist, demirep
That loves and saves her soul in new French books
We watch while these in equilibrium keep
The giddy line midway: one step aside,
They're classed and done with. I, then, keep the line
Before your sages,just the men to shrink
From the gross weights, coarse scales and labels broad
You offer their refinement. Fool or knave?
Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave
When there's a thousand diamond weights between?
So, I enlist them. Your picked twelve, you'll find,
Profess themselves indignant, scandalized
At thus being held unable to explain
How a superior man who disbelieves
May not believe as well: that's Schelling's way!
It's through my coming in the tail of time,
Nicking the minute with a happy tact.
Had I been born three hundred years ago
They'd say, "What's strange? Blougram of course believes;"
And, seventy years since, "disbelieves of course."
But now, "He may believe; and yet, and yet
"How can he?" All eyes turn with interest.
Whereas, step off the line on either side
You, for example, clever to a fault,
The rough and ready man who write apace,
Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less
You disbelieve! Who wonders and who cares?
Lord So-and-sohis coat bedropped with wax,
All Peter's chains about his waist, his back
Brave with the needlework of Noodledom
Believes! Again, who wonders and who cares?
But I, the man of sense and learning too,
The able to think yet act, the this, the that,
I, to believe at this late time of day!
Enough; you see, I need not fear contempt.
Except it's yours! Admire me as these may,
You don't. But whom at least do you admire?
Present your own perfection, your ideal,
Your pattern man for a minuteoh, make haste
Is it Napoleon you would have us grow?
Concede the means; allow his head and hand,
(A large concession, clever as you are)
Good! In our common primal element
Of unbelief (we can't believe, you know
We're still at that admission, recollect!)
Where do you findapart from, towering o'er
The secondary temporary aims
Which satisfy the gross taste you despise
Where do you find his star?his crazy trust
God knows through what or in what? it's alive
And shines and leads him, and that's all we want.
Have we aught in our sober night shall point
Such ends as his were, and direct the means
Of working out our purpose straight as his,
Nor bring a moment's trouble on success
With after-care to justify the same?
Be a Napoleon, and yet disbelieve
Why, the man's mad, friend, take his light away!
What's the vague good o' the world, for which you dare
With comfort to yourself blow millions up?
We neither of us see it! we do see
The blown-up millionsspatter of their brains
And writhing of their bowels and so forth,
In that bewildering entanglement
Of horrible eventualities
Past calculation to the end of time!
Can I mistake for some clear word of God
(Which were my ample warrant for it all)
His puff of hazy instinct, idle talk,
"The State, that's I," quack-nonsense about crowns,
And (when one beats the man to his last hold)
A vague idea of setting things to rights,
Policing people efficaciously,
More to their profit, most of all to his own;
The whole to end that dismallest of ends
By an Austrian marriage, cant to us the Church,
And resurrection of the old rgime ?
Would I, who hope to live a dozen years,
Fight Austerlitz for reasons such and such?
No: for, concede me but the merest chance
Doubt may be wrongthere's judgment, life to come!
With just that chance, I dare not. Doubt proves right?
This present life is all?you offer me
Its dozen noisy years, without a chance
That wedding an archduchess, wearing lace,
And getting called by divers new-coined names,
Will drive off ugly thoughts and let me dine,
Sleep, read and chat in quiet as I like!
Therefore I will not.
Take another case;
Fit up the cabin yet another way.
What say you to the poets? shall we write
Hamlet, Othellomake the world our own,
Without a risk to run of either sort?
I can'tto put the strongest reason first.
"But try," you urge, "the trying shall suffice;
"The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life:
"Try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to fate!"
Spare my self-knowledgethere's no fooling me!
If I prefer remaining my poor self,
I say so not in self-dispraise but praise.
If I'm a Shakespeare, let the well alone;
Why should I try to be what now I am?
If I'm no Shakespeare, as too probable,
His power and consciousness and self-delight
And all we want in common, shall I find
Trying for ever? while on points of taste
Wherewith, to speak it humbly, he and I
Are dowered alikeI'll ask you, I or he,
Which in our two lives realizes most?
Much, he imaginedsomewhat, I possess.
He had the imagination; stick to that!
Let him say, "In the face of my soul's works
"Your world is worthless and I touch it not
"Lest I should wrong them"I'll withdraw my plea.
But does he say so? look upon his life!
Himself, who only can, gives judgment there.
He leaves his towers and gorgeous palaces
To build the trimmest house in Stratford town;
Saves money, spends it, owns the worth of things,
Giulio Romano's pictures, Dowland's lute;
Enjoys a show, respects the puppets, too,
And none more, had he seen its entry once,
Than "Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal."
Why then should I who play that personage,
The very Pandulph Shakespeare's fancy made,
Be told that had the poet chanced to start
From where I stand now (some degree like mine
Being just the goal he ran his race to reach)
He would have run the whole race back, forsooth,
And left being Pandulph, to begin write plays?
Ah, the earth's best can be but the earth's best!
Did Shakespeare live, he could but sit at home
And get himself in dreams the Vatican,
Greek busts, Venetian paintings, Roman walls,
And English books, none equal to his own,
Which I read, bound in gold (he never did).
Terni's fall, Naples' bay and Gothard's top
Eh, friend? I could not fancy one of these;
But, as I pour this claret, there they are:
I've gained themcrossed St. Gothard last July
With ten mules to the carriage and a bed
Slung inside; is my hap the worse for that?
We want the same things, Shakespeare and myself,
And what I want, I have: he, gifted more,
Could fancy he too had them when he liked,
But not so thoroughly that, if fate allowed,
He would not have them also in my sense.
We play one game; I send the ball aloft
No less adroitly that of fifty strokes
Scarce five go o'er the wall so wide and high
Which sends them back to me: I wish and get
He struck balls higher and with better skill,
But at a poor fence level with his head,
And hithis Stratford house, a coat of arms,
Successful dealings in his grain and wool,
While I receive heaven's incense in my nose
And style myself the cousin of Queen Bess.
Ask him, if this life's all, who wins the game?
Believeand our whole argument breaks up.
Enthusiasm's the best thing, I repeat;
Only, we can't command it; fire and life
Are all, dead matter's nothing, we agree:
And be it a mad dream or God's very breath,
The fact's the same,belief's fire, once in us,
Makes of all else mere stuff to show itself:
We penetrate our life with such a glow
As fire lends wood and ironthis turns steel,
That burns to ashall's one, fire proves its power
For good or ill, since men call flare success.
But paint a fire, it will not therefore burn.
Light one in me, I'll find it food enough!
Why, to be Lutherthat's a life to lead,
Incomparably better than my own.
He comes, reclaims God's earth for God, he says,
Sets up God's rule again by simple means,
Re-opens a shut book, and all is done.
He flared out in the flaring of mankind;
Such Luther's luck was: how shall such be mine?
If he succeeded, nothing's left to do:
And if he did not altogetherwell,
Strauss is the next advance. All Strauss should be
I might be also. But to what result?
He looks upon no future: Luther did.
What can I gain on the denying side?
Ice makes no conflagration. State the facts,
Read the text right, emancipate the world
The emancipated world enjoys itself
With scarce a thank-you: Blougram told it first
It could not owe a farthing,not to him
More than Saint Paul! 't would press its pay, you think?
Then add there's still that plaguy hundredth chance
Strauss may be wrong. And so a risk is run
For what gain? not for Luther's, who secured
A real heaven in his heart throughout his life,
Supposing death a little altered things.
"Ay, but since really you lack faith," you cry,
"You run the same risk really on all sides,
"In cool indifference as bold unbelief.
"As well be Strauss as swing 'twixt Paul and him.
"It's not worth having, such imperfect faith,
"No more available to do faith's work
"Than unbelief like mine. Whole faith, or none!"
Softly, my friend! I must dispute that point
Once own the use of faith, I'll find you faith.
We're back on Christian ground. You call for faith:
I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists.
The more of doubt, the stronger faith, I say,
If faith o'ercomes doubt. How I know it does?
By life and man's free will, God gave for that!
To mould life as we choose it, shows our choice:
That's our one act, the previous work's his own.
You criticize the soul? it reared this tree
This broad life and whatever fruit it bears!
What matter though I doubt at every pore,
Head-doubts, heart-doubts, doubts at my fingers' ends,
Doubts in the trivial work of every day,
Doubts at the very bases of my soul
In the grand moments when she probes herself
If finally I have a life to show,
The thing I did, brought out in evidence
Against the thing done to me underground
By hell and all its brood, for aught I know?
I say, whence sprang this? shows it faith or doubt?
All's doubt in me; where's break of faith in this?
It is the idea, the feeling and the love,
God means mankind should strive for and show forth
Whatever be the process to that end,
And not historic knowledge, logic sound,
And metaphysical acumen, sure!
"What think ye of Christ," friend? when all's done and said,
Like you this Christianity or not?
It may be false, but will you wish it true?
Has it your vote to be so if it can?
Trust you an instinct silenced long ago
That will break silence and enjoin you love
What mortified philosophy is hoarse,
And all in vain, with bidding you despise?
If you desire faiththen you've faith enough:
What else seeks Godnay, what else seek ourselves?
You form a notion of me, we'll suppose,
On hearsay; it's a favourable one:
"But still" (you add), "there was no such good man,
"Because of contradiction in the facts.
"One proves, for instance, he was born in Rome,
"This Blougram; yet throughout the tales of him
"I see he figures as an Englishman."
Well, the two things are reconcileable.
But would I rather you discovered that,
Subjoining"Still, what matter though they be?
"Blougram concerns me nought, born here or there."
Pure faith indeedyou know not what you ask!
Naked belief in God the Omnipotent,
Omniscient, Omnipresent, sears too much
The sense of conscious creatures to be borne.
It were the seeing him, no flesh shall dare
Some think, Creation's meant to show him forth:
I say it's meant to hide him all it can,
And that's what all the blessed evil's for.
Its use in Time is to environ us,
Our breath, our drop of dew, with shield enough
Against that sight till we can bear its stress.
Under a vertical sun, the exposed brain
And lidless eye and disemprisoned heart
Less certainly would wither up at once
Than mind, confronted with the truth of him.
But time and earth case-harden us to live;
The feeblest sense is trusted most; the child
Feels God a moment, ichors o'er the place,
Plays on and grows to be a man like us.
With me, faith means perpetual unbelief
Kept quiet like the snake 'neath Michael's foot
Who stands calm just because he feels it writhe.
Or, if that's too ambitious,here's my box
I need the excitation of a pinch
Threatening the torpor of the inside-nose
Nigh on the imminent sneeze that never comes.
"Leave it in peace" advise the simple folk:
Make it aware of peace by itching-fits,
Say Ilet doubt occasion still more faith!
You'll say, once all believed, man, woman, child,
In that dear middle-age these noodles praise.
How you'd exult if I could put you back
Six hundred years, blot out cosmogony,
Geology, ethnology, what not
(Greek endings, each the little passing-bell
That signifies some faith's about to die),
And set you square with Genesis again,
When such a traveller told you his last news,
He saw the ark a-top of Ararat
But did not climb there since 't was getting dusk
And robber-bands infest the mountain's foot!
How should you feel, I ask, in such an age,
How act? As other people felt and did;
With soul more blank than this decanter's knob,
Believeand yet lie, kill, rob, fornicate
Full in belief's face, like the beast you'd be!
No, when the fight begins within himself,
A man's worth something. God stoops o'er his head,
Satan looks up between his feetboth tug
He's left, himself, i' the middle: the soul wakes
And grows. Prolong that battle through his life!
Never leave growing till the life to come!
Here, we've got callous to the Virgin's winks
That used to puzzle people wholesomely:
Men have outgrown the shame of being fools.
What are the laws of nature, not to bend
If the Church bid them?brother Newman asks.
Up with the Immaculate Conception, then
On to the rack with faith!is my advice.
Will not that hurry us upon our knees,
Knocking our breasts, "It can't beyet it shall!
"Who am I, the worm, to argue with my Pope?
"Low things confound the high things!" and so forth.
That's better than acquitting God with grace
As some folk do. He's triedno case is proved,
Philosophy is lenienthe may go!
You'll say, the old system's not so obsolete
But men believe still: ay, but who and where?
King Bomba's lazzaroni foster yet
The sacred flame, so Antonelli writes;
But even of these, what ragamuffin-saint
Believes God watches him continually,
As he believes in fire that it will burn,
Or rain that it will drench him? Break fire's law,
Sin against rain, although the penalty
Be just a singe or soaking? "No," he smiles;
"Those laws are laws that can enforce themselves."
The sum of all isyes, my doubt is great,
My faith's still greater, then my faith's enough.
I have read much, thought much, experienced much,
Yet would die rather than avow my fear
The Naples' liquefaction may be false,
When set to happen by the palace-clock
According to the clouds or dinner-time.
I hear you recommend, I might at least
Eliminate, decrassify my faith
Since I adopt it; keeping what I must
And leaving what I cansuch points as this.
I won'tthat is, I can't throw one away.
Supposing there's no truth in what I hold
About the need of trial to man's faith,
Still, when you bid me purify the same,
To such a process I discern no end.
Clearing off one excrescence to see two,
There's ever a next in size, now grown as big,
That meets the knife: I cut and cut again!
First cut the Liquefaction, what comes last
But Fichte's clever cut at God himself?
Experimentalize on sacred things!
I trust nor hand nor eye nor heart nor brain
To stop betimes: they all get drunk alike.
The first step, I am master not to take.
You'd find the cutting-process to your taste
As much as leaving growths of lies unpruned,
Nor see more danger in it,you retort.
Your taste's worth mine; but my taste proves more wise
When we consider that the steadfast hold
On the extreme end of the chain of faith
Gives all the advantage, makes the difference
With the rough purblind mass we seek to rule:
We are their lords, or they are free of us,
Just as we tighten or relax our hold.
So, others matters equal, we'll revert
To the first problemwhich, if solved my way
And thrown into the balance, turns the scale
How we may lead a comfortable life,
How suit our luggage to the cabin's size.
Of course you are remarking all this time
How narrowly and grossly I view life,
Respect the creature-comforts, care to rule
The masses, and regard complacently
"The cabin," in our old phrase. Well, I do.
I act for, talk for, live for this world now,
As this world prizes action, life and talk:
No prejudice to what next world may prove,
Whose new laws and requirements, my best pledge
To observe then, is that I observe these now,
Shall do hereafter what I do meanwhile.
Let us concede (gratuitously though)
Next life relieves the soul of body, yields
Pure spiritual enjoyment: well, my friend,
Why lose this life i' the meantime, since its use
May be to make the next life more intense?
Do you know, I have often had a dream
(Work it up in your next month's article)
Of man's poor spirit in its progress, still
Losing true life for ever and a day
Through ever trying to be and ever being
In the evolution of successive spheres
Before its actual sphere and place of life,
Halfway into the next, which having reached,
It shoots with corresponding foolery
Halfway into the next still, on and off!
As when a traveller, bound from North to South,
Scouts fur in Russia: what's its use in France?
In France spurns flannel: where's its need in Spain?
In Spain drops cloth, too cumbrous for Algiers!
Linen goes next, and last the skin itself,
A superfluity at Timbuctoo.
When, through his journey, was the fool at ease?
I'm at ease now, friend; worldly in this world,
I take and like its way of life; I think
My brothers, who administer the means,
Live better for my comfortthat's good too;
And God, if he pronounce upon such life,
Approves my service, which is better still.
If he keep silence,why, for you or me
Or that brute beast pulled-up in to-day's "Times,"
What odds is't, save to ourselves, what life we lead?
You meet me at this issue: you declare,
All special-pleading done withtruth is truth,
And justifies itself by undreamed ways.
You don't fear but it's better, if we doubt,
To say so, act up to our truth perceived
However feebly. Do then,act away!
'T is there I'm on the watch for you. How one acts
Is, both of us agree, our chief concern:
And how you'll act is what I fain would see
If, like the candid person you appear,
You dare to make the most of your life's scheme
As I of mine, live up to its full law
Since there's no higher law that counterchecks.
Put natural religion to the test
You've just demolished the revealed withquick,
Down to the root of all that checks your will,
All prohibition to lie, kill and thieve,
Or even to be an atheistic priest!
Suppose a pricking to incontinence
Philosophers deduce you chastity
Or shame, from just the fact that at the first
Whoso embraced a woman in the field,
Threw club down and forewent his brains beside,
So, stood a ready victim in the reach
Of any brother savage, club in hand;
Hence saw the use of going out of sight
In wood or cave to prosecute his loves:
I read this in a French book t' other day.
Does law so analysed coerce you much?
Oh, men spin clouds of fuzz where matters end,
But you who reach where the first thread begins,
You'll soon cut that!which means you can, but won't,
Through certain instincts, blind, unreasoned-out,
You dare not set aside, you can't tell why,
But there they are, and so you let them rule.
Then, friend, you seem as much a slave as I,
A liar, conscious coward and hypocrite,
Without the good the slave expects to get,
In case he has a master after all!
You own your instincts? why, what else do I,
Who want, am made for, and must have a God
Ere I can be aught, do aught?no mere name
Want, but the true thing with what proves its truth,
To wit, a relation from that thing to me,
Touching from head to footwhich touch I feel,
And with it take the rest, this life of ours!
I live my life here; yours you dare not live.
Not as I state it, who (you please subjoin)
Disfigure such a life and call it names,
While, to your mind, remains another way
For simple men: knowledge and power have rights,
But ignorance and weakness have rights too.
There needs no crucial effort to find truth
If here or there or anywhere about:
We ought to turn each side, try hard and see,
And if we can't, be glad we've earned at least
The right, by one laborious proof the more,
To graze in peace earth's pleasant pasturage.
Men are not angels, neither are they brutes:
Something we may see, all we cannot see.
What need of lying? I say, I see all,
And swear to each detail the most minute
In what I think a Pan's faceyou, mere cloud:
I swear I hear him speak and see him wink,
For fear, if once I drop the emphasis,
Mankind may doubt there's any cloud at all.
You take the simple lifeready to see,
Willing to see (for no cloud's worth a face)
And leaving quiet what no strength can move,
And which, who bids you move? who has the right?
I bid you; but you are God's sheep, not mine:
" Pastor est tui Dominus ." You find
In this the pleasant pasture of our life
Much you may eat without the least offence,
Much you don't eat because your maw objects,
Much you would eat but that your fellow-flock
Open great eyes at you and even butt,
And thereupon you like your mates so well
You cannot please yourself, offending them;
Though when they seem exorbitantly sheep,
You weigh your pleasure with their butts and bleats
And strike the balance. Sometimes certain fears
Restrain you, real checks since you find them so;
Sometimes you please yourself and nothing checks:
And thus you graze through life with not one lie,
And like it best.
But do you, in truth's name?
If so, you beatwhich means you are not I
Who needs must make earth mine and feed my fill
Not simply unbutted at, unbickered with,
But motioned to the velvet of the sward
By those obsequious wethers' very selves.
Look at me, sir; my age is double yours:
At yours, I knew beforehand, so enjoyed,
What now I should beas, permit the word,
I pretty well imagine your whole range
And stretch of tether twenty years to come.
We both have minds and bodies much alike:
In truth's name, don't you want my bishopric,
My daily bread, my influence and my state?
You're young. I'm old; you must be old one day;
Will you find then, as I do hour by hour,
Women their lovers kneel to, who cut curls
From your fat lap-dog's ear to grace a brooch
Dukes, who petition just to kiss your ring
With much beside you know or may conceive?
Suppose we die to-night: well, here am I,
Such were my gains, life bore this fruit to me,
While writing all the same my articles
On music, poetry, the fictile vase
Found at Albano, chess, Anacreon's Greek.
But youthe highest honour in your life,
The thing you'll crown yourself with, all your days,
Isdining here and drinking this last glass
I pour you out in sign of amity
Before we part for ever. Of your power
And social influence, worldly worth in short,
Judge what's my estimation by the fact,
I do not condescend to enjoin, beseech,
Hint secrecy on one of all these words!
You're shrewd and know that should you publish one
The world would brand the liemy enemies first,
Who'd sneer"the bishop's an arch-hypocrite
"And knave perhaps, but not so frank a fool."
Whereas I should not dare for both my ears
Breathe one such syllable, smile one such smile,
Before the chaplain who reflects myself
My shade's so much more potent than your flesh.
What's your reward, self-abnegating friend?
Stood you confessed of those exceptional
And privileged great natures that dwarf mine
A zealot with a mad ideal in reach,
A poet just about to print his ode,
A statesman with a scheme to stop this war,
An artist whose religion is his art
~ Robert Browning, Bishop Blougram's Apology
,#NFDB
1334:The woods were long austere with snow: at last
Pink leaflets budded on the beech, and fast
Larches, scattered through pine-tree solitudes,
Brightened, "as in the slumbrous heart o' the woods
"Our buried year, a witch, grew young again
"To placid incantations, and that stain
"About were from her cauldron, green smoke blent
"With those black pines"so Eglamor gave vent
To a chance fancy. Whence a just rebuke
From his companion; brother Naddo shook
The solemnest of brows: "Beware," he said,
"Of setting up conceits in nature's stead!"
Forth wandered our Sordello. Nought so sure
As that to-day's adventure will secure
Palma, the visioned ladyonly pass
O'er you damp mound and its exhausted grass,
Under that brake where sundawn feeds the stalks
Of withered fern with gold, into those walks
Of pine and take her! Buoyantly he went.
Again his stooping forehead was besprent
With dew-drops from the skirting ferns. Then wide
Opened the great morass, shot every side
With flashing water through and through; a-shine,
Thick-steaming, all-alive. Whose shape divine,
Quivered i' the farthest rainbow-vapour, glanced
Athwart the flying herons? He advanced,
But warily; though Mincio leaped no more,
Each foot-fall burst up in the marish-floor
A diamond jet: and if he stopped to pick
Rose-lichen, or molest the leeches quick,
And circling blood-worms, minnow, newt or loach,
A sudden pond would silently encroach
This way and that. On Palma passed. The verge
Of a new wood was gained. She will emerge
Flushed, now, and panting,crowds to see,will own
She loves himBoniface to hear, to groan,
To leave his suit! One screen of pine-trees still
Opposes: butthe startling spectacle
Mantua, this time! Under the wallsa crowd
Indeed, real men and women, gay and loud
Round a pavilion. How he stood!
In truth
No prophecy had come to pass: his youth
In its prime nowand where was homage poured
Upon Sordello?born to be adored,
And suddenly discovered weak, scarce made
To cope with any, cast into the shade
By this and this. Yet something seemed to prick
And tingle in his blood; a sleighta trick
And much would be explained. It went for nought
The best of their endowments were ill bought
With his identity: nay, the conceit,
That this day's roving led to Palma's feet
Was not so vainlist! The word, "Palma!" Steal
Aside, and die, Sordello; this is real,
And thisabjure!
What next? The curtains see
Dividing! She is there; and presently
He will be therethe proper You, at length
In your own cherished dress of grace and strength:
Most like, the very Boniface!
Not so.
It was a showy man advanced; but though
A glad cry welcomed him, then every sound
Sank and the crowd disposed themselves around,
"This is not he," Sordello felt; while, "Place
"For the best Troubadour of Boniface!"
Hollaed the Jongleurs,"Eglamor, whose lay
"Concludes his patron's Court of Love to-day!"
Obsequious Naddo strung the master's lute
With the new lute-string, "Elys," named to suit
The song: he stealthily at watch, the while,
Biting his lip to keep down a great smile
Of pride: then up he struck. Sordello's brain
Swam; for he knew a sometime deed again;
So, could supply each foolish gap and chasm
The minstrel left in his enthusiasm,
Mistaking its true versionwas the tale
Not of Apollo? Only, what avail
Luring her down, that Elys an he pleased,
If the man dared no further? Has he ceased
And, lo, the people's frank applause half done,
Sordello was beside him, had begun
(Spite of indignant twitchings from his friend
The Trouvere) the true lay with the true end,
Taking the other's names and time and place
For his. On flew the song, a giddy race,
After the flying story; word made leap
Out word, rhymerhyme; the lay could barely keep
Pace with the action visibly rushing past:
Both ended. Back fell Naddo more aghast
Than some Egyptian from the harassed bull
That wheeled abrupt and, bellowing, fronted full
His plague, who spied a scarab 'neath the tongue,
And found 't was Apis' flank his hasty prong
Insulted. But the peoplebut the cries,
The crowding round, and proffering the prize!
For he had gained some prize. He seemed to shrink
Into a sleepy cloud, just at whose brink
One sight withheld him. There sat Adelaide,
Silent; but at her knees the very maid
Of the North Chamber, her red lips as rich,
The same pure fleecy hair; one weft of which,
Golden and great, quite touched his cheek as o'er
She leant, speaking some six words and no more.
He answered something, anything; and she
Unbound a scarf and laid it heavily
Upon him, her neck's warmth and all. Again
Moved the arrested magic; in his brain
Noises grew, and a light that turned to glare,
And greater glare, until the intense flare
Engulfed him, shut the whole scene from his sense.
And when he woke 't was many a furlong thence,
At home; the sun shining his ruddy wont;
The customary birds'-chirp; but his front
Was crownedwas crowned! Her scented scarf around
His neck! Whose gorgeous vesture heaps the ground?
A prize? He turned, and peeringly on him
Brooded the women-faces, kind and dim,
Ready to talk"The Jongleurs in a troop
"Had brought him back, Naddo and Squarcialupe
"And Tagliafer; how strange! a childhood spent
"In taking, well for him, so brave a bent!
"Since Eglamor," they heard, "was dead with spite,
"And Palma chose him for her minstrel."
Light
Sordello roseto think, now; hitherto
He had perceived. Sure, a discovery grew
Out of it all! Best live from first to last
The transport o'er again. A week he passed,
Sucking the sweet out of each circumstance,
From the bard's outbreak to the luscious trance
Bounding his own achievement. Strange! A man
Recounted an adventure, but began
Imperfectly; his own task was to fill
The frame-work up, sing well what he sung ill,
Supply the necessary points, set loose
As many incidents of little use
More imbecile the other, not to see
Their relative importance clear as he!
But, for a special pleasure in the act
Of singinghad he ever turned, in fact,
From Elys, to sing Elys?from each fit
Of rapture to contrive a song of it?
True, this snatch or the other seemed to wind
Into a treasure, helped himself to find
A beauty in himself; for, see, he soared
By means of that mere snatch, to many a hoard
Of fancies; as some falling cone bears soft
The eye along the fir-tree-spire, aloft
To a dove's nest. Then, how divine the cause
Why such performance should exact applause
From men, if they had fancies too? Did fate
Decree they found a beauty separate
In the poor snatch itself?"Take Elys, there,
"'Her head that 's sharp and perfect like a pear,
"'So close and smooth are laid the few fine locks
"'Coloured like honey oozed from topmost rocks
"'Sun-blanched the livelong summer'if they heard
"Just those two rhymes, assented at my word,
"And loved them as I love them who have run
"These fingers through those pale locks, let the sun
"Into the white cool skinwho first could clutch,
"Then praiseI needs must be a god to such.
"Or what if some, above themselves, and yet
"Beneath me, like their Eglamor, have set
"An impress on our gift? So, men believe
"And worship what they know not, nor receive
"Delight from. Have they fanciesslow, perchance,
"Not at their beck, which indistinctly glance
"Until, by song, each floating part be linked
"To each, and all grow palpable, distinct?"
He pondered this.
Meanwhile, sounds low and drear
Stole on him, and a noise of footsteps, near
And nearer, while the underwood was pushed
Aside, the larches grazed, the dead leaves crushed
At the approach of men. The wind seemed laid;
Only, the trees shrunk slightly and a shade
Came o'er the sky although 't was midday yet:
You saw each half-shut downcast floweret
Flutter"a Roman bride, when they 'd dispart
"Her unbound tresses with the Sabine dart,
"Holding that famous rape in memory still,
"Felt creep into her curls the iron chill,
"And looked thus," Eglamor would sayindeed
'T is Eglamor, no other, these precede
Home hither in the woods. "'T were surely sweet
"Far from the scene of one's forlorn defeat
"To sleep!" judged Naddo, who in person led
Jongleurs and Trouveres, chanting at their head,
A scanty company; for, sooth to say,
Our beaten Troubadour had seen his day.
Old worshippers were something shamed, old friends
Nigh weary; still the death proposed amends.
"Let us but get them safely through my song
"And home again!" quoth Naddo.
All along,
This man (they rest the bier upon the sand)
This calm corpse with the loose flowers in his hand,
Eglamor, lived Sordello's opposite.
For him indeed was Naddo's notion right,
And verse a temple-worship vague and vast,
A ceremony that withdrew the last
Opposing bolt, looped back the lingering veil
Which hid the holy place: should one so frail
Stand there without such effort? or repine
If much was blank, uncertain at the shrine
He knelt before, till, soothed by many a rite,
The power responded, and some sound or sight
Grew up, his own forever, to be fixed,
In rhyme, the beautiful, forever!mixed
With his own life, unloosed when he should please,
Having it safe at hand, ready to ease
All pain, remove all trouble; every time
He loosed that fancy from its bonds of rhyme,
(Like Perseus when he loosed his naked love)
Faltering; so distinct and far above
Himself, these fancies! He, no genius rare,
Transfiguring in fire or wave or air
At will, but a poor gnome that, cloistered up
In some rock-chamber with his agate cup,
His topaz rod, his seed-pearl, in these few
And their arrangement finds enough to do
For his best art. Then, how he loved that art!
The calling marking him a man apart
From menone not to care, take counsel for
Cold hearts, comfortless faces(Eglamor
Was neediest of his tribe)since verse, the gift,
Was his, and men, the whole of them, must shift
Without it, e'en content themselves with wealth
And pomp and power, snatching a life by stealth.
So, Eglamor was not without his pride!
The sorriest bat which cowers throughout noontide
While other birds are jocund, has one time
When moon and stars are blinded, and the prime
Of earth is his to claim, nor find a peer;
And Eglamor was noblest poet here
He well knew, 'mid those April woods he cast
Conceits upon in plenty as he passed,
That Naddo might suppose him not to think
Entirely on the coming triumph: wink
At the one weakness! 'T was a fervid child,
That song of his; no brother of the guild
Had e'er conceived its like. The rest you know,
The exaltation and the overthrow:
Our poet lost his purpose, lost his rank,
His lifeto that it came. Yet envy sank
Within him, as he heard Sordello out,
And, for the first time, shoutedtried to shout
Like others, not from any zeal to show
Pleasure that way: the common sort did so,
What else was Eglamor? who, bending down
As they, placed his beneath Sordello's crown,
Printed a kiss on his successor's hand,
Left one great tear on it, then joined his band
In time; for some were watching at the door:
Who knows what envy may effect? "Give o'er,
"Nor charm his lips, nor craze him!" (here one spied
And disengaged the withered crown)"Beside
"His crown? How prompt and clear those verses rang
"To answer yours! nay, sing them!" And he sang
Them calmly. Home he went; friends used to wait
His coming, zealous to congratulate;
But, to a manso quickly runs report
Could do no less than leave him, and escort
His rival. That eve, then, bred many a thought:
What must his future life be? was he brought
So low, who stood so lofty this Spring morn?
At length he said, "Best sleep now with my scorn,
"And by to-morrow I devise some plain
"Expedient!" So, he slept, nor woke again.
They found as much, those friends, when they returned
O'erflowing with the marvels they had learned
About Sordello's paradise, his roves
Among the hills and vales and plains and groves,
Wherein, no doubt, this lay was roughly cast,
Polished by slow degrees, completed last
To Eglamor's discomfiture and death.
Such form the chanters now, and, out of breath,
They lay the beaten man in his abode,
Naddo reciting that same luckless ode,
Doleful to hear. Sordello could explore
By means of it, however, one step more
In joy; and, mastering the round at length,
Learnt how to live in weakness as in strength,
When from his covert forth he stood, addressed
Eglamor, bade the tender ferns invest,
Primval pines o'ercanopy his couch,
And, most of all, his fame(shall I avouch
Eglamor heard it, dead though he might look,
And laughed as from his brow Sordello took
The crown, and laid on the bard's breast, and said
It was a crown, now, fit for poet's head?)
Continue. Nor the prayer quite fruitless fell.
A plant they have, yielding a three-leaved bell
Which whitens at the heart ere noon, and ails
Till evening; evening gives it to her gales
To clear away with such forgotten things
As are an eyesore to the morn: this brings
Him to their mind, and bears his very name.
So much for Eglamor. My own month came;
'T was a sunrise of blossoming and May.
Beneath a flowering laurel thicket lay
Sordello; each new sprinkle of white stars
That smell fainter of wine than Massic jars
Dug up at Bai, when the south wind shed
The ripest, made him happier; filleted
And robed the same, only a lute beside
Lay on the turf. Before him far and wide
The country stretched: Goito slept behind
The castle and its covert, which confined
Him with his hopes and fears; so fain of old
To leave the story of his birth untold.
At intervals, 'spite the fantastic glow
Of his Apollo-life, a certain low
And wretched whisper, winding through the bliss,
Admonished, no such fortune could be his,
All was quite false and sure to fade one day:
The closelier drew he round him his array
Of brilliance to expel the truth. But when
A reason for his difference from men
Surprised him at the grave, he took no rest
While aught of that old life, superbly dressed
Down to its meanest incident, remained
A mystery: alas, they soon explained
Away Apollo! and the tale amounts
To this: when at Vicenza both her counts
Banished the Vivaresi kith and kin,
Those Maltraversi hung on Ecelin,
Reviled him as he followed; he for spite
Must fire their quarter, though that self-same night
Among the flames young Ecelin was born
Of Adelaide, there too, and barely torn
From the roused populace hard on the rear,
By a poor archer when his chieftain's fear
Grew high; into the thick Elcorte leapt,
Saved her, and died; no creature left except
His child to thank. And when the full escape
Was knownhow men impaled from chine to nape
Unlucky Prata, all to pieces spurned
Bishop Pistore's concubines, and burned
Taurello's entire household, flesh and fell,
Missing the sweeter preysuch courage well
Might claim reward. The orphan, ever since,
Sordello, had been nurtured by his prince
Within a blind retreat where Adelaide
(For, once this notable discovery made,
The past at every point was understood)
Might harbour easily when times were rude,
When Azzo schemed for Palma, to retrieve
That pledge of Agnes Esteloth to leave
Mantua unguarded with a vigilant eye,
While there Taurello bode ambiguously
He who could have no motive now to moil
For his own fortunes since their utter spoil
As it were worth while yet (went the report)
To disengage himself from her. In short,
Apollo vanished; a mean youth, just named
His lady's minstrel, was to be proclaimed
How shall I phrase it?Monarch of the World!
For, on the day when that array was furled
Forever, and in place of one a slave
To longings, wild indeed, but longings save
In dreams as wild, suppressedone daring not
Assume the mastery such dreams allot,
Until a magical equipment, strength,
Grace, wisdom, decked him too,he chose at length,
Content with unproved wits and failing frame,
In virtue of his simple will, to claim
That mastery, no lessto do his best
With means so limited, and let the rest
Go by,the seal was set: never again
Sordello could in his own sight remain
One of the many, one with hopes and cares
And interests nowise distinct from theirs,
Only peculiar in a thriveless store
Of fancies, which were fancies and no more;
Never again for him and for the crowd
A common law was challenged and allowed
If calmly reasoned of, howe'er denied
By a mad impulse nothing justified
Short of Apollo's presence. The divorce
Is clear: why needs Sordello square his course
By any known example? Men no more
Compete with him than tree and flower before.
Himself, inactive, yet is greater far
Than such as act, each stooping to his star,
Acquiring thence his function; he has gained
The same result with meaner mortals trained
To strength or beauty, moulded to express
Each the idea that rules him; since no less
He comprehends that function, but can still
Embrace the others, take of might his fill
With Richard as of grace with Palma, mix
Their qualities, or for a moment fix
On one; abiding free meantime, uncramped
By any partial organ, never stamped
Strong, and to strength turning all energies
Wise, and restricted to becoming wise
That is, he loves not, nor possesses One
Idea that, star-like over, lures him on
To its exclusive purpose. "Fortunate!
"This flesh of mine ne'er strove to emulate
"A soul so varioustook no casual mould
"Of the first fancy and, contracted, cold,
"Clogged her foreversoul averse to change
"As flesh: whereas flesh leaves soul free to range,
"Remains itself a blank, cast into shade,
"Encumbers little, if it cannot aid.
"So, range, free soul!who, by self-consciousness,
"The last drop of all beauty dost express
"The grace of seeing grace, a quintessence
"For thee: while for the world, that can dispense
"Wonder on men who, themselves, wondermake
"A shift to love at second-hand, and take
"For idols those who do but idolize,
"Themselves,the world that counts men strong or wise,
"Who, themselves, court strength, wisdom,it shall bow
"Surely in unexampled worship now,
"Discerning me!"
(Dear monarch, I beseech,
Notice how lamentably wide a breach
Is here: discovering this, discover too
What our poor world has possibly to do
With it! As pigmy natures as you please
So much the better for you; take your ease,
Look on, and laugh; style yourself God alone;
Strangle some day with a cross olive-stone!
All that is right enough: but why want us
To know that you yourself know thus and thus?)
"The world shall bow to me conceiving all
"Man's life, who see its blisses, great and small,
"Afarnot tasting any; no machine
"To exercise my utmost will is mine:
"Be mine mere consciousness! Let men perceive
"What I could do, a mastery believe,
"Asserted and established to the throng
"By their selected evidence of song
"Which now shall prove, whate'er they are, or seek
"To be, I amwhose words, not actions speak,
"Who change no standards of perfection, vex
"With no strange forms created to perplex,
"But just perform their bidding and no more,
"At their own satiating-point give o'er,
"While each shall love in me the love that leads
"His soul to power's perfection." Song, not deeds,
(For we get tired) was chosen. Fate would brook
Mankind no other organ; he would look
For not another channel to dispense
His own volition by, receive men's sense
Of its supremacywould live content,
Obstructed else, with merely verse for vent.
Nor should, for instance, strength an outlet seek
And, striving, be admired: nor grace bespeak
Wonder, displayed in gracious attitudes:
Nor wisdom, poured forth, change unseemly moods;
But he would give and take on song's one point.
Like some huge throbbing stone that, poised a-joint,
Sounds, to affect on its basaltic bed,
Must sue in just one accent; tempests shed
Thunder, and raves the windstorm: only let
That key by any little noise be set
The far benighted hunter's halloo pitch
On that, the hungry curlew chance to scritch
Or serpent hiss it, rustling through the rift,
However loud, however lowall lift
The groaning monster, stricken to the heart.
Lo ye, the world's concernment, for its part,
And this, for his, will hardly interfere!
Its businesses in blood and blaze this year
But wile the hour awaya pastime slight
Till he shall step upon the platform: right!
And, now thus much is settled, cast in rough,
Proved feasible, be counselled! thought enough,
Slumber, Sordello! any day will serve:
Were it a less digested plan! how swerve
To-morrow? Meanwhile eat these sun-dried grapes,
And watch the soaring hawk there! Life escapes
Merrily thus.
He thoroughly read o'er
His truchman Naddo's missive six times more,
Praying him visit Mantua and supply
A famished world.
The evening star was high
When he reached Mantua, but his fame arrived
Before him: friends applauded, foes connived,
And Naddo looked an angel, and the rest
Angels, and all these angels would be blest
Supremely by a songthe thrice-renowned
Goito-manufacture. Then he found
(Casting about to satisfy the crowd)
That happy vehicle, so late allowed,
A sore annoyance; 't was the song's effect
He cared for, scarce the song itself: reflect!
In the past life, what might be singing's use?
Just to delight his Delians, whose profuse
Praise, not the toilsome process which procured
That praise, enticed Apollo: dreams abjured,
No overleaping means for endstake both
For granted or take neither! I am loth
To say the rhymes at last were Eglamor's;
But Naddo, chuckling, bade competitors
Go pine; "the master certes meant to waste
"No effort, cautiously had probed the taste
"He 'd please anon: true bard, in short,disturb
"His title if they could; nor spur nor curb,
"Fancy nor reason, wanting in him; whence
"The staple of his verses, common sense:
"He built on man's broad naturegift of gifts,
"That power to build! The world contented shifts
"With counterfeits enough, a dreary sort
"Of warriors, statesmen, ere it can extort
"Its poet-soulthat 's, after all, a freak
"(The having eyes to see and tongue to speak)
"With our herd's stupid sterling happiness
"So plainly incompatible thatyes
"Yesshould a son of his improve the breed
"And turn out poet, he were cursed indeed!"
"Well, there 's Goito and its woods anon,
"If the worst happen; best go stoutly on
"Now!" thought Sordello.
Ay, and goes on yet!
You pother with your glossaries to get
A notion of the Troubadour's intent
In rondel, tenzon, virlai or sirvent
Much as you study arras how to twirl
His angelot, plaything of page and girl
Once; but you surely reach, at last,or, no!
Never quite reach what struck the people so,
As from the welter of their time he drew
Its elements successively to view,
Followed all actions backward on their course,
And catching up, unmingled at the source,
Such a strength, such a weakness, added then
A touch or two, and turned them into men.
Virtue took form, nor vice refused a shape;
Here heaven opened, there was hell agape,
As Saint this simpered past in sanctity,
Sinner the other flared portentous by
A greedy people. Then why stop, surprised
At his success? The scheme was realized
Too suddenly in one respect: a crowd
Praising, eyes quick to see, and lips as loud
To speak, delicious homage to receive,
The woman's breath to feel upon his sleeve,
Who said, "But Anafestwhy asks he less
"Than Lucio, in your verses? how confess,
"It seemed too much but yestereve!"the youth,
Who bade him earnestly, "Avow the truth!
"You love Bianca, surely, from your song;
"I knew I was unworthy!"soft or strong,
In poured such tributes ere he had arranged
Ethereal ways to take them, sorted, changed,
Digested. Courted thus at unawares,
In spite of his pretensions and his cares,
He caught himself shamefully hankering
After the obvious petty joys that spring
From true life, fain relinquish pedestal
And condescend with pleasuresone and all
To be renounced, no doubt; for, thus to chain
Himself to single joys and so refrain
From tasting their quintessence, frustrates, sure,
His prime design; each joy must he abjure
Even for love of it.
He laughed: what sage
But perishes if from his magic page
He look because, at the first line, a proof
'T was heard salutes him from the cavern roof?
"On! Give yourself, excluding aught beside,
"To the day's task; compel your slave provide
"Its utmost at the soonest; turn the leaf
"Thoroughly conned. These lays of yours, in brief
"Cannot men bear, now, something better?fly
"A pitch beyond this unreal pageantry
"Of essences? the period sure has ceased
"For such: present us with ourselves, at least,
"Not portions of ourselves, mere loves and hates
"Made flesh: wait not!"
Awhile the poet waits
However. The first trial was enough:
He left imagining, to try the stuff
That held the imaged thing, and, let it writhe
Never so fiercely, scarce allowed a tithe
To reach the lighthis Language. How he sought
The cause, conceived a cure, and slow re-wrought
That Language,welding words into the crude
Mass from the new speech round him, till a rude
Armour was hammered out, in time to be
Approved beyond the Roman panoply
Melted to make it,boots not. This obtained
With some ado, no obstacle remained
To using it; accordingly he took
An action with its actors, quite forsook
Himself to live in each, returned anon
With the resulta creature, and, by one
And one, proceeded leisurely to equip
Its limbs in harness of his workmanship.
"Accomplished! Listen, Mantuans!" Fond essay!
Piece after piece that armour broke away,
Because perceptions whole, like that he sought
To clothe, reject so pure a work of thought
As language: thought may take perception's place
But hardly co-exist in any case,
Being its mere presentmentof the whole
By parts, the simultaneous and the sole
By the successive and the many. Lacks
The crowd perception? painfully it tacks
Thought to thought, which Sordello, needing such,
Has rent perception into: it's to clutch
And reconstructhis office to diffuse,
Destroy: as hard, then, to obtain a Muse
As to become Apollo. "For the rest,
"E'en if some wondrous vehicle expressed
"The whole dream, what impertinence in me
"So to express it, who myself can be
"The dream! nor, on the other hand, are those
"I sing to, over-likely to suppose
"A higher than the highest I present
"Now, which they praise already: be content
"Both parties, ratherthey with the old verse,
"And I with the old praisefar go, fare worse!"
A few adhering rivets loosed, upsprings
The angel, sparkles off his mail, which rings
Whirled from each delicatest limb it warps;
So might Apollo from the sudden corpse
Of Hyacinth have cast his luckless quoits.
He set to celebrating the exploits
Of Montfort o'er the Mountaineers.
Then came
The world's revenge: their pleasure, now his aim
Merely,what was it? "Not to play the fool
"So much as learn our lesson in your school!"
Replied the world. He found that, every time
He gained applause by any ballad-rhyme,
His auditory recognized no jot
As he intended, and, mistaking not
Him for his meanest hero, ne'er was dunce
Sufficient to believe himall, at once.
His will . . . conceive it caring for his will!
Mantuans, the main of them, admiring still
How a mere singer, ugly, stunted, weak,
Had Montfort at completely (so to speak)
His fingers' ends; while past the praise-tide swept
To Montfort, either's share distinctly kept:
The true meed for true merit!his abates
Into a sort he most repudiates,
And on them angrily he turns. Who were
The Mantuans, after all, that he should care
About their recognition, ay or no?
In spite of the convention months ago,
(Why blink the truth?) was not he forced to help
This same ungrateful audience, every whelp
Of Naddo's litter, make them pass for peers
With the bright band of old Goito years,
As erst he toiled for flower or tree? Why, there
Sat Palma! Adelaide's funereal hair
Ennobled the next corner. Ay, he strewed
A fairy dust upon that multitude,
Although he feigned to take them by themselves;
His giants dignified those puny elves,
Sublimed their faint applause. In short, he found
Himself still footing a delusive round,
Remote as ever from the self-display
He meant to compass, hampered every way
By what he hoped assistance. Wherefore then
Continue, make believe to find in men
A use he found not?
Weeks, months, years went by
And lo, Sordello vanished utterly,
Sundered in twain; each spectral part at strife
With each; one jarred against another life;
The Poet thwarting hopelessly the Man
Who, fooled no longer, free in fancy ran
Here, there: let slip no opportunities
As pitiful, forsooth, beside the prize
To drop on him some no-time and acquit
His constant faith (the Poet-half's to wit
That waiving any compromise between
No joy and all joy kept the hunger keen
Beyond most methods)of incurring scoff
From the Man-portionnot to be put off
With self-reflectings by the Poet's scheme,
Though ne'er so bright. Who sauntered forth in dream,
Dressed any how, nor waited mystic frames,
Immeasurable gifts, astounding claims,
But just his sorry self?who yet might be
Sorrier for aught he in reality
Achieved, so pinioned Man's the Poet-part,
Fondling, in turn of fancy, verse; the Art
Developing his soul a thousand ways
Potent, by its assistance, to amaze
The multitude with majesties, convince
Each sort of nature that the nature's prince
Accosted it. Language, the makeshift, grew
Into a bravest of expedients, too;
Apollo, seemed it now, perverse had thrown
Quiver and bow away, the lyre alone
Sufficed. While, out of dream, his day's work went
To tune a crazy tenzon or sirvent
So hampered him the Man-part, thrust to judge
Between the bard and the bard's audience, grudge
A minute's toil that missed its due reward!
But the complete Sordello, Man and Bard,
John's cloud-girt angel, this foot on the land,
That on the sea, with, open in his hand,
A bitter-sweetling of a bookwas gone.
Then, if internal struggles to be one,
Which frittered him incessantly piecemeal,
Referred, ne'er so obliquely, to the real
Intruding Mantuans! ever with some call
To action while he pondered, once for all,
Which looked the easier effortto pursue
This course, still leap o'er paltry joys, yearn through
The present ill-appreciated stage
Of self-revealment, and compel the age
Know himor else, forswearing bard-craft, wake
From out his lethargy and nobly shake
Off timid habits of denial, mix
With men, enjoy like men. Ere he could fix
On aught, in rushed the Mantuans; much they cared
For his perplexity! Thus unprepared,
The obvious if not only shelter lay
In deeds, the dull conventions of his day
Prescribed the like of him: why not be glad
'T is settled Palma's minstrel, good or bad,
Submits to this and that established rule?
Let Vidal change, or any other fool,
His murrey-coloured robe for filamot,
And crop his hair; too skin-deep, is it not,
Such vigour? Then, a sorrow to the heart,
His talk! Whatever topics they might start
Had to be groped for in his consciousness
Straight, and as straight delivered them by guess.
Only obliged to ask himself, "What was,"
A speedy answer followed; but, alas,
One of God's large ones, tardy to condense
Itself into a period; answers whence
A tangle of conclusions must be stripped
At any risk ere, trim to pattern clipped,
They matched rare specimens the Mantuan flock
Regaled him with, each talker from his stock
Of sorted-o'er opinions, every stage,
Juicy in youth or desiccate with age,
Fruits like the fig-tree's, rathe-ripe, rotten-rich,
Sweet-sour, all tastes to take: a practice which
He too had not impossibly attained,
Once either of those fancy-flights restrained;
(For, at conjecture how might words appear
To others, playing there what happened here,
And occupied abroad by what he spurned
At home, 't was slipped, the occasion he returned
To seize he 'd strike that lyre adroitlyspeech,
Would but a twenty-cubit plectre reach;
A clever hand, consummate instrument,
Were both brought close; each excellency went
For nothing, else. The question Naddo asked,
Had just a lifetime moderately tasked
To answer, Naddo's fashion. More disgust
And more: why move his soul, since move it must
At minute's notice or as good it failed
To move at all? The end was, he retailed
Some ready-made opinion, put to use
This quip, that maxim, ventured reproduce
Gestures and tonesat any folly caught
Serving to finish with, nor too much sought
If false or true 't was spoken; praise and blame
Of what he said grew pretty nigh the same
Meantime awards to meantime acts: his soul,
Unequal to the compassing a whole,
Saw, in a tenth part, less and less to strive
About. And as for men in turn . . . contrive
Who could to take eternal interest
In them, so hate the worst, so love the best,
Though, in pursuance of his passive plan,
He hailed, decried, the proper way.
As Man
So figured he; and how as Poet? Verse
Came only not to a stand-still. The worse,
That his poor piece of daily work to do
Wasnot sink under any rivals; who
Loudly and long enough, without these qualms,
Turned, from Bocafoli's stark-naked psalms,
To Plara's sonnets spoilt by toying with,
"As knops that stud some almug to the pith
"Prickd for gum, wry thence, and crinkld worse
"Than pursd eyelids of a river-horse
"Sunning himself o' the slime when whirrs the breese"
Gad-fly, that is. He might compete with these!
Butbut
"Observe a pompion-twine afloat;
"Pluck me one cup from off the castle-moat!
"Along with cup you raise leaf, stalk and root,
"The entire surface of the pool to boot.
"So could I pluck a cup, put in one song
"A single sight, did not my hand, too strong,
"Twitch in the least the root-strings of the whole.
"How should externals satisfy my soul?"
"Why that's precise the error Squarcialupe"
(Hazarded Naddo) "finds; 'the man can't stoop
"'To sing us out,' quoth he, 'a mere romance;
"'He'd fain do better than the best, enhance
"'The subjects' rarity, work problems out
"'Therewith.' Now, you 're a bard, a bard past doubt,
"And no philosopher; why introduce
"Crotchets like these? fine, surely, but no use
"In poetrywhich still must be, to strike,
"Based upon common sense; there's nothing like
"Appealing to our nature! what beside
"Was your first poetry? No tricks were tried
"In that, no hollow thrills, affected throes!
"'The man,' said we, 'tells his own joys and woes:
"'We'll trust him.' Would you have your songs endure?
"Build on the human heart!why, to be sure
"Yours is one sort of heartbut I mean theirs,
"Ours, every one's, the healthy heart one cares
"To build on! Central peace, mother of strength,
"That's father of . . . nay, go yourself that length,
"Ask those calm-hearted doers what they do
"When they have got their calm! And is it true,
"Fire rankles at the heart of every globe?
"Perhaps. But these are matters one may probe
"Too deeply for poetic purposes:
"Rather select a theory that . . . yes,
"Laugh! what does that prove?stations you midway
"And saves some little o'er-refining. Nay,
"That's rank injustice done me! I restrict
"The poet? Don't I hold the poet picked
"Out of a host of warriors, statesmen . . . did
"I tell you? Very like! As well you hid
"That sense of power, you have! True bards believe
"All able to achieve what they achieve
"That is, just nothingin one point abide
"Profounder simpletons than all beside.
"Oh, ay! The knowledge that you are a bard
"Must constitute your prime, nay sole, reward!"
So prattled Naddo, busiest of the tribe
Of genius-hauntershow shall I describe
What grubs or nips or rubs or ripsyour louse
For love, your flea for hate, magnanimous,
Malignant, Pappacoda, Tagliafer,
Picking a sustenance from wear and tear
By implements it sedulous employs
To undertake, lay down, mete out, o'er-toise
Sordello? Fifty creepers to elude
At once! They settled staunchly; shame ensued:
Behold the monarch of mankind succumb
To the last fool who turned him round his thumb,
As Naddo styled it! 'T was not worth oppose
The matter of a moment, gainsay those
He aimed at getting rid of; better think
Their thoughts and speak their speech, secure to slink
Back expeditiously to his safe place,
And chew the cudwhat he and what his race
Were really, each of them. Yet even this
Conformity was partial. He would miss
Some point, brought into contact with them ere
Assured in what small segment of the sphere
Of his existence they attended him;
Whence blunders, falsehoods rectifieda grim
Listslur it over! How? If dreams were tried,
His will swayed sicklily from side to side,
Nor merely neutralized his waking act
But tended e'en in fancy to distract
The intermediate will, the choice of means.
He lost the art of dreaming: Mantuan scenes
Supplied a baron, say, he sang before,
Handsomely reckless, full to running-o'er
Of gallantries; "abjure the soul, content
"With body, therefore!" Scarcely had he bent
Himself in dream thus low, when matter fast
Cried out, he found, for spirit to contrast
And task it duly; by advances slight,
The simple stuff becoming composite,
Count Lori grew Apollo: best recall
His fancy! Then would some rough peasant-Paul,
Like those old Ecelin confers with, glance
His gay apparel o'er; that countenance
Gathered his shattered fancies into one,
And, body clean abolished, soul alone
Sufficed the grey Paulician: by and by,
To balance the ethereality,
Passions were needed; foiled he sank again.
Meanwhile the world rejoiced ('t is time explain)
Because a sudden sickness set it free
From Adelaide. Missing the mother-bee,
Her mountain-hive Romano swarmed; at once
A rustle-forth of daughters and of sons
Blackened the valley. "I am sick too, old,
"Half-crazed I think; what good's the Kaiser's gold
"To such an one? God help me! for I catch
"My children's greedy sparkling eyes at watch
"'He bears that double breastplate on,' they say,
"'So many minutes less than yesterday!'
"Beside, Monk Hilary is on his knees
"Now, sworn to kneel and pray till God shall please
"Exact a punishment for many things
"You know, and some you never knew; which brings
"To memory, Azzo's sister Beatrix
"And Richard's Giglia are my Alberic's
"And Ecelin's betrothed; the Count himself
"Must get my Palma: Ghibellin and Guelf
"Mean to embrace each other." So began
Romano's missive to his fighting man
Taurelloon the Tuscan's death, away
With Friedrich sworn to sail from Naples' bay
Next month for Syria. Never thunder-clap
Out of Vesuvius' throat, like this mishap
Startled him. "That accursed Vicenza! I
"Absent, and she selects this time to die!
"Ho, fellows, for Vicenza!" Half a score
Of horses ridden dead, he stood before
Romano in his reeking spurs: too late
"Boniface urged me, Este could not wait,"
The chieftain stammered; "let me die in peace
"Forget me! Was it I who craved increase
"Of rule? Do you and Friedrich plot your worst
"Against the Father: as you found me first
"So leave me now. Forgive me! Palma, sure,
"Is at Goito still. Retain that lure
"Only be pacified!"
The country rung
With such a piece of news: on every tongue,
How Ecelin's great servant, congeed off,
Had done a long day's service, so, might doff
The green and yellow, and recover breath
At Mantua, whither,since Retrude's death,
(The girlish slip of a Sicilian bride
From Otho's house, he carried to reside
At Mantua till the Ferrarese should pile
A structure worthy her imperial style,
The gardens raise, the statues there enshrine,
She never lived to see)although his line
Was ancient in her archives and she took
A pride in him, that city, nor forsook
Her child when he forsook himself and spent
A prowess on Romano surely meant
For his own growthwhither he ne'er resorts
If wholly satisfied (to trust reports)
With Ecelin. So, forward in a trice
Were shows to greet him. "Take a friend's advice,"
Quoth Naddo to Sordello, "nor be rash
"Because your rivals (nothing can abash
"Some folks) demur that we pronounced you best
"To sound the great man's welcome; 't is a test,
"Remember! Strojavacca looks asquint,
"The rough fat sloven; and there 's plenty hint
"Your pinions have received of late a shock
"Outsoar them, cobswan of the silver flock!
"Sing well!" A signal wonder, song 's no whit
Facilitated.
Fast the minutes flit;
Another day, Sordello finds, will bring
The soldier, and he cannot choose but sing;
So, a last shift, quits Mantuaslow, alone:
Out of that aching brain, a very stone,
Song must be struck. What occupies that front?
Just how he was more awkward than his wont
The night before, when Naddo, who had seen
Taurello on his progress, praised the mien
For dignity no crosses could affect
Such was a joy, and might not he detect
A satisfaction if established joys
Were proved imposture? Poetry annoys
Its utmost: wherefore fret? Verses may come
Or keep away! And thus he wandered, dumb
Till evening, when he paused, thoroughly spent,
On a blind hill-top: down the gorge he went,
Yielding himself up as to an embrace.
The moon came out; like features of a face,
A querulous fraternity of pines,
Sad blackthorn clumps, leafless and grovelling vines
Also came out, made gradually up
The picture; 't was Goito's mountain-cup
And castle. He had dropped through one defile
He never dared explore, the Chief erewhile
Had vanished by. Back rushed the dream, enwrapped
Him wholly. 'T was Apollo now they lapped,
Those mountains, not a pettish minstrel meant
To wear his soul away in discontent,
Brooding on fortune's malice. Heart and brain
Swelled; he expanded to himself again,
As some thin seedling spice-tree starved and frail,
Pushing between cat's head and ibis' tail
Crusted into the porphyry pavement smooth,
Suffered remain just as it sprung, to soothe
The Soldan's pining daughter, never yet
Well in her chilly green-glazed minaret,
When rooted up, the sunny day she died,
And flung into the common court beside
Its parent tree. Come home, Sordello! Soon
Was he low muttering, beneath the moon,
Of sorrow saved, of quiet evermore,
Since from the purpose, he maintained before,
Only resulted wailing and hot tears.
Ah, the slim castle! dwindled of late years,
But more mysterious; gone to ruintrails
Of vine through every loop-hole. Nought avails
The night as, torch in hand, he must explore
The maple chamber: did I say, its floor
Was made of intersecting cedar beams?
Worn now with gaps so large, there blew cold streams
Of air quite from the dungeon; lay your ear
Close and 't is like, one after one, you hear
In the blind darkness water drop. The nests
And nooks retain their long ranged vesture-chests
Empty and smelling of the iris root
The Tuscan grated o'er them to recruit
Her wasted wits. Palma was gone that day,
Said the remaining women. Last, he lay
Beside the Carian group reserved and still.
The Body, the Machine for Acting Will,
Had been at the commencement proved unfit;
That for Demonstrating, Reflecting it,
Mankindno fitter: was the Will Itself
In fault?
His forehead pressed the moonlit shelf
Beside the youngest marble maid awhile;
Then, raising it, he thought, with a long smile,
"I shall be king again!" as he withdrew
The envied scarf; into the font he threw
His crown
Next day, no poet! "Wherefore?" asked
Taurello, when the dance of Jongleurs, masked
As devils, ended; "don't a song come next?"
The master of the pageant looked perplexed
Till Naddo's whisper came to his relief.
"His Highness knew what poets were: in brief,
"Had not the tetchy race prescriptive right
"To peevishness, caprice? or, call it spite,
"One must receive their nature in its length
"And breadth, expect the weakness with the strength!"
So phrasing, till, his stock of phrases spent,
The easy-natured soldier smiled assent,
Settled his portly person, smoothed his chin,
And nodded that the bull-bait might begin.
~ Robert Browning, Sordello - Book the Second
,#NFDB
1335:Is it the same Sordello in the dusk
As at the dawn?merely a perished husk
Now, that arose a power fit to build
Up Rome again? The proud conception chilled
So soon? Ay, watch that latest dream of thine
A Rome indebted to no Palatine
Drop arch by arch, Sordello! Art possessed
Of thy wish now, rewarded for thy quest
To-day among Ferrara's squalid sons?
Are this and this and this the shining ones
Meet for the Shining City? Sooth to say,
Your favoured tenantry pursue their way
After a fashion! This companion slips
On the smooth causey, t' other blinkard trips
At his mooned sandal. "Leave to lead the brawls
"Here i' the atria?" No, friend! He that sprawls
On aught but a stibadium . . . what his dues
Who puts the lustral vase to such an use?
Oh, huddle up the day's disasters! March,
Ye runagates, and drop thou, arch by arch,
Rome!
Yet before they quite disbanda whim
Study mere shelter, now, for him, and him,
Nay, even the worst,just house them! Any cave
Suffices: throw out earth! A loophole? Brave!
They ask to feel the sun shine, see the grass
Grow, hear the larks sing? Dead art thou, alas,
And I am dead! But here's our son excels
At hurdle-weaving any Scythian, fells
Oak and devises rafters, dreams and shapes
His dream into a door-post, just escapes
The mystery of hinges. Lie we both
Perdue another age. The goodly growth
Of brick and stone! Our building-pelt was rough,
But that descendant's garb suits well enough
A portico-contriver. Speed the years
What 's time to us? At last, a city rears
Itself! nay, enterwhat's the grave to us?
Lo, our forlorn acquaintance carry thus
The head! Successively sewer, forum, cirque
Last age, an aqueduct was counted work,
But now they tire the artificer upon
Blank alabaster, black obsidion,
Careful, Jove's face be duly fulgurant,
And mother Venus' kiss-creased nipples pant
Back into pristine pulpiness, ere fixed
Above the baths. What difference betwixt
This Rome and oursresemblance what, between
That scurvy dumb-show and this pageant sheen
These Romans and our rabble? Use thy wit!
The work marched: step by step,a workman fit
Took each, nor too fit,to one task, one time,
No leaping o'er the petty to the prime,
When just the substituting osier lithe
For brittle bulrush, sound wood for soft withe,
To further loam-and-roughcast-work a stage,
Exacts an architect, exacts an age:
No tables of the Mauritanian tree
For men whose maple log 's their luxury!
That way was Rome built. "Better" (say you) "merge
"At once all workmen in the demiurge,
"All epochs in a lifetime, every task
"In one!" So should the sudden city bask
I' the daywhile those we 'd feast there, want the knack
Of keeping fresh-chalked gowns from speck and brack,
Distinguish not rare peacock from vile swan,
Nor Mareotic juice from Ccuban.
"Enough of Rome! 'T was happy to conceive
"Rome on a sudden, nor shall fate bereave
"Me of that credit: for the rest, her spite
"Is an old storyserves my folly right
"By adding yet another to the dull
"List of abortionsthings proved beautiful
"Could they be done, Sordello cannot do."
He sat upon the terrace, plucked and threw
The powdery aloe-cusps away, saw shift
Rome's walls, and drop arch after arch, and drift
Mist-like afar those pillars of all stripe,
Mounds of all majesty. "Thou archetype,
"Last of my dreams and loveliest, depart!"
And then a low voice wound into his heart:
"Sordello!" (low as some old Pythoness
Conceding to a Lydian King's distress
The cause of his long errorone mistake
Of her past oracle) "Sordello, wake!
"God has conceded two sights to a man
"One, of men's whole work, time's completed plan,
"The other, of the minute's work, man's first
"Step to the plan's completeness: what's dispersed
"Save hope of that supreme step which, descried
"Earliest, was meant still to remain untried
"Only to give you heart to take your own
"Step, and there stay, leaving the rest alone?
"Where is the vanity? Why count as one
"The first step, with the last step? What is gone
"Except Rome's ary magnificence,
"That last step you 'd take first?an evidence
"You were God: be man now! Let those glances fall!
"The basis, the beginning step of all,
"Which proves you just a manis that gone too?
"Pity to disconcert one versed as you
"In fate's ill-nature! but its full extent
"Eludes Sordello, even: the veil rent,
"Read the black writingthat collective man
"Outstrips the individual. Who began
"The acknowledged greatnesses? Ay, your own art
"Shall serve us: put the poet's mimes apart
"Close with the poet's self, and lo, a dim
"Yet too plain form divides itself from him!
"Alcamo's song enmeshes the lulled Isle,
"Woven into the echoes left erewhile
"By Nina, one soft web of song: no more
"Turning his name, then, flower-like o'er and o'er!
"An elder poet in the younger's place;
"Nina's the strength, but Alcamo's the grace:
"Each neutralizes each then! Search your fill;
"You get no whole and perfect Poetstill
"New Ninas, Alcamos, till time's mid-night
"Shrouds allor better say, the shutting light
"Of a forgotten yesterday. Dissect
"Every ideal workman(to reject
"In favour of your fearful ignorance
"The thousand phantasms eager to advance,
"And point you but to those within your reach)
"Were you the first who brought(in modern speech)
"The Multitude to be materialized?
"That loose eternal unrestwho devised
"An apparition i' the midst? The rout
"Was checked, a breathless ring was formed about
"That sudden flower: get round at any risk
"The gold-rough pointel, silver-blazing disk
"O' the lily! Swords across it! Reign thy reign
"And serve thy frolic service, Charlemagne!
"The very child of over-joyousness,
"Unfeeling thence, strong therefore: Strength by stress
"Of Strength comes of that forehead confident,
"Those widened eyes expecting heart's content,
"A calm as out of just-quelled noise; nor swerves
"For doubt, the ample cheek in gracious curves
"Abutting on the upthrust nether lip:
"He wills, how should he doubt then? Ages slip:
"Was it Sordello pried into the work
"So far accomplished, and discovered lurk
"A company amid the other clans,
"Only distinct in priests for castellans
"And popes for suzerains (their rule confessed
"Its rule, their interest its interest,
"Living for sake of livingthere an end,
"Wrapt in itself, no energy to spend
"In making adversaries or allies)
"Dived you into its capabilities
"And dared create, out of that sect, a soul
"Should turn a multitude, already whole,
"Into its body? Speak plainer! Is 't so sure
"God's church lives by a King's investiture?
"Look to last step! A staggeringa shock
"What 's mere sand is demolished, while the rock
"Endures: a column of black fiery dust
"Blots heaventhat help was prematurely thrust
"Aside, perchance!but air clears, nought 's erased
"Of the true outline. Thus much being firm based,
"The other was a scaffold. See him stand
"Buttressed upon his mattock, Hildebrand
"Of the huge brain-mask welded ply o'er ply
"As in a forge; it buries either eye
"White and extinct, that stupid brow; teeth clenched,
"The neck tight-corded, too, the chin deep-trenched,
"As if a cloud enveloped him while fought
"Under its shade, grim prizers, thought with thought
"At dead-lock, agonizing he, until
"The victor thought leap radiant up, and Will,
"The slave with folded arms and drooping lids
"They fought for, lean forth flame-like as it bids.
"Call him no flowera mandrake of the earth,
"Thwarted and dwarfed and blasted in its birth,
"Rather,a fruit of suffering's excess,
"Thence feeling, therefore stronger: still by stress
"Of Strength, work Knowledge! Full three hundred years
"Have men to wear away in smiles and tears
"Between the two that nearly seemed to touch,
"Observe you! quit one workman and you clutch
"Another, letting both their trains go by
"The actors-out of either's policy,
"Heinrich, on this hand, Otho, Barbaross,
"Carry the three Imperial crowns across,
"Aix' Iron, Milan's Silver, and Rome's Gold
"While Alexander, Innocent uphold
"On that, each Papal keybut, link on link,
"Why is it neither chain betrays a chink?
"How coalesce the small and great? Alack,
"For one thrust forward, fifty such fall back!
"Do the popes coupled there help Gregory
"Alone? Harkfrom the hermit Peter's cry
"At Claremont, down to the first serf that says
"Friedrich 's no liege of his while he delays
"Getting the Pope's curse off him! The Crusade
"Or trick of breeding Strength by other aid
"Than Strength, is safe. Harkfrom the wild harangue
"Of Vimmercato, to the carroch's clang
"Yonder! The Leagueor trick of turning Strength
"Against Pernicious Strength, is safe at length.
"Yet harkfrom Mantuan Albert making cease
"The fierce ones, to Saint Francis preaching peace
"Yonder! God's Truceor trick to supersede
"The very Use of Strength, is safe. Indeed
"We trench upon the future. Who is found
"To take next step, next agetrail o'er the ground
"Shall I say, gourd-like?not the flower's display
"Nor the root's prowess, but the plenteous way
"O' the plantproduced by joy and sorrow, whence
"Unfeeling and yet feeling, strongest thence?
"Knowledge by stress of merely Knowledge? No
"E'en were Sordello ready to forego
"His life for this, 't were overleaping work
"Some one has first to do, howe'er it irk,
"Nor stray a foot's breadth from the beaten road.
"Who means to help must still support the load
"Hildebrand lifted'why hast Thou,' he groaned,
"`Imposed on me a burthen, Paul had moaned,
"'And Moses dropped beneath?' Much doneand yet
"Doubtless that grandest task God ever set
"On man, left much to do: at his arm's wrench,
"Charlemagne's scaffold fell; but pillars blench
"Merely, start back againperchance have been
"Taken for buttresses: crash every screen,
"Hammer the tenons better, and engage
"A gang about your work, for the next age
"Or two, of Knowledge, part by Strength and part
"By Knowledge! Then, indeed, perchance may start
"Sordello on his racewould time divulge
"Such secrets! If one step's awry, one bulge
"Calls for correction by a step we thought
"Got over long since, why, till that is wrought,
"No progress! And the scaffold in its turn
"Becomes, its service o'er, a thing to spurn.
"Meanwhile, if your half-dozen years of life
"In store dispose you to forego the strife,
"Who takes exception? Only bear in mind
"Ferrara 's reached, Goito 's left behind:
"As you then were, as half yourself, desist!
"The warrior-part of you may, an it list,
"Finding real faulchions difficult to poise,
"Fling them afar and taste the cream of joys
"By wielding such in fancy,what is bard
"Of you may spurn the vehicle that marred
"Elys so much, and in free fancy glut
"His sense, yet write no versesyou have but
"To please yourself for law, and once could please
"What once appeared yourself, by dreaming these
"Rather than doing these, in days gone by.
"But all is changed the moment you descry
"Mankind as half yourself,then, fancy's trade
"Ends once and always: how may half evade
"The other half? men are found half of you.
"Out of a thousand helps, just one or two
"Can be accomplished presently: but flinch
"From these (as from the faulchion, raised an inch,
"Elys, described a couplet) and make proof
"Of fancy,then, while one half lolls aloof
"I' the vines, completing Rome to the tip-top
"See if, for that, your other half will stop
"A tear, begin a smile! The rabble's woes,
"Ludicrous in their patience as they chose
"To sit about their town and quietly
"Be slaughtered,the poor reckless soldiery,
"With their ignoble rhymes on Richard, how
"'Polt-foot,' sang they, 'was in a pitfall now,'
"Cheering each other from the engine-mounts,
"That crippled spawling idiot who recounts
"How, lopped of limbs, he lay, stupid as stone,
"Till the pains crept from out him one by one,
"And wriggles round the archers on his head
"To earn a morsel of their chestnut bread,
"And Cino, always in the self-same place
"Weeping; beside that other wretch's case,
"Eyepits to ear, one gangrene since he plied
"The engine in his coat of raw sheep's hide
"A double watch in the noon sun; and see
"Lucchino, beauty, with the favours free,
"Trim hacqueton, spruce beard and scented hair,
"Campaigning it for the first timecut there
"In two already, boy enough to crawl
"For latter orpine round the southern wall,
"Tom, where Richard 's kept, because that ****
"Marfisa, the fool never saw before,
"Sickened for flowers this wearisomest siege:
"And Tiso's wifemen liked their pretty liege,
"Cared for her least of whims once,Berta, wed
"A twelvemonth gone, and, now poor Tiso's dead,
"Delivering herself of his first child
"On that chance heap of wet filth, reconciled
"To fifty gazers!"(Here a wind below
Made moody music augural of woe
From the pine barrier)"What if, now the scene
"Draws to a close, yourself have really been
"You, plucking purples in Goito's moss
"Like edges of a trabea (not to cross
"Your consul-humour) or dry aloe-shafts
"For fasces, at Ferrarahe, fate wafts,
"This very age, her whole inheritance
`Of opportunities? Yet you advance
"Upon the last! Since talking is your trade,
"There 's Salinguerra left you to persuade:
"Fail! then"
"Nonowhich latest chance secure!"
Leaped up and cried Sordello: "this made sure,
"The past were yet redeemable; its work
"Washelp the Guelfs, whom I, howe'er it irk,
"Thus help!" He shook the foolish aloe-haulm
Out of his doublet, paused, proceeded calm
To the appointed presence. The large head
Turned on its socket; "And your spokesman," said
The large voice, "is Elcorte's happy sprout?
"Few such"(so finishing a speech no doubt
Addressed to Palma, silent at his side)
"My sober councils have diversified.
"Elcorte's son! good: forward as you may,
"Our lady's minstrel with so much to say!"
The hesitating sunset floated back,
Rosily traversed in the wonted track
The chamber, from the lattice o'er the girth
Of pines, to the huge eagle blacked in earth
Opposite,outlined sudden, spur to crest,
That solid Salinguerra, and caressed
Palma's contour; 't was day looped back night's pall;
Sordello had a chance left spite of all.
And much he made of the convincing speech
Meant to compensate for the past and reach
Through his youth's daybreak of unprofit, quite
To his noon's labour, so proceed till night
Leisurely! The great argument to bind
Taurello with the Guelf Cause, body and mind,
Came the consummate rhetoric to that?
Yet most Sordello's argument dropped flat
Through his accustomed fault of breaking yoke,
Disjoining him who felt from him who spoke.
Was 't not a touching incidentso prompt
A rendering the world its just accompt,
Once proved its debtor? Who 'd suppose, before
This proof, that he, Goito's god of yore,
At duty's instance could demean himself
So memorably, dwindle to a Guelf?
Be sure, in such delicious flattery steeped,
His inmost self at the out-portion peeped,
Thus occupied; then stole a glance at those
Appealed to, curious if her colour rose
Or his lip moved, while he discreetly urged
The need of Lombardy becoming purged
At soonest of her barons; the poor part
Abandoned thus, missing the blood at heart
And spirit in brain, unseasonably off
Elsewhere! But, though his speech was worthy scoff,
Good-humoured Salinguerra, famed for tact
And tongue, who, careless of his phrase, ne'er lacked
The right phrase, and harangued Honorius dumb
At his accession,looked as all fell plumb
To purpose and himself found interest
In every point his new instructor pressed
Left playing with the rescript's white wax seal
To scrutinize Sordello head and heel.
He means to yield assent sure? No, alas!
All he replied was, "What, it comes to pass
"That poesy, sooner than politics,
"Makes fade young hair?" To think such speech could fix
Taurello!
Then a flash of bitter truth:
So fantasies could break and fritter youth
That he had long ago lost earnestness,
Lost will to work, lost power to even express
The need of working! Earth was turned a grave:
No more occasions now, though he should crave
Just one, in right of superhuman toil,
To do what was undone, repair such spoil,
Alter the pastnothing would give the chance!
Not that he was to die; he saw askance
Protract the ignominious years beyond
To dream intime to hope and time despond,
Remember and forget, be sad, rejoice
As saved a trouble; he might, at his choice,
One way or other, idle life out, drop
No few smooth verses by the wayfor prop,
A thyrsus, these sad people, all the same,
Should pick up, and set store by,far from blame,
Plant o'er his hearse, convinced his better part
Survived him. "Rather tear men out the heart
"O' the truth!"Sordello muttered, and renewed
His propositions for the Multitude.
But Salinguerra, who at this attack
Had thrown great breast and ruffling corslet back
To hear the better, smilingly resumed
His task; beneath, the carroch's warning boomed;
He must decide with Tito; courteously
He turned then, even seeming to agree
With his admonisher"Assist the Pope,
"Extend Guelf domination, fill the scope
"O' the Church, thus based on All, by All, for All
"Change Secular to Evangelical"
Echoing his very sentence: all seemed lost,
When suddenly he looked up, laughingly almost,
To Palma: "This opinion of your friend's
"For instance, would it answer Palma's ends?
"Best, were it not, turn Guelf, submit our Strength"
(Here he drew out his baldric to its length)
"To the Pope's Knowledgelet our captive slip,
"Wide to the walls throw ope our gates, equip
"Azzo with . . . what I hold here! Who 'll subscribe
"To a trite censure of the minstrel tribe
"Henceforward? or pronounce, as Heinrich used,
"'Spear-heads for battle, burr-heads for the joust!'
"When Constance, for his couplets, would promote
"Alcamo, from a parti-coloured coat,
"To holding her lord's stirrup in the wars.
"Not that I see where couplet-making jars
"With common sense: at Mantua I had borne
"This chanted, better than their most forlorn
"Of bull-baits,that 's indisputable!"
Brave!
Whom vanity nigh slew, contempt shall save!
All 's at an end: a Troubadour suppose
Mankind will class him with their friends or foes?
A puny uncouth ailing vassal think
The world and him bound in some special link?
Abrupt the visionary tether burst.
What were rewarded here, or what amerced
If a poor drudge, solicitous to dream
Deservingly, got tangled by his theme
So far as to conceit the knack or gift
Or whatsoe'er it be, of verse, might lift
The globe, a lever like the hand and head
Of"Men of Action," as the Jongleurs said,
"The Great Men," in the people's dialect?
And not a moment did this scorn affect
Sordello: scorn the poet? They, for once,
Asking "what was," obtained a full response.
Bid Naddo think at Mantuahe had but
To look into his promptuary, put
Finger on a set thought in a set speech:
But was Sordello fitted thus for each
Conjecture? Nowise; since within his soul,
Perception brooded unexpressed and whole.
A healthy spirit like a healthy frame
Craves aliment in plentyall the same,
Changes, assimilates its aliment.
Perceived Sordello, on a truth intent?
Next day no formularies more you saw
Than figs or olives in a sated maw.
'T is Knowledge, whither such perceptions tend;
They lose themselves in that, means to an end,
The many old producing some one new,
A last unlike the first. If lies are true,
The Caliph's wheel-work man of brass receives
A meal, munched millet grains and lettuce leaves
Together in his stomach rattle loose;
You find them perfect next day to produce:
But ne'er expect the man, on strength of that,
Can roll an iron camel-collar flat
Like Haroun's self! I tell you, what was stored
Bit by bit through Sordello's life, outpoured
That eve, was, for that age, a novel thing:
And round those three the People formed a ring,
Of visionary judges whose award
He recognised in fullfaces that barred
Henceforth return to the old careless life,
In whose great presence, therefore, his first strife
For their sake must not be ignobly fought;
All these, for once, approved of him, he thought,
Suspended their own vengeance, chose await
The issue of this strife to reinstate
Them in the right of taking itin fact
He must be proved king ere they could exact
Vengeance for such king's defalcation. Last,
A reason why the phrases flowed so fast
Was in his quite forgetting for a time
Himself in his amazement that the rhyme
Disguised the royalty so much: he there
And Salinguerra yet all-unaware
Who was the lord, who liegeman!
"Thus I lay
"On thine my spirit and compel obey
"His lord,my liegeman,impotent to build
"Another Rome, but hardly so unskilled
"In what such builder should have been, as brook
"One shame beyond the charge that I forsook
"His function! Free me from that shame, I bend
"A brow before, suppose new years to spend,
"Allow each chance, nor fruitlessly, recur
"Measure thee with the Minstrel, then, demur
"At any crowd he claims! That I must cede
"Shamed now, my right to my especial meed
"Confess thee fitter help the world than I
"Ordained its champion from eternity,
"Is much: but to behold thee scorn the post
"I quit in thy behalfto hear thee boast
"What makes my own despair!" And while he rung
The changes on this theme, the roof up-sprung,
The sad walls of the presence-chamber died
Into the distance, or embowering vied
With far-away Goito's vine-frontier;
And crowds of faces(only keeping clear
The rose-light in the midst, his vantage-ground
To fight their battle from)deep clustered round
Sordello, with good wishes no mere breath,
Kind prayers for him no vapour, since, come death
Come life, he was fresh-sinewed every joint,
Each bone new-marrowed as whom gods anoint
Though mortal to their rescue. Now let sprawl
The snaky volumes hither! Is Typhon all
For Hercules to tramplegood report
From Salinguerra only to extort?
"So was I" (closed he his inculcating
A poet must be earth's essential king)
"So was I, royal so, and if I fail,
"'T is not the royalty, ye witness quail,
"But one deposed who, caring not exert
"Its proper essence, trifled malapert
"With accidents insteadgood things assigned
"As heralds of a better thing behind
"And, worthy through display of these, put forth
"Never the inmost all-surpassing worth
"That constitutes him king precisely since
"As yet no other spirit may evince
"Its like: the power he took most pride to test,
"Whereby all forms of life had been professed
"At pleasure, forms already on the earth,
"Was but a means to power beyond, whose birth
"Should, in its novelty, be kingship's proof.
"Now, whether he came near or kept aloof
"The several forms he longed to imitate,
"Not there the kingship lay, he sees too late.
"Those forms, unalterable first as last,
"Proved him her copier, not the protoplast
"Of nature: what would come of being free,
"By action to exhibit tree for tree,
"Bird, beast, for beast and bird, or prove earth bore
"One veritable man or woman more?
"Means to an end, such proofs are: what the end?
"Let essence, whatsoe'er it be, extend
"Never contract. Already you include
"The multitude; then let the multitude
"Include yourself; and the result were new:
"Themselves before, the multitude turn you.
"This were to live and move and have, in them,
"Your being, and secure a diadem
"You should transmit (because no cycle yearns
"Beyond itself, but on itself returns)
"When, the full sphere in wane, the world o'erlaid
"Long since with you, shall have in turn obeyed
"Some orb still prouder, some displayer, still
"More potent than the last, of human will,
"And some new king depose the old. Of such
"Am Iwhom pride of this elates too much?
"Safe, rather say, 'mid troops of peers again;
"I, with my words, hailed brother of the train
"Deeds once sufficed: for, let the world roll back,
"Who fails, through deeds howe'er diverse, retrack
"My purpose still, my task? A teeming crust
"Air, flame, earth, wave at conflict! Then, needs must
"Emerge some Calm embodied, these refer
"The brawl toyellow-bearded Jupiter?
"No! Saturn; some existence like a pact
"And protest against Chaos, some first fact
"I' the faint of time. My deep of life, I know
"Is unavailing e'en to poorly show" . . .
(For here the Chief immeasurably yawned)
. . . "Deeds in their due gradation till Song dawned
"The fullest effluence of the finest mind,
"All in degree, no way diverse in kind
"From minds about it, minds which, more or less,
"Lofty or low, move seeking to impress
"Themselves on somewhat; but one mind has climbed
"Step after step, by just ascent sublimed.
"Thought is the soul of act, and, stage by stage,
"Soul is from body still to disengage
"As tending to a freedom which rejects
"Such help and incorporeally affects
"The world, producing deeds but not by deeds,
"Swaying, in others, frames itself exceeds,
"Assigning them the simpler tasks it used
"To patiently perform till Song produced
"Acts, by thoughts only, for the mind: divest
"Mind of e'en Thought, and, lo, God's unexpressed
"Will draws above us! All then is to win
"Save that. How much for me, then? where begin
"My work? About me, faces! and they flock,
"The earnest faces. What shall I unlock
"By song? behold me prompt, whate'er it be,
"To minister: how much can mortals see
"Of Life? No more than so? I take the task
"And marshal you Life's elemental masque,
"Show Men, on evil or on good lay stress,
"This light, this shade make prominent, suppress
"All ordinary hues that softening blend
"Such natures with the level. Apprehend
"Which sinner is, which saint, if I allot
"Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, a blaze or blot,
"To those you doubt concerning! I enwomb
"Some wretched Friedrich with his red-hot tomb;
"Some dubious spirit, Lombard Agilulph
"With the black chastening river I engulph!
"Some unapproached Matilda I enshrine
"With languors of the planet of decline
"These, fail to recognize, to arbitrate
"Between henceforth, to rightly estimate
"Thus marshalled in the masque! Myself, the while,
"As one of you, am witness, shrink or smile
"At my own showing! Next agewhat 's to do?
"The men and women stationed hitherto
"Will I unstation, good and bad, conduct
"Each nature to its farthest, or obstruct
"At soonest, in the world: light, thwarted, breaks
"A limpid purity to rainbow flakes,
"Or shadow, massed, freezes to gloom: behold
"How such, with fit assistance to unfold,
"Or obstacles to crush them, disengage
"Their forms, love, hate, hope, fear, peace make, war wage,
"In presence of you all! Myself, implied
"Superior now, as, by the platform's side,
"I bade them do and suffer,would last content
"The world . . . nothat 's too far! I circumvent
"A few, my masque contented, and to these
"Offer unveil the last of mysteries
"Man's inmost life shall have yet freer play:
"Once more I cast external things away,
"And natures composite, so decompose
"That" . . . Why, he writes Sordello!
"How I rose,
"And how have you advanced! since evermore
"Yourselves effect what I was fain before
"Effect, what I supplied yourselves suggest,
"What I leave bare yourselves can now invest.
"How we attain to talk as brothers talk,
"In half-words, call things by half-names, no balk
"From discontinuing old aids. To-day
"Takes in account the work of Yesterday:
"Has not the world a Past now, its adept
"Consults ere he dispense with or accept
"New aids? a single touch more may enhance,
"A touch less turn to insignificance
"Those structures' symmetry the past has strewed
"The world with, once so bare. Leave the mere rude
"Explicit details! 't is but brother's speech
"We need, speech where an accent's change gives each
"The other's soulno speech to understand
"By former audience: need was then to expand,
"Expatiatehardly were we brothers! true
"Nor I lament my small remove from you,
"Nor reconstruct what stands already. Ends
"Accomplished turn to means: my art intends
"New structure from the ancient: as they changed
"The spoils of every clime at Venice, ranged
"The horned and snouted Libyan god, upright
"As in his desert, by some simple bright
"Clay cinerary pitcherThebes as Rome,
"Athens as Byzant rifled, till their Dome
"From earth's reputed consummations razed
"A seal, the all-transmuting Triad blazed
"Above. Ah, whose that fortune? Ne'ertheless
"E'en he must stoop contented to express
"No tithe of what 's to saythe vehicle
"Never sufficient: but his work is still
"For faces like the faces that select
"The single service I am bound effect,
"That bid me cast aside such fancies, bow
"Taurello to the Guelf cause, disallow
"The Kaiser's comingwhich with heart, soul, strength,
"I labour for, this eve, who feel at length
"My past career's outrageous vanity,
"And would, as its amends, die, even die
"Now I first estimate the boon of life,
"If death might win compliancesure, this strife
"Is right for oncethe People my support."
My poor Sordello! what may we extort
By this, I wonder? Palma's lighted eyes
Turned to Taurello who, long past surprise,
Began, "You love himwhat you 'd say at large
"Let me say briefly. First, your father's charge
"To me, his friend, peruse: I guessed indeed
"You were no stranger to the course decreed.
"He bids me leave his children to the saints:
"As for a certain project, he acquaints
"The Pope with that, and offers him the best
"Of your possessions to permit the rest
"Go peaceablyto Ecelin, a stripe
"Of soil the cursed Vicentines will gripe,
"To Alberic, a patch the Trevisan
"Clutches already; extricate, who can,
"Treville, Villarazzi, Puissolo,
"Loria and Cartiglione!all must go,
"And with them go my hopes. 'T is lost, then! Lost
"This eve, our crisis, and some pains it cost
"Procuring; thirty yearsas good I'd spent
"Like our admonisher! But each his bent
"Pursues: no question, one might live absurd
"Oneself this while, by deed as he by word
"Persisting to obtrude an influence where
"'T is made account of, much as . . . nay, you fare
"With twice the fortune, youngster!I submit,
"Happy to parallel my waste of wit
"With the renowned Sordello's: you decide
"A course for me. Romano may abide
"Romano,Bacchus! After all, what dearth
"Of Ecelins and Alberics on earth?
"Say there 's a prize in prospect, must disgrace
"Betide competitors, unless they style
"Themselves Romano? Were it worth my while
"To try my own luck! But an obscure place
"Suits methere wants a youth to bustle, stalk
"And attitudinizesome fight, more talk,
"Most flaunting badgeshow, I might make clear
"Since Friedrich's very purposes lie here
"Here, pity they are like to lie! For me,
"With station fixed unceremoniously
"Long since, small use contesting; I am but
"The liegemanyou are born the lieges: shut
"That gentle mouth now! or resume your kin
"In your sweet self; were Palma Ecelin
"For me to work with! Could that neck endure
"This bauble for a cumbrous garniture,
"She should . . . or might one bear it for her? Stay
"I have not been so flattered many a day
"As by your pale friendBacchus! The least help
"Would lick the hind's fawn to a lion's whelp:
"His neck is broad enougha ready tongue
"Beside: too writhledbut, the main thing, young
"I could . . . why, look ye!"
And the badge was thrown
Across Sordello's neck: "This badge alone
"Makes you Romano's Headbecomes superb
"On your bare neck, which would, on mine, disturb
"The pauldron," said Taurello. A mad act,
Nor even dreamed about beforein fact,
Not when his sportive arm rose for the nonce
But he had dallied overmuch, this once,
With power: the thing was done, and he, aware
The thing was done, proceeded to declare
(So like a nature made to serve, excel
In serving, only feel by service well!)
That he would make Sordello that and more.
"As good a scheme as any. What 's to pore
"At in my face?" he asked"ponder instead
"This piece of news; you are Romano's Head!
"One cannot slacken pace so near the goal,
"Suffer my Azzo to escape heart-whole
"This time! For you there 's Palma to espouse
"For me, one crowning trouble ere I house
"Like my compeer."
On which ensued a strange
And solemn visitation; there came change
O'er every one of them; each looked on each:
Up in the midst a truth grew, without speech.
And when the giddiness sank and the haze
Subsided, they were sitting, no amaze,
Sordello with the baldric on, his sire
Silent, though his proportions seemed aspire
Momently; and, interpreting the thrill,
Night at its ebb,Palma was found there still
Relating somewhat Adelaide confessed
A year ago, while dying on her breast,
Of a contrivance, that Vicenza night
When Ecelin had birth. "Their convoy's flight,
"Cut off a moment, coiled inside the flame
"That wallowed like a dragon at his game
"The toppling city throughSan Biagio rocks!
"And wounded lies in her delicious locks
"Retrude, the frail mother, on her face,
"None of her wasted, just in one embrace
"Covering her child: when, as they lifted her,
"Cleaving the tumult, mighty, mightier
"And mightiest Taurello's cry outbroke,
"Leapt like a tongue of fire that cleaves the smoke,
"Midmost to cheer his Mantuans onwarddrown
"His colleague Ecelin's clamour, up and down
"The disarray: failed Adelaide see then
"Who was the natural chief, the man of men?
"Outstripping time, her infant there burst swathe,
"Stood up with eyes haggard beyond the scathe
"From wandering after his heritage
"Lost once and lost for aye: and why that rage,
"That deprecating glance? A new shape leant
"On a familiar shapegloatingly bent
"O'er his discomfiture; 'mid wreaths it wore,
"Still one outflamed the resther child's before
"'T was Salinguerra's for his child: scorn, hate,
"Rage now might startle her when all too late!
"Then was the moment!rival's foot had spurned
"Never that House to earth else! Sense returned
"The act conceived, adventured and complete,
"They bore away to an obscure retreat
"Mother and childRetrude's self not slain"
(Nor even here Taurello moved) "though pain
"Was fled; and what assured them most 't was fled,
"All pain, was, if they raised the pale hushed head
"'T would turn this way and that, waver awhile,
"And only settle into its old smile
"(Graceful as the disquieted water-flag
"Steadying itself, remarked they, in the quag
"On either side their path)when suffered look
"Down on her child. They marched: no sign once shook
"The company's close litter of crossed spears
"Till, as they reached Goito, a few tears
"Slipped in the sunset from her long black lash,
"And she was gone. So far the action rash;
"No crime. They laid Retrude in the font,
"Taurello's very gift, her child was wont
"To sit beneathconstant as eve he came
"To sit by its attendant girls the same
"As one of them. For Palma, she would blend
"With this magnific spirit to the end,
"That ruled her first; but scarcely had she dared
"To disobey the Adelaide who scared
"Her into vowing never to disclose
"A secret to her husband, which so froze
"His blood at half-recital, she contrived
"To hide from him Taurello's infant lived,
"Lest, by revealing that, himself should mar
"Romano's fortunes. And, a crime so far,
"Palma received that action: she was told
"Of Salinguerra's nature, of his cold
"Calm acquiescence in his lot! But free
"To impart the secret to Romano, she
"Engaged to repossess Sordello of
"His heritage, and hers, and that way doff
"The mask, but after years, long years: while now,
"Was not Romano's sign-mark on that brow?"
Across Taurello's heart his arms were locked:
And when he did speak 't was as if he mocked
The minstrel, "who had not to move," he said,
"Nor stirshould fate defraud him of a shred
"Of his son's infancy? much less his youth!"
(Laughingly all this)"which to aid, in truth,
"Himself, reserved on purpose, had not grown
"Old, not too old't was best they kept alone
"Till now, and never idly met till now;"
Then, in the same breath, told Sordello how
All intimations of this eve's event
Were lies, for Friedrich must advance to Trent,
Thence to Verona, then to Rome, there stop,
Tumble the Church down, institute a-top
The Alps a Prefecture of Lombardy:
"That 's now!no prophesying what may be
"Anon, with a new monarch of the clime,
"Native of Gesi, passing his youth's prime
"At Naples. Tito bids my choice decide
"On whom . . ."
"Embrace him, madman!" Palma cried,
Who through the laugh saw sweat-drops burst apace,
And his lips blanching: he did not embrace
Sordello, but he laid Sordello's hand
On his own eyes, mouth, forehead.
Understand,
This while Sordello was becoming flushed
Out of his whiteness; thoughts rushed, fancies rushed;
He pressed his hand upon his head and signed
Both should forbear him. "Nay, the best 's behind!"
Taurello laughednot quite with the same laugh:
"The truth is, thus we scatter, ay, like chaff
"These Guelfs, a despicable monk recoils
"From: nor expect a fickle Kaiser spoils
"Our triumph!Friedrich? Think you, I intend
"Friedrich shall reap the fruits of blood I spend
"And brain I waste? Think you, the people clap
"Their hands at my out-hewing this wild gap
"For any Friedrich to fill up? 'T is mine
"That 's yours: I tell you, towards some such design
"Have I worked blindly, yes, and idly, yes,
"And for another, yesbut worked no less
"With instinct at my heart; I else had swerved,
"While nowlook round! My cunning has preserved
"Samminiatothat 's a central place
"Secures us Florence, boy,in Pisa's case.
"By land as she by sea; with Pisa ours,
"And Florence, and Pistoia, one devours
"The land at leisure! Gloriously dispersed
"Brescia, observe, Milan, Piacenza first
"That flanked us (ah, you know not!) in the March;
"On these we pile, as keystone of our arch,
"Romagna and Bologna, whose first span
"Covered the Trentine and the Valsugan;
"Sofia's Egna by Bolgiano 's sure!" . . .
So he proceeded: half of all this, pure
Delusion, doubtless, nor the rest too true,
But what was undone he felt sure to do,
As ring by ring he wrung off, flung away
The pauldron-rings to give his sword-arm play
Need of the sword now! That would soon adjust
Aught wrong at present; to the sword intrust
Sordello's whiteness, undersize: 't was plain
He hardly rendered right to his own brain
Like a brave hound, men educate to pride
Himself on speed or scent nor aught beside,
As though he could not, gift by gift, match men!
Palma had listened patiently: but when
'T was time expostulate, attempt withdraw
Taurello from his child, she, without awe
Took off his iron arms from, one by one,
Sordello's shrinking shoulders, and, that done,
Made him avert his visage and relieve
Sordello (you might see his corslet heave
The while) who, loose, rosetried to speak, then sank:
They left him in the chamber. All was blank.
And even reeling down the narrow stair
Taurello kept up, as though unaware
Palma was by to guide him, the old device
Something of Milan"how we muster thrice
"The Torriani's strength there; all along
"Our own Visconti cowed them"thus the song
Continued even while she bade him stoop,
Thrid somehow, by some glimpse of arrow-loop,
The turnings to the gallery below,
Where he stopped short as Palma let him go.
When he had sat in silence long enough
Splintering the stone bench, braving a rebuff
She stopped the truncheon; only to commence
One of Sordello's poems, a pretence
For speaking, some poor rhyme of "Elys' hair
"And head that 's sharp and perfect like a pear,
"So smooth and close are laid the few fine locks
"Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks
"Sun-blanched the livelong summer"from his worst
Performance, the Goito, as his first:
And that at end, conceiving from the brow
And open mouth no silence would serve now,
Went on to say the whole world loved that man
And, for that matter, thought his face, tho' wan,
Eclipsed the Count'she sucking in each phrase
As if an angel spoke. The foolish praise
Ended, he drew her on his mailed knees, made
Her face a framework with his hands, a shade,
A crown, an aureole: there must she remain
(Her little mouth compressed with smiling pain
As in his gloves she felt her tresses twitch)
To get the best look at, in fittest niche
Dispose his saint. That done, he kissed her brow,
"Lauded her father for his treason now,"
He told her, "only, how could one suspect
"The wit in him?whose clansman, recollect,
`Was ever Salinguerrashe, the same,
"Romano and his ladyso, might claim
"To know all, as she should"and thus begun
Schemes with a vengeance, schemes on schemes, "not one
"Fit to be told that foolish boy," he said,
"But only let Sordello Palma wed,
"Then!"
'T was a dim long narrow place at best:
Midway a sole grate showed the fiery West,
As shows its corpse the world's end some split tomb
A gloom, a rift of fire, another gloom,
Faced Palmabut at length Taurello set
Her free; the grating held one ragged jet
Of fierce gold fire: he lifted her within
The hollow underneathhow else begin
Fate's second marvellous cycle, else renew
The ages than with Palma plain in view?
Then paced the passage, hands clenched, head erect,
Pursuing his discourse; a grand unchecked
Monotony made out from his quick talk
And the recurring noises of his walk;
Somewhat too much like the o'ercharged assent
Of two resolved friends in one danger blent,
Who hearten each the other against heart;
Boasting there 's nought to care for, when, apart
The boaster, all 's to care for. He, beside
Some shape not visible, in power and pride
Approached, out of the dark, ginglingly near,
Nearer, passed close in the broad light, his ear
Crimson, eyeballs suffused, temples full-fraught,
Just a snatch of the rapid speech you caught,
And on he strode into the opposite dark,
Till presently the harsh heel's turn, a spark
I' the stone, and whirl of some loose embossed throng
That crashed against the angle aye so long
After the last, punctual to an amount
Of mailed great paces you could not but count,
Prepared you for the pacing back again.
And by the snatches you might ascertain
That, Friedrich's Prefecture surmounted, left
By this alone in Italy, they cleft
Asunder, crushed together, at command
Of none, were free to break up Hildebrand,
Rebuild, he and Sordello, Charlemagne
But garnished, Strength with Knowledge, "if we deign
"Accept that compromise and stoop to give
"Rome law, the Csar's Representative."
Enough, that the illimitable flood
Of triumphs after triumphs, understood
In its faint reflux (you shall hear) sufficed
Young Ecelin for appanage, enticed
Him on till, these long quiet in their graves,
He found 't was looked for that a whole life's braves
Should somehow be made good; so, weak and worn,
Must stagger up at Milan, one grey morn
Of the to-come, and fight his latest fight.
But, Salinguerra's prophecy at height
He voluble with a raised arm and stiff,
A blaring voice, a blazing eye, as if
He had our very Italy to keep
Or cast away, or gather in a heap
To garrison the betteray, his word
Was, "run the cucumber into a gourd,
"Drive Trent upon Apulia"at their pitch
Who spied the continents and islands which
Grew mulberry leaves and sickles, in the map
(Strange that three such confessions so should hap
To Palma, Dante spoke with in the clear
Amorous silence of the Swooning-sphere,
Cunizza, as he called her! Never ask
Of Palma more! She sat, knowing her task
Was done, the labour of it,for, success
Concerned not Palma, passion's votaress.)
Triumph at neight, and thus Sordello crowned
Above the passage suddenly a sound
Stops speech, stops walk: back shrinks Taurello, bids
With large involuntary asking lids,
Palma interpret. "'T is his own foot-stamp
"Your hand! His summons! Nay, this idle damp
"Befits not!" Out they two reeled dizzily.
"Visconti 's strong at Milan," resumed he,
In the old, somewhat insignificant way
(Was Palma wont, years afterward, to say)
As though the spirit's flight, sustained thus far,
Dropped at that very instant.
Gone they are
Palma, Taurello; Eglamor anon,
Ecelin,only Naddo 's never gone!
Labours, this moonrise, what the Master meant:
"Is Squarcialupo speckled?purulent,
"I 'd say, but when was Providence put out?
"He carries somehow handily about
"His spite nor fouls himself!" Goito's vines
Stand like a cheat detectedstark rough lines,
The moon breaks through, a grey mean scale against
The vault where, this eve's Maiden, thou remain'st
Like some fresh martyr, eyes fixedwho can tell?
As Heaven, now all 's at end, did not so well,
Spite of the faith and victory, to leave
Its virgin quite to death in the lone eve.
While the persisting hermit-bee . . . ha! wait
No longer: these in compass, forward fate!
~ Robert Browning, Sordello - Book the Fifth
,#NFDB
1336:And the font took them: let our laurels lie!
Braid moonfern now with mystic trifoly
Because once more Goito gets, once more,
Sordello to itself! A dream is o'er,
And the suspended life begins anew;
Quiet those throbbing temples, then, subdue
That cheek's distortion! Nature's strict embrace,
Putting aside the past, shall soon efface
Its print as wellfactitious humours grown
Over the trueloves, hatreds not his own
And turn him pure as some forgotten vest
Woven of painted byssus, silkiest
Tufting the Tyrrhene whelk's pearl-sheeted lip,
Left welter where a trireme let it slip
I' the sea, and vexed a satrap; so the stain
O' the world forsakes Sordello, with its pain,
Its pleasure: how the tinct loosening escapes,
Cloud after cloud! Mantua's familiar shapes
Die, fair and foul die, fading as they flit,
Men, women, and the pathos and the wit,
Wise speech and foolish, deeds to smile or sigh
For, good, bad, seemly or ignoble, die.
The last face glances through the eglantines,
The last voice murmurs, 'twixt the blossomed vines,
Of Men, of that machine supplied by thought
To compass self-perception with, he sought
By forcing half himselfan insane pulse
Of a god's blood, on clay it could convulse,
Never transmuteon human sights and sounds,
To watch the other half with; irksome bounds
It ebbs from to its source, a fountain sealed
Forever. Better sure be unrevealed
Than part revealed: Sordello well or ill
Is finished: then what further use of Will,
Point in the prime idea not realized,
An oversight? inordinately prized,
No less, and pampered with enough of each
Delight to prove the whole above its reach.
"To need become all natures, yet retain
"The law of my own natureto remain
"Myself, yet yearn . . . as if that chestnut, think,
"Should yearn for this first larch-bloom crisp and pink,
"Or those pale fragrant tears where zephyrs stanch
"March wounds along the fretted pine-tree branch!
"Will and the means to show will, great and small,
"Material, spiritual,abjure them all
"Save any so distinct, they may be left
"To amuse, not tempt become! and, thus bereft,
"Just as I first was fashioned would I be!
"Nor, moon, is it Apollo now, but me
"Thou visitest to comfort and befriend!
"Swim thou into my heart, and there an end,
"Since I possess thee!nay, thus shut mine eyes
"And know, quite know, by this heart's fall and rise,
"When thou dost bury thee in clouds, and when
"Out-standest: wherefore practise upon men
"To make that plainer to myself?"
Slide here
Over a sweet and solitary year
Wasted; or simply notice change in him
How eyes, once with exploring bright, grew dim
And satiate with receiving. Some distress
Was caused, too, by a sort of consciousness
Under the imbecility,nought kept
That down; he slept, but was aware he slept,
So, frustrated: as who brainsick made pact
Erst with the overhanging cataract
To deafen him, yet still distinguished plain
His own blood's measured clicking at his brain.
To finish. One declining Autumn day
Few birds about the heaven chill and grey,
No wind that cared trouble the tacit woods
He sauntered home complacently, their moods
According, his and nature's. Every spark
Of Mantua life was trodden out; so dark
The embers, that the Troubadour, who sung
Hundreds of songs, forgot, its trick his tongue,
Its craft his brain, how either brought to pass
Singing at all; that faculty might class
With any of Apollo's now. The year
Began to find its early promise sere
As well. Thus beauty vanishes; thus stone
Outlingers flesh: nature's and his youth gone,
They left the world to you, and wished you joy.
When, stopping his benevolent employ,
A presage shuddered through the welkin; harsh
The earth's remonstrance followed. 'T was the marsh
Gone of a sudden. Mincio, in its place,
Laughed, a broad water, in next morning's face,
And, where the mists broke up immense and white
I' the steady wind, burned like a spilth of light
Out of the crashing of a myriad stars.
And here was nature, bound by the same bars
Of fate with him!
"No! youth once gone is gone:
"Deeds, let escape, are never to be done.
"Leaf-fall and grass-spring for the year; for us
"Oh forfeit I unalterably thus
"My chance? nor two lives wait me, this to spend,
"Learning save that? Nature has time, may mend
"Mistake, she knows occasion will recur;
"Landslip or seabreach, how affects it her
"With her magnificent resources?I
"Must perish once and perish utterly.
"Not any strollings now at even-close
"Down the field-path, Sordello! by thorn-rows
"Alive with lamp-flies, swimming spots of fire
"And dew, outlining the black cypress' spire
"She waits you at, Elys, who heard you first
"Woo her, the snow-month through, but ere she durst
"Answer 't was April. Linden-flower-time-long
"Her eyes were on the ground; 't is July, strong
"Now; and because white dust-clouds overwhelm
"The woodside, here or by the village elm
"That holds the moon, she meets you, somewhat pale,
"But letting you lift up her coarse flax veil
"And whisper (the damp little hand in yours)
"Of love, heart's love, your heart's love that endures
"Till death. Tush! No mad mixing with the rout
"Of haggard ribalds wandering about
"The hot torchlit wine-scented island-house
"Where Friedrich holds his wickedest carouse,
"Parading,to the gay Palermitans,
"Soft Messinese, dusk Saracenic clans
"Nuocera holds,those tall grave dazzling Norse,
"High-cheeked, lank-haired, toothed whiter than the morse,
"Queens of the caves of jet stalactites,
"He sent his barks to fetch through icy seas,
"The blind night seas without a saving star,
"And here in snowy birdskin robes they are,
"Sordello!here, mollitious alcoves gilt
"Superb as Byzant domes that devils built!
"Ah, Byzant, there again! no chance to go
"Ever like august cheery Dandolo,
"Worshipping hearts about him for a wall,
"Conducted, blind eyes, hundred years and all,
"Through vanquished Byzant where friends note for him
"What pillar, marble massive, sardius slim,
"'T were fittest he transport to Venice' Square
"Flattered and promised life to touch them there
"Soon, by those fervid sons of senators!
"No more lifes, deaths, loves, hatreds, peaces, wars!
"Ah, fragments of a whole ordained to be,
"Points in the life I waited! what are ye
"But roundels of a ladder which appeared
"Awhile the very platform it was reared
"To lift me on?that happiness I find
"Proofs of my faith in, even in the blind
"Instinct which bade forego you all unless
"Ye led me past yourselves. Ay, happiness
"Awaited me; the way life should be used
"Was to acquire, and deeds like you conduced
"To teach it by a self-revealment, deemed
"Life's very use, so long! Whatever seemed
"Progress to that, was pleasure; aught that stayed
"My reaching itno pleasure. I have laid
"The ladder down; I climb not; still, aloft
"The platform stretches! Blisses strong and soft,
"I dared not entertain, elude me; yet
"Never of what they promised could I get
"A glimpse till now! The common sort, the crowd,
"Exist, perceive; with Being are endowed,
"However slight, distinct from what they See,
"However bounded; Happiness must be,
"To feed the first by gleanings from the last,
"Attain its qualities, and slow or fast
"Become what they behold; such peace-in-strife,
"By transmutation, is the Use of Life,
"The Alien turning Native to the soul
"Or bodywhich instructs me; I am whole
"There and demand a Palma; had the world
"Been from my soul to a like distance hurled,
"'T were Happiness to make it one with me:
"Whereas I must, ere I begin to Be,
"Include a world, in flesh, I comprehend
"In spirit now; and this done, what 's to blend
"With? Nought is Alien in the worldmy Will
"Owns all already; yet can turn itstill
"LessNative, since my Means to correspond
"With Will are so unworthy, 't was my bond
"To tread the very joys that tantalize
"Most now, into a grave, never to rise.
"I die then! Will the rest agree to die?
"Next Age or no? Shall its Sordello try
"Clue after clue, and catch at last the clue
"I miss?that 's underneath my finger too,
"Twice, thrice a day, perhaps,some yearning traced
"Deeper, some petty consequence embraced
"Closer! Why fled I Mantua, then?complained
"So much my Will was fettered, yet remained
"Content within a tether half the range
"I could assign it?able to exchange
"My ignorance (I felt) for knowledge, and
"Idle because I could thus understand
"Could e'en have penetrated to its core
"Our mortal mystery, yetfoolforbore,
"Preferred elaborating in the dark
"My casual stuff, by any wretched spark
"Born of my predecessors, though one stroke
"Of mine had brought the flame forth! Mantua's yoke,
"My minstrel's-trade, was to behold mankind,
"My own concern was just to bring my mind
"Behold, just extricate, for my acquist,
"Each object suffered stifle in the mist
"Which hazard, custom, blindness interpose
"Betwixt things and myself."
Whereat he rose.
The level wind carried above the firs
Clouds, the irrevocable travellers,
Onward.
"Pushed thus into a drowsy copse,
"Arms twine about my neck, each eyelid drops
"Under a humid finger; while there fleets,
"Outside the screen, a pageant time repeats
"Never again! To be deposed, immured
"Clandestinelystill petted, still assured
"To govern were fatiguing workthe Sight
"Fleeting meanwhile! 'T is noontide: wreak ere night
"Somehow my will upon it, rather! Slake
"This thirst somehow, the poorest impress take
"That serves! A blasted bud displays you, torn,
"Faint rudiments of the full flower unborn;
"But who divines what glory coats o'erclasp
"Of the bulb dormant in the mummy's grasp
"Taurello sent?" . . .
"Taurello? Palma sent
"Your Trouvere," (Naddo interposing leant
Over the lost bard's shoulder)"and, believe,
"You cannot more reluctantly receive
"Than I pronounce her message: we depart
"Together. What avail a poet's heart
"Verona's pomps and gauds? five blades of grass
"Suffice him. News? Why, where your marish was,
"On its mud-banks smoke rises after smoke
"I' the valley, like a spout of hell new-broke.
"Oh, the world's tidings! small your thanks, I guess,
"For them. The father of our Patroness,
"Has played Taurello an astounding trick,
"Parts between Ecelin and Alberic
"His wealth and goes into a convent: both
"Wed Guelfs: the Count and Palma plighted troth
"A week since at Verona: and they want
"You doubtless to contrive the marriage-chant
"Ere Richard storms Ferrara." Then was told
The tale from the beginninghow, made bold
By Salinguerra's absence, Guelfs had burned
And pillaged till he unawares returned
To take revenge: how Azzo and his friend
Were doing their endeavour, how the end
O' the siege was nigh, and how the Count, released
From further care, would with his marriage-feast
Inaugurate a new and better rule,
Absorbing thus Romano.
"Shall I school
"My master," added Naddo, "and suggest
"How you may clothe in a poetic vest
"These doings, at Verona? Your response
"To Palma! Wherefore jest? 'Depart at once?
"A good resolve! In truth, I hardly hoped
"So prompt an acquiescence. Have you groped
"Out wisdom in the wilds here?thoughts may be
"Over-poetical for poetry.
"Pearl-white, you poets liken Palma's neck;
"And yet what spoils an orient like some speck
"Of genuine white, turning its own white grey?
"You take me? Curse the cicala!"
One more day,
One eveappears Verona! Many a group,
(You mind) instructed of the osprey's swoop
On lynx and ounce, was gatheringChristendom
Sure to receive, whate'er the end was, from
The evening's purpose cheer or detriment,
Since Friedrich only waited some event
Like this, of Ghibellins establishing
Themselves within Ferrara, ere, as King
Of Lombardy, he 'd glad descend there, wage
Old warfare with the Pontiff, disengage
His barons from the burghers, and restore
The rule of Charlemagne, broken of yore
By Hildebrand.
I' the palace, each by each,
Sordello sat and Palma: little speech
At first in that dim closet, face with face
(Despite the tumult in the market-place)
Exchanging quick low laughters: now would rush
Word upon word to meet a sudden flush,
A look left off, a shifting lips' surmise
But for the most part their two histories
Ran best thro' the locked fingers and linked arms.
And so the night flew on with its alarms
Till in burst one of Palma's retinue;
"Now, Lady!" gasped he. Then arose the two
And leaned into Verona's air, dead-still.
A balcony lay black beneath until
Out, 'mid a gush of torchfire, grey-haired men
Came on it and harangued the people: then
Sea-like that people surging to and fro
Shouted, "Hale forth the carrochtrumpets, ho,
"A flourish! Run it in the ancient grooves!
"Back from the bell! Hammerthat whom behoves
"May hear the League is up! Peallearn who list,
"Verona means not first of towns break tryst
"To-morrow with the League!"
Enough. Now turn
Over the eastern cypresses: discern!
Is any beacon set a-glimmer?
Rang
The air with shouts that overpowered the clang
Of the incessant carroch, even: "Haste
"The candle 's at the gateway! ere it waste,
"Each soldier stand beside it, armed to march
"With Tiso Sampier through the eastern arch!"
Ferrara's succoured, Palma!
Once again
They sat together; some strange thing in train
To say, so difficult was Palma's place
In taking, with a coy fastidious grace
Like the bird's flutter ere it fix and feed.
But when she felt she held her friend indeed
Safe, she threw back her curls, began implant
Her lessons; telling of another want
Goito's quiet nourished than his own;
Palmato serve himto be served, alone
Importing; Agnes' milk so neutralized
The blood of Ecelin. Nor be surprised
If, while Sordello fain had captive led
Nature, in dream was Palma subjected
To some out-soul, which dawned not though she pined
Delaying, till its advent, heart and mind
Their life. "How dared I let expand the force
"Within me, till some out-soul, whose resource
"It grew for, should direct it? Every law
"Of life, its every fitness, every flaw,
"Must One determine whose corporeal shape
"Would be no other than the prime escape
"And revelation to me of a Will
"Orb-like o'ershrouded and inscrutable
"Above, save at the point which, I should know,
"Shone that myself, my powers, might overflow
"So far, so much; as now it signified
"Which earthly shape it henceforth chose my guide,
"Whose mortal lip selected to declare
"Its oracles, what fleshly garb would wear
"The first of intimations, whom to love;
"The next, how love him. Seemed that orb, above
"The castle-covert and the mountain-close,
"Slow in appearing?if beneath it rose
"Cravings, aversions,did our green precinct
"Take pride in me, at unawares distinct
"With this or that endowment,how, repressed
"At once, such jetting power shrank to the rest!
"Was I to have a chance touch spoil me, leave
"My spirit thence unfitted to receive
"The consummating spell?that spell so near
"Moreover! 'Waits he not the waking year?
"'His almond-blossoms must be honey-ripe
"'By this; to welcome him, fresh runnels stripe
"'The thawed ravines; because of him, the wind
"'Walks like a herald. I shall surely find
"'Him now!'
"And chief, that earnest April morn
"Of Richard's Love-court, was it time, so worn
"And white my cheek, so idly my blood beat,
"Sitting that morn beside the Lady's feet
"And saying as she prompted; till outburst
"One face from all the faces. Not then first
"I knew it; where in maple chamber glooms,
"Crowned with what sanguine-heart pomegranate blooms,
"Advanced it ever? Men's acknowledgment
"Sanctioned my own: 't was taken, Palma's bent,
"Sordello,recognized, accepted.
"Dumb
"Sat she still scheming. Ecelin would come
"Gaunt, scared, 'Cesano baffles me,' he 'd say:
"'Better I fought it out, my father's way!
"'Strangle Ferrara in its drowning flats,
"'And you and your Taurello yonder!what's
"'Romano's business there?' An hour's concern
"To cure the froward Chief!induce return
"As heartened from those overmeaning eyes,
"Wound up to persevere,his enterprise
"Marked out anew, its exigent of wit
"Apportioned,she at liberty to sit
"And scheme against the next emergence, I
"To covet her Taurello-sprite, made fly
"Or fold the wingto con your horoscope
"For leave command those steely shafts shoot ope,
"Or straight assuage their blinding eagerness
"In blank smooth snow What semblance of success
"To any of my plans for making you
"Mine and Romano's? Break the first wall through,
"Tread o'er the ruins of the Chief, supplant
"His sons beside, still, vainest were the vaunt:
"There, Salinguerra would obstruct me sheer,
"And the insuperable Tuscan, here,
"Stay me! But one wild eve that Lady died
"In her lone chamber: only I beside:
"Taurello far at Naples, and my sire
"At Padua, Ecelin away in ire
"With Alberic. She held me thusa clutch
"To make our spirits as our bodies touch
"And so began flinging the past up heaps
"Of uncouth treasure from their sunless sleeps
"Within her soul; deeds rose along with dreams,
"Fragments of many miserable schemes,
"Secrets, more secrets, thenno, not the last
"'Mongst others, like a casual trick o' the past,
"How . . . ay, she told me, gathering up her face,
"All left of it, into one arch-grimace
"To die with . . .
"Friend, 't is gone! but not the fear
"Of that fell laughing, heard as now I hear.
"Nor faltered voice, nor seemed her heart grow weak
"When i' the midst abrupt she ceased to speak
"Dead, as to serve a purpose, mark!for in
"Rushed o' the very instant Ecelin
"(How summoned, who divines?)looking as if
"He understood why Adelaide lay stiff
"Already in my arms; for 'Girl, how must
"'I manage Este in the matter thrust
"'Upon me, how unravel your bad coil?
"'Since' (he declared) ''t is on your browa soil
"'Like hers there!' then in the same breath, 'he lacked
"'No counsel after all, had signed no pact
"'With devils, nor was treason here or there,
"'Goito or Vicenza, his affair:
"'He buried it in Adelaide's deep grave,
"'Would begin life afresh, now,would not slave
"'For any Friedrich's nor Taurello's sake!
"'What booted him to meddle or to make
"'In Lombardy?' And afterward I knew
"The meaning of his promise to undo
"All she had donewhy marriages were made,
"New friendships entered on, old followers paid
"With curses for their pains,new friends' amaze
"At height, when, passing out by Gate St. Blaise,
"He stopped short in Vicenza, bent his head
"Over a friar's neck,'had vowed,' he said,
"'Long since, nigh thirty years, because his wife
"'And child were saved there, to bestow his life
"'On God, his gettings on the Church.'
"Exiled
"Within Goito, still one dream beguiled
"My days and nights; 't was found, the orb I sought
"To serve, those glimpses came of Fomalhaut,
"No other: but how serve it?authorize
"You and Romano mingle destinies?
"And straight Romano's angel stood beside
"Me who had else been Boniface's bride,
"For Salinguerra 't was, with neck low bent,
"And voice lightened to music, (as he meant
"To learn, not teach me,) who withdrew the pall
"From the dead past and straight revived it all,
"Making me see how first Romano waxed,
"Wherefore he waned now, why, if I relaxed
"My grasp (even I!) would drop a thing effete,
"Frayed by itself, unequal to complete
"Its course, and counting every step astray
"A gain so much. Romano, every way
"Stable, a Lombard House nowwhy start back
"Into the very outset of its track?
"This patching principle which late allied
"Our House with other Houseswhat beside
"Concerned the apparition, the first Knight
"Who followed Conrad hither in such plight
"His utmost wealth was summed in his one steed?
"For Ecelo, that prowler, was decreed
"A task, in the beginning hazardous
"To him as ever task can be to us;
"But did the weather-beaten thief despair
"When first our crystal cincture of warm air
"That binds the Trevisan,as its spice-belt
"(Crusaders say) the tract where Jesus dwelt,
"Furtive he pierced, and Este was to face
"Despaired Saponian strength of Lombard grace?
"Tried he at making surer aught made sure,
"Maturing what already was mature?
"No; his heart prompted Ecelo, 'Confront
"'Este, inspect yourself. What 's nature? Wont.
"'Discard three-parts your nature, and adopt
"'The rest as an advantage!' Old strength propped
"The man who first grew Podest among
"The Vicentines, no less than, while there sprung
"His palace up in Padua like a threat,
"Their noblest spied a grace, unnoticed yet
"In Conrad's crew. Thus far the object gained,
"Romano was establishedhas remained
"'For are you not Italian, truly peers
"'With Este? Azzo better soothes our ears
"'Than Alberic? or is this lion's-crine
"'From over-mounts' (this yellow hair of mine)
"'So weak a graft on Agnes Este's stock?'
"(Thus went he on with something of a mock)
"'Wherefore recoil, then, from the very fate
"'Conceded you, refuse to imitate
"'Your model farther? Este long since left
"'Being mere Este: as a blade its heft,
"'Este required the Pope to further him:
"'And you, the Kaiserwhom your father's whim
"'Foregoes or, better, never shall forego
"'If Palma dare pursue what Ecelo
"'Commenced, but Ecelin desists from: just
"'As Adelaide of Susa could intrust
"'Her donative,her Piedmont given the Pope,
"'Her Alpine-pass for him to shut or ope
"''Twixt France and Italy,to the superb
"'Matilda's perfecting,so, lest aught curb
"'Our Adelaide's great counter-project for
"'Giving her Trentine to the Emperor
"'With passage here from Germany,shall you
"'Take it,my slender plodding talent, too!'
"Urged me Taurello with his half-smile
"He
"As Patron of the scattered family
"Conveyed me to his Mantua, kept in bruit
"Azzo's alliances and Richard's suit
"Until, the Kaiser excommunicate,
"'Nothing remains,' Taurello said, 'but wait
"'Some rash procedure: Palma was the link,
"'As Agnes' child, between us, and they shrink
"'From losing Palma: judge if we advance,
"'Your father's method, your inheritance!'
"The day I was betrothed to Boniface
"At Padua by Taurello's self, took place
"The outrage of the Ferrarese: again,
"The day I sought Verona with the train
"Agreed for,by Taurello's policy
"Convicting Richard of the fault, since we
"Were present to annul or to confirm,
"Richard, whose patience had outstayed its term,
"Quitted Verona for the siege.
"And now
"What glory may engird Sordello's brow
"Through this? A month since at Oliero slunk
"All that was Ecelin into a monk;
"But how could Salinguerra so forget
"His liege of thirty years as grudge even yet
"One effort to recover him? He sent
"Forthwith the tidings of this last event
"To Ecelindeclared that he, despite
"The recent folly, recognized his right
"To order Salinguerra: 'Should he wring
"'Its uttermost advantage out, or fling
"'This chance away? Or were his sons now Head
"'O' the House?' Through me Taurello's missive sped;
"My father's answer will by me return.
"Behold! 'For him,' he writes, 'no more concern
"'With strife than, for his children, with fresh plots
"'Of Friedrich. Old engagements out he blots
"'For aye: Taurello shall no more subserve,
"'Nor Ecelin impose.' Lest this unnerve
"Taurello at this juncture, slack his grip
"Of Richard, suffer the occasion slip,
"I, in his sons' default (who, mating with
"Este, forsake Romano as the frith
"Its mainsea for that firmland, sea makes head
"Against) I stand, Romano,in their stead
"Assume the station they desert, and give
"Still, as the Kaiser's representative,
"Taurello licence he demands. Midnight
"Morningby noon to-morrow, making light
"Of the League's issue, we, in some gay weed
"Like yours, disguised together, may precede
"The arbitrators to Ferrara: reach
"Him, let Taurello's noble accents teach
"The rest! Then say if I have misconceived
"Your destiny, too readily believed
"The Kaiser's cause your own!"
And Palma's fled.
Though no affirmative disturbs the head,
A dying lamp-flame sinks and rises o'er,
Like the alighted planet Pollux wore,
Until, morn breaking, he resolves to be
Gate-vein of this heart's blood of Lombardy,
Soul of this bodyto wield this aggregate
Of souls and bodies, and so conquer fate
Though he should livea centre of disgust
Evenapart, core of the outward crust
He vivifies, assimilates. For thus
I bring Sordello to the rapturous
Exclaim at the crowd's cry, because one round
Of life was quite accomplished; and he found
Not only that a soul, whate'er its might,
Is insufficient to its own delight,
Both in corporeal organs and in skill
By means of such to body forth its Will
And, after, insufficient to apprise
Men of that Will, oblige them recognize
The Hid by the Revealedbut that,the last
Nor lightest of the struggles overpast,
Will, he bade abdicate, which would not void
The throne, might sit there, suffer he enjoyed
Mankind, a varied and divine array
Incapable of homage, the first way,
Nor fit to render incidentally
Tribute connived at, taken by the by,
In joys. If thus with warrant to rescind
The ignominious exile of mankind
Whose proper service, ascertained intact
As yet, (to be by him themselves made act,
Not watch Sordello acting each of them)
Was to secureif the true diadem
Seemed imminent while our Sordello drank
The wisdom of that golden Palma,thank
Verona's Lady in her citadel
Founded by Gaulish Brennus, legends tell:
And truly when she left him, the sun reared
A head like the first clamberer's who peered
A-top the Capitol, his face on flame
With triumph, triumphing till Manlius came.
Nor slight too much my rhymesthat spring, dispread,
Dispart, disperse, lingering over head
Like an escape of angels! Rather say,
My transcendental platan! mounting gay
(An archimage so courts a novice-queen)
With tremulous silvered trunk, whence branches sheen
Laugh out, thick-foliaged next, a-shiver soon
With coloured buds, then glowing like the moon
One mild flame,last a pause, a burst, and all
Her ivory limbs are smothered by a fall,
Bloom-flinders and fruit-sparkles and leaf-dust,
Ending the weird work prosecuted just
For her amusement; he decrepit, stark,
Dozes; her uncontrolled delight may mark
Apart
Yet not so, surely never so
Only, as good my soul were suffered go
O'er the lagune: forth fare thee, put aside
Entrance thy synod, as a god may glide
Out of the world he fills, and leave it mute
For myriad ages as we men compute,
Returning into it without a break
O' the consciousness! They sleep, and I awake
O'er the lagune, being at Venice.
Note,
In just such songs as Eglamor (say) wrote
With heart and soul and strength, for he believed
Himself achieving all to be achieved
By singerin such songs you find alone
Completeness, judge the song and singer one,
And either purpose answered, his in it
Or its in him: while from true works (to wit
Sordello's dream-performances that will
Never be more than dreamed) escapes there still
Some proof, the singer's proper life was 'neath
The life his song exhibits, this a sheath
To that; a passion and a knowledge far
Transcending these, majestic as they are,
Smouldered; his lay was but an episode
In the bard's life: which evidence you owed
To some slight weariness, some looking-off
Or start-away. The childish skit or scoff
In "Charlemagne," (his poem, dreamed divine
In every point except one silly line
About the restiff daughters)what may lurk
In that? "My life commenced before this work,"
(So I interpret the significance
Of the bard's start aside and look askance)
"My life continues after: on I fare
"With no more stopping, possibly, no care
"To note the undercurrent, the why and how,
"Where, when, o' the deeper life, as thus just now.
"But, silent, shall I cease to live? Alas
"For you! who sigh, 'When shall it come to pass
"'We read that story? How will he compress
"'The future gains, his life's true business,
"'Into the better lay whichthat one flout,
"'Howe'er inopportune it be, lets out
"'Engrosses him already, though professed
"'To meditate with us eternal rest,
"'And partnership in all his life has found?'"
'T is but a sailor's promise, weather-bound:
"Strike sail, slip cable, here the bark be moored
"For once, the awning stretched, the poles assured!
"Noontide above; except the wave's crisp dash,
"Or buzz of colibri, or tortoise' splash,
"The margin 's silent: out with every spoil
"Made in our tracking, coil by mighty coil,
"This serpent of a river to his head
"I' the midst! Admire each treasure, as we spread
"The bank, to help us tell our history
"Aright: give ear, endeavour to descry
"The groves of giant rushes, how they grew
"Like demons' endlong tresses we sailed through,
"What mountains yawned, forests to give us vent
"Opened, each doleful side, yet on we went
"Till . . . may that beetle (shake your cap) attest
"The springing of a land-wind from the West!"
Wherefore? Ah yes, you frolic it to-day!
To-morrow, and, the pageant moved away
Down to the poorest tent-pole, we and you
Part company: no other may pursue
Eastward your voyage, be informed what fate
Intends, if triumph or decline await
The tempter of the everlasting steppe.
I muse this on a ruined palace-step
At Venice: why should I break off, nor sit
Longer upon my step, exhaust the fit
England gave birth to? Who 's adorable
Enough reclaim a - no Sordello's Will
Alack!be queen to me? That Bassanese
Busied among her smoking fruit-boats? These
Perhaps from our delicious Asolo
Who twinkle, pigeons o'er the portico
Not prettier, bind June lilies into sheaves
To deck the bridge-side chapel, dropping leaves
Soiled by their own loose gold-meal? Ah, beneath
The cool arch stoops she, brownest cheek! Her wreath
Endures a montha half-monthif I make
A queen of her, continue for her sake
Sordello's story? Nay, that Paduan girl
Splashes with barer legs where a live whirl
In the dead black Giudecca proves sea-weed
Drifting has sucked down three, four, all indeed
Save one pale-red striped, pale-blue turbaned post
For gondolas.
You sad dishevelled ghost
That pluck at me and point, are you advised
I breathe? Let stay those girls (e'en her disguised
Jewels i' the locks that love no crownet like
Their native field-buds and the green wheat-spike,
So fair!who left this end of June's turmoil,
Shook off, as might a lily its gold soil,
Pomp, save a foolish gem or two, and free
In dream, came join the peasants o'er the sea.)
Look they too happy, too tricked out? Confess
There is such ****rd stock of happiness
To share, that, do one's uttermost, dear wretch,
One labours ineffectually to stretch
It o'er you so that mother and children, both
May equitably flaunt the sumpter-cloth!
Divide the robe yet farther: be content
With seeing just a score pre-eminent
Through shreds of it, acknowledged happy wights,
Engrossing what should furnish all, by rights!
For, these in evidence, you clearlier claim
A like garb for the rest,grace all, the same
As these my peasants. I ask youth and strength
And health for each of you, not moreat length
Grown wise, who asked at home that the whole race
Might add the spirit's to the body's grace,
And all be dizened out as chiefs and bards.
But in this magic weather one discards
Much old requirement. Venice seems a type
Of Life'twixt blue and blue extends, a stripe,
As Life, the somewhat, hangs 'twixt nought and nought:
'T is Venice, and 't is Lifeas good you sought
To spare me the Piazza's slippery stone
Or keep me to the unchoked canals alone,
As hinder Life the evil with the good
Which make up Living, rightly understood.
Only, do finish something! Peasants, queens,
Take them, made happy by whatever means,
Parade them for the common credit, vouch
That a luckless residue, we send to crouch
In corners out of sight, was just as framed
For happiness, its portion might have claimed
As well, and so, obtaining joy, had stalked
Fastuous as any!such my project, baulked
Already; I hardly venture to adjust
The first rags, when you find me. To mistrust
Me!nor unreasonably. You, no doubt,
Have the true knack of tiring suitors out
With those thin lips on tremble, lashless eyes
Inveterately tear-shot: there, be wise,
Mistress of mine, there, there, as if I meant
You insult!shall your friend (not slave) be shent
For speaking home? Beside, care-bit erased
Broken-up beauties ever took my taste
Supremely; and I love you more, far more
Than her I looked should foot Life's temple-floor.
Years ago, leagues at distance, when and where
A whisper came, "Let others seek!thy care
"Is found, thy life's provision; if thy race
"Should be thy mistress, and into one face
"The many faces crowd?" Ah, had I, judge,
Or no, your secret? Rough apparelgrudge
All ornaments save tag or tassel worn
To hint we are not thoroughly forlorn
Slouch bonnet, unloop mantle, careless go
Alone (that's saddest, but it must be so)
Through Venice, sing now and now glance aside,
Aught desultory or undignified,
Then, ravishingest lady, will you pass
Or not each formidable group, the mass
Before the Basilic (that feast gone by,
God's great day of the Corpus Domini)
And, wistfully foregoing proper men,
Come timid up to me for alms? And then
The luxury to hesitate, feign do
Some unexampled grace!when, whom but you
Dare I bestow your own upon? And hear
Further before you say, it is to sneer
I call you ravishing; for I regret
Little that she, whose early foot was set
Forth as she 'd plant it on a pedestal,
Now, i' the silent city, seems to fall
Toward meno wreath, only a lip's unrest
To quiet, surcharged eyelids to be pressed
Dry of their tears upon my bosom. Strange
Such sad chance should produce in thee such change,
My love! Warped souls and bodies! yet God spoke
Of right-hand, foot and eyeselects our yoke,
Sordello, as your poetship may find!
So, sleep upon my shoulder, child, nor mind
Their foolish talk; we 'll manage reinstate
Your old worth; ask moreover, when they prate
Of evil men past hope, "Don't each contrive,
"Despite the evil you abuse, to live?
"Keeping, each losel, through a maze of lies,
"His own conceit of truth? to which he hies
"By obscure windings, tortuous, if you will,
"But to himself not inaccessible;
"He sees truth, and his lies are for the crowd
"Who cannot see; some fancied right allowed
"His vilest wrong, empowered the losel clutch
"One pleasure from a multitude of such
"Denied him." Then assert, "All men appear
"To think all better than themselves, by here
"Trusting a crowd they wrong; but really," say,
"All men think all men stupider than they,
"Since, save themselves, no other comprehends
"The complicated scheme to make amends
"Evil, the scheme by which, thro' Ignorance,
"Good labours to exist." A slight advance,
Merely to find the sickness you die through,
And nought beside! but if one can't eschew
One's portion in the common lot, at least
One can avoid an ignorance increased
Tenfold by dealing out hint after hint
How nought were like dispensing without stint
The water of lifeso easy to dispense
Beside, when one has probed the centre whence
Commotion 's borncould tell you of it all!
"Meantime, just meditate my madrigal
"O' the mugwort that conceals a dewdrop safe!"
What, dullard? we and you in smothery chafe,
Babes, baldheads, stumbled thus far into Zin
The Horrid, getting neither out nor in,
A hungry sun above us, sands that bung
Our throats,each dromedary lolls a tongue,
Each camel churns a sick and frothy chap,
And you, 'twixt tales of Potiphar's mishap,
And sonnets on the earliest **** that spoke,
Remark, you wonder any one needs choke
With founts about! Potsherd him, Gibeonites!
While awkwardly enough your Moses smites
The rock, though he forego his Promised Land
Thereby, have Satan claim his carcass, and
Figure as Metaphysic Poet . . . ah,
Mark ye the dim first oozings? Meribah!
Then, quaffing at the fount my courage gained,
Recallnot that I prompt yewho explained . . .
"Presumptuous!" interrupts one. You, not I
'T is brother, marvel at and magnify
Such office: "office," quotha? can we get
To the beginning of the office yet?
What do we here? simply experiment
Each on the other's power and its intent
When elsewhere tasked,if this of mine were trucked
For yours to either's good,we watch construct,
In short, an engine: with a finished one,
What it can do, is all,nought, how 't is done.
But this of ours yet in probation, dusk
A kernel of strange wheelwork through its husk
Grows into shape by quarters and by halves;
Remark this tooth's spring, wonder what that valve's
Fall bodes, presume each faculty's device,
Make out each other more or less precise
The scope of the whole engine 's to be proved;
We die: which means to say, the whole 's removed,
Dismounted wheel by wheel, this complex gin,
To be set up anew elsewhere, begin
A task indeed, but with a clearer clime
Than the murk lodgment of our building-time.
And then, I grant you, it behoves forget
How 't is doneall that must amuse us yet
So long: and, while you turn upon your heel,
Pray that I be not busy slitting steel
Or shredding brass, camped on some virgin shore
Under a cluster of fresh stars, before
I name a tithe o' the wheels I trust to do!
So occupied, then, are we: hitherto,
At present, and a weary while to come,
The office of ourselves,nor blind nor dumb,
And seeing somewhat of man's state,has been,
For the worst of us, to say they so have seen;
For the better, what it was they saw; the best
Impart the gift of seeing to the rest:
"So that I glance," says such an one, "around,
"And there 's no face but I can read profound
"Disclosures in; this stands for hope, thatfear,
"And for a speech, a deed in proof, look here!
"'Stoop, else the strings of blossom, where the nuts
"'O'erarch, will blind thee! Said I not? She shuts
"'Both eyes this time, so close the hazels meet!
"'Thus, prisoned in the Piombi, I repeat
"'Events one rove occasioned, o'er and o'er,
"'Putting 'twixt me and madness evermore
"'Thy sweet shape, Zanze! Therefore stoop!'
"'That's truth!'
"(Adjudge you) 'the incarcerated youth
"'Would say that!'
"Youth? Plara the bard? Set down
"That Plara spent his youth in a grim town
"Whose cramped ill-featured streets huddled about
"The minster for protection, never out
"Of its black belfry's shade and its bells' roar.
"The brighter shone the suburb,all the more
"Ugly and absolute that shade's reproof
"Of any chance escape of joy,some roof,
"Taller than they, allowed the rest detect,
"Before the sole permitted laugh (suspect
"Who could, 't was meant for laughter, that ploughed cheek's
"Repulsive gleam!) when the sun stopped both peaks
"Of the cleft belfry like a fiery wedge,
"Then sank, a huge flame on its socket edge,
"With leavings on the grey glass oriel-pane
"Ghastly some minutes more. No fear of rain
"The minster minded that! in heaps the dust
"Lay everywhere. This town, the minster's trust,
"Held Plara; who, its denizen, bade hail
"In twice twelve sonnets, Tempe's dewy vale."
"'Exact the town, the minster and the street!'"
"As all mirth triumphs, sadness means defeat:
"Lust triumphs and is gay, Love 's triumphed o'er
"And sad: but Lucio 's sad. I said before,
"Love's sad, not Lucio; one who loves may be
"As gay his love has leave to hope, as he
"Downcast that lusts' desire escapes the springe:
"'T is of the mood itself I speak, what tinge
"Determines it, else colourless,or mirth,
"Or melancholy, as from heaven or earth."
"'Ay, that 's the variation's gist!'
"Indeed?
"Thus far advanced in safety then, proceed!
"And having seen too what I saw, be bold
"And next encounter what I do behold
"(That's sure) but bid you take on trust!"
Attack
The use and purpose of such sights! Alack,
Not so unwisely does the crowd dispense
On Salinguerras praise in preference
To the Sordellos: men of action, these!
Who, seeing just as little as you please,
Yet turn that little to account,engage
With, do not gaze at,carry on, a stage,
The work o' the world, not merely make report
The work existed ere their day! In short,
When at some future no-time a brave band
Sees, using what it sees, then shake my hand
In heaven, my brother! Meanwhile where's the hurt
Of keeping the Makers-see on the alert,
At whose defection mortals stare aghast
As though heaven's bounteous windows were slammed fast
Incontinent? Whereas all you, beneath,
Should scowl at, bruise their lips and break their teeth
Who ply the pullies, for neglecting you:
And therefore have I moulded, made anew
A Man, and give him to be turned and tried,
Be angry with or pleased at. On your side,
Have ye times, places, actors of your own?
Try them upon Sordello when full-grown,
And thenah then! If Hercules first parched
His foot in Egypt only to be marched
A sacrifice for Jove with pomp to suit,
What chance have I? The demigod was mute
Till, at the altar, where time out of mind
Such guests became oblations, chaplets twined
His forehead long enough, and he began
Slaying the slayers, nor escaped a man.
Take not affront, my gentle audience! whom
No Hercules shall make his hecatomb,
Believe, nor from his brows your chaplet rend
That's your kind suffrage, yours, my patron-friend,
Whose great verse blares unintermittent on
Like your own trumpeter at Marathon,
You who, Plata and Salamis being scant,
Put up with tna for a stimulant
And did well, I acknowledged, as he loomed
Over the midland sea last month, presumed
Long, lay demolished in the blazing West
At eve, while towards him tilting cloudlets pressed
Like Persian ships at Salamis. Friend, wear
A crest proud as desert while I declare
Had I a flawless ruby fit to wring
Tears of its colour from that painted king
Who lost it, I would, for that smile which went
To my heart, fling it in the sea, content,
Wearing your verse in place, an amulet
Sovereign against all passion, wear and fret!
My English Eyebright, if you are not glad
That, as I stopped my task awhile, the sad
Dishevelled form, wherein I put mankind
To come at times and keep my pact in mind,
Renewed me,hear no crickets in the hedge,
Nor let a glowworm spot the river's edge
At home, and may the summer showers gush
Without a warning from the missel thrush!
So, to our business, nowthe fate of such
As find our common natureovermuch
Despised because restricted and unfit
To bear the burthen they impose on it
Cling when they would discard it; craving strength
To leap from the allotted world, at length
They do leap,flounder on without a term,
Each a god's germ, doomed to remain a germ
In unexpanded infancy, unless . . .
But that 's the storydull enough, confess!
There might be fitter subjects to allure;
Still, neither misconceive my portraiture
Nor undervalue its adornments quaint:
What seems a fiend perchance may prove a saint.
Ponder a story ancient pens transmit,
Then say if you condemn me or acquit.
John the Beloved, banished Antioch
For Patmos, bade collectively his flock
Farewell, but set apart the closing eve
To comfort those his exile most would grieve,
He knew: a touching spectacle, that house
In motion to receive him! Xanthus' spouse
You missed, made panther's meat a month since; but
Xanthus himself (his nephew 't was, they shut
'Twixt boards and sawed asunder) Polycarp,
Soft Charicle, next year no wheel could warp
To swear by Csar's fortune, with the rest
Were ranged; thro' whom the grey disciple pressed,
Busily blessing right and left, just stopped
To pat one infant's curls, the hangman cropped
Soon after, reached the portal. On its hinge
The door turns and he enters: what quick twinge
Ruins the smiling mouth, those wide eyes fix
Whereon, why like some spectral candlestick's
Branch the disciple's arms? Dead swooned he, woke
Anon, heaved sigh, made shift to gasp, heart-broke,
"Get thee behind me, Satan! Have I toiled
"To no more purpose? Is the gospel foiled
"Here too, and o'er my son's, my Xanthus' hearth,
"Portrayed with sooty garb and features swarth
"Ah Xanthus, am I to thy roof beguiled
"To see thethethe Devil domiciled?"
Whereto sobbed Xanthus, "Father, 't is yourself
"Installed, a limning which our utmost pelf
"Went to procure against to-morrow's loss;
"And that's no twy-prong, but a pastoral cross,
"You 're painted with!"
His puckered brows unfold
And you shall hear Sordello's story told.
~ Robert Browning, Sordello - Book the Third
,#NFDB
1337: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
,#NFDB
1338:The Golden Age
Long ere the Muse the strenuous chords had swept,
And the first lay as yet in silence slept,
A Time there was which since has stirred the lyre
To notes of wail and accents warm with fire;
Moved the soft Mantuan to his silvery strain,
And him who sobbed in pentametric pain;
To which the World, waxed desolate and old,
Fondly reverts, and calls the Age of Gold.
Then, without toil, by vale and mountain side,
Men found their few and simple wants supplied;
Plenty, like dew, dropped subtle from the air,
And Earth's fair gifts rose prodigal as prayer.
Love, with no charms except its own to lure,
Was swiftly answered by a love as pure.
No need for wealth; each glittering fruit and flower,
Each star, each streamlet, made the maiden's dower.
Far in the future lurked maternal throes,
And children blossomed painless as the rose.
No harrowing question `why,' no torturing `how,'
Bent the lithe frame or knit the youthful brow.
The growing mind had naught to seek or shun;
Like the plump fig it ripened in the sun.
From dawn to dark Man's life was steeped in joy,
And the gray sire was happy as the boy.
Nature with Man yet waged no troublous strife,
And Death was almost easier than Life.
Safe on its native mountains throve the oak,
Nor ever groaned 'neath greed's relentless stroke.
No fear of loss, no restlessness for more,
Drove the poor mariner from shore to shore.
No distant mines, by penury divined,
Made him the sport of fickle wave or wind.
Rich for secure, he checked each wish to roam,
And hugged the safe felicity of home.
Those days are long gone by; but who shall say
Why, like a dream, passed Saturn's Reign away?
Over its rise, its ruin, hangs a veil,
486
And naught remains except a Golden Tale.
Whether 'twas sin or hazard that dissolved
That happy scheme by kindly Gods evolved;
Whether Man fell by lucklessness or pride,Let jarring sects, and not the Muse, decide.
But when that cruel Fiat smote the earth,
Primeval Joy was poisoned at its birth.
In sorrow stole the infant from the womb,
The agëd crept in sorrow to the tomb.
The ground, so bounteous once, refused to bear
More than was wrung by sower, seed, and share.
Ofttimes would ruthless winds or torrents raze
The ripening fruit of toilsome nights and days.
Each one in turn grew jealous of his own,
And fenced his patch with ditch and churlish stone.
As greed uprose, and greed engendered strife,
Contention raged coincident with life.
Man against man, maid against maiden turned,
And the soft breast with envious passions burned.
The loss of one was hailed as others' gain,
And pleasure took unnatural birth from pain.
Goaded by woe, and through tradition's lore
Mindful of all the blissfulness of yore,
The Human Race, its sorrows to assuage,
Dreamed afar off a second Golden Age;
Not in the dim irrevocable Past,
But in a Future just as vague and vast.
The prophet's lips, the poet's flattering pen,
Revelled in forecasts of that golden Then.
The days should come when grief would be no more,
And Peace and Plenty rule from shore to shore;
All men alike enjoy what none did earn,
And even more than Saturn's Reign return.
As years rolled on, as centuries went by,
And still that Promised Time seemed no more nigh,
Mankind at length, outwearied with delays,
Gave up all hope of those seductive days.
Then other prophets, other scribes arose,
A nearer, surer Eden to disclose.
`O, long-befooled!' they said, `awake, and deem
The Past a tale, the Future but a dream.
487
Here, in the living Present, act your part,
Straining its vulgar blessings to your heart.
Let hand with hand and brain with brain contend,
And each one labour to some selfish end.
In wealth and riot, luxury and power,
Baffle the mockery of the transient hour.
If thousands fall, if tens of thousands bleed,
Will not a hundred, or a score, succeed?
Let those who cannot yield to those who canFate has its piles of victims; why not Man?
Better a furious fight where some one wins,
Than sluggish life which ends as it begins.
Vain was the bard who, whilst the World was new,
'Twixt men and beasts the fond distinction drew,
That these confine their downward gaze to earth,
Whilst man looks up, enamoured of his birth.
Not in the skies, but deep beneath the soil,
There will you find your happiness and spoil.
Enough for brutes its simple face to know,
But godlike man must pierce and delve below.
Deep in its bowels seek the shining ore,
And at its touch shall Saturn reign once more.
For him whose thews are sound, whose vision clear,
Whose purpose firm, the Golden Age is here.'
Never from cave or tripod, mount or glade,
Issued a voice so welcomed, so obeyed.
From zone to zone the Golden Gospel flew,
And in its train mankind obedient drew.
See from their seats the ancient Gods dethroned,
Altars upset, and oracles disown'd.
The Muses, scared, conceal the smothered lyre;
No longer prized, the Graces swift retire;
Virtue, a butt for ribalds, seeks her shroud,
And even Venus veils herself in cloud.
Religion, Ethics, all men erst adored,
Hymned on the harp, or fought for with the sword,
All lofty scopes, all ends esteemed of old,
Dissolve like mist before the rage for gold.
The priest for gold makes traffic of his robe;
For gold the soldier desolates the globe;
The poet shapes for gold his venal lays;
488
Through gold Vice stalks caparisoned with praise.
Tempted by gold, the virgin sells her charms,
Though no Immortal slips into her arms.
Saddled with gold, the adventurer can buy
Titles, precedence, place, and dignity.
High, middle, low, the young, the ripe, the old,
Man, woman, child, live, die, are damned for Gold.
Soon as the youthful mind begins to ope,
It searches Life's significance and scope;
And, fed by generous impulse year by year,
Dreams for itself some glorious career.
Its shall it be, instructed by the Muse,
Truth to abet, and beauty to diffuse;
With full-blown sail, and genius at the helm,
To steer men's thoughts to a serener realm.
Perhaps the ingenuous boy would fain recall
Tintoret's canvas, Memmi's fresco'd wall;
With godlike pencil purify the mart,
And life ennoble with the breath of Art.
Maybe he burns, by Plato's failure fired,
To scale the heights which every wing have tired,
Seize first each part, then comprehend the whole,
And solve the eternal problem of the Soul.
Be these his aims, or, nobler still, to train
His kind to mutiny till Virtue reign,
Soon doth he learn to count his lovely schemes
A host of bubbles in a world of dreams.
Experience whispers early, Have a care!
Who with the Muse would live must live on air.
The tempting maid is but a poet's lie,
`Who gave to song what gold could never buy.'
Confront the world, take counsel with the throng;
Their verdict what? `The thing's not worth a song.'
Are you content you now have learnt your price?
Come, sink the Muse, and don't be quite so nice.
Start a new Company, and float the shares,
Then lunch with Ministers and dine with Mayors.
Pimp for a Party, praise a Premier's heart,
Head a subscription, and then shine-a Bart.
Return your income fifty thousand clearThe devil's in it, or you'll die a peer.
489
Success so great is never done by halves'Tis only virtue, when 'tis greatest, starves.
Perhaps his breast, untutored yet to serve,
Spurns the base counsel with a proud reserve;
For Youth is stubborn, and when Nature draws,
In vain a parent's warning, wisdom's saws.
Let cravens straight their impotence confess,
And sell their birthright for a filthy mess;
In flowers see, bee-like, nought but stuff for hives,
And for foul lucre prostitute their lives;
They have not failed who never once have tried,
Or, if they failed, they failed for want of pride.
He, he at least his soul will ne'er demean,
But 'mong the foul will keep his honour clean.
O touching sight, to witness day by day
His splendid generous day-dreams fade away!
His sire reproaches, and his brothers scoff,
His mother doubts, his sisters e'en fall off.
The neighbours pity, strangers deem him mad;
Girls, smiling, whisper, What a foolish lad!
Meanwhile his compeers, started in the race,
Are swiftly marching on to power and place.
One makes a coup, and weds a wife of rank;
Another's junior partner in a bank.
A third in sugar with unscriptural hand,
Traffics, and builds a lasting house on sand.
A fourth, for beer and piety renowned,
Owns all the publics in the country round;
Its drink adulterates with face demure,
But burns with zeal to keep opinion pure;
Cares not one jot for bodies drunk or sick,
But scans your soul like a new Dominick.
The fifth, the patron of a new balloon,
Projects a Company to reach the moon;
Baits his prospectus with a batch of peers,
And vows nought pays like money in the Spheres.
Shares in the moon advanced-advancing still.
Then comes a crash-stock guaranteed at nil.
But sure, the man is ruined? Not at all;
He scarce can tumble who has sense to crawl.
490
Your modern Icarus is much too wise
On his own pinions to attempt the skiesOn others' soaring follies doth he rise.
Long ere the bubble burst his shares were sold;
Just at that moment he had need of gold.
Singed wings, you know, are but for simple folk;
He, with his peers, 'scapes safe from flame and smoke,
And buys a borough with the happy stroke.
Few are the souls who die for Cato's creed:
To fail seems base, when all around succeed.
Foiled in his purpose, both by foe and friend,
Through noble means to reach a noble end,
The baffled boy forswears his cherished dream,
And learns to swim, like others, with the stream.
Keen to recover precious moments lost,
And taught by bitter tasks what Virtue cost,
He midst the rush, whilst others rise and fall,
Swims on, the most unscrupulous of all.
Let others chouse with care, he cheats with pluck,
And millions stake their all upon his luck.
His daring overawes the small, the great,
And whilst he plunders they but peculate.
He lures the easy, makes the fat his spoil,
Pares the lean wage of proletarian toil;
Swindles the widow of her hoarded mite,
Drags the poor pensioner once more to fight;
Robs age of rest, and youth of prospects fair,
Plunges the sanguine bridegroom in despair;
Severs the ties made sacred long by home,
And sends the son from sire across the foam;
Dashes the faith of plighted swain and maid,
And helps alone the cynic sexton's spade:
Does all that well beseems a Fallen StarIt needs a Lucifer to fall so far!
Sometimes will Fortune on the traitor scowl,
And e'en with gold not pay a deed so foul.
He who was born a glittering child of light,
Trenchant as Raphael, as Ithuriel bright,
Yet sells his soul a vulgar prize to reap,
And for brute guerdons holds his honour cheap,
491
Too often finds that he who, grovelling, flies
From unrewarded reverie in the skies,
And seeks in venal efforts to employ
The gifts God formed for beauty and for joy,
Makes but a barren barter of his birth,
And Heaven foregoes, without securing earth.
See how he sinks! The more he strains to clutch
Terrestrial spoil, unworthy of his touch,
It seems, for him, to take elusive shapes,
And like a shadow from his grasp escapes.
As baser wax his aims, more mean his scope,
More and still more he sprawls-the sport of Hope.
Still as he tries to suffocate his soul,
Farther beyond him seems the carnal goal.
In vain he turns to catch the favouring gale;
Becalmed he lies-he labours but to fail.
Poor and despised, he now would fain retrace
His erring steps to his first dwelling-place,
But finds, alas! baseness hath borne its fruit;
Wings long unused have withered at the root.
He who in vain has crawled in vain would fly,
And rots abandoned both by earth and sky.
Meaner his end than that poor tradesman's doom,
Who, asked what words of honour on his tomb
His friends should place, with cynic touch replied,
`Here lies who, born a man, a grocer died!'
Whom doth this foe of human virtue spare?
Look round! More sweet its victims, the more fair.
Its natural slaves, who, spawned from wealth, are born
To Traffic's tricks they lack the soul to scorn,
Whose lust for lucre is their proper lot,
It just as oft impoverishes as not.
'Tis those in whom the Unseen God inspires
The restless leaven of divine desires;
Who, from the moment that they lisp, betray
An alien spirit housed within their clay;
Whose fretful youth life's narrow limits chafe,
And yearns for worlds more spacious, if less safe;
Striving to reach, despite its fleshly thrall,
That larger Something which surrounds us all;These, these the souls-and not that baser band-
492
To whom Gold loves to stretch a helping hand;
With early smiles their generous aims to bless,
And lead them, blind, to ruinous success.
When Lelius chanted first his fragrant lays,
Men praised, and he was amply paid with praise.
Not salons' sycophant, nor Fashion's bard,
No glittering heaps did his sweet notes reward.
He was content with audience fit, though few,
When to his side the cunning demon drew.
`Your pen's worth gold; you need but blunt its point;
Come, cut the Muse; the times are out of joint.
Fame's well enough, but comfort has its laws;
You'll make a damned poor supper off applause.
Sing, be select, and starve. Prose is the thingThe thing that pays. The Million now is King.
Write gossip, scandal, slander-what you will;
A well-filled purse awaits a ready quill.'
The curst insidious demon has his way,
And Grub-street swallows Lelius for aye.
Turn from the pen, and for a while survey
The wide domains which brush and canvas sway.
Enter those realms, and what do we behold?
Art, heavenly Art, the slave and pimp of gold!
Time was when its poor votaries were too proud
To sate the itch of a vain-glorious crowd,
Serve the mean aims of narrow personal pelf,
And swell the ignoble retinue of Self.
Only the State, which merges private ends,
Or sacred Church, which lifts them and extends,
Might then presume the artist's craft to claim,
And paid him, happy, with immortal Fame.
Here, Friendship's guest, where fairest Florence lies,
A dream in stone, stretched out before mine eyes,
I think of all the treasures there enshrined,
And what small dole nurtured each master mind;
Or led by memory o'er the classic chain
Which Umbrian slope divides from Tuscan plain,
I all the priceless unbought gems recall
That link with heaven Assisi's frescoed wall;
Then, borne on wings of weakness, I repair
To mine own land, and groan to think that there,
493
Debased by Fashion to a venal trade,
Art counts its triumphs by its fortunes made;
Spurned by the State, and by the Church unsought,
Works but for wealth, and by the base is bought;
Stranger to altars, palaces, or domes,
Pampers the pomp of ostentatious homes.
How changed the days since Duccio's hand of old
On Saints and Virgins lavished costly gold;
But for himself asked but a few poor crowns,
Less than we give to harlequins and clowns.
Now do our mercenary tricksters grudge
Almost the very canvas that they smudge;
Yet scan with greedy eyes the glittering heap
That opulent folly holds, for once, so cheap.
See, too, how Genius, when its touch was true,
On humble walls its lasting fancies drew;
Whose modern apes, ridiculously bold,
Hang their ephemeral daubs in frames of gold.
In vain doth Heaven, while Gold thus rules the earth,
With generous instincts sow the soul at birth.
Swift in the genial soil the seed takes root,
Then seeks the sun with many a venturous shoot.
But, ah, how soon the cruel outer air
Checks the brave growth and nips its promise fair!
Warmed by the glow of Tasso's splendid lay,
Or borne by Dante to the gates of Day;
Softly seduced by Scott's romantic strain
To deem all ends, excepting honour, vain;
Or nobly trained by Shelley's burning song
To cherish an eternal feud with wrong,The simple girl constructs a future fair,
Rears a whole world of castles in the air,
And nowhere warned, or deaf to warning, deems
That life will clothe and justify her dreams.
As year by year the maiden grows apace,
And half the woman mantles in her face,
With sickening sense, sad eye, and sinking heart,
She sees her forecasts one by one depart.
Slowly, but, ah, too surely doth she find
That poets' tales no longer rule mankind;
That Peace is homeless as the hunted hare,
494
And Love far less a shelter than a snare;
That godlike Valour meets a demon's doom,
Whilst Prudence prospers even from the tomb;
That Youth, save schooled in Mammon's miry ways,
Groans o'er the lapse of unrequited days;
That Beauty, Genius, all are vain and cold,
Till foully touched and fertilised by Gold.
Soon as the time so dear to mother's vows
Draws nigh, to find the maid some fitting spouse,
Then most of all she learns what leading part
Is played by Gold in dramas of the heart.
Chance to young Hylas, beautiful as Dawn,
And sweet as fair, she feels her fancy drawn.
Are you a nymph? one whispers. Let him pass.
He doth but gather daisies in the grass.
Where your cool wave, hidden from human eyes,
In which to lure and love him till he dies?
Bid him rejoin his Hercules, and seize
The golden apples of the Hesperides;
And then perchance, should none more rich than he
Engage your love, you may his Hera be.
Alas, poor Hylas! worse than Mysian fate
Doth his meandering flowery feet await.
If that a Solon, versed in every art
Of song and science, touch the maiden's heart,
The neighbours softly whisper, Have a care;
Can Erudition keep a chaise and pair?
Pundits, alas, like fools, must pay their bills,
And Knowledge figures sorrily in wills.
For single life learning is well enough,
But marriage should be made of sterner stuff.
Should Cato's fame her pious soul attract,
The whole world cries, The woman must be cracked.
What! wed with Virtue! Is the girl awake?
Sure, she confounds the altar with the stake.
Send for the doctor. Try a change of air.
Swear Cato drinks. In war and love all's fair.
Bring Croesus to the front. At four he's freeThere's no one left to swindle after three.
In one brief hour behold him curled and drest,
And borne on wings of fashion to the West!
495
What though to regions fondly deemed refined,
He brings his City manners, City mind,
And cynics titter?-he laughs best who wins,A Greenwhich dinner covers many sins.
What! dine with Croesus? Surely. Is a feast
One jot the worse because the host's a beast?
He's worse than that-a snob-a cad. Agreed;
But then his goblets smack of Ganymede?
Do some strange freaks his conversation mar?
He stops your censure with a prime cigar.
A Norway stream, a shooting-lodge in Perth,
In practice look uncommonly like worth.
The Town to hear some new soprano flocks.
You long to go? Well, Croesus has a box.
How at this hour are tickets to be got
For the Regatta? Croesus has a yacht.
Goodwood is here. Your hopes begin to flag.
One chance awaits you: Croesus has a drag.
You doat on Flower-shows: Croesus has a bone.
Be friends with Croesus, and the World's your own.
Who could resist seductions such as these?
Or what could charm, if Croesus failed to please?
Blinded and bribed, the critical are cured,
And loud extol whom late they scarce endured.
Caressed and courted, Croesus grows the rage,
The type and glory of our Golden Age;
And Cato, Hylas, Solon, shoved aside,
Our heavenly maid is hailed as Croesus' bride.
Shade of Lucretius! if thy lyre waxed wild
With sacred rage for Clytemnestra's child,
And nought could hold thee as thy soul surveyed
The cursëd ills Religion can persuade,
How would thy verse impetuously shower
Sonorous scorn on Gold's atrocious power;
Embalm its victims with a touch divine,
And damn the monster in one sounding line!
Can honeyed forms or stereotyped applause
Alter the scope of Heaven's eternal laws?
What though with gifts should massive sideboards groan,
And every heart be glad except her own,
496
And troops of blooming girls behold with pride,
Perchance with envy, this resplendent bride;
Though vieing voices hail her Fashion's queen,
And even a Bishop's blessing crown the scene,
No rites, no rings, no altars, can avail
To make a sacred contract of a sale,
Stir the far depths of the reluctant mind,
Or join the hearts which love hath failed to bind.
If soul stands passive whilst the flesh is sold,
Is there no foul aroma in the gold?
Is the base barter covered by the price,
And do huge figures make the nasty nice?
The nameless outcast, prowling for her prey,
Renews her filthy bargain day by day;
Let Croesus give her what he gave his wife,
She's virtuous too-at least, she's his for life.
Croesus-but hold! Let Charity presume
That Croesus' wife but dimly knew her doom.
The luckless maid, since knowledge comes too late,
In splendour seeks oblivion of her fate;
Of every tender pious aim bereft,
Hugs in despair the only idol left;
In alien worship seeks to be consoled,
And builds her hopes of happiness on Gold.
Gold rules her steps, determines her desiresMere puppet she, whilst Mammon jerks the wires.
Futile to ask if London suits her healthWould you consult her doctor, not her wealth?
You soon are answered: Whether ill or well,
A house in Town is indispensable.
Where shall it be? On gravel or on clay?
Wherever tenants have the most to pay.
Price is the thing, not soil. If Fashion's camp
Be pitched just here, what matter dry or damp?
But, health apart, 'tis known that Croesus' wife,
If left to choose, prefers a country life.
Well, she shall have it when the Parks are brown,
And Fashion, wearied, hath dispersed the Town.
But whilst the woods are leafy, and the lanes
With lush wild-flowers rob life of half its pains;
While sweetest scents and softest sounds combine
497
To make existence, did they last, divine;
Not for the world must Croesus' wife be missed
From fetid streets, foul rooms, and Fashion's list;
And only thence to rural refuge flies
As, self-exhausted, pleasant Summer dies.
Say, shall we marvel, amid scenes like these,
With all to dazzle, but with nought to please,
If links of simple gold should fail to cleave,
And tempters prompt their webs not vainly weave?
See, Plutus, first in each ignoble strife,
Battered and bored, bethinks him of a wife.
The happy tidings, spreading through the West,
Fires each maternal mercenary breast.
The soaring dames parade their daughters' charms,
To lure the hug of Plutus' palsied arms;
And as brave Eld for one fair woman fought,
For one foul man our world to rage is wrought.
At last, opining he might chance do worse,
Plutus to proud Olympia flings his purse.
Olympia lifts it with triumphant smile,
Whilst round her crowds congratulating guile,
Escorts her to the altar, decks her brows
With orange-buds, then leaves her with her spouse,
Who, though his suit by golden showers throve,
Can grasp his Danaë with no thews of Jove.
O, who shall tell Olympia's tale aright,
Each splendid day, each miserable night;
Her thirst divine by human draughts but slaked,
Her smiling face whilst the heart sorely ached,
Or note the edge whence one we loved so well
To sweet, seductive, base perdition fell?
I cast no stone, but half by rage consoled,
I snatch the lyre and curse this fiendish Gold.
Though Beauty's fame oft spreads through all the land,
Splendour is far more curiously scanned;
And they who once upon Olympia threw
A passing glance, since she was fair to view,
Now gilded pomp and Ostentation's choir
Attend her path, of gazing never tire;
Suck up her speech, translate her silent eyes,
498
Each movement, look, and posture scrutinise,
Stalk all her steps, as matron, friend, and wife,
And feed in greedy gossip on her life.
Not mine to follow to the noisome den
Where woman's frailty stands the gaze of men,
And well-coached menials, limed with gold, detail
The piteous scenes that pass behind the veil.
Enough to know that, thanks to wealth, once more
Plutus can woo, e'en richer than before.
The tottering cuckold leaves the court consoled;
Considerate juries tip his horns with Gold!
Sure some malicious demon in the brain
It needs must be, drives men reputed sane
To spurn the joys adjacent to their feet,
In the fond chase of this receding cheat?
Say, when the Stoic on his tranquil height,
And swinish crowd, sweating in miry fight,
In every age a like conclusion reach,
And sage and simple one same sermon preachThat whether Heaven hath made one serf or king,
Reason alone true happiness can bringCan we but stand astounded as we scan
This race untaught, unteachable, called Man?
Would you be truly rich, how small the heap
Your aims require, the price how passing cheap!
A modest house, from urban jars removed,
By thrist selected, yet by taste approved;
Whose walls are gay with every sweet that blows,
Whose windows scented by the blushing rose;
Whose chambers few to no fine airs pretend,
Yet never are too full to greet a friend;
A garden plot, whither unbidden come
Bird's idle pipe and bee's laborious hum;
Smooth-shaven lawn, whereon in pastime's hours
The mallet rings within a belt of flowers;
A leafy nook where to enjoy at will
Gibbon's rich prose or Shakespeare's wizard quill;
A neighbouring copse wherein the stock-doves coo,
And a wild stream unchecked sings all day through;
Two clean bright stalls, where midday, night, and morn,
Two good stout roadsters champ their well-earned corn;
499
A few learned shelves from modern rubbish free,
Yet always, Mill, with just a place for Thee;
Head ne'er at dawn by clownish bouts obscured,
And limbs by temperate exercise inured;
A few firm friendships made in early life,
Yet doubly fastened by a pleasant wife;
A wholesome board, a draught of honest wine;This is true wealth; and this, thank Heaven, is mine!
And though you ransacked worlds from shore to shore,
From sea to sky, you could not give me more.
And if, all these beyond, I still should crave
Something impossible this side the grave,
Let humbler souls my soaring hopes forgiveAfter my life still in my verse to live.
Well would it be if Mammon's feverish rage
Did but the vulgar and the base engage;
If those alone whose undistinguished name,
Haply if fouled, would shed no slur on Fame,
Sought in this sordid, despicable strife,
To find the good and snatch the crown of life.
But in the mire of venal fight embroiled,
Have we not seen the noblest scutcheons soiled?
Not the proud thought that many a splendid fray,
When crowns obeyed the fortunes of the day,
To stalwart arms its pregnant issue owed,
Whose glorious blood in their own body flowed;
Not the remembrance that their sires did share
The toils that made this England great and fair;
Not their resplendent pedigree, nor all
The line of haught fierce faces on the wall,
That tells the tale of their ancestral hall,
Have yet availed, in days like these, to hold
Men, thus seduced, from the coarse race for Gold.
Have we not seen the generous beast, whose sires
Once bore their fathers into battle's fires,
By titled gamblers' mercenary taste
His once stout loins to nimble flanks debased,
Made for curst gold to sweat through all his pores,
The panting pet of blacklegs, lords, and whores?
On such a course what dismal woes await,
500
Let the world learn by young Lucullus' fate.
Whilst yet the bloom of boyhood matched his cheek,
And all his duty was to master Greek.
Make a long score, bound o'er the running brook,
Cleave the clear wave, Lucullus had a book.
No glorious volume was't, whose subtle page
The wisdom breathed of many a studious age.
No wealth of wit, no Learning's garnered sheaves
Lay, like a treasure, lurking in its leaves.
But, in their place, crabbed Calculation scrawled
Symbols which shocked and figures that appalled.
Not for sweet Fancy, nor the simple stake
Of generous sports, did he his tasks forsake.
Ere sentiment could move, or sense control,
Adventurous Greed had swallowed up his soul.
If Gold Acrisius' Tower of Brass could flout,
How will the playground shut the monster out?
Thus by his own base instincts first betrayed,
The race of harpies lend their shameful aid,
With evil eye his smiling lands behold,
And smooth his path to infamy with gold.
At length behold him grown to man's estate,
Rich, noble, noted, lord of his own fate.
Here Duty beckons, Honour there incites,
And Love entices to its saving rites.
He heeds them not; he joins the madding crowd,
King of the base, the vulgar, and the loud;
Builds his most precious friendships on a bet,
And through the gutter trails his coronet.
Vain fool! inflamed by flattery and conceit,
He marks no pitfalls yawning at his feet;
But, winning, deems the cunning snare his luck,
And losing, pays, to plume him on his pluck;
Accepts each challenge, doubles every stake,
While tipsy plaudits follow in his wake.
But what avails, if Fortune quits his side?
Curse on the jade, he cries, she always lied!
Well, now's an end! . . . A comrade plucks his gown:
An end as yet, man! cut the timber down.
The luck will turn; you lost for want of skill;
Come, play again-you'll win. . . . By G-, I will!
501
Done soon as said. The swift sure axe resounds
Through the green stretch of his ancestral grounds.
The soaring elm, whose topmost boughs defied
The scaling valour of his boyish pride;
The umbrageous beech, beneath whose courtly shade
The loves that issued in his life were made;
The lordly oak, young when his line was young,
To which with pride inherited had clung
His sires and they from whom his sires were sprung;
Behold them now, around the naked hall,
One after one in fell succession fall.
Lo, the wide woods which centuries had seen
By frosts unmoved, mid thunder-fugues serene,
By thousand suns, by tens of thousand showers,
Fostered and fed, one greedy day devours.
And all in vain! Lured by the severed spoil,
The foul fierce harpies fasten on the soil.
`My lands on luck.' We take you. Clear the course;
Twenty to one upon Lucullus' horse!
One minute more, and poor Lucullus flies,
The beggared heir of all the centuries.
Then scoffed, and scourged, and stripped of all his wealth,
His last friends leave him-energy and health.
Anxiety and fierce Excitement's flame
Have scorched his blood and shrivelled up his frame.
`Plum to a pony!' hear the cripple call;
`Ere six months pass, the grave will end it all.'
Lucky at last, he wins his bootless bet,
And dies of drink, debauchery, and debt.
Gone are the times indeed when savage Might
Usurped the throne and claimed the wage of Right.
No longer now the tiller of the soil
Sees his fair fields the lusty robber's spoil;
No timid burgher now grows rich by stealth,
Lest some rude noble swoop upon his wealth;
The quiet citizen no longer fears
A raid upon his money or his ears,
That local turmoil or imperial strife
Will wreck his home or leave him bare for life.
But say, is Force the only fearful foe,
502
Or the keen Sword worst source of human woe?
Wielding base weapons Violence disdained,
Cunning prevails where once Compulsion reigned.
The tyrant's lance, Oppression's piercing shaft,
Torment no more, but abdicate to Craft.
Could feudal despot swooping on his prey,
Could bandit burning for the unequal fray,
Could fire, sword, famine, spread more wreck abroad,
Than marks the path of Greed allied with Fraud;
Or waits on life, where no rude signs portend
When the dread bolt of Ruin will descend?
See the poor father, who for years has toiled,
At one fell stroke of all his store despoiled.
His was the pious wish, by daily care
And safe degrees to make his hearth more fair;
His the ambition-far too meek to roamTo swell the simple luxuries of home;
By loving thrift to deck his comely spouse
With some poor gem, the summit of her vows;
To instruct his boys in every generous art
Which trains the man to act a shining part;
By culture's aid to see his daughters armed
With each fair grace that in their mother charmed;
Year after year, as strength and vigour waned,
To find his fondest forecasts all attained;
And then, since faithful to the final stage,
Doff the hard harness from the back of age.
But watchful Greed with jealous eye beheld
Day after day his little earnings swelled;
Studied the tender workings of his mind,
Marked the fond aims to which his heart inclined;
With specious lips his trusting senses stole,
And with false visions fired his prudent soul.
Poor wretch! but yesterday in modest state
He lived, secure from every bolt of Fate.
To-day, he wanders feverish and depressed,
As though whole Andes weighed upon his breast.
To-morrow, back unto his home he crawls,
A beggared man, and at the threshold falls.
Now will no more his trustful wife behold
The gladsome face returning as of old,
503
And read in sparkling eye and smiling cheek
The day's good tidings e'en before he speak;
Never again in hastening footsteps guess
Some pretty love-gift, token of success.
Their blooming boys, for whom parental hope
So oft had cast the fairest horoscope,
And seen with fond anticipating eyes
Each proud successive civic honour rise,
Torn from their noble studies, have to crave
From base pursuits the pittance of a slave,
Pour the soul's wine into the body's sieve,
And grand life lose in mean attempts to live.
Perchance, at home their humble wants denied,
Gaunt Hunger drives them from their mother's side;
Leaves her to weep alone o'er what hath been,
And places ocean, pitiless, between.
The tender girls, their father's pride and joy,
Whose dreams a fiend had scrupled to destroy;
From childhood's earliest days whose only care
Was to be gracious, virtuous, and fair,
And who from Heaven could nothing else implore
Save to be all their mother was before;
Who pictured as their perfect scheme of life
A clinging daughter and a helpful wife,At one rude flash behold the world enlarge,
And stand, pale victims, trembling on the marge.
Little, alas, now boots it where they roam,
Since they must leave the tranquil shores of home.
Whether, poor slaves, they crawl with aching feet
Hour after hour from dreary street to street,
Or, as in mockery of home, alas!
Beneath the stranger's icy portal pass,
And thankless task and miserable wage
Their exiled cheerless energies engage,
Their youth, their life, is blasted at the core,
And Hope's sweet sap will mount their veins no more.
Should every door their humble prayers repel,
Scorning to buy what Hunger kneels to sell,
And they, half thankful that the strangers spurn,
To their own roof be driven to return,
How strange the scene that meets their wearied gaze!
How changed the hearth, the home, of other days!
504
Contracting Care usurps the mother's face,
Whose smiles of old spread sunshine through the place.
Alone she weeps; but should she chance to hear
Her husband's steps, she hides the furtive tear;
Follows his movements with an anxious dread,
Studies his brow, and scans his restless tread;
Assails his woe with every female wile,
Prattles of hope, and simulates a smile.
He, broken man, wrapt in perpetual gloom,
Wanders anon from vacant room to room;
Then, creeping back, the image of despair,
With a deep sigh he sinks into his chair.
He seldom speaks; and when his voice is heard,
Peevish its tone, and querulous his word;
And vain laments and childish tears attest
The lamp of life is dying in his breast.
Perhaps his death some timely pittance frees,
Secured by prudence in their days of ease;
And, O the pity! posthumous relief
Stanches love's wounds, and blunts the edge of grief.
Unless, indeed-for this too hath been knownAll-grasping Greed hath made that mite its own,
Filched from the widow her last hopes of bread,
And whom it ruined living, plunders dead!
These are thy triumphs, Gold! thy trophies these,
To nurture fraud, and rob the world of ease,
Faith to befool, young genius to seduce,
And blight at once its beauty and its use.
Thine is the bait, as loveless hearths avouch,
Which drags fresh victims to the venal couch;
Thine the foul traps wherewith our ways are rife,
That lure them first, then close upon their life;
Thine, thine the springes, set in regions fair,
Whose unseen nooses strangle whom they snare;
The cynic glory thine to lie in wait
To make men little who had else been great,
Frustrate our plenty, aggravate our dearth,
And keep eternal feud 'twixt Heaven and Earth!
Lo, where huge London, huger day by day,
505
O'er six fair counties spreads its hideous sway,
A tract there lies by Fortune's favours blest,
And at Fame's font yclept the happy West.
There, as by wizard touch, for miles on miles,
Rise squares, streets, crescents of palatial piles.
In the brave days when England's trusty voice
Made grappling rivals tremble or rejoice;
When, foremost shield of Weakness or of Right,
She scorned to warn unless resolved to smite;
When, few but firm, her stalwart children bore
The terror of her Flag from shore to shore,
Purged Christ's dear tomb from sacrilege and shame,
And made the Moslem quake at Richard's name;
Taught the vain Gaul, though gallant, still to kneel,
And Spain's proud sons the weight of northern steel;Then were her best in no such splendour nursed
As now awaits her basest and her worst.
No kingly Harry glittering with renown,
No Edward radiant in a peaceful crown,
Was housed as now, at turn of Fortune's wrist,
Some lucky navvy turned capitalist,
Some convict's bastard who a-sudden shines
In the bright splendour of Australian mines,
Or subtle Greek, who, skilled in Eastern ways,
Exposes all Golconda to our gaze.
These, as to Pomp's pretentious peaks they rush,
Heed not the crowds their sordid conquests crush:
Secure in glaring opulence, they scan
With placid eyes the miseries of man;
Fat units, watch the leanness of the whole,
And gag remonstrance with a paltry dole:
Mid harrowing want, with conscience unafraid,
Die on the golden dirt-heaps they have made.
Here Plenty gorges gifts from every zone,
There thankful Hunger gnaws its meagre bone;
Profusion here melts more than pearls in wine,
There craves gaunt Penury some shucks from swine;
And whilst rich rogues quaff deep round roaring fires,
At Dives' portal Lazarus expires!
Betwixt these fierce extremes of wealth and woe,
A crowd of strugglers hustles to and fro,
506
Whose one sole aim and only hope in life
Are just to wrench subsistence from the strife.
To what base shifts these hideous straits compel
The straining wretches, let our records tell.
Victims of greedy Competition's craft,
We drain cheap poison in each sparkling draught,
Purchase a lie in every vaunted ware,
And swallow filth in the most frugal fare.
Building a refuge for our age, we find
The crumbling mortar lets in wet and wind;
Face the rude waves, by science freed from awe,
To sink, poor dupes, on life-belts made of straw!
Nor this the worst! When ripened Shame would hide
Fruits of that hour when Passion conquered Pride,
There are not wanting in this Christian land
The breast remorseless and the Thuggish hand,
To advertise the dens where Death is sold,
And quench the breath of baby-life for gold!
Nor man alone, case-hardened man, surveys
These shocking contrasts with a careless gaze.
Fair melting woman of the tender breast
Here finds no room for pity as her guest.
Unsexed, she strains to Ostentation's goal,
While Splendour's dreams demoralise her soul;
Drains, like a goddess, hecatombs of lives,
Nor heeds who lags, provided she arrives.
See Claribel, by every gift designed
Mid anguish keen to be an angel kind,
Once plunged in rival factions' golden fight,
Turned to a demon in her own despite.
Behold, to-morrow in the Royal smile
Will bask the birth and wealth of all the Isle.
She, long abroad, received the summons late.
What's to be done? Nor time nor tide will wait.
She turns her wardrobe over, racks her brain;
Nothing will do. She wants a dress and train.
Drive to the modiste's. Not a finger free.
There's only Clara. Clara let it be.
But Clara's sick and sorry. Give her gold;
Her aches will cease, her sorrows be consoled.
507
It must be done. Sure Lilian there will glow
In gorgeous newness decked from top to toe;
Shall it be said that Claribel did less?
To-morrow, then, in time the train and dress.
So Clara drags her weary limbs from bed,
O'er the brave finery hangs her throbbing head;
Still as her senses swim sews on and on,
Till day dies out and twilight pale is gone.
Then, by the taper's soft and silent light,
Like a pale flower that opens most by night,
Her pace she quickens, and the needle moves
Subtler and swifter through the gauzy grooves;
But as the dawn on guttering sockets gains,
Her tired lids drop, and sleep arrests her pains.
But sleep how short! She feels her shoulder clutched:
`Clara, awake! the train's not even touched!
Day strides apace. See, there's the morning sun,
And ere again he sinks, 't must all be done.'
Again, again, the shooting thread she plies,
In silent agony of smothered sighs.
She seems to breathe her breath into the gown,
To give it life the while she lays hers down.
Fast as the task advances set by pride,
So fast within her ebbs the vital tide.
The daylight goes, and softly comes the moon's,
And then poor Clara over the last stitch swoons.
Meanwhile, the panting Claribel awaits
The precious gown within her golden gates.
It comes-it comes. Now who shall shine her down?
Not Lilian, surely? No, not the entire Town.
She not for worlds had lost this courtly chance;
And Clara dies that Claribel may dance!
If private worth, thus languishing, expires,
Will public Virtue keep alive her fires?
The slaves of wealth, in Britain as in Rome,
Bring to the Forum vices formed at home.
First the community, and then the State,
Falls to their fangs, which naught can satiate.
Not born nor bred to rule, of culture void,
508
And by no wave of young ambition buoyed,
Anxious on heights conspicuous to flaunt
Nought but the tawdry trophies they can vaunt,
They woo the grasping crowd with golden guile,
And spread Corruption's canker through the Isle.
You want a seat? Then boldly sate your itch.
Be very radical, and very rich.
Sell your opinions first to please the pure,
Then buy the sordid, and your triumph's sure.
Do all, in brief, that honest men abhor,
And England hails another Senator.
See the vain Tribune who, in lust of power,
Bows to the base exactions of the hour,
And, fooled by sycophants, stands forth at last
A devotee turned sworn iconoclast!
Behind him sit dense rows of golden mutes,
Deaf to whate'er demonstrates or refutes,
Ready to vote, rescind, obey in all
The whip demands, as hounds the huntsman's call.
They neither know nor reck what helpful deeds
In this grave hour their perilled Country needs.
They want to see their daughters nobly wed,
Their wives at Court, their own names trumpeted,
Their private Bills advanced another stage,
Their schemes of plunder foisted on the age.
Leave them but these, the gamblers come to call,
Nor heed an Empire nodding to its fall!
When Power is built on props like these, how vain
The hope that Law the giddy will restrain!
Spoilt by twin sops, servility and gold,
The headstrong crowd is then but ill controlled.
In vain they now would sway who lately served,
And Riot cows Authority unnerved.
Better that such base compromise should end,
And the dread bolt of Anarchy descend!
Goths of the gutter, Vandals of the slum,
Thieves and Reformers, come! Barbarians, come!
Before your might let rails and rules be hurled,
And sweep Civilisation from the world!
509
Nor now, alas, do Commoners alone
To private ends the public weal postpone.
Those too, whom worth ancestral plants on seats
High above where all vulgar Clamour beats,
With paltry fear to their clipped ermine cling,
And shrink from right, lest right should ruin bring.
The Peers stand firm; the Commons disagree.
The Peers be-well, it now is close on three.
By five, a world of reasons will be found.
Throw Jonas over, or the ship's aground.
You know the fury of the hand that steers;
And what were Britain with no House of Peers?
Would Primogeniture its fall survive,
Or even Property be kept alive?
Let Herbert fume, or frantic Cecil chafe,
Better a deal to choose the side that's safe;
Bow to the will of Finlen and his hordes,
And still thank Heavën for a House of Lords!
Thus may the British breast exult to think.
That noble names can sell ignoble ink;
That ill-got gains, if deftly spent, unlock
Birth's choicest circles to the ambitious smock;
That Dives foul mounts fine Aristo's stairs,
If but Aristo Dives' plunder shares;
And half Debrett urbanely flocks to White's,
To back the boor who saves them from the kites.
His son succeeds him. `Make the son a Peer.
Why not? His income's eighty thousand clear.
New blood is wanted. Here's the very stuff.
Besides, he wields the county vote.' Enough.
But hold! there's Cato. `Cato! are you sane?
Why, Cato's means but one small hearth sustain.
Ennoble Cato, you'll have Peers for life,
Or else forbid the man to take a wife.
He can't maintain the necessary state,
And would you have a poor name legislate?
No, Dives' son's the very man we need.
What says the Crown?' The Crown! Of course, Agreed.
And the young fool, enriched by parent knaves,
From Ruin's jaws our Constitution saves!
Is there no path of honour for the great,
510
No sound and clean salvation for the State?
Must we for ever fly to shifts like this,
And trust to Gold to save us from the abyss?
Must honours old by new-got wealth be vamped,
And Valour's stock by plutocrats be swamped?
Back to your lands, base sons of splendid sires!
From spendthrift squares back to your native shires!
Back, back from Baden, and leave Homburg's shades
To dazzling Jews and mercenary jades.
Leave London's round of vulgar joys to those
Who seek in such from base pursuits repose.
Cease to contend with upstart Wealth's parade,
To wring your lands to vie with tricks of trade;
And, proudly spurning Glitter's transient lies,
At least be honest, if you can't be wise!
Worship your household gods, and spend at home
The solid earnings of the generous loam.
Delve, fence, and drain; the dripping waste reclaim;
With spreading woodlands multiply your fame.
Yours let it be to screen the reverent hind,
Who loves your presence, 'gainst the frost and wind;
Scorning to count the profit, raise his lot;
Lure the shy Graces to his lowly cot;
Be, one and all, acknowledged, far and wide,
Patriarchs and patterns of the country side.
And whether demagogues shall rise or fall,
A Cleon mount, or Boänerges bawl,
True to yourselves and native duty, thus
Save this poor England by being virtuous!
And you, Sir, hope of this once famous isle,
Round whom its halo plays, its favours smile,
Hark to the Muse, which, poised on Candour's wings,
Flouts the base crowd, but scorns to flatter kings.
Hark, while she tells you, nor her counsel spurn,
From giddy Pleasure's gilded toys to turn;
That not from minions opulent or coarse
Do Princes gain their lustre and their force;
That Reverence anchors not in deep carouse,
And that a Crown fits only kingly brows!
Fired by each bright example, shun the shade,
Where Scandal best can ply her noxious trade.
511
Learn from your pious Father how to share
With hands, too lonely now, a Kingdom's care.
Be by your fair loved Consort's pattern moved,
And like your virtuous Mother, stand approved;
Do for this England all the Sceptre can,
And be at least a stainless gentleman.
Be this too much, you well may live to find
That firmest Thrones can fail the weak and blind,
And, though no Samson, sharing half his fate,
Pull down the pillars of a mighty State!
Whilst our domestic fortunes thus obey
All-searching Gold's demoralising sway,
We hug the limits of our puny shore,
And Glory knows our once great name no more.
First are we still in every bloodless fray,
Where piles of gold adventurous prows repay;
But when flushed Honour sets the world on fire,
We furl our sails and to our coasts retire;
And, basely calm whilst outraged nations bleed,
Invent new doctrines to excuse our greed.
When gallant Denmark, now the spoiler's prey,
Flashed her bright blade, and faced the unequal fray,
And, all abandoned both by men and gods,
Fell, faint with wounds, before accursèd odds,Where, where was England's vindicating sword,
Her promised arm, to stay the invading horde;
Bid the rude German drop his half-clutched spoil,
And scare the robber from ancestral soil?
The fair young Dane, beloved by every Grace,
And all the Virtues shining in her face,
Who, more an angel than a princess deemed,
Withal was even sweeter than she seemed,
With noisy throats we summoned o'er the foam,
And with cheap cheers escorted to her home.
But when with streaming eye and throbbing breast
She, pious child, her loving fears confessed,
And, leagued with Honour's voice and Valour's ire,
Prayed us to save her country and her sire,
We turned away, and opulently cold,
Put back our swords of steel in sheaths of gold!
512
And yet what sandy base doth Gold afford,
Though crowned by Law, and fenced round by the Sword,
Learn from that Empire which, a scorn for aye,
Grew in a night and perished in a day!
Helped by a magic name and doubtful hour,
See the Adventurer scale the steeps of Power.
Upon him groups of desperate gamesters wait,
To snatch their profit from a sinking State.
Folly, and Fate which Folly still attends,
Conspire to shape and expedite their ends.
The Hour, the Man are here! No pulse? No breath?
Wake, Freedom, wake! In vain! She sleeps like Death.
The impious hands, emboldened by her swoon,
Choke in the night, and slay her in the noon!
Then, when vain crowds with dilatory glaive
Rush to avenge the life they would not save,
The prompt conspirators with lavish hand
Fling their last pieces to a pampered band,
Bribe cut-throat blades Vengeance' choked ways to hold,
And bar the avenues of rage with gold!
Then mark how soon, amid triumphant hymns,
The Imperial purple girds the blood-stained limbs.
The perjured hands a golden sceptre gain,
A crown of gold screens the seared brow of Cain,
And golden eagles, erst of simpler ore,
Assert the Caesar, and his rod restore.
See round his throne Pomp's servile tributes swell,
Not Nero knew, e'er Rome to ruin fell,
Far from his feet the lust of glitter spread,
And the vain herd on Splendour's follies fed!
Nor they alone, the shallow, base, and gay,
Bend to this Idol with the feet of clay:
Statesmen and soldiers kneel with flattering suit,
Kings are his guests, e'en queens his cheeks salute;
Senates extol him, supple priests caress,
And even thou, O Pius, stoop'st to bless!
And the World's verdict, ever blind as base,
Welcomes the `Second Saviour' of the race!
And yet how weak this Empire girt with gold
Did prove to save when Battle's torrents rolled,
513
Have we not seen in ruin, rout, and shame,
Burnt deep in Gaul's for ever broken fame?
What then availed her courts of pomp and pride,
What her bright camps with glittering shows allied?
What, in that hour, the luxury which passed
To soldiers' lips the sybarite repast?
Did all her gold suffice, when steel withstood
Her stride, to make her rash, vain challenge good?
Behold her Chief, in comfort longwhile slung,
By War's rough couch and random fare unstrung
His vaunted Leaders, who to Power had mown
Their path with swords that propped a venal Throne,
Brandishing rival blades, his brain confound,
While still, but sure, the solid foe press round.
See her soft sons, whom arms enervate lead,
Spurn the long marches which to victory speed,
And, fondly deeming Science served by Wealth
Will snatch the fight at distance and by stealth,
Smitten with fear at Valour's downright face,
And taught swift limbs in Flight's ignoble chase!
See one, see all, before the Victor fleet,
Then lay their swords, submissive, at his feet!
O hapless France! e'en then insurgent ire
Had your soiled scutcheon lifted from the mire,
Placed the bright helm on Honour's front once more,
And laurels reaped more lasting than of yore,
Had not rich ease your manhood's marrow stole,
And gold emollient softened all your soul.
O, what a sight-a sight these eyes beheldHer fair green woods by the invader felled;
Her fields and vineyards by the Teuton trod,
Those she once smote encamped upon her sod;
Her homes, in dread, abandoned to the foe,
Or saved from rapine by obsequience low;
Her cities ransomed, provinces o'erawed,
Her iron strongholds wrenched by force or fraud;
Her once proud Paris grovelling in the dust,
And-crowning irony, if lesson justThe grasping victor, loth to quit his hold,
Coaxed slowly homewards o'er a bridge of gold!
514
Is there no warning, England, here, for thee?
Or are Heaven's laws balked by a strip of sea?
Are thy foundations, Albion, so approved,
Thou canst behold such downfall all unmoved?
Have we not marked how this Briarean Gold
Doth all our life and energies enfold?
And as our practice, so our doctrines tooWe shape new ethics for our vices new;
Our sires forswear, our splendid Past defame,
And in high places glory in our shame!
Hear our loud-tinkling Tribunes all declare
Once lavish England hath no blood to spare,
No gold to spend; within her watery wall
She needs to roll and wallow in it all.
Doth towering Might some poor faint Cause oppress,
They bid her turn, impartial, from distress;
Indulge her tears, but hide her ire from sight,
Lest a like doom her angry front invite.
And when this craven caution fails to save
Her peaceful fortunes from the braggart glaive,
They bid her still be moral and be meek,
Hug tight her gold, and turn the other cheek.
Her very sons, sprung from her mighty loins,
We aliens make, to save some paltry coins;
With our own hands destroy our Empire old,
And stutter, `All is lost, except our gold!'
With languid limbs, by comfortable fire,
We see our glories, one by one, expire;
A Nelson's flag, a Churchill's flashing blade,
Debased to menials of rapacious Trade;
Lost by a Cardwell what a Wellesley won,
And by a Gladstone Chatham's world undone!
Pale, gibbering spectres fumbling at the helm,
Whilst dark winds howl, and billowy seas o'erwhelm.
Yet deem you, England, that you thus will save,
Even your wealth from rapine or the grave?
Will your one chain of safety always hold,
Or `silver streak' for ever guard your gold?
If through long slumbrous years the ignoble rust
Of selfish ease your erst bright steel encrust,
When Storm impends, you vainly will implore
The Gods of Ocean to protect your shore.
515
Bribed by the foe, behold Britannia stand
At Freedom's portals with a traitress hand,
Help the Barbarian to its sacred hold,
Then, like Tarpeia, sink oppressed with Gold!
Perish the thought! O, rather let me see
Conspiring myriads bristling on the sea,
Our tranquil coasts bewildered by alarms,
And Britain, singly, face a World in arms!
What if a treacherous Heaven befriend our foes?
Let us go down in glory, as we rose!
And if that doom-the best that could betideBe to our Fame by envious Fate denied,
Then come, primeval clouds and seasons frore,
And wrap in gloom our luckless land once more!
Come, every wind of Heaven that rudely blows,
Plunge back our Isle in never-ending snows!
Rage, Eurus, rage! fierce Boreas, descend!
With glacial mists lost Albion befriend!
E'en of its name be every trace destroyed,
And Dark sit brooding o'er the formless Void!
~ Alfred Austin,#NFDB
1339:Ashtaroth: A Dramatic Lyric
Dramatis Personae
HUGO, a Norman Baron and a Scholar.
ERIC, a friend of Hugo's.
THURSTON, |
EUSTACE, |
RALPH, | Followers of Hugo.
HENRY, a Page.
LUKE, |
HUBERT, | Monks living in a Norman Chapel.
BASIL, Abbot of a Convent on the Rhine.
CYRIL, a Monk of the same Convent.
OSRIC, a Norwegian Adventurer, and formerly a Corsair.
RUDOLPH, an Outlawed Count, and the Captain of a Band of Robbers.
DAGOBERT, the Captain of some predatory Soldiers called "Free Lances".
HAROLD, a Danish Knight.
ORION.
THORA,
AGATHA,
ELSPETH, a Nurse of Thora's,
URSULA, Abbess of the Convent on the Rhine, |
NUNS, etc.
| Women.
Men-at-arms, Soldiers, and Robbers; Monks, Friars, and Churchmen, Spirits,
etc.
SCENE — A Castle in Normandy.
A Study in a Tower; HUGO seated at a table covered with maps and charts
of the heavens, astronomical instruments, books, manuscripts,
Enter HENRY, a Page.
Hugo:
Well, boy, what is it?
27
Henry: The feast is spread.
Hugo:
Why tarry the guests for me?
Let Eric sit at the table's head;
Alone I desire to be. [Henry goes out.]
What share have I at their festive board?
Their mirth I can only mar;
To me no pleasure their cups afford,
Their songs on my silence jar.
With an aching eye and a throbbing brain,
And yet with a hopeful heart,
I must toil and strain with the planets again
When the rays of the sun depart;
He who must needs with the topers tope,
And the feasters feast in the hall,
How can he hope with a matter to cope
That is immaterial?
Orion:
He who his appetite stints and curbs,
Shut up in the northern wing,
With his rye-bread flavoured with bitter herbs,
And his draught from the tasteless spring,
Good sooth, he is but a sorry clown.
There are some good things upon earth —
Pleasure and power and fair renown,
And wisdom of worldly worth!
There is wisdom in follies that charm the sense,
In follies that light the eyes,
But the folly to wisdom that makes pretence
Is alone by the fool termed wise.
Hugo:
Thy speech, Orion, is somewhat rude;
Perchance, having jeer'd and scoff'd
To thy fill, thou wilt curb thy jeering mood;
I wot thou hast served me oft.
This plan of the skies seems fairly traced;
What errors canst thou detect?
28
Orion:
Nay, the constellations are misplaced,
And the satellites incorrect;
Leave the plan to me; you have time to seek
An hour of needful rest,
The night is young and the planets are weak;
See, the sun still reddens the west.
Hugo:
I fear I shall sleep too long.
Orion: If you do
It matters not much; the sky
Is cloudy, the stars will be faint and few;
Now, list to my lullaby.
[Hugo reclines on a couch.]
(Sings.)
Still the darkling skies are red,
Though the day-god's course is run;
Heavenly night-lamps overhead
Flash and twinkle one by one.
Idle dreamer — earth-born elf!
Vainly grasping heavenly things,
Wherefore weariest thou thyself
With thy vain imaginings?
From the tree of knowledge first,
Since his parents pluck'd the fruit,
Man, with partial knowledge curs'd,
Of the tree still seeks the root;
Musty volumes crowd thy shelf —
Which of these true knowledge brings?
Wherefore weariest thou thyself
With thy vain imaginings?
Will the stars from heaven descend?
Can the earth-worm soar and rise?
Can the mortal comprehend
Heaven's own hallow'd mysteries?
Greed and glory, power and pelf —
These are won by clowns and kings;
Wherefore weariest thou thyself
29
With thy vain imaginings?
Sow and reap, and toil and spin;
Eat and drink, and dream and die;
Man may strive, yet never win,
And I laugh the while and cry —
Idle dreamer, earth-born elf!
Vainly grasping heavenly things,
Wherefore weariest thou thyself
With thy vain imaginings?
He sleeps, and his sleep appears serene,
Whatever dreams it has brought him —
[Looks at the plans.]
If he knows what those hieroglyphics mean,
He's wiser than one who taught him.
Why does he number the Pole-star thus?
Or the Pleiades why combine?
And what is he doing with Sirius,
In the devil's name or in mine?
Man thinks, discarding the beaten track,
That the sins of his youth are slain,
When he seeks fresh sins, but he soon comes back
To his old pet sins again.
SCENE — The Same.
HUGO waking, ORION seated near him. Daybreak.
Hugo:
Oh, weary spirit! oh, cloudy eyes!
Oh, heavy and misty brain!
Yon riddle that lies 'twixt earth and skies,
Ye seek to explore in vain!
See, the east is grey; put those scrolls away,
And hide them far from my sight;
I will toil and study no more by day,
I will watch no longer by night;
I have labour'd and long'd, and now I seem
No nearer the mystic goal;
30
Orion, I fain would devise some scheme
To quiet this restless soul;
To distant climes I would fain depart —
I would travel by sea or land.
Orion:
Nay, I warn'd you of this, "Short life, long art",
The proverb, though stale, will stand;
Full many a sage from youth to age
Has toil'd to obtain what you
Would master at once. In a pilgrimage,
Forsooth, there is nothing new;
Though virtue, I ween, in change of scene,
And vigour in change of air,
Will always be, and has always been,
And travel is a tonic rare.
Still, the restless, discontented mood
For the time alone is eased;
It will soon return with hunger renew'd,
And appetite unappeased.
Nathless I could teach a shorter plan
To win that wisdom you crave,
That lore that is seldom attain'd by man
From the cradle down to the grave.
Hugo:
Such lore I had rather do without,
It hath nothing mystic nor awful
In my eye. Nay, I despise and doubt
The arts that are term'd unlawful;
'Twixt science and magic the line lies plain,
I shall never wittingly pass it;
There is now no compact between us twain.
Orion: But an understanding tacit.
You have prospered much since the day we met;
You were then a landless knight;
You now have honour and wealth, and yet
I never can serve you right.
Hugo:
Enough; we will start this very day,
31
Thurston, Eric, and I,
And the baffled visions will pass away,
And the restless fires will die.
Orion:
Till the fuel expires that feeds those fires
They smoulder and live unspent;
Give a mortal all that his heart desires,
He is less than ever content.
SCENE — A Cliff on the Breton Coast, Overhanging the Sea.
HUGO.
Hugo:
Down drops the red sun; through the gloaming
They burst — raging waves of the sea,
Foaming out their own shame — ever foaming
Their leprosy up with fierce glee;
Flung back from the stone, snowy fountains
Of feathery flakes, scarcely flag
Where, shock after shock, the green mountains
Explode on the iron-grey crag.
The salt spray with ceaseless commotion
Leaps round me. I sit on the verge
Of the cliff — 'twixt the earth and the ocean —
With feet overhanging the surge.
In thy grandeur, oh, sea! we acknowledge,
In thy fairness, oh, earth! we confess,
Hidden truths that are taught in no college,
Hidden songs that no parchments express.
Were they wise in their own generations,
Those sages and sagas of old?
They have pass'd; o'er their names and their nations
Time's billows have silently roll'd;
They have pass'd, leaving little to their children,
Save histories of a truth far from strict;
Or theories more vague and bewildering,
32
Since three out of four contradict.
Lost labour! vain bookworms have sat in
The halls of dull pedants who teach
Strange tongues, the dead lore of the Latin,
The scroll that is god-like and Greek:
Have wasted life's springtide in learning
Things long ago learnt all in vain;
They are slow, very slow, in discerning
That book lore and wisdom are twain.
Pale shades of a creed that was mythic,
By time or by truth overcome,
Your Delphian temples and Pythic
Are ruins deserted and dumb;
Your Muses are hush'd, and your Graces
Are bruised and defaced; and your gods,
Enshrin'd and enthron'd in high places
No longer, are powerless as clods;
By forest and streamlet, where glisten'd
Fair feet of the Naiads that skimm'd
The shallows; where the Oreads listen'd,
Rose-lipp'd, amber-hair'd, marble-limb'd,
No lithe forms disport in the river,
No sweet faces peer through the boughs,
Elms and beeches wave silent for ever,
Ever silent the bright water flows.
(Were they duller or wiser than we are,
Those heathens of old? Who shall say?
Worse or better? Thy wisdom, O "Thea
Glaucopis", was wise in thy day;
And the false gods alluring to evil,
That sway'd reckless votaries then,
Were slain to no purpose; they revel
Re-crowned in the hearts of us men.)
Dead priests of Osiris and Isis,
And Apis! that mystical lore,
Like a nightmare, conceived in a crisis
Of fever, is studied no more;
33
Dead Magian! yon star-troop that spangles
The arch of yon firmament vast
Looks calm, like a host of white angels,
On dry dust of votaries past.
On seas unexplored can the ship shun
Sunk rocks? Can man fathom life's links,
Past or future, unsolved by Egyptian
Or Theban, unspoken by Sphinx?
The riddle remains still unravell'd
By students consuming night oil.
Oh, earth! we have toil'd, we have travail'd,
How long shall we travail and toil?
How long? The short life that fools reckon
So sweet, by how much is it higher
Than brute life? — the false gods still beckon,
And man, through the dust and the mire,
Toils onward, as toils the dull bullock,
Unreasoning, brutish, and blind,
With Ashtaroth, Mammon, and Moloch
In front, and Alecto behind.
The wise one of earth, the Chaldean,
Serves folly in wisdom's disguise;
And the sensual Epicurean,
Though grosser, is hardly less wise;
'Twixt the former, half pedant, half pagan,
And the latter, half sow and half sloth,
We halt, choose Astarte or Dagon,
Or sacrifice freely to both.
With our reason that seeks to disparage,
Brute instinct it fails to subdue;
With our false illegitimate courage,
Our sophistry, vain and untrue;
Our hopes that ascend so and fall so,
Our passions, fierce hates and hot loves,
We are wise (aye, the snake is wise also) —
Wise as serpents, NOT harmless as doves.
Some flashes, like faint sparks from heaven,
34
Come rarely with rushing of wings;
We are conscious at times we have striven,
Though seldom, to grasp better things;
These pass, leaving hearts that have falter'd,
Good angels with faces estranged,
And the skin of the Ethiop unalter'd,
And the spots of the leopard unchanged.
Oh, earth! pleasant earth! have we hanker'd
To gather thy flowers and thy fruits?
The roses are wither'd, and canker'd
The lilies, and barren the roots
Of the fig-tree, the vine, the wild olive,
Sharp thorns and sad thistles that yield
Fierce harvest — so WE live, and SO live
The perishing beasts of the field.
And withal we are conscious of evil
And good — of the spirit and the clod,
Of the power in our hearts of a devil,
Of the power in our souls of a God,
Whose commandments are graven in no cypher,
But clear as His sun — from our youth
One at least we have cherished — "An eye for
An eye, and a tooth for a tooth."
Oh, man! of thy Maker the image;
To passion, to pride, or to wealth,
Sworn bondsman, from dull youth to dim age,
Thy portion the fire or the filth,
Dross seeking, dead pleasure's death rattle
Thy memories' happiest song,
And thy highest hope — scarce a drawn battle
With dark desperation. How long?
Roar louder! leap higher! ye surf-beds,
And sprinkle your foam on the furze;
Bring the dreams that brought sleep to our turf-beds,
To camps of our long ago years,
With the flashing and sparkling of broadswords,
35
With the tossing of banners and spears,
With the trampling of hard hoofs on hard swards,
With the mingling of trumpets and cheers.
The gale has gone down; yet outlasting
The gale, raging waves of the sea,
Casting up their own foam, ever casting
Their leprosy up with wild glee,
Still storm; so in rashness and rudeness
Man storms through the days of his grace;
Yet man cannot fathom God's goodness,
Exceeding God's infinite space.
And coldly and calmly and purely
Grey rock and green hillock lie white
In star-shine dream-laden — so surely
Night cometh — so cometh the night
When we, too, at peace with our neighbour,
May sleep where God's hillocks are piled,
Thanking HIM for a rest from day's labour,
And a sleep like the sleep of a child!
SCENE — The Castle in Normandy.
THORA working at embroidery, ELSPETH spinning.
Thora (sings):
We severed in autumn early,
Ere the earth was torn by the plough;
The wheat and the oats and the barley
Are ripe for the harvest now.
We sunder'd one misty morning,
Ere the hills were dimm'd by the rain,
Through the flowers those hills adorning —
Thou comest not back again.
My heart is heavy and weary
With the weight of a weary soul;
36
The mid-day glare grows dreary,
And dreary the midnight scroll.
The corn-stalks sigh for the sickle,
'Neath the load of the golden grain;
I sigh for a mate more fickle —
Thou comest not back again.
The warm sun riseth and setteth,
The night bringeth moistening dew,
But the soul that longeth forgetteth
The warmth and the moisture too;
In the hot sun rising and setting
There is naught save feverish pain;
There are tears in the night-dews wetting —
Thou comest not back again.
Thy voice in mine ear still mingles
With the voices of whisp'ring trees;
Thy kiss on my cheek still tingles
At each kiss of the summer breeze;
While dreams of the past are thronging
For substance of shades in vain,
I am waiting, watching, and longing —
Thou comest not back again.
Waiting and watching ever,
Longing and lingering yet,
Leaves rustle and corn-stalks quiver,
Winds murmur and waters fret;
No answer they bring, no greeting,
No speech save that sad refrain,
Nor voice, save an echo repeating —
He cometh not back again.
Elspeth:
Thine eldest sister is wedded to Max;
With Biorn, Hilda hath cast her lot.
If the husbands vanish'd, and left no tracks,
Would the wives have cause for sorrow, I wot?
Thora:
How well I remember that dreary ride;
37
How I sigh'd for the lands of ice and snow,
In the trackless wastes of the desert wide,
With the sun o'erhead and the sand below;
'Neath the scanty shades of the feathery palms,
How I sigh'd for the forest of sheltering firs,
Whose shadows environ'd the Danish farms,
Where I sang and sported in childish years.
On the fourteenth day of our pilgrimage
We stayed at the foot of a sandhill high;
Our fever'd thirst we could scarce assuage
At the brackish well that was nearly dry,
And the hot sun rose, and the hot sun set,
And we rode all the day through a desert land,
And we camp'd where the lake and the river met,
On sedge and shingle and shining sand:
Enfolded in Hugo's cloak I slept,
Or watch'd the stars while I lay awake;
And close to our feet the staghound crept,
And the horses were grazing beside the lake;
Now we own castles and serving men,
Lands and revenues. What of that?
Hugo the Norman was kinder then,
And happier was Thora of Armorat.
Elspeth:
Nay, I warn'd thee, with Norman sails unfurl'd
Above our heads, when we wished thee joy,
That men are the same all over the world,
They will worship only the newest toy;
Yet Hugo is kind and constant too,
Though somewhat given to studies of late;
Biorn is sottish, and Max untrue,
And worse than thine is thy sisters' fate.
But a shadow darkens the chamber door.
Enter THURSTON.
Thurston:
'Tis I, Lady Thora; our lord is near.
My horse being fresher, I rode before;
Both he and Eric will soon be here.
38
Thora:
Good Thurston, give me your hand. You are
Most welcome. What has delayed you thus?
Thurston:
Both by sea and land we have travell'd far,
Yet little of note has happened to us —
We were wreck'd on the shores of Brittany,
Near the coast of Morbihan iron-bound;
The rocks were steep and the surf ran high,
Thy kinsman, Eric, was well-nigh drown'd.
By a swarm of knaves we were next beset,
Who took us for corsairs; then released
By a Breton count, whose name I forget.
Now I go, by your leave, to tend my beast.
[He goes out.]
Elspeth:
That man is rude and froward of speech:
My ears are good, though my sight grows dim.
Thora:
Thurston is faithful. Thou canst not teach
Courtly nor servile manners to him.
SCENE — The Castle Hall.
THURSTON, RALPH, EUSTACE, and other followers of HUGO,
seated at a long table. HAROLD seated apart.
Thurston:
Who is that stranger, dark and tall,
On the wooden settle next to the wall —
Mountebank, pilgrim, or wandering bard?
Eustace:
To define his calling is somewhat hard;
Lady Thora has taken him by the hand
Because he has come from the Holy Land.
39
Pilgrims and palmers are all the rage
With her, since she shared in that pilgrimage
With Hugo. The stranger came yesterday,
And would have gone on, but she bade him stay.
Besides, he sings in the Danish tongue
The songs she has heard in her childhood sung.
That's all I know of him, good or bad;
In my own opinion he's somewhat mad.
You must raise your voice if you speak with him,
And he answers as though his senses were dim.
Thurston (to Harold):
Good-morrow, sir stranger.
Harold: Good-morrow, friend.
Thurston:
Where do you come from? and whither wend?
Harold:
I have travelled of late with the setting sun
At my back; and as soon as my task is done
I purpose to turn my face to the north —
Yet we know not what a day may bring forth.
Thurston:
Indeed we don't.
(To Eustace, aside): Nay, I know him now
By that ugly scar that crosses his brow;
And the less we say to him the better.
Your judgment is right to the very letter —
The man is mad.
Eustace: But harmless, I think;
He eats but little, eschews strong drink,
And only speaks when spoken to first.
Thurston:
Harmless or not, he was once the worst
And bitterest foe Lord Hugo had;
And yet his story is somewhat sad.
40
Eustace:
May I hear it?
Thurston: Nay, I never reveal
What concerns me not. Our lord may conceal
Or divulge at pleasure his own affairs, —
Not even his comrade Eric shares
His secrets; though Eric thinks him wise,
Which is more than I do, for I despise
That foolish science he learnt in Rome.
He dreams and mopes when he sits at home,
And now he's not much better abroad;
'Tis hard to follow so tame a lord.
'Twixt us two, he won't be worth a rush
If he will persist in his studies ——
Eustace: Hush!
Ralph has persuaded our guest to sing.
Thurston:
I have known the day when his voice would ring
Till the rafters echoed.
Eustace: 'Tis pleasant still,
Though far too feeble this hall to fill.
Harold (sings):
On the current, where the wide
Windings of the river
Eddy to the North Sea tide,
Shall I in my shallop glide,
As I have done at her side?
Never! never! never!
In the forest, where the firs,
Pines, and larches quiver
To the northern breeze that stirs,
Shall my lips be press'd to hers,
As they were in by-gone years?
Never! never! never!
41
In the battle on the plain,
Where the lance-shafts shiver,
And the sword-strokes fall like rain,
Shall I bear her scarf again
As I have done — not in vain?
Never! never! never!
In a fairer, brighter land,
Where the saints rest ever,
Shall I once more see her stand,
White, amidst a white-robed band,
Harp and palm-branch in her hand?
Never! never! never!
SCENE — The Same.
EUSTACE, THURSTON, and followers of HUGO. HAROLD.
Enter, by the hall door, HUGO, ERIC, and THORA.
Eustace (and others standing up):
Welcome, Lord Hugo!
Hugo: Welcome or not,
Thanks for your greeting all.
Ha, Eustace! what complaints hast thou got?
What grievances to recall?
Eustace:
Count William came with a numerous band,
Ere the snows began to fall,
And slew a buck on your lordship's land,
Within a league of the wall.
Hugo:
Count William has done to us no more
Than we to him. In his vineyard
Last summer, or later, maybe, a boar
Was slaughter'd by Thurston's whinyard.
42
Thurston:
Aye, Hugo! But William kept the buck,
I will wager marks a score,
Though the tale is new to me; and, worse luck,
You made me give back the boar.
Harold (advancing):
Lord Hugo!
Hugo: What! Art thou living yet?
I scarcely knew thee, Sir Dane!
And 'tis not so very long since we met.
Harold:
'Twill be long ere we meet again. (gives a letter)
This letter was traced by one now dead
In the Holy Land; and I
Must wait till his dying request is read,
And in his name ask the reply.
Thora (aside):
Who is that stranger, Hugo?
Hugo: By birth
He is a countryman of thine,
Thora. What writing is this on earth?
I can scarce decipher a line.
Harold:
The pen in the clutch of death works ill.
Hugo:
Nay, I read now; the letters run
More clearly.
Harold: Wilt grant the request?
Hugo: I will.
Harold:
Enough! Then my task is done. (He holds out his hand.)
Hugo, I go to a far-off land,
43
Wilt thou say, "God speed thee!" now?
Hugo:
Sir Harold, I cannot take thy hand,
Because of my ancient vow.
Harold:
Farewell, then.
Thora: Friend, till the morning wait.
On so wild a night as this
Thou shalt not go from my husband's gate;
The path thou wilt surely miss.
Harold:
I go. Kind lady, some future day
Thy care will requited be.
Thora:
Speak, Hugo, speak.
Hugo: He may go or stay,
It matters little to me.
[Harold goes out.]
Thora:
Husband, that man is ill and weak;
On foot he goes and alone
Through a barren moor in a night-storm bleak.
Eric:
Now I wonder where he has gone!
Hugo:
Indeed, I have not the least idea;
The man is certainly mad.
He wedded my sister, Dorothea,
And used her cruelly bad.
He was once my firmest and surest friend,
And once my deadliest foe;
But hate and friendship both find their end —
Now I heed not where he may go.
44
SCENE — A Chamber in the Castle.
HUGO, THORA, and ERIC.
Hugo:
That letter that came from Palestine,
By the hands of yon wandering Dane,
Will cost me a pilgrimage to the Rhine.
Thora:
Wilt thou travel so soon again?
Hugo:
I can scarce refuse the dying request
Of my comrade, Baldwin, now;
His bones are dust. May his soul find rest
He once made a foolish vow,
That at Englemehr, 'neath the watchful care
Of the Abbess, his child should stay,
For a season at least. To escort her there
I must start at the break of day.
Thora:
Is it Agatha that goes, or Clare?
Hugo:
Nay, Clare is dwelling in Spain
With her spouse.
Thora: 'Tis Agatha. She is fair,
I am told; but giddy and vain.
Eric:
Some musty tales on my memory grow
Concerning Count Baldwin's vow;
Thou knew'st his daughter?
Hugo: Aye, years ago.
I should scarcely know her now.
45
It seems, when her father's vow was made,
She was taken sorely ill;
Then he travell'd, and on his return was stay'd;
He could never his oath fulfil.
Eric:
If rightly I've heard, 'twas Agatha
That fled with some Danish knight —
I forget the name.
Hugo: Nay, she fled not far;
She returned again that night.
Thora:
For a nun, I fear, she is too self-willed.
Hugo:
That is no affair of mine.
My task is over, my word fulfilled,
Should I bring her safe to the Rhine.
Come, Thora, sing.
Thora: Nay, I cannot sing,
Nor would I now if I could.
Sing thou.
Hugo: I will, though my voice should bring
No sound save a discord rude.
(Sings.)
Where the storm in its wrath hath lighted,
The pine lies low in the dust;
And the corn is withered and blighted,
Where the fields are red with the rust;
Falls the black frost, nipping and killing,
Where its petals the violet rears,
And the wind, though tempered, is chilling
To the lamb despoiled by the shears.
The strong in their strength are shaken,
The wise in their wisdom fall;
And the bloom of beauty is taken —
Strength, wisdom, beauty, and all,
46
They vanish, their lot fulfilling,
Their doom approaches and nears,
But the wind, though tempered, is chilling
To the lamb despoiled by the shears.
'Tis the will of a Great Creator,
He is wise, His will must be done,
And it cometh sooner or later;
And one shall be taken, and one
Shall be left here, toiling and tilling,
In this vale of sorrows and tears,
Where the wind, though tempered, is chilling
To the lamb despoiled by the shears.
Tell me, mine own one, tell me,
The shadows of life and the fears
Shall neither daunt me nor quell me,
While I can avert thy tears:
Dost thou shrink, as I shrink, unwilling
To realise lonely years?
Since the wind, though tempered, is chilling
To the lamb despoiled by the shears.
Enter HENRY.
Henry:
My lord, Father Luke craves audience straight,
He has come on foot from the chapel;
Some stranger perished beside his gate
When the dawn began to dapple.
SCENE — A Chapel Not Very Far from Hugo's Castle.
HUGO, ERIC, and two Monks (LUKE and HUBERT). The dead body of HAROLD.
Luke:
When the dawn was breaking,
Came a faint sound, waking
Hubert and myself; we hurried to the door,
Found the stranger lying
47
At the threshold, dying.
Somewhere have I seen a face like his before.
Hugo:
Harold he is hight.
Only yester-night
From our gates he wander'd, in the driving hail;
Well his face I know,
Both as friend and foe;
Of my followers only Thurston knows his tale.
Luke:
Few the words he said,
Faint the signs he made,
Twice or thrice he groaned; quoth Hubert, "Thou hast sinn'd.
This is retribution,
Seek for absolution;
Answer me — then cast thy sorrows to the wind.
Do their voices reach thee,
Friends who failed to teach thee,
In thine earlier days, to sunder right from wrong?
Charges 'gainst thee cited,
Cares all unrequited,
Counsels spurned and slighted — do they press and throng?"
But he shook his head.
"'Tis not so," he said;
"They will scarce reproach me who reproached of yore.
If their counsels good,
Rashly I withstood;
Having suffered longer, I have suffered more."
"Do their curses stun thee?
Foes who failed to shun thee,
Stricken by rash vengeance, in some wild career,
As the barbed arrow
Cleaveth bone and marrow,
From those chambers narrow — do they pierce thine ear?"
And he made reply,
Laughing bitterly,
"Did I fear them living — shall I fear them dead?
Blood that I have spilt
Leaveth little guilt;
48
On the hand it resteth, scarcely on the head."
"Is there one whom thou
May'st have wronged ere now,
Since remorse so sorely weigheth down thine heart?
By some saint in heaven,
Sanctified and shriven,
Would'st thou be forgiven ere thy soul depart?"
Not a word he said,
But he bowed his head
Till his temples rested on the chilly sods
And we heard him groan —
"Ah! mine own, mine own!
If I had thy pardon I might ask for God's."
Hubert raised him slowly,
Sunrise, faint and holy,
Lit the dead face, placid as a child's might be.
May the troubled spirit,
Through Christ's saving merit,
Peace and rest inherit. Thus we sent for thee.
Hugo:
God o'erruleth fate.
I had cause for hate;
In this very chapel, years back, proud and strong,
Joined by priestly vows,
He became the spouse
Of my youngest sister, to her bitter wrong.
And he wrought her woe,
Making me his foe;
Not alone unfaithful — brutal, too, was he.
She had scarce been dead
Three months, ere he fled
With Count Baldwin's daughter, then betrothed to me.
Fortune straight forsook him,
Vengeance overtook him;
Heavy crimes will bring down heavy punishment.
All his strength was shatter'd,
Even his wits were scatter'd,
Half-deranged, half-crippled, wandering he went.
We are unforgiving
49
While our foes are living;
Yet his retribution weigh'd so heavily
That I feel remorse,
Gazing on his corpse,
For my rudeness when he left our gates to die.
And his grave shall be
'Neath the chestnut tree,
Where he met my sister many years ago;
Leave that tress of hair
On his bosom there —
Wrap the cerecloth round him! Eric, let us go.
SCENE — A Room in the Castle.
HUGO and ERIC. Early morning.
Hugo:
The morn is fair, the weary miles
Will shorten 'neath the summer's wiles;
Pomona in the orchard smiles,
And in the meadow, Flora!
And I have roused a chosen band
For escort through the troubled land;
And shaken Elspeth by the hand,
And said farewell to Thora.
Comrade and kinsman — for thou art
Comrade and kin to me — we part
Ere nightfall, if at once we start,
We gain the dead Count's castle.
The roads are fair, the days are fine,
Ere long I hope to reach the Rhine.
Forsooth, no friend to me or mine
Is that same Abbot Basil;
I thought he wronged us by his greed.
My father sign'd a foolish deed
For lack of gold in time of need,
And thus our lands went by us;
Yet wrong on our side may have been:
As far as my will goes, I ween,
'Tis past, the grudge that lay between
50
Us twain. Men call him pious —
And I have prosper'd much since then,
And gain'd for one lost acre ten;
And even the ancient house and glen
Rebought with purchase-money.
He, too, is wealthy; he has got
By churchly rights a fertile spot,
A land of corn and wine, I wot,
A land of milk and honey.
Now, Eric, change thy plans and ride
With us; thou hast no ties, no bride.
Eric:
Nay, ties I have, and time and tide,
Thou knowest, wait for no man;
And I go north; God's blessing shuns
The dwellings of forgetful sons,
That proverb he may read who runs,
In Christian lore or Roman.
My good old mother she hath heard,
For twelve long months, from me no word;
At thought of her my heart is stirr'd,
And even mine eyes grow moister.
Greet Ursula from me; her fame
Is known to all. A nobler dame,
Since days of Clovis, ne'er became
The inmate of a cloister.
Our paths diverge, yet we may go
Together for a league or so;
I, too, will join thy band below
When thou thy bugle windest.
[Eric goes out.]
Hugo:
From weaknesses we stand afar,
On us unpleasantly they jar;
And yet the stoutest-hearted are
The gentlest and the kindest.
My mother loved me tenderly;
Alas! her only son was I.
I shudder'd, but my lids were dry,
By death made orphan newly.
51
A braver man than me, I swear,
Who never comprehended fear,
Scarce names his mother, and the tear,
Unbidden, springs unruly.
SCENE — A Road on the Norman Frontiers.
HUGO, AGATHA, ORION, THURSTON, and armed attendants, riding slowly.
Agatha:
Sir Knight, what makes you so grave and glum?
At times I fear you are deaf or dumb,
Or both.
Hugo: And yet, should I speak the truth,
There is little in common 'twixt us, forsooth;
You would think me duller, and still more vain,
If I uttered the thoughts that fill my brain;
Since the matters with which my mind is laden
Would scarcely serve to amuse a maiden.
Agatha:
I am so foolish and you are so wise,
'Tis the meaning your words so ill disguise.
Alas! my prospects are sad enough:
I had rather listen to speeches rough
Than muse and meditate silently
On the coming loss of my liberty.
Sad hope to me can my future bring,
Yet, while I may, I would prattle and sing,
Though it only were to try and assuage
The dreariness of my pilgrimage.
Hugo:
Prattle and sing to your heart's content,
And none will offer impediment.
Agatha (sings):
We were playmates in childhood, my sister and I,
Whose playtime with childhood is done;
52
Through thickets where briar and bramble grew high,
Barefooted I've oft seen her run.
I've known her, when mists on the moorland hung white,
Bareheaded past nightfall remain;
She has followed a landless and penniless knight
Through battles and sieges in Spain.
But I pulled the flower, and shrank from the thorn,
Sought the sunshine, and fled from the mist;
My sister was born to face hardship with scorn —
I was born to be fondled and kiss'd.
Hugo (aside):
She has a sweet voice.
Orion: And a sweet face, too —
Be candid for once, and give her her due.
Agatha:
Your face grows longer, and still more long,
Sir Scholar! how did you like my song?
Hugo:
I thought it rather a silly one.
Agatha:
You are far from a pleasant companion.
SCENE — An Apartment in a Wayside Inn.
HUGO and AGATHA. Evening.
Hugo:
I will leave you now — we have talked enough,
And for one so tenderly reared and nursed
This journey is wearisome, perhaps, and rough.
Agatha: Will you not finish your story first?
53
Hugo:
I repent me that I began it now,
'Tis a dismal tale for a maiden's ears;
Your cheek is pale already, your brow
Is sad, and your eyes are moist with tears.
Agatha:
It may be thus, I am lightly vexed,
But the tears will lightly come and go;
I can cry one moment and laugh the next,
Yet I have seen terrors, as well you know.
I remember that flight through moss and fern,
The moonlit shadows, the hoofs that rolled
In fierce pursuit, and the ending stern,
And the hawk that left his prey on the wold.
Hugo:
I have sorrowed since that I left you there:
Your friends were close behind on the heath,
Though not so close as I thought they were.
(Aside.) Now I will not tell her of Harold's death.
Agatha:
'Tis true, I was justly punished, and men,
As a rule, of pity have little share;
Had I died you had cared but little then.
Hugo: But little then, yet now I should care
More than you think for. Now, good-night.
Tears still? Ere I leave you, child, alone,
Must I dry your cheeks?
Agatha: Nay, I am not quite
Such a child but what I can dry my own.
[Hugo goes out. Agatha retires.]
Orion (singing outside the window of Agatha's chamber):
'Neath the stems with blossoms laden,
'Neath the tendrils curling,
I, thy servant, sing, oh, maiden!
I, thy slave, oh, darling!
54
Lo! the shaft that slew the red deer,
At the elk may fly too.
Spare them not! The dead are dead, dear,
Let the living die too.
Where the wiles of serpent mingle,
And the looks of dove lie,
Where small hands in strong hands tingle,
Loving eyes meet lovely:
Where the harder natures soften,
And the softer harden —
Certes! such things have been often
Since we left Eve's garden.
Sweeter follies herald sadder
Sins — look not too closely;
Tongue of asp and tooth of adder
Under leaf of rose lie.
Warned, advised in vain, abandon
Warning and advice too,
Let the child lay wilful hand on
Den of cockatrice too.
I, thy servant, or thy master,
One or both — no matter;
If the former — firmer, faster,
Surer still the latter —
Lull thee, soothe thee with my singing,
Bid thee sleep, and ponder
On my lullabies still ringing
Through thy dreamland yonder.
SCENE — A Wooded Rising Ground, Near the Rhine.
HUGO and AGATHA resting under the trees. THURSTON, EUSTACE,
and followers a little apart. ORION. (Noonday.)
The Towers of the Convent in the distance.
Agatha:
I sit on the greensward, and hear the bird sing,
55
'Mid the thickets where scarlet and white blossoms cling;
And beyond the sweet uplands all golden with flower,
It looms in the distance, the grey convent tower.
And the emerald earth and the sapphire-hued sky
Keep telling me ever my spring has gone by;
Ah! spring premature, they are tolling thy knell,
In the wind's soft adieu, in the bird's sweet farewell.
Oh! why is the greensward with garlands so gay,
That I quail at the sight of my prison-house grey?
Oh! why is the bird's note so joyous and clear?
The caged bird must pine in a cage doubly drear.
Hugo:
May the lances of Dagobert harry their house,
If they coax or intimidate thee to take vows;
May the freebooters pillage their shrines, should they dare
Touch with their scissors thy glittering hair.
Our short and sweet journey now draws to an end,
And homeward my sorrowful way I must wend;
Oh, fair one! oh, loved one! I would I were free,
To squander my life in the greenwood with thee.
Orion (aside):
Ho! seeker of knowledge, so grave and so wise,
Touch her soft curl again — look again in her eyes;
Forget for the nonce musty parchments, and learn
How the slow pulse may quicken — the cold blood may burn.
Ho! fair, fickle maiden, so blooming and shy!
The old love is dead, let the old promise die!
Thou dost well, thou dost wise, take the word of Orion,
"A living dog always before a dead lion!"
Thurston:
Ye varlets, I would I knew which of ye burst
Our wine-skin — what, ho! must I perish with thirst!
Go, Henry, thou hast a glib tongue, go and ask
Thy lord to send Ralph to yon inn for a flask.
Henry:
Nay, Thurston, not so; I decline to disturb
56
Our lord for the present; go thou, or else curb
Thy thirst, or drink water, as I do.
Thurston: Thou knave
Of a page, dost thou wish me the colic to have?
Orion (aside):
That clown is a thoroughbred Saxon. He thinks
With pleasure on naught save hard blows and strong drinks;
In hell he will scarce go athirst if once given
An inkling of any good liquors in heaven.
Hugo:
Our Pontiff to manhood at Englemehr grew,
The priests there are many, the nuns are but few.
I love not the Abbot — 'tis needless to tell
My reason; but all of the Abbess speak well.
Agatha:
Through vineyards and cornfields beneath us, the Rhine
Spreads and winds, silver-white, in the merry sunshine;
And the air, overcharged with a subtle perfume,
Grows faint from the essence of manifold bloom.
Hugo:
And the tinkling of bells, and the bleating of sheep,
And the chaunt from the fields, where the labourers reap
The earlier harvest, comes faint on the breeze,
That whispers so faintly in hedgerows and trees.
Orion:
And a waggon wends slow to those turrets and spires,
To feed the fat monks and the corpulent friars;
It carries the corn, and the oil, and the wine,
The honey and milk from the shores of the Rhine.
The oxen are weary and spent with their load,
They pause, but the driver doth recklessly goad;
Up yon steep, flinty rise they have staggered and reeled,
Even devils may pity dumb beasts of the field.
57
Agatha (sings):
Oh! days and years departed,
Vain hopes, vain fears that smarted,
I turn to you sad-hearted —
I turn to you in tears!
Your daily sun shone brightly,
Your happy dreams came nightly,
Flowers bloomed and birds sang lightly,
Through all your hopes and fears!
You halted not, nor tarried,
Your hopes have all miscarried,
And even your fears are buried,
Since fear with hope must die.
You halted not, but hasted,
And flew past, childhood wasted,
And girlhood scarcely tasted,
Now womanhood is nigh.
Yet I forgive your wronging,
Dead seasons round me thronging,
With yearning and with longing,
I call your bitters sweet.
Vain longing, and vain yearning,
There now is no returning;
Oh! beating heart and burning,
Forget to burn and beat!
Oh! childish suns and showers,
Oh! girlish thorns and flowers,
Oh! fruitless days and hours,
Oh! groundless hopes and fears:
The birds still chirp and twitter,
And still the sunbeams glitter:
Oh! barren years and bitter,
Oh! bitter, barren years!
SCENE — The Summit of a Burning Mountain.
Night. A terrific storm. ORION (undisguised).
58
Orion (sings):
From fathomless depths of abysses,
Where fires unquenchable burst,
From the blackness of darkness, where hisses
The brood of the serpent accurs'd;
From shrines where the hymns are the weeping
And wailing and gnashing of teeth,
Where the palm is the pang never sleeping,
Where the worm never dying is the wreath;
Where all fruits save wickedness wither,
Whence naught save despair can be gleaned —
Come hither! come hither! come hither!
Fall'n angel, fell sprite, and foul fiend.
Come hither! the bands are all broken,
And loosed in hell's innermost womb,
When the spell unpronounceable spoken
Divides the unspeakable gloom.
Evil Spirits approach. The storm increases.
Evil Spirits (singing):
We hear thee, we seek thee, on pinions
That darken the shades of the shade;
Oh! Prince of the Air, with dominions
Encompass'd, with powers array'd,
With majesty cloth'd as a garment,
Begirt with a shadowy shine,
Whose feet scorch the hill-tops that are meant
As footstools for thee and for thine.
Orion (sings):
How it swells through each pause of the thunder,
And mounts through each lull of the gust,
Through the crashing of crags torn asunder,
And the hurtling of trees in the dust;
With a chorus of loud lamentations,
With its dreary and hopeless refrain!
'Tis the cry of all tongues and all nations,
That suffer and shudder in vain.
59
Evil Spirits (singing):
'Tis the cry of all tongues and all nations;
Our song shall chime in with their strain;
Lost spirits blend their wild exultations
With the sighing of mortals in pain.
Orion (sings):
With just light enough to see sorrows
In this world, and terrors beyond,
'Twixt the day's bitter pangs and the morrow's
Dread doubts, to despair and despond,
Man lingers through toils unavailing
For blessings that baffle his grasp;
To his cradle he comes with a wailing,
He goes to his grave with a gasp.
Evil Spirits (singing):
His birth is a weeping and wailing,
His death is a groan and a gasp;
O'er the seed of the woman prevailing,
Thus triumphs the seed of the asp.
SCENE — Chamber of a Wayside Inn.
HUGO sitting alone. Evening.
Hugo:
And now the parting is over,
The parting should end the pain;
And the restless heart may recover,
And so may the troubled brain.
I am sitting within the chamber
Whose windows look on the porch,
Where the roses cluster and clamber;
We halted here on our march
With her to the convent going,
And now I go back alone:
Ye roses, budding and blowing,
Ye heed not though she is flown.
60
I remember the girlish gesture,
The sportive and childlike grace,
With which she crumpled and pressed your
Rose leaves to her rose-hued face.
Shall I think on her ways hereafter —
On those flashes of mirth and grief,
On that April of tears and laughter,
On our parting, bitterly brief?
I remember the bell at sunrise,
That sounded so solemnly,
Bidding monk, and prelate, and nun rise;
I rose ere the sun was high.
Down the long, dark, dismal passage,
To the door of her resting-place
I went, on a farewell message,
I trod with a stealthy pace.
There was no one there to see us
When she opened her chamber door.
"Miserere, mei Deus",
Rang faint from the convent choir.
I remember the dark and narrow
And scantily-furnished room;
And the gleam, like a golden arrow —
The gleam that lighted the gloom.
One couch, one seat, and one table,
One window, and only one —
It stands in the eastern gable,
It faces the rising sun;
One ray shot through it, and one light
On doorway and threshold played.
She stood within in the sunlight,
I stood without in the shade.
I remember that bright form under
The sheen of that slanting ray.
I spoke — "For life we must sunder,
Let us sunder without delay.
Let us sever without preamble,
As brother and sister part,
For the sake of one pleasant ramble,
61
That will live in at least one heart."
Still the choir in my ears rang faintly,
In the distance dying away,
Sweetly and sadly and saintly,
Through arch and corridor grey!
And thus we parted for ever,
Between the shade and the shine;
Not as brother and sister sever —
I fondled her hands in mine.
Still the choir in my ears rang deaden'd
And dull'd, though audible yet;
And she redden'd, and paled, and redden'd —
Her lashes and lids grew wet.
Not as brother severs from sister,
My lips clung fast to her lips;
She shivered and shrank when I kissed her.
On the sunbeam drooped the eclipse.
I remember little of the parting
With the Abbot, down by the gate,
My men were eager for starting;
I think he pressed me to wait.
From the lands where convent and glebe lie,
From manors, and Church's right,
Where I fought temptation so feebly,
I, too, felt eager for flight.
Alas! the parting is over —
The parting, but not the pain —
Oh! sweet was the purple clover,
And sweet was the yellow grain;
And sweet were the woody hollows
On the summery Rhineward track;
But a winter untimely swallows
All sweets as I travel back.
Yet I feel assured, in some fashion,
Ere the hedges are crisp with rime,
I shall conquer this senseless passion,
'Twill yield to toil and to time.
I will fetter these fancies roaming;
Already the sun has dipped;
62
I will trim the lamps in the gloaming,
I will finish my manuscript.
Through the nightwatch unflagging study
Shall banish regrets perforce;
As soon as the east is ruddy
Our bugle shall sound "To Horse!"
SCENE — Another Wayside House, Near the Norman Frontier.
HUGO and ORION in a chamber. Evening.
Orion:
Your eyes are hollow, your step is slow,
And your cheek is pallid as though from toil,
Watching or fasting, by which I know
That you have been burning the midnight oil.
Hugo:
Aye, three nights running.
Orion: 'Twill never do
To travel all day, and study all night;
Will you join in a gallop through mist and dew,
In a flight that may vie with the eagle's flight?
Hugo:
With all my heart. Shall we saddle "Rollo"?
Orion:
Nay, leave him undisturb'd in his stall;
I have steeds he would hardly care to follow.
Hugo:
Follow, forsooth! he can lead them all.
Orion:
Touching his merits we will not quarrel;
But let me mount you for once; enough
Of work may await your favourite sorrel,
And the paths we must traverse to-night are rough.
63
But first let me mix you a beverage,
To invigorate your enfeebled frame.
[He mixes a draught and hands it to Hugo.]
All human ills this draught can assuage.
Hugo:
It hisses and glows like liquid flame;
Say, what quack nostrum is this thou'st brewed?
Speak out; I am learned in the chemist's lore.
Orion:
There is nothing but what will do you good;
And the drugs are simples; 'tis hellebore,
Nepenthe, upas, and dragon's blood,
Absinthe, and mandrake, and mandragore.
Hugo:
I will drink it, although, by mass and rood,
I am just as wise as I was before.
SCENE — A Rough, Hilly Country.
HUGO and ORION riding at speed on black horses.
Mountains in the distance. Night.
Hugo:
See! the sparks that fly from our hoof-strokes make
A fiery track that gleams in our wake;
Like a dream the dim landscape past us shoots,
Our horses fly.
Orion: They are useful brutes,
Though somewhat skittish; the foam is whit'ning
The crest and rein of my courser "Lightning";
He pulls to-night, being short of work,
And takes his head with a sudden jerk;
Still heel and steady hand on the bit,
For that is "Tempest" on which you sit.
Hugo:
64
'Tis the bravest steed that ever I back'd;
Did'st mark how he crossed yon cataract?
From hoof to hoof I should like to measure
The space he clear'd.
Orion: He can clear at leisure
A greater distance. Observe the chasm
We are nearing. Ha! did you feel a spasm
As we flew over it?
Hugo: Not at all.
Orion:
Nathless 'twas an ugly place for a fall.
Hugo:
Let us try a race to yon mountain high,
That rears its dusky peak 'gainst the sky.
Orion:
I won't disparage your horsemanship,
But your steed will stand neither spur nor whip,
And is hasty and hard to steer at times.
We must travel far ere the midnight chimes;
We must travel back ere the east is grey.
Ho! "Lightning"! "Tempest"! Away! Away!
[They ride on faster.]
SCENE — A Peak in a Mountainous Country Overhanging a Rocky Pass.
HUGO and ORION on black horses. Midnight.
Hugo:
These steeds are sprung from no common race,
Their vigour seems to annihilate space;
What hast thou brought me here to see?
Orion:
No boisterous scene of unhallow'd glee,
No sabbat of witches coarse and rude,
65
But a mystic and musical interlude;
You have long'd to explore the scrolls of Fate,
Dismount, as I do, and listen and wait.
[They dismount.]
Orion (chanting):
Spirits of earth, and air, and sea,
Spirits unclean, and spirits untrue,
By the symbols three that shall nameless be,
One of your masters calls on you.
Spirits (chanting in the distance):
From the bowels of earth, where gleams the gold;
From the air where the powers of darkness hold
Their court; from the white sea-foam,
Whence the white rose-tinted goddess sprung,
Whom poets of every age have sung,
Ever we come! we come!
Hugo:
How close to our ears the thunder peals!
How the earth beneath us shudders and reels!
A Voice (chanting):
Woe to the earth! Where men give death!
And women give birth!
To the sons of Adam, by Cain or Seth!
Plenty and dearth!
To the daughters of Eve, who toil and spin,
Barren of worth!
Let them sigh, and sicken, and suffer sin!
Woe to the earth!
Hugo:
What is yon phantom large and dim
That over the mountain seems to swim?
Orion:
'Tis the scarlet woman of Babylon!
Hugo:
Whence does she come? Where has she gone?
66
And who is she?
Orion: You would know too much;
These are subjects on which I dare not touch;
And if I were to try and enlighten you,
I should probably fail, and possibly frighten you.
You had better ask some learned divine,
Whose opinion is p'rhaps worth as much as mine,
In his own conceit; and who, besides,
Could tell you the brand of the beast she rides.
What can you see in the valley yonder?
Speak out; I can hear you, for all the thunder.
Hugo:
I see four shadowy altars rise,
They seem to swell and dilate in size;
Larger and clearer now they loom,
Now fires are lighting them through the gloom.
A Voice (chanting):
The first a golden-hued fire shows,
A blood-red flame on the second glows,
The blaze on the third is tinged like the rose,
From the fourth a column of black smoke goes.
Orion:
Can you see all this?
Hugo: I see and hear;
The lights and hues are vivid and clear.
Spirits (sing at the first altar):
Hail, Mammon! while man buys and barters,
Thy kingdom in this world is sure;
Thy prophets thou hast and thy martyrs,
Great things in thy name they endure;
Thy fetters of gold crush the miser,
The usurer bends at thy shrine,
And the wealthier nations and the wiser
Bow with us at this altar of thine.
Spirits (sing at the second altar):
67
Hail, Moloch! whose banner floats blood-red,
From pole to equator unfurl'd,
Whose laws redly written have stood red,
And shall stand while standeth this world;
Clad in purple, with thy diadem gory,
Thy sceptre the blood-dripping steel,
Thy subjects with us give thee glory,
With us at thine altar they kneel.
Spirits (sing at the third altar):
Hail, Sovereign! whose fires are kindled
By sparks from the bottomless pit,
Has thy worship diminish'd or dwindled?
Do the yokes of thy slaves lightly sit?
Nay, the men of all climes and all races
Are stirr'd by the flames that now stir us;
Then (as we do) they fall on their faces,
Crying, "Hear us! Oh! Ashtaroth, hear us!"
Spirits (all in chorus):
The vulture her carrion swallows,
Returns to his vomit the dog.
In the slough of uncleanliness wallows
The he-goat, and revels the hog.
Men are wise with their schools and their teachers,
Men are just with their creeds and their priests;
Yet, in spite of their pedants and preachers,
They backslide in footprints of beasts!
Hugo:
From the smoky altar there seems to come
A stifled murmur, a droning hum.
Orion:
With that we have nothing at all to do,
Or, at least, not now, neither I nor you;
Though some day or other, possibly
We may see it closer, both you and I;
Let us visit the nearest altar first,
Whence the yellow fires flicker and burst,
Like the flames from molten ore that spring;
We may stand in the pale of the outer ring,
68
But forbear to trespass within the inner,
Lest the sins of the past should find out the sinner.
[They approach the first altar, and stand within the
outer circle which surrounds it, and near the inner.]
Spirits (sing):
Beneath us it flashes,
The glittering gold,
Though it turneth to ashes
And dross in the hold;
Yet man will endeavour,
By fraud or by strife,
To grasp it and never
To yield it with life.
Orion:
What can you see?
Hugo: Some decrepit shapes,
That are neither dwarfs, nor demons, nor apes;
In the hollow earth they appear to store
And rake together great heaps of ore.
Orion:
These are the gnomes, coarse sprites and rough;
Come on, of these we have seen enough.
[They approach second altar and stand as before.]
Spirits (singing):
Above us it flashes,
The glittering steel,
Though the red blood splashes
Where its victims reel;
Yet man will endeavour
To grapple the hilt,
And to wield the blade ever
Till his life be spilt.
Orion:
What see you now?
Hugo: A rocky glen,
69
A horrid jumble of fighting men,
And a face that somewhere I've seen before.
Orion:
Come on; there is naught worth seeing more,
Except the altar of Ashtaroth.
Hugo:
To visit that altar I am loth.
Orion:
Why so?
Hugo: Nay, I cannot fathom why,
But I feel no curiosity.
Orion:
Come on. Stand close to the inner ring,
And hear how sweetly these spirits sing.
[They approach third altar.]
Spirits (sing):
Around us it flashes,
The cestus of one
Born of white foam, that dashes
Beneath the white sun;
Let the mortal take heart, he
Has nothing to dare;
She is fair, Queen Astarte,
Her subjects are fair!
Orion:
What see you now, friend?
Hugo: Wood and wold,
And forms that look like the nymphs of old.
There is nothing here worth looking at twice.
I have seen enough.
Orion: You are far too nice;
Nevertheless, you must look again.
Those forms will fade.
70
Hugo: They are growing less plain.
They vanish. I see a door that seems
To open; a ray of sunlight gleams
From a window behind; a vision as fair
As the flush of dawn is standing there.
[He gazes earnestly.]
Orion (sings):
Higher and hotter the white flames glow,
And the adamant may be thaw'd like snow,
And the life for a single chance may go,
And the soul for a certainty.
Oh! vain and shallow philosopher,
Dost feel them quicken, dost feel them stir,
The thoughts that have stray'd again to HER
From whom thou hast sought to fly?
Lo! the furnace is heated till sevenfold;
Is thy brain still calm? Is thy blood still cold
To the curls that wander in ripples of gold,
On the shoulders of ivory?
Do the large, dark eyes, and the small, red mouth,
Consume thine heart with a fiery drouth,
Like the fierce sirocco that sweeps from the south,
When the deserts are parch'd and dry?
Aye, start and shiver and catch thy breath,
The sting is certain, the venom is death,
And the scales are flashing the fruit beneath,
And the fang striketh suddenly.
At the core the ashes are bitter and dead,
But the rind is fair and the rind is red,
It has ever been pluck'd since the serpent said,
Thou shalt NOT SURELY die.
[Hugo tries to enter the inner ring;
Orion holds him back; they struggle.]
Hugo:
Unhand me, slave! or quail to the rod!
Agatha! Speak! in the name of God!
71
[The vision disappears; the altars vanish.
Hugo falls insensible.]
SCENE — The Wayside House.
HUGO waking in his chamber. ORION unseen at first. Morning.
Hugo:
Vanish, fair and fatal vision!
Fleeting shade of fever'd sleep,
Chiding one whose indecision
Waking substance failed to keep;
Picture into life half starting,
As in life once seen before,
Parting somewhat sadly, parting
Slowly at the chamber door.
Were my waking senses duller?
Have I seen with mental eye
Light and shade, and warmth and colour,
Plainer than reality?
Sunlight that on tangled tresses
Every ripple gilds and tips;
Balm and bloom, and breath of kisses,
Warm on dewy, scarlet lips.
Dark eyes veiling half their splendour
'Neath their lashes' darker fringe,
Dusky, dreamy, deep and tender,
Passing smile and passing tinge;
Dimpling fast and flushing faster,
Ivory chin and coral cheek,
Pearly strings, by alabaster
Neck and arms made faint and weak;
Drooping, downcast lids enduring
Gaze of man unwillingly;
Sudden, sidelong gleams alluring,
Partly arch and partly shy.
72
Do I bless or curse that beauty?
Am I longing, am I loth?
Is it passion, is it duty
That I strive with, one or both?
Round about one fiery centre
Wayward thoughts like moths revolve.
[He sees Orion.]
Ha! Orion, thou didst enter
Unperceived. I pray thee solve
These two questions: Firstly, tell me,
Must I strive for wrong or right?
Secondly, what things befell me —
Facts, or phantasies — last night?
Orion:
First, your strife is all a sham, you
Know as well as I which wins;
Second, waking sins will damn you,
Never mind your sleeping sins;
Both your questions thus I answer;
Listen, ere you seek or shun:
I at least am no romancer,
What you long for may be won.
Turn again and travel Rhineward,
Tread once more the flowery path.
Hugo:
Aye, the flowery path that, sinward
Pointing, ends in sin and wrath.
Orion:
Songs by love-birds lightly caroll'd,
Even the just man may allure.
Hugo:
To his shame; in this wise Harold
Sinn'd, his punishment was sure.
Orion:
Nay, the Dane was worse than you are,
Base and pitiless to boot;
73
Doubtless all are bad, yet few are
Cruel, false, and dissolute.
Hugo:
Some sins foreign to our nature
Seem; we take no credit when
We escape them.
Orion: Yet the creature,
Sin-created, lives to sin.
Hugo:
Be it so; come good, come evil,
Ride we to the Rhine again!
Orion (aside):
'Gainst the logic of the devil
Human logic strives in vain.
SCENE — A Camp Near the Black Forest.
RUDOLPH, OSRIC, DAGOBERT, and followers. ORION disguised as
one of the Free-lances. Mid-day.
Osric:
Now, by axe of Odin, and hammer of Thor,
And by all the gods of the Viking's war,
I swear we have quitted our homes in vain:
We have nothing to look to, glory nor gain.
Will our galley return to Norway's shore
With heavier gold, or with costlier store?
Will our exploits furnish the scald with a song?
We have travell'd too far, we have tarried too long.
Say, captains all, is there ever a village
For miles around that is worth the pillage?
Will it pay the costs of my men or yours
To harry the homesteads of German boors?
Have we cause for pride in our feats of arms
When we plunder the peasants or sack the farms?
I tell thee, Rudolph of Rothenstein,
74
That were thy soldiers willing as mine,
And I sole leader of this array,
I would give Prince Otto battle this day.
Dost thou call thy followers men of war?
Oh, Dagobert! thou whose ancestor
On the neck of the Caesar's offspring trod,
Who was justly surnamed "The Scourge of God".
Yet in flight lies safety. Skirmish and run
To forest and fastness, Teuton and Hun,
From the banks of the Rhine to the Danube's shore,
And back to the banks of the Rhine once more;
Retreat from the face of an armed foe,
Robbing garden and hen-roost where'er you go.
Let the short alliance betwixt us cease,
I and my Norsemen will go in peace!
I wot it never will suit with us,
Such existence, tame and inglorious;
I could live no worse, living single-handed,
And better with half my men disbanded.
Rudolph:
Jarl Osric, what would'st thou have me do?
'Gainst Otto's army our men count few;
With one chance of victory, fight, say I!
But not when defeat is a certainty.
If Rudiger joins us with his free-lances,
Our chance will be equal to many chances;
For Rudiger is both prompt and wary;
And his men are gallant though mercenary;
But the knave refuses to send a lance
Till half the money is paid in advance.
Dagobert:
May his avarice wither him like a curse!
I guess he has heard of our late reverse;
But, Rudolph, whether he goes or stays,
There is reason in what Jarl Osric says;
Of provisions we need a fresh supply,
And our butts and flasks are shallow or dry;
My men are beginning to grumble sadly,
'Tis no wonder, since they must fare so badly.
75
Rudolph:
We have plenty of foragers out, and still
We have plenty of hungry mouths to fill;
And, moreover, by some means, foul or fair,
We must raise money; 'tis little I care,
So long as we raise it, whence it comes.
Osric:
Shall we sit till nightfall biting our thumbs?
The shortest plan is ever the best;
Has anyone here got aught to suggest?
Orion:
The cornfields are golden that skirt the Rhine,
Fat are the oxen, strong is the wine,
In those pleasant pastures, those cellars deep,
That o'erflow with the tears that those vineyards weep;
Is it silver you stand in need of, or gold?
Ingot or coin? There is wealth untold
In the ancient convent of Englemehr;
That is not so very far from here.
The Abbot, esteem'd a holy man,
Will hold what he has and grasp what he can;
The cream of the soil he loves to skim,
Why not levy a contribution on him?
Dagobert:
The stranger speaks well; not far away
That convent lies; and one summer's day
Will suffice for a horseman to reach the gate;
The garrison soon would capitulate,
Since the armed retainers are next to none,
And the walls, I wot, may be quickly won.
Rudolph:
I kept those walls for two months or more,
When they feared the riders of Melchior!
That was little over three years ago.
Their Abbot is thrifty, as well I know;
He haggled sorely about the price
Of our service.
76
Dagobert: Rudolph, he paid thee twice.
Rudolph:
Well, what of that? Since then I've tried
To borrow from him; now I know he lied
When he told me he could not spare the sum
I asked. If we to his gates should come,
He could spare it though it were doubled; and still,
This war with the Church I like it ill.
Osric:
The creed of our fathers is well-nigh dead,
And the creed of the Christian reigns in its stead
But the creed of the Christian, too, may die,
For your creeds or your churches what care I!
If there be plunder at Englemehr,
Let us strike our tents and thitherward steer.
SCENE — A Farm-house on the Rhine (About a mile from the Convent).
HUGO in chamber alone. Enter ERIC.
Eric:
What, Hugo, still at the Rhine! I thought
You were home. You have travell'd by stages short.
Hugo (with hesitation):
Our homeward march was labour in vain,
We had to retrace our steps again;
It was here or hereabouts that I lost
Some papers of value; at any cost
I must find them; and which way lies your course?
Eric:
I go to recruit Prince Otto's force.
I cannot study as you do; I
Am wearied with inactivity;
So I carry a blade engrim'd with rust
(That a hand sloth-slacken'd has, I trust,
Not quite forgotten the way to wield),
77
To strike once more on the tented field.
Hugo:
Fighting is all a mistake, friend Eric,
And has been so since the age Homeric,
When Greece was shaken and Troy undone,
Ten thousand lives for a worthless one.
Yet I blame you not; you might well do worse;
Better fight and perish than live to curse
The day you were born; and such has been
The lot of many, and shall, I ween,
Be the lot of more. If Thurston chooses
He may go with you. The blockhead abuses
Me and the life I lead.
Enter ORION.
Orion: Great news!
The Englemehr monks will shake in their shoes;
In the soles of their callous feet will shake
The barefooted friars. The nuns will quake.
Hugo: Wherefore?
Orion: The outlaw of Rothenstein
Has come with his soldiers to the Rhine,
Back'd by those hardy adventurers
From the northern forests of pines and firs,
And Dagobert's horse. They march as straight
As the eagle swoops to the convent gate.
Hugo:
We must do something to save the place.
Orion:
They are sure to take it in any case,
Unless the sum that they ask is paid.
Eric:
Some effort on our part must be made.
Hugo:
78
'Tis not so much for the monks I care.
Eric:
Nor I; but the Abbess and nuns are there.
Orion:
'Tis not our business; what can we do?
They are too many, and we are too few;
And yet, I suppose, you will save, if you can,
That lady, your ward, or your kinswoman.
Hugo:
She is no kinswoman of mine;
How far is Otto's camp from the Rhine?
Orion:
Too far for help in such time of need
To be brought, though you used your utmost speed.
Eric:
Nay, that I doubt.
Hugo: And how many men
Have they?
Orion: To your one they could muster ten.
Eric:
I know Count Rudolph, and terms may be made
With him, I fancy; for though his trade
Is a rough one now, gainsay it who can,
He was once a knight and a gentleman.
And Dagobert, the chief of the Huns,
Bad as he is, will spare the nuns;
Though neither he nor the Count could check
Those lawless men, should they storm and sack
The convent. Jarl Osric, too, I know;
He is rather a formidable foe,
And will likely enough be troublesome;
But the others, I trust, to terms will come.
Hugo:
79
Eric, how many men have you?
I can count a score.
Eric: I have only two.
Hugo:
At every hazard we must try to save
The nuns.
Eric: Count Rudolph shall think we have
A force that almost equals his own,
If I can confer with him alone.
Orion:
He is close at hand; by this time he waits
The Abbot's reply at the convent gates.
Hugo:
We had better send him a herald.
Eric: Nay,
I will go myself. [Eric goes out.]
Hugo: Orion, stay!
So this is the reed on which I've leaned,
These are the hopes thou hast fostered, these
The flames thou hast fanned. Oh, lying fiend!
Is it thus thou dost keep thy promises?
Orion:
Strong language, Hugo, and most unjust;
You will cry out before you are hurt —
You will live to recall your words, I trust.
Fear nothing from Osric or Dagobert,
These are your friends, if you only knew it,
And would take the advice of a friend sincere;
Neglect his counsels and you must rue it,
For I know by a sign the crisis is near.
Accept the terms of these outlaws all,
And be thankful that things have fallen out
Exactly as you would have had them fall —
You may save the one that you care about;
80
Otherwise, how did you hope to gain
Access to her — on what pretence?
What were the schemes that worried your brain
To tempt her there or to lure her thence?
You must have bungled, and raised a scandal
About your ears, that might well have shamed
The rudest Hun, the veriest Vandal,
Long or ever the bird was tamed.
Hugo:
The convent is scarce surrounded yet,
We might reach and hold it against their force
Till another sun has risen and set;
And should I despatch my fleetest horse
To Otto ——
Orion: For Abbot, or Monk, or Friar,
Between ourselves, 'tis little you care
If their halls are harried by steel and fire:
Their avarice left your heritage bare.
Forsake them! Mitres, and cowls, and hoods
Will cover vices while earth endures;
Through the green and gold of the summer woods
Ride out with that pretty bird of yours.
If again you fail to improve your chance,
Why, then, my friend, I can only say
You are duller far than the dullest lance
That rides in Dagobert's troop this day.
"Faemina semper", frown not thus,
The girl was always giddy and wild,
Vain, and foolish, and frivolous,
Since she fled from her father's halls, a child.
I sought to initiate you once
In the mystic lore of the old Chaldean;
But I found you far too stubborn a dunce,
And your tastes are coarser and more plebeian.
Yet mark my words, for I read the stars,
And trace the future in yonder sky;
To the right are wars and rumours of wars,
To the left are peace and prosperity.
Fear naught. The world shall never detect
The cloven hoof, so carefully hid
81
By the scholar so staid and circumspect,
So wise for once to do as he's bid.
Remember what pangs come year by year
For opportunity that has fled;
And Thora in ignorance.
Hugo: Name not her!
I am sorely tempted to strike thee dead!
Orion:
Nay, I hardly think you will take my life,
The angel Michael was once my foe;
He had a little the best of our strife,
Yet he never could deal so stark a blow.
SCENE — A Chamber in the Nuns' Apartments of the Convent.
AGATHA and URSULA.
Agatha:
My sire in my childhood pledged my hand
To Hugo — I know not why —
They were comrades then, 'neath the Duke's command,
In the wars of Lombardy.
I thought, ere my summers had turned sixteen,
That mine was a grievous case;
Save once, for an hour, I had never seen
My intended bridegroom's face;
And maidens vows of their own will plight.
Unknown to my kinsfolk all
My love was vowed to a Danish knight,
A guest in my father's hall.
His foot fell lightest in merry dance,
His shaft never missed the deer;
He could fly a hawk, he could wield a lance,
Our wildest colt he could steer.
His deep voice ringing through hall or glen
Had never its match in song;
And little was known of his past life then,
Or of Dorothea's wrong.
82
I loved him — Lady Abbess, I know
That my love was foolish now;
I was but a child five years ago,
And thoughtless as bird on bough.
One evening Hugo the Norman came,
And, to shorten a weary tale,
I fled that night (let me bear the blame)
With Harold by down and dale.
He had mounted me on a dappled steed,
And another of coal-black hue
He rode himself; and away at speed
We fled through mist and dew.
Of miles we had ridden some half a score,
We had halted beside a spring,
When the breeze to our ears through the still night bore
A distant trample and ring;
We listen'd one breathing space, and caught
The clatter of mounted men,
With vigour renewed by their respite short
Our horses dash'd through the glen.
Another league, and we listen'd in vain;
The breeze to our ears came mute;
But we heard them again on the spacious plain,
Faint tidings of hot pursuit.
In the misty light of a moon half hid
By the dark or fleecy rack,
Our shadows over the moorland slid,
Still listening and looking back.
So we fled (with a cheering word to say
At times as we hurried on),
From sounds that at intervals died away,
And at intervals came anon.
Another league, and my lips grew dumb,
And I felt my spirit quailing,
For closer those sounds began to come,
And the speed of my horse was failing.
"The grey is weary and lame to boot,"
Quoth Harold; "the black is strong,
And their steeds are blown with their fierce pursuit,
What wonder! our start was long.
Now, lady, behind me mount the black,
83
The double load he can bear;
We are safe when we reach the forest track,
Fresh horses and friends wait there."
Then I sat behind him and held his waist,
And faster we seemed to go
By moss and moor; but for all our haste
Came the tramp of the nearing foe.
A dyke through the mist before us hover'd,
And, quicken'd by voice and heel,
The black overleap'd it, stagger'd, recover'd;
Still nearer that muffled peal.
And louder on sward the hoof-strokes grew,
And duller, though not less nigh,
On deader sand; and a dark speck drew
On my vision suddenly,
And a single horseman in fleet career,
Like a shadow appear'd to glide
To within six lances' lengths of our rear,
And there for a space to bide.
Quoth Harold, "Speak, has the moon reveal'd
His face?" I replied, "Not so!
Yet 'tis none of my kinsfolk." Then he wheel'd
In the saddle and scanned the foe,
And mutter'd, still gazing in our wake,
"'Tis he; now I will not fight
The brother again, for the sister's sake,
While I can escape by flight."
"Who, Harold?" I asked; but he never spoke.
By the cry of the bittern harsh,
And the bull-frog's dull, discordant croak,
I guess'd that we near'd the marsh;
And the moonbeam flash'd on watery sedge
As it broke from a strip of cloud,
Ragged and jagged about the edge,
And shaped like a dead man's shroud.
And flagg'd and falter'd our gallant steed,
'Neath the weight of his double burden,
As we splash'd through water and crash'd through reed;
Then the soil began to harden,
And again we gain'd, or we seem'd to gain,
With our foe in the deep morass;
But those fleet hoofs thunder'd, and gain'd again,
84
When they trampled the firmer grass,
And I cried, and Harold again look'd back,
And bade me fasten mine eyes on
The forest, that loom'd like a patch of black
Standing out from the faint horizon.
"Courage, sweetheart! we are saved," he said;
"With the moorland our danger ends,
And close to the borders of yonder glade
They tarry, our trusty friends."
Where the mossy uplands rise and dip
On the edge of the leafy dell,
With a lurch, like the lurch of a sinking ship,
The black horse toppled and fell.
Unharm'd we lit on the velvet sward,
And even as I lit I lay,
But Harold uprose, unsheath'd his sword,
And toss'd the scabbard away.
And spake through his teeth, "Good brother-in-law,
Forbearance, at last, is spent;
The strife that thy soul hath lusted for
Thou shalt have to thy soul's content!"
While he spoke, our pursuer past us swept,
Ere he rein'd his war-horse proud,
To his haunches flung, then to the earth he leapt,
And my lover's voice rang loud:
"Thrice welcome! Hugo of Normandy,
Thou hast come at our time of need,
This lady will thank thee, and so will I,
For the loan of thy sorrel steed!"
And never a word Lord Hugo said,
They clos'd 'twixt the wood and the wold,
And the white steel flickered over my head
In the moonlight calm and cold;
'Mid the feathery grasses crouching low,
With face bow'd down to the dust,
I heard the clash of each warded blow,
The click of each parried thrust,
And the shuffling feet that bruis'd the lawn,
As they traversed here and there,
And the breath through the clench'd teeth heavily drawn
When breath there was none to spare;
85
Sharp ringing sword play, dull, trampling heel,
Short pause, spent force to regain,
Quick muffled footfall, harsh grating steel,
Sharp ringing rally again;
They seem'd long hours, those moments fleet,
As I counted them one by one,
Till a dead weight toppled across my feet,
And I knew that the strife was done.
When I looked up, after a little space,
As though from a fearful dream,
The moon was flinging on Harold's face
A white and a weird-like gleam;
And I felt mine ankles moist and warm
With the blood that trickled slow
From a spot on the doublet beneath his arm,
From a ghastly gash on his brow;
I heard the tread of the sorrel's hoof
As he bore his lord away;
They passed me slowly, keeping aloof,
Like spectres, misty and grey.
I thought Lord Hugo had left me there
To die, but it was not so;
Yet then for death I had little care,
My soul seem'd numb'd by the blow;
A faintness follow'd, a sickly swoon,
A long and a dreamless sleep,
And I woke to the light of a sultry noon
In my father's castled keep.
And thus, Lady Abbess, it came to pass
That my father vow'd his vow;
Must his daughter espouse the Church? Alas!
Is she better or wiser now?
For some are feeble and others strong,
And feeble am I and frail.
Mother! 'tis not that I love the wrong,
'Tis not that I loathe the veil,
But with heart still ready to go astray,
If assail'd by a fresh temptation,
I could sin again as I sinned that day,
For a girl's infatuation.
86
See! Harold, the Dane, thou say'st is dead,
Yet I weep NOT BITTERLY;
As I fled with the Dane, so I might have fled
With Hugo of Normandy.
Ursula:
My child, I advise no hasty vows,
Yet I pray that in life's brief span
Thou may'st learn that our Church is a fairer spouse
Than fickle and erring man;
Though fenced for a time by the Church's pale,
When that time expires thou'rt free;
And we cannot force thee to take the veil,
Nay, we scarce can counsel thee.
Enter the ABBOT hastily.
Basil (the Abbot):
I am sorely stricken with shame and grief,
It has come by the self-same sign,
A summons brief from the outlaw'd chief,
Count Rudolph of Rothenstein.
Lady Abbess, ere worse things come to pass,
I would speak with thee alone;
Alack and alas! for by the rood and mass
I fear we are all undone.
SCENE — A Farm-house Near the Convent.
A Chamber furnished with writing materials. HUGO, ERIC, and THURSTON
on one side; on the other OSRIC, RUDOLPH, and DAGOBERT.
Osric:
We have granted too much, ye ask for more;
I am not skill'd in your clerkly lore,
I scorn your logic; I had rather die
Than live like Hugo of Normandy:
I am a Norseman, frank and plain;
Ye must read the parchment over again.
87
Eric:
Jarl Osric, twice we have read this scroll.
Osric:
Thou hast read a part.
Eric: I have read the whole.
Osric:
Aye, since I attached my signature!
Eric:
Before and since!
Rudolph: Nay, of this be sure,
Thou hast signed; in fairness now let it rest.
Osric:
I had rather have sign'd upon Hugo's crest;
He has argued the question mouth to mouth
With the wordy lore of the subtle south;
Let him or any one of his band
Come and argue the question hand to hand.
With the aid of my battle-axe I will show
That a score of words are not worth one blow.
Thurston:
To the devil with thee and thy battle-axe;
I would send the pair of ye back in your tracks,
With an answer that even to thy boorish brain
Would scarce need repetition again.
Osric:
Thou Saxon slave to a milksop knight,
I will give thy body to raven and kite.
Thurston:
Thou liest; I am a freeborn man,
And thy huge carcase — in cubit and span
Like the giant's of Gath — 'neath Saxon steel,
Shall furnish the kites with a fatter meal.
88
Osric:
Now, by Odin!
Rudolph: Jarl Osric, curb thy wrath;
Our names are sign'd, our words have gone forth.
Hugo:
I blame thee, Thurston.
Thurston: And I, too, blame
Myself, since I follow a knight so tame!
[Thurston goes out.]
Osric:
The Saxon hound, he said I lied!
Rudolph:
I pray thee, good Viking, be pacified.
Osric:
Why do we grant the terms they ask?
To crush them all were an easy task.
Dagobert:
That know'st thou not; if it come to war,
They are stronger, perhaps, than we bargain for.
Eric:
Jarl Osric, thou may'st recall thy words —
Should we meet again.
Osric: Should we meet with swords,
Thou, too, may'st recall them to thy sorrow.
Hugo:
Eric! we dally. Sir Count, good-morrow.
SCENE — The Guest Chamber of the Convent.
HUGO, ERIC, and ORION.
89
Eric:
Hugo, their siege we might have tried;
This place would be easier fortified
Than I thought at first; it is now too late,
They have cut off our access to the gate.
Hugo:
I have weigh'd the chances and counted the cost,
And I know by the stars that all is lost
If we take up this quarrel.
Eric: So let it be!
I yield to one who is wiser than me. (Aside.)
Nevertheless, I have seen the day
When the stars would scarcely have bade us stay.
Enter the ABBOT, CYRIL, and other Monks.
Hugo:
Lord Abbot, we greet thee. Good fathers all,
We bring you greeting.
Orion (aside): And comfort small.
Abbot:
God's benediction on you, my sons.
Hugo:
May He save you, too, from Norsemen and Huns!
Since the gates are beleaguer'd and walls begirt
By the forces of Osric and Dagobert;
'Tis a heavy price that the knaves demand.
Abbot:
Were we to mortgage the Church's land
We never could raise what they would extort.
Orion (aside):
The price is too long and the notice too short.
Eric:
90
And you know the stern alternative.
Abbot:
If we die we die, if we live we live;
God's will be done; and our trust is sure
In Him, though His chast'nings we endure.
Two messengers rode from here last night,
To Otto they carry news of our plight;
On my swiftest horses I saw them go.
Orion (aside):
Then his swiftest horses are wondrous slow.
Eric:
One of these is captive and badly hurt;
By the reckless riders of Dagobert
He was overtaken and well-nigh slain,
Not a league from here on the open plain.
Abbot:
But the other escap'd.
Eric: It may be so;
We had no word of him, but we know
That unless you can keep these walls for a day
At least, the Prince is too far away
To afford relief.
Abbot: Then a hopeless case
Is ours, and with death we are face to face.
Eric:
You have arm'd retainers.
Cyril (a Monk): Aye, some half score;
And some few of the brethren, less or more,
Have in youth the brunt of the battle bided,
Yet our armoury is but ill provided.
Hugo:
We have terms of truce from the robbers in chief,
Though the terms are partial, the truce but brief;
91
To Abbess, to nuns, and novices all,
And to every woman within your wall,
We can offer escort, and they shall ride
From hence in safety whate'er betide.
Abbot:
What escort, Hugo, canst thou afford?
Hugo:
Some score of riders who call me lord
Bide at the farm not a mile from here,
Till we rejoin them they will not stir;
My page and armourer wait below,
And all our movements are watch'd by the foe.
Strict stipulation was made, of course,
That, except ourselves, neither man nor horse
Should enter your gates — they were keen to shun
The chance of increasing your garrison.
Eric:
I hold safe conduct here in my hand,
Signed by the chiefs of that lawless band;
See Rudolph's name, no disgrace to a clerk,
And Dagobert's scrawl, and Osric's mark;
Jarl signed sorely against his will,
With a scratch like the print of a raven's bill;
But the foe have muster'd in sight of the gate.
For another hour they will scarcely wait;
Bid Abbess and dame prepare with haste.
Hugo:
Lord Abbot, I tell thee candidly
There is no great love between thou and I,
As well thou know'st; but, nevertheless,
I would we were more, or thy foes were less.
Abbot:
I will summon the Lady Abbess straight.
[The Abbot and Monks go out.]
Eric:
'Tis hard to leave these men to their fate,
92
Norsemen and Hun will never relent;
Their day of grace upon earth is spent.
[Hugo goes out, followed by Orion.]
SCENE — The Corridor Outside the Guest Chamber.
HUGO pacing up and down. ORION leaning against the wall.
Hugo:
My day of grace with theirs is past.
I might have saved them; 'tis too late —
Too late for both. The die is cast,
And I resign me to my fate.
God's vengeance I await.
Orion:
The boundary 'twixt right and wrong
Is not so easy to discern;
And man is weak, and fate is strong,
And destiny man's hopes will spurn,
Man's schemes will overturn.
Hugo:
Thou liest, thou fiend! Not unawares
The sinner swallows Satan's bait,
Nor pits conceal'd nor hidden snares
Seeks blindly; wherefore dost thou prate
Of destiny and fate?
Orion:
Who first named fate? But never mind,
Let that pass by — to Adam's fall
And Adam's curse look back, and find
Iniquity the lot of all,
And sin original.
Hugo:
But I have sinn'd, repented, sinn'd,
Till seven times that sin may be
By seventy multiplied; the wind
93
Is constant when compared with me,
And stable is the sea!
My hopes are sacrificed, for what?
For days of folly, less or more,
For years to see those dead hopes rot,
Like dead weeds scatter'd on the shore,
Beyond the surfs that roar!
Orion:
The wiles of Eve are swift to smite;
Aye, swift to smite and not to spare —
Red lips and round limbs sweet and white,
Dark eyes and sunny, silken hair,
Thy betters may ensnare.
Hugo:
Not so; the strife 'twixt hell and heaven
I felt last night, and well I knew
The crisis; but my aid was given
To hell. Thou'st known the crisis too,
For once thou'st spoken true.
Having foretold it, there remains
For grace no time, for hope no room;
Even now I seem to feel the pains
Of hell, that wait beyond the gloom
Of my dishonour'd tomb.
Thou who hast lived and died to save,
Us sinners, Christ of Galilee!
Thy great love pardon'd and forgave
The dying thief upon the tree,
Thou canst not pardon me!
Dear Lord! hear Thou my latest prayer,
For prayer must die since hope is dead;
Thy Father's vengeance let me bear,
Nor let my guilt be visited
Upon a guiltless head!
Ah! God is just! Full sure I am
94
He never did predestinate
Our souls to hell. Ourselves we damn —
[To Orion, with sudden passion]
Serpent! I know thee now, too late;
Curse thee! Work out thy hate!
Orion:
I hate thee not; thy grievous plight
Would move my pity, but I bear
A curse to which thy curse seems light!
Thy wrong is better than my right,
My day is darker than thy night;
Beside the whitest hope I share
How white is thy despair!
SCENE — The Chapel of the Convent.
URSULA, AGATHA, Nuns and Novices.
(Hymn of the Nuns):
Jehovah! we bless Thee,
All works of Thine hand
Extol Thee, confess Thee;
By sea and by land,
By mountain and river,
By forest and glen,
They praise Thee for ever!
And ever! Amen!
The heathen are raging
Against Thee, O Lord!
The ungodly are waging
Rash war against God!
Arise, and deliver
Us, sheep of Thy pen,
Who praise Thee for ever!
And ever! Amen!
Thou Shepherd of Zion!
95
Thy firstlings didst tear
From jaws of the lion,
From teeth of the bear;
Thy strength to deliver
Is strong now as then.
We praise Thee for ever!
And ever! Amen!
Thine arm hath delivered
Thy servants of old,
Hath scatter'd and shiver'd
The spears of the bold,
Hath emptied the quiver
Of bloodthirsty men.
We praise Thee for ever!
And ever! Amen!
Nathless shall Thy right hand
Those counsels fulfil
Most wise in Thy sight, and
We bow to Thy will;
Thy children quail never
For dungeon or den,
They praise Thee for ever!
And ever! Amen!
Though fierce tribulation
Endure for a space,
Yet God! our salvation!
We gain by Thy grace,
At end of life's fever,
Bliss passing man's ken;
There to praise Thee for ever!
And ever! Amen!
SCENE — The Guest Room of the Convent.
HUGO, ERIC, and ORION. Enter URSULA, AGATHA, and Nuns.
Ursula:
96
Hugo, we reject thine offers,
Not that we can buy
Safety from the Church's coffers,
Neither can we fly.
Far too great the price they seek is,
Let their lawless throng
Come, we wait their coming; weak is
Man, but God is strong.
Eric:
Think again on our proposals:
It will be too late
When the robbers hold carousals
On this side the gate.
Ursula:
For myself I speak and others
Weak and frail as I;
We will not desert our brothers
In adversity.
Hugo (to the Nuns):
Does the Abbess thus advance her
Will before ye all?
A Nun:
We will stay.
Hugo: Is this thine answer,
Agatha? The wall
Is a poor protection truly,
And the gates are weak,
And the Norsemen most unruly.
Come, then.
A Nun (to Agatha): Sister, speak!
Orion (aside to Hugo):
Press her! She her fears dissembling,
Stands irresolute;
She will yield — her limbs are trembling,
Though her lips are mute.
97
[A trumpet is heard without.]
Eric:
Hark! their savage war-horn blowing
Chafes at our delay.
Hugo:
Agatha, we must be going.
Come, girl!
Agatha (clinging to Ursula): Must I stay?
Ursula:
Nay, my child, thou shalt not make me
Judge; I cannot give
Orders to a novice.
Agatha: Take me,
Hugo! Let me live!
Eric (to Nuns):
Foolish women! will ye tarry,
Spite of all we say?
Hugo:
Must we use our strength and carry
You by force away?
Ursula:
Bad enough thou art, Sir Norman,
Yet thou wilt not do
This thing. Shame! — on men make war, man,
Not on women few.
Eric:
Heed her not — her life she barters,
Of her free accord,
For her faith; and, doubtless, martyrs
Have their own reward.
Ursula:
In the Church's cause thy father
98
Never grudged his blade —
Hugo, did he rue it?
Orion: Rather!
He was poorly paid.
Hugo:
Abbess, this is not my doing;
I have said my say;
How can I avert the ruin,
Even for a day,
Since they count two hundred fairly,
While we count a score;
And thine own retainers barely
Count a dozen more?
Agatha (kneeling to Ursula):
Ah! forgive me, Lady Abbess,
Bless me ere I go;
She who under sod and slab is
Lying, cold and low,
Scarce would turn away in anger
From a child so frail;
Not dear life, but deadly danger,
Makes her daughter quail.
Hugo:
Eric, will those faces tearful
To God's judgment seat
Haunt us?
Eric: Death is not so fearful.
Hugo: No, but life is sweet —
Sweet for once, to me, though sinful.
Orion (to Hugo): Earth is scant of bliss;
Wisest he who takes his skinful
When the chance is his.
(To Ursula):
Lady Abbess! stay and welcome
99
Osric's savage crew;
Yet when pains of death and hell come,
Thou thy choice may'st rue.
Ursula (to Orion):
What dost thou 'neath roof-trees sacred?
Man or fiend, depart!
Orion:
Dame, thy tongue is sharp and acrid,
Yet I bear the smart.
Ursula (advancing and raising up a crucifix):
I conjure thee by this symbol
Leave us!
[Orion goes out hastily.]
Hugo: Ha! the knave,
He has made an exit nimble;
Abbess! thou art brave.
Yet once gone, we're past recalling,
Let no blame be mine.
See, thy sisters' tears are falling
Fast, and so are thine.
Ursula:
Fare you well! The teardrop splashes
Vainly on the ice.
Ye will sorrow o'er our ashes
And your cowardice.
Eric:
Sorry am I, yet my sorrow
Cannot alter fate;
Should Prince Otto come to-morrow,
He will come too late.
Hugo:
Nay, old comrade, she hath spoken
Words we must not hear;
Shall we pause for sign or token —
Taunted twice with fear?
100
Yonder, hilt to hilt adjusted,
Stand the swords in which we trusted
Years ago. Their blades have rusted,
So, perchance, have we.
Ursula! thy words may shame us,
Yet we once were counted famous,
Morituri, salutamus,
Aut victuri, te! [They go out.]
SCENE — The Outskirts of Rudolph's Camp.
RUDOLPH, OSRIC, and DAGOBERT. HUGO.
Rudolph:
Lord Hugo! thy speech is madness;
Thou hast tax'd our patience too far;
We offer'd thee peace — with gladness,
We gladly accept thy war.
Dagobert:
And the clemency we extended
To thee and thine we recall;
And the treaty 'twixt us is ended —
We are ready to storm the wall.
Osric:
Now tear yon parchment to tatters;
Thou shalt make no further use
Of our safeguard; the wind that scatters
The scroll shall scatter the truce.
Hugo:
Jarl Osric, to save the spilling
Of blood, and the waste of life,
I am willing, if thou art willing,
With thee to decide this strife;
Let thy comrades draw their force back;
I defy thee to single fight,
I will meet thee on foot or horseback,
And God shall defend the right.
101
Rudolph:
No single combat shall settle
This strife; thou art overbold —
Thou hast put us all on our mettle,
Now the game in our hands we hold.
Dagobert:
Our lances round thee have hover'd,
Have seen where thy fellows bide;
Thy weakness we have discover'd,
Thy nakedness we have spied.
Osric:
And hearken, knight, to my story —
When sack'd are the convent shrines,
When the convent thresholds are gory,
And quaff'd are the convent wines:
When our beasts with pillage are laden,
And the clouds of our black smoke rise
From yon tower, one fair-haired maiden
Is singled as Osric's prize.
I will fit her with chain and collar
Of red gold, studded with pearls;
With bracelet of gold, Sir Scholar,
The queen of my captive girls.
Hugo (savagely):
May the Most High God of battles
The Lord and Ruler of fights,
Who breaketh the shield that rattles,
Who snappeth the sword that smites,
In whose hands are footmen and horsemen,
At whose breath they conquer or flee,
Never show me His mercy, Norseman!
If I show mercy to thee.
Osric:
What, ho! art thou drunk, Sir Norman?
Has the wine made thy pale cheek red?
Now, I swear by Odin and Thor, man,
Already I count thee dead.
102
Rudolph:
I crave thy pardon for baulking
The flood of thine eloquence,
But thou canst not scare us with talking,
I therefore pray thee go hence.
Osric:
Though I may not take up thy gauntlet,
Should we meet where the steel strikes fire,
'Twixt thy casque and thy charger's frontlet
The choice will perplex thy squire.
Hugo:
When the Norman rowels are goading,
When glitters the Norman glaive,
Thou shalt call upon Thor and Odin:
They shall not hear thee nor save.
"Should we meet!" Aye, the chance may fall so,
In the furious battle drive,
So may God deal with me — more, also!
If we separate, both alive!
SCENE — The Court-yard of the Old Farm.
EUSTACE and other followers of HUGO and ERIC lounging about.
Enter THURSTON hastily, with swords under his arm.
Thurston:
Now saddle your horses and girth them tight,
And see that your weapons are sharp and bright.
Come, lads, get ready as fast as you can.
Eustace:
Why, what's this bustle about, old man?
Thurston:
Well, it seems Lord Hugo has changed his mind,
As the weathercock veers with the shifting wind;
He has gone in person to Osric's camp,
103
To tell him to pack up his tents and tramp!
But I guess he won't.
Eustace: Then I hope he will,
They are plenty to eat us, as well as to kill.
Ralph:
And I hope he won't — I begin to feel
A longing to moisten my thirsty steel.
[They begin to saddle and make preparations
for a skirmish.]
Thurston:
I've a couple of blades to look to here.
In their scabbards I scarcely could make them stir
At first, but I'll sharpen them both ere long.
A Man-at-arms:
Hurrah for a skirmish! Who'll give us a song?
Thurston (sings, cleaning and sharpening):
Hurrah! for the sword! I hold one here,
And I scour at the rust and say,
'Tis the umpire this, and the arbiter,
That settles in the fairest way;
For it stays false tongues and it cools hot blood,
And it lowers the proud one's crest;
And the law of the land is sometimes good,
But the law of the sword is best.
In all disputes 'tis the shortest plan,
The surest and best appeal; —
What else can decide between man and man?
(Chorus of all):
Hurrah! for the bright blue steel!
Thurston (sings):
Hurrah! for the sword of Hugo, our lord!
'Tis a trusty friend and a true;
It has held its own on a grassy sward,
When its blade shone bright and blue,
Though it never has stricken in anger hard,
104
And has scarcely been cleansed from rust,
Since the day when it broke through Harold's guard
With our favourite cut and thrust;
Yet Osric's crown will look somewhat red,
And his brain will be apt to reel,
Should the trenchant blade come down on his head —
(Chorus of all):
Hurrah! for the bright blue steel!
Thurston (sings):
Hurrah! for the sword of our ally bold,
It has done good service to him;
It has held its own on an open wold,
When its edge was in keener trim.
It may baffle the plots of the wisest skull,
It may slacken the strongest limb,
Make the brains full of forethought void and null,
And the eyes full of far-sight dim;
And the hasty hands are content to wait,
And the knees are compelled to kneel,
Where it falls with the weight of a downstroke straight —
(Chorus of all):
Hurrah! for the bright blue steel!
Thurston (sings):
Hurrah! for the sword — I've one of my own;
And I think I may safely say,
Give my enemy his, let us stand alone,
And our quarrel shall end one way;
One way or the other — it matters not much,
So the question be fairly tried.
Oh! peacemaker good, bringing peace with a touch,
Thy clients will be satisfied.
As a judge, thou dost judge — as a witness, attest,
And thou settest thy hand and seal,
And the winner is blest, and the loser at rest —
(Chorus of all):
Hurrah! for the bright blue steel!
[Hugo and Eric enter during the last verse
105
of the song.]
Hugo:
Boot and saddle, old friend,
Their defiance they send;
Time is short — make an end
Of thy song.
Let the sword in this fight
Strike as hard for the right
As it once struck for might
Leagued with wrong.
Ha! Rollo, thou champest
Thy bridle and stampest,
For the rush of the tempest
Dost long?
Ho! the kites will grow fatter
On the corpses we scatter,
In the paths where we shatter
Their throng.
Where Osric, the craven,
Hath reared the black raven
'Gainst monks that are shaven
And cowl'd:
Where the Teuton and Hun sit,
In the track of our onset,
Will the wolves, ere the sunset,
Have howl'd.
Retribution is good,
They have revell'd in blood,
Like the wolves of the wood
They have prowl'd.
Birds of prey they have been,
And of carrion unclean,
And their own nests (I ween)
They have foul'd.
Eric:
Two messengers since
Yestermorn have gone hence,
106
And ere long will the Prince
Bring relief.
Shall we pause? — they are ten
To our one, but their men
Are ill-arm'd, and scarce ken
Their own chief;
And for this we give thanks:
Their disorderly ranks,
If assail'd in the flanks,
Will as lief
Run as fight — loons and lords.
Hugo:
Mount your steeds! draw your swords!
Take your places! My words
Shall be brief:
Ride round by the valley,
Through pass and gorge sally —
The linden trees rally
Beneath.
Then, Eric and Thurston,
Their ranks while we burst on,
Try which will be first on
The heath.
(Aside)
Look again, mother mine,
Through the happy starshine,
For my sins dost thou pine?
With my breath,
See! thy pangs are all done,
For the life of thy son:
Thou shalt never feel one
For his death.
[They all go out but Hugo, who lingers to tighten
his girths. Orion appears suddenly in the gateway.]
Orion:
Stay, friend! I keep guard on
Thy soul's gates; hold hard on
Thy horse. Hope of pardon
107
Hath fled!
Bethink once, I crave thee,
Can recklessness save thee?
Hell sooner will have thee
Instead.
Hugo:
Back! My soul, tempest-toss'd,
Hath her Rubicon cross'd,
She shall fly — saved or lost!
Void of dread!
Sharper pang than the steel,
Thou, oh, serpent! shalt feel,
Should I set the bruised heel
On thy head.
[He rides out.]
SCENE — A Room in the Convent Tower Overlooking the Gate.
URSULA at the window. AGATHA and Nuns crouching or kneeling in a corner.
Ursula:
See, Ellinor! Agatha! Anna!
While yet for the ladders they wait,
Jarl Osric hath rear'd the black banner
Within a few yards of the gate;
It faces our window, the raven,
The badge of the cruel sea-kings,
That has carried to harbour and haven
Destruction and death on its wings.
Beneath us they throng, the fierce Norsemen,
The pikemen of Rudolph behind
Are mustered, and Dagobert's horsemen
With faces to rearward inclined;
Come last, on their coursers broad-chested,
Rough-coated, short-pastern'd and strong,
Their casques with white plumes thickly crested,
Their lances barb-headed and long:
They come through the shades of the linden,
Fleet riders and war-horses hot:
108
The Normans, our friends — we have sinn'd in
Our selfishness, sisters, I wot —
They come to add slaughter to slaughter,
Their handful can ne'er stem the tide
Of our foes, and our fate were but shorter
Without them. How fiercely they ride!
And "Hugo of Normandy!" "Hugo!"
"A rescue! a rescue!" rings loud,
And right on the many the few go!
A sway and a swerve of the crowd!
A springing and sparkling of sword-blades!
A crashing and 'countering of steeds!
And the white feathers fly 'neath their broad blades
Like foam-flakes! the spear-shafts like reeds!
A Nun (to Agatha):
Pray, sister!
Agatha: Alas! I have striven
To pray, but the lips move in vain
When the heart with such terror is riven.
Look again, Lady Abbess! Look again!
Ursula:
As leaves fall by wintry gusts scatter'd,
As fall by the sickle ripe ears,
As the pines by the whirlwind fall shatter'd,
As shatter'd by bolt fall the firs —
To the right hand they fall, to the left hand
They yield! They go down! they give back!
And their ranks are divided and cleft, and
Dispers'd and destroy'd in the track!
Where, stirrup to stirrup, and bridle
To bridle, down-trampling the slain!
Our friends, wielding swords never idle,
Hew bloody and desperate lane
Through pikemen, so crowded together
They scarce for their pikes can find room,
Led by Hugo's gilt crest, the tall feather
Of Thurston, and Eric's black plume!
A Nun (to Agatha):
109
Pray, sister!
Agatha: First pray thou that heaven
Will lift this dull weight from my brain,
That crushes like crime unforgiven.
Look again, Lady Abbess! Look again!
Ursula:
Close under the gates men are fighting
On foot where the raven is rear'd!
'Neath that sword-stroke, through helm and skull smiting,
Jarl Osric falls, cloven to the beard!
And Hugo, the hilt firmly grasping,
His heel on the throat of his foe,
Wrenches back. I can hear the dull rasping,
The steel through the bone grating low!
And the raven rocks! Thurston has landed
Two strokes, well directed and hard,
On the standard pole, wielding, two-handed,
A blade crimson'd up to the guard.
Like the mast cut in two by the lightning,
The black banner topples and falls!
Bewildering! back-scattering! affright'ning!
It clears a wide space next the walls.
A Nun (to Agatha):
Pray, sister!
Agatha: Does the sinner unshriven,
With naught beyond this life to gain,
Pray for mercy on earth or in heaven?
Look again, Lady Abbess! Look again!
Ursula:
The gates are flung open, and straightway,
By Ambrose and Cyril led on,
Our own men rush out through the gateway;
One charge, and the entrance is won!
No! our foes block the gate and endeavour
To force their way in! Oath and yell,
Shout and war-cry wax wilder than ever!
Those children of Odin fight well;
110
And my ears are confused by the crashing,
The jarring, the discord, the din;
And mine eyes are perplex'd by the flashing
Of fierce lights that ceaselessly spin;
So when thunder to thunder is calling,
Quick flash follows flash in the shade,
So leaping and flashing and falling,
Blade flashes and follows on blade!
While the sward, newly plough'd, freshly painted,
Grows purple with blood of the slain,
And slippery! Has Agatha fainted?
Agatha:
Not so, Lady Abbess! Look again!
Ursula:
No more from the window; in the old years
I have look'd upon strife. Now I go
To the court-yard to rally our soldiers
As I may — face to face with the foe.
[She goes out.]
SCENE — A Room in the Convent.
THURSTON seated near a small fire.
Enter EUSTACE.
Eustace:
We have come through this skirmish with hardly a scratch.
Thurston:
And without us, I fancy, they have a full batch
Of sick men to look to. Those robbers accurs'd
Will soon put our soundest on terms with our worst.
Nathless I'd have bartered, with never a frown,
Ten years for those seconds when Osric went down.
Where's Ethelwolf?
Eustace: Dying.
111
Thurston: And Reginald?
Eustace: Dead.
And Ralph is disabled, and Rudolph is sped.
He may last till midnight — not longer. Nor Tyrrel,
Nor Brian will ever see sunrise.
Thurston: That Cyril,
The monk, is a very respectable fighter.
Eustace:
Not bad for a monk. Yet our loss had been lighter
Had he and his fellows thrown open the gate
A little more quickly. And now, spite of fate,
With thirty picked soldiers their siege we might weather,
But the Abbess is worth all the rest put together.
[Enter Ursula.]
Thurston:
Here she comes.
Ursula: Can I speak with your lord?
Eustace: 'Tis too late,
He was dead when we carried him in at the gate.
Thurston:
Nay, he spoke after that, for I heard him myself;
But he won't speak again, he must lie on his shelf.
Ursula:
Alas! is he dead, then?
Thurston: As dead as St. Paul.
And what then? to-morrow we, too, one and all,
Die, to fatten these ravenous carrion birds.
I knelt down by Hugo and heard his last words:
"How heavy the night hangs — how wild the waves dash;
Say a mass for my soul — and give Rollo a mash."
Ursula:
112
Nay, Thurston, thou jestest.
Thurston: Ask Eric. I swear
We listened and caught every syllable clear.
Eustace:
Why, his horse was slain, too.
Thurston: 'Neath the linden trees grey,
Ere the onset, young Henry rode Rollo away;
He will hasten the Prince, and they may reach your gate
To-morrow — though to-morrow for us is too late.
Hugo rode the boy's mare, and she's dead — if you like —
Disembowel'd by the thrust of a freebooter's pike.
Eustace:
Neither Henry nor Rollo we ever shall see.
Ursula:
But we may hold the walls till to-morrow.
Thurston: Not we.
In an hour or less, having rallied their force,
They'll storm your old building — and take it, of course,
Since of us, who alone in war's science are skill'd,
One-third are disabled, and two-thirds are kill'd.
Ursula:
Art thou hurt?
Thurston: At present I feel well enough,
But your water is brackish, unwholesome and rough;
Bring a flask of your wine, dame, for Eustace and I,
Let us gaily give battle and merrily die.
[Enter Eric, with arm in sling.]
Eric:
Thou art safe, Lady Abbess! The convent is safe!
To be robbed of their prey how the ravens will chafe!
The vanguard of Otto is looming in sight!
At the sheen of their spears, see! thy foemen take flight,
Their foremost are scarce half a mile from the wall.
113
Thurston:
Bring the wine, lest those Germans should swallow it all.
SCENE — The Chapel of the Convent.
Dirge of the Monks:
Earth to earth, and dust to dust,
Ashes unto ashes go.
Judge not. He who judgeth just,
Judgeth merciful also.
Earthly penitence hath fled,
Earthly sin hath ceased to be;
Pile the sods on heart and head,
Miserere Domine!
Hominum et angelorum,
Domine! precamur te
Ut immemor sis malorum —
Miserere Domine!
(Miserere!)
Will the fruits of life brought forth,
Pride and greed, and wrath and lust,
Profit in the day of wrath,
When the dust returns to dust?
Evil flower and thorny fruit
Load the wild and worthless tree.
Lo! the axe is at the root,
Miserere Domine!
Spes, fidesque, caritasque,
Frustra fatigant per se,
Frustra virtus, forsque, fasque,
Miserere Domine!
(Miserere!)
Fair without and foul within,
When the honey'd husks are reft
From the bitter sweets of sin,
114
Bitterness alone is left;
Yet the wayward soul hath striven
Mostly hell's ally to be,
In the strife 'twixt hell and heaven,
Miserere Domine!
Heu! heu! herba latet anguis —
Caro herba — carni vae —
Solum purgat, Christi sanguis,
Miserere Domine!
(Miserere!)
Pray that in the doubtful fight
Man may win through sore distress,
By His goodness infinite,
And His mercy fathomless.
Pray for one more of the weary,
Head bow'd down and bended knee,
Swell the requiem, Miserere!
Miserere Domine!
Bonum, malum, qui fecisti
Mali imploramus te,
Salve fratrem, causa Christi,
Miserere Domine!
(Miserere!)
[End of Ashtaroth.]
~ Adam Lindsay Gordon,#NFDB
1340:A Lyrical Drama, In Four Acts.
Audisne haec amphiarae, sub terram abdite?
ACT I
Scene.A Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. Prometheus is discovered bound to the Precipice. Panthea andIone are seated at his feet. Time, night. During the Scene, morning slowly breaks.
Prometheus.
Monarch of Gods and Dmons, and all Spirits
But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds
Which Thou and I alone of living things
Behold with sleepless eyes! regard this Earth
Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou
Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise,
And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts,
With fear and self-contempt and barren hope.
Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate,
Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn,
O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge.
Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours,
And moments aye divided by keen pangs
Till they seemed years, torture and solitude,
Scorn and despair,these are mine empire:
More glorious far than that which thou surveyest
From thine unenvied throne, O Mighty God!
Almighty, had I deigned to share the shame
Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here
Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain,
Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb,
Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life.
Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!
No change, no pause, no hope! Yet I endure.
I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt?
I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun,
Has it not seen? The Sea, in storm or calm,
Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below,
Have its deaf waves not heard my agony?
Ah me! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever!
The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears
Of their moon-freezing crystals, the bright chains
Eat with their burning cold into my bones.
Heaven's wingd hound, polluting from thy lips
His beak in poison not his own, tears up
My heart; and shapeless sights come wandering by,
The ghastly people of the realm of dream,
Mocking me: and the Earthquake-fiends are charged
To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds
When the rocks split and close again behind:
While from their loud abysses howling throng
The genii of the storm, urging the rage
Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail.
And yet to me welcome is day and night,
Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn,
Or starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs
The leaden-coloured east; for then they lead
The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom
As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim
Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood
From these pale feet, which then might trample thee
If they disdained not such a prostrate slave.
Disdain! Ah no! I pity thee. What ruin
Will hunt thee undefended through wide Heaven!
How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror,
Gape like a hell within! I speak in grief,
Not exultation, for I hate no more,
As then ere misery made me wise. The curse
Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains,
Whose many-voicd Echoes, through the mist
Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell!
Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost,
Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept
Shuddering through India! Thou serenest Air,
Through which the Sun walks burning without beams!
And ye swift Whirlwinds, who on poisd wings
Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hushed abyss,
As thunder, louder than your own, made rock
The orbd world! If then my words had power,
Though I am changed so that aught evil wish
Is dead within; although no memory be
Of what is hate, let them not lose it now!
What was that curse? for ye all heard me speak.
First Voice
(from the Mountains).
Thrice three hundred thousand years
O'er the Earthquake's couch we stood:
Oft, as men convulsed with fears,
We trembled in our multitude.
Second Voice
(from the Springs).
Thunderbolts had parched our water,
We had been stained with bitter blood,
And had run mute, 'mid shrieks of slaughter,
Thro' a city and a solitude.
Third Voice
(from the Air).
I had clothed, since Earth uprose,
Its wastes in colours not their own,
And oft had my serene repose
Been cloven by many a rending groan.
Fourth Voice
(from the Whirlwinds).
We had soared beneath these mountains
Unresting ages; nor had thunder,
Nor yon volcano's flaming fountains,
Nor any power above or under
Ever made us mute with wonder.
First Voice.
But never bowed our snowy crest
As at the voice of thine unrest.
Second Voice.
Never such a sound before
To the Indian waves we bore.
A pilot asleep on the howling sea
Leaped up from the deck in agony,
And heard, and cried, 'Ah, woe is me!'
And died as mad as the wild waves be.
Third Voice.
By such dread words from Earth to Heaven
My still realm was never riven:
When its wound was closed, there stood
Darkness o'er the day like blood.
Fourth Voice.
And we shrank back: for dreams of ruin
To frozen caves our flight pursuing
Made us keep silencethusand thus
Though silence is as hell to us.
The Earth.
The tongueless Caverns of the craggy hills
Cried, 'Misery!' then; the hollow Heaven replied,
'Misery!' And the Ocean's purple waves,
Climbing the land, howled to the lashing winds,
And the pale nations heard it, 'Misery!'
Prometheus.
I heard a sound of voices: not the voice
Which I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou
Scorn him, without whose all-enduring will
Beneath the fierce omnipotence of Jove,
Both they and thou had vanished, like thin mist
Unrolled on the morning wind. Know ye not me,
The Titan? He who made his agony
The barrier to your else all-conquering foe?
Oh, rock-embosomed lawns, and snow-fed streams,
Now seen athwart frore vapours, deep below,
Through whose o'ershadowing woods I wandered once
With Asia, drinking life from her loved eyes;
Why scorns the spirit which informs ye, now
To commune with me? me alone, who checked,
As one who checks a fiend-drawn charioteer,
The falsehood and the force of him who reigns
Supreme, and with the groans of pining slaves
Fills your dim glens and liquid wildernesses:
Why answer ye not, still? Brethren!
The Earth.
They dare not.
Prometheus.
Who dares? for I would hear that curse again.
Ha, what an awful whisper rises up!
'Tis scarce like sound: it tingles through the frame
As lightning tingles, hovering ere it strike.
Speak, Spirit! from thine inorganic voice
I only know that thou art moving near
And love. How cursed I him?
The Earth.
How canst thou hear
Who knowest not the language of the dead?
Prometheus.
Thou art a living spirit; speak as they.
The Earth.
I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven's fell King
Should hear, and link me to some wheel of pain
More torturing than the one whereon I roll.
Subtle thou art and good, and though the Gods
Hear not this voice, yet thou art more than God,
Being wise and kind: earnestly hearken now.
Prometheus.
Obscurely through my brain, like shadows dim,
Sweep awful thoughts, rapid and thick. I feel
Faint, like one mingled in entwining love;
Yet 'tis not pleasure.
The Earth.
No, thou canst not hear:
Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known
Only to those who die.
Prometheus.
And what art thou,
O, melancholy Voice?
The Earth.
I am the Earth,
Thy mother; she within whose stony veins,
To the last fibre of the loftiest tree
Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air,
Joy ran, as blood within a living frame,
When thou didst from her bosom, like a cloud
Of glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy!
And at thy voice her pining sons uplifted
Their prostrate brows from the polluting dust,
And our almighty Tyrant with fierce dread
Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here.
Then, see those million worlds which burn and roll
Around us: their inhabitants beheld
My spherd light wane in wide Heaven; the sea
Was lifted by strange tempest, and new fire
From earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow
Shook its portentous hair beneath Heaven's frown;
Lightning and Inundation vexed the plains;
Blue thistles bloomed in cities; foodless toads
Within voluptuous chambers panting crawled:
When Plague had fallen on man, and beast, and worm,
And Famine; and black blight on herb and tree;
And in the corn, and vines, and meadow-grass,
Teemed ineradicable poisonous weeds
Draining their growth, for my wan breast was dry
With grief; and the thin air, my breath, was stained
With the contagion of a mother's hate
Breathed on her child's destroyer; ay, I heard
Thy curse, the which, if thou rememberest not,
Yet my innumerable seas and streams,
Mountains, and caves, and winds, and yon wide air,
And the inarticulate people of the dead,
Preserve, a treasured spell. We meditate
In secret joy and hope those dreadful words,
But dare not speak them.
Prometheus.
Venerable mother!
All else who live and suffer take from thee
Some comfort; flowers, and fruits, and happy sounds,
And love, though fleeting; these may not be mine.
But mine own words, I pray, deny me not.
The Earth.
They shall be told. Ere Babylon was dust,
The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child,
Met his own image walking in the garden.
That apparition, sole of men, he saw.
For know there are two worlds of life and death:
One that which thou beholdest; but the other
Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit
The shadows of all forms that think and live
Till death unite them and they part no more;
Dreams and the light imaginings of men,
And all that faith creates or love desires,
Terrible, strange, sublime and beauteous shapes.
There thou art, and dost hang, a writhing shade,
'Mid whirlwind-peopled mountains; all the gods
Are there, and all the powers of nameless worlds,
Vast, sceptred phantoms; heroes, men, and beasts;
And Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom;
And he, the supreme Tyrant, on his throne
Of burning gold. Son, one of these shall utter
The curse which all remember. Call at will
Thine own ghost, or the ghost of Jupiter,
Hades or Typhon, or what mightier Gods
From all-prolific Evil, since thy ruin
Have sprung, and trampled on my prostrate sons.
Ask, and they must reply: so the revenge
Of the Supreme may sweep through vacant shades,
As rainy wind through the abandoned gate
Of a fallen palace.
Prometheus.
Mother, let not aught
Of that which may be evil, pass again
My lips, or those of aught resembling me.
Phantasm of Jupiter, arise, appear!
Ione.
My wings are folded o'er mine ears:
My wings are crossd o'er mine eyes:
Yet through their silver shade appears,
And through their lulling plumes arise,
A Shape, a throng of sounds;
May it be no ill to thee
O thou of many wounds!
Near whom, for our sweet sister's sake,
Ever thus we watch and wake.
Panthea.
The sound is of whirlwind underground,
Earthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven;
The shape is awful like the sound,
Clothed in dark purple, star-inwoven.
A sceptre of pale gold
To stay steps proud, o'er the slow cloud
His veind hand doth hold.
Cruel he looks, but calm and strong,
Like one who does, not suffers wrong.
Phantasm of Jupiter.
Why have the secret powers of this strange world
Driven me, a frail and empty phantom, hither
On direst storms? What unaccustomed sounds
Are hovering on my lips, unlike the voice
With which our pallid race hold ghastly talk
In darkness? And, proud sufferer, who art thou?
Prometheus.
Tremendous Image, as thou art must be
He whom thou shadowest forth. I am his foe,
The Titan. Speak the words which I would hear,
Although no thought inform thine empty voice.
The Earth.
Listen! And though your echoes must be mute,
Gray mountains, and old woods, and haunted springs,
Prophetic caves, and isle-surrounding streams,
Rejoice to hear what yet ye cannot speak.
Phantasm.
A spirit seizes me and speaks within:
It tears me as fire tears a thunder-cloud.
Panthea.
See, how he lifts his mighty looks, the Heaven
Darkens above.
Ione.
He speaks! O shelter me!
Prometheus.
I see the curse on gestures proud and cold,
And looks of firm defiance, and calm hate,
And such despair as mocks itself with smiles,
Written as on a scroll: yet speak: Oh, speak!
Phantasm.
Fiend, I defy thee! with a calm, fixed mind,
All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do;
Foul Tyrant both of Gods and Human-kind,
One only being shalt thou not subdue.
Rain then thy plagues upon me here,
Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear;
And let alternate frost and fire
Eat into me, and be thine ire
Lightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms
Of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms.
Ay, do thy worst. Thou art omnipotent.
O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power,
And my own will. Be thy swift mischiefs sent
To blast mankind, from yon ethereal tower.
Let thy malignant spirit move
In darkness over those I love:
On me and mine I imprecate
The utmost torture of thy hate;
And thus devote to sleepless agony,
This undeclining head while thou must reign on high.
But thou, who art the God and Lord: O, thou,
Who fillest with thy soul this world of woe,
To whom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow
In fear and worship: all-prevailing foe!
I curse thee! let a sufferer's curse
Clasp thee, his torturer, like remorse;
Till thine Infinity shall be
A robe of envenomed agony;
And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain,
To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain.
Heap on thy soul, by virtue of this Curse,
Ill deeds, then be thou damned, beholding good;
Both infinite as is the universe,
And thou, and thy self-torturing solitude.
An awful image of calm power
Though now thou sittest, let the hour
Come, when thou must appear to be
That which thou art internally;
And after many a false and fruitless crime
Scorn track thy lagging fall through boundless space and time.
Prometheus.
Were these my words, O Parent?
The Earth.
They were thine.
Prometheus.
It doth repent me: words are quick and vain;
Grief for awhile is blind, and so was mine.
I wish no living thing to suffer pain.
The Earth.
Misery, Oh misery to me,
That Jove at length should vanquish thee.
Wail, howl aloud, Land and Sea,
The Earth's rent heart shall answer ye.
Howl, Spirits of the living and the dead,
Your refuge, your defence lies fallen and vanquishd.
First Echo.
Lies fallen and vanquishd!
Second Echo.
Fallen and vanquishd!
Ione.
Fear not: 'tis but some passing spasm,
The Titan is unvanquished still.
But see, where through the azure chasm
Of yon forked and snowy hill
Trampling the slant winds on high
With golden-sandalled feet, that glow
Under plumes of purple dye,
Like rose-ensanguined ivory,
A Shape comes now,
Stretching on high from his right hand
A serpent-cinctured wand.
Panthea.
'Tis Jove's world-wandering herald, Mercury.
Ione.
And who are those with hydra tresses
And iron wings that climb the wind,
Whom the frowning God represses
Like vapours steaming up behind,
Clanging loud, an endless crowd
Panthea.
These are Jove's tempest-walking hounds,
Whom he gluts with groans and blood,
When charioted on sulphurous cloud
He bursts Heaven's bounds.
Ione.
Are they now led, from the thin dead
On new pangs to be fed?
Panthea.
The Titan looks as ever, firm, not proud.
First Fury.
Ha! I scent life!
Second Fury.
Let me but look into his eyes!
Third Fury.
The hope of torturing him smells like a heap
Of corpses, to a death-bird after battle.
First Fury.
Darest thou delay, O Herald! take cheer, Hounds
Of Hell: what if the Son of Maia soon
Should make us food and sportwho can please long
The Omnipotent?
Mercury.
Back to your towers of iron,
And gnash, beside the streams of fire and wail,
Your foodless teeth. Geryon, arise! and Gorgon,
Chimra, and thou Sphinx, subtlest of fiends
Who ministered to Thebes Heaven's poisoned wine,
Unnatural love, and more unnatural hate:
These shall perform your task.
First Fury.
Oh, mercy! mercy!
We die with our desire: drive us not back!
Mercury.
Crouch then in silence.
Awful Sufferer!
To thee unwilling, most unwillingly
I come, by the great Father's will driven down,
To execute a doom of new revenge.
Alas! I pity thee, and hate myself
That I can do no more: aye from thy sight
Returning, for a season, Heaven seems Hell,
So thy worn form pursues me night and day,
Smiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good,
But vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strife
Against the Omnipotent; as yon clear lamps
That measure and divide the weary years
From which there is no refuge, long have taught
And long must teach. Even now thy Torturer arms
With the strange might of unimagined pains
The powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell,
And my commission is to lead them here,
Or what more subtle, foul, or savage fiends
People the abyss, and leave them to their task.
Be it not so! there is a secret known
To thee, and to none else of living things,
Which may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven,
The fear of which perplexes the Supreme:
Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne
In intercession; bend thy soul in prayer,
And like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane,
Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart:
For benefits and meek submission tame
The fiercest and the mightiest.
Prometheus.
Evil minds
Change good to their own nature. I gave all
He has; and in return he chains me here
Years, ages, night and day: whether the Sun
Split my parched skin, or in the moony night
The crystal-wingd snow cling round my hair:
Whilst my belovd race is trampled down
By his thought-executing ministers.
Such is the tyrant's recompense: 'tis just:
He who is evil can receive no good;
And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost,
He can feel hate, fear, shame; not gratitude:
He but requites me for his own misdeed.
Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks
With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge.
Submission, thou dost know I cannot try:
For what submission but that fatal word,
The death-seal of mankind's captivity,
Like the Sicilian's hair-suspended sword,
Which trembles o'er his crown, would he accept,
Or could I yield? Which yet I will not yield.
Let others flatter Crime, where it sits throned
In brief Omnipotence: secure are they:
For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down
Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs,
Too much avenged by those who err. I wait,
Enduring thus, the retributive hour
Which since we spake is even nearer now.
But hark, the hell-hounds clamour: fear delay:
Behold! Heaven lowers under thy Father's frown.
Mercury.
Oh, that we might be spared: I to inflict
And thou to suffer! Once more answer me:
Thou knowest not the period of Jove's power?
Prometheus.
I know but this, that it must come.
Mercury.
Alas!
Thou canst not count thy years to come of pain?
Prometheus.
They last while Jove must reign: nor more, nor less
Do I desire or fear.
Mercury.
Yet pause, and plunge
Into Eternity, where recorded time,
Even all that we imagine, age on age,
Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind
Flags wearily in its unending flight,
Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless;
Perchance it has not numbered the slow years
Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved?
Prometheus.
Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pass.
Mercury.
If thou might'st dwell among the Gods the while
Lapped in voluptuous joy?
Prometheus.
I would not quit
This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains.
Mercury.
Alas! I wonder at, yet pity thee.
Prometheus.
Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven,
Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene,
As light in the sun, throned: how vain is talk!
Call up the fiends.
Ione.
O, sister, look! White fire
Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar;
How fearfully God's thunder howls behind!
Mercury.
I must obey his words and thine: alas!
Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart!
Panthea.
See where the child of Heaven, with wingd feet,
Runs down the slanted sunlight of the dawn.
Ione.
Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes
Lest thou behold and die: they come: they come
Blackening the birth of day with countless wings,
And hollow underneath, like death.
First Fury.
Prometheus!
Second Fury.
Immortal Titan!
Third Fury.
Champion of Heaven's slaves!
Prometheus.
He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here,
Prometheus, the chained Titan. Horrible forms,
What and who are ye? Never yet there came
Phantasms so foul through monster-teeming Hell
From the all-miscreative brain of Jove;
Whilst I behold such execrable shapes,
Methinks I grow like what I contemplate,
And laugh and stare in loathsome sympathy.
First Fury.
We are the ministers of pain, and fear,
And disappointment, and mistrust, and hate,
And clinging crime; and as lean dogs pursue
Through wood and lake some struck and sobbing fawn,
We track all things that weep, and bleed, and live,
When the great King betrays them to our will.
Prometheus.
Oh! many fearful natures in one name,
I know ye; and these lakes and echoes know
The darkness and the clangour of your wings.
But why more hideous than your loathd selves
Gather ye up in legions from the deep?
Second Fury.
We knew not that: Sisters, rejoice, rejoice!
Prometheus.
Can aught exult in its deformity?
Second Fury.
The beauty of delight makes lovers glad,
Gazing on one another: so are we.
As from the rose which the pale priestess kneels
To gather for her festal crown of flowers
The areal crimson falls, flushing her cheek,
So from our victim's destined agony
The shade which is our form invests us round,
Else we are shapeless as our mother Night.
Prometheus.
I laugh your power, and his who sent you here,
To lowest scorn. Pour forth the cup of pain.
First Fury.
Thou thinkest we will rend thee bone from bone,
And nerve from nerve, working like fire within?
Prometheus.
Pain is my element, as hate is thine;
Ye rend me now: I care not.
Second Fury.
Dost imagine
We will but laugh into thy lidless eyes?
Prometheus.
I weigh not what ye do, but what ye suffer,
Being evil. Cruel was the power which called
You, or aught else so wretched, into light.
Third Fury.
Thou think'st we will live through thee, one by one,
Like animal life, and though we can obscure not
The soul which burns within, that we will dwell
Beside it, like a vain loud multitude
Vexing the self-content of wisest men:
That we will be dread thought beneath thy brain,
And foul desire round thine astonished heart,
And blood within thy labyrinthine veins
Crawling like agony?
Prometheus.
Why, ye are thus now;
Yet am I king over myself, and rule
The torturing and conflicting throngs within,
As Jove rules you when Hell grows mutinous.
Chorus of Furies.
From the ends of the earth, from the ends of the earth,
Where the night has its grave and the morning its birth,
Come, come, come!
Oh, ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth,
When cities sink howling in ruin; and ye
Who with wingless footsteps trample the sea,
And close upon Shipwreck and Famine's track,
Sit chattering with joy on the foodless wreck;
Come, come, come!
Leave the bed, low, cold, and red,
Strewed beneath a nation dead;
Leave the hatred, as in ashes
Fire is left for future burning:
It will burst in bloodier flashes
When ye stir it, soon returning:
Leave the self-contempt implanted
In young spirits, sense-enchanted,
Misery's yet unkindled fuel:
Leave Hell's secrets half unchanted
To the maniac dreamer; cruel
More than ye can be with hate
Is he with fear.
Come, come, come!
We are steaming up from Hell's wide gate
And we burthen the blast of the atmosphere,
But vainly we toil till ye come here.
Ione.
Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings.
Panthea.
These solid mountains quiver with the sound
Even as the tremulous air: their shadows make
The space within my plumes more black than night.
First Fury.
Your call was as a wingd car
Driven on whirlwinds fast and far;
It rapped us from red gulfs of war.
Second Fury.
From wide cities, famine-wasted;
Third Fury.
Groans half heard, and blood untasted;
Fourth Fury.
Kingly conclaves stern and cold,
Where blood with gold is bought and sold;
Fifth Fury.
From the furnace, white and hot,
In which
A Fury.
Speak not: whisper not:
I know all that ye would tell,
But to speak might break the spell
Which must bend the Invincible,
The stern of thought;
He yet defies the deepest power of Hell.
A Fury.
Tear the veil!
Another Fury.
It is torn.
Chorus.
The pale stars of the morn
Shine on a misery, dire to be borne.
Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to scorn.
Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst for man?
Then was kindled within him a thirst which outran
Those perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever,
Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever.
One came forth of gentle worth
Smiling on the sanguine earth;
His words outlived him, like swift poison
Withering up truth, peace, and pity.
Look! where round the wide horizon
Many a million-peopled city
Vomits smoke in the bright air.
Hark that outcry of despair!
'Tis his mild and gentle ghost
Wailing for the faith he kindled:
Look again, the flames almost
To a glow-worm's lamp have dwindled:
The survivors round the embers
Gather in dread.
Joy, joy, joy!
Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers,
And the future is dark, and the present is spread
Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head.
Semichorus I.
Drops of bloody agony flow
From his white and quivering brow.
Grant a little respite now:
See a disenchanted nation
Springs like day from desolation;
To Truth its state is dedicate,
And Freedom leads it forth, her mate;
A legioned band of linkd brothers
Whom Love calls children
Semichorus II.
'Tis another's:
See how kindred murder kin:
'Tis the vintage-time for death and sin:
Blood, like new wine, bubbles within:
Till Despair smothers
The struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win.
[All the Furies vanish, except one.
Ione.
Hark, sister! what a low yet dreadful groan
Quite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart
Of the good Titan, as storms tear the deep,
And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves.
Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him?
Panthea.
Alas! I looked forth twice, but will no more.
Ione.
What didst thou see?
Panthea.
A woful sight: a youth
With patient looks nailed to a crucifix.
Ione.
What next?
Panthea.
The heaven around, the earth below
Was peopled with thick shapes of human death,
All horrible, and wrought by human hands,
And some appeared the work of human hearts,
For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles:
And other sights too foul to speak and live
Were wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear
By looking forth: those groans are grief enough.
Fury.
Behold an emblem: those who do endure
Deep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but heap
Thousandfold torment on themselves and him.
Prometheus.
Remit the anguish of that lighted stare;
Close those wan lips; let that thorn-wounded brow
Stream not with blood; it mingles with thy tears!
Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death,
So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix,
So those pale fingers play not with thy gore.
O, horrible! Thy name I will not speak,
It hath become a curse. I see, I see,
The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just,
Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee,
Some hunted by foul lies from their heart's home,
An early-chosen, late-lamented home;
As hooded ounces cling to the driven hind;
Some linked to corpses in unwholesome cells:
SomeHear I not the multitude laugh loud?
Impaled in lingering fire: and mighty realms
Float by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles,
Whose sons are kneaded down in common blood
By the red light of their own burning homes.
Fury.
Blood thou canst see, and fire; and canst hear groans;
Worse things, unheard, unseen, remain behind.
Prometheus.
Worse?
Fury.
In each human heart terror survives
The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear
All that they would disdain to think were true:
Hypocrisy and custom make their minds
The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.
They dare not devise good for man's estate,
And yet they know not that they do not dare.
The good want power, but to weep barren tears.
The powerful goodness want: worse need for them.
The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom;
And all best things are thus confused to ill.
Many are strong and rich, and would be just,
But live among their suffering fellow-men
As if none felt: they know not what they do.
Prometheus.
Thy words are like a cloud of wingd snakes;
And yet I pity those they torture not.
Fury.
Thou pitiest them? I speak no more!
[Vanishes.
Prometheus.
Ah woe!
Ah woe! Alas! pain, pain ever, for ever!
I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear
Thy works within my woe-illumd mind,
Thou subtle tyrant! Peace is in the grave.
The grave hides all things beautiful and good:
I am a God and cannot find it there,
Nor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge,
This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.
The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul
With new endurance, till the hour arrives
When they shall be no types of things which are.
Panthea.
Alas! what sawest thou more?
Prometheus.
There are two woes:
To speak, and to behold; thou spare me one.
Names are there, Nature's sacred watchwords, they
Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry;
The nations thronged around, and cried aloud,
As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love!
Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven
Among them: there was strife, deceit, and fear:
Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.
This was the shadow of the truth I saw.
The Earth.
I felt thy torture, son; with such mixed joy
As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state
I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits,
Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought,
And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind,
Its world-surrounding aether: they behold
Beyond that twilight realm, as in a glass,
The future: may they speak comfort to thee!
Panthea.
Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather,
Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather,
Thronging in the blue air!
Ione.
And see! more come,
Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb,
That climb up the ravine in scattered lines.
And, hark! is it the music of the pines?
Is it the lake? Is it the waterfall?
Panthea.
'Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all.
Chorus of Spirits.
From unremembered ages we
Gentle guides and guardians be
Of heaven-oppressed mortality;
And we breathe, and sicken not,
The atmosphere of human thought:
Be it dim, and dank, and gray,
Like a storm-extinguished day,
Travelled o'er by dying gleams;
Be it bright as all between
Cloudless skies and windless streams,
Silent, liquid, and serene;
As the birds within the wind,
As the fish within the wave,
As the thoughts of man's own mind
Float through all above the grave;
We make there our liquid lair,
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent
Through the boundless element:
Thence we bear the prophecy
Which begins and ends in thee!
Ione.
More yet come, one by one: the air around them
Looks radiant as the air around a star.
First Spirit.
On a battle-trumpet's blast
I fled hither, fast, fast, fast,
'Mid the darkness upward cast.
From the dust of creeds outworn,
From the tyrant's banner torn,
Gathering 'round me, onward borne,
There was mingled many a cry
Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory!
Till they faded through the sky;
And one sound, above, around,
One sound beneath, around, above,
Was moving; 'twas the soul of Love;
'Twas the hope, the prophecy,
Which begins and ends in thee.
Second Spirit.
A rainbow's arch stood on the sea,
Which rocked beneath, immovably;
And the triumphant storm did flee,
Like a conqueror, swift and proud,
Between, with many a captive cloud,
A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd,
Each by lightning riven in half:
I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh:
Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff
And spread beneath a hell of death
O'er the white waters. I alit
On a great ship lightning-split,
And speeded hither on the sigh
Of one who gave an enemy
His plank, then plunged aside to die.
Third Spirit.
I sate beside a sage's bed,
And the lamp was burning red
Near the book where he had fed,
When a Dream with plumes of flame,
To his pillow hovering came,
And I knew it was the same
Which had kindled long ago
Pity, eloquence, and woe;
And the world awhile below
Wore the shade, its lustre made.
It has borne me here as fleet
As Desire's lightning feet:
I must ride it back ere morrow,
Or the sage will wake in sorrow.
Fourth Spirit.
On a poet's lips I slept
Dreaming like a love-adept
In the sound his breathing kept;
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
But feeds on the areal kisses
Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses.
He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,
Nor heed nor see, what things they be;
But from these create he can
Forms more real than living man,
Nurslings of immortality!
One of these awakened me,
And I sped to succour thee.
Ione.
Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west
Come, as two doves to one belovd nest,
Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air
On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere?
And, hark! their sweet, sad voices! 'tis despair
Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound.
Panthea.
Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned.
Ione.
Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float
On their sustaining wings of skiey grain,
Orange and azure deepening into gold:
Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire.
Chorus of Spirits.
Hast thou beheld the form of Love?
Fifth Spirit.
As over wide dominions
I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's wildernesses,
That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided pinions,
Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial tresses:
His footsteps paved the world with light; but as I passed 'twas fading,
And hollow Ruin yawned behind: great sages bound in madness,
And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished, unupbraiding,
Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O King of sadness,
Turned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected gladness.
Sixth Spirit.
Ah, sister! Desolation is a delicate thing:
It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air,
But treads with lulling footstep, and fans with silent wing
The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and gentlest bear;
Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above
And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet,
Dream visions of areal joy, and call the monster, Love,
And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now we greet.
Chorus.
Though Ruin now Love's shadow be,
Following him, destroyingly,
On Death's white and wingd steed,
Which the fleetest cannot flee,
Trampling down both flower and weed,
Man and beast, and foul and fair,
Like a tempest through the air;
Thou shalt quell this horseman grim,
Woundless though in heart or limb.
Prometheus.
Spirits! how know ye this shall be?
Chorus.
In the atmosphere we breathe,
As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee,
From Spring gathering up beneath,
Whose mild winds shake the elder brake,
And the wandering herdsmen know
That the white-thorn soon will blow:
Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace,
When they struggle to increase,
Are to us as soft winds be
To shepherd boys, the prophecy
Which begins and ends in thee.
Ione.
Where are the Spirits fled?
Panthea.
Only a sense
Remains of them, like the omnipotence
Of music, when the inspired voice and lute
Languish, ere yet the responses are mute,
Which through the deep and labyrinthine soul,
Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll.
Prometheus.
How fair these airborn shapes! and yet I feel
Most vain all hope but love; and thou art far,
Asia! who, when my being overflowed,
Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine
Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust.
All things are still: alas! how heavily
This quiet morning weighs upon my heart;
Though I should dream I could even sleep with grief
If slumber were denied not. I would fain
Be what it is my destiny to be,
The saviour and the strength of suffering man,
Or sink into the original gulf of things:
There is no agony, and no solace left;
Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more.
Panthea.
Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee
The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when
The shadow of thy spirit falls on her?
Prometheus.
I said all hope was vain but love: thou lovest.
Panthea.
Deeply in truth; but the eastern star looks white,
And Asia waits in that far Indian vale,
The scene of her sad exile; rugged once
And desolate and frozen, like this ravine;
But now invested with fair flowers and herbs,
And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow
Among the woods and waters, from the aether
Of her transforming presence, which would fade
If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell!
END OF THE FIRST ACT.
ACT II
Scene I.
Morning. A lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus. Asia alone.
Asia.
From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended:
Yes, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes
Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes,
And beatings haunt the desolated heart,
Which should have learnt repose: thou hast descended
Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring!
O child of many winds! As suddenly
Thou comest as the memory of a dream,
Which now is sad because it hath been sweet;
Like genius, or like joy which riseth up
As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds
The desert of our life.
This is the season, this the day, the hour;
At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine,
Too long desired, too long delaying, come!
How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl!
The point of one white star is quivering still
Deep in the orange light of widening morn
Beyond the purple mountains. through a chasm
Of wind-divided mist the darker lake
Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again
As the waves fade, and as the burning threads
Of woven cloud unravel in pale air:
'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow
The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not
The olian music of her sea-green plumes
Winnowing the crimson dawn?
[Panthea enters.
I feel, I see
Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in tears,
Like stars half quenched in mists of silver dew.
Belovd and most beautiful, who wearest
The shadow of that soul by which I live,
How late thou art! the spherd sun had climbed
The sea; my heart was sick with hope, before
The printless air felt thy belated plumes.
Panthea.
Pardon, great Sister! but my wings were faint
With the delight of a remembered dream,
As are the noontide plumes of summer winds
Satiate with sweet flowers. I was wont to sleep
Peacefully, and awake refreshed and calm
Before the sacred Titan's fall, and thy
Unhappy love, had made, through use and pity,
Both love and woe familiar to my heart
As they had grown to thine: erewhile I slept
Under the glaucous caverns of old Ocean
Within dim bowers of green and purple moss,
Our young Ione's soft and milky arms
Locked then, as now, behind my dark, moist hair,
While my shut eyes and cheek were pressed within
The folded depth of her life-breathing bosom:
But not as now, since I am made the wind
Which fails beneath the music that I bear
Of thy most wordless converse; since dissolved
Into the sense with which love talks, my rest
Was troubled and yet sweet; my waking hours
Too full of care and pain.
Asia.
Lift up thine eyes,
And let me read thy dream.
Panthea.
As I have said
With our sea-sister at his feet I slept.
The mountain mists, condensing at our voice
Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes,
From the keen ice shielding our linkd sleep.
Then two dreams came. One, I remember not.
But in the other his pale wound-worn limbs
Fell from Prometheus, and the azure night
Grew radiant with the glory of that form
Which lives unchanged within, and his voice fell
Like music which makes giddy the dim brain,
Faint with intoxication of keen joy:
'Sister of her whose footsteps pave the world
With lovelinessmore fair than aught but her,
Whose shadow thou artlift thine eyes on me.'
I lifted them: the overpowering light
Of that immortal shape was shadowed o'er
By love; which, from his soft and flowing limbs,
And passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes,
Steamed forth like vaporous fire; an atmosphere
Which wrapped me in its all-dissolving power,
As the warm aether of the morning sun
Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew.
I saw not, heard not, moved not, only felt
His presence flow and mingle through my blood
Till it became his life, and his grew mine,
And I was thus absorbed, until it passed,
And like the vapours when the sun sinks down,
Gathering again in drops upon the pines,
And tremulous as they, in the deep night
My being was condensed; and as the rays
Of thought were slowly gathered, I could hear
His voice, whose accents lingered ere they died
Like footsteps of weak melody: thy name
Among the many sounds alone I heard
Of what might be articulate; though still
I listened through the night when sound was none.
Ione wakened then, and said to me:
'Canst thou divine what troubles me to-night?
I always knew what I desired before,
Nor ever found delight to wish in vain.
But now I cannot tell thee what I seek;
I know not; something sweet, since it is sweet
Even to desire; it is thy sport, false sister;
Thou hast discovered some enchantment old,
Whose spells have stolen my spirit as I slept
And mingled it with thine: for when just now
We kissed, I felt within thy parted lips
The sweet air that sustained me, and the warmth
Of the life-blood, for loss of which I faint,
Quivered between our intertwining arms.'
I answered not, for the Eastern star grew pale,
But fled to thee.
Asia.
Thou speakest, but thy words
Are as the air: I feel them not: Oh, lift
Thine eyes, that I may read his written soul!
Panthea.
I lift them though they droop beneath the load
Of that they would express: what canst thou see
But thine own fairest shadow imaged there?
Asia.
Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven
Contracted to two circles underneath
Their long, fine lashes; dark, far, measureless,
Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven.
Panthea.
Why lookest thou as if a spirit passed?
Asia.
There is a change: beyond their inmost depth
I see a shade, a shape: 'tis He, arrayed
In the soft light of his own smiles, which spread
Like radiance from the cloud-surrounded moon.
Prometheus, it is thine! depart not yet!
Say not those smiles that we shall meet again
Within that bright pavilion which their beams
Shall build o'er the waste world? The dream is told.
What shape is that between us? Its rude hair
Roughens the wind that lifts it, its regard
Is wild and quick, yet 'tis a thing of air,
For through its gray robe gleams the golden dew
Whose stars the noon has quenched not.
Dream.
Follow! Follow!
Panthea.
It is mine other dream.
Asia.
It disappears.
Panthea.
It passes now into my mind. Methought
As we sate here, the flower-infolding buds
Burst on yon lightning-blasted almond-tree,
When swift from the white Scythian wilderness
A wind swept forth wrinkling the Earth with frost:
I looked, and all the blossoms were blown down;
But on each leaf was stamped, as the blue bells
Of Hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief,
O, follow, follow!
Asia.
As you speak, your words
Fill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep
With shapes. Methought among these lawns together
We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn,
And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds
Were wandering in thick flocks along the mountains
Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind;
And the white dew on the new-bladed grass,
Just piercing the dark earth, hung silently;
And there was more which I remember not:
But on the shadows of the morning clouds,
Athwart the purple mountain slope, was written
Follow, O, follow! as they vanished by;
And on each herb, from which Heaven's dew had fallen,
The like was stamped, as with a withering fire;
A wind arose among the pines; it shook
The clinging music from their boughs, and then
Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of ghosts,
Were heard: O, follow, follow, follow me!
And then I said: 'Panthea, look on me.'
But in the depth of those belovd eyes
Still I saw, follow, follow!
Echo.
Follow, follow!
Panthea.
The crags, this clear spring morning, mock our voices
As they were spirit-tongued.
Asia.
It is some being
Around the crags. What fine clear sounds! O, list!
Echoes
(unseen).
Echoes we: listen!
We cannot stay:
As dew-stars glisten
Then fade away
Child of Ocean!
Asia.
Hark! Spirits speak. The liquid responses
Of their areal tongues yet sound.
Panthea.
I hear.
Echoes.
O, follow, follow,
As our voice recedeth
Through the caverns hollow,
Where the forest spreadeth; (More distant.)
O, follow, follow!
Through the caverns hollow,
As the song floats thou pursue,
Where the wild bee never flew,
Through the noontide darkness deep,
By the odour-breathing sleep
Of faint night flowers, and the waves
At the fountain-lighted caves,
While our music, wild and sweet,
Mocks thy gently falling feet,
Child of Ocean!
Asia.
Shall we pursue the sound? It grows more faint And distant.
Panthea.
List! the strain floats nearer now.
Echoes.
In the world unknown
Sleeps a voice unspoken;
By thy step alone
Can its rest be broken;
Child of Ocean!
Asia.
How the notes sink upon the ebbing wind!
Echoes.
O, follow, follow!
Through the caverns hollow,
As the song floats thou pursue,
By the woodland noontide dew;
By the forest, lakes, and fountains,
Through the many-folded mountains;
To the rents, and gulfs, and chasms,
Where the Earth reposed from spasms,
On the day when He and thou
Parted, to commingle now;
Child of Ocean!
Asia.
Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine,
And follow, ere the voices fade away.
Scene II.
A Forest, intermingled with Rocks and Caverns. Asia and Panthea pass into it. Two young Fauns are sitting on a Rock listening.
Semichorus I. of Spirits.
The path through which that lovely twain
Have passed, by cedar, pine, and yew,
And each dark tree that ever grew,
Is curtained out from Heaven's wide blue;
Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain,
Can pierce its interwoven bowers,
Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew,
Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze,
Between the trunks of the hoar trees,
Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers
Of the green laurel, blown anew;
And bends, and then fades silently,
One frail and fair anemone:
Or when some star of many a one
That climbs and wanders through steep night,
Has found the cleft through which alone
Beams fall from high those depths upon
Ere it is borne away, away,
By the swift Heavens that cannot stay,
It scatters drops of golden light,
Like lines of rain that ne'er unite:
And the gloom divine is all around,
And underneath is the mossy ground.
Semichorus II.
There the voluptuous nightingales,
Are awake through all the broad noonday.
When one with bliss or sadness fails,
And through the windless ivy-boughs,
Sick with sweet love, droops dying away
On its mate's music-panting bosom;
Another from the swinging blossom,
Watching to catch the languid close
Of the last strain, then lifts on high
The wings of the weak melody,
'Till some new strain of feeling bear
The song, and all the woods are mute;
When there is heard through the dim air
The rush of wings, and rising there
Like many a lake-surrounded flute,
Sounds overflow the listener's brain
So sweet, that joy is almost pain.
Semichorus I.
There those enchanted eddies play
Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw,
By Demogorgon's mighty law,
With melting rapture, or sweet awe,
All spirits on that secret way;
As inland boats are driven to Ocean
Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw:
And first there comes a gentle sound
To those in talk or slumber bound,
And wakes the destined soft emotion,
Attracts, impels them; those who saw
Say from the breathing earth behind
There steams a plume-uplifting wind
Which drives them on their path, while they
Believe their own swift wings and feet
The sweet desires within obey:
And so they float upon their way,
Until, still sweet, but loud and strong,
The storm of sound is driven along,
Sucked up and hurrying: as they fleet
Behind, its gathering billows meet
And to the fatal mountain bear
Like clouds amid the yielding air.
First Faun.
Canst thou imagine where those spirits live
Which make such delicate music in the woods?
We haunt within the least frequented caves
And closest coverts, and we know these wilds,
Yet never meet them, though we hear them oft:
Where may they hide themselves?
Second Faun.
'Tis hard to tell:
I have heard those more skilled in spirits say,
The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun
Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave
The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools,
Are the pavilions where such dwell and float
Under the green and golden atmosphere
Which noontide kindles through the woven leaves;
And when these burst, and the thin fiery air,
The which they breathed within those lucent domes,
Ascends to flow like meteors through the night,
They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed,
And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire
Under the waters of the earth again.
First Faun.
If such live thus, have others other lives,
Under pink blossoms or within the bells
Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep,
Or on their dying odours, when they die,
Or in the sunlight of the spherd dew?
Second Faun.
Ay, many more which we may well divine.
But, should we stay to speak, noontide would come,
And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn,
And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs
Of Fate, and Chance, and God, and Chaos old,
And Love, and the chained Titan's woful doom,
And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth
One brotherhood: delightful strains which cheer
Our solitary twilights, and which charm
To silence the unenvying nightingales.
Scene III.
A Pinnacle of Rock among Mountains.
Asia and Panthea.
Panthea.
Hither the sound has borne usto the realm
Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal,
Like a volcano's meteor-breathing chasm,
Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up
Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth,
And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy,
That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain
To deep intoxication; and uplift,
Like Mnads who cry loud, Evoe! Evoe!
The voice which is contagion to the world.
Asia.
Fit throne for such a Power! Magnificent!
How glorious art thou, Earth! And if thou be
The shadow of some spirit lovelier still,
Though evil stain its work, and it should be
Like its creation, weak yet beautiful,
I could fall down and worship that and thee.
Even now my heart adoreth: Wonderful!
Look, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain:
Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist,
As a lake, paving in the morning sky,
With azure waves which burst in silver light,
Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on
Under the curdling winds, and islanding
The peak whereon we stand, midway, around,
Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests,
Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumd caves,
And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist;
And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains
From icy spires of sun-like radiance fling
The dawn, as lifted Ocean's dazzling spray,
From some Atlantic islet scattered up,
Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops.
The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl
Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines,
Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast,
Awful as silence. Hark! the rushing snow!
The sun-awakened avalanche! whose mass,
Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there
Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds
As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth
Is loosened, and the nations echo round,
Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.
Panthea.
Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking
In crimson foam, even at our feet! it rises
As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon
Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle.
Asia.
The fragments of the cloud are scattered up;
The wind that lifts them disentwines my hair;
Its billows now sweep o'er mine eyes; my brain
Grows dizzy; see'st thou shapes within the mist?
Panthea.
A countenance with beckoning smiles: there burns
An azure fire within its golden locks!
Another and another: hark! they speak!
Song of Spirits.
To the deep, to the deep,
Down, down!
Through the shade of sleep,
Through the cloudy strife
Of Death and of Life;
Through the veil and the bar
Of things which seem and are
Even to the steps of the remotest throne,
Down, down!
While the sound whirls around,
Down, down!
As the fawn draws the hound,
As the lightning the vapour,
As a weak moth the taper;
Death, despair; love, sorrow;
Time both; to-day, to-morrow;
As steel obeys the spirit of the stone,
Down, down!
Through the gray, void abysm,
Down, down!
Where the air is no prism,
And the moon and stars are not,
And the cavern-crags wear not
The radiance of Heaven,
Nor the gloom to Earth given,
Where there is One pervading, One alone,
Down, down!
In the depth of the deep,
Down, down!
Like veiled lightning asleep,
Like the spark nursed in embers,
The last look Love remembers,
Like a diamond, which shines
On the dark wealth of mines,
A spell is treasured but for thee alone.
Down, down!
We have bound thee, we guide thee;
Down, down!
With the bright form beside thee;
Resist not the weakness,
Such strength is in meekness
That the Eternal, the Immortal,
Most unloose through life's portal
The snake-like Doom coiled underneath his throne
By that alone.
Scene IV.
The Cave of Demogorgon.
Asia and Panthea.
Panthea.
What viled form sits on that ebon throne?
Asia.
The veil has fallen.
Panthea.
I see a mighty darkness
Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom
Dart round, as light from the meridian sun.
Ungazed upon and shapeless; neither limb,
Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is
A living Spirit.
Demogorgon.
Ask what thou wouldst know.
Asia.
What canst thou tell?
Demogorgon.
All things thou dar'st demand.
Asia.
Who made the living world?
Demogorgon.
God.
Asia.
Who made all
That it contains? thought, passion, reason, will, Imagination?
Demogorgon.
God: Almighty God.
Asia.
Who made that sense which, when the winds of Spring
In rarest visitation, or the voice
Of one belovd heard in youth alone,
Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim
The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers,
And leaves this peopled earth a solitude
When it returns no more?
Demogorgon.
Merciful God.
Asia.
And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse,
Which from the links of the great chain of things,
To every thought within the mind of man
Sway and drag heavily, and each one reels
Under the load towards the pit of death;
Abandoned hope, and love that turns to hate;
And self-contempt, bitterer to drink than blood;
Pain, whose unheeded and familiar speech
Is howling, and keen shrieks, day after day;
And Hell, or the sharp fear of Hell?
Demogorgon.
He reigns.
Asia.
Utter his name: a world pining in pain
Asks but his name: curses shall drag him down.
Demogorgon.
He reigns.
Asia.
I feel, I know it: who?
Demogorgon.
He reigns.
Asia.
Who reigns? There was the Heaven and Earth at first,
And Light and Love; then Saturn, from whose throne
Time fell, an envious shadow: such the state
Of the earth's primal spirits beneath his sway,
As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves
Before the wind or sun has withered them
And semivital worms; but he refused
The birthright of their being, knowledge, power,
The skill which wields the elements, the thought
Which pierces this dim universe like light,
Self-empire, and the majesty of love;
For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus
Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter,
And with this law alone, 'Let man be free,'
Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven.
To know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to be
Omnipotent but friendless is to reign;
And Jove now reigned; for on the race of man
First famine, and then toil, and then disease,
Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before,
Fell; and the unseasonable seasons drove
With alternating shafts of frost and fire,
Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves:
And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent,
And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle
Of unreal good, which levied mutual war,
So ruining the lair wherein they raged.
Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes
Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers,
Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms,
That they might hide with thin and rainbow wings
The shape of Death; and Love he sent to bind
The disunited tendrils of that vine
Which bears the wine of life, the human heart;
And he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey,
Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath
The frown of man; and tortured to his will
Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power,
And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms
Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves.
He gave man speech, and speech created thought,
Which is the measure of the universe;
And Science struck the thrones of earth and heaven,
Which shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind
Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song;
And music lifted up the listening spirit
Until it walked, exempt from mortal care,
Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound;
And human hands first mimicked and then mocked,
With moulded limbs more lovely than its own,
The human form, till marble grew divine;
And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see
Reflected in their race, behold, and perish.
He told the hidden power of herbs and springs,
And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep.
He taught the implicated orbits woven
Of the wide-wandering stars; and how the sun
Changes his lair, and by what secret spell
The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye
Gazes not on the interlunar sea:
He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs,
The tempest-wingd chariots of the Ocean,
And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then
Were built, and through their snow-like columns flowed
The warm winds, and the azure aether shone,
And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen.
Such, the alleviations of his state,
Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs
Withering in destined pain: but who rains down
Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while
Man looks on his creation like a God
And sees that it is glorious, drives him on,
The wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth,
The outcast, the abandoned, the alone?
Not Jove: while yet his frown shook Heaven, ay, when
His adversary from adamantine chains
Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare
Who is his master? Is he too a slave?
Demogorgon.
All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil:
Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no.
Asia.
Whom calledst thou God?
Demogorgon.
I spoke but as ye speak,
For Jove is the supreme of living things.
Asia.
Who is the master of the slave?
Demogorgon.
If the abysm
Could vomit forth its secrets. . . But a voice
Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless;
For what would it avail to bid thee gaze
On the revolving world? What to bid speak
Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Change? To these
All things are subject but eternal Love.
Asia.
So much I asked before, and my heart gave
The response thou hast given; and of such truths
Each to itself must be the oracle.
One more demand; and do thou answer me
As mine own soul would answer, did it know
That which I ask. Prometheus shall arise
Henceforth the sun of this rejoicing world:
When shall the destined hour arrive?
Demogorgon.
Behold!
Asia.
The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night
I see cars drawn by rainbow-wingd steeds
Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands
A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.
Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,
And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:
Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,
As if the thing they loved fled on before,
And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks
Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all
Sweep onward.
Demogorgon.
These are the immortal Hours,
Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.
Asia.
A spirit with a dreadful countenance
Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulf.
Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer,
Who art thou? Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak!
Spirit.
I am the shadow of a destiny
More dread than is my aspect: ere yon planet
Has set, the darkness which ascends with me
Shall wrap in lasting night heaven's kingless throne.
Asia.
What meanest thou?
Panthea.
That terrible shadow floats
Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke
Of earthquake-ruined cities o'er the sea.
Lo! it ascends the car; the coursers fly
Terrified: watch its path among the stars
Blackening the night!
Asia.
Thus I am answered: strange!
Panthea.
See, near the verge, another chariot stays;
An ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire,
Which comes and goes within its sculptured rim
Of delicate strange tracery; the young spirit
That guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope;
How its soft smiles attract the soul! as light
Lures wingd insects through the lampless air.
Spirit.
My coursers are fed with the lightning,
They drink of the whirlwind's stream,
And when the red morning is bright'ning
They bathe in the fresh sunbeam;
They have strength for their swiftness I deem,
Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.
I desire: and their speed makes night kindle;
I fear: they outstrip the Typhoon;
Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle
We encircle the earth and the moon:
We shall rest from long labours at noon:
Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean.
Scene V.
The Car pauses within a Cloud on the top of a snowy Mountain. Asia, Panthea, and the Spirit of the Hour.
Spirit.
On the brink of the night and the morning
My coursers are wont to respire;
But the Earth has just whispered a warning
That their flight must be swifter than fire:
They shall drink the hot speed of desire!
Asia.
Thou breathest on their nostrils, but my breath
Would give them swifter speed.
Spirit.
Alas! it could not.
Panthea.
Oh Spirit! pause, and tell whence is the light
Which fills this cloud? the sun is yet unrisen.
Spirit.
The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo
Is held in heaven by wonder; and the light
Which fills this vapour, as the areal hue
Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water,
Flows from thy mighty sister.
Panthea.
Yes, I feel
Asia.
What is it with thee, sister? Thou art pale.
Panthea.
How thou art changed! I dare not look on thee;
I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure
The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change
Is working in the elements, which suffer
Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell
That on the day when the clear hyaline
Was cloven at thine uprise, and thou didst stand
Within a veind shell, which floated on
Over the calm floor of the crystal sea,
Among the gean isles, and by the shores
Which bear thy name; love, like the atmosphere
Of the sun's fire filling the living world,
Burst from thee, and illumined earth and heaven
And the deep ocean and the sunless caves
And all that dwells within them; till grief cast
Eclipse upon the soul from which it came:
Such art thou now; nor is it I alone,
Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one,
But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy.
Hearest thou not sounds i' the air which speak the love
Of all articulate beings? Feelest thou not
The inanimate winds enamoured of thee? List!
[Music.
Asia.
Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his
Whose echoes they are: yet all love is sweet,
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.
Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air,
It makes the reptile equal to the God:
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
As I am now; but those who feel it most
Are happier still, after long sufferings,
As I shall soon become.
Panthea.
List! Spirits speak.
Voice in the Air, singing.
Life of Life! thy lips enkindle
With their love the breath between them;
And thy smiles before they dwindle
Make the cold air fire; then screen them
In those looks, where whoso gazes
Faints, entangled in their mazes.
Child of Light! thy limbs are burning
Through the vest which seems to hide them;
As the radiant lines of morning
Through the clouds ere they divide them;
And this atmosphere divinest
Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.
Fair are others; none beholds thee,
But thy voice sounds low and tender
Like the fairest, for it folds thee
From the sight, that liquid splendour,
And all feel, yet see thee never,
As I feel now, lost for ever!
Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest
Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,
And the souls of whom thou lovest
Walk upon the winds with lightness,
Till they fail, as I am failing,
Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!
Asia.
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music's most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided:
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.
We have passed Age's icy caves,
And Manhood's dark and tossing waves,
And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray:
Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee
Of shadow-peopled Infancy,
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers,
Lit by downward-gazing flowers,
And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,
Peopled by shapes too bright to see,
And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;
Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!
END OF THE SECOND ACT.
ACT III
Scene I.
Heaven. Jupiter on his Throne; Thetis and the other Deities assembled.
Jupiter.
Ye congregated powers of heaven, who share
The glory and the strength of him ye serve,
Rejoice! henceforth I am omnipotent.
All else had been subdued to me; alone
The soul of man, like unextinguished fire,
Yet burns towards heaven with fierce reproach, and doubt,
And lamentation, and reluctant prayer,
Hurling up insurrection, which might make
Our antique empire insecure, though built
On eldest faith, and hell's coeval, fear;
And though my curses through the pendulous air,
Like snow on herbless peaks, fall flake by flake,
And cling to it; though under my wrath's night
It climbs the crags of life, step after step,
Which wound it, as ice wounds unsandalled feet,
It yet remains supreme o'er misery,
Aspiring, unrepressed, yet soon to fall:
Even now have I begotten a strange wonder,
That fatal child, the terror of the earth,
Who waits but till the destined hour arrive,
Bearing from Demogorgon's vacant throne
The dreadful might of ever-living limbs
Which clothed that awful spirit unbeheld,
To redescend, and trample out the spark.
Pour forth heaven's wine, Idan Ganymede,
And let it fill the Ddal cups like fire,
And from the flower-inwoven soil divine
Ye all-triumphant harmonies arise,
As dew from earth under the twilight stars:
Drink! be the nectar circling through your veins
The soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods,
Till exultation burst in one wide voice
Like music from Elysian winds.
And thou
Ascend beside me, veild in the light
Of the desire which makes thee one with me,
Thetis, bright image of eternity!
When thou didst cry, 'Insufferable might!
God! Spare me! I sustain not the quick flames,
The penetrating presence; all my being,
Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw
Into a dew with poison, is dissolved,
Sinking through its foundations:' even then
Two mighty spirits, mingling, made a third
Mightier than either, which, unbodied now,
Between us floats, felt, although unbeheld,
Waiting the incarnation, which ascends,
(Hear ye the thunder of the fiery wheels
Griding the winds?) from Demogorgon's throne.
Victory! victory! Feel'st thou not, O world,
The earthquake of his chariot thundering up
Olympus?
[The Car of the Hour arrives. Demogorgon descends, and moves towards the Throne of Jupiter.
Awful shape, what art thou? Speak!
Demogorgon.
Eternity. Demand no direr name.
Descend, and follow me down the abyss.
I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn's child;
Mightier than thee: and we must dwell together
Henceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not.
The tyranny of heaven none may retain,
Or reassume, or hold, succeeding thee:
Yet if thou wilt, as 'tis the destiny
Of trodden worms to writhe till they are dead,
Put forth thy might.
Jupiter.
Detested prodigy!
Even thus beneath the deep Titanian prisons
I trample thee! thou lingerest?
Mercy! mercy!
No pity, no release, no respite! Oh,
That thou wouldst make mine enemy my judge,
Even where he hangs, seared by my long revenge,
On Caucasus! he would not doom me thus.
Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not
The monarch of the world? What then art thou?
No refuge! no appeal!
Sink with me then,
We two will sink on the wide waves of ruin,
Even as a vulture and a snake outspent
Drop, twisted in inextricable fight,
Into a shoreless sea. Let hell unlock
Its mounded oceans of tempestuous fire,
And whelm on them into the bottomless void
This desolated world, and thee, and me,
The conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck
Of that for which they combated.
Ai! Ai!
The elements obey me not. I sink
Dizzily down, ever, for ever, down.
And, like a cloud, mine enemy above
Darkens my fall with victory! Ai, Ai!
Scene II.
The Mouth of a great River in the Island Atlantis.Ocean is discovered reclining near the Shore; Apollo stands beside him.
Ocean.
He fell, thou sayest, beneath his conqueror's frown?
Apollo.
Ay, when the strife was ended which made dim
The orb I rule, and shook the solid stars,
The terrors of his eye illumined heaven
With sanguine light, through the thick ragged skirts
Of the victorious darkness, as he fell:
Like the last glare of day's red agony,
Which, from a rent among the fiery clouds,
Burns far along the tempest-wrinkled deep.
Ocean.
He sunk to the abyss? To the dark void?
Apollo.
An eagle so caught in some bursting cloud
On Caucasus, his thunder-baffled wings
Entangled in the whirlwind, and his eyes
Which gazed on the undazzling sun, now blinded
By the white lightning, while the ponderous hail
Beats on his struggling form, which sinks at length
Prone, and the areal ice clings over it.
Ocean.
Henceforth the fields of heaven-reflecting sea
Which are my realm, will heave, unstained with blood,
Beneath the uplifting winds, like plains of corn
Swayed by the summer air; my streams will flow
Round many-peopled continents, and round
Fortunate isles; and from their glassy thrones
Blue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark
The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see
The floating bark of the light-laden moon
With that white star, its sightless pilot's crest,
Borne down the rapid sunset's ebbing sea;
Tracking their path no more by blood and groans,
And desolation, and the mingled voice
Of slavery and command; but by the light
Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours,
And music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices,
And sweetest music, such as spirits love.
Apollo.
And I shall gaze not on the deeds which make
My mind obscure with sorrow, as eclipse
Darkens the sphere I guide; but list, I hear
The small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit
That sits i' the morning star.
Ocean.
Thou must away;
Thy steeds will pause at even, till when farewell:
The loud deep calls me home even now to feed it
With azure calm out of the emerald urns
Which stand for ever full beside my throne.
Behold the Nereids under the green sea,
Their wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream,
Their white arms lifted o'er their streaming hair
With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns,
Hastening to grace their mighty sister's joy. [A sound of waves is heard.
It is the unpastured sea hungering for calm.
Peace, monster; I come now. Farewell.
Apollo.
Farewell.
Scene III.
Caucasus. Prometheus, Hercules, Ione, the Earth, Spirits, Asia, and Panthea, borne in the Car with the Spirit of the Hour. Hercules unbinds Prometheus, who descends.
Hercules.
Most glorious among Spirits, thus doth strength
To wisdom, courage, and long-suffering love,
And thee, who art the form they animate,
Minister like a slave.
Prometheus.
Thy gentle words
Are sweeter even than freedom long desired
And long delayed.
Asia, thou light of life,
Shadow of beauty unbeheld: and ye,
Fair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain
Sweet to remember, through your love and care:
Henceforth we will not part. There is a cave,
All overgrown with trailing odorous plants,
Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers,
And paved with veind emerald, and a fountain
Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound.
From its curved roof the mountain's frozen tears
Like snow, or silver, or long diamond spires,
Hang downward, raining forth a doubtful light:
And there is heard the ever-moving air,
Whispering without from tree to tree, and birds,
And bees; and all around are mossy seats,
And the rough walls are clothed with long soft grass;
A simple dwelling, which shall be our own;
Where we will sit and talk of time and change,
As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged.
What can hide man from mutability?
And if ye sigh, then I will smile; and thou,
Ione, shalt chant fragments of sea-music,
Until I weep, when ye shal smile away
The tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed.
We will entangle buds and flowers and beams
Which twinkle on the fountain's brim, and make
Strange combinations out of common things,
Like human babes in their brief innocence;
And we will search, with looks and words of love,
For hidden thoughts, each lovelier than the last,
Our unexhausted spirits; and like lutes
Touched by the skill of the enamoured wind,
Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new,
From difference sweet where discord cannot be;
And hither come, sped on the charmd winds,
Which meet from all the points of heaven, as bees
From every flower areal Enna feeds,
At their known island-homes in Himera,
The echoes of the human world, which tell
Of the low voice of love, almost unheard,
And dove-eyed pity's murmured pain, and music,
Itself the echo of the heart, and all
That tempers or improves man's life, now free;
And lovely apparitions,dim at first,
Then radiant, as the mind, arising bright
From the embrace of beauty (whence the forms
Of which these are the phantoms) casts on them
The gathered rays which are reality
Shall visit us, the progeny immortal
Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy,
And arts, though unimagined, yet to be.
The wandering voices and the shadows these
Of all that man becomes, the mediators
Of that best worship love, by him and us
Given and returned; swift shapes and sounds, which grow
More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind,
And, veil by veil, evil and error fall:
Such virtue has the cave and place around. [Turning to the Spirit of the Hour.
For thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains. Ione,
Give her that curvd shell, which Proteus old
Made Asia's nuptial boon, breathing within it
A voice to be accomplished, and which thou
Didst hide in grass under the hollow rock.
Ione.
Thou most desired Hour, more loved and lovely
Than all thy sisters, this is the mystic shell;
See the pale azure fading into silver
Lining it with a soft yet glowing light:
Looks it not like lulled music sleeping there?
Spirit.
It seems in truth the fairest shell of Ocean:
Its sound must be at once both sweet and strange.
Prometheus.
Go, borne over the cities of mankind
On whirlwind-footed coursers: once again
Outspeed the sun around the orbd world;
And as thy chariot cleaves the kindling air,
Thou breathe into the many-folded shell,
Loosening its mighty music; it shall be
As thunder mingled with clear echoes: then
Return; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave.
And thou, O, Mother Earth!
The Earth.
I hear, I feel;
Thy lips are on me, and their touch runs down
Even to the adamantine central gloom
Along these marble nerves; 'tis life, 'tis joy,
And through my withered, old, and icy frame
The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down
Circling. Henceforth the many children fair
Folded in my sustaining arms; all plants,
And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged,
And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes,
Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom,
Draining the poison of despair, shall take
And interchange sweet nutriment; to me
Shall they become like sister-antelopes
By one fair dam, snow-white and swift as wind,
Nursed among lilies near a brimming stream.
The dew-mists of my sunless sleep shall float
Under the stars like balm: night-folded flowers
Shall suck unwithering hues in their repose:
And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather
Strength for the coming day, and all its joy:
And death shall be the last embrace of her
Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother
Folding her child, says, 'Leave me not again.'
Asia.
Oh, mother! wherefore speak the name of death?
Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak,
Who die?
The Earth.
It would avail not to reply:
Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known
But to the uncommunicating dead.
Death is the veil which those who live call life:
They sleep, and it is lifted: and meanwhile
In mild variety the seasons mild
With rainbow-skirted showers, and odorous winds,
And long blue meteors cleansing the dull night,
And the life-kindling shafts of the keen sun's
All-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled rain
Of the calm moonbeams, a soft influence mild,
Shall clothe the forests and the fields, ay, even
The crag-built deserts of the barren deep,
With ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers.
And thou! There is a cavern where my spirit
Was panted forth in anguish whilst thy pain
Made my heart mad, and those who did inhale it
Became mad too, and built a temple there,
And spoke, and were oracular, and lured
The erring nations round to mutual war,
And faithless faith, such as Jove kept with thee;
Which breath now rises, as amongst tall weeds
A violet's exhalation, and it fills
With a serener light and crimson air
Intense, yet soft, the rocks and woods around;
It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine,
And the dark linkd ivy tangling wild,
And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms
Which star the winds with points of coloured light,
As they rain through them, and bright golden globes
Of fruit, suspended in their own green heaven,
And through their veind leaves and amber stems
The flowers whose purple and translucid bowls
Stand ever mantling with areal dew,
The drink of spirits: and it circles round,
Like the soft waving wings of noonday dreams,
Inspiring calm and happy thoughts, like mine,
Now thou art thus restored. This cave is thine.
Arise! Appear!
[A Spirit rises in the likeness of a winged child.
This is my torch-bearer;
Who let his lamp out in old time with gazing
On eyes from which he kindled it anew
With love, which is as fire, sweet daughter mine,
For such is that within thine own. Run, wayward,
And guide this company beyond the peak
Of Bacchic Nysa, Mnad-haunted mountain,
And beyond Indus and its tribute rivers,
Trampling the torrent streams and glassy lakes
With feet unwet, unwearied, undelaying,
And up the green ravine, across the vale,
Beside the windless and crystalline pool,
Where ever lies, on unerasing waves,
The image of a temple, built above,
Distinct with column, arch, and architrave,
And palm-like capital, and over-wrought,
And populous with most living imagery,
Praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles
Fill the hushed air with everlasting love.
It is deserted now, but once it bore
Thy name, Prometheus; there the emulous youths
Bore to thy honour through the divine gloom
The lamp which was thine emblem; even as those
Who bear the untransmitted torch of hope
Into the grave, across the night of life,
As thou hast borne it most triumphantly
To this far goal of Time. Depart, farewell.
Beside that temple is the destined cave.
Scene IV.
A Forest. In the Background a Cave. Prometheus, Asia, Panthea, Ione, and the Spirit of the Earth.
Ione.
Sister, it is not earthly: how it glides
Under the leaves! how on its head there burns
A light, like a green star, whose emerald beams
Are twined with its fair hair! how, as it moves,
The splendour drops in flakes upon the grass!
Knowest thou it?
Panthea.
It is the delicate spirit
That guides the earth through heaven. From afar
The populous constellations call that light
The loveliest of the planets; and sometimes
It floats along the spray of the salt sea,
Or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud,
Or walks through fields or cities while men sleep,
Or o'er the mountain tops, or down the rivers,
Or through the green waste wilderness, as now,
Wondering at all it sees. Before Jove reigned
It loved our sister Asia, and it came
Each leisure hour to drink the liquid light
Out of her eyes, for which it said it thirsted
As one bit by a dipsas, and with her
It made its childish confidence, and told her
All it had known or seen, for it saw much,
Yet idly reasoned what it saw; and called her
For whence it sprung it knew not, nor do I
Mother, dear mother.
The Spirit of the Earth
(running to Asia).
Mother, dearest mother;
May I then talk with thee as I was wont?
May I then hide my eyes in thy soft arms,
After thy looks have made them tired of joy?
May I then play beside thee the long noons,
When work is none in the bright silent air?
Asia.
I love thee, gentlest being, and henceforth
Can cherish thee unenvied: speak, I pray:
Thy simple talk once solaced, now delights.
Spirit of the Earth.
Mother, I am grown wiser, though a child
Cannot be wise like thee, within this day;
And happier too; happier and wiser both.
Thou knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathly worms,
And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs
That bore ill berries in the woods, were ever
An hindrance to my walks o'er the green world:
And that, among the haunts of humankind,
Hard-featured men, or with proud, angry looks,
Or cold, staid gait, or false and hollow smiles,
Or the dull sneer of self-loved ignorance,
Or other such foul masks, with which ill thoughts
Hide that fair being whom we spirits call man;
And women too, ugliest of all things evil,
(Though fair, even in a world where thou art fair,
When good and kind, free and sincere like thee),
When false or frowning made me sick at heart
To pass them, though they slept, and I unseen.
Well, my path lately lay through a great city
Into the woody hills surrounding it:
A sentinel was sleeping at the gate:
When there was heard a sound, so loud, it shook
The towers amid the moonlight, yet more sweet
Than any voice but thine, sweetest of all;
A long, long sound, as it would never end:
And all the inhabitants leaped suddenly
Out of their rest, and gathered in the streets,
Looking in wonder up to Heaven, while yet
The music pealed along. I hid myself
Within a fountain in the public square,
Where I lay like the reflex of the moon
Seen in a wave under green leaves; and soon
Those ugly human shapes and visages
Of which I spoke as having wrought me pain,
Passed floating through the air, and fading still
Into the winds that scattered them; and those
From whom they passed seemed mild and lovely forms
After some foul disguise had fallen, and all
Were somewhat changed, and after brief surprise
And greetings of delighted wonder, all
Went to their sleep again: and when the dawn
Came, wouldst thou think that toads, and snakes, and efts,
Could e'er be beautiful? yet so they were,
And that with little change of shape or hue:
All things had put their evil nature off:
I cannot tell my joy, when o'er a lake
Upon a drooping bough with nightshade twined,
I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward
And thinning one bright bunch of amber berries,
With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay
Those lovely forms imaged as in a sky;
So, with my thoughts full of these happy changes,
We meet again, the happiest change of all.
Asia.
And never will we part, till thy chaste sister
Who guides the frozen and inconstant moon
Will look on thy more warm and equal light
Till her heart thaw like flakes of April snow
And love thee.
Spirit of the Earth.
What; as Asia loves Prometheus?
Asia.
Peace, wanton, thou art yet not old enough.
Think ye by gazing on each other's eyes
To multiply your lovely selves, and fill
With spherd fires the interlunar air?
Spirit of the Earth.
Nay, mother, while my sister trims her lamp
'Tis hard I should go darkling.
Asia.
Listen; look!
[The Spirit of the Hour enters.
Prometheus.
We feel what thou hast heard and seen: yet speak.
Spirit of the Hour.
Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled
The abysses of the sky and the wide earth,
There was a change: the impalpable thin air
And the all-circling sunlight were transformed,
As if the sense of love dissolved in them
Had folded itself round the spherd world.
My vision then grew clear, and I could see
Into the mysteries of the universe:
Dizzy as with delight I floated down,
Winnowing the lightsome air with languid plumes,
My coursers sought their birthplace in the sun,
Where they henceforth will live exempt from toil,
Pasturing flowers of vegetable fire;
And where my moonlike car will stand within
A temple, gazed upon by Phidian forms
Of thee, and Asia, and the Earth, and me,
And you fair nymphs looking the love we feel,
In memory of the tidings it has borne,
Beneath a dome fretted with graven flowers,
Poised on twelve columns of resplendent stone,
And open to the bright and liquid sky.
Yoked to it by an amphisbaenic snake
The likeness of those wingd steeds will mock
The flight from which they find repose. Alas,
Whither has wandered now my partial tongue
When all remains untold which ye would hear?
As I have said, I floated to the earth:
It was, as it is still, the pain of bliss
To move, to breathe, to be; I wandering went
Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind,
And first was disappointed not to see
Such mighty change as I had felt within
Expressed in outward things; but soon I looked,
And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked
One with the other even as spirits do,
None fawned, none trampled; hate, disdain, or fear,
Self-love or self-contempt, on human brows
No more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell,
'All hope abandon ye who enter here;'
None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear
Gazed on another's eye of cold command,
Until the subject of a tyrant's will
Became, worse fate, the abject of his own,
Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death.
None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines
Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak;
None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart
The sparks of love and hope till there remained
Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed,
And the wretch crept a vampire among men,
Infecting all with his own hideous ill;
None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk
Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes,
Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy
With such a self-mistrust as has no name.
And women, too, frank, beautiful, and kind
As the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew
On the wide earth, past; gentle radiant forms,
From custom's evil taint exempt and pure;
Speaking the wisdom once they could not think,
Looking emotions once they feared to feel,
And changed to all which once they dared not be,
Yet being now, made earth like heaven; nor pride,
Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill shame,
The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall,
Spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love.
Thrones, altars, judgement-seats, and prisons; wherein,
And beside which, by wretched men were borne
Sceptres, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes
Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance,
Were like those monstrous and barbaric shapes,
The ghosts of a no-more-remembered fame,
Which, from their unworn obelisks, look forth
In triumph o'er the palaces and tombs
Of those who were their conquerors: mouldering round,
These imaged to the pride of kings and priests
A dark yet mighty faith, a power as wide
As is the world it wasted, and are now
But an astonishment; even so the tools
And emblems of its last captivity,
Amid the dwellings of the peopled earth,
Stand, not o'erthrown, but unregarded now.
And those foul shapes, abhorred by god and man,
Which, under many a name and many a form
Strange, savage, ghastly, dark and execrable,
Were Jupiter, the tyrant of the world;
And which the nations, panic-stricken, served
With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and love
Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless,
And slain amid men's unreclaiming tears,
Flattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate,
Frown, mouldering fast, o'er their abandoned shrines:
The painted veil, by those who were, called life,
Which mimicked, as with colours idly spread,
All men believed or hoped, is torn aside;
The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains
Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless,
Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king
Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man
Passionless?no, yet free from guilt or pain,
Which were, for his will made or suffered them,
Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves,
From chance, and death, and mutability,
The clogs of that which else might oversoar
The loftiest star of unascended heaven,
Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.
END OF THE THIRD ACT.
ACT IV
Scene.A Part of the Forest near the Cave of Prometheus.Panthea and Ione are sleeping: they awaken gradually during the first Song.
Voice of unseen Spirits.
The pale stars are gone!
For the sun, their swift shepherd,
To their folds them compelling,
In the depths of the dawn,
Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee
Beyond his blue dwelling,
As fawns flee the leopard.
But where are ye?
A Train of dark Forms and Shadows passes by confusedly, singing.
Here, oh, here:
We bear the bier
Of the Father of many a cancelled year!
Spectres we
Of the dead Hours be,
We bear Time to his tomb in eternity.
Strew, oh, strew
Hair, not yew!
Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew!
Be the faded flowers
Of Death's bare bowers
Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours!
Haste, oh, haste!
As shades are chased,
Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste.
We melt away,
Like dissolving spray,
From the children of a diviner day,
With the lullaby
Of winds that die
On the bosom of their own harmony!
Ione.
What dark forms were they?
Panthea.
The past Hours weak and gray,
With the spoil which their toil
Raked together
From the conquest but One could foil.
Ione.
Have they passed?
Panthea.
They have passed;
They outspeeded the blast,
While 'tis said, they are fled:
Ione.
Whither, oh, whither?
Panthea.
To the dark, to the past, to the dead.
Voice of unseen Spirits.
Bright clouds float in heaven,
Dew-stars gleam on earth,
Waves assemble on ocean,
They are gathered and driven
By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee!
They shake with emotion,
They dance in their mirth.
But where are ye?
The pine boughs are singing
Old songs with new gladness,
The billows and fountains
Fresh music are flinging,
Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea;
The storms mock the mountains
With the thunder of gladness.
But where are ye?
Ione.
What charioteers are these?
Panthea.
Where are their chariots?
Semichorus of Hours.
The voice of the Spirits of Air and of Earth
Have drawn back the figured curtain of sleep
Which covered our being and darkened our birth
In the deep.
A Voice.
In the deep?
Semichorus II.
Oh, below the deep.
Semichorus I.
An hundred ages we had been kept
Cradled in visions of hate and care,
And each one who waked as his brother slept,
Found the truth
Semichorus II.
Worse than his visions were!
Semichorus I.
We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep;
We have known the voice of Love in dreams;
We have felt the wand of Power, and leap
Semichorus II.
As the billows leap in the morning beams!
Chorus.
Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze,
Pierce with song heaven's silent light,
Enchant the day that too swiftly flees,
To check its flight ere the cave of Night.
Once the hungry Hours were hounds
Which chased the day like a bleeding deer,
And it limped and stumbled with many wounds
Through the nightly dells of the desert year.
But now, oh weave the mystic measure
Of music, and dance, and shapes of light,
Let the Hours, and the spirits of might and pleasure,
Like the clouds and sunbeams, unite.
A Voice.
Unite!
Panthea.
See, where the Spirits of the human mind
Wrapped in sweet sounds, as in bright veils, approach.
Chorus of Spirits.
We join the throng
Of the dance and the song,
By the whirlwind of gladness borne along;
As the flying-fish leap
From the Indian deep,
And mix with the sea-birds, half asleep.
Chorus of Hours.
Whence come ye, so wild and so fleet,
For sandals of lightning are on your feet,
And your wings are soft and swift as thought,
And your eyes are as love which is veild not?
Chorus of Spirits.
We come from the mind
Of human kind
Which was late so dusk, and obscene, and blind,
Now 'tis an ocean
Of clear emotion,
A heaven of serene and mighty motion
From that deep abyss
Of wonder and bliss,
Whose caverns are crystal palaces;
From those skiey towers
Where Thought's crowned powers
Sit watching your dance, ye happy Hours!
From the dim recesses
Of woven caresses,
Where lovers catch ye by your loose tresses
From the azure isles,
Where sweet Wisdom smiles,
Delaying your ships with her siren wiles.
From the temples high
Of Man's ear and eye,
Roofed over Sculpture and Poesy;
From the murmurings
Of the unsealed springs
Where Science bedews her Ddal wings.
Years after years,
Through blood, and tears,
And a thick hell of hatreds, and hopes, and fears;
We waded and flew,
And the islets were few
Where the bud-blighted flowers of happiness grew.
Our feet now, every palm,
Are sandalled with calm,
And the dew of our wings is a rain of balm;
And, beyond our eyes,
The human love lies
Which makes all it gazes on Paradise.
Chorus of Spirits and Hours.
Then weave the web of the mystic measure;
From the depths of the sky and the ends of the earth,
Come, swift Spirits of might and of pleasure,
Fill the dance and the music of mirth,
As the waves of a thousand streams rush by
To an ocean of splendour and harmony!
Chorus of Spirits.
Our spoil is won,
Our task is done,
We are free to dive, or soar, or run;
Beyond and around,
Or within the bound
Which clips the world with darkness round.
We'll pass the eyes
Of the starry skies
Into the hoar deep to colonize:
Death, Chaos, and Night,
From the sound of our flight,
Shall flee, like mist from a tempest's might.
And Earth, Air, and Light,
And the Spirit of Might,
Which drives round the stars in their fiery flight;
And Love, Thought, and Breath,
The powers that quell Death,
Wherever we soar shall assemble beneath.
And our singing shall build
In the void's loose field
A world for the Spirit of Wisdom to wield;
We will take our plan
From the new world of man,
And our work shall be called the Promethean.
Chorus of Hours.
Break the dance, and scatter the song;
Let some depart, and some remain.
Semichorus I.
We, beyond heaven, are driven along:
Semichorus II.
Us the enchantments of earth retain:
Semichorus I.
Ceaseless, and rapid, and fierce, and free,
With the Spirits which build a new earth and sea,
And a heaven where yet heaven could never be.
Semichorus II.
Solemn, and slow, and serene, and bright,
Leading the Day and outspeeding the Night,
With the powers of a world of perfect light.
Semichorus I.
We whirl, singing loud, round the gathering sphere,
Till the trees, and the beasts, and the clouds appear
From its chaos made calm by love, not fear.
Semichorus II.
We encircle the ocean and mountains of earth,
And the happy forms of its death and birth
Change to the music of our sweet mirth.
Chorus of Hours and Spirits.
Break the dance, and scatter the song,
Let some depart, and some remain,
Wherever we fly we lead along
In leashes, like starbeams, soft yet strong,
The clouds that are heavy with love's sweet rain.
Panthea.
Ha! they are gone!
Ione.
Yet feel you no delight
From the past sweetness?
Panthea.
As the bare green hill
When some soft cloud vanishes into rain,
Laughs with a thousand drops of sunny water
To the unpavilioned sky!
Ione.
Even whilst we speak
New notes arise. What is that awful sound?
Panthea.
'Tis the deep music of the rolling world
Kindling within the strings of the waved air
olian modulations.
Ione.
Listen too,
How every pause is filled with under-notes,
Clear, silver, icy, keen, awakening tones,
Which pierce the sense, and live within the soul,
As the sharp stars pierce winter's crystal air
And gaze upon themselves within the sea.
Panthea.
But see where through two openings in the forest
Which hanging branches overcanopy,
And where two runnels of a rivulet,
Between the close moss violet-inwoven,
Have made their path of melody, like sisters
Who part with sighs that they may meet in smiles,
Turning their dear disunion to an isle
Of lovely grief, a wood of sweet sad thoughts;
Two visions of strange radiance float upon
The ocean-like enchantment of strong sound,
Which flows intenser, keener, deeper yet
Under the ground and through the windless air.
Ione.
I see a chariot like that thinnest boat,
In which the Mother of the Months is borne
By ebbing light into her western cave,
When she upsprings from interlunar dreams;
O'er which is curved an orblike canopy
Of gentle darkness, and the hills and woods,
Distinctly seen through that dusk aery veil,
Regard like shapes in an enchanter's glass;
Its wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold,
Such as the genii of the thunderstorm
Pile on the floor of the illumined sea
When the sun rushes under it; they roll
And move and grow as with an inward wind;
Within it sits a wingd infant, white
Its countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow,
Its plumes are as feathers of sunny frost,
Its limbs gleam white, through the wind-flowing folds
Of its white robe, woof of ethereal pearl.
Its hair is white, the brightness of white light
Scattered in strings; yet its two eyes are heavens
Of liquid darkness, which the Deity
Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured
From jaggd clouds, out of their arrowy lashes,
Tempering the cold and radiant air around,
With fire that is not brightness; in its hand
It sways a quivering moonbeam, from whose point
A guiding power directs the chariot's prow
Over its wheeld clouds, which as they roll
Over the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds,
Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew.
Panthea.
And from the other opening in the wood
Rushes, with loud and whirlwind harmony,
A sphere, which is as many thousand spheres,
Solid as crystal, yet through all its mass
Flow, as through empty space, music and light:
Ten thousand orbs involving and involved,
Purple and azure, white, and green, and golden,
Sphere within sphere; and every space between
Peopled with unimaginable shapes,
Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep,
Yet each inter-transpicuous, and they whirl
Over each other with a thousand motions,
Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning,
And with the force of self-destroying swiftness,
Intensely, slowly, solemnly roll on,
Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones,
Intelligible words and music wild.
With mighty whirl the multitudinous orb
Grinds the bright brook into an azure mist
Of elemental subtlety, like light;
And the wild odour of the forest flowers,
The music of the living grass and air,
The emerald light of leaf-entangled beams
Round its intense yet self-conflicting speed,
Seem kneaded into one areal mass
Which drowns the sense. Within the orb itself,
Pillowed upon its alabaster arms,
Like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil,
On its own folded wings, and wavy hair,
The Spirit of the Earth is laid asleep,
And you can see its little lips are moving,
Amid the changing light of their own smiles,
Like one who talks of what he loves in dream.
Ione.
'Tis only mocking the orb's harmony.
Panthea.
And from a star upon its forehead, shoot,
Like swords of azure fire, or golden spears
With tyrant-quelling myrtle overtwined,
Embleming heaven and earth united now,
Vast beams like spokes of some invisible wheel
Which whirl as the orb whirls, swifter than thought,
Filling the abyss with sun-like lightenings,
And perpendicular now, and now transverse,
Pierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass,
Make bare the secrets of the earth's deep heart;
Infinite mines of adamant and gold,
Valueless stones, and unimagined gems,
And caverns on crystalline columns poised
With vegetable silver overspread;
Wells of unfathomed fire, and water springs
Whence the great sea, even as a child is fed,
Whose vapours clothe earth's monarch mountain-tops
With kingly, ermine snow. The beams flash on
And make appear the melancholy ruins
Of cancelled cycles; anchors, beaks of ships;
Planks turned to marble; quivers, helms, and spears,
And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels
Of scythd chariots, and the emblazonry
Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts,
Round which death laughed, sepulchred emblems
Of dead destruction, ruin within ruin!
The wrecks beside of many a city vast,
Whose population which the earth grew over
Was mortal, but not human; see, they lie,
Their monstrous works, and uncouth skeletons,
Their statues, homes and fanes; prodigious shapes
Huddled in gray annihilation, split,
Jammed in the hard, black deep; and over these,
The anatomies of unknown wingd things,
And fishes which were isles of living scale,
And serpents, bony chains, twisted around
The iron crags, or within heaps of dust
To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs
Had crushed the iron crags; and over these
The jaggd alligator, and the might
Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once
Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores,
And weed-overgrown continents of earth,
Increased and multiplied like summer worms
On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe
Wrapped deluge round it like a cloak, and they
Yelled, gasped, and were abolished; or some God
Whose throne was in a comet, passed, and cried,
'Be not!' And like my words they were no more.
The Earth.
The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness!
The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness,
The vaporous exultation not to be confined!
Ha! ha! the animation of delight
Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light,
And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind.
The Moon.
Brother mine, calm wanderer,
Happy globe of land and air,
Some Spirit is darted like a beam from thee,
Which penetrates my frozen frame,
And passes with the warmth of flame,
With love, and odour, and deep melody
Through me, through me!
The Earth.
Ha! ha! the caverns of my hollow mountains,
My cloven fire-crags, sound-exulting fountains
Laugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter.
The oceans, and the deserts, and the abysses,
And the deep air's unmeasured wildernesses,
Answer from all their clouds and billows, echoing after.
They cry aloud as I do. Sceptred curse,
Who all our green and azure universe
Threatenedst to muffle round with black destruction, sending
A solid cloud to rain hot thunderstones,
And splinter and knead down my children's bones,
All I bring forth, to one void mass battering and blending,
Until each crag-like tower, and storied column,
Palace, and obelisk, and temple solemn,
My imperial mountains crowned with cloud, and snow, and fire;
My sea-like forests, every blade and blossom
Which finds a grave or cradle in my bosom,
Were stamped by thy strong hate into a lifeless mire:
How art thou sunk, withdrawn, covered, drunk up
By thirsty nothing, as the brackish cup
Drained by a desert-troop, a little drop for all;
And from beneath, around, within, above,
Filling thy void annihilation, love
Burst in like light on caves cloven by the thunder-ball.
The Moon.
The snow upon my lifeless mountains
Is loosened into living fountains,
My solid oceans flow, and sing, and shine:
A spirit from my heart bursts forth,
It clothes with unexpected birth
My cold bare bosom: Oh! it must be thine
On mine, on mine!
Gazing on thee I feel, I know
Green stalks burst forth, and bright flowers grow,
And living shapes upon my bosom move:
Music is in the sea and air,
Wingd clouds soar here and there,
Dark with the rain new buds are dreaming of:
'Tis love, all love!
The Earth.
It interpenetrates my granite mass,
Through tangled roots and trodden clay doth pass
Into the utmost leaves and delicatest flowers;
Upon the winds, among the clouds 'tis spread,
It wakes a life in the forgotten dead,
They breathe a spirit up from their obscurest bowers.
And like a storm bursting its cloudy prison
With thunder, and with whirlwind, has arisen
Out of the lampless caves of unimagined being:
With earthquake shock and swiftness making shiver
Thought's stagnant chaos, unremoved for ever,
Till hate, and fear, and pain, light-vanquished shadows, fleeing,
Leave Man, who was a many-sided mirror,
Which could distort to many a shape of error,
This true fair world of things, a sea reflecting love;
Which over all his kind, as the sun's heaven
Gliding o'er ocean, smooth, serene, and even,
Darting from starry depths radiance and life, doth move:
Leave Man, even as a leprous child is left,
Who follows a sick beast to some warm cleft
Of rocks, through which the might of healing springs is poured;
Then when it wanders home with rosy smile,
Unconscious, and its mother fears awhile
It is a spirit, then, weeps on her child restored.
Man, oh, not men! a chain of linkd thought,
Of love and might to be divided not,
Compelling the elements with adamantine stress;
As the sun rules, even with a tyrant's gaze,
The unquiet republic of the maze
Of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free wilderness.
Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul,
Whose nature is its own divine control,
Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea;
Familiar acts are beautiful through love;
Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove
Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they could be!
His will, with all mean passions, bad delights,
And selfish cares, its trembling satellites,
A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey,
Is as a tempest-wingd ship, whose helm
Love rules, through waves which dare not overwhelm,
Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign sway.
All things confess his strength. Through the cold mass
Of marble and of colour his dreams pass;
Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their children wear;
Language is a perpetual Orphic song,
Which rules with Ddal harmony a throng
Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shapeless were.
The lightning is his slave; heaven's utmost deep
Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep
They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on!
The tempest is his steed, he strides the air;
And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare,
Heaven, hast thou secrets? Man unveils me; I have none.
The Moon.
The shadow of white death has passed
From my path in heaven at last,
A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep;
And through my newly-woven bowers,
Wander happy paramours,
Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep
Thy vales more deep.
The Earth.
As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold
A half unfrozen dew-globe, green, and gold,
And crystalline, till it becomes a wingd mist,
And wanders up the vault of the blue day,
Outlives the moon, and on the sun's last ray
Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst.
The Moon.
Thou art folded, thou art lying
In the light which is undying
Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine;
All suns and constellations shower
On thee a light, a life, a power
Which doth array thy sphere; thou pourest thine
On mine, on mine!
The Earth.
I spin beneath my pyramid of night,
Which points into the heavens dreaming delight,
Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep;
As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing,
Under the shadow of his beauty lying,
Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth keep.
The Moon.
As in the soft and sweet eclipse,
When soul meets soul on lovers' lips,
High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull;
So when thy shadow falls on me,
Then am I mute and still, by thee
Covered; of thy love, Orb most beautiful,
Full, oh, too full!
Thou art speeding round the sun
Brightest world of many a one;
Green and azure sphere which shinest
With a light which is divinest
Among all the lamps of Heaven
To whom life and light is given;
I, thy crystal paramour
Borne beside thee by a power
Like the polar Paradise,
Magnet-like of lovers' eyes;
I, a most enamoured maiden
Whose weak brain is overladen
With the pleasure of her love,
Maniac-like around thee move
Gazing, an insatiate bride,
On thy form from every side
Like a Mnad, round the cup
Which Agave lifted up
In the weird Cadman forest.
Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest
I must hurry, whirl and follow
Through the heavens wide and hollow,
Sheltered by the warm embrace
Of thy soul from hungry space,
Drinking from thy sense and sight
Beauty, majesty, and might,
As a lover or a chameleon
Grows like what it looks upon,
As a violet's gentle eye
Gazes on the azure sky
Until its hue grows like what it beholds,
As a gray and watery mist
Glows like solid amethyst
Athwart the western mountain it enfolds,
When the sunset sleeps
Upon its snow
The Earth.
And the weak day weeps
That it should be so.
Oh, gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight
Falls on me like thy clear and tender light
Soothing the seaman, borne the summer night,
Through isles for ever calm;
Oh, gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce
The caverns of my pride's deep universe,
Charming the tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce
Made wounds which need thy balm.
Panthea.
I rise as from a bath of sparkling water,
A bath of azure light, among dark rocks,
Out of the stream of sound.
Ione.
Ah me! sweet sister,
The stream of sound has ebbed away from us,
And you pretend to rise out of its wave,
Because your words fall like the clear, soft dew
Shaken from a bathing wood-nymph's limbs and hair.
Panthea.
Peace! peace! A mighty Power, which is as darkness,
Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky
Is showered like night, and from within the air
Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up
Into the pores of sunlight: the bright visions,
Wherein the singing spirits rode and shone,
Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night.
Ione.
There is a sense of words upon mine ear.
Panthea.
An universal sound like words: Oh, list!
Demogorgon.
Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul,
Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies,
Beautiful orb! gathering as thou dost roll
The love which paves thy path along the skies:
The Earth.
I hear: I am as a drop of dew that dies.
Demogorgon.
Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth
With wonder, as it gazes upon thee;
Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth
Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony:
The Moon.
I hear: I am a leaf shaken by thee!
Demogorgon.
Ye Kings of suns and stars, Dmons and Gods,
Aetherial Dominations, who possess
Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes
Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness:
A Voice from above.
Our great Republic hears, we are blest, and bless.
Demogorgon.
Ye happy Dead, whom beams of brightest verse
Are clouds to hide, not colours to portray,
Whether your nature is that universe
Which once ye saw and suffered
A Voice from beneath.
Or as they
Whom we have left, we change and pass away.
Demogorgon.
Ye elemental Genii, who have homes
From man's high mind even to the central stone
Of sullen lead; from heaven's star-fretted domes
To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on:
A confused Voice.
We hear: thy words waken Oblivion.
Demogorgon.
Spirits, whose homes are flesh: ye beasts and birds,
Ye worms, and fish; ye living leaves and buds;
Lightning and wind; and ye untameable herds,
Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes:
A Voice.
Thy voice to us is wind among still woods.
Demogorgon.
Man, who wert once a despot and a slave;
A dupe and a deceiver; a decay;
A traveller from the cradle to the grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day:
All.
Speak: thy strong words may never pass away.
Demogorgon.
This is the day, which down the void abysm
At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,
And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep:
Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings.
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length;
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.
Composed at Este, Sept., Oct., 1818 (Act I); at Rome, March - April 6, 1819 (Acts II, III); at Florence, close of 1819 (Act IV). Published by C. and J. Ollier, London, summer of 1820.
Note from Mrs. Shelley: 'On the 12th of March, 1818, Shelley quitted England, never to return. His principal motive was the hope that his health would be improved by a milder climate; he suffered very much during the winter previous to his emigration, and this decided his vacillating purpose. .....Through the whole poem there reigns a sort of calm and holy spirit of love; it soothes the tortured, and is hope to the expectant, till the prophecy is fulfilled, and Love, untainted by any evil, becomes the law of the world. ....And, as he wandered among the ruins made one with Nature in their decay, or gaed on the Praxitelean shapes that throng the Vatican, the Capitol, and the palaces of Rome, his soul imbibed forms of loveliness which became a portion of itself. There are many passages in the Prometheus which show the intense delight he received from such studies, and give back the impression with a beauty of poetical description peculiarly his own. He felt this, as a poet must feel when he satisfies himself by the result of his labours; and he wrote from Rome, ''My Prometheus Unbound is just finished, and in a month or two I shall send it. It is a drama, with characters and mechanism of a kind yet unattempted; and I think the execution is better than any of my former attempts.'''
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
,#NFDB
100 Integral Yoga
60 Poetry
17 Fiction
16 Christianity
14 Occultism
13 Philosophy
9 Islam
8 Psychology
6 Science
3 Theosophy
2 Yoga
2 Mythology
2 Integral Theory
2 Hinduism
2 Baha i Faith
1 Thelema
1 Sufism
1 Philsophy
89 Sri Aurobindo
54 Nolini Kanta Gupta
19 William Wordsworth
15 Robert Browning
12 The Mother
11 A B Purani
10 H P Lovecraft
9 Muhammad
8 Satprem
8 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
8 Percy Bysshe Shelley
8 Aleister Crowley
6 Walt Whitman
5 Plotinus
5 Plato
5 George Van Vrekhem
4 Sri Ramana Maharshi
4 Carl Jung
3 Jorge Luis Borges
3 Jordan Peterson
3 Alice Bailey
2 Vyasa
2 Swami Krishnananda
2 Saint John of Climacus
2 Saint Augustine of Hippo
2 Friedrich Schiller
2 Baha u llah
24 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
22 Savitri
19 Wordsworth - Poems
15 Browning - Poems
14 The Synthesis Of Yoga
11 The Life Divine
11 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
11 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
10 Lovecraft - Poems
9 Quran
9 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
8 Shelley - Poems
7 Essays On The Gita
6 Whitman - Poems
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Talks
6 Magick Without Tears
6 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
5 Preparing for the Miraculous
5 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
4 The Future of Man
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
3 The Practice of Psycho therapy
3 The Human Cycle
3 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 03
3 Maps of Meaning
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
3 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
2 Vishnu Purana
2 Vedic and Philological Studies
2 The Study and Practice of Yoga
2 The Phenomenon of Man
2 The Ladder of Divine Ascent
2 Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness
2 Schiller - Poems
2 Questions And Answers 1929-1931
2 Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04
2 Letters On Yoga IV
2 Let Me Explain
2 Labyrinths
2 Isha Upanishad
2 Essays Divine And Human
2 City of God
2 Agenda Vol 03
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
TheChhandyogya12 gives a whole typal Scheme of this universal reality and explains how to realise it and what are the results of the experience. The Universal Brahman means the cosmic movement, the cyclic march of things and events taken in its global aspect. The typical movement that symbolises and epitomises the phenomenon, embodies the truth, is that of the sun. The movement consists of five stages which are called the fivefold sma Sma means the equal Brahman that is ever present in all, the Upanishad itself says deriving the word from sama It is Sma also because it is a rhythmic movement, a cadencea music of the spheres. And a rhythmic movement, in virtue of its being a wave, consists of these five stages: (i) the start, (ii) the rise, (iii) the peak, (iv) the decline and (v) the fall. Now the sun follows this curve and marks out the familiar divisions of the day: dawn, forenoon, noon, afternoon and sunset. Sometimes two other stages are added, one at each end, one of preparation and another of final lapse the twilights with regard to the sun and then ,we have seven instead of five smas Like the Sun, the Fire that is to say, the sacrificial Firecan also be seen in its fivefold cyclic movement: (i) the lighting, (ii) the smoke, (iii) the flame, (iv) smouldering and finally (v) extinction the fuel as it is rubbed to produce the fire and the ashes may be added as the two supernumerary stages. Or again, we may take the cycle of five seasons or of the five worlds or of the deities that control these worlds. The living wealth of this earth is also symbolised in a quintetgoat and sheep and cattle and horse and finally man. Coming to the microcosm, we have in man the cycle of his five senses, basis of all knowledge and activity. For the macrocosm, to I bring out its vast extra-human complexity, the Upanishad refers to a quintet, each term of which is again a trinity: (i) the threefold Veda, the Divine Word that is the origin of creation, (ii) the three worlds or fieldsearth, air-belt or atmosphere and space, (iii) the three principles or deities ruling respectively these worldsFire, Air and Sun, (iv) their expressions, emanations or embodimentsstars and birds and light-rays, and finally, (v) the original inhabitants of these worldsto earth belong the reptiles, to the mid-region the Gandharvas and to heaven the ancient Fathers.
Now, this is the All, the Universal. One has to realise it and possess in one's consciousness. And that can be done only in one way: one has to identify oneself with it, be one with it, become it. Thus by losing one's individuality one lives the life universal; the small lean separate life is enlarged and moulded in the rhythm of the Rich and the Vast. It is thus that man shares in the consciousness and energy that inspire and move and sustain the cosmos. The Upanishad most emphatically enjoins that one must not decry this cosmic godhead or deny any of its elements, not even such as are a taboo to the puritan mind. It is in and through an unimpaired global consciousness that one attains the All-Life and lives uninterruptedly and perennially: Sarvamanveti jyok jvati.
0.00a - Introduction, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Some of the passages in the book force me today to emphasize that so far as the Qabalah is concerned, it could and should be employed without binding to it the partisan qualities of any one particular religious faith. This goes as much for Judaism as it does for Christianity. Neither has much intrinsic usefulness where this scientific Scheme is concerned. If some students feel hurt by this statement, that cannot be helped. The day of most contemporary faiths is over; they have been more of a curse than a boon to mankind. Nothing that I say here, however, should reflect on the peoples concerned, those who accept these religions. They are merely unfortunate. The religion itself is worn out and indeed is dying.
The Qabalah has nothing to do with any of them. Attempts on the part of cultish-partisans to impart higher mystical meanings, through the Qabalah, etc., to their now sterile faiths is futile, and will be seen as such by the younger generation. They, the flower and love children, will have none of this nonsense.
0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
from the Scheme of incarnation.
The second, mixt with his life's blood and eaten,
0.02 - The Three Steps of Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Equally, the vital and nervous energies in us are there for a great utility; they too demand the divine realisation of their possibilities in our ultimate fulfilment. The great part assigned to this element in the universal Scheme is powerfully emphasised by the catholic wisdom of the Upanishads. "As the spokes of a wheel in its nave, so in the Life-Energy is all established, the triple knowledge and the Sacrifice and the power of the strong and the purity of the wise. Under the control of the LifeEnergy is all this that is established in the triple heaven."2 It is therefore no integral Yoga that kills these vital energies, forces them into a nerveless quiescence or roots them out as the source
annakos.a and pran.akos.a.
0.03 - The Threefold Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yet he admits so much of spirituality as has been enforced on his customary ideas by the great religious outbursts of the past and he makes in his Scheme of society a place, venerable though not often effective, for the priest or the learned theologian who can be trusted to provide him with a safe and ordinary spiritual pabulum. But to the man who would assert for himself the liberty of spiritual experience and the spiritual life, he assigns, if he admits him at all, not the vestment of the priest but the robe of the Sannyasin. Outside society let him exercise his dangerous freedom. So he may even serve as a human lightning-rod receiving the electricity of the Spirit and turning it away from the social edifice.
Nevertheless it is possible to make the material man and his life moderately progressive by imprinting on the material mind the custom of progress, the habit of conscious change, the fixed idea of progression as a law of life. The creation by this means of progressive societies in Europe is one of the greatest triumphs of Mind over Matter. But the physical nature has its revenge; for the progress made tends to be of the grosser and more outward kind and its attempts at a higher or a more rapid movement bring about great wearinesses, swift exhaustions, startling recoils.
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
So please rest assured that I can drop this Scheme if it
displeases you.
01.03 - Sri Aurobindo and his School, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This is the present nature of man, with its threefold nexus of mind and life and body, that stands there to be fought and conquered. This is the inferior nature, of which the ancients spoke, that holds man down inexorably to a lower dharma, imperfect mode of life the life that is and has been the human order till today. No amount of ceaseless action, however selflessly done, can move this wheel of Nature even by a hair's breadth away from the path that it has carved out from of old. Human nature and human society have been built up and are run by the forces of this inferior nature, and whatever shuffling and reshuffling we may make in its apparent factors and elements, the general Scheme and fundamental form of life will never change. To displace earth (and to conquer nature means nothing less than that) and give it another orbit, one must find a fulcrum outside earth.
Sri Aurobindo does not preach flight from life and a retreat into the silent and passive Infinite; the goal of life is not, in his view, the extinction of life. Neither is he satisfied on that account to hold that life is best lived in the ordinary round of its unregenerate dharma. If the first is a blind alley, the second is a vicious circle,both lead nowhere.
01.03 - The Yoga of the King - The Yoga of the Souls Release, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Annexed divinity to the mortal Scheme.
A Seer was born, a shining Guest of Time.
01.04 - The Intuition of the Age, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A new impulse is there, no one can deny, and it has vast possibilities before it, that also one need not hesitate to accept. But in order that we may best fructuate what has been spontaneously sown, we must first recognise it, be luminously conscious of it and develop it along its proper line of growth. For, also certain it is that this new impulse or intuition, however true and strong in itself, is still groping and erring and miscarrying; it is still wasting much of its energy in tentative things, in mere experiments, in even clear failures. The fact is that the intuition has not yet become an enlightened one, it is still moving, as we shall presently explain, in the dark vital regions of man. And vitalism is naturally and closely affianced to pragmatism, that is to say, the mere vital impulse seeks immediately to execute itself, it looks for external effects, for changes in the form, in the machinery only. Thus it is that we see in art and literature discussions centred upon the Scheme of composition, as whether the new poetry should be lyrical or dramatic, popular or aristocratic, metrical or free of metre, and in practical life we talk of remodelling the state by new methods of representation and governance, of purging society by bills and legislation, of reforming humanity by a business pact.
All this may be good and necessary, but there is the danger of leaving altogether out of account the one thing needful. We must then pause and turn back, look behind the apparent impulsion that effectuates to the Will that drives, behind the ideas and ideals of the mind to the soul that informs and inspires; we must carry ourselves up the stream and concentrate upon the original source, the creative intuition that lies hidden somewhere. And then only all the new stirrings that we feel in our heartour urges and ideals and visions will attain an effective clarity, an unshaken purpose and an inevitable achievement.
--
And the faculty of Intuition said to be the characteristic of the New Man does not mean all that it should, if we confine ourselves to Bergson's definition of it. Bergson says that Intuition is a sort of sympathy, a community of feeling or sensibility with the urge of the life-reality. The difference between the sympathy of Instinct and the sympathy of Intuition being that while the former is an unconscious or semi-conscious power, the latter is illumined and self-conscious. Now this view emphasises only the feeling-tone of Intuition, the vital sensibility that attends the direct communion with the life movement. But Intuition is not only purified feeling and sensibility, it is also purified vision and knowledge. It unites us not only with the movement of life, but also opens out to our sight the Truths, the fundamental realities behind that movement. Bergson does not, of course, point to any existence behind the continuous flux of life-power the elan vital. He seems to deny any static truth or truths to be seen and seized in any Scheme of knowledge. To him the dynamic flow the Heraclitian panta reei is the ultimate reality. It is precisely to this view of things that Bergson owes his conception of Intuition. Since existence is a continuum of Mind-Energy, the only way to know it is to be in harmony or unison with it, to move along its current. The conception of knowledge as a fixing and delimiting of things is necessarily an anomaly in this Scheme. But the question is, is matter the only static and separative reality? Is the flux of vital Mind-Energy the ultimate truth?
Matter forms the lowest level of reality. Above it is the elan vital. Above the elan vital there is yet the domain of the Spirit. And the Spirit is a static substance and at the same a dynamic creative power. It is Being (Sat) that realises or expresses itself through certain typal nuclei or nodi of consciousness (chit) in a continuous becoming, in a flow of creative activity (ananda). The dynamism of the vital energy is only a refraction or precipitation of the dynamism of the spirit; and so also static matter is only the substance of the spirit concretised and solidified. It is in an uplift both of matter and vital force to their prototypesswarupa and swabhavain the Spirit that lies the real transformation and transfiguration of the humanity of man.
01.04 - The Secret Knowledge, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A dark-robed labourer in the cosmic Scheme
Carrying clay images of unborn gods,
--
In the execution of her drama's Scheme,
In her fancies of the moment and its mood,
01.08 - A Theory of Yoga, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yet even here the process of control and transformation does not end. And we now come to the Fifth Line, the real and intimate path of yoga. Conscious control gives us a natural mastery over the instinctive impulses which are relieved of their dark tamas and attain a purified rhythm. We do not seek to hide or repress or combat them, but surpass them and play with them as the artist does with his material. Something of this katharsis, this aestheticism of the primitive impulses was achieved by the ancient Greeks. Even then the primitive impulses remain primitive all the same; they fulfil, no doubt, a real and healthy function in the Scheme of life, but still in their fundamental nature they continue the animal in man. And even when Conscious Control means the utter elimination and annihilation of the primal instinctswhich, however, does not seem to be a probable eventualityeven then, we say, the basic problem remains unsolved; for the urge of nature towards the release and a transformation of the instincts does not find satisfaction, the question is merely put aside.
Yoga, then, comes at this stage and offers the solution in its power of what we may call Transubstantiation. That is to say, here the mere form is not changed, nor the functions restrained, regulated and purified, but the very substance of the instincts is transmuted. The power of conscious control is a power of the human will, i.e. of an individual personal will and therefore necessarily limited both in intent and extent. It is a power complementary to the power of Nature, it may guide and fashion the latter according to a new pattern, but cannot change the basic substance, the stuff of Nature. To that end yoga seeks a power that transcends the human will, brings into play the supernal puissance of a Divine Will.
01.09 - The Parting of the Way, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The inflatus of something vast and transcendent, something which escapes all our familiar Schemes of cognisance and yet is insistent with a translucent reality of its own, we do feel sometimes within us invading and enveloping our individuality, lifting up our sense of self and transmuting our personality into a reality which can hardly be called merely human. All this life of ego-bound rationality then melts away and opens out the passage for a life of vision and power. Thus it is the poet has felt when he says, "there is this incalculable element in human life influencing us from the mystery which envelops our being, and when reason is satisfied, there is something deeper than Reason which makes us still uncertain of truth. Above the human reason there is a transcendental sphere to which the spirit of men sometimes rises, and the will may be forged there at a lordly smithy and made the unbreakable pivot."(A.E.)
This passage from the self-conscient to the super-conscient does not imply merely a shifting of the focus of consciousness. The transmutation of consciousness involves a purer illumination, a surer power and a wider compass; it involves also a fundamental change in the very mode of being and living. It gives quite a different life-intuition and a different life-power. The change in the motif brings about a new form altogether, a re-casting and re-shaping and re-energising of the external materials as well. As the lift from mere consciousness to self-consciousness meant all the difference between an animal and a man, so the lift again from self-consciousness to super-consciousness will mean the difference of a whole world between man and the divine creature that is to be.
01.09 - William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Touching the very core of the malady of our age he says that our modern enlightenment seeks to cancel altogether the higher values and install instead the lower alone as true. Thus, for example, Marx and Freud, its twin arch priests, are brothers. Both declare that it is the lower, the under layer alone that matters: to one "the masses", to the other "the instincts". Their wild imperative roars: "Sweep away this pseudo-higher; let the instincts rule, let the pro-letariat dictate!" But more characteristic, Monsieur Thibon has made another discovery which gives the whole value and speciality to his outlook. He says the moderns stress the lower, no doubt; but the old world stressed only the higher and neglected the lower. Therefore the revolt and wrath of the lower, the rage of Revanche in the heart of the dispossessed in the modern world. Enlightenment meant till now the cultivation and embellishment of the Mind, the conscious Mind, the rational and nobler faculties, the height and the depth: and mankind meant the princes and the great ones. In the individual, in the Scheme of his culture and education, the senses were neglected, left to go their own way as they pleased; and in the collective field, the toiling masses in the same way lived and moved as best as they could under the economics of laissez-faire. So Monsieur Thibon concludes: "Salvation has never come from below. To look for it from above only is equally vain. No doubt salvation must come from the higher, but on condition that the higher completely adopts and protects the lower." Here is a vision luminous and revealing, full of great import, if we follow the right track, prophetic of man's true destiny. It is through this infiltration of the higher into the lower and the integration of the lower into the higher that mankind will reach the goal of its evolution, both individually and collectively.
But the process, Monsieur Thibon rightly asserts, must begin with the individual and within the individual. Man must "turn within, feel alive within himself", re-establish his living contact with God, the source and origin from which he has cut himself off. Man must learn to subordinate having to being. Each individual must be himself, a free and spontaneous expression. Upon such individual , upon individuals grouped naturally in smaller collectivities and not upon unformed or ill-formed wholesale masses can a perfect human society be raised and will be raised. Monsieur Thibon insistsand very rightlyupon the variety and diversity of individual and local growths in a unified humanity and not a dead uniformity of regimented oneness. He declares, as the reviewer of the London Times succinctly puts it: "Let us abolish our insensate worship of number. Let us repeal the law of majorities. Let us work for the unity that draws together instead of idolizing the multiplicity that disintegrates. Let us understand that it is not enough for each to have a place; what matters is that each should be in his right place. For the atomized society let us substitute an organic society, one in which every man will be free to do what he alone is qualified and able to do."
01.11 - The Basis of Unity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The truth behind a credal religion is the aspiration towards the realization of the Divine, some ultimate reality that gives a permanent meaning and value to the human life, to the existence lodged in this 'sphere of sorrow' here below. Credal paraphernalia were necessary to express or buttress this core of spiritual truth when mankind, in the mass, had not attained a certain level of enlightenment in the mind and a certain degree of development in its life-relations. The modern age is modern precisely because it had attained to a necessary extent this mental enlightenment and this life development. So the Scheme or scaffolding that was required in the past is no longer unavoidable and can have either no reality at all or only a modified utility.
A modern people is a composite entity, especially with regard to its religious affiliation. Not religion, but culture is the basis of modern collective life, national or social. Culture includes in its grain that fineness of temperament which appreciates all truths behind all forms, even when there is a personal allegiance to one particular form.
01.12 - Goethe, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Christian too accepts the dual principle, but does not give equal status to the two. Satan is there, an eternal reality: it is anti-God, it seeks to oppose God, frustrate his work. It is the great tempter whose task it is to persuade, to inspire man to remain always an earthly creature and never turn to know or live in God. Now the crucial question that arises is, what is the necessity of this Antagonist in God's Scheme of creation? What is the meaning of this struggle and battle? God could have created, if he had chosen, a world without Evil. The orthodox Christi an answer is that in that case one could not have fully appreciated the true value and glory of God's presence. It is to manifest and proclaim the great victory that the strife and combat has been arranged in which Man triumphs in the end and God's work stands vindicated. The place of Satan is always Hell, but he cannot drag down a soul into his pit to hold it there eternally (although according to one doctrine there are or may be certain eternally damned souls).
Goe the carries the process of convergence and even harmony of the two powers a little further and shows that although they are contrary apparently, they are not contradictory principles in essence. For, Satan is, after all, God's servant, even a very obedient servant; he is an instrument in the hand of the Almighty to work out His purpose. The purpose is to help and lead man, although in a devious way, towards a greater understanding, a nearer approach to Himself.
--
The angels weave the symphony that is creation. They represent the various notes and rhythmsin their higher and purer degrees that make up the grand harmony of the spheres. It is magnificent, this music that moves the cosmos, and wonderful the glory of God manifest therein. But is it absolutely perfect? Is there nowhere any flaw in it? There is a doubting voice that enters a dissenting note. That is Satan, the Antagonist, the Evil One. Man is the weakest link in the chain of the apparently all-perfect harmony. And Satan boldly proposes to snap it if God only let him do so. He can prove to God that the true nature of his creation is not cosmos but chaos not a harmony in peace and light, but a confusion, a Walpurgis Night. God acquiesces in the play of this apparent breach and proves in the end that it is part of a wider Scheme, a vaster harmony. Evil is rounded off by Grace.
The total eradication of Evil from the world and human nature and the remoulding of a terrestrial life in the substance and pattern of the Highest Good that is beyond all dualities is a conception which it was not for Goe the to envisage. In the order of reality or existence, first there is the consciousness of division, of trenchant separation in which Good is equated with not-evil and evil with not-good. This is the outlook of individualised consciousness. Next, as the consciousness grows and envelops the whole existence, good and evil are both embraced and are found to form a secret and magic harmony. That is the universal or cosmic consciousness. And Goethe's genius seems to be an outflowering of something of this status of consciousness. But there is still a higher status, the status of transcendence in which evil is not simply embraced but dissolved and even transmuted into a supreme reality of which it is an aberration, a reflection or projection, a lower formulation. That is the mystery of a spiritual realisation to which Goe the aspired perhaps, but had not the necessary initiation to enter into.
0 1961-04-18, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But even if its put in absolute terms, the relationships remain exactly the same.6 You see, the initial impulse is to say, Whats the use of doing anything? But look here, the very fact that you might want to do something is part of the general determinism! Because we always keep something back and wont admit it into the total Scheme of things, otherwise. There is no way to get out of it thats just the way it is.
And Sri Aurobindo explains this in such a complete, total and compact way, that there is no escape; so this so-called incapacity, this idea of still being incapable of emerging from ones divided state, becomes false.
0 1962-05-22, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(The beginning of this conversation, unfortunately not kept, dealt with certain instances of human ugliness. The topic, in fact, was Satprem's break with X who had been his guru for the past few years. The reasons for this rupture may one day be told, but it should be stressed right now that the fault did not really lie with X, whom Satprem continued to respect, but with a group of Schemers at the Ashram who fastened onto X in the hope of god knows what "powers." It is perhaps just as well that the human "ugliness" here in question has vanished from Satprem's records, foralthough it did come up again immediately after Mother's departureit concerned only the Ashram disciples. All the details and all Mother's reflections on the subject have thus been lost, with the exception of this last fragment:)
What a world!
0 1962-06-12, #Agenda Vol 03, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(Unexpectedly, this conversation led into the subject of Satprem's break with X, who had been his guru for the past few years. Here then, briefly, is the story behind the rupture: No sooner had Satprem brought X to the Ashram than a swarm of disciples threw themselves at him. Conspicuous among these were the moneymen, the same wheelerdealers who, eleven years later, after Mother's departure, were to reveal their ambitions in Auroville as well as Pondicherry. Satprem's somewhat straightforward manner soon got in the way of their Schemes. He had a deep affection for X and when he repeatedly saw that these peoplespiritual scoundrels is the only word for themwere, in the hope of sowing confusion (for they always prosper best in confusion), bringing false reports to Mother of things X had supposedly said, he tried in all innocence to put X on his guard against the false reports and dishonest people who were wronging him. But instead of listening to Satprem and understanding that he spoke out of love, Xwith all his Tantric power behindflew into a violent rage against him, as if he had been casting a slur on X's prestige. Satprem then broke with X, but not without sorrow.)
Anything new?
0 1965-09-22, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Their common ground is petty Schemes and petty biases, preconceived and MICROSCOPIC ideas on the usefulness of divisions among countries so that no one country may dominate the othersnothing but absolutely superficial things, and completely false, moreover. And no sincerity, no mental honesty, no sincere goodwillnothing. They decided in advance that Pakistan was right and India was wrong.
Unfortunately, those phantoms seem to strike terror into the people in Delhi.
0 1971-09-01, #Agenda Vol 12, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Actually, Satprem well remembered that encounter, but he wanted to spare Mother the account of his own state of mind that day, for he was angry with Mother (!) because she was paying a visit to the man who had Schemed to take Governor Baron's place. Thus the great story and the small one go hand in hand.
***
0 1972-07-22, #Agenda Vol 13, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And thats why they reacted so violently against me when I asked for the information, because they felt somebody was beginning to uncover their Scheme.
Ohh! But, you know, I have such difficulty speaking.
02.01 - The World-Stair, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Acting upon this visible Nature's Scheme
It wakens our earth-matter's heavy doze
--
This higher Scheme of being is our cause
And holds the key to our ascending fate;
02.02 - Rishi Dirghatama, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
About the Word, the mystery which Dirghatama unveils is an extraordinary revelationso curious, so illuminating. In later times many lines of spiritual discipline have adopted his Scheme and spread it far and wide. Dirghatama himself was an uncommon wizard of words. The truths he saw and clothed in mantras have attained, as I have already said, general celebrity. He says: "The Word is off our categories. It has four stations or levels or gradations." The Rishi continues: "Three of them are unmanifested, unbodied; only the fourth one is manifest and bodied, on the tongue of man." This terminology embodying a fundamental principle has had many commentaries and explanations. Of these the most well-known is that given by the Tantras. They have named the fourfold words as (1) par, supreme; (2) payant, the seeing one; (3) madhyam, the middle one or the one within and (4) vaikhar, the articulate word. In modern language we may say that the first one is the self-vibration of the Supreme Being or Consciousness; the second is the vibration of the higher-mind or the pure intelligence; the third is the vibration of the inner heart; and the fourth the vibration of physical sound, of voice. In philosophical terms of current English we may name these as (1) revelatory, (2) intuitive, (3) inspirational and (4) vocal.
Now in conclusion I will just speak of the fundamental vision of the rishi. His entire realisation, the whole Veda of his life, he has, it appears, pressed into one single k We have heard it said that the entire range of all scriptures is epitomised in the Gita and the Gita' itself is epitomised in one slokasarvadharmn parityajya... Even so we may say that Rishi Dirghatama has summarised his experience, at least the fundamental basic one, and put it into a sutra. It is the famous k with which he opens his long hymn to Surya:
02.02 - The Kingdom of Subtle Matter, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But, too divine for earthly Nature's Scheme,
Beyond our reach the eternal marvels blaze.
--
We are not left alone in a closed Scheme
Between a driving of inconscient Force
02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Life is less extensive than Matter and Mind is still less extensive than Life. Thus the Scheme of the movement can be figured as a pyramid the base of the pyramid represents Matter, but the apex where the narrowing sides converge is what is called the Deity.
What is the implication of such a conclusion? It comes perilously near the Indian conception of Avatarhood! The central line of evolutionary nisus is the line of Avatarhood. At each point of the line, on the level of the newly emerged principle, there is a divine embodiment of that principle. The esoteric significance of the graded scale of Avatarhood, as illustrated in Vishnu's ten Forms, has long ago been pointed out, by some thinkers, in this light.
The principle of Avatarhood stands justified in this Scheme as a necessary and inevitable element in the terrestrial evolutionary movement. An Avatar embodies a new emergent property: he incarnates a new principle of being and consciousness, he manifestsunfolds from below or brings down from above upon eartha higher and deeper principle of organisation. He is the nucleus round which the new organisation crystallises. A Rama comes and human society attains a new status: against a mainly vitalistic and egoistic organisation whose defender and protagonist is Ravana, is set up an ideal of sattwic humanity. A Krishna appears and human consciousness is lifted, potentially at least, to a still higher level of spiritual possibility. The Avatar following, rather tracing, in his upward movement the central line of the evolutionary nisus, cuts a path, as it were, in the virgin forest of a realm of consciousness still unknown and foreign to human steps. As the Avatar presses and passes on, the way is cleared for other, ordinary human beings to come up and naturalise themselves in a new country promising a higher destiny which He discovers and conquers for them.
Now at this point we reach the crux of the problem, the supreme secretrahasyam uttamamas the Gita would say. For the apex of the pyramid, the crown of evolution, the consummation of the central line of emergence would then be nothing less than the manifestation, the terrestrial incarnation of the Supreme Divine. The Deity thus fully emerged would embody the truth and play of creation in its widest scope and highest elevation; it would mean the utter fulfilment of human destiny and terrestrial Purpose.
02.04 - The Kingdoms of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Intelligence that devised the cosmic Scheme.
42.5
02.05 - The Godheads of the Little Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Constructing by their dance this solid Scheme,
Its mightiness in the atom shut to rest;
--
A world-conjecture's Scheme is laboured out
On the dim floor of mind's incertitude,
--
Yet was this only a provisional Scheme,
A false appearance sketched by limiting sense,
--
This broad, confused, yet rigid Scheme becomes
A magnificent imbroglio of the Gods,
02.06 - Boris Pasternak, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Nature in her sovereign Scheme of harmony accepts destruction, it is true, and has woven that element too in her rhythmic pattern and it seems quite well and good. She is creating, destroying and re-creating eternally. She denudes herself in winter, puts on a garb of bare, dismal aridity and is again all lush, verdant beauty in spring. Pain and suffering, cruelty and battle are all there. And all indeed is one harmonious whole, a symphony of celestial music.
And yet pain is pain and evil evil. There are tears in mortal things that touch us to the core. In mankind the drive for evolution brings in revolution. Not only strife and suffering but uglier elements take birth; cruelty, inhumanity, yes, and also perversity, falsehood, all moral turpitudes, a general inner deterioration and bankruptcy of values. In the human Scheme of things nothing can remain on a lofty status, there comes inevitably a general decline and degradation. As Zhivago says "A thing which has been conceived in a lofty ideal manner becomes coarse and material."
An element of the human tragedy the very central core perhapsis the calvary of the individual. Pasternak's third article of faith is human freedom, the freedom of the individual. Indeed if evolution is to mean progress and growth it must base itself upon that one needful thing. And here is the gist of the problem that faces Pasternak (as Zhivago) in his own inner consciousness and in his outer social life. The problemMan versus Society, the individual and the collective-the private and the public sector in modern jargonis not of today. It is as old as Sophocles, as old as Valmiki. Antigone upheld the honour of the individual against the law of the State and sacrificed herself for that ideal. Sri Rama on the contrary sacrificed his personal individual claims to the demand of his people, the collective godhead.
02.06 - The Integral Yoga and Other Yogas, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I have never said that my Yoga was something brand new in all its elements. I have called it the integral Yoga and that means that it takes up the essence and many processes of the old Yogas - its newness is in its aim, standpoint and the totality of its method. In the earlier stages which is all I deal with in books like the Riddle or the Lights1 there is nothing in it that distinguishes it from the old Yogas except the aim underlying its comprehensiveness, the spirit in its movements and the ultimate significance it keeps before it - also the Scheme of its psychology and its working, but as that was not and could not be developed systematically or schematically in these letters, it has not been grasped by those who are not already acquainted with it by mental familiarity or some amount of practice. The detail or method of the later stages of the Yoga which go into little known or untrodden regions, I have not made public and I do not at present intend to do so.
I know very well also that there have been seemingly allied ideals and anticipations - the perfectibility of the race, certain
02.06 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Life, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Each final Scheme leads to a sequel plan.
Yet every new departure seems the last,
--
And bring perfection to the Scheme of things.
One day he shall descend to life and earth,
02.08 - The World of Falsehood, the Mother of Evil and the Sons of Darkness, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To serve by enmity the cosmic Scheme.
Night is their refuge and strategic base.
--
Transfigured were the fixed Schemes of reasoning Thought.
Arousing consciousness in things inert,
02.10 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Little Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Inventing her Scheme-lines of reality
And the geometric curves of her time-plan,
--
Forcing wide Truth into a narrow Scheme,
Her numberless warring strict philosophies;
--
This solid Scheme melted in endless flux:
She had met the formless Power inventor of forms;
02.11 - New World-Conditions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The geographical revolution has led inevitably to the economic revolution which is not less momentous, pregnant with prophecies of brave new things. We all know that the modern world was ushered in with the industrial revolution. As a result of this new dispensation, world and society gradually divided into two camps: on one side, the industrialists and on the other the agriculturists, or, in a general way, the possessors of raw materials. The Imperialists formed the first group, while the latter, dominated by these, belonged to the Colonies. The "backward" countries and people who could not take to industry, but continued the old system became a helpless prey to the industrial nations. Africa and Asia and the South American countries came under the domination of European nations, rather the West European Nations: they became the suppliers of raw materials and also the market for finished products. Also within the same country occupying the imperial status, there came a division, a class division, as it is called. A few industrial magnates or trusts (France had its famous Two-Hundred Families) monopolised all the wealth, became the top-dog, the "Haves", the others were mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, serfs and slaves, the "Have-Nots". Exploitation was-the motto of the age. The "exploiters" and the "exploited", this trenchant duality was the whole truth of the social Scheme and that summed up the entire malady of the collective life. Then came the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution which brought to a head the great crisis and initiated the change-over to new conditions. The French Revolution called up from the rear of social ranks and set in front the Third Estate and gradually formed and crystallised, with the aid of the Industrial Revolution, what is known as the Bourgeoisie. The Russian Revolution went a step farther. It dislodged the bourgeoisie and installed the Fourth Estate, the proletariate, as the head and front of society, its centre of power and governmental authority. In the meantime there was developing in the bourgeois society, too, a kind of socialism which aimed at the uplift and remoulding of the working class into a total social power. But the process could not, go far enough. The Industrial League, no doubt, began to release some of its monopolies, delegate some of its power and authority to the Proletariate and sought an armistice and entente; but still it is they who wielded the real power and gave to society the tone and impress of their characteristic authority. The Russian experiment made a bold departure and attempted to build up a new society from the very bottom: the manual labourers, they who produce with the sweat of their brow and make a society living and prosperous must also be its rulers. Now whatever the success or failure in regard to the perfect ideal, the thing achieved is solid; certain forces have been released that are working inexorably in and through even contrary appearances, they have come to stay and cannot be negatived. The urge, for example, towards a more equitable distribution of wealth and wealth-producing implements; an even balancing of economic values has been growing and gathering strength: it has become an asset of the body social. Instead of an unfettered competition between rival agencies, the mad drive for a jealous and closely guarded appropriation (rather, mis-appropriation) by private cartels, there has arisen an inevitable need for a unitary or co-operative control under a common direction, whether it be that of the state or some other body equally representing the common interest. In other words, the principle of co-operation has now become a living reality, a thing of practical politics. All effort towards progress and amelioration, cure of social ills and regaining of health and strength must lie in that direction: anything going the contrary way shall perforce be out of tune with the Time-Spirit and can cause only confusion, bring in stagnation or even regression.
First of all, the colonies, which mean practically the Eastern hemisphere, can no longer be regarded, even by those who would very much wish to, as the field of exploitation, the granary of raw materials or the dumping ground of finished articles. Industrialism, the spirit and urge of it at least, has reached these places too: the exploiters themselves have been instrumental In bringing it about. The growing industrialism in countries so long held in subjection or tutelage, as safe preserves, need not necessarily mean a further spell of keen competition. If we look closely, we see things moving in a different direction. It is self-evident that all countries do not and cannot grow or manufacture all things with equal ease and facility. Countries are naturally complementary or supplementary to each other with regard to their raw produce or industrial manufacture. And an inevitable give and take, mutual understanding and help must follow such an alignment of economic forces.
02.11 - The Kingdoms and Godheads of the Greater Mind, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Explained was the immense Inconscient's Scheme,
Audacious lines were traced upon the Void;
--
Imposing Schemes of knowledge on the Vast
They clamped to syllogisms of finite thought
--
Cast into a Scheme the triple act of the One.
Unveiled, the abrupt invisible multitude
02.13 - On Social Reconstruction, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The problem then is this: how to arrive at the inner freedom, how to contact the inner man, the true person and personality? For we are aiming at nothing less than the Soul, the Self, the Divine in man, God's purpose in the Individual, the Individual as God's instrument. That is the beau idal, so to say, in the human personality which all Schemes of social reconstruction must have constantly in view.
The question now is to devise ways and means of materialising this ideal. Circumstanced as man is, in doubt and darkness with regard to his inner nature, one most often does not know one's true vocation; those who do know their minds and are sure of their "mission in life" are the fortunate few, and very few indeed they are. Of the vast majority, some discover themselves only at the fag-end of their life or when they are already far too committed and in harness in alien fields and among alien faces; others do not discover themselves at all, they need no such revelation: these form the general mass in which the individuals have not developed so far as to come out into any bold relief, they are cast into the stereotype mould, moved more or less by the same general forces of nature and are indistinguishable from each other. It is upon this mass of uniformity that the totalitarian regimentation bases itself easily and naturally.
02.14 - Panacea of Isms, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet internationalism is not the one thing needful either. If it means the obliteration of all national values, of all cultural diversity, it will not certainly conduce to the greater enrichment and perfection of humanity. Taken by itself and in its absolute sense, it cannot be a practical success. The fact is being proved every moment these days. Internationalism in the economic sphere, however, seems to have a greater probability and utility than in the merely political sphere. Economics is forcing peoples and nations to live together and move together: it has become the soldering agent in modern times of all the elements the groups and types of the human family that were so long separate from each other, unknown to each other or clashing with each other. But that is good so far as it goes. Powerful as economic forces are, they are not the only deciding or directing agents in human affairs. That is the great flaw in the "International", the Marxian type of internationalism which has been made familiar to us. Man is not a political animal, in spite of Aristotle, nor is he an economic animal, in spite of Marx and Engels. Mere economics, even when working for a greater unity of mankind, tends to work more for uniformity: it reduces man to the position of a machine and a physical or material machine at that. By an irony of fate the human value for which the international proletariate raised its banner of revolt is precisely what suffers in the end. The Beveridge Plan, so much talked of nowadays, made such an appeal, no doubt because of the economic advantages it ensures, but also, by far and large, because it views man as a human being in and against the machine to which he belongs, because it is psychologically a Scheme to salvage the manhood of man, so far as is possible, out of a rigidly mechanistic industrial organization.
Humanism
03.01 - The Pursuit of the Unknowable, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The great Schemed worlds that they had planned and wrought
Passed, taken and abolished one by one.
03.03 - The House of the Spirit and the New Creation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This other Scheme two vast negations found.
A world that knows not its inhabiting Self
03.04 - Towardsa New Ideology, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Russia has her Sovietic Communism, Germany, for the present at least, her Nazidom, Italy her totalitarian Fascism, old England her Parliamentarianism and France her Bureaucratism; each nation finds the norm and Scheme of self-rule that suits its temperament and character and changes and modifies that also in its own characteristic manner. Even so India must find her own Scheme of Swarajya. If she is to live and be great and contri bute something to the enrichment and glory of human civilisation, she must look to herself, enter into herself and know and bring out what lies there buried. It is a grievous blunder to try to transplant a Mussolinian or Leninian or a Hitlerian gospel on an Indian soil. It is not desirable nor is it truly possible.
If, however, we take a right about turn and look away from the West to the Far East, we already see in Japan a different type of national self-government. It is based on an altogether different basis which may appear even novel to the modern and rationalistic European mentality. I am referring to the conception of duty which moulds and upholds the Japanese body politic and body social, as opposed to the conception of right obtaining royal rule in the Occident.
The distinction between the attitudes that underlie these two conceptions was once upon a time greatly stressed by Vivekananda, who was the first to strike two or three major chords that were needed to create the grand symphony of the Indian Renaissance. It is true Europe too had her Mazzini whose Scheme of a new humanity was based on the conception of the duties of man. But his was a voice in the wilderness and he was not honoured in his own country.
The malady of the modern age springs precisely from this poisonous source, viz., it views man as a bundle of rights and its problem of social organisation is the problem of safeguarding and, if possible, even of increasing individual and collective rights. Thus came into being the competitive societya society necessarily red in tooth and claw like Nature.
03.05 - The World is One, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The distinctions and differences that held good in other times and climes can have no sense or value in the world of today. Race or religion can divide man no longer; even nationhood has lost much of its original force and meaning. It is strangeperhaps it is inevitable in the secret process of Nature's working that when everything in conditions and circumstances obviously demands and points to an obliteration of all frontiers of division and separationeconomically and politically tooand all drives towards a closer co-operation and intermingling, it is precisely then that the contrary spirit and impulse raises its head and seems even to gather added strength and violence. The fact may have two explanations. First of all, it may mean a defence gesture in Nature, that is to say, certain forces or formations have a permanent place in Nature's economy and when they apprehend that they are being ousted and neglected, when there is a one-pointed drive for their exclusion, naturally they surge up and demand recognition with a vengeance: for things forgotten or left aside that form indissolubly part of Nature's fabric and pattern, one has to retrace one's steps in order to pick them up again. But also the phenomenon may mean a simple case of atavism: for we must know that there are certain old-world aboriginal habits and movements that have to go and have no place in the higher Scheme of Nature and these too come up off and on, especially when the demand is there for their final liquidation. They have to be recognised as such and treated as such. Radical and religious (including ideological) egoisms seem to us to belong to this category.
In the higher Scheme of Nature, the next evolutionary status that is being forged,itis unity, harmony that is insisted upon, for that is the very basis of the new creation: whatever militates against that, whatever creates division and disruption must be banned and ruthlessly eschewed. In the reality of things, in the actual life that man lives, it will be found that on the whole, things that separate are less numerous and insistent than those which unite, man and man and nation and nation, if each one simply lives and lets live: on the contrary, it is the points of concordance and mutuality that abound. A certain knot or twist in the mind makes all the difference: it brings in the ignorance, selfishness, blind passiona possession by the dark forces of atavism that makes the mischief.
We ask for freedom, liberty of the individual, self-determinationwell and good. But that does not mean the licence to do as one pleases, impelled by one's irrational idiosyncrasies. The individual must be truly individual, not a fractional being, the self must be the real self, not a shadow or surface formulation in order to have the full right to unfettered movement. Liberty, yes; but that means liberty for all which means again the other two terms of the great trinity, equality and fraternity. Individuality, yes; that means every individuality, in other words, solidarity. The two sides of the equation must be given equal value and equal emphasis. If the stress upon one leads to Nazism, Fascism or Stalinism, steam-rollered uniformity or streamlined regimentation, the death of the individual, the other emphasis leads to disintegration and disruption, to the same end in a different way. But in the world of today, after the victory in the last war over the Nazi conception of humanity, it seems as though the spirit of disruption has gone abroad, human consciousness has been atom-bombed into flying fragments; so we have the spectacle of all manner of parochialism pullulating on the earth, regional and ideologicalimperial blocs, nations, groups, parties have chequered ad infinitum, have balkanised human commonalty.
03.06 - Here or Otherwhere, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The question naturally turns upon the nature and the kind of workwhe ther there is a choice and selection in it. Gita speaks indeed of all works, ktsna-karmakt, but does that really mean any and every work that an ignorant man, an ordinary man steeped in the three Gunas does or can do? It cannot be so. For, although all activity, all energy has its source and impetus in the higher consciousness of the Divine, it assumes on the lower ranges indirect, diverted or even perverted formulations and expressions, not because of the inherent falsity of these so-called inferior strata, the instruments, but because of their temporary impurity and obscurity. There are evidently activities and impulsions born exclusively of desire, of attachment and egoism. There are habits of the body, urges of the vital, notions of the mind, there are individual and social functions that have no place in the spiritual Scheme, they have to be rigorously eschewed and eliminated. Has not the Gita said, this is desire, this is passion born of the quality of Rajas? . . . There is not much meaning in trying to do these works unattached or to turn them towards the Divine. When you are unattached, when you turn to the Divine, these 'Simply drop away of themselves. Yes, there are social duties and activities and relations that inevitably dissolve and disappear as you move into the life divine. Some are perhaps tolerated for a period, some are occasions for the consciousness to battle and surmount, grow strong and pass beyond. You have to learn to go beyond and new-create your environment.
It was Danton who said, one carries not his country with him at the sole of his shoe. Even so you cannot hope to shift bodily your present social ensemble, place it wholesale in the divine life on the plea that it will be purified and transformed in the process. Purification is there indeed, but one must remember purification literally means burning and not a little of the past and present has to be burnt down to ashes.
03.08 - The Standpoint of Indian Art, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
All art is based upon this peculiar virtue of the mind that naturally and spontaneously transforms or distorts the objective world presented to its purview. The question, then, is only of the degree to which the metamorphosis has been carried. At the one end, there is the art of photography, in which the degree of metamorphosis is at its minimum; at the other, there seems to be no limit, for the mind's capacity to dissolve and recreate the world of sense-perception is infinite and many modern schools of European art have gone even beyond the limit that the "unnatural" Indian art did not consider it necessary to transgress. Now, the classical artist selects a position as close as he can to the photographer, tries to give the mind's view of Nature and creation, as far as possible, in the style and norm of the sense-perceptions. He takes his stand upon these and from there reaches out towards whatever imaginative reconstructions are justified within the bounds laid out by them. The general ground-plan is, almost rigorously, the form given by the physical eye. The art of the East, and even, to a large extent, the art of mediaeval Europe, followed a different line. Here the Scheme of the sense-perceptions was rejected, the artist sought to build on other foundations. His procedure was, first, to get a focus within the mind, to discover a psychological standpoint, and from there and in accordance with the subtler laws and conventions of an inner vision create a world that is unique and stands by itself. The aim was always to build from within, at the most, from within outwards, but not from without, not even from without inwards. This inner world has its own laws and they differ from the laws of optics which govern the physical sight; but there is no reason why it should be called unnatural. It is unnatural only in the sense that it does not copy physical Nature; it is quite natural in the 1 sense that it is a faithful reproduction of another, a psychological Nature.
Indian art is pre-eminently and par excellence the art of this inner re-formation and revaluation. It has thrown down completely and clearly the rigid scaffolding of the physical vision. We take here a sudden leap, as it were, into another world, and sometimes the feeling is that everything is reversed; it is not exactly that we feel ourselves standing on our heads, but it is, as if, in the Vedic phrase, the foundations were above and all the rest branched out from them downwards. The artist sees with an eye, and constructs upon a plan that conveys the merest excuse of an actual visible world. There are other schools in the East which have also moved very far away from the naturalistic view; yet they have kept, if not the form, at least, the feeling of actuality in their composition. Thus a Chinese, a Japanese, or a Persian masterpiece cannot be said to be "natural" in the sense in which a Tintoretto, or even a Raphael is natural; yet a sense of naturalness persists, though the appearance is not naturalistic. What Indian art gives is not the feeling of actuality or this sense of naturalness, but a feeling of truth, a sense of realityof the deepest reality.
--
Character in the European sense means that part of nature which is dynamically expressed in conduct, in behaviour, in external movements. But there is another sense in which the term would refer to the inner mode of being, and not to any outer exemplification in activity, any reaction or set of reactions in the kinetic system, nor even to the mental state, the temperament, immediately inspiring it, but to a still deeper status of consciousness. A Raphael Madonna, for example, purposes to pour wholly into flesh and blood the beauty of motherhood. A Japanese Madonna (a Kwanon), on the other hand, would not present the "natural" features and expressions of motherhood; it would not copy faithfully the model, however idealized, of a woman viewed as mother. It would endeavour rather to bring out something of the subtler reactions in the "nervous" world, the world of pure movements that is behind the world of form; it would record the rhythms and reverberations attendant upon the conception and experience of motherhood somewhere on the other side of our wakeful consciousness. That world is made up not of forms, but of vibrations; and a picture of it, therefore, instead of being a representation in three-dimensional space, would be more like a Scheme, a presentation in graph, something like the ideography of the language of the Japanese themselves, something carrying in it the beauty characteristic of the calligraphic art. 2
An Indian Madonna owes its conception to an experience at the very other end of consciousness. The Indian artist does not at all think of a human mother; he has not before his mind's eye an idealized mother, nor even a subtilized feeling of motherhood. He goes deep into the very origin of things, and, from there seeks to bring out that which belongs to the absolute I and the universal. He endeavours to grasp the sense that : motherhood bears in its ultimate truth and reality. Beyond the form, beyond even the rhythm, he enters into bhva, the: spiritual substance of things. An Indian Madonna (Ganesh-janani, for example) is not solely or even primarily a human I mother, but the mother, universal and transcendent, of sentientand insentient creatures and supersentient beings. She embodies not the human affection only, but also the parallel sentiment that finds play in the lower and in the higher creations as well. She expresses in her limbs not only the gladness of the mother animal tending its young, but also the exhilaration that a plant feels in the uprush of its sap while giving out new shoots, and, above all, the supreme nanda which has given birth to the creation itself. The lines that portray such motherhood must have the largeness, the sweep, the au thenticity of elemental forces, the magic and the mystery of things behind the veil.
03.10 - Hamlet: A Crisis of the Evolving Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Over against the personality of Hamlet stands another which represents false height, the wrong perfection, the counterfeit ideal. Polonius is humanity arrested in its path of straight development and deviated into a cut-de-sac of self-conceit and surface urbanity, apparent cleverness and success and pretentious and copy-book morality. When one has outgrown the barbarian, one runs the risk of becoming a snob or philistine. It is a side table-land, as it were, on mid-heights, the standard perhaps of a commoner humanity, but which the younger ideal has to transcend or avoid or even to destroy, so that it may find itself and live its own life. To the philistine too the mere biological man is a taboo, but he seeks to confine human nature into a Scheme of codes and maxims and lifeless injunctions and prohibitions. He is also the man of Reason but without the higher inflatus, the living and creative Something More the poetry, the vision, the dream that would transfigure the merely pragmatic, practical, worldly wise the bourgeoisinto the princely aristocratic idealist, elevate the drab terre terre To-day into the glory of a soaring To-morrow.
What is the crisis that confronts the ascending visionary soul? What is the obstacle that the Idealist has to face, the danger zone that he has to traverse in order to arrive at- the realisation of his ideal?
03.10 - The Mission of Buddhism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To abrogate the matter of fact, rational view of life in order to view it spiritually, to regard it wholly as an expression or embodiment or vibration of consciousness-delight was possible to the Vedic discipline which saw and adored the Immanent Godhead. It was not possible to Buddha and Buddhistic consciousness; for the Immanent Divine was ignored in the Buddhistic Scheme. Philosophically, in regard to ultimate principles, Buddhism was another name for nihilism, creation being merely an assemblage of particles of consciousness that is desire; the particles scattered and dissolved, remains only the supreme incomparable Nirvana. But pragmatically Buddhism was supremely humanistic.
As it took man as a rational animal, at least as a starting-point, even so it gave a sober human value to things human. A rationalist's eye made him see and recognise the normal misery of mankind; and the great compassion goaded him to find the way out of the misery. It was not a dispassionate quest into the ultimate truth and reality nor an all-consuming zeal to meet the Divine that set Buddha on the Path; it was the everyday problem of the ordinary man which troubled his mind, and for which he sought a solution, a permanent radical solution. The Vedanist saw only delight and ecstasy and beatitude; forhim the dark shadow did not exist at all or did not matter; it was the product of illusion or wrong view of things; one was asked to ignore or turn away from this and look towards That. Such was not the Buddha's procedure.
03.11 - Modernist Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The modernist may chew well, but, I, am afraid, he feeds upon the husk, the chaff, the offal. Not that these things too cannot be incorporated in the poetic Scheme; the spirit of poetry is catholic enough and does not disdain them, but can transfigure them into things of eternal beauty. Still how to characterise an inspiration that is wholly or even largely pre-occupied with such objects? Is it not sure evidence that the inspiration is a low and slow flame and does not possess the transfiguring white heat? Bottrall's own lines do not seem to have that quality, it is merely a lessona rhetorical lesson, at bestin poetics.
A poeta true poetdoes not compose to exemplify a theory; he creates out of the fullness of an inner experience. It may be very true that the modern poetic spirit is seeking a new path, a new organisation, a "new order", as it were, in the poetic realm: the past forms and formulae do not encompass or satisfy its present inner urge. But solution of the problem does not lie in a sort of mechanical fabrication of novelties. A new creation is new, that is to say, fresh and living, not because of skilful manipulation of externals, but because of a new, a fresh and living inspiration. The fountain has to be dug deep and the revivifying waters released.
03.12 - Communism: What does it Mean?, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Communism, in India at least, has come to mean things which it was not the original or the main purpose of the word to imply. Communism meant "holding in common", that is to say, there is no private property, one can claim nothing as exclusively one's ownthings are distributed, work as well as necessities, and one receives them, each in his turn, according to his need and desert, as determined by general planning. Let alone property, there are types of communism that speak of holding in common women and children even. In any case whatever one is given one possesses and enjoys only for the moment, there is nothing like permanent possession. All have equal right to all things. This is an ideal which I do not think many would care to adopt and follow. In India it appears the word "communism" has been taken in the sense of the rgime of the common man. Not that there is any harm in this deviation of the meaning. If it is a convenient label or a battle-cry for the common man's right to exist, to have his just lebensraum, well, none can object and all should sympathise and help towards that end. But the mischief is that the common man adopted by communism has a restrictive denotation, it takes in only a section of the common man: it is used mostly, if not exclusively in connection with wage-earners and that too only of the category of peasants and workmen. A large section of the common mass, even of wage earners in a sense, is left out in the communistic Scheme, at least not given the same importance as the other. School teachers, especially primary school teachers, small office-clerks, for example, are not less "common" or less unfortunate or worthy of succour. These form a genuine proletariat: only they have not yet been called upon to take part in the Dictatorship.
Apart from this restrictive denotation, communism, in practice, has been given a restrictive connotation too which is more ominous and unhelpful. The communistic movement has become dynamic in so far as it is a movement for redressing grievances (although the methods employed at times it is alleged, are not as they should be, worthy of the civilised human being) in other words, it has been more or less negative in its work and outlook. The whole stress has been laid upon two items: (1) less hours of work, and (2) more wages I do not mention better housing, medical aid, pension etc., which are auxiliary items. When workers were considered as no more than slaves under the yoke of the blind and brutal exploiter, these demands had a meaning: but they have lost much of their point in the changed circumstances of today.
04.01 - The March of Civilisation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That is how the spirit of progress and evolution has worked and advanced in the European world. And one can take it as the pattern of human growth generally; but in the Scheme described above we have left out one particular phase and purposely. I refer to the great event of Christ and Christianity. For without that European civilisation loses more than half of its import and value. After the Roman Decline began the ebbtide, the trough, the dark shadow of the deepening abyss of the Middle Ages. But even as the Night fell and darkness closed around, a new light glimmered, a star was born. A hope and a help shone "in a naughty world". It was a ray of consciousness that came from a secret cave, from a domain hidden behind and deep within in the human being. Christ brought a leaven into the normal manifest mode of consciousness, an otherworldly mode into the worldly life. He established a living and dynamic contact with the soul, the inner person in man, the person that is behind but still rules the external personality made of mind and life and body consciousness. The Christ revelation was also characteristic in the sense that it came as a large, almost a mass movementthis approach of the soul personality to earthly life. The movement faded or got adulterated, deformed like all human things; but something remained as a permanent possession of man's heritage.
This episode links up with the inner story of mankind, its spiritual history. The growing or evolving consciousness of man was not only an outgoing and widening movement: it was also a heightening, an ascent into ranges that are not normally perceived, towards summits of our true reality. We have spoken of the Grco-Roman culture as the source and foundation of European civilisation; but apart from that there was a secret vein of life that truly vivified it, led it by an occult but constant influence along channels and achievements that are meant to serve the final goal and purpose. The Mysteries prevalent and practised in Greece itself and Crete and the occult rites of Egyptian priests, the tradition of a secret knowledge and discipline found in the Kabbalah, the legendary worship of gods and goddesses sometimes confused, sometimes identified with Nature forcesall point to the existence of a line of culture which is known in India as Yoga. If all other culture means knowledge, Yoga is the knowledge of knowledge. As the Upanishad says, there are two categories of knowledge, the superior and-the inferior. The development of the mind and life and body belongs to the domain of Inferior Knowledge: the development of the soul, the discovery of the Spirit means the Superior Knowledge.
04.02 - Human Progress, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
One can answer, however, that even if in the last eight or ten thousand years which, they say, is the extent of the present cycle, the civilised or cultural life of humanity has not changed much, this does not mean that it cannot, will not change. The paleolithic age, it appears, covered a period of thirty to forty thousand years; the neolithic age also must have lasted some fifteen thousand years. The metal age is now not more than ten thousand years. So it does not seem to be too late; perhaps it is just time for another radical and crucial change to come as the chronological Scheme would seem to demand.
We propose, however, to reopen the question and enquire if there has not been some kind of radical change or progress in the make-up of human nature and civilisation even within the span of historical times. This reminds us of the remarkable conclusion or discovery made by the much maligned and much adulated Psycho-analysts.
04.03 - The Call to the Quest, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Can fit his acts to a transcendent Scheme.
He who now stares at the world with ignorant eyes
04.03 - The Eternal East and West, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The East is no longer the traditional East of the poet who viewed it as eternally static and meditative, drowned in an "eyeless muse" away and aloof from earth and world. Even if it had and has still in its essential nature a nostalgia for the transcendence, yet it seeks today more and more for a hold upon the physical realities: it seems to remember again what the Upanishadic Rishi sought the Rishi being asked whether he came for the mundane wealth of a thousand heads of cattle, with golden rings round their horns, or for the knowledge of the Transcendent Reality, replied that he had come for both. And the hidebound materialist West, the positivist scientific West, finds this day many fissures and loopholes in the solid Laplacian Scheme; as it dives down and enters into the secrecies of even the most material things, curious mysteries surge up and its eyes demand another look and another vision than those to which the mere senses have accustomed them. Physical Scientists bending towards or being compelled to bend towards metaphysics and even mysticism are no longer an anomaly in the scientific world.
The Spirit is not the static transcendent absolute entity only. It is dynamic Force, creative conscious Energy. The spiritual is not mere silence and status it is expression and movement also. Any silence and any status are not the silence and the status of the Spirit the silence and status of death, for example; so too any expression and movement are not of the Spirit either but this does not mean that the Spirit cannot have its own expression and movement. God too likewise is not a mere supracosmic beinga somewhat aggrandised human beingtreating and dominating man and the world as something foreign and essentially antagonistic to his nature. God himself has made himself all creatures and all worlds. He is That and He is This fundamentally and integrally. Again, at the other end, Matter is not mere dead mechanical matter. It is vibrant energy, but energy that conceals within it life and consciousness. Besides, the whirl and motion of energies is not all, something inherently static looms large behind: you call it ether, field, space or substratumit is being, one would like to say, infused with a secret consciousness and will.
--
The East does not consider the individual in his social behaviour in terms of freedom and liberty but of service and obligation, not in terms of rights but of duties. The Indian term for right and duty is the sameadhikar. The word originally and usually meant duty, one's sphere of work or service, capacity: the meaning of "right" was secondary and only latterly, probably as a result of the impact from the West, has gained predominance. The West measures human progress by the amount of rights gained for the individual or for the group. It does not seem to have any other standard: submission, obedience, any diminution of the sense of separate individuality meant slavery and loss of human value and dignity. It was the Greek perhaps, with Socrates as the great pioneer, who first declared the supremacy of the individual reason (although he himself obeyed in all things his guardian angel, the Daemon). In India, generally in the East, the value of the individual is estimated in another way. So long as he is in the society, the individual is bound by its demands: he has to serve it according to his best capacity. That is the dharma the Law that one has to observe conscientiously. But if he chooses, he can break the bonds forthwith, come out, come out of the society altogether and be free absolutely that is the only meaning of freedom. In the West the individual is taught to remain in the world and with the society, maintain his individuality and independence and gradually enlarge them in and through the natural fetters and bondages that a collective life and efficient organisation demands and inevitably imposes. The East, on the contrary, asks the individual never to protest and assert his individuality, which is in their view only another name for Ignorant egoism, but to know his position in the social Scheme and fulfil the duties and obligations of that position. But the individual has the freedom not to enter into the social frame at all. If he chooses freedom as his ideal, it is the supreme freedom that he must choose, out of the chain of a terrestrial life. He can become the spiritual "outlaw", the sanysi, the word means one who has abandoned everything totally and absolutely.
The contrast points to a synthesis parallel to or an extension of the one we spoke of earlier. The first thing to note is that the individual is the source of all progress; the individual has the right, as it is also his duty to maintain himself and fulfil himself, grow to his largest and highest dimensions! Secondly, the individual has to take cognisance of the others, the whole humanity, in fact, even for the sake of his own progress. The individual is not an isolated entity, a freak product in Nature, but is integrated into it, a part and parcel of its texture and composition. Indeed the individual has a double role to perform, first to increase himself and secondly to increase others. Using the terms which the Sartrian view of existence has put into vogue, we can say, the individual en soi (in himself) is the individual in commonalty with others, living and moving in and through every other person; and then there is the individual pour soi (for himself), that is to say, existing for himself, apart and away from others, in his own inner absolute autonomy. The individual is individualised, i.e. raises and lifts himself and then becomes the spearhead breaking through the level where Nature stands fixed, leading others to follow and raise themselves. The individual is the power of organised self-consciousness; the growth of the individual means the growth of this power of organised consciousness. And growth means ascension or evolution from level to level. The individual starts from the organic cell, that is the lower end, it progresses through various gradations of the vital and mental worlds till he reaches the culmination of its growth in the Spirit as tman. But this vertical growth must be reflected in a horizontal growth too. There is a solidarity among the individuals forming the collective humanity so that the progress of one means the progress of others in the same direction, at least a chance and possibility opened for an advance. On the other hand, it may be noted that unless the collectivity rises to a certain level the individual too cannot go very far from it. A higher lift in the individual presupposes a corresponding or some minimum lift in others. There cannot or should not be too great a rift between the individual and the collective.
04.06 - To Be or Not to Be, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is a complex problem and the solution too is complex. The GitaHinduism generallydoes not posit a universal dharma, but a hierarchy of dharmas. Men have different natures; so their duties, their functions and activities, their paths of growth and development must naturally be different. A rigid rule does not fit in with the facts of life, and the more absolute it is, the less efficacy it possesses as a living reality. Therefore in the Indian social Scheme, there is one dharma for the Brahmin and another for the Kshatriya, a third for the Vaishya and a fourth for the Shudra.
The Brahmin is he who represents in his nature and character the principle and movement of knowledge, of comprehension and inclusion, of peace and harmonyall the qualities that are termed sttwic. A Brahmin does not fight, the very build of his consciousness prevents him from wounding and hurting; he has no enemy; even if he is attacked or killed, he does not raise his arm to protect himself (although Ramakrishna would prescribe even for him a modified or mollified mode of resisting the evil, hissing at least if not biting). The Biblical injunction, we know, is to present the other cheek too to the smiter. This is for those who follow the Brahminical discipline. But a Kshatriya, who in his nature and consciousness is a warrior, has another dharma; he is the armed guard of knowledge and truth, he is strength and force. He has to resist the evil in the name of the Lord, he has to raise his arm to strike. He is the instrument of Rudra and Mahakali. Does not the mighty goddess declare I draw the bow for Rudra, I hurl the arrow to slay the hater of the truth?4 If the Kshatriya does not follow his own dharma, but seeks to imitate the Brahmin, he brings about a confusion liable to disintegrate the society, he is then un-Aryan, inglorious, unworthy of heaven, deserving all the epithets which Sri Krishna heaped upon the dejected, depressed and confused Arjuna. So long as the world is held by brute force, so long as there is the sway of evil power over the material earth and the physical body, there will be the need to resist it physically: if I do not do it, other instruments will be found. I may say like Arjuna, overwhelmed with pity and grief, I shall not fight, but God and the cosmic deities may refuse my refusal and compel me to do what in my ignorance and wrong headedness I would not like to do.
04.08 - An Evolutionary Problem, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The whole articulation of the external organism is, as we know, contained in a secret disposition of elements within the cellnot in the way, as was once supposed, viz., that a whole full-grown tree lies in a miniature form within the seed andgrowth simply means a gradual enlargement of that form but that there is a pattern of ultimate particlesvital quantaa rhythm and vibration of life energy, that is the origin, the formal and efficient cause, of the material form. Deeper still, behind the blind instinctive urge of life, the unconsciousness that is the inertia of matter, there is a consciousness, a vision, a supernal self-conscious energy that inspires, guides, fashions the whole evolutionary Scheme in the large as well as in all details.
***
05.01 - At the Origin of Ignorance, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
And yet the result is strange and revolutionary. The game once begun develops its own Scheme and pattern and modality. For that crucial step in the movement of freedom, that definite moving away, the assertion of complete independence and isolation immediately brought about a reversal of realities, a complete negation of the original attri butes. Thus Light became obscurity or Inconscience, Life became death, Delight became pain and suffering, Power became incapacity, Knowledge became Ignorance, and Truth became falsehood. In other words, Spirit became forthright Matter.
What seemed, however, to be nothing more than an accident is pregnant nevertheless with a profound meaning and significance. Indeed God has not created the world in jest. Spirit became Matter, that is to say, an apparent negation of the Spirit, to demonstrate that the negation is a way of affirmation, a more integral way of affirmation of the Spirit. Matter has been brought out to express another poise of the spirit, spirit concretised and embodied.
05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The integral Divine not merely suffers (as in the Christian tradition) a body material, He accepts it in his supernal delight, for it is his own being and substance: it is He in essence and it will become He in actuality. When he comes into the world, it is not as though it were a foreign country; he comes to his own,only he seeks to rebuild it on another scale, the scale of unity and infinity, instead of the present scale of separativism and finiteness. He comes among men not simply because he is' moved by human miseries; he is no extra-terrestrial person, a bigger human being, but is himself this earth, this world, all these miseries; he is woven into the fabric of the universe, he is the warp and woof that constitute creation. It is not a mere movement of sympathy or benevolence that actuates him, it is a total and absolute identification that is the ground and motive of his activity. When he assumes the frame of mortality, it is not that something outside and totally incongruous is entering into him, it is part and parcel of himself, it is himself in one of his functions and phases. Consequently, his work in and upon the material world and life may be viewed as that of self-purification and self-illumination, self-discipline and selfrealisation. Also, the horrors of material existence, being part of the cosmic play and portion of his infinity, naturally find shelter in the individual divine incarnation, are encompassed in his human embodiment. It is the energy of his own consciousness that brought out or developed even this erring earth from within it: that same energy is now available, stored up in the individual formation, for the recreation of that earth. The advent and acceptance of material existence meant, as a kind of necessity in a given Scheme of divine manifestation, the appearance and play of Evil, the negation of the very divinity. Absolute Consciousness brought forth absolute unconsciousness the inconscientbecause of its own self-pressure, a play of an increasingly exclusive concentration and rigid objectivisation. That same consciousness repeats its story in the individual incarnation: it plunges into the material life and matter and identifies itself with Evil. But it is then like a pressed or tightened spring; it works at its highest potential. In other words, the Divine in the body now works to divinise the body itself, to make of the negation a concrete affirmation. The inconscient will be embodied consciousness.
The humanist said, Nothing human I reckon foreign to me," In a deeper and more absolute sense the divine Mystic of the integral Yoga says the same. He is indeed humanity incarnate, the whole mankind condensed and epitomised in his single body. Mankind as imbedded in ignorance and inconscience, the conscious soul lost in the dark depths of dead matter, is he and his whole labour consists in working in and through that obscure "gravitational" mass, to evoke and bring down the totality of the superconscient force, the creative delight which he is essentially in his inmost and topmost being. The labour within himself is conterminous with the cosmic labour, and the change effected in his being and nature means a parallel change in the world outside, at least a ready possibility of the change. All the pains and weaknesses normal humanity suffers from, the heritage of an inconscient earthly existence, the Divine takes into his incarnated bodyall and more and to the highest degreeinto a crucible as it were, and works out there the alchemy. The natural man individually shares also each other's burden in some way, for all are interconnected in lifeaction at one point has a reaction at all other points: only the sharing is done unconsciously and is suffered or imposed than accepted and it tends to be at a minimum. An ordinary mortal would break under a greater pressure. It is the Avatar who comes forward and carries on his shoulders the entire burden of earthly inconscience.
05.03 - Bypaths of Souls Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Let us repeat here what we have often said elsewhere. The creation and development of souls is a twofold process. First, there is the process of growth from below, and secondly there is the process of manifestation or expression from above, the movements of ascent and descent, as spoken of by Sri Aurobindo. The souls start on their evolutionary journey on the material plane as infinitesimal specks of consciousness imbedded in the vast expanse of the Inconscient; but they are parts and parcels of a homogeneous mass: in fact they are not distinguishable from each other at that level. There is as it were a secret vibration of consciousness with which the material infinity all around is shot through. With evolution, that is to say, with the growth and coming forward of the consciousness, there arise sparks, glowing centres here and there, forms shape and isolate themselves in the bosom of the original formless mass; they rise and they subside, others rise, coalesce, separatesome grow, others disappear. These sparks or centres, as they develop or evolve, slowly assume definiteness,of form and function,attain an individuality and finally a personality. Looked at from below there is no counting of these sparks or rudimentary souls; they are innumerable and infinitely variable. It is something like the nebula out of which the galaxies are supposed to be formed. The line of descent, however, presents a different aspect. Looked from above, at the summit there is the infinite supreme Being and Consciousness and Bliss (Sachchidananda) and in it too there cannot be a limit to the number of Jivatmas that are its formulations, like the waves in the bosom of the sea, according to the familiar figure. This is the counterpart of the infinity at the other end, where also the rudimentary souls or potential individualities are infinite. Moving down along the line of descent at a certain stage, under a certain modality of the creative process, certain types or fundamental formations are put forward that give the ground-plan, embody the matrix of the subsequent creation or manifestation. The Four Great Personalities (Chaturvyuha), the Seven Seers, the Fourteen Manus or Human Ancestors point to the truth of a fixed number of archetypes that are the source and origin of emanations forming in the end the texture of earthly lives and existences. The number and Scheme depends upon a given purpose in view and is not an eternal constant. The types and archetypes with which we, human beings, are concerned in the present cycle of evolution belong to the supramental and overmental planes of consciousness; they are the beings known familiarly as gods and presiding deities. They too have emanations, each one of them, and these emanations multiply as they come down the scale of manifestation to lower and lower levels, the mental, the vital and the physical, for example. And they enter into human embodiments, the souls evolving and ascending from the lower end; they may even take upon themselves human character and shape.
There are thus chains linking the typal beings in the world above with their human embodiments in the physical world; an archetype in the series of emanations branches out, as it were, into its commensurables and cognates in human bodies. Hence it is quite natural that many persons, human embodiments, may have so to say one common ancestor in the typal being (that gives their spiritual gotra); they all belong to the same geneological tree. Souls aspiring and ascending to the higher and fuller consciousness, because of their affinity, because together they have to fulfil a special role, serve a particular purpose in the cosmic plan, because of their spiritual consanguinity, call on the same godhead as their Master-soul or Over-soul, the Soul of their souls. Their growth and development are along similar or parallel lines, they are moulded and shaped in the pattern set by the original being. This must not be understood to mean that a soul is bound exclusively to its own family and cannot step out of its geneological system. As I have said in the beginning, souls are not material particles hard and rigid and shut out from each other, they are not obliged to obey the law of impenetrability that two bodies cannot occupy the same place at the same time. They meet, touch, interchange, interpenetrate, even coalesce, although they may not belong to the same family but follow different lines of, evolution. Apart from the fact that in the ultimate reality each is in all and all is in each, not only so, each is all and all is eachthus beings on no account can be kept in water-tight compartmentsapart from this spiritual truth, there is also a more normal and apparent give and take between souls. The phenomenon known as "possession", for example, is a case in point. "Possession", however, need not be always a ghostly possession in the modern sense of the possession by evil spirits, it may be also in a good sense, the sense that the word carried among mediaeval mystics, viz.,spiritual.
05.03 - Satyavan and Savitri, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A mental Scheme of a mechanic Power.
This light showed more the darknesses unsearched;
05.03 - The Body Natural, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
With regard to the food that man takes, there are two factors that determine or prescribe it. First of all, the real need of the body, that is to say, what the body actually requires for its maintenance, the elements to meet the chemical changes occurring there, something quite material and very definite, viz, the kind of food and the quantity. But usually this real need of the body is obscured and sumberged under the demands of another kind of agency, almost altogether foreign to it, (I) vital desire and (2) mental notions. Indeed, the menu of our table, at least 90% of it, is arranged so as to satisfy the demands of the second category, the consideration that should come first comes last in fact. The body is at present a slave of the mind and the vital; it is hardly given the freedom of choosing its own requirements in the right quantity and quality. That is why the body is seen to suffer everywhere and it normally sick for the greater part of its earthly existence. It has been compelled to occupy an anomalous position in the human organism between these two tyrants. The vital goes by its greed, its attraction and repulsion, its impulse to excess (sometimes to its opposite of deprivation); what it has been accustomed to, what it has taken a fancy for, to that it clings, and if the body has not what it prescribes, it throws the suggestion into the body that it will fall ill. The physical mind has its own notions and Schemes, pet ideas and plans (perhaps from what has been read in books or heard from persons) in respect of the body's needs; it thinks that if a certain prescription is not followed, the body will suffer. The mind and the vital are thus close friends and accomplices in regimenting the body. They impose their own demands and prejudices upon the body which helplessly gets entangled in them and loses its native instinct. The body left to itself is marvellously self-conscious; it knows spontaneously and unfailingly what is good for its health and strength. The animals usually, especially those of the forest, preserve still the unspoilt body instinct; for they have no mind to tyrannise over the body nor is their vital of a kind to go against the normal demands of the body. The body, segregated from the mind and the vital, can very easily choose the right kind of food and the right quantity and even vary them according to the varying conditions of the body. Common sense is an inherent attribute of the body consciousness; it never errs on the side of excess and immoderation or perversity. The vital is dramatic, the mind is imaginative, but the body is sanity itself. And that is not a sign of its inconscience and inertia. The dull and dumb immobility of which it is sometimes accused is after all perhaps a mode of its self-defence against the wild vagaries of the mind and the vital to which it is so often called upon to lend its support. Indeed, it may very well be that the accusation against the flesh that it is weak is only an opinion or suggestion imposed on the body by the mentalvital who throw the whole blame upon the body just to escape from the blame due to themselves. The vital is impatient and clamorous, and if it is all push and drive-towards physical execution and fulfilmentit is normally clouded and troubled and obscured and doubly twisted when counselled and supported by a mind, narrow and superficial, not seeing beyond its nose, bound within a frame of incorrect and borrowed notions.
The body, precisely because of its negative natureits dumb inertia, as it is calledprecisely because it has no axe of its own to grind, that is to say, as it has no fancies and impulsions, plans and Schemes upon which it can pride itself, precisely because of this childlike innocence, it has a wonderful plasticity and a calm stability, when it is not troubled by the mind or vital. Indeed, the divine qualities that are secreted in the body, which the body seeks to conserve and express are a stable harmony, a balance and equilibrium, capable of supporting the whole weight of all the levels of consciousness from the highest peak to the lowest abysses even as physically it bears the weight of the entire depth of the atmosphere so lightly as it were, without feeling the burden in the least.
***
05.04 - The Measure of Time, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is very little sense in the common notion that everything is predetermined as to the time when it will happen, that the universal Scheme has been all unalterably arranged and mapped out from beforehand, that nothing can change it, all goes according to plan. This is only a human conception, a construction of the mind, a wrong translation in the brain of some fact which is otherwise and elsewhere. The mind divides where there is no division, puts things against each other where there is perfect compatibility and harmony. Determinism and Indeterminism, Free-Will and Mechanism are contradictions set up by the mind and have no real objective existence. From a certain view-point, on a certain level of consciousness things appear to move in a rigid frame of mechanistic determinism; from another view-point, on another level, things seem to possess absolute freedom.
Looked at from the higher source of things, the time-factor itself appears as an illusion. What is true is a certain set of conditions in which forces work themselves out. And in this pattern of conditions, time (along with space) does not give the absolute and fixed frame of reference, as is usually taken for granted, but is a varying background, even if it is not a side-issue or a by-product. The conscious force at work in the world aims at a change in the conditions; it is a work primarily of rearrangement and order. The state of Nature, of actualityof ignorance and inertiais one of chaos. What the Divine Will behind, the Consciousness standing over, does is to develop a cosmos out of that chaos. Things are placed wrongly, at random, pell-mell: they have to be assorted, arranged, docketed, each item in its own place. We know, for example, of the material particle in which the atoms are huddled together, each pointing to a different direction, but when they are arranged in such a way that one half points in one way and the other half the contrary way, we have what is called a magnetised body.
05.05 - In Quest of Reality, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now, let us advance another step forward. Beyond matter there lies life and beyond life-consciousness. Is consciousness too a mere epiphenomenon as life was once thought to be in the empire of matter? Or can it not be that consciousness is an extensionan evoluteof life, even as life is an extension, an evolute of matter? In other words consciousness is not a freak, even as life was not; it is inherent in life, life itself is a rudimentary movement of consciousness. The amoeba feeling or pre-sensing its way towards its food, the twig bending towards the direction in which it has the chance of getting more light, the sudden appearance of organs or elements in an organism that will be useful only in the future are indisputable examples of a purposiveness, a forward reference in the Scheme of Nature. In the domain of life-play teleologyis a fact which only the grossest brand of obfuscation can deny. And teleology meansdoes it not ?the stress of an idea, the pattern of a consciousness.
Consciousness or thought in man, we know, is linked with the brain: and sentience which is the first step towards thought and consciousness is linked with the nervous system (of which the brain is an extension). Now the same Indian wizard who first, scientifically speaking, linked up the non-living with the living, has also demonstrated, if not absolutely, at least to a high degree of plausibility, that the plant also possesses a kind of rudimentary nervous system (although we accept more easily a respiratory system there). All this, however, one has to admit, is still a far cry from any intimation of consciousness in Matter. Yet if life is admitted to be involved in matter and consciousness is found to be involved in life, then the unavoidable conclusion is that Matter too must contain involved in it a form of consciousness. The real difficulty in the way of attri buting consciousness to Matter is our conception of consciousness which we usually identify with articulate thought, intelligence or reason. But these are various formations of consciousness, which in itself is something else and can exist in many other forms and formulations.
One remarkable thing in the material world that has always attracted and captivated man's attention, since almost the very dawn of his consciousness, is the existence of a pattern, of an artistic layout in the composition and movement of material things. When the Vedic Rishi sings out: "These countless stars that appear glistening night after night, where do they vanish during the day?" he is awed by the inviolable rhythm of the Universe, which other sages in other climes sang as the music of the spheres. The presence of Design in Nature has been in the eyes of Believers an incontrovertible proof of the existence of a Designer. What we want to say is not that a watch (if we regard the universe as a watch) presupposes the existence of a watch-maker: we say the pattern itself is the expression of an idea, it involves a conception not imposed or projected from outside but inherent in itself. The Greek view of the artist's mode of operation is very illuminating in this connection. The artist, according to this view, when he carves out a statue for example, does not impose upon the stone a figure that he has only in his mind, but that the stone itself contains the figure, the artist has the vision to see it, his chisel follows the lines he sees imbedded in the stone. It is why we say that the geometry in the structure of a crystal or an atom or an astronomical system, the balance and harmony, the symmetry and polarity that govern the composition of objects and their relations, the blend of colour Schemes, the marshalling of lines and the building of volumes, in a word, the artistic make-up, perfect in detail and in the ensemble that characterise all nature's body and limbs and finally the mathematical laws that embrace and picture as it were Nature's movements, all point to the existence of a truth, a reality whose characteristic marks are or are very much like those of consciousness and Idea-Force. We fight shy of the wordconsciousness for it brings in a whole association of anthropomorphism and pathetic fallacy. But in our anxiety to avoid a ditch let us not fall over a precipice. If it is blindness to see nothing but the spirit, it is not vision to see nothing but Matter.
A hypothesis, however revolutionary or unorthodox it may seem for the moment, has to be tested by its effective application, in its successful working out. All scientific discoveries in the beginning appear as inconveniences that upset the known and accepted order. Copernicus, Newton, Galileo, Kepler, Maxwell or Einstein in our day enunciated principles that were not obvious sense-given axioms. These are at the outset more or less postulates that have to be judged by their applicability.
05.06 - Physics or philosophy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So the scientists of today are waking up to this disconcerting fact. And some have put the question very boldly and frankly: do not all laws of Nature contain this original sin of the observer's interference, indeed may not the laws be nothing else but that? Thus Science has landed into the very heart the bog and quagmire, if you likeof abstruse metaphysics. Eddington says, there is no other go for Science today but to admit and delcare that its Scheme and pattern of things, as described by what is called laws of Nature, is only a mental construct of the Scientist. The "wonderful" discoveries are nothing but jugglery and legerdemain of the mindwhat it puts out of itself unconsciously into the outside world, it recovers again and is astonished at the miracle. A scientific law is a pure deduction from the mind's own disposition. Eddington goes so far as to say that if a scientist is sufficiently introspective he can trace out from within his brain each and every law of Nature which he took so much pains to fish out from Nature by observation and experiment. Eddington gives an analogy to explain the nature of scientific law and scientific discovery. Suppose you have a fishing net of a particular size and with interstices of a particular dimension; you throw it into the sea and pull out with fishes in it. Now you count and assort the fishes, and according to the data thus obtained, you declare that the entire sea consists of so many varieties of fish and of such sizes. The only error is that you could not take into account the smaller fishes that escaped through the interstices and the bigger ones that did not at all fall into the net. Scientific statistics is something of this kind. Our mind is the net, and the pattern of Nature is determined by the mind's own pattern.
Eddington gives us absolutely no hope for any knowledge of an objective world apart from the objectification of mind's own constructs. This is a position which a scientist, quascientist, finds it difficult to maintain. Remedies and loop-holes have been suggested with what result we shall presently see.
--
So it is frankly admitted that what Science gives is not a faithful description of actuality, not a representation of material existence, but certain conventions or convenient signs to put together, to make a mental picture of our sensations and experiences. That does not give any clue to what the objective reality mayor may not be like. Scientific laws are mental rules imposed upon Nature. It may be asked why does Nature yield to such imposition? There must be then some sort of parallelism or commensurability between Nature and the observing Mind, between the pattern of Nature and the Mind's Scheme or replica of it. If we successfully read into Nature things of the Mind, that means that there must be something very common between the two. Mind's readings are not mere figments, hanging in the air; for they are justified by their applicability, by their factual translation. This is arguing in a circle, a thorough-going mentalist like Eddington would say. What are facts? What is life? Anything more than what the senses and the mind have built up for us?
Jeans himself is on the horns of a dilemma.2 Being a scientist, and not primarily a mathematician like Eddington, he cannot very well acquiesce in the liquidation of the material world; nor can he refute successfully the facts and arguments that Science itself has brought forward in favour of mentalism. He wishes to keep the question open for further light and surer grounds. In the meanwhile, however, he is reconciled to a modified form of mentalism. The laws of Nature, he says, are surely subjective in the sense that astronomical or geographical concepts, for example, such as the system of latitudes, longitudes, equator and axis, ellipse and quadrant and sextant, are subjective. These lines and figures are' not drawn physically upon the earth or in space: they are mental constructs, they are pointers or notations, but they note and point to the existence and the manner of existence of real objects in a real world.
05.07 - The Observer and the Observed, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Now we come to the sanctum, the Shekinah, of the problem. For there is a still deeper mystery. And pre-eminently it is an Einsteinian discovery. It is not merely the measuring ray of light, not merely the beam in the eye of the observer that is the cause of interference: the very mind behind the eye is involved in a strange manner. The mind is not a tabula rasa, it comes into the field with certain presuppositionsaxioms and postulates, as it calls themdue to its angle of vision and perhaps to the influence upon it of immediate sense perception. It takes for granted, for example, that light travels in a straight line, that parallels do not meet, indeed all the theorems and deductions of Euclidean geometry. There is a strong inclination in the mind to view things as arranged according to that pattern. Einstein has suggested that the spherical Scheme can serve as well or even better our observations. Riemann's non-Euclidean geometry has assumed momentous importance in contemporary scientific enquiry. It is through that Scheme that Einstein proposes to find the equation that will subsume the largest number of actual and possible or potential facts and bring about the reconciliation of such irreconcilables as wave and particle, gravitation and electricity.
In any case, at the end of all our peregrinations we seem to circle back to our original Cartesian-cum-Berkeleyean position; we discover that it is not easy to extricate the observed from the observer: the observer is so deep set in the observed, part and parcel of it that there are scientists who consider their whole scientific Scheme of the world as only a mental set-up, we may replace it very soon by another Scheme equally cogent, subjective all the same. The subject has entered into all objects and any definition of the object must necessarily depend upon the particular poise of the subject. That is the cosmic immanence of the Purusha spoken of in the Upanishads the one Purusha become many and installed in the heart of each and, every object. There is indeed a status of the Subject in which the subject and the object are gathered into or form one reality. The observer and the observed are the two ends, the polarisation of a single entity: and all are reals at that level. But the scientific observer is only the mental purusha and in his observation the absolute objectivisation is not possible. The Einsteinian equations that purport to rule out all local view-points can hardly be said to have transcended the co-ordinates of the subject. That is possible only to the consciousness of the cosmic Purusha.
II
05.10 - Knowledge by Identity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In seeking to disvalue the principle of identity as a fundamental element in knowing, Prof. Das brings in to witness on his side the logical copula. Some logicians, of course, assert a parallelism if not identity between the laws of thought and the laws of language, language being conceived as the very imagea photographof thought, but the truth of the matter is that it is and it is not so, as in many other things. However, here when it is stated that the copula disjoining the subject and the predicate is the very pattern of all process of knowledge, one mistakes, we are afraid, a Scheme or a formula, for the thing itself, a way of understanding a fact for the fact itself. Such a formula for understanding, however it may be valid for more or less analytical languages, those of later growth, need not and did not have the same propriety in respect of other older languages. We know the evolution of language has been in the direction of more and more disjunction of its component limbs even like the progression of the human mind and intellect. The modern analytical languages with their army of independent prepositions have taken the place of the classical languages which were predominantly inflexional. The Greek and Latin started the independent prepositional forms in the form of a fundamentally inflexional structure. Still further back, in Sanskrit for example, the inflexional form reigns supreme. Prefixes and affixes served the role of prepositions. And if we move further backward, the synthetic movement is so complete that the logical components (the subject, the copula, the predicate) are fused together into one symbol (the Chinese ideogram). We are here nearer to the original nature and pattern of knowledgea single homogeneous movement of apperception. There is no sanctity or absoluteness in the logical disposition of thought structure; the Aristotelian makes it a triplicity, the Indian Nyaya would extend the dissection to five or seven limbs. But whatever the logical presentation, the original psychological movement is a single indivisible lan and the Vedantic fusion of the knower, the knowledge and the known in identity remains the fundamental fact.
Calcutta Review, 1948 August-September.
05.11 - The Soul of a Nation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
A nation is a living personality; it has a soul, even like a human individual. The soul of a nation is also a psychic being, that is to say, a conscious being, a formation out of the Divine Consciousness and in direct contact with it, a power and aspect of Mahashakti. A nation is not merely the sum total of the individuals that compose it, but a collective personality of which the individuals are as it were cells, like the cells of a living and conscious organism. The psychic being or soul of a nation is indeed conscious; it knows its raison d'tre, its life purpose, its destiny, the role it has to play in the divine Scheme as the divine instrument. And its will for it has a will, the expression of its consciousness, the Divine's impulse in and through itis inevitable, sooner or later it will fulfil itself. Even like the soul of a man, the nation's soul is behind all the movements that form its external life, supporting, building, guiding its political, economic, social or cultural make-up. The individual can know of and come in contact with the nation's soul in and through his own soul. When one becomes conscious of his psychic being then only one is in a condition to be conscious of the psychic being of the collective person of his nation or the nation with which he has inner affinity.
There are periods in the life cycle of a nation, critical moments, when it is in deadly peril, when its very existence is threatened, attacked by enemy forces either from within or from without. Such was the case when, for example, Britain was invaded by the Spanish Armada or when France was being subjugated by England. Those were very anxious times, but in each instance the soul of the nation came forward and inspired the nation to react and go through the ordeal and survive. Jeanne d'Arc may be considered as the embodiment of France's national soul, as on a still earlier occasion that same soul embodied itself in St. Genevieve. But a nation may fall on much more evil days, namely, when it loses contact with its very soul, goes astray, its life movement taking a wrong curve. A nation can deny its soul, even as an individual may and the result is disaster. Germany is a terrible example of such a tragedy in our own day.
05.12 - The Soul and its Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The passage between death and the arrival at final rest in the psychic world is a most difficult and dangerous ordeal for the human being. He has left the protection of the body and has not yet found the refuge in the psychic: he is obsessed and pulled back by his past the desires, the hungers, the attractions and repulsions, the plans unfulfilled, problematic Schemesall haunt him still, things done, things not done crowd around him and fetter his forward march. Not only his own Karma, but the Karma of others too pursues him: all persons with whom he has had relation, who think of him now, pity him, mourn for him, lament his absence, raise so many hurdles and obstacles in his path, oblige him to turn and look back. Again, there are forces and personalities in the intermediate worlds with whom the poor disembodied creature has now to come in contact, and not unoften he feels like one unskinned and all his nerves on edge open helplessly to rough and painful impacts.
Indeed, although it may sound somewhat strange and wonderful, nevertheless it is literally true that the body is the fortress par excellence for the individual being: it is not merely an ugly dirty clothing that has to be cast off so that one may go straight to the enjoyment of the beatitude of Paradise; on the contrary, it is, as it were, an armour, a steel-frame that protects the subtle body against the attacks or harsh and cruel touches of other worlds and their beings. Once outside the body, there is every danger for the individual to go astray and be hurt, unless he is guided and protected by a guardian angel, as Dante has had Virgil as his Maestro. We may note here that the passage of Dante from Hell through Purgatory to Heaven across their various levels is almost an exact image of what happens to a soul after death. The highest Heaven where Dante meets Beatrice may be considered as the psychic world and Beatrice herself the Divine Grace that bathes, illumines and comforts the psychic being.
--
Once in its place of rest the soul enjoys profound peace and delight and is in a kind of luminous sleep. There it assimilates all the experiences of its last life, that is to say, imbibes out of them all the substance that goes to increase and streng then its consciousness, the sap that lends itself to the growth of the build and stature of the being. These experiences are meant to bring the soul nearereach life being one step nearerto the fullness of its union with the Divine Consciousness out of which it came originally upon earth as a mere spark, a parcel yet apart. This process may be short or long according to the nature of assimilation undertaken. Here also the being prepares for the impending birth, that is to say, gathers all the elements that will be required for the play of the consciousness in that life. A broad planning too is made here, a Scheme in outline of the kind of experiences that one will need for the particular growth of consciousness envisaged. Some forces of consciousness, out of the stock developed and assembled by the being, are kept back, in reserve, others are brought forward for immediate use in the life to be lived next. All this, however, is not the deliberate rational process of the mind, it is something spontaneous, involved, a luminous brooding and incubation, something like the trance of Brahman within which the seed of creation is about to germinate.
The psychic being is a packet of gathered power, a charged battery, as it were; when it comes down upon earth, it calls round itself elements of mind and vital and even subtle physical needed for the purpose of the particular life experience, and even those that would go to constitute the physical body. The psychic being usually picks up these elements of mind and life and body out of the universal store-house of earth's atmosphere as it needs them, in the same way as it returns them there on the journey back after death. But as I have already said, there are beings who have developed well-formed personalities of mind and life and even of the physical consciousness. These formations are not mere loose accretions, temporary arrangements for a life experience, but are welded, organised, given a more or less permanent shape, as the proper instrument of the psychic being, as its own expression. In such cases, the outer personality too continues to exist as an essential mode or vibration in and with the psychic consciousness itself and when the soul descends upon earth, is in contact with the earth's atmosphere, it projects out of I itself the external personality and formation. This does not I mean certainly that the personality remains something fixed and rigid, but that it has attained an essential fullness of form and yet retains the capacity for further change and growth through further growth of the psychic being in other life experiences.
05.21 - Being or Becoming and Having, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Again, in this ceaseless continuity of progression it is indeed not necessary at all to stop a while or somewhere and become something for one's perfection or fulfilment. The normal ideal that is placed before man or which he himself seeks is that he should become something, a definite pattern of some particular achievement, and possess something in the sense of an acquisition. An ordinary man must have an occupation and even an extraordinary man, the saint or the sage, must embody, that is to say, enchain himself in the name and form of a particular realisationa siddhnta or a siddhi. A man has to be -a soldier, a merchant, a politician or a poet, a philosopher: even so he has to be a bhaktaor a jni, a maunior a vksiddha. Each human being should have a ticket and a roll number, an identity card. Now, for the soul of man none of these or other adjuncts are necessary: its progress and its growth are independent of such auxiliaries or correlates. A soul can be and even express itself perfectly at the highest point of its being without formulating itself, binding itself in a Scheme of some external achievement or functioning. The soul need not possess any of the gloriesaiwaryasto realise itself, in order to be the abode of the Divine. Its very existence is full to the brim of the substance of the truth and its simple living marks the law or rhythm of that Truth.
A soulful man, whatever he says, thinks, feels or acts, always embodies wholly the Divine. Not that because he says, acts, thinks or feels in a certain manner that he has attained perfection or is in dynamic union with the summit a d integral consciousness. As the Mother brings out the distinction, although in a somewhat different context, the perfect soul-existence .cannot be judged by the forms it takes, the forms themselves have to be judged by the soul-existence.
05.22 - Success and its Conditions, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Yoga brings in a different line and Scheme of life. For it is built upon soul-consciousness, upon Divine Nature which means another history of individual destiny. Even then tranquillity and self-confidence are at the basis of a Yogic life also and a new degree of modesty and humility.
***
05.23 - The Base of Sincerity, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
That is the definition of sincerity: to be transparent and single-pointed to your soul-consciousness, to your deity. And that also is the only way by which there can be realised in you, the highest and largest, the most intimate and absolute harmony you are capable of and that is demanded of you. The perfect organisation of the individual life can be obtained in and through the harmony inherent in the central reality, in the natural order of its activities. In the Scheme or pattern laid out in the inmost consciousness, each element has its own orbit and its own quantum of energy, each force its allotted function: the will in each is exactly commensurable with what should be the expression in it of the total reality, each is the whole and rounded articulation of an aspect or figure put forth by the central truth in its self-display. As in a musical theme, each note has a definite pitch, amplitude, tone which give it its perfect form in order to constitute a common pattern the highest pitch, the largest amplitude or the most vibrant tone is not needed, not only not needed, would be a bar on the contraryeven so, the individual man when he attains perfection realises in himself a harmony which gives the true expression of all his limbs, the fullest and fairest expression of each and every one as demanded by the divine role destined for him.
***
05.26 - The Soul in Anguish, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It seems that the School of Anguish is on the borderl and between the second and the third stage, that is to say, the vital rising into the mental or the mental still carrying an impress of the vital consciousness. It is the emergence of the Purusha consciousness, the individual being in its heart of hearts, in its pure status: for it is that that truly evolves, progresses from level to level, deploying and marshalling according to its stress and Scheme the play of its outward nature. Now the Purusha consciousness, as separate from the outward nature, has certain marked characteristics which have been fairly observed and comprehended by the exponents of the school we are dealing with. Sartre, for example, characterises this beingtre en soi, as distinguished from tre pour soi which is something like dynamic purusha or purusha identified or associated with prakrtias composed of the sense of absolute freedom, of full responsibility, of unhindered choice and initiation. Indeed, Purusha is freedom, for in its own status it means liberation from all obligations to Prakriti. But such freedom brings in its train, not necessarily always but under certain conditions, a terrible sense of being all alone, of infinite loneliness. One is oneself, naked and face to face with one's singleness and unbreakable, unsharable individual unity. The others come as a product or corollary to this original sui generisentity. Along with the sense of freedom and choice or responsibility and loneness, there is added and gets ingrained into it the sense of fear and anxiety the anguish (Angst). The burden that freedom and loneliness brings seems to be too great. The Purusha that has risen completely into the mental zone becomes wholly a witness, as the Sankhyans discovered, and all the movements of his nature appear outside, as if foreign: an absolute calm and unperturbed tranquillity or indifference is his character. But it is not so with regard to the being that has still one foot imbedded in the lower region of the vital consciousness; for that indeed is the proper region of anguish, of fear and apprehension, and it is there that the soul becoming conscious of itself and separate from others feels lone, lonely, companionless, without support, as it were. The mentalised vital Purusha suffers from this peculiar night of the soul. Sartre's outlook is shot through with very many experiences of this intermediary zone of consciousness.
The being immersed in Prakriti, as normally it is, in relation and communion with others, may entertain as a pleasure and luxury, the illusion of its separateness and freedom: it can do so at ease, because it feels it has the secret support of its environment, it is courageous because it feels itself in good company. But once it rises out of the environmental level and stands truly apart and outside itit is the mental being which can do so more or less successfully the first feeling is that of freedom, no doubt, but along with it there is also the uncanny sense of isolation, of heavy responsibility, also a certain impotence, a loss of bearings. The normal Cartesian Co-ordinates, as it were, are gone and the being does not know where to look for the higher multi-dimensional co-ordinates. That is the real meaning of the Anguish which suddenly invades a being at a certain stage of his ascending consciousness.
05.28 - God Protects, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The conditions under which the Divine's protection can come are simple enough, but difficult to fulfil completely and thoroughly. The ideal conditions that ensure absolute safety are an absolute trust and reliance on the Divine Force, a tranquillity and fearlessness that nothing shakes, .whatever the appearances at the moment, the spirit and attitude of an unreserved self-giving that whatever one is and one has is God's. Between that perfect state at the peak of consciousness and the doubting and hesitant and timid mind at the lower end that of St. Peter, forexample, at his weakest moment there are various gradations of the conditions fulfilled and the protection given is variable accordingly. Not that the Divine Grace acts or has to act according to any such hard and fast rule of mechanics, there is no such mathematical Law of Protection in the Scheme of Providence. And yet on the whole and generally speaking Providence, Divine Intervention, acts more or less successfully according to the degree of the soul's wakefulness on the plane that needs and possesses the protection.
And yet there is another aspect of the thing that is to be taken into consideration. For in the supreme and ultimate view the world or creation is not divided between God and Asura : the Asura cannot be outside God's infinity, he is there because permitted by him, indeed forms part of him and serves the divine purpose. Asura represents the hard dark passage through which the ignorant human soul cuts out its forward march: it is the crucible in which the growing consciousness is purified of its dross in order to regain the fullness of its divine quality and nature.
06.02 - The Way of Fate and the Problem of Pain, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Detected; the broad-flung far-seeing Schemes
Unfinished which his aeoned flight unrolls
--
Time's accidents are steps in its vast Scheme.
Bring not thy brief and helpless human tears
07.02 - The Parable of the Search for the Soul, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It marked her the centre of a wide-drawn Scheme,
Dreamed in the passion of her far-seeing spirit
07.03 - The Entry into the Inner Countries, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All Schemed by law that God permits to life.
498
07.44 - Music Indian and European, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I like this kind of music, with a theme, a single theme moving and developing gradually with variations: countless variations playing out the same constant theme, variations branching out and coming back again to the original basic theme. In Europe too there was something of the kind in its otherwise very different style. Bach had it, Mozart too. In modern times some musicians like Debussy, Raval and the Russian Borodine and a few others have caught something of it. You take a certain number of notes, in a certain relation and upon that Scheme you play variations, almost an infinite number of variations. It is marvellous: it takes you deep inside and, if you are ready, gives you the consciousness of the psychic, something that draws you back from the external physical consciousness and links you with something other-where within.
***
08.17 - Psychological Perfection, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
There is a flower to which we have given this name. It is the familiar Champa. The flower has five petals. Each petal represents a quality or movement of consciousness, the five qualities or movements making up the psychological perfection. In the beginning I named them(l) Surrender, (2) Sincerity, (3) Faith, (4) Devotion and (5) Aspiration. Of course the meaning can be changed. In fact, when I give the flower to someone, I do not always mean the same qualities. I change according to the need of the person and at the moment. However, we can have all the same a general Scheme. In any case, in all combinations and to whomsoever I may give, the first among the qualities is and must always be Sincerity. For, if sincerity is not there, one cannot move even half a step. So sincerity is the first thing necessary and should be always there.
This can be translated by another word, if you like. That would be transparence. Let me explain.
100.00 - Synergy, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
cosmically unique functioning of humans in the generalized design Scheme of
Universe. This conscious comprehension must in turn realize ever-improving
10.02 - The Gospel of Death and Vanity of the Ideal, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The sure bizarrerie of Nature's Scheme.
I curved the vacant ether into Space;
1.003 - Family of Imran, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
120. If something good happens to you, it upsets them; but if something bad befalls you, they rejoice at it. But if you persevere and maintain righteousness, their Schemes will not harm you at all. God comprehends what they do.
121. Remember when you left your home in the morning, to assign battle-positions for the believers. God is Hearing and Knowing.
10.03 - The Debate of Love and Death, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A play and yet no play but the deep Scheme
Of a transcendent Wisdom finding ways
10.04 - The Dream Twilight of the Earthly Real, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Why drew he wide his Scheme of mighty worlds
Or filled infinity with his passionate breath?
--
Each figuring an omniscient Scheme of things.
But higher still can climb the ascending light;
1.007 - The Elevations, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
123. Pharaoh said, “Did you believe in Him before I have given you permission? This is surely a conspiracy you Schemed in the city, in order to expel its people from it. You will surely know.”
124. “I will cut off your hands and your feet on opposite sides; then I will crucify you all.”
1.00a - DIVISION A - THE INTERNAL FIRES OF THE SHEATHS., #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The fire of Spirit is the essential fire of the first Lord of Will plus the fire of the second Logos of Love. These two cosmic Entities blend, merge, and demonstrate as Soul, utilising for purposes of manifestation the aid of the third Logos. The three fires blend and merge. In this fourth round and on this fourth globe of our planetary Scheme, the fires of the third Logos of intelligent matter are fusing somewhat with the fires of cosmic [64] mind, showing as will or power, and animating the Thinker on all planes. The object of Their co-operation is the perfected manifestation of the cosmic Lord of Love. This should be pondered upon for it reveals a mystery.
The blending of the three fires, the merging of the three Rays, and the co-operation of the three Logoi have in view (at this time and within this solar system) the development of the Essence of the cosmic Lord of Love, the second Person in the logoic trinity. Earlier it was not so, later it will not be, but now it is. When viewed from the cosmic mental plane these Three constitute the PERSONALITY OF THE LOGOS, and are seen functioning as one. Hence the secret (well recognised as fact, though not understood) of the excessive heat, occultly expressed, of the astral or central body of the triple personality. It animates and controls the physical body, and its desires hold sway in the majority of cases; it demonstrates in time and space the correspondence of the temporary union of spirit and matter, the fires of cosmic love and the fires of matter blended. A similar analogy is found in the heat apparent in this second solar system.
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
In dealing with the subject of the etheric body and its functions as an assimilator and distributor of prana, we have dealt with it from the standpoint of its place in the Scheme of things. We have considered this matter of etherics from the angle of correspondences, and have traced analogies in the system, the planet, and man. We have seen that it formed the foundation of the dense physical form, and in itself constituted a most important link between:
a. Physical man, and the emotional or astral plane.
--
It must first be pointed out that forms are necessarily of two kinds, each having a different place in the Scheme:
Forms that are the result of the work of the third and the second Logos, and Their united life. Such forms are the units in the vegetable, animal and mineral kingdoms.
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
All these different periods show different triangular radiances. We must not infer from this that when the fire is centred in one triangle it is not demonstrating in others. Once the fire has free passage along any triangle it flames continuously, but always there is one triangle more radiant and luminous than the others, and it is from these glowing triangles of light, issuing from wheels and vortices of fire that the clairvoyant and the teachers of the race can appraise a man's position in the Scheme of things, and judge of his attainment. At the culmination of life experience, and when man has reached his goal, each triangle is a radiant path of fire, and each centre a wheel of living fiery force rotating at terrific speed; the centre at this stage not only rotates in a specific direction, but literally turns upon itself, forming a living flaming iridescent globe of pure fire, and holding within it a certain geometrical shape, yet withal vibrating so rapidly that the eye can scarcely follow it. Above all, at the top of the head will be seen a fiery display that seems to put all the other centres into insignificance; from the heart of this many-petalled lotus issues a flame of fire with the basic hue of a man's ray. This flame [171] mounts upward and seems to attract downward a sheet of electric light, which is the downflow from the spirit on the highest plane. This marks the blending of the fires and the deliverance of man from the trammels of matter.
We might now note that the evolution of these centres of force can be portrayed, not only in words, but under the same five symbols that have so often a cosmic interpretation.
--
I am differentiating thus for the sake of clarity. In evolution itself, due to the parallelism of nature, the distinctions are not so sharply made, and a man's ray, point of development, the work earlier accomplished, his temporary limitations, and other causes create a seeming confusion, but in the great Scheme as seen from above downwards, the work proceeds as described.
Hearing on the astral plane is commonly called clairaudience, and means the ability to hear the sounds of the astral plane. It is a faculty that demonstrates throughout the entire astral body, and a man hears all over his vehicle and not only through the specialised organs, the ears, the product of physical plane action and reaction. This would necessarily be so, owing to the fluidic nature of the astral body. Man on the physical plane hears at the same time a certain range of sounds, and only a small and particular gamut of vibrations impinges upon his ears. There are many of the lesser sounds of nature which entirely escape him, while the major group sounds are not differentiated at all. As evolution proceeds and the inner sense of hearing becomes acute, these other physical plane sounds will likewise swing into his ken, and he will be acutely conscious of all sounds on the astral, and the physical planea thing, which if possible now, would result in the shattering of the body. If the note of nature, for instance, were to strike but once upon the ear of a man (a note made up of the totality of vibrations produced by all dense material forms) his physical body would be completely disrupted. [192] He is not ready yet for such a happening; the inner ear is not duly prepared. Only when the threefold hearing is consummated will completed hearing on the physical plane be likewise permitted.
--
Hearing gives him an idea of relative direction, and enables a man to fix his place in the Scheme and to locate himself.
Touch gives him an idea of relative quantity and enables him to fix his relative value as regards other bodies, extraneous to himself.
--
e. In the Heavenly Man and His body, a chain of globes [lxxxix]87 likewise can be seen and we need here to remember very carefully that the seven chains of a Scheme are the expression of a planetary Logos. The Heavenly Men are expressing Themselves through a Scheme of seven chains and the emphasis has been laid unduly, perhaps, upon the dense physical planet in any particular chain. This has caused the fact of the chain importance to be somewhat overlooked. Each of the seven chains might be looked upon as picturing the seven centres of one of the Heavenly Men. The idea of groups of Egos forming centres in the Heavenly Men is nevertheless correct, but in this connection the reference is to the centres of force on buddhic and monadic levels. [xc]88
[207]
1.00 - PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN, #Faust, #Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, #Poetry
Creative Power, that works eternal Schemes,
Clasp you in bonds of love, relaxing never,
1.010 - Jonah, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
21. When We make the people taste mercy after some adversity has touched them, they begin to Scheme against Our revelations. Say, “God is swifter in scheming.” Our envoys are writing down what you Scheme.
22. It is He who transports you across land and sea. Until, when you are on ships, sailing in a favorable wind, and rejoicing in it, a raging wind arrives. The waves surge over them from every side, and they realize that they are besieged. Thereupon they pray to God, professing sincere devotion to Him: “If You save us from this, we will be among the appreciative.”
1.011 - Hud, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
55. Besides Him. So Scheme against me, all of you, and do not hesitate.
56. I have placed my trust in God, my Lord and your Lord. There is not a creature but He holds it by the forelock. My Lord is on a straight path.
1.012 - Joseph, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
5. He said, “O my son, do not relate your vision to your brothers, lest they plot and Scheme against you. Satan is man's sworn enemy.
6. And thus your Lord will choose you, and will teach you the interpretation of events, and will complete His blessing upon you and upon the family of Jacob, as He has completed it before upon your forefathers Abraham and Isaac. Your Lord is Knowing and Wise.
--
28. And when he saw that his shirt was torn from the back, he said, “This is a woman's Scheme. Your scheming is serious indeed.”
29. “Joseph, turn away from this. And you, woman, ask forgiveness for your sin; you are indeed in the wrong.”
--
50. The king said, “Bring him to me.” And when the envoy came to him, he said, “Go back to your master, and ask him about the intentions of the women who cut their hands; my Lord is well aware of their Schemes.”
51. He said, “What was the matter with you, women, when you tried to seduce Joseph?” They said, “God forbid! We knew of no evil committed by him.” The governor’s wife then said, “Now the truth is out. It was I who tried to seduce him, and he is telling the truth.”
1.016 - The Bee, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
26. Those before them also Schemed, but God took their structures from the foundations, and the roof caved in on them. The punishment came at them from where they did not perceive.
27. Then, on the Day of Resurrection, He will disgrace them, and say, “Where are My associates for whose sake you used to dispute?” Those who were given knowledge will say, “Today shame and misery are upon the disbelievers.”
--
45. Do those who Scheme evils feel secure that God will not cause the earth to cave in with them, or that the punishment will not come upon them from where they do not perceive?
46. Or that He will not seize them during their activities? And they will not be able to prevent it.
--
127. So be patient. Your patience is solely from God. And do not grieve over them, and do not be stressed by their Schemes.
128. God is with those who are righteous and those who are virtuous.
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
the Truth. In the cosmic Scheme of the Gnostics it was the
knowledge, brought down to them by a Saviour, that would
--
Mother gnosis is the knowledge of the complete Scheme of
things which grants the understanding of the next step in
--
According to Sri Aurobindos Scheme of things, the
creative Supermind has unfolded itself in the immense
1.01 - Our Demand and Need from the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It may therefore be useful in approaching an ancient Scripture, such as the Veda, Upanishads or Gita, to indicate precisely the spirit in which we approach it and what exactly we think we may derive from it that is of value to humanity and its future. First of all, there is undoubtedly a Truth one and eternal which we are seeking, from which all other truth derives, by the light of which all other truth finds its right place, explanation and relation to the Scheme of knowledge. But precisely for that reason it cannot be shut up in a single trenchant formula, it is not likely to be found in its entirety or in all its bearings in any single philosophy or scripture or uttered altogether and for ever by any one teacher, thinker, prophet or Avatar. Nor has it been wholly found by us if our view of it necessitates the intolerant exclusion of the truth underlying other systems; for when we reject passionately, we mean simply that we cannot appreciate and explain. Secondly, this Truth, though it is one and eternal, expresses itself in Time and through the mind of man; therefore every Scripture must necessarily contain two elements, one temporary, perishable, belonging to the ideas of the period and country in which it was produced, the other eternal and imperishable and applicable in all ages and countries. Moreover, in the statement of the Truth the actual form given to it, the system and arrangement, the metaphysical and intellectual mould, the precise expression used must be largely subject to the mutations of Time and cease to have the same force; for the human intellect modifies itself always; continually dividing and putting together it is obliged to shift its divisions continually and to rearrange its syntheses; it is always leaving old expression and symbol for new or, if it uses the old, it so changes its connotation or at least
Our Demand and Need from the Gita
--
Nor shall we deal in any other spirit with the element of philosophical dogma or religious creed which either enters into the Gita or hangs about it owing to its use of the philosophical terms and religious symbols current at the time. When the Gita speaks of Sankhya and Yoga, we shall not discuss beyond the limits of what is just essential for our statement, the relations of the Sankhya of the Gita with its one Purusha and strong Vedantic colouring to the non-theistic or "atheistic" Sankhya that has come down to us bringing with it its Scheme of many Purushas and one Prakriti, nor of the Yoga of the Gita, many-sided, subtle, rich and flexible to the theistic doctrine and the fixed, scientific, rigorously defined and graded system of the Yoga of Patanjali.
In the Gita the Sankhya and Yoga are evidently only two convergent parts of the same Vedantic truth or rather two concurrent ways of approaching its realisation, the one philosophical, intellectual, analytic, the other intuitional, devotional, practical, ethical, synthetic, reaching knowledge through experience. The
1.01 - The Cycle of Society, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For the typal passes naturally into the conventional stage. The conventional stage of human society is born when the external supports, the outward expressions of the spirit or the ideal become more important than the ideal, the body or even the clothes more important than the person. Thus in the evolution of caste, the outward supports of the ethical fourfold order,birth, economic function, religious ritual and sacrament, family custom,each began to exaggerate enormously its proportions and its importance in the Scheme. At first, birth does not seem to have been of the first importance in the social order, for faculty and capacity prevailed; but afterwards, as the type fixed itself, its maintenance by education and tradition became necessary and education and tradition naturally fixed themselves in a hereditary groove. Thus the son of a Brahmin came always to be looked upon conventionally as a Brahmin; birth and profession were together the double bond of the hereditary convention at the time when it was most firm and faithful to its own character. This rigidity once established, the maintenance of the ethical type passed from the first place to a secondary or even a quite tertiary importance. Once the very basis of the system, it came now to be a not indispensable crown or pendent tassel, insisted upon indeed by the thinker and the ideal code-maker but not by the actual rule of society or its practice. Once ceasing to be indispensable, it came inevitably to be dispensed with except as an ornamental fiction. Finally, even the economic basis began to disintegrate; birth, family custom and remnants, deformations, new accretions of meaningless or fanciful religious sign and ritual, the very scarecrow and caricature of the old profound symbolism, became the riveting links of the system of caste in the iron age of the old society. In the full economic period of caste the priest and the Pundit masquerade under the name of the Brahmin, the aristocrat and feudal baron under the name of the Kshatriya, the trader and money-getter under the name of the Vaishya, the half-fed labourer and economic serf under the name of the Shudra. When the economic basis also breaks down, then the unclean and diseased decrepitude of the old system has begun; it has become a name, a shell, a sham and must either be dissolved in the crucible of an individualist period of society or else fatally affect with weakness and falsehood the system of life that clings to it. That in visible fact is the last and present state of the caste system in India.
The tendency of the conventional age of society is to fix, to arrange firmly, to formalise, to erect a system of rigid grades and hierarchies, to stereotype religion, to bind education and training to a traditional and unchangeable form, to subject thought to infallible authorities, to cast a stamp of finality on what seems to it the finished life of man. The conventional period of society has its golden age when the spirit and thought that inspired its forms are confined but yet living, not yet altogether walled in, not yet stifled to death and petrified by the growing hardness of the structure in which they are cased. That golden age is often very beautiful and attractive to the distant view of posterity by its precise order, symmetry, fine social architecture, the admirable subordination of its parts to a general and noble plan. Thus at one time the modern litterateur, artist or thinker looked back often with admiration and with something like longing to the mediaeval age of Europe; he forgot in its distant appearance of poetry, nobility, spirituality the much folly, ignorance, iniquity, cruelty and oppression of those harsh ages, the suffering and revolt that simmered below these fine surfaces, the misery and squalor that was hidden behind that splendid faade. So too the Hindu orthodox idealist looks back to a perfectly regulated society devoutly obedient to the wise yoke of the Shastra, and that is his golden age,a nobler one than the European in which the apparent gold was mostly hard burnished copper with a thin gold-leaf covering it, but still of an alloyed metal, not the true Satya Yuga. In these conventional periods of society there is much indeed that is really fine and sound and helpful to human progress, but still they are its copper age and not the true golden; they are the age when the Truth we strive to arrive at is not realised, not accomplished,4 but the exiguity of it eked out or its full appearance imitated by an artistic form, and what we have of the reality has begun to fossilise and is doomed to be lost in a hard mass of rule and order and convention.
1.01 - The Ideal of the Karmayogin, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The European sets great store by machinery. He seeks to renovate humanity by Schemes of society and systems of government; he hopes to bring about the millennium by an act of
Parliament. Machinery is of great importance, but only as a working means for the spirit within, the force behind. The nineteenth century in India aspired to political emancipation, social renovation, religious vision and rebirth, but it failed because it adopted Western motives and methods, ignored the spirit, history and destiny of our race and thought that by taking over
1.01 - To Watanabe Sukefusa, #Beating the Cloth Drum Letters of Zen Master Hakuin, #unset, #Zen
Until now, your mother could not devote herself to good works because from the time you were born she lavished her every moment on you, caring for you and seeing that you were provided with everything necessary for your upbringing. If she did find time to enter the family altar room, the sutras and dharanis she recited were always dedicated to your good health and long life, without a thought for her own karmic future, and heedless of her own physical exhaustion. Now, having retired in recent years from her former busy life, she has time to spend quietly on Buddhist devotions-but you come around, hatching your malicious Schemes to frustrate and upset her, spreading silly rumors at the yearend cleaning, thinking up ways to anger her at the busy year-end season. What a bitterly cruel thing to do.
How heartwarming it is to see ordinary sons and daughters attending to their duty to their parents with benevolent smiles on their faces, sparing no expense to provide for their needs and amusement:
1.020 - The World and Our World, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
There are those who think that the object alone is real and the mind is only a stupid something, which merely reflects the nature of an object as it is. This is the realistic, materialistic attitude. They do not give any place for mind in the Scheme of things. It is only a kind of exudation of material existences. This is one extreme view - where the objective world alone is the determining factor of every situation in life, and the mind has no place in the Scheme of things. The other extreme is that the mind alone is the determining factor of everything and the object has no place in the Scheme of things everything is on account of our thought. This is the extreme idealistic point of view, contrary to the extreme materialistic point of view of certain others. The via-media, the middle course, would be that both contri bute a percentage of meaning in the perception of objects. And so the act of mind-control, the restraining of the modifications of the mind, would not mean an abolition of the existence of objects at least according to thinkers such as the author of the Panchadasi - but is a withdrawal of those special modifications of the mind, on account of which the mind reads particular subjective meanings in objects.
The author of the Panchadasi tells us that if an abolition of objects were a condition to liberation, then liberation would not be possible, because nobody can abolish the existence of objects. Or, if merely a non-perception of the objects of the world is to be regarded as liberation, then sleep would be a condition of liberation because we do not perceive anything during sleep. The actual event that is taking place outside may also not be the cause of joy or sorrow, says the author of the Panchadasi, who gives the following analogy. Suppose there is someone in a foreign land whose mother is here, far away from the person, and his mother receives false news that her son is dead. One can imagine the condition of the mother. Though the son is alive, healthy and hale, and everything is all right, false news can create a real heartbreak for the mother. On the other hand, if the man has been dead for ten years but his mother has not received any news, she is happy.
--
Likewise, we should not wrest the object from its connectedness with things in our perception, which is another way of judging it. A similar mistake has been committed by us we have wrested ourselves away from things. We have stood outside the Scheme of things in our judgement of values, while we are already a part of the Scheme of things. All perceptions, judgements and evaluations become inscrutable mysteries on account of this initial difficulty that has been created, namely, a separation of the percipient from the object with which it is organically connected, basically. For instance, a finger of the hand becomes aware of another finger of the same hand. If we were to take for granted that a particular finger of a hand has a consciousness of its own, and we conclude that it can perceive the existence of another finger of the same hand what would be its attitude? What would be the real relationship between one finger and another finger, given that one finger can see another finger outside it? We know that one finger is different from another finger. But the consciousness of one finger in respect of another finger would be charged with its basic awareness of its connectedness with the whole body, which it cannot look upon as an external object, so that even the other finger which it perceives cannot be called as a real external object, though it is an object for all practical purposes because it can be seen.
This is perhaps the significance of perception from an organic point of view, while what happens in our case, at present, is that this organic connection between the seer and the seen is lost sight of, and we have only a mechanised form of perception where there is a false evaluation projected on the object by the mind which is perceiving it, on account of its losing contact with the vital issue which is involved in perception, namely its connectedness to the object. Whether in attachment or in aversion, the mind is not properly related to the object. It has an improper relationship with things, both in love and hatred. The impropriety of this relationship arises on account of its false disconnectedness from the object, and we cannot properly understand the way of controlling the mind if we cannot understand the relationship that the mind has with the object. It has a twofold relationship. On the one side, it stands as a perceiver of the object and is obliged to regard the object as an outside something, which is the very meaning of perception, of course. But, on the other side, there is a basic similarity of nature between the seer and the seen, which is the reason why there is the very possibility of perception at all. A consciousness of the object would be impossible if the seer of the object is basically disconnected from the object. Basic disconnection would not be permissible. An utter isolation of the subject from the object would defeat the very purpose of all perception.
--
For all practical purposes, we can agree with the author of the Panchadasi and conclude that we need not interfere with the Scheme of things from the point of view of Ishvara's creation. People can be there, and things can be there they have to be there. We have to change our attitude, which means to say we have to reorganise the method of the working of our own mind inside, in respect of existent objects outside. This is only a tentative answer, and not the final answer, because we have not yet finally given the judgement as to the nature of things. We have temporarily accepted the existence of a world outside us, just as we temporarily accept the meaning of an 'x' in an equation in algebra. Though the 'x' itself may have no meaning ultimately, it is a necessary assumption which solves the question, and afterwards it cancels itself.
So, in the end, we will find that while the acceptance of the existence of things independent of the mind by way of what is known as Ishvara srishti may be necessary for the solution of our problem, the world also will modify itself accordingly when the individual advances further, because all spiritual advance is a parallel advance both from the side of the subject and the object. It is not only one side that is evolving. The evolution of the individual is, at the same time, a corresponding evolution of all conditions in which the individual is involved, including society and the world.
1.024 - Affiliation With Larger Wholes, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
So where are we in this Scheme? What is our happiness? It is the happiness of a cup of coffee, cup of tea, or a sweet which has no meaning compared to these calculations of astounding existences which are transcendent to human comprehension. When I say a hundred times, it is not merely a mathematical increase of the quantity of happiness; it is also a corresponding increase of the quality of happiness. As mentioned earlier, the quality of happiness in waking life is superior to the happiness in dream; it is not merely quantitative increase, but is also a qualitative increase. The joy of waking life is greater and more intense than the quality of joy in dream. So these calculations given in the Upanishad mean an increase of happiness one hundred times, both in quantity and in quality, so that when we go to the top, we are in an uncontrollable ecstasy of unbounded bliss.
The mind can be brought to concentrate itself upon higher degrees of reality through the reading of scriptural testimony, which can be corroborated by the inductive logic and deductive reasoning, etc. of our own analytical power. Sruti and yukti, as the great masters tell us, should both come to our aid in bringing the mind to a point of concentration on a higher reality than what it is experiencing now through the senses.
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
filling in a definite fundamental Scheme of possible philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always
revolve once more in the same orbit; however independent of each other they may feel themselves with
--
It is a meaningful but irrational classification Scheme of this sort that Jung described as a complex
one of the constituent elements of the collective unconscious: a group of phenomena, linked together
--
these attri butes, irrationally (but meaningfully), in a single Scheme. We categorize diverse things in similar
manners, across cultures, because we share structure of memory, and physical form, manifested in
--
of transformation the undescribable union of everything now discriminated, who constantly Schemes to
take back what he produced. The Great and Terrible Mother, daughter of chaos, destroys those who
1.02 - On the Knowledge of God., #The Alchemy of Happiness, #Al-Ghazali, #Sufism
The fifth class of persons in error are those who say that, "God is merciful and ready to pardon, loving and compassionate, and more pitiful to his servants than a father and mother to their children, and therefore he will pardon our faults and cover our transgressions." They do not consider that notwithstanding God is bounteous and merciful, there are still multitudes of poor and miserable people in the world, multitudes who are infirm and helpless, and many who are subjected to suffering. This is a mystery which is known only to God. But it shows us, that though God is disposed to cover and hide sin, still he is an absolute sovereign and an avenger. While he is bounteous and beneficent, he is at the same time dreadful in his chastisements : while he is a benefactor, and provides the necessaries of life, at the same time he who does not seek to gain, obtains no store: and he who is not industrious, accomplishes nothing in the world. Beloved, these ignorant men, in the affairs of the world, in their Schemes of living, and in their business, manifest no trust in the bounty of God, nor do they leave off for one moment their buying and selling, their trades or their farming, although God has decreed the means of their existence many years before they were born, and has made himself surety that it should be provided for them. He announces in his eternal word and book of mighty distinctions, that "there is no creature on the earth, for whom God has not taken upon himself to provide nourishment." 2 Still they make not the least exertion in reference to their relations and condition in eternity, [61] but merely rely upon the mercy of God, notwithstanding God declares in his holy word, "man can have nothing without exertion." 1 When they say that God is gracious and merciful, they speak correctly. But they are not aware that Satan is deceiving them with it, hindering them from obedience and worship, and preventing them from engaging in that cultivation and commerce that would prepare them for eternity.
The sixth class who indulge in error, are those who, exalted with pride, think that they have already attained and are perfect: and they say, "we have reached such a state that transgressions do us no harm: we are like the sea, which is not polluted by filth falling into it." These foolish people are so ignorant, that they do not know that "to be like the sea," means to attain such a degree of calm that no wind can put them in movement and that nothing can cause any perturbation in their minds. These persons on the contrary, if an individual fail to treat them with honor and respect, or if in conversation the individual do not address them as, my lord or dear sir, or speak a word that touches their reputation, they bear him a grudge for a long time, and even perhaps attempt to do him an injury. And if a person take a piece of money or a morsel of bread from them, the world becomes too straight for them, and every thing looks dark. These foolish people have not even yet reached manhood. They are weak in their own souls, and are in subjection like slaves to passion and anger. If it were not so, how could they be so inconsiderate and presumptuous? Beloved, the falsehood and error of these people appear from this consideration. When inadvertently any of the prophets fell into sin, even a little and venial sin, they would spend years in mourning and lamentation over it, and occupied themselves in endeavors to obliterate [62] their faults, and to obtain pardon and forgiveness. Filled with fear and dread, they became blind from their tears; from their long continuing perturbation and distraction of mind, yon would think they had lost the use of their reason. As for the companions of the prophet, and their immediate successors who were faithful witnesses for the truth and the beloved of God, they were so afraid in their suspicionsness of doing wrong, that they abstained in their anxiety, from doing even what was lawful. Do not these ignoramuses know that their degree of attainment does not equal that of the prophets and apostles, and that they are even at a great distance from them ? Why then do they not shrink in fear and awe from the shining vengeance of the glorious God ?
1.02 - The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
no particular significance in the overall cosmic Scheme of
things. (Paul Davies)
1.02 - The Necessity of Magick for All, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Here we are, then, caught in a net of circumstances; if we are to do anything at all beyond automatic vegetative living, we must consciously apply ourselves to Magick, "the Science and Art" (let me remind you!) "of causing change to occur in conformity with the Will." Observe that the least slackness or error means that things happen which do not thus conform; when this is so despite our efforts, we are (temporarily) baffled; when it is our own ignorance of what we ought to will, or lack of skill in adapting our means to the right end, then we set up a conflict in our own Nature: our act is suicidal. Such interior struggle is at the base of nearly all neuroses, as Freud recently "discovered" as if this had not been taught, and taught without his massed errors, by the great teachers of the past! The Taoist doctrine, in particular, is most precise and most emphatic on this point; indeed, it may seem to some of us to overshoot the mark; for nothing is permissible in that Scheme but frictionless adjustment and adaptation to circumstance. "Benevolence and righteousness" are actually deprecated! That any such ideas should ever have existed (says Lao-tse) is merely evidence of the universal disorder.
Taoist sectaries appear to assume that Perfection consists in the absence of any disturbance of the Stream of Nescience; and this is very much like the Buddhist idea of Nibbana.
1.03 - APPRENTICESHIP AND ENCULTURATION - ADOPTION OF A SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
filling in a definite fundamental Scheme of possible philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always
revolve once more in the same orbit; however independent of each other they may feel themselves with
--
with some implicit Scheme or notion of ultimate value which firsts manifests itself in behavior, and in
behavioral conflict, long before it can be represented episodically or semantically. It might be said that the
emergence of a Scheme of ultimate value is an inevitable consequence of the social and exploratory
evolution of man. Cultural structure, incarnated intrapsychically, originates in creative action, imitation of
1.03 - Measure of time, Moments of Kashthas, etc., #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
ga P. In all essential points the computations accord, and the Scheme, extravagant as it may appear, seems to admit of easy explanation. We have, in the first place, a computation of the years of the gods in the four ages, or, p. 24
[5]: The details of these, as occurring in each Manvantara, are given in the third book, c. 1 and 2.
1.03 - PERSONALITY, SANCTITY, DIVINE INCARNATION, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The will is free and we are at liberty to identify our being either exclusively with our selfness and its interests, regarded as independent of indwelling Spirit and transcendent Godhead (in which case we shall be passively damned or actively fiendish), or exclusively with the divine within us and without (in which case we shall be saints), or finally with self at one moment or in one context and with spiritual not-self at other moments and in other contexts (in which case we shall be average citizens, too theocentric to be wholly lost, and too egocentric to achieve enlightenment and a total deliverance). Since human craving can never be satisfied except by the unitive knowledge of God and since the mind-body is capable of an enormous variety of experiences, we are free to identify ourselves with an almost infinite number of possible objectswith the pleasures of gluttony, for example, or intemperance, or sensuality; with money, power or fame; with our family, regarded as a possession or actually an extension and projection of our own selfness; with our goods and chattels, our hobbies, our collections; with our artistic or scientific talents; with some favourite branch of knowledge, some fascinating special subject; with our professions, our political parties, our churches; with our pains and illnesses; with our memories of success or misfortune, our hopes, fears and Schemes for the future; and finally with the eternal Reality within which and by which all the rest has its being. And we are free, of course, to identify ourselves with more than one of these things simultaneously or in succession. Hence the quite astonishingly improbable combination of traits making up a complex personality. Thus a man can be at once the craftiest of politicians and the dupe of his own verbiage, can have a passion for brandy and money, and an equal passion for the poetry of George Meredith and under-age girls and his mother, for horse-racing and detective stories and the good of his country the whole accompanied by a sneaking fear of hell-fire, a hatred of Spinoza and an unblemished record for Sunday church-going. A person born with one kind of psycho-physical constitution will be tempted to identify himself with one set of interests and passions, while a person with another kind of temperament will be tempted to make very different identifications. But these temptations (though extremely powerful, if the constitutional bias is strongly marked) do not have to be succumbed to; people can and do resist them, can and do refuse to identify themselves with what it would be all too easy and natural for them to be; can and do become better and quite other than their own selves. In this context the following brief article on How Men Behave in Crisis (published in a recent issue of Harpers Magazine) is highly significant. A young psychiatrist, who went as a medical observer on five combat missions of the Eighth Air Force in England says that in times of great stress and danger men are likely to react quite uniformly, even though under normal circumstances, they differ widely in personality. He went on one mission, during which the B-17 plane and crew were so severely damaged that survival seemed impossible. He had already studied the on the ground personalities of the crew and had found that they represented a great diversity of human types. Of their behaviour in crisis he reported:
Their reactions were remarkably alike. During the violent combat and in the acute emergencies that arose during it, they were all quietly precise on the interphone and decisive in action. The tail gunner, right waist gunner and navigator were severely wounded early in the fight, but all three kept at their duties efficiently and without cessation. The burden of emergency work fell on the pilot, engineer and ball turret gunner, and all functioned with rapidity, skilful effectiveness and no lost motion. The burden of the decisions, during, but particularly after the combat, rested essentially on the pilot and, in secondary details, on the co-pilot and bombar ther. The decisions, arrived at with care and speed, were unquestioned once they were made, and proved excellent. In the period when disaster was momentarily expected, the alternative plans of action were made clearly and with no thought other than the safety of the entire crew. All at this point were quiet, unobtrusively cheerful and ready for anything. There was at no time paralysis, panic, unclear thinking, faulty or confused judgment, or self-seeking in any one of them.
1.03 - Preparing for the Miraculous, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
For Sri Aurobindo, in whose cosmic Scheme evolution
is the backbone, Homo sapiens, possessing a psychic being,
--
logical Scheme, but that it is an open, unknown process of
transformation that has been started by Sri Aurobindo and
1.03 - THE GRAND OPTION, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
can fit it into the Scheme. Because we are a part of it, because the
rhythm of its growth is infinitely slow in comparison with our own,
--
arguable Schemes of this sort do not constitute the whole, or per-
haps even the most important part, of the life of the spirit. A geo-
1.03 - The Phenomenon of Man, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
This Scheme of classification, based essentially on the
39
1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
We find attri buted to the Crown, the first digit, the attri bution of the God-name of rrriN Ahieh, translated by " I will be ", signifying definitely that the Scheme of
Nature is not a static one nor a system of existence wherein the creative processes have long been consummated, but vibrant, progressive, and ever-becoming. Its Egyptian
1.043 - Decorations, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
79. Have they contrived some Scheme? We too are contriving.
80. Or do they think that We cannot hear their secrets and their conspiracies? Yes indeed, Our messengers are by them, writing down.
1.04 - The Aims of Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
more or less individual psyches that refuse to fit into any Scheme.
[77]
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
Conscious realization is acted out in the elementary Scheme of nutritive assimilation, and the ritual
act of concrete eating is the first form of assimilation known to man....
1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
O NE of the several difficulties encountered in pre- senting a new Scheme or a new interpretation of philosophy is the popular prejudice against new terminology. It is conceivable that objections will be raised against the Hebrew Alphabet and the terms utilized by the Qabalah by people who may overlook the fact that in the study of Astronomy, Physics, or Chemistry, for example, a completely new nomenclature must be mastered.
Even commerce uses a whole system of words and terms meaningless without a knowledge of commercial methods and procedure. The terminology used by the Qabalah is so employed for several reasons.
1.05 - 2010 and 1956 - Doomsday?, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
The Aurobindian Scheme of things is in essence evolu-
tionary. Accepting the gradual physiological development
1.05 - The Destiny of the Individual, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
15:It is only when we put aside all irreconcilable antinomy between Self and the world that things fall into their place by a less paradoxical logic. We must accept the many-sidedness of the manifestation even while we assert the unity of the Manifested. And is not this after all the truth that pursues us wherever we cast our eyes, unless seeing we choose not to see? Is not this after all the perfectly natural and simple mystery of Conscious Being that It is bound neither by Its unity nor by Its multiplicity? It is "absolute" in the sense of being entirely free to include and arrange in Its own way all possible terms of Its self-expression. There is none bound, none freed, none seeking to be free, - for always That is a perfect freedom. It is so free that It is not even bound by Its liberty. It can play at being bound without incurring a real bondage. Its chain is a self-imposed convention, Its limitation in the ego a transitional device that It uses in order to repeat Its transcendence and universality in the Scheme of the individual Brahman.
16:The Transcendent, the Supracosmic is absolute and free in Itself beyond Time and Space and beyond the conceptual opposites of finite and infinite. But in cosmos It uses Its liberty of self-formation, Its Maya, to make a Scheme of Itself in the complementary terms of unity and multiplicity, and this multiple unity It establishes in the three conditions of the subconscient, the conscient and the superconscient. For actually we see that the Many objectivised in form in our material universe start with a subconscious unity which expresses itself openly enough in cosmic action and cosmic substance, but of which they are not themselves superficially aware. In the conscient the ego becomes the superficial point at which the awareness of unity can emerge; but it applies its perception of unity to the form and surface action and, failing to take account of all that operates behind, fails also to realise that it is not only one in itself but one with others. This limitation of the universal "I" in the divided egosense constitutes our imperfect individualised personality. But when the ego transcends the personal consciousness, it begins to include and be overpowered by that which is to us superconscious; it becomes aware of the cosmic unity and enters into the Transcendent Self which here cosmos expresses by a multiple oneness.
17:The liberation of the individual soul is therefore the keynote of the definitive divine action; it is the primary divine necessity and the pivot on which all else turns. It is the point of Light at which the intended complete self-manifestation in the Many begins to emerge. But the liberated soul extends its perception of unity horizontally as well as vertically. Its unity with the transcendent One is incomplete without its unity with the cosmic Many. And that lateral unity translates itself by a multiplication, a reproduction of its own liberated state at other points in the Multiplicity. The divine soul reproduces itself in similar liberated souls as the animal reproduces itself in similar bodies. Therefore, whenever even a single soul is liberated, there is a tendency to an extension and even to an outburst of the same divine self-consciousness in other individual souls of our terrestrial humanity and, - who knows? - perhaps even beyond the terrestrial consciousness. Where shall we fix the limit of that extension? Is it altogether a legend which says of the Buddha that as he stood on the threshold of Nirvana, of the Non-Being, his soul turned back and took the vow never to make the irrevocable crossing so long as there was a single being upon earth undelivered from the knot of the suffering, from the bondage of the ego?
1.06 - LIFE AND THE PLANETS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
This Scheme of classification, based essentially on the intimate
structure of beings, is undeniably natural in principle. But it can
1.06 - The Ascent of the Sacrifice 2 The Works of Love - The Works of Life, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It covers the entire range of life's more visible activities; under it fall the multiform energies of the Will-to-Life throwing itself outward to make the most of material existence. It is here that an ascetic or other-worldly spirituality feels an insurmountable denial of the Truth which it seeks after and is compelled to turn away from terrestrial existence, rejecting it as for ever the dark playground of an incurable Ignorance. Yet it is precisely these activities that are claimed for a spiritual conquest and divine transformation by the integral Yoga. Abandoned altogether by the more ascetic disciplines, accepted by others only as a field of temporary ordeal or a momentary, superficial and ambiguous play of the concealed spirit, this existence is fully embraced and welcomed by the integral seeker as a field of fulfilment, a field for divine works, a field of the total self-discovery of the concealed and indwelling spirit. A discovery of the Divinity in oneself is his first object, but a total discovery too of the Divinity in the world behind the apparent denial offered by its Scheme and figures and, last, a total discovery of the dynamism of some transcendent Eternal; for by its descent this world and self will be empowered to break their disguising envelopes and become divine in revealing form and manifesting process as they now are secretly in their hidden essence.
This object of the integral Yoga must be accepted wholly by those who follow it, but the acceptance must not be in ignorance of the immense stumbling-blocks that lie in the way of the achievement; on the contrary we must be fully aware of the compelling cause of the refusal of so many other disciplines to regard even its possibility, much less its imperative character, as the true meaning of terrestrial existence. For here in the works of life in the earth-nature is the very heart of the difficulty that has driven Philosophy to its heights of aloofness and turned away even the eager eye of Religion from the malady of birth in a mortal body to a distant Paradise or a silent peace of Nirvana.
1.06 - The Literal Qabalah, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The third method is called Temurah, meaning Permuta- tion. The letters of a word are transposed, according to definite Schemes, and substituted for another letter before or after it in the alphabet, forming an entirely new word.
One method, known as Album, is to take the Alphabet and place the last half below the first half as follows :
1.06 - The Objective and Subjective Views of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The principle of individualism is the liberty of the human being regarded as a separate existence to develop himself and fulfil his life, satisfy his mental tendencies, emotional and vital needs and physical being according to his own desire governed by his reason; it admits no other limit to this right and this liberty except the obligation to respect the same individual liberty and right in others. The balance of this liberty and this obligation is the principle which the individualistic age adopted in its remodelling of society; it adopted in effect a harmony of compromises between rights and duties, liberty and law, permissions and restraints as the Scheme both of the personal life and the life of the society. Equally, in the life of nations the individualistic age made liberty the ideal and strove though with less success than in its own proper sphere to affirm a mutual respect for each others freedom as the proper conduct of nations to one another. In this idea of life, as with the individual, so with the nation, each has the inherent right to manage its own affairs freely or, if it wills, to mismanage them freely and not to be interfered with in its rights and liberties so long as it does not interfere with the rights and liberties of other nations. As a matter of fact, the egoism of individual and nation does not wish to abide within these bounds; therefore the social law of the nation has been called in to enforce the violated principle as between man and man and it has been sought to develop international law in the same way and with the same object. The influence of these ideas is still powerful. In the recent European struggle the liberty of nations was set forth as the ideal for which the war was being waged,in defiance of the patent fact that it had come about by nothing better than a clash of interests. The development of international law into an effective force which will restrain the egoism of nations as the social law restrains the egoism of individuals, is the solution which still attracts and seems the most practicable to most when they seek to deal with the difficulties of the future.1
The growth of modern Science has meanwhile created new ideas and tendencies, on one side an exaggerated individualism or rather vitalistic egoism, on the other the quite opposite ideal of collectivism. Science investigating life discovered that the root nature of all living is a struggle to take the best advantage of the environment for self-preservation, self-fulfilment, self-aggrandisement. Human thought seizing in its usual arbitrary and trenchant fashion upon this aspect of modern knowledge has founded on it theories of a novel kind which erect into a gospel the right for each to live his own life not merely by utilising others, but even at the expense of others. The first object of life in this view is for the individual to survive as long as he may, to become strong, efficient, powerful, to dominate his environment and his fellows and to raise himself on this strenuous and egoistic line to his full stature of capacity and reap his full measure of enjoyment. Philosophies like Nietzsches, certain forms of Anarchism,not the idealistic Anarchism of the thinker which is rather the old individualism of the ideal reason carried to its logical conclusion,certain forms too of Imperialism have been largely influenced and streng thened by this type of ideas, though not actually created by them.
1.06 - Wealth and Government, #Words Of The Mother III, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
When we have to answer specific questions on such matters as Bank Nationalisation, Privy Purses, Press Bill etc., then, unless we have had already direct and specific replies from Sri Aurobindo or You, our answer has been that all these actions are only arrangements on the surface and, therefore, by themselves cannot solve the basic problems they try to solve. It is only by a change of consciousness or, at least, by the aspiration for the truth and the resultant opening to a change of consciousness that such specific problems can be really solved. Because whatever is the form of any arrangement or Scheme, it has to be implemented by people. If the people continue to remain in darkness and falsehood, then no arrangement or Scheme, however fine it may appear to be, can succeed.
So, there is only one solution to all problems; that given by You to obey the Eternal Truth alone and live according to Truth.
1.071 - Noah, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
22. And they Schemed outrageous Schemes.
23. And they said, “Do not give up your gods; do not give up Wadd, nor Souwa, nor Yaghoos, and Yaooq, and Nassr.
1.07 - Savitri, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
The apology submitted, let the rash venture begin. Savitri, according to Dinen Roy,[1] was started by Sri Aurobindo in Baroda. From all the extant versions, for there are quite a number, it appears that originally the Scheme of the poem consisted of two parts: I Earth, II Beyond. The first part had four Books and the second had three Books and an epilogue.
Afterwards there came to be three parts but without names. Each part had a series of Books. The first Book was called Love. Then it was named Quest, and Love became the second Book. In some early versions we have instead of Books, Cantos. Later the Books came to contain the Cantos.
--
The version before the very last one had practically the same Scheme as the latter, but the Cantos were much shorter, and many themes which were treated at some length received briefer treatment. Particularly the Book now called The Traveller of the Worlds was greatly expanded. He began adding lines in considerable amount in 1938. Sri Aurobindo wrote in the 'Letters on Savitri' to Amal in 1931: "There is a previous draft, the result of many retouchings, of which somebody told you; but in that form it would not have been a magnum opus at all. Besides it would have been a legend, and not a symbol. I therefore started recasting the whole thing; only the best passages and lines of the old draft will remain, altered so as to fit into the new frame."
In 1936 he writes: "Savitri was originally written many years before the Mother came, as a narrative poem in two parts, Part I Earth, and Part II Beyond.... The first Book has been lengthening and lengthening out.... As for the second Part, I have not touched it yet. There was no climbing of planes there in the first version rather, Savitri moved through the Worlds of Night, of Twilight, of Day all of course in a spiritual sense and ended by calling down the power of the Highest Worlds of Sachchidananda. I had no idea of what the supramental World could be like at that time, so it could not enter into the Scheme."
In another letter of the same year: "The poem was originally written from a lower level, a mixture perhaps of the inner mind, psychic, poetic intelligence, sublimised vital, afterwards with the Higher Mind, often illumined and intuitivised, intervening. Most of the stuff of the first Book is new or else the old so altered as to be no more what it was; the best of the old has sometimes been kept almost intact because it had already the higher inspiration. Moreover, there have been made several successive revisions, each trying to lift the general level higher and higher towards a possible Overmind poetry. As it now stands there is a general Overmind influence, I believe, sometimes coming fully through, sometimes colouring the poetry of the other higher planes fused together, sometimes lifting any one of these higher planes to its highest or the psychic, poetic intelligence or vital towards them."
--
So far the account of the procedure which was followed for working on the three Books seems approximately correct. We have been considerably helped by some dates mentioned before in the account. But in what follows about the rest of the epic, I am afraid that the report cannot claim as much exactness owing to my lapse of memory. I can sum up the position obtained at this stage by quoting Sri Aurobindo's letter to Amal in 1946. After investigating all the documents available, we have come to the following conclusions about the rest of the Books. Book IV, The Book of Birth and Quest, is fairly revised by Sri Aurobindo. Several versions before the end of 1938 have been worked upon these versions are expansions of much older drafts, one of them possibly dating back to Baroda. The revised version was later corrected and amplified with my help as scribe and has been divided into four Cantos. In re-doing Book V, The Book of Love, Sri Aurobindo took up, at a certain point, an earlier version than that of 1936. There are quite a number of versions with various titles before 1936. Here too, originally there were no different Cantos. There are three old versions of The Book of Fate of equal length. They were called Canto II, and fairly short. One of these versions was expanded into enormous length and developed into two Cantos, the very last touches given almost during the final month of Sri Aurobindo's life. An instance of the expansion is the passage "O singer of the ultimate ecstasy... will is Fate." There was no Book of Yoga in the original Scheme of the poem. One old version called Book III, Death, has been changed into The Book of Yoga. It was enormously expanded and named Canto I. All the rest of the six Cantos were totally new and dictated. They were all at first divided into Cantos with different titles. Apparently all these Cantos except the first one are entirely new. I could get no trace of any old versions from which they could have been developed. I am now amazed to see that so many lines could have been dictated day after day, like The Book of Everlasting Day. The Book of Death contains three old versions all called Canto III; the final version is constructed from one of these and from another version some lines are taken to be inserted into The Book of Eternal Night, Canto IV, Night, of the early version served as the basis of The Book of Eternal Night. It was revised, lines were added and split into two Cantos. Then in the typescript further revisions took place. Canto I, first called The Passage into the Void of Night, was changed into Towards the Black Void. Book X, The Book of the Double Twilight, called only Twilight, Canto V in the earlier versions of which there are four or five, had no division into Cantos. From these early versions a fair number of lines have been taken and woven into a larger version. The old lines are now not always in their original form. Book XI had three old drafts. One which was larger than the other two has been used for the final version and was enormously expanded; even whole passages running into hundreds of lines have been added, as I have mentioned before. About The Epilogue, except for a few additions, it almost reproduces the single old version.
Now we can go into the detailed working procedure of all these later Books. I had to take now a more and more prominent part as scribe, for after the completion of the fourth Book, The Book of Birth and Quest, from 1944 or so, Sri Aurobindo's eyesight began to grow dim and he didn't want to strain his eyes by going through all the old manuscripts with their faint, small handwriting. So I was asked to bring out these old versions from the drawer; I now had access to all the manuscripts. Most of them were in loose sheets of notebook size written on one side. Unfortunately no dates were given to suggest when they were written. I was asked to read aloud Book by Book before him, but I don't remember by what method we proceeded. Did we give a general reading to all the Books before we started with the actual working on them individually? Or did we go about systematically finishing one Book after another? Perhaps the latter. Taking this procedure to be probable, I was asked when there were more than one version of a Book, to read them, sometimes all, sometimes one or two and selecting out of them the best one, he indicated the lines to be marked in the margin for inclusion; sometimes lines or passages were taken from other versions too. As I have shown, and as Sri Aurobindo's dictated letter has already hinted, all these Books were either thoroughly revised or almost entirely rewritten.
1.07 - Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
21:Moreover, absolute love, absolute justice, absolute right reason in their present application by a bewildered and imperfect humanity come easily to be conflicting principles. Justice often demands what love abhors. Right reason dispassionately considering the facts of nature and human relations in search of a satisfying norm or rule is unable to admit without modification either any reign of absolute justice or any reign of absolute love. And in fact man's absolute justice easily turns out to be in practice a sovereign injustice; for his mind, one-sided and rigid in its constructions, puts forward a one-sided partial and rigorous Scheme or figure and claims for it totality and absoluteness and an application that ignores the subtler truth of things and the plasticity of life. All our standards turned into action either waver on a flux of compromises or err by this partiality and unelastic structure. Humanity sways from one orientation to another; the race moves upon a zigzag path led by conflicting claims and, on the whole, works out instinctively what Nature intends, but with much waste and suffering, rather than either what it desires or what it holds to be right or what the highest light from above demands from the embodied spirit.
22:The fact is that when we have reached the cult of absolute ethical qualities and erected the categorical imperative of an ideal law, we have not come to the end of our search or touched the truth that delivers. There is, no doubt, something here that helps us to rise beyond limitation by the physical and vital man in us, an insistence that overpasses the individual and collective needs and desires of a humanity still bound to the living mud of Matter in which it took its roots, an aspiration that helps to develop the mental and moral being in us: this new sublimating element has been therefore an acquisition of great importance; its workings have marked a considerable step forward in the difficult evolution of terrestrial Nature. And behind the inadequacy of these ethical conceptions something too is concealed that does attach to a supreme Truth; there is here the glimmer of a light and power that are part of a yet unreached divine Nature. But the mental idea of these things is not that light and the moral formulation of them is not that power. These are only representative constructions of the mind that cannot embody the divine spirit which they vainly endeavour to imprison in their categorical formulas. Beyond the mental and moral being in us is a greater divine being that is spiritual and supramental; for it is only through a large spiritual plane where the mind's formulas dissolve in a white flame of direct inner experience that we can reach beyond mind and pass from its constructions to the vastness and freedom of the supramental realities. There alone can we touch the harmony of the divine powers that are poorly mispresented to our mind or framed into a false figure by the conflicting or wavering elements of the moral law. There alone the unification of the transformed vital and physical and the illumined mental man becomes possible in that supramental Spirit which is at once the secret source and goal of our mind and life and body. There alone is there any possibility of an absolute justice, love and right - far other than that which we imagine - at one with each other in the light of a supreme divine knowledge. There alone can there be a reconciliation of the conflict between our members.
1.07 - The Ego and the Dualities, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:To Sachchidananda extended in all things in widest commonalty and impartial universality, death, suffering, evil and limitation can only be at the most reverse terms, shadow-forms of their luminous opposites. As these things are felt by us, they are notes of a discord. They formulate separation where there should be a unity, miscomprehension where there should be an understanding, an attempt to arrive at independent harmonies where there should be a self-adaptation to the orchestral whole. All totality, even if it be only in one Scheme of the universal vibrations, even if it be only a totality of the physical consciousness without possession of all that is in movement beyond and behind, must be to that extent a reversion to harmony and a reconciliation of jarring opposites. On the other hand, to Sachchidananda transcendent of the forms of the universe the dual terms themselves, even so understood, can no longer be justly applicable. Transcendence transfigures; it does not reconcile, but rather transmutes opposites into something surpassing them that effaces their oppositions.
3:At first, however, we must strive to relate the individual again to the harmony of the totality. There it is necessary for us - otherwise there is no issue from the problem - to realise that the terms in which our present consciousness renders the values of the universe, though practically justified for the purposes of human experience and progress, are not the sole terms in which it is possible to render them and may not be the complete, the right, the ultimate formulas. Just as there may be sense-organs or formations of sense-capacity which see the physical world differently and it may well be better, because more completely, than our sense-organs and sense-capacity, so there may be other mental and supramental envisagings of the universe which surpass our own. States of consciousness there are in which Death is only a change in immortal Life, pain a violent backwash of the waters of universal delight, limitation a turning of the Infinite upon itself, evil a circling of the good around its own perfection; and this not in abstract conception only, but in actual vision and in constant and substantial experience. To arrive at such states of consciousness may, for the individual, be one of the most important and indispensable steps of his progress towards self-perfection.
1.07 - THE GREAT EVENT FORESHADOWED - THE PLANETIZATION OF MANKIND, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
stars, in the general Scheme of cosmic elements. Now however, sim-
ply by the introduction of another dimension, a new order and
--
alized physical Scheme; but something begins to take shape ahead
of Man. Once again we find ourselves confronted by the forces of
1.07 - THE .IMPROVERS. OF MANKIND, #Twilight of the Idols, #Friedrich Nietzsche, #Philosophy
conceived even the plan of such a breeding Scheme, presupposes the
existence of a man who is a hundred times milder and more reasonable
1.07 - The Literal Qabalah (continued), #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
The Four Worlds in the Qabalistic Scheme of Evolution.
The Sephirothic Scheme was originally concerned with the mysteries of evolution, and the Qabalists conceived of the evolution of the cosmos in a complex manner. By a kind of flowing forth or emanation from Ain, it was held that there were produced in succession four Worlds or
Planes of Consciousness. The Tree, therefore, is divided into four different regions of consciousness, of four cosmic planes in which the creative flow or pulsating stream of life proceeds.
--
Philosophy at this juncture as to whether the Qabalah resolves itself into an objective or a subjective Scheme.
That is to say, is the world as it is perceived through the five senses the result of the creativity of my spiritual ego, having no existence outside of my own consciousness, or does the Qabalah regard the Universe as both subjective and objective ?
--
These numbers 6, 26, 27, and 28 all link up quite definitely with conceptions held in the Qabalistic Scheme to sym- bolize the same qualities recognized by scientific thinkers to inhere in atoms with the number of electrons just men- tioned. The carbon atom with its six electrons can be attri buted harmoniously to the sixth Sephirah as was done above, and we may now examine the other three numbers with the view of ascertaining in what way they connect with the philosophic principles heretofore outlined.
Path No. 26 on the Tree of Life is the letter Ayin, whose attri butions are emblematical of the various creative forces of Nature represented, particularly, by Priapus the fecund
1.07 - The Psychic Center, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
since the place is already filled with clutter. The moment it appears, it is instantly snatched up by the vital, which uses it for its own brilliant flights of exaltation, its own "divine" and tumultuous emotions, its possessive loves, its calculated generosities or gaudy aesthetics; or it is corralled by the mind, which uses it for its own exclusive ideas, its infallible philanthropic Schemes, its straitjacketed moralities not to
mention churches, countless churches, which systematize it in articles of faith and dogma. Where is the psychic being in all that? It is there,
1.07 - The Three Schools of Magick 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
A fairly pure example of the first stage of this type of thought is to be found in the Vedas, of the second stage, in the Upanishads. But the answer to the question, "How is the illusion of evil to be destroyed?", depends on another point of theory. We may postulate a Parabrahm infinitely good, etc. etc. etc., in which case we consider the destruction of the illusion of evil as the reuniting of the consciousness with Parabrahm. The unfortunate part of this Scheme of things is that on seeking to define Parabrahm for the purpose of returning to Its purity, it is discovered sooner or later, that It possesses no qualities at all! In other words, as the farmer said, on being shown the elephant: There ain't no sich animile. It was Gautama Buddha who perceived the inutility of dragging in this imaginary pachyderm. Since our Parabrahm, he said to the Hindu philosophers, is actually nothing, why not stick to or original perception that everything is sorrow, and admit that the only way to escape from sorrow is to arrive at nothingness?
We may complete the whole tradition of the Indian peninsula very simply. To the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Tripitaka of the Buddhists, we have only to add the Tantras of what are called the Vamacharya Schools. Paradoxical as it may sound the Tantrics are in reality the most advanced of the Hindus. Their theory is, in its philosophical ultimatum, a primitive stage of the White tradition, for the essence of the Tantric cults is that by the performance of certain rites of Magick, one does not only escape disaster, but obtains positive benediction. The Tantric is not obsessed by the will-to-die. It is a difficult business, no doubt, to get any fun out of existence; but at least it is not impossible. In other words, he implicitly denies the fundamental proposition that existence is sorrow, and he formulates the essential postulate of the White School of Magick, that means exist by which the universal sorrow (apparent indeed to all ordinary observation) may be unmasked, even as at the initiatory rite of Isis in the ancient days of Khem. There, a Neophyte presenting his mouth, under compulsion, to the pouting buttocks of the Goat of Mendez, found himself caressed by the chaste lips of a virginal priestess of that Goddess at the base of whose shrine is written that No man has lifted her veil.
1.086 - The Nightly Visitor, #Quran, #unset, #Zen
15. They plot and Scheme.
16. But I plot and Scheme.
17. Therefore, give the blasphemers respite, a brief respite.
1.08 - On freedom from anger and on meekness., #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
into the world, and the names of your foul sons and daughters. And not only that, but tell us the designations of those who wage war against you and kill you. And anger tells us in reply: Many are my origins, and I have more than one father. My mothers are vainglory, love of money, greed, and sometimes lust. My father is called conceit. My daughters are: remembrance of wrongs, hatred, enmity, and assertion of rights. But my opponents, who are now holding me captive, are the opposite virtues of freedom from anger and meekness. She who Schemes against me is called humility. But as to who bore humility, ask her in due time her self.
For the eighth step is appointed the crown of freedom from anger. He who wears it by nature will perhaps wear no other crown. But he who has won it by sweat has conquered all eight together.
1.08 - Origin of Rudra: his becoming eight Rudras, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
ga, and Vāyu agree with our text in the nomenclature of the Rudras, and their types, their wives, and progeny. The types are those which are enumerated in the Nāndī, p. 59 or opening benedictory verse, of Sakuntalā; and the passage of the Viṣṇu P. was found by Mons. Chezy on the envelope of his copy. He has justly corrected Sir Wm. Jones's version of the term ### 'the sacrifice is performed with solemnity;' as the word means, 'Brahmane officiant,' 'the Brāhmaṇ who is qualified by initiation (Dīkṣā) to conduct the rite.' These are considered as the bodies, or visible forms, of those modifications of Rudra which are variously named, and which, being praised in them, severally abstain from harming them: ### Vāyu P. The Bhāgavata, III. 12, has a different Scheme, as usual; but it confounds the notion of the eleven Rudras, to whom the text subsequently adverts, with that of the eight here specified. These eleven it terms Manyu, Manu, Mahīnasa, Mahān, Siva, Ritadhwaja, Ugraretas, Bhava, Kāla, Vāmadeva, and Dhritavrata: their wives are, Dhī, Dhriti, Rasalomā, Niyut, Sarpī, Ilā, Ambikā, Irāvatī, Swadhā, Dīkṣā, Rudrānī: and their places are, the heart, senses, breath, ether, air, fire, water, earth, sun, moon, and tapas, or ascetic devotion. The same allegory or mystification characterises both accounts.
[5]: See the story of Dakṣa's sacrifice at the end of the chapter.
1.08 - The Methods of Vedantic Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
7:The sovereign action of the sense-mind can be employed to develop other senses besides the five which we ordinarily use. For instance, it is possible to develop the power of appreciating accurately without physical means the weight of an object which we hold in our hands. Here the sense of contact and pressure is merely used as a starting-point, just as the data of sense-experience are used by the pure reason, but it is not really the sense of touch which gives the measure of the weight to the mind; that finds the right value through its own independent perception and uses the touch only in order to enter into relation with the object. And as with the pure reason, so with the sensemind, the sense-experience can be used as a mere first point from which it proceeds to a knowledge that has nothing to do with the sense-organs and often contradicts their evidence. Nor is the extension of faculty confined only to outsides and superficies. It is possible, once we have entered by any of the senses into relation with an external object, so to apply the Manas as to become aware of the contents of the object, for example, to receive or to perceive the thoughts or feelings of others without aid from their utterance, gesture, action or facial expressions and even in contradiction of these always partial and often misleading data. Finally, by an utilisation of the inner senses, - that is to say, of the sense-powers, in themselves, in their purely mental or subtle activity as distinguished from the physical which is only a selection for the purposes of outward life from their total and general action, - we are able to take cognition of sense-experiences, of appearances and images of things other than those which belong to the organisation of our material environment. All these extensions of faculty, though received with hesitation and incredulity by the physical mind because they are abnormal to the habitual Scheme of our ordinary life and experience, difficult to set in action, still more difficult to systematise so as to be able to make of them an orderly and serviceable set of instruments, must yet be admitted, since they are the invariable result of any attempt to enlarge the field of our superficially active consciousness whether by some kind of untaught effort and casual ill-ordered effect or by a scientific and well-regulated practice.
8:None of them, however, leads to the aim we have in view, the psychological experience of those truths that are "beyond perception by the sense but seizable by the perceptions of the reason", buddhigrahyam atndriyam.2 They give us only a larger field of phenomena and more effective means for the observation of phenomena. The truth of things always escapes beyond the sense. Yet is it a sound rule inherent in the very constitution of universal existence that where there are truths attainable by the reason, there must be somewhere in the organism possessed of that reason a means of arriving at or verifying them by experience. The one means we have left in our mentality is an extension of that form of knowledge by identity which gives us the awareness of our own existence. It is really upon a selfawareness more or less conscient, more or less present to our conception that the knowledge of the contents of our self is based. Or to put it in a more general formula, the knowledge of the contents is contained in the knowledge of the continent. If then we can extend our faculty of mental self-awareness to awareness of the Self beyond and outside us, Atman or Brahman of the Upanishads, we may become possessors in experience of the truths which form the contents of the Atman or Brahman in the universe. It is on this possibility that Indian Vedanta has based itself. It has sought through knowledge of the Self the knowledge of the universe.
--
10:Such is the Scheme of the human understanding upon which the conclusions of the most ancient Vedanta were built. To develop the results arrived at on this foundation by the ancient sages is not my object, but it is necessary to pass briefly in review some of their principal conclusions so far as they affect the problem of the divine Life with which alone we are at present concerned. For it is in those ideas that we shall find the best previous foundation of that which we seek now to rebuild and although, as with all knowledge, old expression has to be replaced to a certain extent by new expression suited to a later mentality and old light has to merge itself into new light as dawn succeeds dawn, yet it is with the old treasure as our initial capital or so much of it as we can recover that we shall most advantageously proceed to accumulate the largest gains in our new commerce with the ever-changeless and ever-changing Infinite.
11:Sad Brahman, Existence pure, indefinable, infinite, absolute, is the last concept at which Vedantic analysis arrives in its view of the universe, the fundamental Reality which Vedantic experience discovers behind all the movement and formation which constitute the apparent reality. It is obvious that when we posit this conception, we go entirely beyond what our ordinary consciousness, our normal experience contains or warrants. The senses and sense-mind know nothing whatever about any pure or absolute existence. All that our sense-experience tells us of, is form and movement. Forms exist, but with an existence that is not pure, rather always mixed, combined, aggregated, relative. When we go within ourselves, we may get rid of precise form, but we cannot get rid of movement, of change. Motion of Matter in Space, motion of change in Time seem to be the condition of existence. We may say indeed, if we like, that this is existence and that the idea of existence in itself corresponds to no discoverable reality. At the most in the phenomenon of selfawareness or behind it, we get sometimes a glimpse of something immovable and immutable, something that we vaguely perceive or imagine that we are beyond all life and death, beyond all change and formation and action. Here is the one door in us that sometimes swings open upon the splendour of a truth beyond and, before it shuts again, allows a ray to touch us, - a luminous intimation which, if we have the strength and firmness, we may hold to in our faith and make a starting-point for another play of consciousness than that of the sense-mind, for the play of Intuition.
1.08 - The Three Schools of Magick 3, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
This, then, is the present state of the war of the Three Schools. We cannot suppose that humanity is so entirely base as to accept Krishnamurti; yet that such a Scheme could ever have been conceived is a symptom of the almost hopeless decadence of the White School.*[AC20] The Black adepts boast openly that they have triumphed all along the line. Their formula has attained the destruction of all positive qualities. It is only one step to the stage when the annihilation of all life and thought will appear as a fatal necessity. The materialism and vital scepticism of the present time, its frenzied rush for pleasure in total disregard of any idea of building for the future, testifies to a condition of complete moral disorder, of abject spiritual anarchy.
The White School has thus been paralysed. We are reminded of the spider described by Fabre, who injects her victims with a poison which paralyzes them without killing them, so that her own young may find fresh meat. And this is what is going to happen in Europe and America unless some- thing is done about it, and done in very short order.
1.09 - Civilisation and Culture, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But the intelligence of man is not composed entirely and exclusively of the rational intellect and the rational will; there enters into it a deeper, more intuitive, more splendid and powerful, but much less clear, much less developed and as yet hardly at all self-possessing light and force for which we have not even a name. But, at any rate, its character is to drive at a kind of illumination,not the dry light of the reason, nor the moist and suffused light of the heart, but a lightning and a solar splendour. It may indeed subordinate itself and merely help the reason and heart with its flashes; but there is another urge in it, its natural urge, which exceeds the reason. It tries to illuminate the intellectual being, to illuminate the ethical and aesthetic, to illuminate the emotional and the active, to illuminate even the senses and the sensations. It offers in words of revelation, it unveils as if by lightning flashes, it shows in a sort of mystic or psychic glamour or brings out into a settled but for mental man almost a supernatural light a Truth greater and truer than the knowledge given by Reason and Science, a Right larger and more divine than the moralists Scheme of virtues, a Beauty more profound, universal and entrancing than the sensuous or imaginative beauty worshipped by the artist, a joy and divine sensibility which leaves the ordinary emotions poor and pallid, a Sense beyond the senses and sensations, the possibility of a diviner Life and action which mans ordinary conduct of life hides away from his impulses and from his vision. Very various, very fragmentary, often very confused and misleading are its effects upon all the lower members from the reason downward, but this in the end is what it is driving at in the midst of a hundred deformations. It is caught and killed or at least diminished and stifled in formal creeds and pious observances; it is unmercifully traded in and turned into poor and base coin by the vulgarity of conventional religions; but it is still the light of which the religious spirit and the spirituality of man is in pursuit and some pale glow of it lingers even in their worst degradations.
This very complexity of his mental being, with the absence of any one principle which can safely dominate the others, the absence of any sure and certain light which can guide and fix in their vacillations the reason and the intelligent will, is mans great embarrassment and stumbling-block. All the hostile distinctions, oppositions, antagonisms, struggles, conversions, reversions, perversions of his mentality, all the chaotic war of ideas and impulses and tendencies which perplex his efforts, have arisen from the natural misunderstandings and conflicting claims of his many members. His reason is a judge who gives conflicting verdicts and is bribed and influenced by the suitors; his intelligent will is an administrator harassed by the conflicts of the different estates of his realm and by the sense of his own partiality and final incompetence. Still in the midst of it all he has formed certain large ideas of culture and the mental life, and his conflicting notions about them follow certain definite lines determined by the divisions of his nature and shaped into a general system of curves by his many attempts to arrive either at an exclusive standard or an integral harmony.
1.09 - Fundamental Questions of Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
consciousness, and have devised a tentative Scheme into which the various
attitudes can be articulated. From this it would appear that there are no less
11.01 - The Eternal Day The Souls Choice and the Supreme Consummation, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
And mightier Scheme than heavenliest sense can give.
There breath carried a stream of seeing mind,
11.04 - The Triple Cord, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
These threefold limitations are repeated in each of the statuses of being or consciousness. Thus the mind has a mental being, a vital being and a physical being. So the mind has mental limitations and vital limitations and also physical limitations. The mind's mental limitations are its notions and concepts, constructed ideas and fabricated comprehensions. The mind bound by its reasoning faculties, its deductive system, its syllogistic Scheme, all that scaffolding has to go if the new light is to penetrate and illumine it with the new consciousness. The mind has also a vital element, when it moves according to its inspiration, as it is called sometimes, but it is only an ignorant inspiration, it is only another name for "mood," for fancy. True inspiration is not a blind mental rush but something clear and steady and yet forceful and self-poised. Again, the mind has its physical element too: the physical mind is the mind controlled by the senses, the impressions of the senses; its structure is patterned according to the impact of the physical and material objects. A clear, free physical mind embodies the pattern of the movements of the higher consciousness, not of the sense-dominated consciousness.
Even like the mind, the vital too has its threefold knots according to the three elements that constitute it. First, there is a mind in the vital, it is called mental-vital, there is a vital in the vital, it is the vital proper, and there is a physical vital. The mental-vital means the field of sentiment and feeling and emotion, the vital proper is the field of passion, the intensity and even ferocity of its urge, and finally, the physical vital, which is the field of outward impulsion and drive, the push towards physical act and execution. Last, the physical too has the same threefold knots, first in the mental physical, second in the vital physical and thirdly in the physical physical, that is, the physical proper. The mind in the physical is the purely brain operation, the primitive original percepts that brain-cells emanate. The vital in the physical means the record of the nerves, more or less that are sensations. Lastly, the physical physical means the most mechanical, the inertial reactions of matter.
1.10 - The Absolute of the Being, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
It is this facility which permits, for example, some Indian Schemes to distinguish three modes of being in the supreme manifestation, three divine worlds, those of pure existence, of the beings infinite conscious energy and of the beatitudes of its infinite consciousness. These three worlds or degrees of the absolute activity are for the intellectual thought only abstract symbols by which the mind attempts to translate the absolute Reality at the very limit indeed of its relative categories, but still by their aid. Yet the attempt has its utility, for if it cannot procure for the mind any direct vision of the Unknowable, it has at least this result that it gives it certain indirect perceptions of That by permitting it to descend in its own depths to its principles.
***
1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The distinction is of the greatest importance; for not only does it show that the substance of our religious mentality and discipline goes back to the prehistoric antiquity of the Upanishads, but it justifies the hypothesis that the Vedantins of the Upanishads themselves held it as an inheritance from their Vedic forefa thers. If the Upanishads were only a record of intellectual speculations, the theory of a progression from Vedic materialism to new modes of thought would be entirely probable and no other hypothesis could hold the field without first destroying the rationalistic theory by new and unsuspected evidence. But the moment we perceive that the Upanishads are the result of this ancient & indigenous system of truth-finding, we are liberated from the burden of European examples. Evidently, we have here to deal with phenomena of thought which do not fall within the European Scheme of a rapid transition from gross savage superstition to subtle metaphysical speculation. We have phenomena which are either sui generis or, if at any time common to humanity both within and outside India, then more ancient or at any rate earlier in the progression of mind than the modern intellectual methods first universalised by the Hellenic & Latin races; we have an intuitive and experiential method of truth finding, a fixed psychological theory and discipline, a system in which observation & comparison of subjective experiences forms the basis of fixed & verifiable psychological truth, just as nowadays in Europe observation & comparison of objective experiences forms the basis of fixed and verifiable physical truth. The difference between the speculative method and the experiential is that the speculative aims only at logical harmony and, due to the rigid abstract tendency, drives towards new blocks of thought and new mental attitudes; the experiential aims at verification by experience and drives towards the progressive discovery or restatement of eternal truths and their application to varying conditions. The indispensable basis of all Science is the invariability of the same result from the same experiment, given the same conditions; the same experiment with oxygen & hydrogen will always, in whatever age or clime it is applied, have one invariable result, the appearance of water. The indispensable basis of all Yoga is the same invariability in psychological experiments & their results. The same experiment with the limited waking or manifest consciousness and the unlimited unmanifest consciousness from which it is a selection and formation will always, in whatever age or clime it is applied, have the same result, the dissolution, gradual or rapid, complete or partial according to the instruments and conditions of the experiment, of the waking ego into the cosmic consciousness. In each method, physical Science or psychological Science, different Scientists or different teachers may differ as to some of the final generalisations to be drawn from the facts & the most appropriate terms to be used, or invent different instruments in the hope of arriving at a more rapid or a more delicate process, but the facts and the fundamental truths remain common to all, even if stated in different terms, because they are the subjects of a common experience. Now the facts discovered by the Indian method, the duality of Purusha and Prakriti, the triple states of conscious being, the relation between the macrocosm & the microcosm, the fivefold and sevenfold principles of consciousness, the existence of more than one bodily case in which, simultaneously, we dwell, these and a number of other fixed ideas which the modern Yogins hold not as speculative propositions but as observable and verifiable facts of experience, are to be found in the Upanishads already enounced in more ancient formulae and in a slightly different language. The question arises, when did they originate? If they are facts, when were they first discovered? If they are hallucinations, when were the methods of subjective experiment which result so persistently in these hallucinations, first evolved and fixed? Not at the time of the Upanishads, for the Upanishads professedly record the traditional knowledge of older Rishis which is still verifiable by the moderns, prvebhir rishibhir dyo ntanair uta.Then, some time before the composition of the Upanishads, either by the earlier or later Vedic Rishis or by predecessors of the Vedic Rishis or in the interval between the Vedic hymns and the first Vedantic compositions. But for the period between Veda & Vedanta we have no documents, no direct & plain evidence. The question therefore can only be decided by an examination of the Vedic hymns themselves. Only by settling the meaning of Veda can we decide whether the early Vedantins were right in supposing that they were merely restating in more modern terms the substantial ideas & experiences of Vedic Rishis or whether this grand assumption of the Upanishads must take its rank among those pious fictions or willing & half honest errors which have often been immensely helpful to the advance of human knowledge but are none the less impostures upon posterity.
European scholars believe that they have fixed finally the meaning of Veda. Using as their tools the Sciences of Comparative Philology & Comparative Mythology, itself a part of the strangely termed Science of Comparative Religion, they have excavated for us out of the ancient Veda a buried world, a forgotten civilisation, lost names of kings and nations, wars & battles, institutions, social habits & cultural ideas which the men of Vedantic times & their forerunners never dreamed were lying concealed in the revered & sacred words used daily by them in their worship and the fount and authority for their richest spiritual experiences deepest illuminated musings. The picture these discoveries constitute is a remarkable composition, imposing in its mass, brilliant and attractive in its details. The one lingering objection to them is a possible doubt of the truth of these discoveries, the soundness of the methods used to arrive at them. Are the conclusions of Vedic scholarship so undoubtedly true or so finally authoritative as to preclude a totally different hypothesis even though it may lead possibly to an interpretation which will wash out every colour & negative every detail of this great recovery? We must determine, first, whether the foundations of the European theory of Veda are solid & certain fact or whether it has been reared upon a basis of doubtful inference and conjecture. If the former, the question of the Veda is closed, its problem solved; if the latter, the European results may even then be true, but equally they may be false and replaceable by a more acceptable theory and riper conclusions.
11.15 - Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Such then are the stages in the progression of consciousness; they are clearly observable and admitted practically on all hands. Only Sri Aurobindo points out two crucial characters of this movement. First: Matter, Life, Mind-Intelligence these are not distinct or separate entities, one coming after another, the succeeding one simply adding itself to the preceding, coming we do now know from where. Not so, for something cannot come out of nothing. If life came out of Matter, it is because life was there hidden in Matter, Matter was secretly housing, was instinct with life. That only can evolve which was involved. So, again, if Mind came out of life, it is because Mind was involved in life and therefore also in Matter although at a farther remove. Yet again, vital mind developed into Intelligence and consciousness proper, and it could be only because that too was its secret nature and hence the secret nature of Life and even brute Matter. Thus the whole chain of gradation is linked together indissolubly and the binding reality that runs through all is consciousness, overt or covert. It is indeed consciousness that lies at the root of existence the basic substance, Matter is nothing but consciousness become unconscious; and the whole Scheme or processus of the cosmos is the increasing manifestation and expression of that consciousness. Secondly, the other character is that at each cross-over, there is not only a rise in consciousness but also a reversal of consciousness, that is to say, the level attained turns back upon the preceding levels, influencing and moulding them as far as possible in its own mode and law of existence. When life appeared in Matter, wherever there was material life, the matter thus taken up by life behaved differently from dead matter: an organic body does not follow the strict mechanical laws of inanimate bodies. Likewise a life endowed with mind has a different functioning than mere life. And a body which houses a life and mind, which has, as it were, flowered into life and mind moves and acts in another way than an inert body or even a vitalised body. Man's intelligence and reason have reoriented or tend to reorient his vital instincts and reactions, even his bodily functions and forms. A conscious regulation, even refashioning of his life and body is the very essence of human consciousness, the urge of his nature, instead of a spontaneous laissez-faire movement of pure vitality or the mechanical go-round of the material base. These three major provinces or layers of consciousness Matter, Life and Mindman has taken up into himself and in the light of his consciousness his Intelligencehas studied and classified them arranging them serially as the well-known sciences of Physics Biology and Psychology.
Now, Sri Aurobindo says, evolution marches onward and will rise beyond mind to another status of consciousness which he calls Supermind. In the earthly Scheme there will thus manifest a new type, a higher functioning of consciousness and a new race or species will appear on earth with this new consciousness as the ruling principle. Out of the rock and mineral came the plant, out of the plant the animal, out of the mere animal man has come and out of man the Superman will come inevitably.
Standing on the mental plane, immured within the dimensions of Reason and mental intelligence, it is not easy to contemplate the type of consciousness that will be; even as it was difficult for the ape to envisage the advent of his successor, man. But certain characteristic signs, rudimentary or fragmentary movements of the higher status are visible in the mental consciousness even as it is: the ape likewise was not without a glimmer of Reason and logic, even the faculty of ratiocination that seems to be the exclusive property of man. There is, for example, a movement we call Intuition, so different from Reason to which even Scientists and Mathematicians acknowledge their debt of gratitude for so many of their discoveries and inventions. There is also the other analogous movement called Inspiration that rules the poet and the artist disclosing to them a world of beauty and reality that is not available to the normal human consciousness. Again, there is yet another group of human beings at the top of the ladder of evolutionmystics and sageswho see the truth, possess the truth direct through a luminous immediacy of perception, called Revelation. Now, all these functionings of consciousness that happen frequently enough within the domain of normal humanity are still expressions of a higher mode of consciousness: they are not the product or play of Reason or logical intelligence which marks the character, the differentia of human consciousness.
1.11 - BOOK THE ELEVENTH, #Metamorphoses, #Ovid, #Poetry
The work, from Schemes magnificent begun,
At vast expence was slowly carry'd on:
1.11 - FAITH IN MAN, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
abstract Scheme tends of its nature to resolve in an arbitrary fash-
ion, and perhaps prematurely for the whole, the ambiguity of the
1.11 - The Kalki Avatar, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
in which fit the partially valid Schemes of the religions and
mythologies of the past.
1.11 - Works and Sacrifice, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The strong perception of the great cosmic action and the eternal activity and power of the cosmic energy which was so much emphasised afterwards by the teaching of the Tantric Shaktas who even made Prakriti or Shakti superior to Purusha, is a very remarkable feature of the Gita. Although here an undertone, it is still strong enough, coupled with what we might call the theistic and devotional elements of its thought, to bring in that activism which so strongly modifies in its Scheme of Yoga the quietistic tendencies of the old metaphysical Vedanta. Man embodied in the natural world cannot cease from action, not for a moment, not for a second; his very existence here is an action; the whole universe is an act of God, mere living even is His movement.
Our physical life, its maintenance, its continuance is a journey, a pilgrimage of the body, sarra-yatra, and that cannot be effected without action. But even if a man could leave his body unmaintained, otiose, if he could stand still always like a tree or sit inert like a stone, tis.t.hati, that vegetable or material immobility would not save him from the hands of Nature; he would not be liberated from her workings. For it is not our physical movements and activities alone which are meant by works, by karma; our mental existence also is a great complex action, it is even the greater and more important part of the works of the unresting energy, - subjective cause and determinant of the physical. We have gained nothing if we repress the effect but
1.12 - Delight of Existence - The Solution, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
11:In the things of the mind this pure habitual relativity of the reactions of pleasure and pain is not difficult to perceive. The nervous being in us, indeed, is accustomed to a certain fixedness, a false impression of absoluteness in these things. To it victory, success, honour, good fortune of all kinds are pleasant things in themselves, absolutely, and must produce joy as sugar must taste sweet; defeat, failure, disappointment, disgrace, evil fortune of all kinds are unpleasant things in themselves, absolutely, and must produce grief as wormwood must taste bitter. To vary these responses is to it a departure from fact, abnormal and morbid; for the nervous being is a thing enslaved to habit and in itself the means devised by Nature for fixing constancy of reaction, sameness of experience, the settled Scheme of man's relations to life. The mental being on the other hand is free, for it is the means she has devised for flexibility and variation, for change and progress; it is subject only so long as it chooses to remain subject, to dwell in one mental habit rather than in another or so long as it allows itself to be dominated by its nervous instrument. It is not bound to be grieved by defeat, disgrace, loss: it can meet these things and all things with a perfect indifference; it can even meet them with a perfect gladness. Therefore man finds that the more he refuses to be dominated by his nerves and body, the more he draws back from implication of himself in his physical and vital parts, the greater is his freedom. He becomes the master of his own responses to the world's contacts, no longer the slave of external touches.
12:In regard to physical pleasure and pain, it is more difficult to apply the universal truth; for this is the very domain of the nerves and the body, the centre and seat of that in us whose nature is to be dominated by external contact and external pressure. Even here, however, we have glimpses of the truth. We see it in the fact that according to the habit the same physical contact can be either pleasurable or painful, not only to different individuals, but to the same individual under different conditions or at different stages of his development. We see it in the fact that men in periods of great excitement or high exaltation remain physically indifferent to pain or unconscious of pain under contacts which ordinarily would inflict severe torture or suffering. In many cases it is only when the nerves are able to reassert themselves and remind the mentality of its habitual obligation to suffer that the sense of suffering returns. But this return to the habitual obligation is not inevitable; it is only habitual. We see that in the phenomena of hypnosis not only can the hypnotised subject be successfully forbidden to feel the pain of a wound or puncture when in the abnormal state, but can be prevented with equal success from returning to his habitual reaction of suffering when he is awakened. The reason of this phenomenon is perfectly simple; it is because the hypnotiser suspends the habitual waking consciousness which is the slave of nervous habits and is able to appeal to the subliminal mental being in the depths, the inner mental being who is master, if he wills, of the nerves and the body. But this freedom which is effected by hypnosis abnormally, rapidly, without true possession, by an alien will, may equally be won normally, gradually, with true possession, by one's own will so as to effect partially or completely a victory of the mental being over the habitual nervous reactions of the body.
1.13 - Under the Auspices of the Gods, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
life. But life is not changed through miracles; it is changed through instruments, and we have only one instrument the Mind. So if we want to look sensibly at our future, without being carried away by present circumstances and their apparent triumphs others have triumphed before us, at Thebes, at Athens, at Ujjain we must look more closely at our instrument, the Mind; for as the Mind is, so will be our future. Indeed, it would appear that the most beautiful ideas, the highest creative Schemes, the purest acts of love all become distorted,
counterfeited, polluted the minute they reach the level of life. Nothing reaches us in its pure form. Mentally, we have already devised the most ingenious systems, but Life has never accepted them. Barely twenty years after Lenin, to speak only of our present civilization,
--
while others would be in the beam of integral Communism based on fraternal love (given the current evolutionary trend, however, these beams would more than likely be made of a hard light, centered around some economic or titanic ideology). Yet even if such divine centers were to appear on the earth, not only would their brand of unity go against life's diversity, but they would also be constantly threatened by the surrounding darkness; humans are at unequal stages of development a fact we always tend to forget. This is the eternal weakness in all our grand Schemes. Our centers of grace would be like
215
1.14 - The Book of Magic Formulae, #The Practice of Magical Evocation, #Franz Bardon, #Occultism
First of all the book of formulae is not to be understood in a literal sense, for the expression "magic spells" or "magical formulae" used in the grimoires has served as a cloak for certain ideas. In other cases its object has been to take away the magician's consciousness from its normal state by barbaric words, names and expressions, and thus bring him into a state of ecstasy in which, it is assumed, he is able to influence a being. But generally speaking, the only success that untrained persons will have in this case, is hallucinations, phantoms or delusions, or incomplete, mediumistic results which need not be dealt with here. Usually such mediumistic results are, provided that they are genuine at all, the outcome of the extoriorisation of the person's unconsciousness. Sometimes elementals, and, should the person concerned have a strong capability for emanation, even elementaries might be formed which the genuine magician has already been informed about in "Initiation into Hermetics". These elementaries are falsely regarded as the beings which are the object of evocation, and a person whose astral senses have not yet been sufficiently developed is not able to tell the difference or to control the situation. Therefore readers are warned against trying to practise ritual magic without necessary training. Apart from disappointments, the disturbances in the person's spirit and soul could have most regrettable consequences for the health. A genuine magician who has completed his magical training, may, however, without any danger whatever, safely practise ritual magic. This field of magic is no place for dabbler's experiments but a Scheme of operation which facilitates the magical labour for the mature magician with already developed powers.
The book of formulae, sometimes wrongly called the book of spirits, is the genuine magical diary of the magician practising ritual magic, in which he enters, step by step, the procedures of his ritual in order to be able to follow every point conscientiously up to his goal. Some readers might wish to know how mutilated charms, furmulae for incantation etc. could ever develop? From the days of yore the secret of magic has been restricted to high castes, potentates, kings and high priests. In order that the real truth, that true ideas and spiritual facts might never be known by the public, many code-words and secret formulae have been introduced, the deciphering of which has been reserved to the mature. The key for these codes was only transferred upon mature persons by word of mouth, and their profanation was punished with death. This is the reason why this science has remained a secret up to our time and it will continue to remain an occult and mystic science even if it is directly published, as the immature und profane person will regard it all as delusion or fantastic nonsense and, depending on his grade of maturity and psychic receptivity, will always have at hand an individual interpretation or view of this science. The most secret matters will thus never lose their occult tradition and there will always be but a few people who will profit by it. If a person who is not an initiate gets such a book of magic formulae in his hands and does not know the key to it, he will take everything in its literal sense without knowing that the particular words and formulae are nothing but aids for the magician's memory and that it is a schematic layout for the ritual work of a true magician. This makes it clear why sometimes the most senseless words have been used as magic charms to evoke a certain being. But the book of formulae is a proper note-book in which the genuine magician writes the whole procedure of his magic operations from beginning to end. If he is not sure that his book will never fall into the hands of another person, he will have to use, point by point, code-names. I can only give here a few instructions. These will, however, enable the magician to procede according to his own taste and ideas.
1.14 - The Principle of Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But let us clearly understand that they must not be interpreted, as the modern pragmatic tendency concerned much more with the present affairs of the world than with any high and far-off spiritual possibility seeks to interpret them, as no more than a philosophical and religious justification of social service, patriotic, cosmopolitan and humanitarian effort and attachment to the hundred eager social Schemes and dreams which attract the modern intellect. It is not the rule of a large moral and intellectual altruism which is here announced, but that of a spiritual unity with God and with this world of beings who dwell in him and in whom he dwells. It is not an injunction to subordinate the individual to society and humanity or immolate egoism on the altar of the human collectivity, but to fulfil the individual in God and to sacrifice the ego on the one true altar of the allembracing Divinity. The Gita moves on a plane of ideas and experiences higher than those of the modern mind which is at the stage indeed of a struggle to shake off the coils of egoism, but is still mundane in its outlook and intellectual and moral rather than spiritual in its temperament. Patriotism, cosmopolitanism, service of society, collectivism, humanitarianism, the ideal or religion of humanity are admirable aids towards our escape from our primary condition of individual, family, social, national egoism into a secondary stage in which the individual realises, as far as it can be done on the intellectual, moral and emotional level, - on that level he cannot do it entirely in the right and perfect way, the way of the integral truth of his being, - the oneness of his existence with the existence of other beings. But
The Principle of Divine Works
1.15 - The Possibility and Purpose of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Lord of all existences"; and we have to read in the light of these ideas this passage we find before us and its declaration that by the knowledge of his divine birth and divine works men come to the Divine and by becoming full of him and even as he and taking refuge in him they arrive at his nature and status of being, madbhavam. For then we shall understand the divine birth and its object, not as an isolated and miraculous phenomenon, but in its proper place in the whole Scheme of the world-manifestation; without that we cannot arrive at its divine mystery, but shall either scout it altogether or accept it ignorantly and, it may be, superstitiously or fall into the petty and superficial ideas of the
150
--
The idea of the Avatar is not indeed indispensable to its Scheme, but it comes in naturally into it as a perfectly rational and logical conception. For all here is God, is the Spirit or Self-existence, is Brahman, ekamevadvityam, - there is nothing else, nothing other and different from it and there can be nothing else, can be nothing other and different from it; Nature is and can be nothing else than a power of the divine consciousness; all beings are and can be nothing else than inner and outer, subjective and objective soul-forms and bodily forms of the divine being which exist in or result from the power of its consciousness. Far from the Infinite being unable to take on finiteness, the whole universe is nothing else but that; we can see, look as we may, nothing else at all in the whole wide world we inhabit. Far from the Spirit being incapable of form or disdaining to connect itself with form of matter or mind and to assume a limited nature or a body, all here is nothing but that, the world exists only by that connection, that assumption. Far from the world being a mechanism of law with no soul or spirit intervening in the movement of its forces or the action of its minds and bodies, - only some original indifferent Spirit passively existing somewhere outside or above it, - the whole world and every particle of it is on the contrary nothing but the divine force in action and that divine force determines and governs its every movement, inhabits its every form, possesses here every soul and mind; all is in God and in him moves and has its being, in all he is, acts and displays his being; every creature is the disguised Narayana.
Far from the unborn being unable to assume birth, all beings
1.16 - The Process of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
did to the question of its possibility, because it is necessary to look at it and face the difficulties which the reasoning mind of man is likely to offer to it. It is true that the physical Avatarhood does not fill a large space in the Gita, but still it does occupy a definite place in the chain of its teachings and is implied in the whole Scheme, the very framework being the Avatar leading the vibhuti, the man who has risen to the greatest heights of mere manhood, to the divine birth and divine works. No doubt, too, the inner descent of the Godhead to raise the human soul into himself is the main thing, - it is the inner Christ, Krishna or
Buddha that matters. But just as the outer life is of immense importance for the inner development, so the external Avatarhood is of no mean importance for this great spiritual manifestation.
1.201 - Socrates, #Symposium, #Plato, #Philosophy
That is quite a long story, she said, but I will tell you all the same. When Aphrodite was born,156 all the gods held a feast. One of those present was Poros157 (Resource), whose mother was Metis158 (Cleverness). When the feast was over, Penia (Poverty) came begging, as happens on these occasions, and she stood by the door. Poros got drunk on the nectar in those days wine did not exist and having wandered into the garden of Zeus was overcome with drink and went to sleep. Then Penia, because she herself had no resource, thought of a Scheme to have a child by Poros, and accordingly she lay down beside him and became pregnant with a son, Love. Because Love was conceived during Aphrodites birthday feast and also because he is by his daimon (the source of English demon), which can mean a god but often denotes a lesser or local deity. Here Diotima characterises Love as a lesser deity, something between a god and a human. The Greeks of Platos day would usually have thought of Love simply as a god, but not one of the most important, Olympian, deities. See Gods and Love in Glossary of names. daimonios, a man of the spirit, spiritual; see footnote 151 above. techne. 154 cheirourgia. 155 banausos (English banausic).
Diotima appears to follow the story that Aphrodite was the normally-born child of Zeus and
--
No, you have Schemed to take a place beside the best-looking man in the room.
Agathon, keep him off, please, cried Socrates. I must say my passion for him has become quite a burden. From the moment I fell in love with him I have not been allowed to look at or talk to a single goodlooking man, or if I do so this man here gets jealous and resentful and his behaviour is quite extraordinary he hurls insults at me and all but hits me. Take care he doesnt do something like this now. Do keep the peace between us, or if he tries to use force, protect me, because I am completely terrified by his mad obsession with being loved.
12.01 - The Return to Earth, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To draw the chequered Scheme of mortal life
Into some semblance of the Immortal's plan,
1.240 - 1.300 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
A question was asked regarding the position of one whose jnana is weak in the Scheme of things. The doubt was if that manda Jnani had stopped short of kevala nirvikalpa.
M.: Kevala nirvikalpa happens even in the tanumanasi stage (of attenuated mind).
1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
A question was asked regarding the position of one whose jnana is weak in the Scheme of things. The doubt was if that manda Jnani had stopped short of kevala nirvikalpa.
M.: Kevala nirvikalpa happens even in the tanumanasi stage (of attenuated mind).
--
Now, what is this I-thought (the ego)? Is it the subject or the object, in the Scheme of things?
Inasmuch as it witnesses all other objects in the waking and dream states, or at any rate we think that it does so, it must be considered to be the subject. On realising the Pure Self, however, it will be an object only.
--
Mrs Jennings: Sri Bhagavan says that the state of Realisation is freedom from the tyranny of thoughts. Have not the thoughts got a place in the Scheme of things - maybe on a lower plane?
M.: The thoughts arise from the I-thought which in its turn arises from the Self. Therefore the Self manifests as I and other thoughts.
1.26 - On discernment of thoughts, passions and virtues, #The Ladder of Divine Ascent, #Saint John of Climacus, #unset
A good Scheme for the advanced, and evidence of their progress is: absence of vainglory, freedom from anger, good hope, silence, discernment, firm remembrance of the judgment, compassion, hospitality, moderation in reproof, passionless prayer, disregard of self.
And here is a standard, rule and law for those in the flesh who are piously aiming at perfection in spirit and body:
1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Now, what is this 'I-thought' (the ego)? Is it the subject or the object, in the Scheme of things?
Inasmuch as it witnesses all other objects in the waking and dream states, or at any rate we think that it does so, it must be considered to be the subject. On realising the Pure Self, however, it will be an object only.
--
Mrs Jennings: Sri Bhagavan says that the state of Realisation is freedom from the tyranny of thoughts. Have not the thoughts got a place in the Scheme of things - maybe on a lower plane?
M.: The thoughts arise from the 'I-thought' which in its turn arises from the Self. Therefore the Self manifests as 'I' and other thoughts.
13.01 - A Centurys Salutation to Sri Aurobindo The Greatness of the Great, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 05, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
In the Scheme and pattern of human existence in the hierarchy that is collective life, Sri Aurobindo sought to express the play of the supreme Truth, express materially that which works always in secret and behind the veil. The Supreme Reality is not merely the supreme awareness and consciousness, but it is a power and a force; and it holds still a secret source that has not yet been touched,touched consciously by the human consciousness and utilised for world existence. Man's genius has contacted today in the material world material forces which are almost immaterial the extra-galactic radiation, the laser beams and other energies of that category which are powerful in an unbelievable unheard of 'degree. Even so in the consciousness, there is a mode of force which is not only a force that knows but creates, not only creates but transforms. That force at its intrinsic optimum can enter into dull matter and transforming it, transform into radiant matter, radiant not only with the physical, the solar light but the light of the supreme Spirit.
This is the force which Sri Aurobindo has disclosed and put at the disposal of mankind. This is the force he has set free that is creating a new world,reorganising and remoulding, through a great travail indeed, our ancient sphere that will cradle the earth of the golden age.
1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
M.: That is good. If you surrender yourself to the Higher Power all is well. That Power sees your affairs through. Only so long as you think that you are the worker you are obliged to reap the fruits of your actions. If on the other hand, you surrender yourself and recognise your individual self as only a tool of the Higher Power, that Power will take over your affairs along with the fruits of actions. You are no longer affected by them and the work goes on unhampered. Whether you recognise the Power or not the Scheme of things does not alter.
Only there is a change of outlook. Why should you bear your load on the head when you are travelling on a train? It carries you and your load whether the load is on your head or on the floor of the train.
--
Realisation. Such is the Scheme of the stotra.
Which is the darpana (mirror) here? A mirror, as we know it, is an insentient object which reflects light. What corresponds to a mirror in an individual? The light of the Self-luminous Self is reflected on the
1.45 - Unserious Conduct of a Pupil, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Well, as to (a), everything is absurd. The Universe is not constructed to gratify the mania of "social planners" and their tedipus kind. As to (b), there you said something; the refutation will lead us to open a new chapter. Ought not X. to have laid down a comprehensive Scheme, and worked out the details, so that he would not break down half-way through for lack of foresight and provision for emergencies?
An example. Suppose that the next step in his Work involved the sacrifice of a camel in a house in Tooting Bec, furnished in such fashion as his Grimoire laid down, and that the purchase of the house left him without resources to buy that furniture, to say nothing of the camel. What a fool!
1.52 - Family - Public Enemy No. 1, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
A sound Scheme: that is, provided that one has full confidence in the General Theory. But we Caucasians happen not to believe in the Vedas, at least not in the dyed-in-the-wool sense which comes natural to the budding Brahmin; as to "our own" why our own? scriptures, no intelligent person takes them seriously any more. Some folk whittle away merrily, and fashion a Saviour in their own images; others strain the text and concoct a symbolic interpretation which is more or less satisfying as can be done with any bunch of legends. But such devices leave us without Accepted Authority, and without that nobody is going to gamble away his life. Thus the Path for men of spiritual integrity begins with absolute scepticism. Our methods must be exclusively inductive.
"Gamble away his life," did I say? Indeed I did. If there is any truth at all in anything, or even any meaning in life, in Nature herself; then there is one thing, one thing only paramount: to find out who one is, what is one's necessary Way.
1.550 - 1.600 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Realisation. Such is the Scheme of the stotra.
Which is the darpana (mirror) here? A mirror, as we know it, is an insentient object which reflects light. What corresponds to a mirror in an individual? The light of the Self-luminous Self is reflected on the
1.77 - Work Worthwhile - Why?, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
You say that I have advanced an invulnerable theory of the Universe in philosophical and mathematical language, and you suppose (underlined three times with two question marks) that one could, with a great effort, deduce therefrom perfectly good reasons for an unswerving contemplation of one's umbilicus, or the performance of strange dances and the vibration of mysterious names. But what are you to say (you enquire) to the ordinary Bloke-on-the-Boulevard, to the man of the world who has acquired a shrewd knowledge of Nature, but finds no rational guide to the conduct of life. He observes many unsatisfactory elements in the way things go, and for his own sake would like to "remould them nearer to the heart's desire, to refurbish the clich of Fitzgerald about "this sorry Scheme of things." He is not in the least interested in the learned exposition of 0 = 2. But he is aware that the AA professes a sound solution of the problem of conduct and would like to know if its programme can be justified in terms of Common Sense.
As luck would have it, only a few weeks ago I was asked to address a group of just such people and they gave me three-quarters of an hour's notice. It was really more like ten minutes, as the rest of the time was bespoke by letter-writing and posting which could in no wise be postponed.
--
Now in Nature it leaps at one that Will and Intelligence are behind phenomena. My old friend and colleague Professor Buckmaster, who wrote a book on "Blood" which, he admitted, could not possibly be understood by more than six people, told me that the ingenuity of the structure of the human kidney "almost frightened" him. Yet in all Nature there is no trace whatever of any purpose such as human mentality can grasp. Again, apparent purpose often appears to be baffled. Take one example. Evolution, working through thousands of years to establish a most subtle Scheme of cross-fertilization, found, just as it was perfect, conditions so altered that it was completely useless.
The "law of cause and effect" itself took a death-blow when Hesinger showed that the old formula "If A then B" was invalid, and must be altered to "If A, then B or C or D or E or . . . "
1929-04-28 - Offering, general and detailed - Integral Yoga - Remembrance of the Divine - Reading and Yoga - Necessity, predetermination - Freedom - Miracles - Aim of creation, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No, the universe is a movement that is eternally unrolling itself. There is nothing which you can fix upon as the end and one aim. But for the sake of action we have to section the movement, which is itself unending, and to say that this or that is the goal, for in action we need something upon which we can fix our aim. In a picture you need a definite Scheme of composition and colour; you have to set a limit, to put the whole thing within a fixed framework; but the limit is illusory, the frame is a mere convention. There is a constant continuation of the picture that stretches beyond any particular frame, and each continuation can be drawn in the same conditions in an unending series of frames. Our aim is this or that, we say, but we know that it is only the beginning of another aim beyond it, and that in its turn leads to yet another; the series develop always and never stop.
***
1929-06-23 - Knowledge of the Yogi - Knowledge and the Supermind - Methods of changing the condition of the body - Meditation, aspiration, sincerity, #Questions And Answers 1929-1931, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Thus, if you go deep into silence, you can reach a level of consciousness on which it is not impossible for you to receive answers to all your questions. And if there is one who is consciously open to the plenary truth of the supermind, in constant contact with it, he can certainly answer any question that is worth an answer from the supramental Light. The queries put must come from some sense of the truth and reality behind things. There are many questions and much debated problems that are cobwebs woven of mere mental abstractions or move on the illusory surface of things. These do not pertain to real knowledge; they are a deformation of knowledge, their very substance is of the ignorance. Certainly the supramental knowledge may give an answer, its own answer, to the problems set by the minds ignorance; but it is likely that it would not be at all satisfactory or perhaps even intelligible to those who ask from the mental level. You must not expect the supramental to work in the way of the mind or demand that the knowledge in truth should be capable of being pieced together with the half-knowledge in ignorance. The Scheme of the mind is one thing, but Supermind is quite another and it would no longer be supramental if it adapted itself to the exigencies of the mental Scheme. The two are incommensurable and cannot be put together.
When the consciousness has attained to supramental joys, does it no longer take interest in the things of the mind?
1951-03-01 - Universe and the Divine - Freedom and determinism - Grace - Time and Creation- in the Supermind - Work and its results - The psychic being - beauty and love - Flowers- beauty and significance - Choice of reincarnating psychic being, #Questions And Answers 1950-1951, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In a picture you need a definite Scheme of composition and colour; you have to set a limit, to put the whole thing within a fixed framework; but the limit is illusory, the frame is a mere convention. There is a constant continuation of the picture that stretches beyond any particular frame, and each continuation can be drawn in the same conditions in an unending series of frames. Our aim is this or that, we say, but we know that it is only the beginning of another aim beyond it, and that in its turn leads to yet another.
Questions and Answers 1929 (28 April)
1958-05-07 - The secret of Nature, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In the earliest stages of evolutionary Nature we are met by the dumb secrecy of her inconscience; there is no revelation of any significance or purpose in her works, no hint of any other principles of being than that first formulation which is her immediate preoccupation and seems to be for ever her only business: for in her primal works Matter alone appears, the sole dumb and stark cosmic reality. A Witness of creation, if there had been one conscious but uninstructed, would only have seen appearing out of a vast abyss of an apparent non-existence an Energy busy with the creation of Matter, a material world and material objects, organising the infinity of the Inconscient into the Scheme of a boundless universe or a system of countless universes that stretched around him into Space without any certain end or limit, a tireless creation of nebulae and star-clusters and suns and planets, existing only for itself, without a sense in it, empty of cause or purpose. It might have seemed to him a stupendous machinery without a use, a mighty meaningless movement, an aeonic spectacle without a witness, a cosmic edifice without an inhabitant; for he would have seen no sign of an indwelling Spirit, no being for whose delight it was made. A creation of this kind could only be the outcome of an inconscient Energy or an illusion-cinema, a shadow-play or puppet-play of forms reflected on a superconscient indifferent Absolute. He would have seen no evidence of a soul and no hint of Mind or Life in this immeasurable and interminable display of Matter. It would not have seemed to him possible or imaginable that there could at all be in this desert universe for ever inanimate and insensible an outbreak of teeming life, a first vibration of something occult and incalculable, alive and conscious, a secret spiritual entity feeling its way towards the surface.
The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 848-49
1970 02 07, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
322The communistic principle of society is intrinsically as superior to the individualistic as is brotherhood to jealousy and mutual slaughter; but all the practical Schemes of Socialism invented in Europe are a yoke, a tyranny and a prison.
323If communism ever re-establishes itself successfully upon earth, it must be on a foundation of souls brotherhood and the death of egoism. A forced association and a mechanical comradeship would end in a world-wide fiasco.
1.A - ANTHROPOLOGY, THE SOUL, #Philosophy of Mind, #unset, #Zen
(b) Where a human being's senses and intellect are sound, he is fully and intelligently alive to that reality of his which gives concrete filling to his individuality: but he is awake to it in the form of interconnection between himself and the features of that reality conceived as an external and a separate world, and he is aware that this world is in itself also a complex of interconnections of a practically intelligible kind. In his subjective ideas and plans he has also before him this causally connected Scheme of things he calls his world and the series of means which bring his ideas and his purposes into adjustment with the objective existences, which are also means and ends to each other. At the same time, this world which is outside him has its threads in him to such a degree that it is these threads which make him what he really is: he too would become extinct if these externalities were to disappear, unless by the aid of religion, subjective reason, and character, he is in a remarkable degree selfsupporting and independent of them. But, then, in the latter case he is less susceptible of the psychical state here spoken of. - As an illustration of that identity with the surroundings may be noted the effect produced by the death of beloved relatives, friends, etc. on those left behind, so that the one dies or pines away with the loss of the other. (Thus Cato, after the downfall of the Roman republic, could live no longer: his inner reality was neither wider nor higher than it.) Compare home-sickness, and the like.
(c) But when all that occupies the waking consciousness, the world outside it and its relationship to that world, is under a veil, and the soul is thus sunk in sleep (in magnetic sleep, in catalepsy, and other diseases, for example, those connected with female development, or at the approach of death, etc.), then that immanent actuality of the individual remains the same substantial total as before, but now as a purely sensitive life with an inward vision and an inward consciousness. And because it is the adult, formed, and developed consciousness which is degraded into this state of sensitivity, it retains along with its content a certain nominal self-hood, a formal vision and awareness, which, however, does not go so far as the conscious judgement or discernment by which its contents, when it is healthy and awake, exist for it as an outward objectivity. The individual is thus a monad which is inwardly aware of its actuality - a genius which beholds itself. The characteristic point in such knowledge is that the very same facts (which for the healthy consciousness are an objective practical reality, and to know which, in its sober moods, it needs the intelligent chain of means and conditions in all their real expansion) are now immediately known and perceived in this immanence. This perception is a sort of clairvoyance; for it is a consciousness living in the undivided substantiality of the genius, and finding itself in the very heart of the interconnection, and so can dispense with the series of conditions, external one to another, which lead up to the result - conditions which cool reflection has in succession to traverse and in so doing feels the limits of its own external individuality. But such clairvoyance - just because its dim and turbid vision does not present the facts in a rational interconnection - is for that very reason at the mercy of every private contingency of feeling and fancy, etc. - not to mention that foreign suggestions (see later) intrude into its vision. It is thus impossible to make out whether what the clairvoyants really see preponderates over what they deceive themselves in. - But it is absurd to treat this visionary state as a sublime mental phase and as a truer state, capable of conveying general truths.[5]
1.anon - Enuma Elish (When on high), #Anonymous - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Ea, the all wise, saw through their Scheme.
A master design against it he devised and setup,
--
To relate to him a Scheme for the relief of the gods:
"Let but one of their brothers be handed over;"
1f.lovecraft - Facts concerning the Late, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
included in the old mans madly murderous Scheme. Sir Robert himself,
after repeated attempts at suicide and a stubborn refusal to utter any
1f.lovecraft - The Disinterment, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
he outlined the whole grisly Scheme. He had found in Haiti a drug, the
formula for which he would develop later, which induced a state of
1f.lovecraft - The Electric Executioner, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
I would spring the revelation and prophecy. The Scheme worked, for
his eyes glowed an eager assent, though he brusquely told me to be
1f.lovecraft - The Horror in the Museum, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Schemeas if the sculptor had sought to cover up a defect of his first
modelling. The more Jones looked at it, the more mysteriously it
1f.lovecraft - The Nameless City, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
formed a continuous Scheme of mural painting whose lines and colours
were beyond description. The cases were of a strange golden wood, with
1f.lovecraft - The Shadow out of Time, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
curvilinear decorative Scheme made hellish to me through years of
tormenting nightmare and baffling research.
1f.lovecraft - The Shunned House, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
necessity be in our Scheme of things an anomaly and an intruder, whose
extirpation forms a primary duty with every man not an enemy to the
1f.lovecraft - The Trap, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
of course the Scheme of reversed colorsbright red grass, yellow sky
with confused black and gray cloud-forms, white tree-trunks, and green
1f.lovecraft - The Whisperer in Darkness, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
daylight time Schemes. As I did so it seemed to me that I was likewise
turning the calendar back a century.
1.fs - Fame And Duty, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
Ere perfect Scheme of action thou devise
Will life be fled,
1.fs - The Artists, #Schiller - Poems, #Friedrich Schiller, #Poetry
Before Eternity's vast Scheme
Was to the thinker's mind revealed,
--
The fair members of the world's vast Scheme,
That, maimed, disgrace on his creation bring,
1.lovecraft - The Poe-ets Nightmare, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
And weaves an hundred Ravens in his Schemes.
Not far from our young hero's peaceful home,
1.okym - 73 - Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Edward FitzGerald Original Language Persian/Farsi Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits -- and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire! [bk1sm.gif] -- from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Omar Khayyam / Translated by Edward FitzGerald <
1.pbs - Hymn To Mercury, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
A Schemer subtle beyond all belief;
A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing,
--
I in my subtle brain a Scheme have got,
Which whilst the sacred stars round Heaven are rolled
--
A Scheme devised the illustrious Argiphont.
...
--
Devising Schemes for the affairs of mortals--
I am guiltless; and I will requite,
--
You heifer-stealing Schemer, well do you
Deserve that fifty oxen should requite
1.pbs - Oedipus Tyrannus or Swellfoot The Tyrant, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
And spell some Scheme to make it ugly then.
[Exit.
--
Like you should be so beardless in their Schemes;
It had been but a point of policy
--
Confounding the Schemes of the wisest;
When thou liftest thy skeleton form,
1.pbs - Peter Bell The Third, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Which last is a Scheme of paper money,
And meansbeing interpreted
1.pbs - Prometheus Unbound, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
The powers who Scheme slow agonies in Hell,
And my commission is to lead them here,
1.pbs - Queen Mab - Part V., #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
These puppets of his Schemes he moves at will,
Even as the slaves by force or famine driven,
1.pbs - The Sensitive Plant, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Was as God is to the starry Scheme.
A Lady, the wonder of her kind,
1.pbs - The Witch Of Atlas, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Of many thousand Schemes which lovers find,
The Witch found one,and so they took their fill
1.pbs - War, #Shelley - Poems, #Percy Bysshe Shelley, #Fiction
Plans for the field of death his plodding Schemes;
Not whilst for private pique the public fall,
1.rb - Abt Vogler, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
Each sufferer says his say, his Scheme of the weal and woe:
But God has a few of us whom he whispers in the ear;
1.rb - Aix In Provence, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
All points to one, he must have Schemed!
That miserable morning saw
1.rb - Bishop Blougram's Apology, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
All day, I build, Scheme, study, and make friends;
And when night overtakes me, down I lie,
--
You dare to make the most of your life's Scheme
As I of mine, live up to its full law
--
A statesman with a Scheme to stop this war,
An artist whose religion is his art
1.rb - Cleon, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
Upon the Scheme of earth and man in chief,
That admiration grows as knowledge grows?
--
(If I might add a glory to the Scheme),
That a third thing should stand apart from both,
1.rb - Introduction: Pippa Passes, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
And Schemed for, safe in love as with a charm;
Let me be Luigi! If I only knew
1.rb - Paracelsus - Part I - Paracelsus Aspires, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
Of our best Scheme of life, what is man's end
And what God's will; no two faiths e'er agreed
--
Of failure in my Scheme; so that at last
It all amounts to thisthe sovereign proof
--
This Scheme. I will not speak of Einsiedeln,
Where I was born your elder by some years
--
An arbitrary self-repugnant Scheme
Of seeking it in strange and untried paths.
1.rb - Paracelsus - Part IV - Paracelsus Aspires, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
But one good symptom in this notable Scheme.
I feared your sudden journey had in view
--
And its full length in perfecting my Scheme.
I view it sternly circumscribed, cast down
--
While I am moved at Basil, and full of Schemes
For Nuremberg, and hoping and despairing,
1.rb - Paracelsus - Part V - Paracelsus Attains, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
To manthe consummation of this Scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
--
One Scheme wound up: and from the grand result
A supplementary reflux of light,
1.rb - Pauline, A Fragment of a Question, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
On all things: Schemes and systems went and came,
And I was proud (being vainest of the weak)
1.rb - Pippa Passes - Part I - Morning, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
Over the wine and fruit. I had to Scheme
To get him from the fire. Nothing but saying
1.rb - Sordello - Book the Fifth, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
"As good a Scheme as any. What 's to pore
"At in my face?" he asked"ponder instead
--
Schemes with a vengeance, Schemes on Schemes, "not one
"Fit to be told that foolish boy," he said,
1.rb - Sordello - Book the Fourth, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
Why Schemes wherein cold-blooded men embark
Prosper, when your enthusiastic sort
--
If they desist; meantime their Scheme succeeds.
Thoughts were caprices in the course of deeds
--
Rome typifies the Scheme to put mankind
Once more in full possession of their rights.
1.rb - Sordello - Book the Second, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
When Azzo Schemed for Palma, to retrieve
That pledge of Agnes Esteloth to leave
--
At his success? The Scheme was realized
Too suddenly in one respect: a crowd
--
With self-reflectings by the Poet's Scheme,
Though ne'er so bright. Who sauntered forth in dream,
1.rb - Sordello - Book the Sixth, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
Matter beyond the Scheme and so prevent
By more or less that deed's accomplishment,
--
Old prophecy, and spite of all the Schemes
Overt and covert, youth's deeds, age's dreams,
1.rb - Sordello - Book the Third, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
"And Scheme against the next emergence, I
"To covet her Taurello-sprite, made fly
--
"Fragments of many miserable Schemes,
"Secrets, more secrets, thenno, not the last
--
"The complicated Scheme to make amends
"Evil, the Scheme by which, thro' Ignorance,
"Good labours to exist." A slight advance,
1.rwe - Alphonso Of Castile, #Emerson - Poems, #Ralph Waldo Emerson, #Philosophy
In Schemes of broader scope engage:
So shall ye have a man of the sphere,
1.whitman - As I Sat Alone By Blue Ontarios Shores, #Whitman - Poems, #unset, #Zen
The separate States, the simple, elastic Scheme, the immigrants,
The Union, always swarming with blatherers, and always sure and
1.whitman - Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, #Whitman - Poems, #unset, #Zen
The simple, compact, well-join'd Schememyself disintegrated, every
one disintegrated, yet part of the Scheme:
The similitude's of the past, and those of the future;
1.whitman - Quicksand Years, #Whitman - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Your Schemes, politics, faillines give waysubstances mock and
elude me;
1.whitman - Song Of The Universal, #Whitman - Poems, #unset, #Zen
For the Scheme's culminationits Thought, and its Reality,
For these, (not for thyself,) Thou hast arrived.
1.whitman - To Think Of Time, #Whitman - Poems, #unset, #Zen
That the exquisite Scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for
it, and the cohering is for it;
1.whitman - Unnamed Lands, #Whitman - Poems, #unset, #Zen
I know that they belong to the Scheme of the world every bit as much
as we now belong to it, and as all will henceforth belong to
1.ww - Artegal And Elidure, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
The sage enchanter Merlin's subtle Schemes;
The feats of Arthur and his knightly peers;
1.ww - Book Eleventh- France [concluded], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Had fitted their own thoughts, Schemers more mild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;--
--
To depravation, speculative Schemes--
That promised to abstract the hopes of Man
1.ww - Book Fifth-Books, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Out of the bowels of those very Schemes
In which his youth did first extravagate;
1.ww - Book First [Introduction-Childhood and School Time], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
We Schemed and puzzled, head opposed to head
In strife too humble to be named in verse:
1.ww - Book Fourth [Summer Vacation], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Of heady Schemes jostling each other, gawds
And feast and dance, and public revelry,
1.ww - Book Second [School-Time Continued], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
To every Scheme of holiday delight
And every boyish sport, less grateful else
1.ww - Book Sixth [Cambridge and the Alps], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Nor had, in truth, the Scheme been formed by me
Without uneasy forethought of the pain,
1.ww - Book Tenth {Residence in France continued], #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Then Schemes I framed more calmly, when and how
The madding factions might be tranquillised,
1.ww - Book Third [Residence at Cambridge], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
When she would enter on her tender Scheme
Of teaching comprehension with delight,
1.ww - Book Thirteenth [Imagination And Taste, How Impaired And Restored Concluded], #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Into its true proportion; sanguine Schemes,
Ambitious projects, pleased me less; I sought
--
Connected in a mighty Scheme of truth,
Have each his own peculiar faculty,
1.ww - Michael- A Pastoral Poem, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
And thus resumed:"Well, Isabel! this Scheme
These two days has been meat and drink to me.
1.ww - The Excursion- IV- Book Third- Despondency, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
In framing models to improve the Scheme
Of Man's existence, and recast the world,
--
Such was their Scheme: and though the wished-for end
By multitudes was missed, perhaps attained
1.ww - The Excursion- V- Book Fouth- Despondency Corrected, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
How, think you, would they tolerate this Scheme
Of fine propensities, that tends, if urged
1.ww - The Excursion- VII- Book Sixth- The Churchyard Among the Mountains, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Wishes and endless Schemes; by daylight walked
Giddy and restless; ever and anon
1.ww - The Excursion- X- Book Ninth- Discourse of the Wanderer, and an Evening Visit to the Lake, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
She vanished--eager to impart the Scheme
To her loved brother and his shy compeer.
1.ww - The French Revolution as it appeared to Enthusiasts, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Had fitted their own thoughts, Schemers more wild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves;
1.ww - The Prelude, Book 1- Childhood And School-Time, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
We Schemed and puzzled, head opposed to head
In strife too humble to be named in Verse.
1.ww - The Recluse - Book First, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Then farewell to the Warrior's Schemes, farewell
The forwardness of soul which looks that way
1.ww - Vaudracour And Julia, #Wordsworth - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Its presence tempted him to cherish Schemes
Of future happiness. "You shall return,
1.yt - This self-sufficient black lady has shaken things up, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
English version by Tarthang Tulku Listen, faithful Tibetans! I am merging with the fundamental, the ground of all that is--- physical pain and suffering are disappearing.... The son, the inner elements of my body, is reuniting with the mother, the outer elements. Her physical remains will disappear into earth and stone. The compassion of the Guru has never left me; his manifestations fill all the world and call out to welcome me. This wild lady has done everything; Many times have I come and gone, but now, no longer. I am a Tibetan wife sent back to her family. I shall now appear as the Queen, the All-good, the Dharmakaya. This self-sufficient black lady has shaken things up far and wide; now the shaking will carry me away into the southwest. I have finished with intrigues, with the fervent cascades of Schemes and deceptions; I am winding my way into the expanse of the Dharma. I have mourned many men of Tibet who have left me behind--- but now I am the one who will go to the land of the Buddhas. <
2.01 - On Books, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
6. Bhawni Mandir: There is a similarity to the Ananda Math in that both envisage spiritual life and politics together. The temple of Bhawani was to be there for initiating men for complete consecration to the service of Mother India. It was for preparing political Sannyasins. But this Scheme did not get materialised. Sri Aurobindo took to politics and Barin to revolution. The latter tried to find a place in the Vindhya mountains for the Bhawani Mandir. But he came back with mountain fever.
Norton's eloquent advocacy in the court, or the government's repression, had nothing to do with the failure of the Scheme. In fact it was never tried.
He states that Sri Aurobindo resigned from the National College because of the differences with the members of the committee.
2.02 - Meeting With the Goddess, #The Hero with a Thousand Faces, #Joseph Campbell, #Mythology
whether in man or in the general Scheme of things. It seems very probable that a
good many of the more pronouncedly idealistic tendencies in philosophy may owe
--
Before the gentle heart, in nature's Scheme,
Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love.
2.02 - On Letters, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
For instance, all these tall ideas like Madame Y's about regenerating India and taking up big Schemes and being regarded as big workers and saviours have got a fascination. One who wants to do the divine work must learn to forget the difference between important and unimportant work, small work and great work, till the work that is intended is found by him.
Disciple: She would profit spiritually only if she learnt from her work and her experience. India has got her own Dharma and work for her has to be done in keeping with her Dharma.
2.02 - THE EXPANSION OF LIFE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
arrived similarly at the quadruped formula. Tliis polvphvletic Scheme tits
the facts less well, in mv opinion. In anv case its truth would not in the least
2.02 - The Ishavasyopanishad with a commentary in English, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
all materialistic Schemes for a materialistic Paradise upon earth.
Paradise cannot be made upon the basis of food and drink,
2.03 - Karmayogin A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
Every system of ethics must have a sanction to validate its Scheme
of morals and an aim which will provide man the stimulus he
2.03 - On Medicine, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: It is these people who also get a sense of sin and the tendency to repent and humble themselves before others. Also they have very big ideas about themselves. They think they are very important in the universal Scheme.
(After a pause) This Yoga, to be done well, requires perfect balance. Therefore, those who have merely a general call for Yoga should not go in for this Yoga, because it opens a possibility for the Higher Consciousness to work as well as a possibility for the powers of the vital world to come and take possession. If a man has not got the perfect balance, it becomes easier for these powers to take possession of him. Sometimes the man who has no faith in things invisible is much better off than the man who has faith in them or the man who has a tendency towards occultism. He is generally free comparatively free from attacks from the subtle planes because he does not accept them and so is not open to them. While the man who believes in them gives them a chance. In this Yoga you must have a sane mind.
--
Nakashima's mother when she returned from America to Japan as is the custom with the Japanese was so horrified to see the present-day Japan that she went back to America! That the Japanese are not a spiritual race can be seen from the case of H, who was a great patriot and full of Schemes for the future, but at the same time did not like the modern trends of Japan. He used to say: "My psychic being has become a traitor."
Disciple: Have you read Noguchi's letter to Tagore defending Japans aggression?
2.04 - On Art, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: Does he mean to say that Michelangelo painted it keeping in view the masses and the colour Scheme? I thought aesthetics had something to do with beauty, and beauty is not only formal. It is also beauty of the emotion, in fact, beauty of the whole thing taken together.
Disciple: These modern critics have taken some of the formal elements of beauty and have tried to reduce all art to them. Form is certainly an element of beauty, but there are other things also. Roger Fry pays a great compliment to Tolstoy for pointing out that art is not in the object and the only purpose of art is communication. Art mainly conveys emotion from the artist to others.
2.04 - The Secret of Secrets, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
since his works are that Being's, he has to give up all his actions to the Godhead in him and the world by whom they are done in the divine mystery of Nature. This is the double condition of the divine birth of the soul, of its release from the mortality of the ego and the body into the spiritual and eternal, - knowledge first of one's timeless immutable self and union through it with the timeless Godhead, but knowledge too of that which lives behind the riddle of cosmos, the Godhead in all existences and their workings. Thus only can we aspire through the offering of all our nature and being to a living union with the One who has become in Time and Space all that is. Here is the place of bhakti in the Scheme of the Yoga of an integral self-liberation.
It is an adoration and aspiration towards that which is greater than imperishable self or changing Nature. All knowledge then becomes an adoration and aspiration, but all works too become an adoration and aspiration. Works of nature and freedom of soul are unified in this adoration and become one self-uplifting to the one Godhead. The final release, a passing away from the lower nature to the source of the higher spiritual becoming, is not an extinction of the soul, - only its form of ego becomes extinct,
2.05 - The Cosmic Illusion; Mind, Dream and Hallucination, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
of its operation; but, in reality, it is the mind's way or one of its ways of summoning out of Being its infinite possibilities, even of discovering or capturing the unknown possibilities of the Infinite. But, because it cannot do this with knowledge, it makes experimental constructions of truth and possibility and a yet unrealised actuality: as its power of receiving inspirations of Truth is limited, it imagines, hypothetises, questions whether this or that may not be truths; as its force to summon real potentials is narrow and restricted, it erects possibilities which it hopes to actualise or wishes it could actualise; as its power to actualise is cramped and confined by the material world's oppositions, it figures subjective actualisations to satisfy its will of creation and delight of self-presentation. But it is to be noted that through the imagination it does receive a figure of truth, does summon possibilities which are afterwards realised, does often by its imagination exercise an effective pressure on the world's actualities. Imaginations that persist in the human mind, like the idea of travel in the air, end often by self-fulfilment; individual thought-formations can actualise themselves if there is sufficient strength in the formation or in the mind that forms it. Imaginations can create their own potentiality, especially if they are supported in the collective mind, and may in the long run draw on themselves the sanction of the cosmic Will. In fact all imaginations represent possibilities: some are able one day to actualise in some form, perhaps a very different form of actuality; more are condemned to sterility because they do not enter into the figure or Scheme of the present creation, do not come within the permitted potentiality of the individual or do not accord with the collective or the generic principle or are alien to the nature or destiny of the containing world-existence.
Thus the mind's imaginations are not purely and radically illusory: they proceed on the basis of its experience of actualities or at least set out from that, are variations upon actuality, or they figure the "may-be"s or "might-be"s of the Infinite, what could be if other truths had manifested, if existing potentials had been otherwise arranged or other possibilities than those already admitted became potential. Moreover, through
2.06 - Reality and the Cosmic Illusion, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Illusionism is in occupation of a very solid ground; for, although it is in itself no more than a mental formulation, the experience it formulates into a philosophy accompanies a most powerful and apparently final spiritual realisation. It comes upon us with a great force of awakening to reality when the thought is stilled, when the mind withdraws from its constructions, when we pass into a pure selfhood void of all sense of individuality, empty of all cosmic contents: if the spiritualised mind then looks at individual and cosmos, they may well seem to it to be an illusion, a Scheme of names and figures and movements falsely imposed on the sole reality of the Self-Existent. Or even the sense of self becomes inadequate; both knowledge and ignorance disappear into sheer Consciousness and consciousness is plunged into a trance of pure superconscient existence. Or even existence ends by becoming too limiting a name for that which abides solely for ever; there is only a timeless Eternal, a spaceless Infinite, the utterness of the Absolute, a nameless Peace, an overwhelming single objectless Ecstasy. There can certainly be no doubt of the validity - complete within itself - of this experience; there can be no denial of the overwhelming decisive convincingness
- ekatma-pratyaya-saram - with which this realisation seizes the consciousness of the spiritual seeker. But still all spiritual experience is experience of the Infinite and it takes a multitude of directions; some of them - and not this alone - are so close to the Divine and the Absolute, so penetrated with the reality of Its presence or with the ineffable peace and power of the liberation from all that is less than It, that they carry with them this overwhelming sense of finality complete and decisive. There are a hundred ways of approaching the Supreme Reality and, as is the nature of the way taken, so will be the nature of the ultimate experience by which one passes into That which is ineffable, That of which no report can be given to the mind or expressed by any utterance. All these definitive culminations may be regarded as penultimates of the one Ultimate; they are steps by which the soul crosses the limits of Mind into the
2.07 - On Congress and Politics, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: The evils are bound to disappear. The different ideas and Schemes suggested in Europe show that those people are trying to correct the defects. Unless one enters into industrialism how can the evils be overcome?
Disciple: Will India have to pass through all the evils of industrialism?
2.07 - The Supreme Word of the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Truth, Power, Love, Being to which our humanity turns in its search for perfection and immortality and some highest joy and power and peace. There is a strong and wide endeavour towards a comprehensive spiritual view of God and man and universal existence. Not indeed that everything without any exception is seized in these eighteen chapters, no spiritual problem left for solution; but still so large a Scheme is laid out that we have only to fill in, to develop, to modify, to stress, to follow out points, to work out hint and illuminate adumbration in order to find a clue to any further claim of our intelligence and need of our spirit.
The Gita itself does not evolve any quite novel solution out of its own questionings. To arrive at the comprehensiveness at which it aims, it goes back behind the great philosophical systems to the original Vedanta of the Upanishads; for there we have the widest and profoundest extant synthetic vision of spirit and man and cosmos. But what is in the Upanishads undeveloped to the intelligence because wrapped up in a luminous kernel of intuitive vision and symbolic utterance, the Gita brings out in the light of a later intellectual thinking and distinctive experience.
2.09 - On Sadhana, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: It is these people who also get a sense of sin and the tendency to repent and humble themselves before others. Also they have very big ideas about themselves. They think they are very important in the universal Scheme.
(After a pause) This Yoga, to be done well, requires perfect balance. Therefore, those who have merely a general call for Yoga should not go in for this Yoga, because it opens a possibility for the Higher Consciousness to work as well as a possibility for the powers of the vital world to come and take possession. If a man has not got the perfect balance, it becomes easier for these powers to take possession. Sometimes the man who has no faith in things invisible is much better off than the man who has faith in them or the man who has a tendency towards occultism. He is generally free comparatively free from attacks from the subtle planes because he does not accept them and so is not open to them. While the man who believes in them gives them a chance. In this Yoga you must have a sane mind.
2.1.03 - Man and Superman, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Reason is a clarified, ordered and organised Ignorance. It is a half-enlightened Ignorance seeking for truth, but a truth which it insists on founding upon the data and postulates of the Ignorance. Reason is not in possession of the Truth, it is a seeker. It is [unable to] discover the Truth or embody it; it leaves Truth covered but rendered into mental representations, a verbal and ideative Scheme, an abstract algebra of concepts, a theory of the
Ignorance. Sense-evidence is its starting point and it never really gets away from that insecure beginning. Its concepts start from
2.10 - Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
true knowledge. Its main character is a knowledge by the direct contact of consciousness with its object or of consciousness with other consciousness; but in the end we discover that this power is an outcome of a secret knowledge by identity, a translation of it into a separative awareness of things. For as in the indirect contact proper to our normal consciousness and surface cognition it is the meeting or friction of the living being with the existence outside it that awakens the spark of conscious knowledge, so here it is some contact that sets in action a pre-existent secret knowledge and brings it to the surface. For consciousness is one in the subject and the object, and in the contact of existence with existence this identity brings to light or awakens in the self the dormant knowledge of this other self outside it. But while this pre-existent knowledge comes up in the surface mind as a knowledge acquired, it arises in the subliminal as a thing seen, caught from within, remembered as it were, or, when it is fully intuitive, self-evident to the inner awareness; or it is taken in from the object contacted but with an immediate response as to something intimately recognisable. In the surface consciousness knowledge represents itself as a truth seen from outside, thrown on us from the object, or as a response to its touch on the sense, a perceptive reproduction of its objective actuality. Our surface mind is obliged to give to itself this account of its knowledge, because the wall between itself and the outside world is pierced by the gates of sense and it can catch through these gates the surface of outward objects though not what is within them, but there is no such ready-made opening between itself and its own inner being: since it is unable to see what is within its deeper self or observe the process of the knowledge coming from within, it has no choice but to accept what it does see, the external object, as the cause of its knowledge. Thus all our mental knowing of things represents itself to us as objective, a truth imposed on us from outside; our knowledge is a reflection or responsive construction reproducing in us a figure or picture or a mental Scheme of something that is not in our own being. In fact, it is a hidden deeper response to the contact, a response coming from within that throws up from there an inner knowledge of the
Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge
2.14 - The Unpacking of God, #Sex Ecology Spirituality, #Ken Wilber, #Philosophy
But it wasn't the Darwinian "revolution" that would play most decisively into the hands of the Descenders. After all, the Darwinists could always be seen, whether they wished to or not, as simply supplying empirical evidence for a Scheme already known and accepted, namely, evolution as God-in-the-making, Eros not simply seeking Spirit but expressing Spirit all along via a series of ever-higher ascents, which Darwin had merely chronicled in a not-verysurprising fashion.
Darwin was never the problem. It was Carnot, Clausius, and Kelvin. At about the time that Darwin was on HMS
--
However well that does indeed describe aspects of mythic dissociation, it has precisely nothing to do with one's own transpersonal potentials, vertical potentials that if they aren't actualized are merely projected horizontally into utterly futile Schemes to turn this finite world into a utopian world of infinite wonderment: an infinite above collapses into an infinite ahead, and whether that infinite ahead be endless scientific progress or boundless material possessions or political utopianisms as ultimate salvation, they are all fundamentally ways of fussing about in the finite looking for the infinite, and doing irreparable harm to the finite world in the process by placing demands upon it which it could never fulfill.
But that is exactly what Feuerbach would recommend: "Politics," he says, "must become our religion." Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were paying very close attention. "Apart from Nature and human beings," Engels would write, "nothing exists; and the higher beings which our religious fantasy created are only the fantastic reflection of our own essence. The enthusiasm was general; we were all for the moment followers of Feuerbach."
2.15 - The Cosmic Consciousness, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
By entering into the cosmic consciousness we participate in that all-vision and see everything in the values of the Infinite and the One. Limitation itself, ignorance itself change their meaning for us. Ignorance changes into a particular action of divine knowledge, strength and weakness and incapacity into a free putting forth and holding back various measures of divine Force, joy and grief, pleasure and pain into a mastering and a suffering of divine delight, struggle into a balancing of forces and values in the divine harmony. We do not suffer by the limitations of our mind, life and body; for we no longer live in these but in the infinity of the Spirit, and these we view in their right value and place and purpose in the manifestation, as degrees of the supreme being, conscious-force and delight of Sachchidananda veiling and manifesting Himself in the cosmos. We cease to judge men and things by their outward appearances and are delivered from hostile and contradictory ideas and emotions; for it is the soul that we see, the Divine that we seek and find in every thing and creature, and the rest has only a secondary value to us in a Scheme of relations which exist now for us only as self-expressions of the Divine and not as having any absolute value in themselves. So too no event can disturb us, since the distinction of happy and unhappy, beneficent and maleficent happenings loses its force, and all is seen in its divine value and its divine purpose. Thus we arrive at a perfect liberation and an infinite equality. It is this consummation of which the Upanishad speaks when it says "He in whom the self has become all existences, how shall he have delusion, whence shall he have grief who knows entirely397 and sees in all things oneness."
But this is only when there is perfection in the cosmic consciousness, and that is difficult for the mental being. The mentality when it arrives at the idea or the realisation of the Spirit, the Divine, tends to break existence into two opposite halves, the lower and the higher existence. It sees on one side the Infinite, the Formless, the One, the Peace and Bliss, the Calm and Silence, the Absolute, the Vast and Pure; on the other it sees the finite, the world of forms, the jarring multiplicity, the strife and suffering and imperfect, unreal good, the tormented activity and futile success, the relative, the limited and vain and vile. To those who make this division, this opposition, complete liberation is only attainable in the peace of the One, the featurelessness of the Infinite, the non-becoming of the Absolute which is to them the only real being; to be free all values must be destroyed, all limitations not only transcended but abolished. They have the liberation of the divine rest, but not the liberty of the divine action; they enjoy the peace of the Transcendent, but not the cosmic bliss of the Transcendent. Their liberty depends upon abstention from the cosmic movement, it cannot dominate and possess cosmic existence itself. But it is also possible for them to realise and participate in the immanent as well as the transcendent peace. Still the division is not cured. The liberty they enjoy is that of the silent unacting Witness, not the liberty of the divine Masterconsciousness which possesses all things, delights in all, casts itself into all forms of existence without fear of fall or loss or bondage or stain. All the rights of the spirit are not yet possessed; there is still a denial, a limitation, a holding back from the entire oneness of all existence. The workings of Mind, Life, Body are viewed from the calm and peace of the spiritual planes of the mental being and are filled with that calm and peace; they are not possessed by and subjected to the law of the allmastering Spirit.
2.1.7.07 - On the Verse and Structure of the Poem, #Letters On Poetry And Art, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Savitri was originally written many years ago before the Mother came as a narrative poem in two parts, Part I Earth and Part II Beyond (these two parts are still extant in the Scheme) each of four books or rather Part II consisted of 3 books and an epilogue. Twelve books to an epic is a classical superstition, but this new Savitri may extend to ten books if much is added in the final revision it may be even twelve. The first book has been leng thening and leng thening out till it must be over 2000 lines, but I shall break up the original first four into five, I think in fact I have already started doing so. These first five will be, as I conceive them now, the Book of Birth, the Book of Quest, the Book of Love, the Book of Fate, the Book of Death. As for the second Part, I have not touched it yet. There was no climbing of planes there in the first version rather Savitri moves through the worlds of Night, of Twilight, of Day all of course in a spiritual sense and ended by calling down the power of the Highest Worlds of Sachchidananda. I had no idea of what the supramental World could be like at that time, so it could not enter into the Scheme. As for expressing the supramental inspiration, that is a matter of the future.
31 October 1936
2.17 - December 1938, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
India is now trying to imitate the West. Parliamentary government is not suited to India. But we always take up what the West has thrown off. Sir Akbar wanted to try a new sort of government with an impartial authority at the head. There, in Hyderabad, the Hindu majority complains that though Mahommedans are in minority they occupy most of the offices in the state. By Sir Akbar's method almost every interest would have been represented in the Government and automatically the Hindus would have come in, but because of their cry of responsible government the Scheme failed. They have a fixed idea in the mind and want to fit everything into it. They can't think for themselves and so take up what the others are throwing off.
Disciple: It is possible in Hyderabad which has a Nizam, but how to do the same in an Indian Constitution? What is your idea of an ideal Government for India?
2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
( A disciple spoke of the canal Scheme of Russia to enable to connect herself with Asia and the Arctic Sea. Then the topic of Lady B., an American visiting the Ashram in the company of Nishtha (Miss Wilson), came up.)
Sri Aurobindo: Lady B has visited India twice. The first time she went to Ramana Maharshi but was not satisfied with the place. She said there was no peace there.
--
Disciple: Kher is now opening agricultural schools in villages and cottage industry schools that is to say, carrying out the Wardha Scheme.
Sri Aurobindo: It is a pity to give up all that work for merely fighting the idea of Federation. You can fight it even after the Federation is established. One has to accept what one gets and on that basis work out the rest. If the British Government finds that the Federation is perfectly worked out, it may not object to give more. They expect a crowd of demagogues shouting together in the Assembly, not people capable of governing. But if Socialism comes that might frighten them.
2.19 - Feb-May 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: Has he? Allah Bux has won him over, it means. From leader of the opposition to a Minister. He made a lot of money from the Sukkur Barrage Scheme during his ministry in Bombay, before the Congress government.
Sri Aurobindo: How?
22.05 - On The Brink(2), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So man occupies a central place in the Scheme of the universe. Above him are stationed the gods, the region of the higher mind and the heart, below him upon the earth rule the Asuras, the powers of the lower mind and the vital. In between is man, the intermediary being.
The gods and the Asuras are in eternal struggle for the mastery of the three worlds and it is curious to note that they both seek the help and aid of man. We know of legends in which human beings, kings and warriors, are invited by gods to come over to their side in the struggle. We have heard of the Raghus whose war-chariots drove right up to the heaven from the earth to come to the help of the gods- anakam ratham vartmanm(Kalidasa). Asuras however have a greater sway over man in a natural manner, because of man's earthly constitution. For the natural man is moved and controlled mostly by his external mind and vital; over him the earth's gravitation-pull holds almost complete sway. The world and men in their external life and action are the fief and domain of the Asura. They have to be reclaimed and remoulded. The possibility lies in the fact that along with the forces of gravitation there are forces of regeneration and elevation; only they seem to be slow in their action and not efficient enough under the present circumstances.
2.20 - The Philosophy of Rebirth, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What was before birth is the material energy with its seed of life, or at best an energy of life-force, which persists in the seed transmitted by the parents and gives, by its mysterious infusion of past developments into that trifling vehicle, a particular mental and physical stamp to the new individual mind and body thus strangely created. What remains after death is the same material energy or life-force persisting in the seed transmitted to the children and active for the farther development of the mental and physical life carried with it. Nothing is left of us except what we so transmit to others or what the Energy which shaped the individual by its pre-existent and its surrounding action, by birth and by environment, may take as the result of his life and works into its subsequent action; whatever may help by chance or by physical law to build the mental and vital constituents Karma is the link of an apparently continuing consciousness, - for the consciousness changes from moment to moment: there is this apparent continuity of consciousness, but there is no real immortal soul taking birth and passing through the death of the body to be reborn in another body. and environment of other individuals, that alone can have any survival. Behind both the mental and the physical phenomena there is perhaps a universal Life of which we are individualised, evolutionary and phenomenal becomings. This universal Life creates a real world and real beings, but the conscious personality in these beings is not, or at least it need not be, the sign or the shape of consciousness of an eternal nor even of a persistent soul or supraphysical Person: there is nothing in this formula of existence compelling us to believe in a psychic entity that outlasts the death of the body. There is here no reason and little room for the admission of rebirth as a part of the Scheme of things.
But what if it were found with the increase of our knowledge, as certain researches and discoveries seem to presage, that the dependence of the mental being or the psychic entity in us on the body is not so complete as we at first naturally conclude it to be from the study of the data of physical existence and the physical universe alone? What if it were found that the human personality survives the death of the body and moves between other planes and this material universe? The prevalent modern idea of a temporary conscious existence would then have to broaden itself and admit a Life that has a wider range than the physical universe and admit too a personal individuality not dependent on the material body. It might have practically to readopt the ancient idea of a subtle form or body inhabited by a psychic entity. A psychic or soul entity, carrying with it the mental consciousness, or, if there be no such original soul, then the evolved and persistent mental individual would continue after death in this subtle persistent form, which must have been either created for it before this birth or by the birth itself or during the life. For either a psychic entity pre-exists in other worlds in a subtle form and comes from there with it to its brief earthly sojourn, or the soul develops here in the material world itself, and with it a psychic body is developed in the course of Nature and persists after death in other worlds or by reincarnation here.
2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: In his article in the Harijan, R. Gregg strongly advocates the adoption by European nations of the Wardha Scheme of the Khadi production by the Charkha.
Sri Aurobindo: But they were also destroying each other even when they were using Charkha in the past!
2.22 - 1941-1943, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Religious instructions should not be made compulsory. It does not necessarily develop spirituality; many people come to spiritual life through atheism. Religious instruction makes people narrow and sectarian. My objection to this Scheme is that it is academic. It would lose all its life and become dry.
24 JANUARY 1941
2.24 - The Evolution of the Spiritual Man, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
IN THE earliest stages of evolutionary Nature we are met by the dumb secrecy of her inconscience; there is no revelation of any significance or purpose in her works, no hint of any other principles of being than that first formulation which is her immediate preoccupation and seems to be for ever her only business: for in her primal works Matter alone appears, the sole dumb and stark cosmic reality. A Witness of creation, if there had been one conscious but uninstructed, would only have seen appearing out of a vast abyss of an apparent non-existence an Energy busy with the creation of Matter, a material world and material objects, organising the infinity of the Inconscient into the Scheme of a boundless universe or a system of countless universes that stretched around him into Space without any certain end or limit, a tireless creation of nebulae and star-clusters and suns and planets, existing only for itself, without a sense in it, empty of cause or purpose. It might have seemed to him a stupendous machinery without a use, a mighty meaningless movement, an aeonic spectacle without a witness, a cosmic edifice without an inhabitant; for he would have seen no sign of an indwelling Spirit, no being for whose delight it was made. A creation of this kind could only be the outcome of an inconscient Energy or an illusion-cinema, a shadow play or puppet play of forms reflected on a superconscient indifferent Absolute. He would have seen no evidence of a soul and no hint of mind or life in this immeasurable and interminable display of Matter. It would not have seemed to him possible or imaginable that there could at all be in this desert universe for ever inanimate and insensible an outbreak of teeming life, a first vibration of something occult and incalculable, alive and conscious, a secret spiritual entity feeling its way towards the surface.
But after some aeons, looking out once more on that vain panorama, he might have detected in one small corner at least of the universe this phenomenon, a corner where Matter had been prepared, its operations sufficiently fixed, organised, made stable, adapted as a scene of a new development, - the phenomenon of a living matter, a life in things that had emerged and become visible: but still the Witness would have understood nothing, for evolutionary Nature still veils her secret. He would have seen a Nature concerned only with establishing this outburst of life, this new creation, but life living for itself with no significance in it, - a wanton and abundant creatrix busy scattering the seed of her new power and establishing a multitude of its forms in a beautiful and luxurious profusion or, later, multiplying endlessly genus and species for the pure pleasure of creation: a small touch of lively colour and movement would have been flung into the immense cosmic desert and nothing more. The Witness could not have imagined that a thinking mind would appear in this minute island of life, that a consciousness could awake in the Inconscient, a new and greater subtler vibration come to the surface and betray more clearly the existence of the submerged Spirit. It would have seemed to him at first that Life had somehow become aware of itself and that was all; for this scanty new-born mind seemed to be only a servant of life, a contrivance to help life to live, a machinery for its maintenance, for attack and defence, for certain needs and vital satisfactions, for the liberation of life-instinct and life-impulse. It could not have seemed possible to him that in this little life, so inconspicuous amid the immensities, in one sole species out of this petty multitude, a mental being would emerge, a mind serving life still but also making life and matter its servants, using them for the fulfilment of its own ideas, will, wishes, - a mental being who would create all manner of utensils, tools, instruments out of Matter for all kinds of utilities, erect out of it cities, houses, temples, theatres, laboratories, factories, chisel from it statues and carve cave-cathedrals, invent architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry and a hundred crafts and arts, discover the mathematics and physics of the universe and the hidden secret of its structure, live for the sake of mind and its interests, for thought and knowledge, develop into the thinker, the philosopher and scientist and, as a supreme defiance to the reign of Matter, awake in himself to the hidden Godhead, become the hunter after the invisible, the mystic and the spiritual seeker.
2.26 - The Ascent towards Supermind, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
THE PSYCHIC transformation and the first stages of the spiritual transformation are well within our conception; their perfection would be the perfection, wholeness, consummated unity of a knowledge and experience which is already part of things realised, though only by a small number of human beings. But the supramental change in its process carries us into less explored regions; it initiates a vision of heights of consciousness which have indeed been glimpsed and visited, but have yet to be discovered and mapped in their completeness. The highest of these peaks or elevated plateaus of consciousness, the supramental, lies far beyond the possibility of any satisfying mental Scheme or map of it or any grasp of mental seeing and description. It would be difficult for the normal unillumined or untransformed mental conception to express or enter into something that is based on so different a consciousness with a radically different awareness of things; even if they were seen or conceived by some enlightenment or opening of vision, another language than the poor abstract counters used by our mind would be needed to translate them into terms by which their reality could become at all seizable by us. As the summits of human mind are beyond animal perception, so the movements of supermind are beyond the ordinary human mental conception: it is only when we have already had experience of a higher intermediate consciousness that any terms attempting to describe supramental being could convey a true meaning to our intelligence; for then, having experienced something akin to what is described, we could translate an inadequate language into a figure of what we knew. If the mind cannot enter into the nature of supermind, it can look towards it through these high and luminous approaches and catch some reflected impression of the Truth, the Right, the Vast which is the native kingdom of the free Spirit.
But even what can be said about the intermediate consciousness must perforce be inadequate; only certain abstract generalisations can be hazarded which may serve for an initial light of guidance. The one enabling circumstance here is that, however different in constitution and principle, the higher consciousness is still, in its evolutionary form, in what we can first achieve of it here, a supreme development of elements which are already present in ours in however rudimentary and diminished a figure and power of themselves. It is also a helpful fact that the logic of the process of evolutionary Nature continues, greatly modified in some of the rules of its working but essentially the same, in the ascension of the highest heights as in the lower beginnings; thus we can discover and follow to a certain extent the lines of her supreme procedure. For we have seen something of the nature and law of the transition from intellectual to spiritual mind; from that achieved starting-point we can begin to trace the passage to a higher dynamic degree of the new consciousness and the farther transition from spiritual mind towards supermind. The indications must necessarily be very imperfect, for it is only some initial representations of an abstract and general character that can be arrived at by the method of metaphysical inquiry: the true knowledge and description must be left to the language of the mystic and the figures, at once more vivid and more recondite, of a direct and concrete experience.
--
An increasing control of the individual over his own action of nature, a more and more conscious participation in the action of universal Nature, is a marked character, it is indeed a logical consequence, of the evolutionary principle and process. All action, all mental, vital, physical activities in the world are the operation of a universal Energy, a Consciousness-Force which is the power of the Cosmic Spirit working out the cosmic and individual truth of things. But since this creative Consciousness assumes in Matter a mask of inconscience and puts on the surface appearance of a blind universal Force executing a plan or organisation of things without seeming to know what it is doing, the first result is kin to this appearance; it is the phenomenon of an inconscient physical individualisation, a creation not of beings but of objects. These are formed existences with their own qualities, properties, power of being, character of being; but Nature's plan in them and organisation of them have to be worked out mechanically without any beginning of participation, initiation or conscious awareness in the individual object which emerges as the first dumb result and inanimate field of her action and creation. In animal life the Force begins to become slowly conscious on the surface and puts forth the form, no longer of an object, but of an individual being; but this imperfectly conscious individual, although it participates, senses, feels, yet only works out what the Force does in it without any clear intelligence or observation of what is being done; it seems to have no other choice or will than that which is imposed on it by its formed nature. In human mind there is the first appearance of an observing intelligence that regards what is being done and of a will and choice that have become conscious; but the consciousness is still limited and superficial: the knowledge also is limited and imperfect, it is a partial intelligence, a half understanding, groping and empirical in great part or, if rational, then rational by constructions, theories, formulas. There is not as yet a luminous seeing which knows things by a direct grasp and arranges them with a spontaneous precision according to the seeing, according to the Scheme of their inherent truth; although there is a certain element of instinct and intuition and insight which has some beginning of this power, the normal character of human intelligence is an inquiring reason or reflective thought which observes, supposes, infers, concludes, arrives by labour at a constructed truth, a constructed Scheme of knowledge, a deliberately arranged action of its own making. Or rather this is what it strives to be and partly is; for its knowledge and will are constantly invaded, darkened or frustrated by forces of the being which are half-blind instruments of the mechanism of Nature.
This is evidently not the utmost of which consciousness is capable, not its last evolution and highest summit. A greater and more intimate intuition must be possible which would enter into the heart of things, be in luminous identity with the movements of Nature, assure to the being a clear control of his life or at least a harmony with his universe. It is only a free and entire intuitive consciousness which would be able to see and to grasp things by direct contact and penetrating vision or a spontaneous truthsense born of an underlying unity or identity and arrange an action of Nature according to the truth of Nature. This would be a real participation by the individual in the working of the universal Consciousness-Force; the individual Purusha would become the master of his own executive energy and at the same time a conscious partner, agent, instrument of the Cosmic Spirit in the working of the universal Energy: the universal Energy would work through him, but he also would work through her and the harmony of the intuitive truth would make this double working a single action. A growing conscious participation of this higher and more intimate kind must be one accompaniment of the transition from our present state of being to a state of supernature.
2.28 - The Divine Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
44: An innate character of the gnostic consciousness and the instrumentation of supernature is a wholeness of sight and action, a unity of knowledge with knowledge, a reconciliation of all that seems contrary in our mental seeing and knowing, an identity of Knowledge and Will acting as a single power in perfect unison with the truth of things; this inborn character of supernature is the foundation of the perfect unity, mutuality, harmony of its action. In the mental being there is a discord of its constructed knowledge with the real or the whole truth of things, so that even what is true in it is often or is eventually ineffective or only partially effective. Our discoveries of truth are overthrown, our passionate effectuations of truth are frustrated; often the result of our action becomes part of a Scheme we did not intend for a purpose whose legitimacy we would not acknowledge, or the truth of the idea is deceived by the actual outcome of its pragmatic success. Even if there is a successful realisation of the idea, yet because the idea is incomplete, an isolated construction of the mind separate from the one and whole truth of things, its success must sooner or later end in disillusionment and a new endeavour. The discordance of our seeing and our notions with the true truth and the whole truth of things, the partiality and superficiality of our mind's deceptive constructions, is the cause of our frustration. But there is also not only a discord of knowledge with knowledge but of will with will and of knowledge with will in the same being, a division and disharmony between them, so that where the knowledge is ripe or sufficient, some will in the being opposes it or the will fails it; where the will is powerful, vehement or firmly or forcefully effective, knowledge guiding it to its right use is lacking.
45: All kinds of disparity and maladjustment and incompleteness of our knowledge, will, capacity, executive force and dealing intervene constantly in our action, our working out of life, and are an abundant source of imperfection or ineffectivity. These disorders, defects and disharmonies are normal to a status and energy of Ignorance and can only be dissolved by a greater light than that of mind nature or life nature. An identity and au thenticity and a harmony of truth with truth are the native character of all gnostic seeing and action; as the mind grows into the gnosis, our mental seeing and action lifted into the gnostic light or visited and ruled by it would begin to partake of this character and, even if still restricted and within limits, must become much more perfect and within these limits effective: the causes of our incapacity and frustration would begin to diminish and disappear. But also the larger existence will invade the mind with the potencies of a greater consciousness and a greater force, a bringing out of new powers of the being. Knowledge is power and act of consciousness, Will is conscious power and conscious act of force of being; both in the gnostic being will reach greater magnitudes than any we now know, a higher degree of themselves, a richer instrumentation: for wherever there is an increase of consciousness, there is an increase of the potential force and the actual power of the existence.
2.3.1 - Ego and Its Forms, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The ego-centric man feels and values things as they affect him. Does this please me or displease, give me gladness or pain, flatter my pride, vanity, ambition or hurt it, satisfy my desires or thwart them? etc. The unegoistic man does not look at things like that. He looks to see what things are in themselves and would be even if he were not there, what is their meaning, how they fit into the Scheme of thingsor else he feels calm and equal, refers everything to the Divine, or if he is a man of action how they will serve the work that has to be done or the life of the world or the cause he serves etc. etc. There can be many points of view which are not ego-centric.
***
29.09 - Some Dates, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
HAVE you noted today's date? My attention has been drawn to it. It is very remarkable: 7.7.77. Four sevens together. Has it any special significance? Yes, Mother herself once gave the meaning of these four sevens - "Manifestation and Realisation". Manifestation means the appearance of the truth, the truth that is hidden behind somewhere, when it comes forward and shows itself, that is manifestation. Realisation means we express this truth that has come forward in our consciousness, make it real on the physical plane, embody it in our external activity: in other words whatever you doyou do the truth, whatever you speak you speak the truth; the Truth first appears in your mind, in your mental consciousness, then it realises itself in your physical activity. Number seven has a special meaning. The number seven gives the Scheme of creation; it is the number of the worlds that constitute creation. The creation is a globe, there are three worlds above, that is the higher hemisphere and three other below forming the lower hemisphere. The higher worlds are as you all know Sat-Chit-Ananda, - the Divine Existence, the Divine Consciousness and the Divine Delight. Below in the lower half there is the mind, the vital and the body, - manas, prana and anna.Three above, three below, in between there is another joining the two, another principle or world, it is the Supermind, Mahas.The three higher worlds are invisible, beyond the normal consciousness; they become visible mind concrete when they pass through the intermediary Supermind and become the principles of the lower hemisphere. Now these are the seven principles of creation. Manifestation means the expression of the higher worlds, the supreme triple principles of Sat-Chit-Ananda in the lower triple principle of mind, life, body through the intermediary Supermind. Mahas-Supermind is the manifestation, the beginning of the creation and realisatton comes when the higher trinity is realised here below and embodied in the lower trinity. That is the significance of 7. There are four sevens. Four is the number signifying a square, fullness, completeness.
Sri Aurobindo gave me this mantra of creation and explained it to me, as I have done to you today, on the very day perhaps of my arrival here in Pondicherry almost seventy years ago! Where were you then?
3.00.2 - Introduction, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
invention, his insinuations, his intriguing ideas and Schemes, his
ambivalence andoftenhis unmistakable malice. He is also capable of
30.05 - Rhythm in Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Somewhat similar to Bengali is the basic structure of the French metrical Scheme, for French too makes no distinction of long and short vowels. In French as in Bengali the foot is based on a syllable-count, the caesura likewise follows the Bengali pattern. The payarin Bengali has an eight-six break, the basic division in French is six-six, making a total of twelve syllables in the line. This is the Alexandrine, corresponding in structure to the Heroic Couplet in English, as in the famous lines of Pope:
We call our fathers fools so wise we grow,
--
But the English metrical Scheme has been influenced a great deal by the French language with its Latin tradition. Indeed, the Norman-French influence has been powerfully dominating the English language for several centuries. This has considerably helped English prosody gain in variety and richness, for here there is room for both the main lines of rhythmic expression.
Metrical forms where the element of stress is predominant and the movement follows the staccato pattern have found their richest scope more in the languages of southern Europe than in the north. Both in Spanish and Italian, the long flowing movement of the original Latin has been broken into staccato. These languages formed out of vulgar Latin have in, their turn been modified by their contact with German speaking peoples (like the Visigoths in Spain and the Lombards in Italy). Whereas French has been able to preserve much of the fixed tradition of its parent Latin, in the Italian language, stress or accent determines almost entirely the movement of its rhythm. I will illustrate by and by.
3.00 - The Magical Theory of the Universe, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
the Serpent of Wisdom upside down! Yet he could not even make his Scheme
symmetrical: his little remaining good sense revolted at the supreme atrocities. Yet
3.01 - Natural Morality, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
lutionary Scheme of the Universe, such as we have here
accepted, the answer is quite simple. For the human unity,
31.03 - The Trinity of Bengal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Thus, in Rammohan is visible the primal stage of the consciousness of Bengal. It is he who may be called in this sense the psychic being or the causal being of modern Bengal. He alone before all others has brought forward the consciousness of Bengal to the free air and light of the modern era from the antiquity, the mediaevalism of the past. He has initiated the country into the religion of the new era. In him sprouted the first seeds of all future creations. Each flash of consciousness, intense with a deep and pregnant meaning, that sprung in his intuition gradually blossomed into a lush of foliage and flowers and fruits. He brought a new birth, a new life and a new' creation everywhere in all the fields of the collective life of state, society, religion, culture, literature and language. He made the fundamental Scheme, the blue-print for the future fulfilment of the country. It is he who laid down the first principles. The future architects have made a new and solid structure on these as their basis. Rammohan was indeed the soul in the heart. The Upanishad says that the nerves of the body-vessel are assembled in this heart-centre and from here they go out everywhere in all directions. Likewise in Rammohan too a new orientation in the mind and life of the nation, the modern consciousness in all its branches of culture has centred and from him all flow out into activities and enterprises of a new achievement. When the truth takes birth and grows considerably in the soul then only it can reveal itself in the mental plane. Reason and intelligence seize on h and apprehend it to know its meaning and endeavour to bring it to the fore of the critical perception of an enlightened intelligence.
We have already said that the mental being (Manomaya Purusha) of the country awoke in Bankimchandra. It is he who gave a fluent expression, in thought and in an outer attractive language, to her hopes, aspirations and inner feelings. And it is in him that the first revelation of a new curiosity, inquisitiveness and sensitiveness is to be found. His was the inspiration and channel for an unceasing quest, a many-sided research through mental seeking and logic and argument which inundated the entire country like a flood. Many are the lines of investigation and imaginative display that bear testimony to the mind's manifold inquisitiveness. A deep longing, a luminous perception of the Soul developed and expanded in hundred branches. The mind's business is to manifest and apply a soul-intuition in as many fields and forms, in as many directions as possible and one form through which mind finds expression is literature.
3.1.04 - Transformation in the Integral Yoga, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
I have never said that my Yoga was something brand new in all its elements. I have called it the integral Yoga and that means that it takes up the essence and many processes of the old Yogasits newness is in its aim, standpoint and the totality of its method. In the earlier stages which is all I deal with in books like the Riddle or the Lights1 there is nothing in it that distinguishes it from the old Yogas except the aim underlying its comprehensiveness, the spirit in its movements and the ultimate significance it keeps before italso the Scheme of its psychology and its working, but as that was not and could not be developed systematically or schematically in these letters, it has not been grasped by those who are not already acquainted with it by mental familiarity or some amount of practice. The detail or method of the later stages of the Yoga which go into little known or untrodden regions, I have not made public and I do not at present intend to do so.
I know very well also that there have been seemingly allied ideals and anticipations the perfectibility of the race, certain Tantric sadhanas, the effort after a complete physical siddhi by certain schools of Yoga, etc. etc. I have alluded to these things myself and have put forth the view that the spiritual past of the race has been a preparation of Nature not merely for attaining to the Divine beyond this world, but also for this very step forward which the evolution of the earth-consciousness has still to make. I do not therefore care in the least,even though these ideals were, up to some extent parallel, yet not identical with mine,whether this Yoga and its aim and method are accepted as new or not; that is in itself a trifling matter. That it should be recognised as true in itself by those who can accept or practise it and should make itself true by achievement, is the one thing important; it does not matter if it is called new or a repetition or revival of the old which was forgotten. I laid emphasis on it as new in a letter to certain sadhaks so as to explain to them that a repetition of the aim and idea of the old Yogas was not enough in my eyes, that I was putting forward a thing to be achieved that has not yet been achieved, not yet clearly visualised, even though it is one natural but still secret destined outcome of all the past spiritual endeavour.
3.1.15 - Rebirth, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Into three Schemes have cast.
Our past that we forget, is with us deathless,
3.11 - Spells, #Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2E, #unset, #Zen
This spell allows the priest to determine how one recent event fits into the "grand Scheme." By casting this spell, the priest can determine whether the sequence or situation that gave rise to the specific event is complete or whether it is ongoing; whether it was a significant or insignificant event in the larger picture; or whether it will continue to have repercussions for the participants.
Using his knowledge of circumstances, the DM communicates these facts to the caster's player. This "arcane message" is normally straightforward and easy to understand, but in the case of highly complex circumstances, the message might be cryptic. In any case, the message will always be truthful.
3.2.3 - Dreams, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the lower vital dreams, before this development comes, there is usually a mixture or a double texture. This has two disadvantages, first that the Scheme used, the terms, the figures are so trivial and uninteresting that one easily misses any significance there can be behind them and, secondly, that the interpretation also becomes often very doubtful or hard to seize. And when as often happens, there is a symbology of the lower vital using the terms of the normal external consciousness, its system which is quite clear and convincing to the lower vital itself, can seem very absurd, incoherent and unintelligible to the physical mind. For the lower vital uses the happenings, scenes, figures, persons of the physical life, but in defiance of the order and logic of the physical world and even without any reference to it, it fits them into a quite different significance- Scheme of its own for its own purpose. One has then to seek for a clue in some especially significant figure or detail, and if one cannot find it or cannot catch the clue when it is there, then one remains perplexed or doubtful or simply blank about the meaning of the dream; if it is found, it can often light up all the night and put them into a sufficient coherence.
The last three dreams described by you are of this character. The figures are supplied from the old social life in England,though the place is not England; in the first, with some attempt at structure, in the others in a more haphazard inconsequent way; but so far as that goes, all seem trivial and unmeaning and, as one might say, not worth dreaming. The strong significant power and purposefulness and quite intelligible symbolism of the higher vital, the psychic or the mental dream-experiences is not there. But still there are in the first dream three points de repre, the railway-journey, the meeting with the father and mother, the communion, and these all are suggestive symbols. The railway-journey is always in vital dreams a symbol of a journey or progress of the inner being; here it is in the vital consciousness that some movement of progress is under way and it is in the course of it that you get down at a station, that is to say in some particular region of the lower vital where you meet your father and mother. A meeting of this kind by itself might simply be an actual encounter on the vital plane with some contact or interchange there for in the vital one can meet thus both those who have passed beyond and those who are still in the body. But once the presence of a symbolism is established, it is probable that the father and mother are also part of the symbolism and, as they very often do, represent what might be called the Purusha and Prakriti of that particular kingdom. If it is an actual encounter, it must be with some part of their vital selves which is in sympathy with or representative of this domain, not with the actual persons, not with their whole selves. But the assistant here is clearly not any earthly person, but a being of this world who embodies one of its characteristic forces, the zeal of a dogmatic and ritual religious traditionalism without any deeper spirit or experience behind it; it is with this external ritualism that you clash in the dream, he insisting on the form, you careless of the form and admitting it only as a means for contact with the original spiritual truth behind it. That would justify our taking the whole thing as symbolism, representing a special lower vital worldone which plays a large part in moulding this external human life as it is now. It is a world of social forms, social and domestic feelings, social intercourse; whatever appearance of spiritual life there is, is traditional and formal: this is what you felt in the blessing of your father. The last part of the dream is more obscure there is evidently a meaning in the luggage and the lost trunk, but the clue is insufficient; if one could catch it, it would probably explain why you got down at all in this province of the lower vital world instead of continuing your journey.
33.08 - I Tried Sannyas, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So, one afternoon, in the course of one of our regular visits, we told him of our plan. He kept quiet for a while, then he said, "Well, you might wait for a few days." I was a little surprised, for I had thought that he would endorse our Scheme without any hesitation. Anyhow, we had to wait for a few days. He said to us one day, "You wanted to go on a tour of the country, didn't you? Well, you come with me, I shall take you on a tour." We were taken aback and were delighted at the same time. He was to leave for Assam on a political mission, first to a Provincial Conference to be held at a place called Jalsuka in the Sylhet area, and thence to the other areas of Assam on a tour.
This provided me with a fresh opportunity to see once again the beauty of old Bengal, the land of the rivers, from a new angle of vision this time. Water, water everywhere, so much water you do not see at any other place, an endless sheet of water spread out below, matching the vast expanse of the sky above. From Goalando we went by steamer to Narayangunge along the Padma and the Sitalaksha, thence to the Meghna; one who has not seen the Meghna cannot imagine what it is really like - it was, as it were, the living Goddess of the water, Jaleshwari - and next, the mighty Dhaleshwari and on to the Surma. We travelled by river steamer for days on end without a break and we moved about by country-boat. The rains had come. The low-lying tracts - they call them Howr - which at other times are just dry lowlands were now all submerged under water. As far as the eyes could reach, there was a vast expanse of water clear and still. Only at places here and there one could see jutting out of its midst a few houses or a village. One day, in the twilight of the evening, land and river took on a rosy hue in the crimson glow of the setting sun as we sailed along by a slow-moving boat. Sri Aurobindo was there and two or three other leaders. I was so powerfully moved by the scene that - the child that I was - I felt an irresistible desire to burst forth there and then into song:
3-5 Full Circle, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
And what was its objective, from its beginning in 1948? We announced it visibly enough in Science: "An OSRD-like organization which may hope to succeed in advancing social (and biological) science through the stages of natural classification (J. S. Mill) and evolution theory (von Bertallanffy and Norbert Wiener), into that achieved by the physical sciences, where scientific fields are connected, and science is closely linked to philosophy and technology. The possibility of such coordination emerged with the independent discoveries of parts of the same conceptual Scheme by students of plant, animal, and human coactions (as Leibniz had predicted) . . . Should this Scheme prove to be a natural classification (J. S. Mill), it would create conditions for rapid coordination and advance of social science, as the Periodic Table did in chemistry."39,40
The announcement ended with a prediction that only a few Brooklyn College students could at that time begin to understand: "It is anticipated that the philosophical, scientific, and technological structures of Western and Eastern ideologies about conflict and cooperation will have been sufficiently clarified by then to make possible their gradual displacement by an advanced social science which is systematic, useful, and universally accepted, as physical science already is today."40
3.6.01 - Heraclitus, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Practically, the active secret of life is there; all life physical or mental or merely dynamic maintains itself by constant change and interchange. Still, Heraclitus' account is so far not altogether satisfactory. The measure, the value of the energy exchanged remains unaltered even when the form is altered, but why should also the cosmic commodities we have for the universal gold be fixed and in a way unchanging? What is the explanation, how comes about this eternity of principles and elements and kinds of combination and this persistence and recurrence of the same forms which we observe in the cosmos? Why in this constant cosmic flux should everything after all remain the same? Why should the sun, though always new, be yet for all practical purposes the same sun? Why should the stream be, as Heraclitus himself admits, the same stream although it is ever other and other waters that are flowing? It was in this connection that Plato brought in his eternal, ideal plane of fixed ideas, by which he seems to have meant at once an originating real-idea and an original ideal schema for all things. An idealistic philosophy of the Indian type might say that this force, the Shakti which you call Fire, is a consciousness which preserves by its energy its original Scheme of ideas and corresponding forms of things But Heraclitus gives us another account, not quite satisfactory, yet profound and full of suggestive truth; it is contained in his striking phrases about war and justice and tension and the Furies pursuing the transgressor of measures. He is the first thinker to see the world entirely in the terms of Power.
What is the nature of this exchange? It is strife, eris, it is war, polemos! What is the rule and result of the war? It is justice. How acts that justice? By a just tension and compensation of forces which produce the harmony of things and therefore, we presume, their stability. "War is the father of all and the king of all"; "All things becoming according to strife"; "To know that strife is justice"; these are his master apophthegms in this matter. At first we do not see why exchange should be strife; it would seem rather to be commerce. Strife there is, but why should there not also be peaceful and willing interchange? Heraclitus will have none of it; no peace! he would agree with the modern Teuton that commerce itself is a department of War. It is true there is a commerce, gold for commodities, commodities for gold, but the commerce itself and all its circumstances are governed by a forceful, more, a violent compulsion of the universal Fire. That is what he means by the Furies pursuing the sun; "for fear of Him" says the Upanishad "the wind blows ... and death runs." And between all beings there is a constant trial of strength; by that warfare they come into being, by that their measures are maintained. We see that he is right; he has caught the initial aspect of cosmic Nature. Everything here is a clash of forces and by that clash and struggle and clinging and wrestling things not only come into being, but are maintained in being. Karma? Laws? But different laws meet and compete and by their tension the balance of the world is maintained. Karma? It is the forcible justice of an eternal compelling Power and it is the Furies pursuing us if we transgress our measures.
3.7.1.01 - Rebirth, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Obviously, this Scheme of things is only a variation of the old spiritual-material bribe and menace, the bribe of a Heaven of fat joys for the good and the threat of a hell of eternal fire or bestial tortures for the wicked. The idea of the Law of the world as primarily a dispenser of rewards and punishments is cognate to the idea of the Supreme Being as a judge, father and school-master who is continually rewarding with lollipops his good boys and continually caning his naughty urchins. It is cognate also to the barbarous and unthinking system of sometimes savage and always degrading punishment for social offences on which human society, unable still to find out or organise a more satisfactory way, is still founded. Man insists continually on making God in his own image instead of seeking to make himself more and more in the image of God, and all these ideas are the reflection of the child and the savage and the animal in us which we have still failed to transform or outgrow. We should be inclined to wonder how these fancies of children found their way into such profound philosophical religions as Buddhism and Hinduism, if it were not so patent that men will not deny themselves the luxury of tacking on the rubbish from their past to the deeper thoughts of their sages.
No doubt, since these ideas were so prominent, they must have had their use in training humanity. Perhaps even it is true that the Supreme deals with the child soul according to its childishness and allows it to continue its sensational imaginations of heaven and hell for a time beyond the death of the physical body. Perhaps both these ideas of after-life and of rebirth as fields of punishment and reward were needed because suited to our half-mentalised animality. But after a certain stage the system ceases to be really effective. Men believe in Heaven and Hell but go on sinning merrily, quit at last by a Papal indulgence or the final priestly absolution or a death-bed repentance or a bath in the Ganges or a sanctified death at Benares,such are the childish devices by which we escape from our childishness! And in the end the mind grows adult and puts the whole nursery nonsense away with contempt. The reward and punishment theory of rebirth, if a little more elevated or at least less crudely sensational, comes to be as ineffective. And it is good that it should be so. For it is intolerable that man with his divine capacity should continue to be virtuous for a reward and shun sin out of terror. Better a strong sinner than a selfish virtuous coward or a petty hucksterer with God; there is more divinity in him, more capacity of elevation. Truly the Gita has said well, kpa phalahetava. And it is inconceivable that the system of this vast and majestic world should have been founded on these petty and paltry motives. There is reason in these theories? then reason of the nursery, puerile. Ethics? then ethics of the mud, muddy.
3.7.1.07 - Involution and Evolution, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The modern scientist strives to make a complete Scheme and
318
3.7.1.12 - Karma and Justice, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The cosmic Being must be then, if this view is to hold, a sort of enlarged divine Human or, we might say, a superior anthropoid Divine, or else the cosmic Law a perfection and magnitude of human methods and standards, which deals with man as he is accustomed to deal with his neighbour,only not with a rough partial human efficacy, but either a sure omniscience or an unfailing automatism. Whatever truth there may be behind that notion, this is not likely to be an adequate account of the matter. In actual life, if we put aside the rebirth theory, there are traces of this method, but it does not work out with any observable consistency,not even if we accept an unsatisfactory and hardly just vicarious punishment as part of the Scheme. What surety have we, then, of its better or its faultless working out in rebirth except for some similar partial signs and indications and, to fill in the blanks, our general sense of the fitness of things? And again where does the true nature of ethics come in in this Scheme? That more elevated action, it would almost seem, is an ideal movement of less use for the practical governance of life than as one part of a preparation for a fourth and last need of man, his need of spiritual salvation, and salvation winds up finally our karma and casts away the economy along with the very thought and will of life. Desire is the law of life and action and therefore of Karma. To do things above the material level for their own sake and their pure right or pure delight is to head straight towards the distances of heaven or the silence of the Ineffable. But this is a view of the meaning of existence against which it is time for the higher seeing mind and being of man to protest and to ask whether the ways of the Spirit in the world may not be capable of a greater, nobler and wiser significance.
But still, since the mind of man is part of the universal mind and reflects something of it in a however broken or as yet imperfect and crookedly seeing fashion, there may well be something of a real truth behind this view, though it is not likely to be the whole or the well understood truth. There are some certain or probable laws of the universal working which are relevant to it and must enter into the account. First, it is sure that Nature has laws of which the observance leads to or helps well-being and of which the violation imposes suffering; but all of them cannot be given a moral significance. Then there is the certainty that there must be a moral law of cause and consequence in the total web of her weaving and this we would perhaps currently put into the formula that good produces good and evil evil, which is a proposition of undoubted truth, though also we see in this complicated world that evil comes out of what we hold to be good, and again out of evil disengages itself something that yet turns to good. Perhaps our system of values is too rigidly precise or too narrowly relative; there are subtle things in the totality, minglings, interrelations, cross-currents, suppressed or hidden significances which we do not take into account. The formula is true, but is not the whole truth, at least as now understood in its first superficial significance.
3.7.2.02 - The Terrestial Law, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Now, that a conscious Infinite is there in physicalNature, we are assured by every sign, though it is a consciousness not made or limited like ours. All her constructions and motions are those of an illimitable intuitive wisdom too great and spontaneous and mysteriously self-effective to be described as an intelligence, of a Power and Will working for Time in eternity with an inevitable and forecasting movement in each of its steps, even in those steps that in their outward or superficial impetus seem to us inconscient. And as there is in her this greater consciousness and greater power, so too there is an illimitable spirit of harmony and beauty in her constructions that never fails her, though its works are not limited by our aesthetic canons. An infinite hedonism too is there, an illimitable spirit of delight, of which we become aware when we enter into impersonal unity with her; and even as that in her which is terrible is a part of her beauty, that in her which is dangerous, cruel, destructive is a part of her delight, her universal Ananda. If then all else in us, our intelligence, our dynamic and volitional, our aesthetic, our hedonistic being, when they regard the physical universe, feel intuitively the satisfaction in it of something great and illimitable but still mysteriously of their own kind, must not our moral sense, our sense of Right, find too there the satisfaction of something of which it is itself the reflection? An intuitive perception of this kind is at the root of our demand for a moral order in the universe. Yes, but here too our partial conceptions, our own moral canons are not sufficient; this is a greater and illimitable Right, not bound to the ethical formula, and its first principle is that each thing should observe the law of its own energy and each energy move in its own lines in the total Scheme and fulfil its own function and make its own returns. The physical law is the right and justice, the duty, the ought of the physical world. The godhead of Fire in the Upanishad, questioned by the Spirit, What is the power in thee? makes answer This is my power that whatever is cast to me, I burn, and a similar answer is made by each physical thing to the question of the life and the mind. It observes the lines of its physical energy and is concerned with no other law or justice. No law of Karma, the moral law included, could exist, if there were not to begin with this principle as the first foundation of order.
What then is the relation of man to this physical Nature, man this soul intervening in and physically born of her in a body subjected to her law of action? what his function as something that is yet more than her, a life and a mind and a spirit? what his swabhava, his swadharma? First, he owes to her a mechanical obedience of which she herself working in his body takes care: but also, as a soul evolving the power of consciousness secret in her, his business is to know and to use her law and even in knowing and using it to transcend her more material limit, habit, purpose and formula. Observance of Nature but also transcendence of first nature is continually the purpose of the Spirit within him. A continuous series of transcendences is the most significant thing in the world action and evolution itself is only Natures constant impulse and effort of self-exceeding, of a greater self-becoming, her way of expressing more and more, getting out a greater form of birth and awakened power of presence of the self that is in her. Life brings in a whole range of these transcendences, mind another and greater range, and since mind is so evidently imperfect and incomplete, a thing of seeking in its very nature, there must surely be a range or many ranges of transcendence above mind. Man meets with the powers of his mind the rule of the physical action and the law of vital Karma, brings in a law of mental and moral Karma and lifts along the ladder of these scales to something more, to a potency of spiritual action which may even lead him to an exceeding of Karma itself, a freedom from or of birth and becoming, a perfecting transcendence.
3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
hymns and finally the place of the whole in the Scheme of ideas
kdA t aAn;qg^
4.02 - BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE - THE HYPER-PERSONAL, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
round off without difficulty the Scheme left incomplete at the
end of our second chapter, where we sought to enclose the
4.04 - The Perfection of the Mental Being, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
First, he has the intuition of himself as someone observing the action of the mind; it is something which is going on in him and yet before him as an object of his regarding knowledge. This self-awareness is the intuitive sense of the witness Purusha, saksi. Witness Purusha is a pure consciousness who watches Nature and sees it as an action reflected upon the consciousness and enlightened by that consciousness, but in itself other than it. To mental Purusha Nature is only an action, a complex action of discriminating and combining thought, of will, of sense, of emotion, of temperament and character, of ego feeling, which works upon a foundation of vital impulses, needs and cravings in the conditions imposed by the physical body. But it is not limited by them, since it can not only give them new directions and much variation, refining and extension, but is able to act in thought and imagination and a mental world of much more subtle and flexible creations. But also there is an intuition in the mental Purusha of something larger and greater than this present action in which he lives, a range of experience of which it is only a frontal Scheme or a narrow superficial selection. By this intuition he stands upon the threshold of a subliminal self with a more extended possibility than this superficial mentality opens to his self-knowledge. A last and greatest intuition is an inner awareness of something which he more essentially is, something as high above mind as mind is above the physical life and body. This inner awareness is his intuition of his supramental and spiritual being.
The mental Purusha can at any time involve himself again in the superficial action from which he has drawn back, live for a while entirely identified with the mechanism of mind, life and body and absorbedly repeat its recurrent normal action. But once that separative movement has been made and lived in for some time, he can never be to himself quite what he was before. The involution in the outward action becomes now only a recurrent self-oblivion from which there is a tendency in him to draw back again to himself and to pure self-experience. It may be noted too that the Purusha by drawing back from the normal action of this outward consciousness which has created for him his present natural form of self-experience, is able to take two other poises. He can have an intuition of himself as a soul in body, which puts forth life as its activity and mind as the light of that activity. This soul in body is the physical conscious being, anandamaya purusa, which uses life and mind characteristically for physical experience, --all else being regarded as a consequence of physical experience, -- does not look beyond the life of the body and, so far as it feels anything beyond its physical individuality, is aware only of the physical universe and at most its oneness with the soul of physical Nature. But he can have too an intuition of himself as a soul of life, self-identified with a great movement of becoming in Time, which puts forth body as a form or basic sense-image and mind as a conscious activity of life-experience. This soul in life is the vital conscious being, praramaya purusa, which is capable of looking beyond the duration and limits of the physical body, of feeling an eternity of life behind and in front, an identity with a universal Life-being, but does not look beyond a constant vital becoming in Time. These three Purushas are soul-forms of the Spirit by which it identifies its conscious existence with and founds its action upon any of these three planes or principles of its universal being.
4.1.01 - The Intellect and Yoga, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Science organises takes its real and very limited place. Science, like most mental and external knowledge, gives you only truth of process. I would add that it cannot give you even the whole truth of process; for you seize some of the ponderables, but miss the all-important imponderables; you get, hardly even the how, but the conditions under which things happen in Nature. After all the triumphs and marvels of Science the explaining principle, the rationale, the significance of the whole is left as dark, as mysterious and even more mysterious than ever. The Scheme it has built up of the evolution not only of this rich and vast and variegated material world, but of life and consciousness and mind and their workings out of a brute mass of electrons, identical and varied only in arrangement and number, is an irrational magic more baffling than any the most mystic imagination could conceive. Science in the end lands us in a paradox effectuated, an organised and rigidly determined accident, an impossibility that has somehow happened, - it has shown us a new, a material Maya, aghat.ana-ghat.ana-pat.yas, very clever at bringing about the impossible, a miracle that cannot logically be and yet somehow is there actual, irresistibly organised, but still irrational and inexplicable. And this is evidently because Science
332
4.12 - The Way of Equality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The effort towards a passive or purely receptive equality may start from three different principles or attitudes which all lead to the same result and ultimate consequence, -- endurance, indifference and submission. The principle of endurance relics on the strength of the spirit within us to bear all the contacts, impacts, suggestions of this phenomenal Nature that besieges us on every side without being overborne by them and compelled to bear their emotional, sensational, dynamic, intellectual reactions. The outer mind in the lower nature has not this strength. Its strength is that of a limited force of consciousness which has to do the best it can with all that comes in upon it or besieges it from the greater whirl of consciousness and energy which environs it on this plane of existence. That it can maintain itself at all and affirm its individual being in the universe, is due indeed to the strength of the spirit within it, but it cannot bring forward the whole of that strength or the infinity of that force to meet the attacks of life; if it could, it would be at once the equal and master of its world. In fact, it has to manage as it can. It meets certain impacts and Is able to assimilate, equate or master them partially or completely, for a time or wholly, and then it has in that degree the emotional and sensational reactions of joy, pleasure, satisfaction, liking, love, etc., or the intellectual and mental reactions of acceptance, approval, understanding, knowledge, preference, and on these its will seizes with attraction, desire, the attempt to prolong, to repeat, to create, to possess, to make them the pleasurable habit of its life. Other impacts it meets, but finds them too strong for it or too dissimilar and discordant or too weak to give it satisfaction; these are things which it cannot bear or cannot equate with itself or cannot assimilate, and it is obliged to give to them reactions of grief, pain, discomfort, dissatisfaction, disliking, disapproval, rejection, inability to understand or know, refusal of admission. Against them it seeks to protect itself, to escape from them, to avoid or minimise their recurrence; it has with regard to them movements of fear, anger, shrinking, horror, aversion, disgust, shame, would gladly be delivered from them, but it cannot get away from them, for it is bound to and even invites their causes and therefore the results; for these impacts are part of life, tangled up with the things we desire, and the inability to deal with them is part of the imperfection of our nature. Other impacts again the normal mind succeeds in holding at bay or neutralising and to these it has a natural reaction of indifference, insensibility or tolerance which is neither positive acceptance and enjoyment nor rejection or suffering. To things, persons, happenings, ideas, workings, whatever presents itself to the mind, there are always these three kinds of reaction. At the same time, in spite of their generality, there is nothing absolute about them; they form a Scheme for a habitual scale which is not precisely the same for all or even for the same mind at different times or in different conditions. The same impact may arouse in it at one time and another the pleasurable or positive, the adverse or negative or the indifferent or neutral reactions.
The soul which seeks mastery may begin by turning upon these reactions the encountering and opposing force of a strong and equal endurance. Instead of seeking to protect itself from or to shun and escape the unpleasant impacts it may confront them and teach itself to suffer and to bear them with perseverance, with fortitude, an increasing equanimity or an austere or calm acceptance. This attitude, this discipline brings out three results, three powers of the soul in relation to things. First, it is found that what was before unbearable, becomes easy to endure; the scale of the power that meets the impact rises in degree; it needs a greater and greater force of it or of its protracted incidence to cause trouble, pain, grief, aversion or any other of the notes in the gamut of the unpleasant reactions. Secondly, it is found that the conscious nature divides itself into two parts, one of the normal mental and emotional nature in which the customary reactions continue to take place, another of the higher will and reason which observes and is not troubled or affected by the passion of this lower nature, does not accept it as its own, does not approve, sanction or participate. Then the lower nature begins to lose the force and power of its reactions, to submit to the suggestions of calm and strength from the higher reason and will, and gradually that calm and strength take possession of the mental and emotional, even of the sensational, vital and physical being. This brings the third power and result, the power by this endurance and mastery, this separation and rejection of the lower nature, to get rid of the normal reactions and even, if we will, to remould all our modes of experience by the strength of the spirit. This method is applied not only to the unpleasant, but also to the pleasant reactions; the soul refuses to give itself up to or be carried away by them; it endures with calm the impacts which bring joy and pleasure, refuses to be excited by them and replaces the joy and eager seeking of the mind after pleasant things by the calm of the spirit. It can be applied too to the thought-mind in a calm reception of knowledge and of limitations of knowledge which refuses to be carried away by the fascination of this attractive or repelled by dislike for that unaccustomed or unpalatable thought-suggestion and waits on the Truth with a detached observation which allows it to grow on the strong, disinterested, mastering will and reason. Thus the soul becomes gradually equal to all things, master of itself, adequate to meet the world with a strong front in the mind and an undisturbed serenity of the spirit.
4.19 - The Nature of the supermind, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The mind on the contrary is limited and incapable in all these directions. Mind cannot arrive at identity with the Absolute even when by a stretch of the intellect it conceives the idea, but can only disappear into it in a swoon or extinction: it can only have a kind of sense or an intimation of certain absolutes which it puts by the mental idea into a relative figure. It cannot grasp the universal, but only arrives at some idea of it through an extension of the individual or a combination of apparently separate things and so sees it either as a vague infinite or indeterminate or a half determined largeness or else only in an external Scheme or constructed figure. The indivisible being and action of the universal, which is its real truth, escapes the apprehension of the mind, because the mind thinks it out analytically by taking its own divisions for units and synthetically by combinations of these units, but cannot seize on and think entirely in the terms, though it may get at the idea and certain secondary results, of the essential oneness. It cannot, either, know truly and thoroughly even the individual and apparently separate thing, because it proceeds in the same way, by an analysis of parts and constituents and properties and a combination by which it erects a Scheme of it which is only its external figure. It can get an intimation of the essential inmost truth of its object, but cannot live constantly and luminously in that essential knowledge and work out on the rest from within outward so that the outward circumstances appear in their intimate reality and meaning as inevitable result and expression and form and action of the spiritual something which is the reality of the object. And all this which is impossible for the mind to do, but possible only to strive towards and figure, is inherent and natural to the supramental knowledge.
The third characteristic of the supermind arising from this difference, which brings us to the practical distinction between the two kinds of knowledge, is that it is directly truth-conscious, a divine power of immediate, inherent and spontaneous knowledge, an Idea holding luminously all realities and not depending on indications and logical or other steps from the known to the unknown like the mind which is a power of the Ignorance. The supermind contains all its knowledge in itself, is in its highest divine wisdom in eternal possession of all truth and even in its lower, limited or individualised forms has only to bring the latent truth out of itself, -- the perception which the old thinkers tried to express when they said that all knowing was in its real origin and nature only a memory of inwardly existing knowledge. The supermind is eternally and on all levels truth-conscious and exists secretly even in mental and material being, surveys and knows the things, evenobscurest, of the mental ignorance and understands and is behind and governs its processes, because everything in the mind derives from the supermind -- and must do so because everything derives from the spirit. All that is mental is but a partial, a modified, a suppressed or half suppressed figure of the supramental truth, a deformation or a derived and imperfect figure of its greater knowledge. The mind begins with ignorance and proceeds towards knowledge. As an actual fact, in the material universe, it appears out of an initial and universal inconscience which is really an involution of the all-conscient spirit in its own absorbed self-oblivious force of action; and it appears therefore as part of an evolutionary process, first a vital feeling towards overt sensation, then an emergence of a vital mind capable of sensation and, evolving out of it, a mind of emotion and desire, a conscious will, a growing intelligence. And each stage is an emergence of a greater suppressed power of the secret supermind and spirit.
The mind of man, capable of reflection and a coordinated investigation and understanding of itself and its basis and surroundings, arrives at truth but against a background of original ignorance, a truth distressed by a constant surrounding mist of incertitude and error. Its certitudes are relative and for the most part precarious certainties or else are the assured fragmentary certitudes only of an imperfect, incomplete and not an essential experience. It makes discovery after discovery, gets idea after idea, adds experience to experience and experiment to experiment, -- but losing and rejecting and forgetting and having to recover much as it proceeds, --and it tries to establish a relation between all that it knows by setting up logical and other sequences, a series of principles and their dependences, generalisations and their application, and makes out of its devices a structure in which mentally it can live, move and act and enjoy and labour. This mental knowledge is always limited in extent: not only so, but in addition the mind even sets up other willed barriers, admitting by the mental device of opinion certain parts and sides of truth and excluding all the rest, because if it gave free admission and play to all ideas, if it suffered truth's infinities, it would lose itself in an unreconciled variety, an undetermined immensity and would be unable to act and proceed to practical consequences and an effective creation. And even when it is widest and most complete, mental knowing is still an indirect knowledge, a knowledge not of the thing in itself but of its figures, a system of representations, a Scheme of indices, -- except indeed when in certain movements it goes beyond itself, beyond the mental idea to spiritual identity, but it finds it extremely difficult to go here beyond a few isolated and intense spiritual realisations or to draw or work out or organise the right practical consequences of these rare identities of knowledge. A greater power than the reason is needed for the spiritual comprehension and effectuation of this deepest knowledge.
This is what the supermind, intimate with the Infinite, alone can do. The supermind sees directly the spirit and essence, the face and body, the result and action, the principles and dependences of the truth as one indivisible whole and therefore can work out the circumstantial results in the power of the essential knowledge, the variations of the spirit in the light of its identities, its apparent divisions in the truth of its oneness. The supermind is a knower and creator of its own truth, the mind of man only a knower and creator in the half light and half darkness of a mingled truth and error, and creator too of a thing which it derives altered, translated, lessened from something greater than and beyond it. Man lives in a mental consciousness between a vast subconscient which is to his seeing a dark inconscience and a vaster superconscient which he is apt to take for another but a luminous inconscience, because his idea of consciousness is confined to his own middle term of mental sensation and intelligence. It is in that luminous superconscience that there lie the ranges of the supermind and the spirit.
4.2 - Karma, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
321. The communistic principle of society is intrinsically as superior to the individualistic as is brotherhood to jealousy and mutual slaughter; but all the practical Schemes of Socialism invented in Europe are a yoke, a tyranny and a prison.
322. If communism ever reestablishes itself successfully upon earth, it must be on a foundation of soul's brotherhood and the death of egoism. A forced association and a mechanical comradeship would end in a worldwide fiasco.
5.2.01 - Word-Formation, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The backbone of the skeleton is composed of the roots of the original language that survive; the rest is the various principles of word-formation. Accordingly in the languages of the world which are nearest to the old sacred language, the ancient Aryan languages, there is one common element,the roots, the elemental word-formations from the roots and so much of the original significance as survives variety of mental development playing on different lines and to different purposes. The object of this treatise is to provide a reasoned basis, built up on the facts of the old languages, Sanscrit, Greek, Latin, German, Celtic, Tamil, Persian, Arabic, for a partial reconstruction, not of the original devabhasha, but of the latest forms commonly original to the variations in these languages. I shall take the four languages, Sanscrit, Greek, Latin and Tamil first, to build up my Scheme and then support it by the four other tongues. I omit all argument and handling of possible objections, because the object of this work is suggestive and constructive only, not apologetic. When the whole Scheme is stated and has been worked out on a more comprehensive scale than is possible in the limits I have here set myself, the time will come for debate. Over an uncompleted exegesis, it would be premature.
I shall first indicate the principle on which the roots of the devabhasha were formed. All shabda (vak) as it manifests out of the akasha by the force of Matariswan, the great active and creative energy, and is put in its place in the flux of formed things (apas) carries with it certain definite significances (artha). These are determined by the elements through which it has passed. Shabda appears in the akasha, travels through vayu, the second element in which sparsha is the vibration; by the vibrations of sparsha, it creates in tejas, the third element, certain forms, and so arrives into being with these three characteristics, first, certain contactual vibrations, secondly, a particular kind of tejas or force, thirdly, a particular form. These determine the bhava or general sensation it creates in the mind and from that sensation develop its various precise meanings according to the form which it is used to create.
5 - The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
there is some secret Scheme afoot to free not so much the princess
as the raven. As soon as the hero catches sight of him, the raven
--
locks her up in his hunting-lodge on earth. The secret Scheme
is partially unveiled: the princess must be brought down from
Aeneid, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
to me this Schemer's ruthless villainy;
they saw but unprotestinglywhat was
--
great wrath or what the Scheme of fate has asked
consoles Aeneas, saying this to him:
--
side, depicts him as a wily Schemer. From his home in Ithaca, he
is sometimes called "the Ithacan." He is the central figure of the
Blazing P3 - Explore the Stages of Postconventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
minute speck in the eternal Scheme of things.They live with great inner tensions. They may
become preoccupied with notions of noncontrol, tolerance and acceptance as they find
BOOK II. -- PART I. ANTHROPOGENESIS., #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
appearance -- the old Aryan, the ancient Greek, and the modern Christian Schemes -- we select several
Sun-gods and dragons at random, these will be found copied from each other.
--
one know that the writer has not invented the whole Scheme? And supposing she has not, how can one
tell that the whole of the foregoing, as given in the Stanzas, is not the product of the imagination of the
BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
hypothesis to the unbelievers -- with the Darwinian Scheme, so full of insurmountable obstacles, that
no sooner is one of these overcome by a more or less ingenious hypothesis, than ten worse difficulties
--
in a progressive Scheme.
This hypothesis is made in relation to Evolution not being entirely due to "natural selection"; but it
BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
* But it was not so, in reality, witness their prophets. It is the later Rabbis and the Talmudic Scheme
that killed out all spirituality from the body of their symbols; leaving only their Scriptures -- a dead
--
stupendous Scheme now known as the Bible, or their successors who knew, as all Kabalists do, that it
was so invented for a popular blind -- how could they, we ask, feel reverence for such a phallic symbol
--
individuality and personality in the subsequent Scheme of evolution. The Logos it is, who is shown in
the mystic symbolism of cosmogony, theogony, and anthropogony, playing two parts in the drama of
--
structure is foundering. The entire Christian Scheme rests upon these Jakin and Boaz -- the two
contrary forces of good and evil, Christ and Satan the [[agathai kai kakai dunameis]]. Take away from
--
Romans as an instrument of torture, and the ignorance of the early Christian Schemers, the tree of
death!
--
perplexity by declaring the whole Scheme "figments" "of Brahminical fancy and love of
exaggeration." But to the student of occultism, the whole is pregnant with deeply philosophical
--
of religions and philosophies were Schemed out.
*** Represented as the jealous, angry, turbulent and ever active-god, revengeful, and kind only to his
--
useless. The seven capital sins and seven virtues of the Christian Scheme are far less philosophical
than even the Seven Liberal and the Seven Accursed Sciences -- or the Seven Arts of enchantment of
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
undertaking. Even the two volumes now issued do not complete the Scheme, and these do not treat
exhaustively of the subjects dealt with in them. A large quantity of material has already been
--
carry out the Scheme of the work in its entirety. The third volume is entirely ready; the fourth almost
so.
This Scheme, it must be added, was not in contemplation when the preparation of the work was first
announced. As originally announced, it was intended that the "Secret Doctrine" should be an amended
--
atoms," and to assign to man his rightful place in the Scheme of the Universe; to rescue from
degradation the archaic truths which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the
--
individual consciousness, and supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast Scheme of cosmic
Evolution. On the other hand, precosmic root-substance (Mulaprakriti) is that aspect of the Absolute
--
factor in the Scheme of Nature. But once the operation of these Intelligences is admitted in one place, it
is only a logical deduction to extend it still further. No hard and fast line can be drawn.
--
arranged as in the following Scheme, we shall obtain the annexed diagram of correspondences: --
DIAGRAM I.
--
It now becomes plain that there exists in Nature a triple evolutionary Scheme, for the formation of the
three periodical Upadhis; or rather three separate Schemes of evolution, which in our system are
inextricably interwoven and interblended at every point. These are the Monadic (or spiritual), the
--
Round in the Scheme of evolution.
From the preceding diagrams, which are applicable, mutatis mutandis, to Rounds, Globes or Races, it
--
flow of the narrative, are necessary for the elucidation of the whole Scheme -- the reader must return
once more to Cosmogony. The phrase "Older wheels" refers to the worlds or Globes of our chain as
--
namer; since, according to the Founder of the new Hylo-Idealistic Scheme, "Cerebration is generically
the same as chylification."* Thus, were one to believe this preposterous proposition, the new name of
BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
in the periodic Scheme -- and the difficulty falls away. In defining an element, let us
take not an external boundary, but an internal type. Let us say, e.g., the smallest
--
manner other series of analogous bodies. It may be asked whether this Scheme explains
how and why the elements appear in this order? Let us imagine a cyclical translation in
--
". . . Let us now turn to the upper portion of the Scheme. With hydrogen of atomic
weight = 1, there is little room for other elements, save, perhaps, for hypothetical
--
view of the genesis of the elements; and lastly we have reviewed a Scheme of their
origin suggested by Professor Reynold's method of illustrating the periodic
--
The Old Testament is full of allusions to the twelve zodiacal signs, and the whole Scheme is built
upon it -- heroes, personages, and events. Thus in the dream of Joseph, who saw eleven "stars"
BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
**** The wise men, like Stanley Jevons amongst the moderns, who invented the Scheme which makes
the incomprehensible assume a tangible form, could only do so by resorting to numbers and
Book of Proverbs, #The Bible, #Anonymous, #Various
and be filled with the fruit of their Schemes.
32 For the waywardness of the simple will kill them,
--
23 A fool finds pleasure in wicked Schemes,
but a person of understanding delights in wisdom.
BOOK XII. - Of the creation of angels and men, and of the origin of evil, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
All natures, then, inasmuch as they are, and have therefore a rank and species of their own, and a kind of internal harmony, are certainly good. And when they are in the places assigned to them by the order of their nature, they preserve such being as they have received. And those things which have not received everlasting being, are altered for better or for worse, so as to suit the wants and motions of those things to which the Creator's law has made them subservient; and[Pg 487] thus they tend in the divine providence to that end which is embraced in the general Scheme of the government of the universe. So that, though the corruption of transitory and perishable things brings them to utter destruction, it does not prevent their producing that which was designed to be their result. And this being so, God, who supremely is, and who therefore created every being which has not supreme existence (for that which was made of nothing could not be equal to Him, and indeed could not be at all had He not made it), is not to be found fault with on account of the creature's faults, but is to be praised in view of the natures He has made.
6. What the cause of the blessedness of the good angels is, and what the cause of the misery of the wicked.
BOOK XXII. - Of the eternal happiness of the saints, the resurrection of the body, and the miracles of the early Church, #City of God, #Saint Augustine of Hippo, #Christianity
28. What Plato or Labeo, or even Varro, might have contri buted to the true faith of the resurrection, if they had adopted one another's opinions into one Scheme.
Some Christians, who have a liking for Plato on account of his magnificent style and the truths which he now and then uttered, say that he even held an opinion similar to our own regarding the resurrection of the dead. Cicero, however, alluding to this in his Republic, asserts that Plato meant it rather as a playful fancy than as a reality; for he introduces a man[1026] who had come to life again, and gave a narrative of his experience in corroboration of the doctrines of Plato. Labeo, too, says that two men died on one day, and met at a cross-road, and that, being afterwards ordered to return to their bodies, they agreed to be friends for life, and were so till they died again. But the resurrection which these writers instance resembles that of those persons whom we have ourselves known to rise again, and who came back indeed to this life, but not so as never to die again. Marcus Varro, however, in his work On the Origin of the Roman People, records something more remarkable; I think his own words should be given. "Certain astrologers," he says, "have written that men are destined to a new birth, which the Greeks call palingenesy. This will take place after four hundred and forty years have elapsed; and then the same soul and the same body, which were formerly united in the person, shall again be reunited." This Varro, indeed, or those nameless astrologers,for he does not give us the names[Pg 534] of the men whose statement he cites,have affirmed what is indeed not altogether true; for once the souls have returned to the bodies they wore, they shall never afterwards leave them. Yet what they say upsets and demolishes much of that idle talk of our adversaries about the impossibility of the resurrection. For those who have been or are of this opinion, have not thought it possible that bodies which have dissolved into air, or dust, or ashes, or water, or into the bodies of the beasts or even of the men that fed on them, should be restored again to that which they formerly were. And therefore, if Plato and Porphyry, or rather, if their disciples now living, agree with us that holy souls shall return to the body, as Plato says, and that, nevertheless, they shall not return to misery, as Porphyry maintains,if they accept the consequence of these two propositions which is taught by the Christian faith, that they shall receive bodies in which they may live eternally without suffering any misery,let them also adopt from Varro the opinion that they shall return to the same bodies as they were formerly in, and thus the whole question of the eternal resurrection of the body shall be resolved out of their own mouths.
Chapter I - WHICH TREATS OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF THE FAMOUS GENTLEMAN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
these pleasant fancies, he set himself forthwith to put his Scheme into execution.
The first thing he did was to clean up some armour that had belonged to his great-grandfa ther, and had been
DS3, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
here. A simpler and more sensible reading is to see the Buddhas presentation as three separate, allinclusive Schemes for the characterization of beings. Thus, beings can be distinguished not only as to
their mode of birth but also as to whether or not they possess any rupa (form) or sanjna (perception).
ENNEAD 03.02 - Of Providence., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 04, #Plotinus, #Christianity
THE SOUL MUST FIT HERSELF TO HER SPECIAL PART IN THE GREAT Scheme.
Every individual, therefore, occupies, according to justice, the place he deserves, just as each string of1073 the lyre is fixed to the place assigned to it by the nature of the sounds it is to render. In the universe everything is good and beautiful if every being occupy the place he deserves, if, for instance, he utter discordant sounds when in darkness and Tartarus; for such sounds fit that place. If the universe is to be beautiful, the individual must not behave "like a stone" in it; he must contri bute to the unity of the universal harmony by uttering the sound suitable to him (as thought Epictetus75). The sound that the individual utters is the life he leads, a life which is inferior in greatness, goodness and power (to that of the universe). The shepherd's pipe utters several sounds, and the weakest of them, nevertheless, contri butes to the total Harmony, because this harmony is composed of unequal sounds whose totality constitutes a perfect harmony. Likewise, universal Reason though one, contains unequal parts. Consequently, the universe contains different places, some better, and some worse, and their inequality corresponds to the inequality of the soul. Indeed, as both places and souls are different, the souls that are different find the places that are unequal, like the unequal parts of the pipe, or any other musical instrument. They inhabit different places, and each utters sounds proper to the place where they are, and to the universe. Thus what is bad for the individual may be good for the totality; what is against nature in the individual agrees with the nature in the whole. A sound that is feeble does not change the harmony of the universe, asto use another exampleone bad citizen does not change the nature of a well-regulated city; for often there is need of such a man in a city; he therefore fits it well.
--- Overview of noun scheme
The noun scheme has 5 senses (first 2 from tagged texts)
1. (10) scheme, strategy ::: (an elaborate and systematic plan of action)
2. (1) dodge, dodging, scheme ::: (a statement that evades the question by cleverness or trickery)
3. system, scheme ::: (a group of independent but interrelated elements comprising a unified whole; "a vast system of production and distribution and consumption keep the country going")
4. schema, scheme ::: (an internal representation of the world; an organization of concepts and actions that can be revised by new information about the world)
5. outline, schema, scheme ::: (a schematic or preliminary plan)
--- Overview of verb scheme
The verb scheme has 2 senses (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (1) scheme, intrigue, connive ::: (form intrigues (for) in an underhand manner)
2. scheme ::: (devise a system or form a scheme for)
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun scheme
5 senses of scheme
Sense 1
scheme, strategy
=> plan of action
=> plan, program, programme
=> idea, thought
=> content, cognitive content, mental object
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 2
dodge, dodging, scheme
=> falsehood, falsity, untruth
=> statement
=> message, content, subject matter, substance
=> communication
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 3
system, scheme
=> group, grouping
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 4
schema, scheme
=> representation, mental representation, internal representation
=> content, cognitive content, mental object
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
Sense 5
outline, schema, scheme
=> plan, program, programme
=> idea, thought
=> content, cognitive content, mental object
=> cognition, knowledge, noesis
=> psychological feature
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun scheme
2 of 5 senses of scheme
Sense 1
scheme, strategy
=> contrivance, stratagem, dodge
=> counterterrorism
=> game plan
=> game plan
=> house of cards, bubble
=> playbook
=> plot, secret plan, game
=> pyramid scheme
=> waiting game
=> wheeze
=> incentive program, incentive scheme
Sense 3
system, scheme
=> language system
=> judiciary, judicature, judicatory, judicial system
=> economy, economic system
=> ecosystem
=> social organization, social organisation, social structure, social system, structure
=> dragnet
=> machinery
=> network, web
=> nonlinear system
=> subsystem
=> organism
=> syntax
=> body
=> shebang
=> solar system
=> water system
=> rootage, root system
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun scheme
5 senses of scheme
Sense 1
scheme, strategy
=> plan of action
Sense 2
dodge, dodging, scheme
=> falsehood, falsity, untruth
Sense 3
system, scheme
=> group, grouping
Sense 4
schema, scheme
=> representation, mental representation, internal representation
Sense 5
outline, schema, scheme
=> plan, program, programme
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun scheme
5 senses of scheme
Sense 1
scheme, strategy
-> plan of action
=> play
=> policy
=> battle plan
=> system
=> tactic, tactics, maneuver, manoeuvre
=> scheme, strategy
=> travel plan, itinerary
Sense 2
dodge, dodging, scheme
-> falsehood, falsity, untruth
=> dodge, dodging, scheme
=> lie, prevarication
=> fabrication, fiction, fable
=> misrepresentation, deceit, deception
=> contradiction, contradiction in terms
Sense 3
system, scheme
-> group, grouping
=> world, human race, humanity, humankind, human beings, humans, mankind, man
=> arrangement
=> straggle
=> kingdom
=> biological group
=> community, biotic community
=> people
=> social group
=> collection, aggregation, accumulation, assemblage
=> edition
=> electron shell
=> ethnic group, ethnos
=> race
=> association
=> swarm, cloud
=> subgroup
=> sainthood
=> citizenry, people
=> population
=> multitude, masses, mass, hoi polloi, people, the great unwashed
=> varna
=> circuit
=> system, scheme
=> series
HAS INSTANCE=> Great Lakes
=> actinoid, actinide, actinon
=> rare earth, rare-earth element, lanthanoid, lanthanide, lanthanon
=> halogen
Sense 4
schema, scheme
-> representation, mental representation, internal representation
=> overlap, convergence, intersection
=> instantiation
=> antitype
=> stereotype
=> schema, scheme
=> image, mental image
=> interpretation, reading, version
=> phantasmagoria
=> psychosexuality
=> percept, perception, perceptual experience
=> memory
=> model, example
=> appearance
=> blur, fuzz
=> abstractionism, unrealism
=> concretism, concrete representation
Sense 5
outline, schema, scheme
-> plan, program, programme
=> audit program, audit programme
=> outline, schema, scheme
=> master plan
=> blueprint, design, pattern
=> plan of action
=> regimen, regime
=> project, projection
=> agenda, docket, schedule
=> pension plan, pension account, retirement plan, retirement savings plan, retirement savings account, retirement account, retirement program
=> employee savings plan
=> road map, guideline
=> stock purchase plan
=> budget
--- Grep of noun scheme
color scheme
colour scheme
fraudulent scheme
incentive scheme
pump-and-dump scheme
pyramid scheme
scheme
scheme arch
schemer
Wikipedia - About URI scheme -- Internal URI scheme
Wikipedia - ACM Classification Scheme
Wikipedia - Adarsh Credit Cooperative Society -- Fraudulent scheme
Wikipedia - Address family identifier -- Unique identifier for addressing schemes
Wikipedia - Algebraic stack -- Generalization of algebraic spaces or schemes
Wikipedia - Al-Salam-Chihara polynomials -- Family of basic hypergeometric orthogonal polynomials in the basic Askey scheme
Wikipedia - Amtrak paint schemes -- History of paint schemes applied to Amtrak locomotvies and rail cars
Wikipedia - Anjala conspiracy -- Scheme by disgruntled Swedish officers to end Gustav III's Russian War of 1788-90
Wikipedia - Argumentation scheme
Wikipedia - Argument scheme
Wikipedia - A roads in Zone 9 of the Great Britain numbering scheme -- List of roads in Great Britain
Wikipedia - Atal Bhujal Yojana -- National groundwater management scheme in India
Wikipedia - Athena SWAN -- British university accreditation scheme promoting gender equality
Wikipedia - Australia and the Empire Air Training Scheme -- Program to train Australian pilots during World War II
Wikipedia - Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme -- Australian based international occupational diver accreditation organisation
Wikipedia - AUSTUDY Scheme -- Australian educational assistance scheme
Wikipedia - BahaM-JM- -- Romanization scheme for Arabic and Persian words, used in Baha'i literature
Wikipedia - Base32 -- Binary-to-text encoding scheme using 32 symbols
Wikipedia - Bi-quinary coded decimal -- Numeral encoding scheme
Wikipedia - Bitconnect -- Ponzi Scheme cryptocurrency
Wikipedia - BLISS signature scheme
Wikipedia - Boiler scrappage scheme -- 2010 UK scrappage scheme
Wikipedia - Business Consulting International -- London-based investment company that collapsed after being exposed by a City of London Police investigation in 2008 as the United Kingdom's biggest ponzi scheme, estimated at M-BM-#115M
Wikipedia - Cabal -- Clever scheme or artful plot, usually crafted for evil purposes
Wikipedia - Category:Articles with example Scheme (programming language) code
Wikipedia - Category:Digital signature schemes
Wikipedia - Category:Public-key encryption schemes
Wikipedia - Category:Scheme (programming language) implementations
Wikipedia - Category:Scheme (programming language)
Wikipedia - Centrally Sponsored Scheme
Wikipedia - Challenge fund -- Scheme for competitive public funding
Wikipedia - Chennai Rapid Bus Transit Ways -- Transport scheme in Chennai, India
Wikipedia - Chez Scheme
Wikipedia - Chicken (Scheme implementation)
Wikipedia - Civil Resettlement Units -- British scheme to aid British former prisoners of war to return to civilian life after World War II
Wikipedia - Classification scheme
Wikipedia - Color scheme -- choice of colors used in design
Wikipedia - Commitment scheme -- Cryptographic scheme that allows commitment to a chosen value
Wikipedia - CompEx -- Global certification scheme for electrical and mechanical craftspersons and designers
Wikipedia - Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme
Wikipedia - Cycle to Work scheme -- UK Government tax exemption initiative
Wikipedia - Darien Scheme
Wikipedia - Data URI scheme
Wikipedia - Day One Support for Young People Trailblazer -- Former trial compulsory workfare scheme
Wikipedia - DC Solar -- Solar company and Ponzi scheme
Wikipedia - Decay scheme -- A graphical presentation of all the transitions occurring in a decay of a radioactive substance
Wikipedia - Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana -- Government of India scheme designed to provide continuous power supply to rural India
Wikipedia - D.M.G. Grupo Holding S.A. -- Colombian company disbanded under the suspicion of money laundering and illegal money catchment by using the Ponzi scheme
Wikipedia - Double-spending -- Failure mode of digital cash schemes
Wikipedia - Dreadnought scheme -- Farm worker migration scheme of Brits to Australia in the early 20th century
Wikipedia - Ed2k URI scheme
Wikipedia - Efficient Probabilistic Public-Key Encryption Scheme
Wikipedia - E-GIF -- Scheme for ensuring the inter-operation of computer-based systems
Wikipedia - ElGamal signature scheme
Wikipedia - Employees' State Insurance -- Self-financing social security and health insurance scheme for Indian workers
Wikipedia - Energy Performance Certificate (United Kingdom) -- Rating scheme to summarise the energy efficiency of buildings in the European Union
Wikipedia - ENO methods -- Class of high-resolution schemes in numerical solutions of differential equations
Wikipedia - Error correction code -- scheme for controlling errors in data over noisy communication channels
Wikipedia - European Union energy label -- Energy consumption labelling scheme
Wikipedia - Feed URI scheme
Wikipedia - File URI scheme
Wikipedia - Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing -- American pyramid scheme which was shut down in 2013
Wikipedia - French Connection -- Infamous crime scheme
Wikipedia - Gambit (Scheme implementation)
Wikipedia - Gambit (scheme implementation)
Wikipedia - Gateway Protection Programme -- Refugee scheme operated by the British government
Wikipedia - Geo URI scheme
Wikipedia - Get-rich-quick scheme -- Scam that promises high rates of return for a small investment
Wikipedia - Gluing schemes -- Mathematical concept
Wikipedia - Godunov's scheme
Wikipedia - Gone in 60 Seconds (bank fraud) -- 2012 American fraud scheme
Wikipedia - Google Schemer
Wikipedia - Great Britain road numbering scheme -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - High-resolution scheme -- Scheme used in the numerical solution of partial differential equations
Wikipedia - Hilbert scheme -- Moduli scheme of subschemes of a scheme, represents the flat-family-of-subschemes functor
Wikipedia - History of the Scheme programming language
Wikipedia - Holdridge life zones -- Global bioclimatic scheme for the classification of land areas
Wikipedia - Horner scheme
Wikipedia - Ikarus (Scheme implementation)
Wikipedia - Indian Script Code for Information Interchange -- Coding scheme for Indian writing systems
Wikipedia - Info URI scheme
Wikipedia - Integrated Encryption Scheme
Wikipedia - International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration -- Transliteration scheme
Wikipedia - IronScheme
Wikipedia - ITRANS -- ASCII transliteration scheme for Indic scripts, particularly for Devanagari script
Wikipedia - Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission -- 2005-2014 city-modernisation scheme in India
Wikipedia - JScheme
Wikipedia - Jyutping -- Romanization scheme for Cantonese
Wikipedia - K2 (tax scheme) -- Offshore wealth management scheme run in Jersey, Channel Islands
Wikipedia - Katz-Lang finiteness theorem -- On kernels of maps between abelianized fundamental groups of schemes and fields
Wikipedia - Kawa (Scheme implementation)
Wikipedia - Key light -- First light in a photographic or filmmaking lighting scheme
Wikipedia - Key Words Reading Scheme -- Series of children's early reading books
Wikipedia - Larceny (Scheme implementation)
Wikipedia - Light-on-dark color scheme -- GUI color scheme
Wikipedia - Linked numbering scheme -- Dialing that does not require an additional dialing code for numbers in the same local area
Wikipedia - List of cleanest cities in India -- City Rating under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan scheme
Wikipedia - List of codes used in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions -- Wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Compact Disc and DVD copy protection schemes -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of countries by United Nations geoscheme -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Foreign Sports Talent Scheme athletes -- wikimedia list article
Wikipedia - List of ships of the Poyais scheme -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of Union Government schemes in India -- Various schemes by the Government of India
Wikipedia - List of URI schemes -- Namespace identifier assigned by IANA
Wikipedia - List of Wii games with traditional control schemes -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - Magnet URI scheme
Wikipedia - Mantria Corporation Ponzi scheme -- Ecologically-focused investment scandal
Wikipedia - Mathematics Subject Classification -- Alphanumerical classification scheme used by many mathematics journals
Wikipedia - Medicare (Australia) -- Publicly-funded universal health care insurance scheme in Australia
Wikipedia - Merkle signature scheme
Wikipedia - Midday Meal Scheme
Wikipedia - Minibus Driver Awareness Scheme -- Training and registration scheme for drivers of minibuses in the UK
Wikipedia - MIT/GNU Scheme
Wikipedia - MojikyM-EM-^M -- Character encoding scheme
Wikipedia - Motivic cohomology -- An invariant of algebraic varieties and of more general schemes
Wikipedia - Moys Classification Scheme
Wikipedia - MuMs da Schemer
Wikipedia - Naming convention -- Generally agreed scheme for naming things
Wikipedia - Naming scheme
Wikipedia - National Disability Insurance Scheme -- National insurance scheme in Australia to subsidise any costs related to a disability
Wikipedia - National Funding Scheme -- British government charitable organisation
Wikipedia - National Health Insurance Scheme (Ghana) -- National Health Insurance of Ghana
Wikipedia - National Pension System -- Pension scheme in India
Wikipedia - National Student Financial Aid Scheme -- South African government student financial aid scheme
Wikipedia - National Youth Service Corps -- |Nigerian youth graduate scheme
Wikipedia - Naval armour -- Protection schemes of warships
Wikipedia - NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission -- Federal disability support scheme safety commission in Australia
Wikipedia - Nelson Chequer -- Colour scheme adopted by vessels of the British Royal Navy
Wikipedia - New Classification Scheme for Chinese Libraries
Wikipedia - New Halfa Scheme -- Human settlement in Sudan
Wikipedia - NewSQL -- Relational database management with a desiree scalable performance of NoSQL, by combining OLTP plus ACID schemes
Wikipedia - Nickel-Strunz classification -- Scheme for categorizing minerals
Wikipedia - N-Power -- Nigerian youth graduate and non-graduate scheme
Wikipedia - Numbering scheme
Wikipedia - Open-ended fund company -- Collective investment scheme
Wikipedia - Open peer review -- Peer review scheme in which reviews are public
Wikipedia - Palmiet Pumped Storage Scheme -- Pumped storage hydroelectric plant in the Western Cape
Wikipedia - Pantisocracy -- Utopian scheme
Wikipedia - Paul Schemel -- American politician
Wikipedia - Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme -- Australian Government subsidy for prescription medication
Wikipedia - PLT Scheme
Wikipedia - Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana -- Financial scheme of indian government
Wikipedia - Protection racket -- Scheme in which a group protects a client through illegal violence
Wikipedia - Pvts -- Scheme programming language interpreter
Wikipedia - Pyramid scheme -- Type of unsustainable business model
Wikipedia - Quantum threshold theorem -- Quantum error correction schemes can suppress the logical error rate arbitrarily low
Wikipedia - Quark model -- Classification scheme of hadrons
Wikipedia - Queen Anne's Bounty -- Scheme for assisting poorer clergy of the Church of England
Wikipedia - Radyr Hydro Scheme -- Hydroelectric power station in Cardiff
Wikipedia - Rangitata Diversion Race -- Irrigation scheme in Canterbury, New Zealand
Wikipedia - Rebate (marketing) -- Buying discount scheme
Wikipedia - Rekola -- Bicycle sharing scheme in the Czech Republic
Wikipedia - Robodebt scheme -- Controversial automated debt recovery scheme employed by Services Australia
Wikipedia - RScheme
Wikipedia - Rubicon Hydroelectric Scheme -- dam in Victoria, Australia
Wikipedia - Runit -- Init scheme and service supervisor for UNIX-like systems
Wikipedia - Russian Laundromat -- Money-laundering scheme from Russia.
Wikipedia - Rythu Bandhu scheme
Wikipedia - Saxbe fix -- Congressional payment scheme
Wikipedia - Scheme 48
Wikipedia - Scheme (linguistics) -- figure of speech that relies on the structure and syntax of sentences
Wikipedia - Scheme (mathematics) -- Generalization of algebraic variety
Wikipedia - Scheme programming language
Wikipedia - Scheme (programming language) -- Dialect of Lisp
Wikipedia - Scheme Requests for Implementation
Wikipedia - Schemers (film) -- Scottish biopic
Wikipedia - Schemes in Antiques -- 2021 Chinese film
Wikipedia - Schnorr signature -- Digital signature scheme
Wikipedia - SCM (Scheme implementation)
Wikipedia - Second Thirty Years' War -- Periodization scheme encompassing European wars from 1914 to 1945
Wikipedia - Shannon hydroelectric scheme -- Electricity generation project in County Clare, Ireland
Wikipedia - Silver Support Scheme Act 2015 -- Statute of the Parliament of Singapore
Wikipedia - Singapore Area Licensing Scheme -- Traffic congestion pricing scheme in Singapore
Wikipedia - SIP URI scheme
Wikipedia - Spike Surplus Scheme -- Self-managed project in South London 1999-2009
Wikipedia - Steps to Work -- Northern Ireland employment scheme
Wikipedia - Surname -- Part of a naming scheme for individuals, used in many cultures worldwide
Wikipedia - Swadesh Darshan Scheme -- Government scheme to promote tourism in India
Wikipedia - Swiss Leaks -- 2015 expose of tax avoidance scheme
Wikipedia - Taxonomic scheme
Wikipedia - Telephone numbering plan -- numbering scheme to assign telephone numbers to telephones
Wikipedia - Template talk:URI schemes
Wikipedia - Thames Tideway Scheme -- Sewage system being created for London, England
Wikipedia - The Schemers (film) -- 1916 film
Wikipedia - TinyScheme
Wikipedia - Troy (card scheme) -- Card scheme
Wikipedia - UK ID card scheme
Wikipedia - Uniform Resource Name -- Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that uses the urn scheme
Wikipedia - UN/LOCODE -- Geographic coding scheme
Wikipedia - URI scheme
Wikipedia - Utpal Shanghvi Global School -- private school in J.V.P.D Scheme area of, Juhu, Mumbai, India.
Wikipedia - Vaalharts Irrigation Scheme -- South African irrigation layout
Wikipedia - Vartry Reservoir -- Major water supply scheme for Dublin city, Ireland
Wikipedia - Vegetable box scheme
Wikipedia - Vegetation classification -- Schemes for classifying vegetation communities
Wikipedia - Vehicle scrappage scheme -- UK scrappage scheme
Wikipedia - View-source URI scheme
Wikipedia - Von Neumann measurement scheme
Wikipedia - Vyborg HVDC scheme -- System to transmit electricity from Russia to Finland
Wikipedia - Wade-Giles -- Romanization scheme for Mandarin Chinese
Wikipedia - Wealth Partaking Scheme
Wikipedia - WENO methods -- Scheme used in the numerical solution of hyperbolic partial differential equations
Wikipedia - WeScheme -- Online programming environment
Wikipedia - Work-at-home scheme
Wikipedia - YEnc -- File transfer encoding scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10293197-dreams-and-schemes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1031555.The_Reasoned_Schemer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10558458-revised-5-report-on-the-algorithmic-language-scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1374081.Best_Laid_Schemes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15128549-samaritan-scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1552074.Ponzi_s_Scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17458431-field-of-schemes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19533196-rhyme-schemer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20093588-amalgamation-schemes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/241060.Pyramid_Scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25272115-the-scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25592266-schemes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26598713-poet-christopher-s-scenes-dreams-and-golden-schemes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3231854-amalgamation-schemes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/325602.The_Scheme_For_Full_Employment
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3598195-the-stepsister-scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3598195.The_Stepsister_Scheme__Princess_Novels___1_
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36000403-a-whisper-to-a-scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36529057-the-schemer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39095604-the-reasoned-schemer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/475858.The_Seasoned_Schemer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5284143-schemers
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/548914.The_Little_Schemer
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7428549-annabel-scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7652178-principes-d-implantation-de-scheme-et-lisp
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/767547.Tanner_s_Scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8581178-the-detroit-electric-scheme
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/946706.Decorating_Schemes
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1232865.Judith_Hemschemeyer
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16428186.Patty_Schemel
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/64255.Paul_Hornschemeier
Goodreads author - Judith_Hemschemeyer
Goodreads author - Paul_Hornschemeier
https://familypedia.wikia.org/wiki/Familypedia:By_location_category_scheme
https://religion.wikia.org/wiki/File:Scheme_of_things1475.gif
Integral World - "Yeah, but he got the colors wrong", A Suggestion for Improving the Integral Color Scheme, Frank Visser
Integral World - The involution/evolution cosmology, Ken Wilber holds on to an outdated scheme of existence, Review of "The Religion of Tomorrow", Part I, Frank Visser
Psychology Wiki - Psychology_Wiki:Community_Portal#New_scheme_of_work_published
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheVipersScheme
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConfidenceBuildingScheme
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GetRichQuickScheme
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NeverRecycleYourSchemes
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PonziScheme
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Schemer
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SelfSacrificeScheme
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZanyScheme
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ZanySchemeChicken
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Theatre/TheSchemesOfScapin
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Conceptual_scheme
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/File:Volcano_scheme.svg
Salute Your Shorts (1991 - 1992) - Salute Your Shorts was a comedy/drama television show aired on Nickelodeon from 1991-1992. The series, created by Steve Slavkin, was set at a summer camp, Camp Anawanna, and was centered on the teenage campers and their situations such as boys vs. girls, schemes for sneaking out of the camp, and goi...
That's So Raven (2002 - 2007) - That's So Raven is an American sitcom television show broadcast on the Disney Channel. The plot revolves around fashionable teenager Raven Baxter's schemes to get herself, her friends, or family members, out of a wacky situation, usually by using her psychic powers and her skills as a master of disg...
What's Happening!! (1976 - 1979) - Roger, Rerun and Dwayne are three buddies growing up in Los Angeles. The three of them always have a penchant for getting into mischief and trying to find ways of getting rich quick. Almost always the trio's schemes wind up getting them into trouble and it is up to Roger's mother to get them out of...
The King of Queens (1998 - 2007) - Blue-collar couple Doug and Carrie Heffernan (Kevin James and Leah Remini) share their home in Queens, NY with Carrier's oddball dad, Arthur (Jerry Stiller). Burly Doug, who makes a living as a parcel deliveryman, often has to scheme to find time alone with Carrie, as Arthur can be quiet a handful -...
The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo (1979 - 1981) - The show takes place in Orly Co. Ga. Sheriff Lobo is the crooked Co. Sheriff that is always trying to get some scheme or another going and someone always screws it up. Almost like an early Rosco P. Coltrain. In later episodes Sheriff Lobo and all his men get sent to Atlanta by the Governor.THE TH...
Dai Sentai Goggle V (1982 - 1983) - The Dark Science Empire Deathdark launches its scheme for world conquest from their Wolfborg Castle in Germany. Doctor Hongou, founder of the Future Science Laboratory, is saved from one of their attacks by world class explorer Ken'ichi Akama. Using his Comboyputer, Hongou recruits five people, incl...
Only Fools and Horses (1984 - 2002) - Only Fools and Horses tells the story of the crafty cockney huckster Derek "Delboy" Trotter (David Jason), who has finally found the perfect scheme which he is convinced will make him a millionaire within a year! Del's kid brother Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst) and his sweet but doddery old granddad (L...
The New Phil Silvers Show (1963 - 1964) - Harry Grafton is a supervisor at Osborne Industries which produces ever changing items according to plotline premise. Harry schemes to do as little as possible while still receiving maximum benefits. His efforts usually end in disaster.
Avenger Penguins (1993 - 1994) - The story revolves around three bike riding Penguins that inhabit Big City, uniting to protect it and its citizens from the evil Caractacus P. Doom, an insane and reclusive criminal scientist. The Penguins attempt to prevent Doom's schemes but find themselves often hampered by their own miscommunica...
Re: Cutey Honey (2004 - 2004) - A mysterious organization known as Panther Claw make their presence known by terrorizing Tokyo and giving the cops a run for their money. Police are further baffled by the appearance of a lone cosplaying vigilante who thwarts all of Panther Claw's evil schemes before disappearing. That cosplayer is...
The New Adventures of Beany and Cecil (1988 - 1988) - Direct from the 1960s popular Bob Clampett cartoon "Beany and Cecil" was revived to an all new series with only 5 episodes. Join Beany and Cecil on an adventure to stop the schemes of Dishonest John.
Oliver & Company(1988) - Oliver Is Befriended By Dodger, The Mischievous Little Kitten Is Welcomed By Dodger's Pack Of Dogs, The Dogs Run Into Trouble When The Evil Mastermind Sykes Schemes To Kidnap A Girl, It's Up To The Brave Kitten And His Friends To Race To The Rescue In An Electrifying Chase Through New York City's Su...
Mr. Boogedy(1986) - When the Davis family moves to Lucifer falls, they quickly learn that their less-than-humble abode harbors a ghost. Several hundred years earlier, Mr. Boogedy, as he came to be known, sold his soul for a magic cloak, that he'd hoped would win him the affection of widow Marion. When his scheme fail...
Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas(1966) - The Grinch is a green, gloomy Gus, who decides that the Whos in Whoville are enjoying their Christmas too much. He schemes and he plots to ruin their special day, but a young girl named Cindy makes sure he changes hi
Blazing Saddles(1974) - Mel Brooks scored his first commercial hit with this raucous Western spoof starring Cleavon Little as Bart, Rock Ridge's newly-hired (and conspicuously black) sheriff. Bart teams up with deputy Jim (Gene Wilder) to foil the railroad-building scheme of the nefarious Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman). The...
Mad Monster Party?(1967) - When Baron Von Frankenstein discovers the formula for a powerful anti-matter potion, he gathers all of the monsters -- and his nebbish nephew Felix -- for a party to announce his retirement. But the monsters aren't happy that he's named Felix as his successor, so they scheme to rub out the mortal....
Not Quite Human(1987) - Dr. Jonas Carson (Alan Thicke, "Growing Pains") creates an android, and wants to see if he can pass it off as a human being. So he quits his job, relocates and sends "teenage" android Chip (Jay Underwood, THE BOY WHO COULD FLY) to school with his daughter (Robyn Lively, TEEN WITCH). His scheme goe...
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle(2000) - When enemies Boris, Natasha and Fearless leader escape into the real world with a nefarious scheme, Rocky & Bullwinkle do the same and team up with a young F.B.I. agent to stop the trio.
Drive Me Crazy(1999) - Opposites attract with irresistible force in this fresh, funny, feel-good comedy about two mismatched teens who scheme to make their ex's jealous. Melissa Joan Hart (TV's "Sabrina the Teenage Witch") is "picture perfect" (CBS-TV, Fort Worth) as a peppy preppy who performs the ultimate makeover on he...
Rent-a-Kid(1995) - In this light-hearted comedy, an ingenious salesman devises a clever scheme for finding homes for orphans. A pair of yuppies, trying to decide whether or not to become parents, use the plan to test out three rambunctious children in their home.
Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation(1992) - In this third version of the Nerds theme, the next generation of Nerd boys have by now taken control of Adams College and one of the college trustees is sick of seeing the geeky nerds running everything so he schemes a plan devoted to the return of jock power.
Bushwhacked(1995) - Poor Max Grabelski doesn't have any luck at all. What little he had runs out when local racketeers set the bungling delivery man up to take the fall for their money-laundering schemes. Sure enough, when the government agents arrive, he is found holding a package filled with loot. Not only that, but...
Yellowbeard(1983) - For years Yellowbeard had looted the Spanish Main, making men eat their lips and swallow their hearts. Caught and convicted for tax evasion, he's sentenced to 20 years in St. Victim's Prison for the Extremely Naughty. In a scheme to confiscate his fabulous treasure, the Royal Navy allows him to esca...
Get Crazy(1983) - Mega-promoter Colin Beverly plans to sabotage the New Year's 1983 concert of small-time operator Max Wolfe. Wolfe's assistants Neil Allen and Willie Loman find romance while trying to save the drugs, violence, and rock and roll from Beverly's schemes.
Universal Soldier II: Brothers in Arms(1998) - Literally picking up where the original Universal Soldier left off, this made-for-cable sequel (with Matt Battaglia taking over the role played by Jean Claude Van Damme in the original) concerns a soldier who has been forced to take part in a secret military operation. He schemes to expose the uneth...
The Bikini Car Wash Company 2(1993) - When the bodacious owners of a successful car wash chainfeaturing barely-clad, excessively mammillaed, sudsing chicksare threatened with losing their business, they launch a lingerie marketing scheme to raise the needed money. If one is interested in purely intellectual stimulation, this i...
All I Want for Christmas(1991) - In New York City, siblings Ethan and Hallie O'Fallon launch a hilarious scheme to get what they most want for Christmas involving their parents, Catherine and Michael, and grandmother, Lillian. When Hallie meets Santa Claus, she asks for an unusual gift: her parents back together again.
Big Nothing(2006) - A frustrated, unemployed teacher joining forces with a scammer and his girlfriend in a blackmailing scheme.
Louisiana Purchase(1941) - A bumbling senator investigating graft in Louisiana is the target of a scheme involving a Viennese beauty.
The Prize Fighter(1979) - A former boxer(Tim Conway)and his manager(Don Knotts) become pawns in a gangster's scheme to acquire ownership of an old boxing gym.
Jungle Gents(1954) - When the Bowery Boys discover that Sach has a strange ability to sniff out diamonds, they hatch a scheme to make money out of it.
Dr. Goldfoot And The Girl Bombs(1966) - The foppish mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot plots another mad scheme to take over the world by killing off the major military leaders of every country; to that end, he creates in his secret lab a bevy of bodacious girl bombs; full-length, life-size robots that explode when embraced.
36 Hours To Die(1999) - The head of a brewery enlists his family and his bowling team to fight an extortion scheme developed by a local mobster to try to ruin the businessman and his family. The brewer's wife is a financial whiz, who helps beat the scheme. Jack O'Malley is the man's uncle, who offers brawn as well as brain...
Billy the Kid vs. Dracula(1966) - The legendary vampire Dracula impersonates as the uncle of Betty Bentley and intends on marrying her however Betty is the fiance of the gunfighter Billy the Kid. Billy slowly discovers Draculas scheme and plans on stopping Dracula from turning Betty into his vampir
Family Business(1989) - Jessie is an aging career criminal who has been in more jails, fights, schemes, and lineups than just about anyone else. His son Vito, while currently on the straight and narrow, has had a fairly shady past and is indeed no stranger to illegal activity. They both have great hope for Adam, Vito's son...
Tall In The Saddle(1944) - Rocklin arrives at a ranch to take over as foreman, but discovers the owner has been murdered. He helps solve the mystery of the murder and a scheme to swindle the ranch away from its rightful owner.
Casino Jack(2010) - A hot shot Washington DC lobbyist and his protg go down hard as their schemes to peddle influence lead to corruption and murder.
Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2(2004) - The last film directed by Bob Clark before his death. Following on from the plot of the last movie, four babies can communicate with each other using 'baby talk', and have knowledge of many secrets. The baby geniuses become involved in a scheme by media mogul Bill Biscane, later revealed to be known...
The Incredible Hulk(2008) - Bruce Banner Becomes The Hulk As An Unwitting Pawn In A U.S. Military Scheme To Reinvigorate The Super Soldier Program Through Gamma Radiation, On The Run In South America As He Attempts To Cure Himself Of The Hulk Before He Is Captured by General Thunderbolt Ross But His Worst Fears Are Realized Wh...
Made(2001) - Two aspiring boxers, lifelong friends, get involved in a money-laundering scheme through a low-level organized crime group.
Norbit(2007) - A mild-mannered guy who is engaged to a monstrous woman meets the woman of his dreams, and schemes to find a way to be with her.
The Honeymooners (2005)(2005) - Working class New York bus driver Ralph Kramden is always coming up with get-rich-quick schemes for him and his best friend, Ed Norton, who's always around to help him get in (and out of) trouble.
The Parent Trap (1961)(1961) - Teenage twin girls swap places and scheme to reunite their divorced parents.
Madea's Witness Protection(2012) - A Wall Street investment banker who has been set up as the linchpin of his company's mob-backed Ponzi scheme is relocated with his family to Aunt Madea's southern home. The sixth film in the series.
Bound(1996) - Tough ex-con Corky and her lover Violet concoct a scheme to steal millions of stashed mob money and pin the blame on Violet's crooked boyfriend Caesar.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul(2017) - In the fourth and final adaptation of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series (though this one is based on the ninth book), a family road trip to attend Meemaw's 90th birthday party goes hilariously off course thanks to Greg's newest scheme to get to a video gaming convention and finally get his long-desi...
-- After his latest money-making plan fails, Julian concocts his greatest scheme ever ::: which involves doing business with his archenemy, Cyrus. Director: Mike Clattenburg Writers: Mike Clattenburg, Mike O'Neill
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966) ::: 6.9/10 -- Approved | 1h 39min | Comedy, Musical | 16 October 1966 (USA) -- A wily Roman slave schemes to earn his freedom by romantically uniting his master with a courtesan. But matters get complicated and he ends up dragging in his neighbors around him, leading to chaos. Director: Richard Lester Writers:
Angel Face (1953) ::: 7.3/10 -- Approved | 1h 31min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir | 11 February 1953 (USA) -- Ambulance driver Frank Jessup is ensnared in the schemes of the sensuous but dangerous Diane Tremayne. Director: Otto Preminger Writers: Frank S. Nugent (screenplay) (as Frank Nugent), Oscar Millard
Big Nothing (2006) ::: 6.8/10 -- R | 1h 26min | Comedy, Crime, Thriller | 1 December 2006 (UK) -- A frustrated, unemployed professor joins forces with a scammer and a friend of his in a blackmailing scheme. Director: Jean-Baptiste Andrea Writers: Jean-Baptiste Andrea, William Rosenfeld (as Billy Asher)
Blackadder ::: The Black Adder (original tit ::: TV-PG | 3h 15min | Comedy | TV Series (19821983) -- In the Middle Ages, Prince Edmund the Black Adder constantly schemes and endeavors to seize the crown from his father and brother. Creator:
Bound (1996) ::: 7.3/10 -- R | 1h 49min | Crime, Thriller | 4 October 1996 (USA) -- Tough ex-con Corky and her lover Violet concoct a scheme to steal millions of stashed mob money and pin the blame on Violet's crooked boyfriend Caesar. Directors: Lana Wachowski (as The Wachowski Brothers), Lilly Wachowski (as The Wachowski Brothers) Writers:
Carry on Screaming! (1966) ::: 6.9/10 -- Carry On Screaming! (original title) -- Carry on Screaming! Poster The sinister Dr Watt has an evil scheme going. He's kidnapping beautiful young women and turning them into mannequins to sell to local stores. Director: Gerald Thomas Writer: Talbot Rothwell (screenplay)
Despicable Me (2010) ::: 7.6/10 -- PG | 1h 35min | Animation, Comedy, Crime | 9 July 2010 (USA) -- When a criminal mastermind uses a trio of orphan girls as pawns for a grand scheme, he finds their love is profoundly changing him for the better. Directors: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud Writers:
Double Indemnity (1944) ::: 8.3/10 -- Passed | 1h 47min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir | 6 July 1944 (USA) -- An insurance representative lets himself be talked by a seductive housewife into a murder/insurance fraud scheme that arouses the suspicion of an insurance investigator. Director: Billy Wilder Writers:
Emma (1996) ::: 7.0/10 -- TV-G | 1h 47min | Comedy, Drama, Romance | TV Movie 16 February 1997 -- Faithful, enchanting adaptation of Jane Austen's nineteenth-century tale of Emma Woodhouse--a clever young woman whose mischievous matchmaking schemes nearly end up jeopardizing her own shot at romance. Director: Diarmuid Lawrence Writers:
Empire ::: TV-14 | 42min | Drama, Music | TV Series (20152020) -- A hip-hop mogul must choose a successor among his three sons who are battling for control over his multi-million dollar company, while his ex-wife schemes to reclaim what is hers. Creators:
Focus (2015) ::: 6.6/10 -- R | 1h 45min | Comedy, Crime, Drama | 27 February 2015 (USA) -- In the midst of veteran con man Nicky's latest scheme, a woman from his past - now an accomplished femme fatale - shows up and throws his plans for a loop. Directors: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa Writers:
Gambit (1966) ::: 7.1/10 -- Approved | 1h 49min | Comedy, Crime, Thriller | 7 January 1967 (USA) -- An English cat burglar needs a Eurasian dancer's help to pull off the perfect heist, but even the most foolproof schemes have a way of backfiring. Director: Ronald Neame Writers: Jack Davies (screenplay), Alvin Sargent (screenplay) | 1 more credit Stars:
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) ::: 6.6/10 -- Gojira vs. Kingu Gidor (original title) -- (Japan) Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah Poster Time travelers use Godzilla in their scheme to destroy Japan to prevent the country's future economic reign. Directors: Kazuki Ohmori, Koji Hashimoto (uncredited) | 1 more credit Writer: Kazuki Ohmori
Half Baked (1998) ::: 6.7/10 -- R | 1h 22min | Comedy, Crime | 16 January 1998 (USA) -- The story of three not so bright men who come up with a series of crazy schemes to get a friend out of jail. Director: Tamra Davis Writers: Dave Chappelle, Neal Brennan
Hell or High Water (2016) ::: 7.6/10 -- R | 1h 42min | Action, Crime, Drama | 26 August 2016 (USA) -- A divorced father and his ex-con older brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's ranch in West Texas. Director: David Mackenzie Writer: Taylor Sheridan
Kenan & Kel ::: TV-G | 30min | Comedy, Family | TV Series (19962000) Kenan and Kel: two best friends who live in Chicago are always dragged down by Kenan's get rich quick schemes while orange soda-loving buddy Kel is dragged along but tends to mess things up. Creator: Kim Bass Stars:
Last Hero in China (1993) ::: 6.7/10 -- Wong Fei Hung V: Tit gai dau ng gung (original title) -- Kong) Last Hero in China Poster Jet Li stars in this comic spectacle as a Chinese "Robin Hood" who stumbles upon a kidnapping scheme after unwittingly opening a martial arts school next to a brothel! Directors: Jing Wong, Woo-Ping Yuen Writer: Jing Wong
Leaves of Grass (2009) ::: 6.4/10 -- R | 1h 45min | Comedy, Crime, Drama | 17 September 2010 (USA) -- An Ivy League professor is lured back to his Oklahoma hometown, where his twin brother, a small-time pot grower, has concocted a scheme to take down a local drug lord. Director: Tim Blake Nelson Writer:
Made (2001) ::: 6.4/10 -- R | 1h 35min | Comedy, Crime, Drama | 31 August 2001 (USA) -- Two aspiring boxers, lifelong friends, get involved in a money-laundering scheme through a low-level organized crime group. Director: Jon Favreau Writer: Jon Favreau
Made (2001) ::: 6.4/10 -- R | 1h 35min | Comedy, Crime, Drama | 31 August 2001 (USA) -- Two aspiring boxers, lifelong friends, get involved in a money-laundering scheme through a low-level organized crime group.
Nash Bridges ::: TV-14 | 1h | Action, Crime, Drama | TV Series (19962001) -- A smart alecky San Francisco, California cop and his get rich quick scheme of a partner keep tabs on crime and take down the bad guys in the Bay Area. Creator:
On Becoming a God in Central Florida ::: TV-MA | 46min | Comedy | TV Series (2019) -- In 1992 Central Florida, a minimum-wage water park employee lies, schemes, and cons her way up the ranks of the cultish, multibillion-dollar pyramid scheme that drove her family to ruin. Creators:
Oranges and Sunshine (2010) ::: 7.1/10 -- R | 1h 45min | Biography, Drama, History | 1 April 2011 (UK) -- Set in 1980s Nottingham, social worker Margaret Humphreys holds the British government accountable for child migration schemes and reunites the children involved -- now adults living mostly in Australia -- with their parents in Britain. Director: Jim Loach Writers:
Othello (1951) ::: 7.6/10 -- The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice (original title) -- Othello Poster The Moorish General Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his Lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality, it is all part of the scheme of a bitter Ensign named Iago. Director: Orson Welles Writer: William Shakespeare (based on the play by)
Othello (1995) ::: 6.8/10 -- R | 2h 3min | Drama, Romance | 19 January 1996 (USA) -- The Moorish General Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona has been carrying on an affair with his Lieutenant Michael Cassio, when in reality, it is all part of the scheme of a bitter Ensign named Iago. Director: Oliver Parker Writers:
Pain & Gain (2013) ::: 6.4/10 -- R | 2h 9min | Action, Comedy, Crime | 26 April 2013 (USA) -- A trio of bodybuilders in Florida get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong. Director: Michael Bay Writers: Christopher Markus (screenplay), Stephen McFeely (screenplay) | 1 more
Phineas and Ferb ::: TV-G | 15min | Animation, Short, Action | TV Series (20072015) -- Phineas and Ferb invent, scheme, and stay one step ahead of their bratty sister. Meanwhile, their pet platypus plots against evil Dr. Doofenshmirtz. Creators:
::: Ricky, Julian and Bubbles come up with a scheme to steal large amounts of untraceable coins. Director: Mike Clattenburg Writers: Mike Clattenburg (screenplay), Robb Wells (screenplay) | 1 more
The Crimson Pirate (1952) ::: 7.3/10 -- Not Rated | 1h 45min | Action, Adventure, Comedy | 27 September 1952 -- The Crimson Pirate Poster During the 1700s, pirate Captain Vallo seizes a British warship and gets involved in various money-making schemes involving Caribbean rebels led by El Libre, British envoy Baron Jose Gruda, and a beautiful courtesan named Consuelo. Director: Robert Siodmak Writer: Roland Kibbee
The Entertainer (1960) ::: 7.1/10 -- Not Rated | 1h 36min | Drama | 13 January 1961 (Canada) -- Archie Rice, an old-time British music hall performer sinking into final defeat, schemes to stay in show business. Director: Tony Richardson Writers: John Osborne (adapted from the play by), John Osborne (screenplay) | 1 more credit Stars:
The Gentlemen (2019) ::: 7.8/10 -- R | 1h 53min | Action, Comedy, Crime | 24 January 2020 (USA) -- An American expat tries to sell off his highly profitable marijuana empire in London, triggering plots, schemes, bribery and blackmail in an attempt to steal his domain out from under him. Director: Guy Ritchie Writers:
The Infiltrator (2016) ::: 7.0/10 -- R | 2h 7min | Biography, Crime, Drama | 13 July 2016 (USA) -- A U.S. Customs official uncovers a money laundering scheme involving Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Director: Brad Furman Writers: Ellen Furman (screenplay) (as Ellen Brown Furman), Robert Mazur (based
The King of Marvin Gardens (1972) ::: 6.5/10 -- R | 1h 43min | Drama | 13 October 1972 (USA) -- A daydreamer convinces his radio personality brother to help fund one of his get-rich-quick schemes. Director: Bob Rafelson Writers: Jacob Brackman (screenplay), Bob Rafelson (story) | 1 more credit
The Last Seduction (1994) ::: 7.0/10 -- R | 1h 50min | Crime, Drama, Romance | 26 October 1994 (USA) -- A devious sexpot steals her husband's drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme. Director: John Dahl Writer: Steve Barancik
The Parent Trap (1961) ::: 7.1/10 -- Passed | 2h 9min | Comedy, Family, Romance | 21 June 1961 (USA) -- Teenage twin sisters swap places and scheme to reunite their divorced parents. Director: David Swift Writers: Erich Kstner (book), David Swift (written for the screen by)
The Shooting (1966) ::: 6.6/10 -- G | 1h 22min | Western | 12 June 1968 (France) -- A mysterious woman persuades two cowboys to help her in a revenge scheme. Director: Monte Hellman Writer: Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce)
The Wizard of Lies (2017) ::: 6.8/10 -- TV-MA | 2h 13min | Biography, Crime, Drama | TV Movie 20 May 2017 -- The fall of Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme robbed $65 billion from unsuspecting victims; the largest fraud in U.S. history. Director: Barry Levinson Writers: Sam Levinson (screenplay), John Burnham Schwartz (screenplay) | 3 more
Thunderball (1965) ::: 7.0/10 -- PG | 2h 10min | Action, Adventure, Thriller | 22 December 1965 (USA) -- James Bond heads to the Bahamas to recover two nuclear warheads stolen by S.P.E.C.T.R.E. Agent Emilio Largo in an international extortion scheme. Director: Terence Young Writers:
Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day (2009) ::: 7.4/10 -- R | 1h 42min | Comedy, Crime | 25 September 2009 (Canada) -- The boys return from jail to find the park has deteriorated, with a brand new park being created beside it. They attempt a series of get rich quick schemes and robberies, while a freshly drunk Lahey threatens to derail their plans. Director: Mike Clattenburg Writers: Mike Clattenburg (screenplay), Robb Wells (screenplay) | 3 more credits
Trouble in Paradise (1932) ::: 8.0/10 -- Not Rated | 1h 23min | Comedy, Crime, Romance | 30 October 1932 (USA) -- A gentleman thief and a lady pickpocket join forces to con a beautiful perfume company owner. Romantic entanglements and jealousies confuse the scheme. Director: Ernst Lubitsch Writers: Samson Raphaelson (screenplay), Grover Jones (adaptation) | 1 more credit
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/A_Lucrative_Scheme
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Font_of_Schemes
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/God_of_Schemes
https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/Schemes_of_the_Reachmage
https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Aht_Urhgan_Mission_11:_Imperial_Schemes
https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Market_Scheme
https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/The_Golden_Scheme
https://gaia.fandom.com/wiki/Color_Scheme
https://list.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_proposed_geoengineering_schemes
https://moddb.fandom.com/wiki/Scheme
https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Scheme
https://phineasandferb.fandom.com/wiki/Doofenshmirtz%27s_schemes_and_inventions
https://phineasandferb.fandom.com/wiki/Doofenshmirtz's_schemes_and_inventions
https://rubiks.fandom.com/wiki/Japanese_Color_Scheme
https://rubiks.fandom.com/wiki/Western_Color_Scheme
https://talesofcrestoria.fandom.com/wiki/Two_Travelers,_One_Scheme
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/The_Colour_Scheme_(short_story)
https://tomb-raider-king.fandom.com/wiki/Seo_Joo-Heon's_Schemes
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Change_gvim_colorscheme_when_focus_changes
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Change_the_color_scheme
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Change_the_color_scheme?printable=yes
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Change_the_color_scheme_to_show_where_you_are
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Change_the_color_scheme_to_show_where_you_are?printable=yes
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Change_the_color_scheme_to_show_where_you_are?useskin=monobook
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Change_the_color_scheme?useskin=monobook
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Create_a_color_scheme_based_on_another
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Create_a_color_scheme_based_on_another?printable=yes
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Create_a_color_scheme_based_on_another?useskin=monobook
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Desert_color_scheme_with_Vim_in_PuTTY
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Easily_switch_between_two_styles_of_color_scheme
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Switch_color_schemes
https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Using_vim_color_schemes_with_Putty
Biohazard: Infinite Darkness -- -- Quebico -- ? eps -- Game -- Action Sci-Fi Horror -- Biohazard: Infinite Darkness Biohazard: Infinite Darkness -- The Netflix series will tell its new story across two timelines. In the first, 14-year-old sisters Jade and Billie Wesker are moved to New Raccoon City. A manufactured, corporate town, forced on them right as adolescence is in full swing. But the more time they spend there, the more they come to realize that the town is more than it seems and their father may be concealing dark secrets. Secrets that could destroy the world. The second, more than a decade into the future sees less than 15 million people left on Earth. And more than 6 billion monsters — people and animals infected with the T-virus. Jade, now 30, struggles to survive in this new world, while the secrets from her past — about her sister, her father and herself — continue to haunt her. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- ONA - ??? ??, 2021 -- 1,612 N/AOretacha Youkai Ningen -- -- DLE -- 25 eps -- Original -- Demons Horror Parody -- Oretacha Youkai Ningen Oretacha Youkai Ningen -- (No synopsis yet.) -- 1,612 N/A -- -- Youshou -- -- - -- 2 eps -- - -- Demons Hentai Horror -- Youshou Youshou -- Justice has never been so naked! -- -- A super-secret cult of lesbians performs erotic experiments on bodies from the local hospital! Their purpose: to revive the spirit of their ancient leader in a virile human form. Now it's up to the Midnight Strike Force, a team of busty justice fighters, to go undercover (and under the covers) to stop the nefarious acolytes before they succeed in their diabolically dirty schemes! -- -- (Source: Critical Mass Video) -- OVA - Feb 11, 2001 -- 1,599 5.21
Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising -- -- Bones -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Super Power Shounen -- Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising -- Izuku "Deku'' Midoriya and his fellow students in Class 1-A of UA High's hero course have been chosen to participate in a safety program on Nabu Island. To further improve their skills and gain experience in more ordinary heroics, the students aid the kind citizens with small services and everyday chores. With the low crime rate in the quiet community, all seems well and good, but the rise of a new villain threatens to put the students' courage to the test and challenge their capabilities as heroes. -- -- A merciless villain by the name of Nine is in search of a certain "quirk" needed to fulfill his diabolical plan—creating a society where only those with the strongest quirks reign supreme. As his attack on Nabu Island endangers the lives of the residents, securing the citizens becomes the first priority for Class 1-A; defeating Nine along with his wicked accomplices is also imperative. A straightforward strategy is formulated until a young boy named Katsuma Shimano, whom Deku had befriended, suddenly requires particular protection. Concerned for the boy's wellbeing, Deku and his classmates must now devise a plan to ensure Katsuma's safety at all costs. -- -- With Nine wreaking havoc to find the catalyst for his ill-intended schemes and the heroes desperate to defend Katsuma from harm, will Deku and his friends be able to come out victorious, or will they find themselves unable to escape a hopeless situation? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- Movie - Dec 20, 2019 -- 311,218 8.07
Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising -- -- Bones -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Super Power Shounen -- Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising Boku no Hero Academia the Movie 2: Heroes:Rising -- Izuku "Deku'' Midoriya and his fellow students in Class 1-A of UA High's hero course have been chosen to participate in a safety program on Nabu Island. To further improve their skills and gain experience in more ordinary heroics, the students aid the kind citizens with small services and everyday chores. With the low crime rate in the quiet community, all seems well and good, but the rise of a new villain threatens to put the students' courage to the test and challenge their capabilities as heroes. -- -- A merciless villain by the name of Nine is in search of a certain "quirk" needed to fulfill his diabolical plan—creating a society where only those with the strongest quirks reign supreme. As his attack on Nabu Island endangers the lives of the residents, securing the citizens becomes the first priority for Class 1-A; defeating Nine along with his wicked accomplices is also imperative. A straightforward strategy is formulated until a young boy named Katsuma Shimano, whom Deku had befriended, suddenly requires particular protection. Concerned for the boy's wellbeing, Deku and his classmates must now devise a plan to ensure Katsuma's safety at all costs. -- -- With Nine wreaking havoc to find the catalyst for his ill-intended schemes and the heroes desperate to defend Katsuma from harm, will Deku and his friends be able to come out victorious, or will they find themselves unable to escape a hopeless situation? -- -- Movie - Dec 20, 2019 -- 311,218 8.07
Choujin Densetsu Urotsukidouji: Mirai-hen -- -- - -- 4 eps -- - -- Fantasy Hentai Demons Horror Sci-Fi -- Choujin Densetsu Urotsukidouji: Mirai-hen Choujin Densetsu Urotsukidouji: Mirai-hen -- Twenty-five years ago, the world was annihilated. With the coming of the Overfiend, God of all Gods, the human, demon, and beast realms collapsed together in chaos. With the promise that he would be born in 100 years to re-create his failed world, the Overfiend settled back to sleep within his mother's womb. -- -- But something has gone terribly wrong... -- -- Now the Overfiend is born prematurely and awaits the coming of his natural the enemy, the Lord of Chaos. His only hope for survival are Amano Jyaku and his sister Megumi. But destiny has moved in ways that even the Overfiend could never predict, as a new race of half-breed demon beasts has evolved. -- -- As Amano travels to the kingdom of Azuma to investigate the appearance of the Lord of Chaos, he is swept up in the world-conquering schemes of Caesar, Azuma's dictator. -- -- Against the backdrop of a demon beast slave revolt and the return of the diabolical Munhihausen, only Amano and the demon beast Buju can save the world from another fiery destruction. With the fate of the earth and its inhabitants hanging in the balance, all wait to see what the coming of the Lord of Chaos will bring... -- OVA - Oct 1, 1992 -- 3,108 5.73
Cowboy Bebop: Tengoku no Tobira -- -- Bones -- 1 ep -- Original -- Action Drama Mystery Sci-Fi Space -- Cowboy Bebop: Tengoku no Tobira Cowboy Bebop: Tengoku no Tobira -- Another day, another bounty—such is the life of the often unlucky crew of the Bebop. However, this routine is interrupted when Faye, who is chasing a fairly worthless target on Mars, witnesses an oil tanker suddenly explode, causing mass hysteria. As casualties mount due to a strange disease spreading through the smoke from the blast, a whopping three hundred million woolong price is placed on the head of the supposed perpetrator. -- -- With lives at stake and a solution to their money problems in sight, the Bebop crew springs into action. Spike, Jet, Faye, and Edward, followed closely by Ein, split up to pursue different leads across Alba City. Through their individual investigations, they discover a cover-up scheme involving a pharmaceutical company, revealing a plot that reaches much further than the ragtag team of bounty hunters could have realized. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sony Pictures Entertainment -- Movie - Sep 1, 2001 -- 283,850 8.39
Dokyuu Hentai HxEros -- -- Project No.9 -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Ecchi School Shounen Supernatural -- Dokyuu Hentai HxEros Dokyuu Hentai HxEros -- Five years ago, alien beings known as the "Kiseichuu'' invaded the world. With the species endangered, the Kiseichuu are determined to take over Earth through a deadly plan that would gradually wipe out the human race: take away humanity's sexual drive using various methods, letting them die out. In response to the Kiseichuus' scheme, the HxEros device was developed—a powerful weapon that only those with high levels of erotic energy can utilize at its maximum capacity. -- -- Retto Enjou, a high schooler harboring an immense hatred toward the Kiseichuu, joins a group of HxEros users to fight against them and protect humankind. With their gear reliant on erotic energy as a source of power, the team must work together to maintain high levels of libido to ensure their readiness for combat at any given time. Moreover, as he lives in a house full of lustful girls, Enjou should not expect a shortage of power anytime soon. -- -- 85,308 5.73
Dokyuu Hentai HxEros -- -- Project No.9 -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Ecchi School Shounen Supernatural -- Dokyuu Hentai HxEros Dokyuu Hentai HxEros -- Five years ago, alien beings known as the "Kiseichuu'' invaded the world. With the species endangered, the Kiseichuu are determined to take over Earth through a deadly plan that would gradually wipe out the human race: take away humanity's sexual drive using various methods, letting them die out. In response to the Kiseichuus' scheme, the HxEros device was developed—a powerful weapon that only those with high levels of erotic energy can utilize at its maximum capacity. -- -- Retto Enjou, a high schooler harboring an immense hatred toward the Kiseichuu, joins a group of HxEros users to fight against them and protect humankind. With their gear reliant on erotic energy as a source of power, the team must work together to maintain high levels of libido to ensure their readiness for combat at any given time. Moreover, as he lives in a house full of lustful girls, Enjou should not expect a shortage of power anytime soon. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 85,308 5.73
Dr. Stone -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 24 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Shounen -- Dr. Stone Dr. Stone -- After five years of harboring unspoken feelings, high-schooler Taiju Ooki is finally ready to confess his love to Yuzuriha Ogawa. Just when Taiju begins his confession however, a blinding green light strikes the Earth and petrifies mankind around the world—turning every single human into stone. -- -- Several millennia later, Taiju awakens to find the modern world completely nonexistent, as nature has flourished in the years humanity stood still. Among a stone world of statues, Taiju encounters one other living human: his science-loving friend Senkuu, who has been active for a few months. Taiju learns that Senkuu has developed a grand scheme—to launch the complete revival of civilization with science. Taiju's brawn and Senkuu's brains combine to forge a formidable partnership, and they soon uncover a method to revive those petrified. -- -- However, Senkuu's master plan is threatened when his ideologies are challenged by those who awaken. All the while, the reason for mankind's petrification remains unknown. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Crunchyroll, Funimation -- 1,059,749 8.32
Dr. Stone: Stone Wars -- -- TMS Entertainment -- 11 eps -- Manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Comedy Shounen -- Dr. Stone: Stone Wars Dr. Stone: Stone Wars -- Senkuu has made it his goal to bring back two million years of human achievement and revive the entirety of those turned to statues. However, one man stands in his way: Tsukasa Shishiou, who believes that only the fittest of those petrified should be revived. -- -- As the snow melts and spring approaches, Senkuu and his allies in Ishigami Village finish the preparations for their attack on the Tsukasa Empire. With a reinvented cell phone model now at their disposal, the Kingdom of Science is ready to launch its newest scheme to recruit the sizable numbers of Tsukasa's army to their side. However, it is a race against time; for every day the Kingdom of Science spends perfecting their inventions, the empire rapidly grows in number. -- -- Reuniting with old friends and gaining new allies, Senkuu and the Kingdom of Science must stop Tsukasa's forces in order to fulfill their goal of restoring humanity and all its creations. With the two sides each in pursuit of their ideal world, the Stone Wars have now begun! -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 535,602 8.22
Durarara!!x2 Ten -- -- Shuka -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Mystery Supernatural -- Durarara!!x2 Ten Durarara!!x2 Ten -- In Ikebukuro, the lives of its citizens continue intertwining with each other as if their fates are predestined. Mikado Ryuugamine is now one step closer to his goal of living an exciting life, and in turn, delves deeper into the darker side of Ikebukuro. After gaining absolute control over a former rival, he uses his newfound power as he pleases, purging the Dollars from the inside to mold it into the ideal organization. This proves to be as challenging as it sounds as Mikado must now deal with unwanted outside interference, most notably a re-emerging and dearly missed friend. Meanwhile, Izaya Orihara still has some schemes up his sleeve, although a rival information exchange center has proven to be quite the hindrance, lurking within everyone’s favorite downtown district. Undoubtedly, sooner or later, chaos will strike again. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 322,624 8.00
Eyeshield 21 -- -- Gallop -- 145 eps -- Manga -- Action Sports Comedy Shounen -- Eyeshield 21 Eyeshield 21 -- Sena is like any other shy kid starting high school; he's just trying to survive. Constantly bullied, he's accustomed to running away. -- -- Surviving high school is about to become a lot more difficult after Hiruma, captain of the school's American football team, witnesses Sena's incredible agility and speed during an escape from some bullies. Hiruma schemes to make Sena the running back of his school team, The Devil Bats, hoping that it will turn around the squad's fortunes from being the laughingstock of Japan's high school leagues, to title contender. -- -- To protect his precious star player from rivaling recruiters, he enlists Sena as "team secretary," giving him a visored helmet and the nickname "Eyeshield 21" to hide his identity. -- -- The Devilbats will look to make their way to the Christmas Bowl, an annual tournament attended by the best football teams in Japan, with "Eyeshield 21" leading the way. Will they be able to win the Christmas Bowl? Will Sena be able to transform from a timid, undersized freshman to an all-star player? Put on your pads and helmet to find out! -- 152,259 7.94
Eyeshield 21 -- -- Gallop -- 145 eps -- Manga -- Action Sports Comedy Shounen -- Eyeshield 21 Eyeshield 21 -- Sena is like any other shy kid starting high school; he's just trying to survive. Constantly bullied, he's accustomed to running away. -- -- Surviving high school is about to become a lot more difficult after Hiruma, captain of the school's American football team, witnesses Sena's incredible agility and speed during an escape from some bullies. Hiruma schemes to make Sena the running back of his school team, The Devil Bats, hoping that it will turn around the squad's fortunes from being the laughingstock of Japan's high school leagues, to title contender. -- -- To protect his precious star player from rivaling recruiters, he enlists Sena as "team secretary," giving him a visored helmet and the nickname "Eyeshield 21" to hide his identity. -- -- The Devilbats will look to make their way to the Christmas Bowl, an annual tournament attended by the best football teams in Japan, with "Eyeshield 21" leading the way. Will they be able to win the Christmas Bowl? Will Sena be able to transform from a timid, undersized freshman to an all-star player? Put on your pads and helmet to find out! -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks, VIZ Media -- 152,259 7.94
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu Gaiden -- -- Artland, Magic Bus -- 24 eps -- Novel -- Action Military Sci-Fi Space Drama -- Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu Gaiden Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu Gaiden -- Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu Gaiden is the first of two OVA adaptations of side stories from the Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu novel series. This first adaptation follows the achievements of Reinhard von Müsel and Siegfried Kircheis of the Galactic Empire before the fateful Battle of Astarte. -- -- The Silver-White Valley -- Reinhard and Kircheis graduate from their military academy and are immediately sent to the frozen frontier planet Kapche-Lanka. Unbeknownst to them, their new superior schemes to kill Reinhard on behalf of a rival of Reinhard's sister Annerose von Grünewald. -- -- Dreams of the Morning, Songs of the Night -- Reinhard and Kircheis are assigned to the Imperial Military Police, where they uncover the corrupt and oppressive practices of the Empire's law enforcement. They are soon ordered to investigate the murder of a student at their alma mater. -- -- Dishonor -- As Reinhard awaits the bestowal of his new title of Count von Lohengramm, he sends Kircheis to the artificial resort satellite Kreuznach III for a vacation. Restless from the lack of work, Kircheis assists the local police with a drug trafficking case related to an attack on a disgraced former Vice Admiral. -- -- A Hundred Billion Stars, a Hundred Billion Lights -- While Reinhard is still a commodore in charge of only a single squadron, he laments the incompetence of his superiors during a battle against the Free Planets Alliance. Amassing military successes under the direct command of Vice Admiral Richard von Grimmelshausen, Reinhard repeatedly clashes with Hermann von Lüneburg, a commodore and former regimental commander of the Alliance's infamous Rosen Ritter. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- OVA - Feb 9, 1998 -- 18,932 8.15
Gintama: Yorinuki Gintama-san on Theater 2D -- -- Sunrise -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Action Sci-Fi Comedy Historical Parody Samurai Shounen -- Gintama: Yorinuki Gintama-san on Theater 2D Gintama: Yorinuki Gintama-san on Theater 2D -- Demonic Vice-Commander of the Shinsengumi, Toushirou Hijikata, acquires a cursed sword—one which completely rewrites his personality, morphing him from a hard-boiled, no-nonsense cop into a hopeless otaku. As he struggles to break the curse, an ambitious new member of the police force, Itou Kamotarou, seizes the opportunity to depose Hijikata in his bid for power within the organization. However, Itou's scheme is revealed to be more devious than anyone imagined, and the very existence of the Shinsengumi is thrown into peril. -- -- In another time and place, the Yorozuya squad is suddenly greeted by a potential new recruit. Before them is a mysterious young woman named Pirako Doromizu who hides a penchant for extreme violence behind her smiling, enthusiastic exterior. However, unbeknownst to Gintoki and the others, Pirako has strong ties to one of the ruling figures of the Kabuki district of Edo, and her arrival sets off a chain reaction that throws the inhabitants of the district into a civil war. -- -- Movie - Aug 26, 2012 -- 33,137 8.44
Granblue Fantasy The Animation Season 2 -- -- MAPPA -- 12 eps -- Game -- Adventure Fantasy -- Granblue Fantasy The Animation Season 2 Granblue Fantasy The Animation Season 2 -- On the run from the Erste Empire, Gran and the crew of the Grandcypher receive an offer to negotiate a ceasefire. Meeting at the neutral territory of Albion Citadel, they are welcomed and hosted by Vira Lillie: current Lord Commander of Albion and a friend of Katalina Alize from her officer training at Albion. Imperial General Furias grants the Skyfarers an official pardon, but fails to defuse the tense situation. -- -- Given time to unwind, the Skyfarers attend a gala hosted by Vira to celebrate the arrival of the crew. However, tensions run high, as Furias and the Erste delegation remain at Albion even after the negotiations conclude. Learning about the existence of a Primal Beast on the island, the crew is shocked to discover a letter from Katalina announcing her resignation. -- -- While Gran heads off to find their former comrade, Eugen and Rackam decide to investigate the Imperial presence on the island, suspecting a more sinister scheme lying up the Empire's sleeve. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Aniplex of America -- 48,722 6.76
Hataraku Saibou: Kaze Shoukougun -- -- David Production -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Comedy Shounen -- Hataraku Saibou: Kaze Shoukougun Hataraku Saibou: Kaze Shoukougun -- A mysterious cell wearing a stylish hat appears before the regular cells, who are bored with just the same (cell division) work over and over again, every day. This mysterious cell lures the regular cells into a mischievous scheme against White Blood Cell and Killer T Cell. The regular cells enjoy working out their everyday, pent-up frustration. But, just who exactly is this cell wearing a stylish hat? -- -- (Source: ANN) -- Special - Dec 27, 2018 -- 37,187 7.27
Hayate no Gotoku! Heaven Is a Place on Earth -- -- Manglobe -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Harem Comedy Parody Shounen -- Hayate no Gotoku! Heaven Is a Place on Earth Hayate no Gotoku! Heaven Is a Place on Earth -- Hayate, Nagi and the gang spend the last days of summer break at Nishizawa's countryside vacation home. But a mysterious spirit has concocted a scheme to separate the butler from his young mistress. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- Movie - Aug 27, 2011 -- 33,001 7.17
Jashin-chan Dropkick -- -- Nomad -- 11 eps -- Web manga -- Comedy Supernatural -- Jashin-chan Dropkick Jashin-chan Dropkick -- The demon Jashin-chan has been summoned to Earth by Yurine Hanazono, a girl with a knack for the occult. Unfortunately, Yurine does not actually know how to send Jashin-chan back to Hell. Now stuck on Earth, she must live at Yurine's apartment as her familiar. -- -- The only way for Jashin-chan to return would be to kill her summoner, but this is easier said than done for the incompetent demon. Since Jashin-chan is immortal and can regenerate her body, Yurine does not hold back in attacking her with a range of weapons, punishing her in gruesome manners for her evil schemes. Jashin-chan is also often visited by her demon friends: the kindhearted Gorgon Medusa and the energetic minotaur Minosu, who seem much more well-behaved in contrast, and disapprove of her plans to kill Yurine. -- -- Jashin-chan Dropkick is a comedy focusing on these two reluctant roommates and their bizarre antics as they get by with their cat-and-mouse relationship. -- -- 77,306 6.94
Juubee Ninpuuchou -- -- Madhouse -- 1 ep -- Original -- Adventure Historical Horror Supernatural Romance Samurai Fantasy Shounen -- Juubee Ninpuuchou Juubee Ninpuuchou -- Jubei Kibagami wanders feudal Japan as an itinerant swordsman-for-hire. After a past betrayal left him masterless, he has no more patience for warring political factions and their schemes. Unfortunately, both past and political intrigue collide when he meets and saves a female ninja named Kagero from a man with the ability to make his body as hard as stone. -- -- The sole survivor of a ninja clan, Kagero continues her team's last mission: investigate a mysterious plague that wiped out an entire village. Jubei wants nothing to do with this, but the stone-like man's allies, a group of ninja with supernatural powers known as the Devils of Kimon, make that option difficult. To make matters worse, a government spy poisons Jubei, promising him an antidote if he can unravel the true intentions of the Devils of Kimon and their connection to the plague. The trail leads to shadow leaders, a plot to overthrow the government, and a man that Jubei thought he would never see again. -- -- Licensor: -- Manga Entertainment, Sentai Filmworks -- Movie - Jun 5, 1993 -- 104,294 7.61
Juubee Ninpuuchou -- -- Madhouse -- 1 ep -- Original -- Adventure Historical Horror Supernatural Romance Samurai Fantasy Shounen -- Juubee Ninpuuchou Juubee Ninpuuchou -- Jubei Kibagami wanders feudal Japan as an itinerant swordsman-for-hire. After a past betrayal left him masterless, he has no more patience for warring political factions and their schemes. Unfortunately, both past and political intrigue collide when he meets and saves a female ninja named Kagero from a man with the ability to make his body as hard as stone. -- -- The sole survivor of a ninja clan, Kagero continues her team's last mission: investigate a mysterious plague that wiped out an entire village. Jubei wants nothing to do with this, but the stone-like man's allies, a group of ninja with supernatural powers known as the Devils of Kimon, make that option difficult. To make matters worse, a government spy poisons Jubei, promising him an antidote if he can unravel the true intentions of the Devils of Kimon and their connection to the plague. The trail leads to shadow leaders, a plot to overthrow the government, and a man that Jubei thought he would never see again. -- Movie - Jun 5, 1993 -- 104,294 7.61
Kochira Katsushikaku Kameari Kouenmae Hashutsujo -- -- Gallop -- 373 eps -- Manga -- Slice of Life Comedy Police -- Kochira Katsushikaku Kameari Kouenmae Hashutsujo Kochira Katsushikaku Kameari Kouenmae Hashutsujo -- Ryoutsu, being an underpaid policeman, is always coming up with underhanded schemes in order to make a quick buck. But in the end, his plans (which are ridiculous to begin with) always go wrong and land him in big trouble with the chief. -- 12,631 7.76
Made in Abyss Movie 3: Fukaki Tamashii no Reimei -- -- Kinema Citrus -- 1 ep -- Web manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Mystery Drama Fantasy -- Made in Abyss Movie 3: Fukaki Tamashii no Reimei Made in Abyss Movie 3: Fukaki Tamashii no Reimei -- Continuing their perilous descent down the Abyss, Riko, Regu, and newfound friend Nanachi reach the Abyss' fifth layer, The Sea of Corpses. Upon arriving at the research station known as Idofront, the main trio encounter the mysterious Prushka, the alleged daughter of Bondrewd, who leads them to the White Whistle responsible for Nanachi's dark past. Despite the welcoming appearances of Idofront's residents, Nanachi warns the young adventurers that things are not always what they seem. With the only route to the sixth layer shrouded in mystery and Bonedrewd's schemes awaiting them, what sacrifices must be made in order to continue the journey down to the bottom of the Abyss? -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- Movie - Jan 17, 2020 -- 233,635 8.73
Made in Abyss Movie 3: Fukaki Tamashii no Reimei -- -- Kinema Citrus -- 1 ep -- Web manga -- Sci-Fi Adventure Mystery Drama Fantasy -- Made in Abyss Movie 3: Fukaki Tamashii no Reimei Made in Abyss Movie 3: Fukaki Tamashii no Reimei -- Continuing their perilous descent down the Abyss, Riko, Regu, and newfound friend Nanachi reach the Abyss' fifth layer, The Sea of Corpses. Upon arriving at the research station known as Idofront, the main trio encounter the mysterious Prushka, the alleged daughter of Bondrewd, who leads them to the White Whistle responsible for Nanachi's dark past. Despite the welcoming appearances of Idofront's residents, Nanachi warns the young adventurers that things are not always what they seem. With the only route to the sixth layer shrouded in mystery and Bonedrewd's schemes awaiting them, what sacrifices must be made in order to continue the journey down to the bottom of the Abyss? -- -- Movie - Jan 17, 2020 -- 233,635 8.73
Maryuu Senki -- -- AIC -- 3 eps -- Original -- Fantasy Horror -- Maryuu Senki Maryuu Senki -- Once upon a time, there was a certain family having strong influence on the rule of the Imperial Court. They had their own might called "Kidou" and yet got hated because of the might itself. At last, the patriarch of the family was entrapped to his death, and all the family was doomed to ruin... The present day — the survived descendants of this family, now calling themselves "Kidousyuu" schemed to resurrect their murdered patriarch once again, and the ferocious evil spell went into action. -- -- (Source: BakaBT) -- OVA - Mar 5, 1987 -- 2,215 5.21
Medaka Box Abnormal -- -- Asahi Production, Gainax -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Action Comedy Ecchi Martial Arts School Shounen Super Power -- Medaka Box Abnormal Medaka Box Abnormal -- After the defeat of Myouri Unzen at the hands of Medaka Kurokami and her Student Council, peace has returned to Hakoniwa Academy—at least, for a short while. Soon, Medaka, Zenkichi Hitoyoshi, Kouki Akune, and Mogana Kikaijima find themselves wrapped up in another sinister scheme, known as the "Flask Plan," led by the school's principal himself. -- -- However, the council's first problem is to deal with a whole new group of superhuman students calling themselves the "Thirteen Party," led by the egotistical but powerful Oudo Miyakonojou. With the mysterious Flask Plan, Oudo's tyranny, and the resurfacing of an old enemy, the state of Hakoniwa Academy is far from tranquil, and Medaka and her companions have their hands full as things only get a lot more abnormal. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- 120,361 7.45
Mekakucity Reload -- -- - -- ? eps -- Music -- Sci-Fi Comedy Super Power Supernatural Romance -- Mekakucity Reload Mekakucity Reload -- (No synopsis yet.) -- - - ??? ??, ???? -- 33,398 N/A -- -- Gintama: Yorinuki Gintama-san on Theater 2D -- -- Sunrise -- 2 eps -- Manga -- Action Sci-Fi Comedy Historical Parody Samurai Shounen -- Gintama: Yorinuki Gintama-san on Theater 2D Gintama: Yorinuki Gintama-san on Theater 2D -- Demonic Vice-Commander of the Shinsengumi, Toushirou Hijikata, acquires a cursed sword—one which completely rewrites his personality, morphing him from a hard-boiled, no-nonsense cop into a hopeless otaku. As he struggles to break the curse, an ambitious new member of the police force, Itou Kamotarou, seizes the opportunity to depose Hijikata in his bid for power within the organization. However, Itou's scheme is revealed to be more devious than anyone imagined, and the very existence of the Shinsengumi is thrown into peril. -- -- In another time and place, the Yorozuya squad is suddenly greeted by a potential new recruit. Before them is a mysterious young woman named Pirako Doromizu who hides a penchant for extreme violence behind her smiling, enthusiastic exterior. However, unbeknownst to Gintoki and the others, Pirako has strong ties to one of the ruling figures of the Kabuki district of Edo, and her arrival sets off a chain reaction that throws the inhabitants of the district into a civil war. -- -- Movie - Aug 26, 2012 -- 33,137 8.44
Mobile Suit Gundam F91 -- -- Sunrise -- 1 ep -- - -- Drama Mecha Military Sci-Fi Space -- Mobile Suit Gundam F91 Mobile Suit Gundam F91 -- In the year 123 of the Universal Century, skirmishes between the Federation government and the rebel group Crossbones Vanguard echo across Earth's space colonies. One of these small battles breaks in the hometown of young Seabook Arno, forcing him and his friends to flee and ensnaring them in the political turmoil that is quickly evolving into an all-out war. -- -- Seabook meets Cecily Fairchild, granddaughter of the aristocrat Meitzer Ronah, who seeks to create a new political power called "Cosmo Babylonia." Using the Crossbone Vanguard as its muscle, the Ronah family schemes to restore aristocratic rule and establish an economic system that will benefit the nobility, thus devastating the quality of life for the common people of the Earth Sphere. -- -- Seabook is tasked with piloting the Gundam F91, a mobile suit created by his mother, and must choose between protecting the status Federation's status quo or cooperating with Cecily to find a better way of life for all. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Bandai Entertainment, Nozomi Entertainment -- Movie - Mar 16, 1991 -- 23,747 6.67
Mobile Suit Gundam F91 -- -- Sunrise -- 1 ep -- - -- Drama Mecha Military Sci-Fi Space -- Mobile Suit Gundam F91 Mobile Suit Gundam F91 -- In the year 123 of the Universal Century, skirmishes between the Federation government and the rebel group Crossbones Vanguard echo across Earth's space colonies. One of these small battles breaks in the hometown of young Seabook Arno, forcing him and his friends to flee and ensnaring them in the political turmoil that is quickly evolving into an all-out war. -- -- Seabook meets Cecily Fairchild, granddaughter of the aristocrat Meitzer Ronah, who seeks to create a new political power called "Cosmo Babylonia." Using the Crossbone Vanguard as its muscle, the Ronah family schemes to restore aristocratic rule and establish an economic system that will benefit the nobility, thus devastating the quality of life for the common people of the Earth Sphere. -- -- Seabook is tasked with piloting the Gundam F91, a mobile suit created by his mother, and must choose between protecting the status Federation's status quo or cooperating with Cecily to find a better way of life for all. -- -- Movie - Mar 16, 1991 -- 23,747 6.67
Mo Dao Zu Shi 3rd Season -- -- B.CMAY PICTURES -- ? eps -- Novel -- Action Historical Demons Supernatural Drama Magic -- Mo Dao Zu Shi 3rd Season Mo Dao Zu Shi 3rd Season -- Third season of Mo Dao Zu Shi. -- ONA - ??? ??, 2021 -- 18,671 N/ASoukou Kihei Votoms -- -- Sunrise -- 52 eps -- Original -- Action Space Mecha Military Drama Sci-Fi -- Soukou Kihei Votoms Soukou Kihei Votoms -- A century of bloodshed between warring star systems has plunged nearly 200 worlds into the flames of war. Now, an uneasy truce has settled across the Astragius Galaxy... -- -- Chirico Cuvie, a special forces powered-armor pilot is suddenly transferred into a unit engaged in a secret and highly illegal mission to steal military secrets—from their own military! Now he's on the run...from his own army! -- -- Unsure of his loyalties and to cover their own tracks, Chirico is left behind to die in space. Surviving by luck, the renegade is now hunted by both the conspirators and military intelligence. -- -- He is driven by the haunting image of a mysterious and beautiful woman—the objective of their mission, and his sole clue to unraveling their treacherous scheme. But the conspirators will do anything to preserve their mysterious agenda... -- -- (Source: AnimeNfo) -- -- Licensor: -- Central Park Media, Maiden Japan -- TV - Apr 1, 1983 -- 18,584 7.72
Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 2 - Kizuna -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Supernatural Martial Arts Shounen -- Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 2 - Kizuna Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 2 - Kizuna -- Unleashing a devastating surprise attack, flying ninjas from the Land of Sky are seeking revenge against their old enemy Konohagakure. Despite his eagerness to join the fight, Naruto Uzumaki is held up by Shinnou, a mysterious doctor who requires his assistance to save an injured person. While delivering the wounded man to the hospital, Naruto has an unexpected encounter with Amaru—a stormy youngster from a neighboring village desperately looking for Shinnou's help. -- -- Meanwhile, as the invaders withdraw to restore their forces, Tsunade seizes the opportunity to dispatch a small team including Sai, Shikamaru Nara, and Kakashi Hatake to strike down their base. Simultaneously, she commissions Naruto, Sakura Haruno, and Hinata Hyuuga to accompany Shinnou and Amaru on their journey. During this time, however, Orochimaru has his own schemes: he orders Sasuke Uchiha to bring him the doctor who specializes in the reincarnation technique. -- -- As the escort group accidentally uncovers the sinister truth behind the attacks, tumultuous plans are set in motion. But even when confronted with an unforeseen reunion, Naruto does not waver in his endeavor to end the warfare and its disastrous effects. -- -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- Movie - Aug 2, 2008 -- 196,733 7.28
Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 2 - Kizuna -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Supernatural Martial Arts Shounen -- Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 2 - Kizuna Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 2 - Kizuna -- Unleashing a devastating surprise attack, flying ninjas from the Land of Sky are seeking revenge against their old enemy Konohagakure. Despite his eagerness to join the fight, Naruto Uzumaki is held up by Shinnou, a mysterious doctor who requires his assistance to save an injured person. While delivering the wounded man to the hospital, Naruto has an unexpected encounter with Amaru—a stormy youngster from a neighboring village desperately looking for Shinnou's help. -- -- Meanwhile, as the invaders withdraw to restore their forces, Tsunade seizes the opportunity to dispatch a small team including Sai, Shikamaru Nara, and Kakashi Hatake to strike down their base. Simultaneously, she commissions Naruto, Sakura Haruno, and Hinata Hyuuga to accompany Shinnou and Amaru on their journey. During this time, however, Orochimaru has his own schemes: he orders Sasuke Uchiha to bring him the doctor who specializes in the reincarnation technique. -- -- As the escort group accidentally uncovers the sinister truth behind the attacks, tumultuous plans are set in motion. But even when confronted with an unforeseen reunion, Naruto does not waver in his endeavor to end the warfare and its disastrous effects. -- -- Movie - Aug 2, 2008 -- 196,733 7.28
Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Comedy Martial Arts Shounen Super Power -- Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono -- After being sent to investigate the alarming disappearance of four bloodline limit-wielding ninjas from different countries, Kakashi Hatake, Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sai successfully discover their whereabouts and inform the Hokage. Unexpectedly, Tsunade's further arrangements fall apart when Hiruko—the mastermind behind the incident and also a former Konohagakure ninja obsessed with power—appears to announce that he has absorbed the missing ninjas' unique abilities. On the verge of becoming invincible, he seeks one more bloodline limit before starting an all-out war to take over the world. -- -- As Konohagakure's past connections with Hiruko raise suspicions among the nations about its involvement in the affair, Tsunade receives an ultimatum to solve the crisis. Left with no other choice, she decides to follow Kakashi's lead after he presents a daring yet salutary scheme—a proposal that could send him to certain death. However, Naruto opposes such a plan! Despite the Hokage's decision, he is determined to save his teacher's life, even if it means fighting friend and foe alike. -- -- -- Licensor: -- VIZ Media -- Movie - Aug 1, 2009 -- 154,081 7.34
Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono -- -- Studio Pierrot -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Action Comedy Martial Arts Shounen Super Power -- Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono Naruto: Shippuuden Movie 3 - Hi no Ishi wo Tsugu Mono -- After being sent to investigate the alarming disappearance of four bloodline limit-wielding ninjas from different countries, Kakashi Hatake, Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sai successfully discover their whereabouts and inform the Hokage. Unexpectedly, Tsunade's further arrangements fall apart when Hiruko—the mastermind behind the incident and also a former Konohagakure ninja obsessed with power—appears to announce that he has absorbed the missing ninjas' unique abilities. On the verge of becoming invincible, he seeks one more bloodline limit before starting an all-out war to take over the world. -- -- As Konohagakure's past connections with Hiruko raise suspicions among the nations about its involvement in the affair, Tsunade receives an ultimatum to solve the crisis. Left with no other choice, she decides to follow Kakashi's lead after he presents a daring yet salutary scheme—a proposal that could send him to certain death. However, Naruto opposes such a plan! Despite the Hokage's decision, he is determined to save his teacher's life, even if it means fighting friend and foe alike. -- -- Movie - Aug 1, 2009 -- 154,081 7.34
Noblesse: Awakening -- -- Production I.G -- 1 ep -- Web manga -- Action Supernatural Vampire School -- Noblesse: Awakening Noblesse: Awakening -- Long ago lived the "nobles," an ancient race of immortal supernatural beings. They were revered as rulers and gods. Among the nobles was the "Noblesse," a powerful individual shrouded in mystery named Cadis Etrama di Raizel, or "Rai." Upon awakening in South Korea after an 820-year-long sleep, Rai sets to find his loyal and devoted servant, Frankenstein, whom he discovers to be the current director of Ye Ran High School. In his wish to learn more about modern civilization, Rai enrolls as a student to better experience life in the modern world. -- -- Noblesse: Awakening details the beginning of Rai's new life as a high school student as he spends time with friends and fights threats both human and supernatural in order to prevent their schemes from harming Korea. -- -- ONA - Feb 4, 2016 -- 94,149 7.44
Ookami to Koushinryou -- -- Imagin -- 13 eps -- Light novel -- Adventure Fantasy Historical Romance -- Ookami to Koushinryou Ookami to Koushinryou -- Holo is a powerful wolf deity who is celebrated and revered in the small town of Pasloe for blessing the annual harvest. Yet as years go by and the villagers become more self-sufficient, Holo, who stylizes herself as the "Wise Wolf of Yoitsu," has been reduced to a mere folk tale. When a traveling merchant named Kraft Lawrence stops at Pasloe, Holo offers to become his business partner if he eventually takes her to her northern home of Yoitsu. The savvy trader recognizes Holo's unusual ability to evaluate a person's character and accepts her proposition. Now in the possession of both sharp business skills and a charismatic negotiator, Lawrence inches closer to his goal of opening his own shop. However, as Lawrence travels the countryside with Holo in search of economic opportunities, he begins to realize that his aspirations are slowly morphing into something unexpected. -- -- Based on the popular light novel of the same name, Ookami to Koushinryou, also known as Spice and Wolf, fuses the two polar genres of economics and romance to create an enthralling story abundant with elaborate schemes, sharp humor, and witty dialogue. Ookami to Koushinryou is more than just a story of bartering; it turns into a journey of searching for a lost identity in an ever-changing world. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation, Kadokawa Pictures USA -- 660,637 8.26
Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo -- -- Connect -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Harem Comedy Romance School -- Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo Ore wo Suki nano wa Omae dake ka yo -- Amatsuyu "Jouro" Kisaragi is a completely average second-year high school student who has two dates over one weekend—with the student council president Sakura "Cosmos" Akino on Saturday, then with his childhood friend Aoi "Himawari" Hinata on Sunday. Sadly for Jouro, both girls proclaim their love for his best friend Taiyou "Sun-chan" Ooga, the ace of the baseball team. Accepting each of their requests for advice and guidance, he is now responsible for helping the two girls win the heart of the same guy. -- -- Unbeknownst to his friends, Jouro's friendly and obtuse image is all but a ruse designed to cast himself as the clueless protagonist of a textbook romantic comedy. A schemer under his cheery facade, he makes the best of this unexpected turn of events with a new plan: get Sun-chan to fall for either Cosmos or Himawari and take the other as his own prize. But Jouro's last-ditch effort is threatened by the gloomy, four-eyed Sumireko "Pansy" Sanshokuin, who surprises Jouro with not only her knowledge of his secret personality but also a confession to the true self he hid for all this time. -- -- Stuck in this hilariously messy situation, each of the five students must navigate countless lies, traps, and misunderstandings to come out on top. -- -- 295,208 7.38
Peach Girl -- -- Studio Comet -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Drama Romance School Shoujo Slice of Life -- Peach Girl Peach Girl -- With her gorgeous, tan skin and long, bleached hair, former high school swim team member Momo Adachi seems like the kind of girl who could get any guy she wants. In reality, however, she is only in love with Kazuya "Toji" Toujigamori, a baseball player whom she fell for in junior high and who reportedly only likes pale-skinned girls. Despite her attempts to change her appearance, many of her jealous classmates have begun spreading rumors about her promiscuous and "easy to get with" personality. Momo's friend Sae Kashiwagi is always there to comfort her, but is secretly the source of the rumors about Momo as part of her own scheme to steal Toji. Further complicating things is Kairi Okayasu, a popular male student at Momo's high school who has publicly declared his love for her and is determined to date her. -- -- Hoping to find love in a nearly impossible predicament, Momo must navigate complicated love triangles, back-stabbing friends, and her insecurities about her appearance to discover who she really is. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Jan 8, 2005 -- 82,472 6.99
Peach Girl -- -- Studio Comet -- 25 eps -- Manga -- Drama Romance School Shoujo Slice of Life -- Peach Girl Peach Girl -- With her gorgeous, tan skin and long, bleached hair, former high school swim team member Momo Adachi seems like the kind of girl who could get any guy she wants. In reality, however, she is only in love with Kazuya "Toji" Toujigamori, a baseball player whom she fell for in junior high and who reportedly only likes pale-skinned girls. Despite her attempts to change her appearance, many of her jealous classmates have begun spreading rumors about her promiscuous and "easy to get with" personality. Momo's friend Sae Kashiwagi is always there to comfort her, but is secretly the source of the rumors about Momo as part of her own scheme to steal Toji. Further complicating things is Kairi Okayasu, a popular male student at Momo's high school who has publicly declared his love for her and is determined to date her. -- -- Hoping to find love in a nearly impossible predicament, Momo must navigate complicated love triangles, back-stabbing friends, and her insecurities about her appearance to discover who she really is. -- -- TV - Jan 8, 2005 -- 82,472 6.99
Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle -- -- Sunrise -- 25 eps -- Original -- Action Game Mystery Shounen -- Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle -- Kaito Daimon would be a completely average high school student except for one thing: he's a 'demon' at solving puzzles. Kaito is so brilliant, in fact, that when he's asked to take some 'special' tests of his unique ability, he immediately suspects that the test itself is a test. Kaito suddenly finds himself caught up in a lethal Philosopher's Puzzle made by the sinister group POG, a murderous maze of trap upon trap, where failing to solve the secret correctly will result in death! Fortunately, Kaito's skills prove up to the first test, both for himself and his childhood friend Nanoha, who is also caught up in the deadly scheme. But now that he has been designated as a Solver, he is pulled into a new life where he must travel the world with other Solvers, attempting to solve the latest deadly riddles left by POG. There's a new conundrum around every corner and each deception could lead to death, but once a riddle has been posed, you can count on Kaito to unfold, unravel and unlock it! -- -- (Source: Sentai Filmworks) -- -- Licensor: -- Sentai Filmworks -- TV - Oct 2, 2011 -- 97,029 7.20
Pokemon -- -- OLM -- 276 eps -- Game -- Action Adventure Comedy Kids Fantasy -- Pokemon Pokemon -- Pokemon are peculiar creatures with a vast array of different abilities and appearances; many people, known as Pokemon trainers, capture and train them, often with the intent of battling others. Young Satoshi has not only dreamed of becoming a Pokemon trainer but also a "Pokemon Master," and on the arrival of his 10th birthday, he finally has a chance to make that dream a reality. Unfortunately for him, all three Pokemon available to beginning trainers have already been claimed and only Pikachu, a rebellious Electric type Pokemon, remains. However, this chance encounter would mark the start of a lifelong friendship and an epic adventure! -- -- Setting off on a journey to become the very best, Satoshi and Pikachu travel across beautiful, sprawling regions with their friends Kasumi, a Water type trainer, and Takeshi, a Rock type trainer. But danger lurks around every corner. The infamous Team Rocket is always nearby, seeking to steal powerful Pokemon through nefarious schemes. It'll be up to Satoshi and his friends to thwart their efforts as he also strives to earn the eight Pokemon Gym Badges he'll need to challenge the Pokemon League, and eventually claim the title of Pokemon Master. -- -- -- Licensor: -- 4Kids Entertainment, VIZ Media -- 485,459 7.34
Pokemon Movie 14 Black: Victini to Shiroki Eiyuu Reshiram -- -- OLM -- 1 ep -- Game -- Adventure Comedy Drama Fantasy Kids -- Pokemon Movie 14 Black: Victini to Shiroki Eiyuu Reshiram Pokemon Movie 14 Black: Victini to Shiroki Eiyuu Reshiram -- In ages past, the Kingdom of the Vale, a mighty and flourishing realm, fell into turmoil. The ruler's two sons turned against each other, unleashing the powers of their Legendary familiars—Reshiram and Zekrom—and disturbing the Dragon Force that supplied the kingdom with energy. With the help of the Mythical Pokémon Victini, balance was restored and the Dragon Force was bound by the Sword of the Vale. Should the Sword be moved, devastation will loom again. -- -- Damon, a descendant of the now scattered People of the Vale, is attempting to restore his people's kingdom to its former glory. He manages to summon Legendary Pokémon Zekrom, with the aim of lifting the Sword of the Vale and harnessing the power of the Dragon Force himself. -- -- Meanwhile, Satoshi and his companions visit Eindoak Town, located at the foot of the Sword of the Vale. Confronted with Damon’s scheme, they lend a hand to Victini, guardian of the Vale, in stopping the plan from coming to fruition and preventing a repeat of the tragedy that occurred a millennium ago. -- -- -- Licensor: -- The Pokemon Company International -- Movie - Jul 16, 2011 -- 34,932 6.61
Pokemon Movie 14 White: Victini to Kuroki Eiyuu Zekrom -- -- OLM, Production I.G, Xebec -- 1 ep -- Game -- Adventure Comedy Drama Fantasy Kids -- Pokemon Movie 14 White: Victini to Kuroki Eiyuu Zekrom Pokemon Movie 14 White: Victini to Kuroki Eiyuu Zekrom -- In ages past, the Kingdom of the Vale, a mighty and flourishing realm, fell into turmoil. The ruler's two sons turned against each other, unleashing the powers of their Legendary familiars—Reshiram and Zekrom—and disturbing the Dragon Force that supplied the kingdom with energy. With the help of the Mythical Pokémon Victini, balance was restored and the Dragon Force was bound by the Sword of the Vale. Should the Sword be moved, devastation will loom again. -- -- Damon, a descendant of the now scattered People of the Vale, is attempting to restore his people's kingdom to its former glory. He manages to summon Legendary Pokémon Zekrom, with the aim of lifting the Sword of the Vale and harnessing the power of the Dragon Force himself. -- -- Meanwhile, Satoshi and his companions visit Eindoak Town, located at the foot of the Sword of the Vale. Confronted with Damon's scheme, they lend a hand to Victini, guardian of the Vale, in stopping the plan from coming to fruition and preventing a repeat of the tragedy that occurred a millennium ago. -- -- -- Licensor: -- The Pokemon Company International -- Movie - Jul 16, 2011 -- 41,879 6.62
Pokemon XY -- -- OLM -- 93 eps -- Game -- Action Adventure Comedy Fantasy Kids -- Pokemon XY Pokemon XY -- Satoshi and Pikachu have arrived in Miare City of the illustrious Kalos region to capture more Pokemon and continue their journey towards becoming the very best. Meanwhile, a genius inventor named Citron and his little sister Eureka wander the city when they run into Satoshi who quickly challenges them to a battle. However, they are soon caught up in a dangerous incident when Team Rocket, following Satoshi into Kalos, cause a Gaburias to rampage through the city. -- -- Far away in the quiet Asame Town, a young girl named Serena slogs through daily Sihorn riding practice at the behest of her mother, a professional Sihorn racer. After practice, she sees the events unfolding in Miare City on television where she recognizes a boy from her childhood. Having left a significant impact on her life, the sight of him stirs in her a desire to meet him again; and so, Serena sets off to Miare City, determined to find the boy from her past. -- -- Pokemon XY follows the group as they travel throughout Kalos in pursuit of their ambitions—Satoshi challenging Pokemon gyms, Citron learning from Satoshi, and Serena searching for what exactly her dream is. Along the way, they meet new friends, face new rivals, and continue to thwart Team Rocket's schemes, all the while discovering a little about the mysteries of mega evolution. -- -- -- Licensor: -- The Pokemon Company International -- 113,164 7.28
Pokemon XY&Z -- -- OLM -- 47 eps -- Game -- Action Adventure Comedy Kids Fantasy -- Pokemon XY&Z Pokemon XY&Z -- The journey of Satoshi and his friends through the Kalos region continues! After Satoshi obtains his seventh gym badge, the group is moving toward the next town when Eureka discovers a mysterious Pokemon resting in her pochette. Soon given the name Puni-chan, it is one that even Satoshi and Serena's new Pokemon Zukan cannot identify. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Puni-chan is the target of a mysterious group clad in bright red suits known as Team Flare, aiming to capture the new Pokemon to further their agenda. But when Satoshi and the gang realize that the enigmatic organization has no intention of treating Puni-chan with any decency, they take a stand in opposition to Team Flare's plans, daring to fight back. -- -- With Gojika's predictions looming above them, Satoshi aims for his final gym badge while Serena contests for her last Princess Key in order to be able to compete at the TriPokalon Master Class. But as Team Flare begins to move in search of the mysterious Z, the stories of Pokemon XY and Pokemon XY: Mega Evolution cross paths as Satoshi and his friends, along with Team Rocket, get caught up in a scheme that could put Kalos in great danger. -- -- 89,368 7.63
Pokemon XY&Z -- -- OLM -- 47 eps -- Game -- Action Adventure Comedy Kids Fantasy -- Pokemon XY&Z Pokemon XY&Z -- The journey of Satoshi and his friends through the Kalos region continues! After Satoshi obtains his seventh gym badge, the group is moving toward the next town when Eureka discovers a mysterious Pokemon resting in her pochette. Soon given the name Puni-chan, it is one that even Satoshi and Serena's new Pokemon Zukan cannot identify. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Puni-chan is the target of a mysterious group clad in bright red suits known as Team Flare, aiming to capture the new Pokemon to further their agenda. But when Satoshi and the gang realize that the enigmatic organization has no intention of treating Puni-chan with any decency, they take a stand in opposition to Team Flare's plans, daring to fight back. -- -- With Gojika's predictions looming above them, Satoshi aims for his final gym badge while Serena contests for her last Princess Key in order to be able to compete at the TriPokalon Master Class. But as Team Flare begins to move in search of the mysterious Z, the stories of Pokemon XY and Pokemon XY: Mega Evolution cross paths as Satoshi and his friends, along with Team Rocket, get caught up in a scheme that could put Kalos in great danger. -- -- -- Licensor: -- The Pokemon Company International -- 89,368 7.63
Re: Cutey Honey -- -- Gainax, Toei Animation -- 3 eps -- Manga -- Action Sci-Fi Comedy Ecchi Shoujo Ai -- Re: Cutey Honey Re: Cutey Honey -- A mysterious organization known as Panther Claw make their presence known by terrorizing Tokyo and giving the cops a run for their money. Police are further baffled by the appearance of a lone cosplaying vigilante who thwarts all of Panther Claw's evil schemes before disappearing. That cosplayer is Honey Kisaragi, the result of the late Professor Kisaragi's prize experiment. A master of disguise, Honey can magically alter her physical appearance and outfits. But with a push of the heart-shaped button on her choker, she transforms herself into Cutie Honey, the scantily-clad, sword-wielding warrior of love and justice. -- -- (Source: ANN) -- OVA - Jul 24, 2004 -- 23,240 7.11
RobiHachi -- -- Studio Comet -- 12 eps -- Original -- Adventure Comedy Sci-Fi Space -- RobiHachi RobiHachi -- Ever since they encountered aliens on the moon, humanity's technology has developed by leaps and bounds. Half a century later, even though most have it easy, Robby Yaji and Hacchi Kita cannot seem to catch a break in this advanced society. Robby—a man perpetually struck by misfortune—owes large sums of money to debt collectors due to his poor investments in shady get-rich-quick schemes, and Hacchi finds it difficult to get over the boredom of his mundane life. -- -- The two end up on an adventure of a lifetime when loan shark boss Yang sends Hacchi to collect the money Robby owes. Rather than pay up, Robby blasts off into space and heads to Isekandar, a planet that supposedly brings happiness to anyone who visits. Seeing a chance for some much needed excitement, Hacchi tags along with Robby on this journey filled with alien encounters, giant robot battles, and all sorts of troublemaking—all the while avoiding Yang and his cronies who are desperately combing the universe to find them. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 27,380 6.50
Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records -- -- LIDENFILMS -- 12 eps -- Light novel -- Action Magic Fantasy School -- Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records -- The Alzano Empire is home to one of the most distinguished magic schools in the world: the Alzano Imperial Magic Academy. Here, ambitious young students undergo training to become competent magicians. Sistine Fibel—a stern noble girl—and her bright-eyed best friend Rumia Tingel attend the Academy, determined to cultivate their magical skills. -- -- However, their world is thrown for a loop when their favorite teacher suddenly retires and the enigmatic Glenn Radars replaces him. His lazy and indifferent attitude toward life and magic quickly puts him at odds with his class. What's more, nefarious forces hidden within the empire's walls start to become active, and Sistine, Rumia, and Glenn find themselves caught up in their schemes. -- -- Rokudenashi Majutsu Koushi to Akashic Records follows Sistine, who is captivated by a mysterious floating Sky Castle; Rumia, who is haunted by a troubled past; and Glenn, who may be more than meets the eye. Though completely different on the surface, they are inexplicably bound together by a thread of fate. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 506,868 7.18
Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Part 2 -- -- Wit Studio -- 10 eps -- Manga -- Action Drama Fantasy Military Mystery Shounen Super Power -- Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Part 2 Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Part 2 -- Seeking to restore humanity's diminishing hope, the Survey Corps embark on a mission to retake Wall Maria, where the battle against the merciless "Titans" takes the stage once again. -- -- Returning to the tattered Shiganshina District that was once his home, Eren Yeager and the Corps find the town oddly unoccupied by Titans. Even after the outer gate is plugged, they strangely encounter no opposition. The mission progresses smoothly until Armin Arlert, highly suspicious of the enemy's absence, discovers distressing signs of a potential scheme against them. -- -- Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Part 2 follows Eren as he vows to take back everything that was once his. Alongside him, the Survey Corps strive—through countless sacrifices—to carve a path towards victory and uncover the secrets locked away in the Yeager family's basement. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- 1,244,399 9.11
Soukou Kihei Votoms -- -- Sunrise -- 52 eps -- Original -- Action Space Mecha Military Drama Sci-Fi -- Soukou Kihei Votoms Soukou Kihei Votoms -- A century of bloodshed between warring star systems has plunged nearly 200 worlds into the flames of war. Now, an uneasy truce has settled across the Astragius Galaxy... -- -- Chirico Cuvie, a special forces powered-armor pilot is suddenly transferred into a unit engaged in a secret and highly illegal mission to steal military secrets—from their own military! Now he's on the run...from his own army! -- -- Unsure of his loyalties and to cover their own tracks, Chirico is left behind to die in space. Surviving by luck, the renegade is now hunted by both the conspirators and military intelligence. -- -- He is driven by the haunting image of a mysterious and beautiful woman—the objective of their mission, and his sole clue to unraveling their treacherous scheme. But the conspirators will do anything to preserve their mysterious agenda... -- -- (Source: AnimeNfo) -- -- Licensor: -- Central Park Media, Maiden Japan -- TV - Apr 1, 1983 -- 18,584 7.72
Submarine Super 99 -- -- Vega Entertainment -- 13 eps -- Manga -- Action Military Sci-Fi Adventure Shounen -- Submarine Super 99 Submarine Super 99 -- Dr. Oki , the genius scientist who designed a new type of submarine is missing. His son, Susumu, smells an evil scheme of unknown group. He knows everything of his father's submarine called "Super 99" – equipment, weapons, functions and capacity. Susumu thinks that to find his father is to reveal the secret organization, Helmet Party, and stop their conspiracy. With the help of his friends and Marine Corps, he sets out to an underwater quest, not knowing how dangerous his endeavour is… -- -- (Source: ANN) -- -- Licensor: -- Enoki Films -- TV - May 8, 2003 -- 1,458 6.20
Trinity Blood -- -- Gonzo -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Supernatural Vampire -- Trinity Blood Trinity Blood -- Following Armageddon, an apocalyptic war, mankind faces yet another menace: vampires. The continuous confrontations between the races have split the world into separate factions. The race of vampires, Methuselah, are affiliated with the New Human Empire; whereas the humans, deemed Terrans by the vampires, make up the Vatican Papal State. Furthermore, extremist groups like the Rosenkreuz Order strive to rekindle a war, despite the factions' attempts to avoid direct conflict. -- -- To combat terrorist organizations, the Vatican has implemented the AX unit. Led by Cardinal Caterina Sforza, the AX agents investigate vampire-related disturbances with hopes that the Terrans and the Methuselah will one day achieve a peaceful coexistence. Amongst the AX unit is priest Abel Nightroad—a seemingly disoriented but gentle-hearted fellow, and a fierce vampire slayer on the battlefield. Joining the unit as his partner is a new agent, Sister Esther Blanchett, a brave and gentle young nun troubled with a tragic past. As the two grow closer, they begin to uncover signs of malicious schemes and dark forces working in the shadows. But the path they walk is riddled with misfortune that might just force them to confront the memories that plague their hearts. -- -- -- Licensor: -- Funimation -- TV - Apr 29, 2005 -- 160,718 7.32
Trinity Blood -- -- Gonzo -- 24 eps -- Light novel -- Action Supernatural Vampire -- Trinity Blood Trinity Blood -- Following Armageddon, an apocalyptic war, mankind faces yet another menace: vampires. The continuous confrontations between the races have split the world into separate factions. The race of vampires, Methuselah, are affiliated with the New Human Empire; whereas the humans, deemed Terrans by the vampires, make up the Vatican Papal State. Furthermore, extremist groups like the Rosenkreuz Order strive to rekindle a war, despite the factions' attempts to avoid direct conflict. -- -- To combat terrorist organizations, the Vatican has implemented the AX unit. Led by Cardinal Caterina Sforza, the AX agents investigate vampire-related disturbances with hopes that the Terrans and the Methuselah will one day achieve a peaceful coexistence. Amongst the AX unit is priest Abel Nightroad—a seemingly disoriented but gentle-hearted fellow, and a fierce vampire slayer on the battlefield. Joining the unit as his partner is a new agent, Sister Esther Blanchett, a brave and gentle young nun troubled with a tragic past. As the two grow closer, they begin to uncover signs of malicious schemes and dark forces working in the shadows. But the path they walk is riddled with misfortune that might just force them to confront the memories that plague their hearts. -- -- TV - Apr 29, 2005 -- 160,718 7.32
Yuru Yuri San☆Hai! -- -- TYO Animations -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy School Shoujo Ai Slice of Life -- Yuru Yuri San☆Hai! Yuru Yuri San☆Hai! -- The members of the Amusement Club are back with more of Kyouko Toshinou's antics, Chinatsu Yoshikawa's schemes, Yui Funami's retorts, and Akari Akaza's small social presence as they strive to make each day as fun as the last! Whether the activity is an arm wrestling contest or making pancakes together, the group of entertainment-seekers are sure to give it their all. -- -- The club members are often joined by their friends in the Student Council, who know how to have a good time as well. While it can get a little chaotic when all eight girls get together, it sure doesn't stop them from meeting up and having fun! -- -- 101,642 7.94
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/DeveloperWiki:NewMirrors#2-tier_mirroring_scheme
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Scheme
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Commons_category_schemes
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Fossils_in_the_Portable_Antiquities_Scheme
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Category_scheme_Commons_maintenance/af
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Category_scheme_Commons_maintenance/en
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Category_scheme_People
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:6-11_Framework_scheme_for_3DClass.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apside_general_scheme.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bioscheme.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Linear_Scale_Scheme.svg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Material_Flow_Accounting_Scheme.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ontology_Scheme.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scheme_snail_anatomy-numbers.svg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Schemes/en/Astronomy
3500 Farms Scheme
About URI scheme
Abstract-Type and Scheme-Definition Language
Acct URI scheme
Admiralty M-N Scheme
Affric-Beauly hydro-electric power scheme
Aircraft Apprentice Scheme
Alisagar lift irrigation scheme
Amtrak paint schemes
Argumentation scheme
Arnold Scheme
Askey scheme
Assisted Places Scheme
Association scheme
Australia and the Empire Air Training Scheme
Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme
Australian Registered Scheme Number
Backup rotation scheme
Baden-Powell's Scout training scheme
Bangaru Thalli (scheme)
BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme
Beam and Warming scheme
Bernoulli scheme
Better Access Scheme
BLISS signature scheme
Boatwomen's training scheme
Boiler scrappage scheme
BonehFranklin scheme
Brachybembras aschemeieri
Breadalbane Hydro-Electric Scheme
Buffer stock scheme
Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation
Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme
Card scheme
Caritas (Ponzi scheme)
Central differencing scheme
Central Plan Scheme Monitoring System
CESG Listed Adviser Scheme
Channel allocation schemes
Chevalley scheme
Chicken (Scheme implementation)
Chinese Character Simplification Scheme
Clinging to a Scheme
Cocks IBE scheme
Color scheme
Commitment scheme
Common Criteria Evaluation and Validation Scheme
Community safety accreditation scheme
Comparison and contrast of classification schemes in linguistics and metadata
Computer network naming scheme
Construction Skills Certification Scheme
Countryside Stewardship Scheme
CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme
Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme
Darien scheme
Data URI scheme
Dee Regulation Scheme
Defence Scheme No. 1
Defence Technical Undergraduate Scheme
Dehani lift irrigation scheme
Derby Scheme
Derived scheme
Designation Scheme
Design, Build and Sell Scheme
Digital Switchover Help Scheme
Dimension of a scheme
Diversity scheme
Divisorial scheme
Double Bedroom Housing scheme
Double Glazing & Conservatory Ombudsman Scheme
Dr Scheme
Dummugudem Lift Irrigation Scheme
Early Admissions Scheme (Hong Kong)
East Kowloon line (1970 scheme)
Ed2k URI scheme
ElGamal signature scheme
English National Concessionary Travel Scheme
Enterprise Investment Scheme
Environmental management scheme
Equity Linked Savings Scheme
tale group scheme
European Union Emission Trading Scheme
European Union Settlement Scheme
Feed URI scheme
Fee Reimbursement Scheme (Andhra Pradesh)
FeigeFiatShamir identification scheme
Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme
Fiber product of schemes
File URI scheme
Financial Services Compensation Scheme
Fischer random chess numbering scheme
Foreclosure rescue scheme
Foreign Sports Talent Scheme
Formal scheme
Free laptop distribution scheme of the Uttar Pradesh government
Fresh Talent Working in Scotland Scheme
FTCS scheme
Function field (scheme theory)
Functor represented by a scheme
Galloway hydro-electric power scheme
Gambit (scheme implementation)
Gauche (Scheme implementation)
General Practice Vocational Training Scheme
Georg Christian Schemelli
Geo URI scheme
Get-rich-quick scheme
Gezira Scheme
GGH encryption scheme
Glendoe Hydro Scheme
Gluing schemes
Godunov's scheme
Goldfields Water Supply Scheme
Google Schemer
Gorenstein scheme
Government Telephone Preference Scheme
Green card scheme in Odisha
Group scheme
Group-scheme action
Healthcare Travel Costs Scheme
Heytesbury Settlement Scheme
Higher-order compact finite difference scheme
High-resolution scheme
Hilbert scheme
History of the Scheme programming language
Home Ownership Scheme
Hong Kong plastic shopping bag environmental levy scheme
Hybrid difference scheme
Ikarus (Scheme implementation)
Imperial Airship Scheme
Income declaration scheme, 2016
Indiramma (housing scheme)
Individual Visit Scheme
Ind-scheme
Info URI scheme
Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme
Integrated Encryption Scheme
International Graduates Scheme
Investors Compensation Scheme Ltd v West Bromwich Building Society
IronScheme
J. Chokka Rao Devadula Lift Irrigation Scheme
Jobseekers (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013
John H. Buschemeyer
Jorge Reina Schement
Kabat numbering scheme
Key Words Reading Scheme
Kiewa Hydroelectric Scheme
Kilkenny Central Access Scheme
Kimberley Process Certification Scheme
Kubus scheme
Ladder scheme
LaiMassey scheme
Lambak Kiri Landless Indigenous Citizens' Housing Scheme
Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme
Larceny (Scheme implementation)
Lifting scheme
Light-on-dark color scheme
Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme
List of codes used in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions
List of Compact Disc and DVD copy protection schemes
List of Foreign Sports Talent Scheme athletes
List of Home Ownership Scheme Courts in Hong Kong
List of Odisha Government Schemes
List of Ponzi schemes
List of topologies on the category of schemes
List of traffic separation schemes
List of Union Government schemes in India
List of Wii games with traditional control schemes
Loans for shares scheme
Local welfare assistance scheme
Lochaber hydroelectric scheme
Loch Sloy Hydro-Electric Scheme
LyonMoutiers DC transmission scheme
Magnet URI scheme
Mahatma Gandhi Kalwakurthy lift irrigation scheme
Mantria Corporation Ponzi scheme
Market allocation scheme
Matrix scheme
Maulana Abul Kalam Hyderabad Sujala Saravanthi scheme
MBTA kickback schemes
Medical Rural Bonded Scholarship Scheme
Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme
Merkle signature scheme
Metropolitan Region Scheme
Midday Meal Scheme
Mike Schemer
Minimal subtraction scheme
MIT/GNU Scheme
MMM (Ponzi scheme company)
Modified Scheme of Elementary education 1953
Moduli scheme
Monitoring Certification Scheme
Morphism of schemes
Mother and Child Scheme
MuMs da Schemer
National Disability Insurance Scheme
National Gardens Scheme
National Health Insurance Scheme
National Health Insurance Scheme (Ghana)
National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme
National Rural Employment Generation Scheme
National Service Scheme
National Social Assistance Scheme
Native-speaking English Teacher (NET) Scheme
New Halfa Scheme
New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme
New Zealand Emissions Trading Scheme
NHIF Civil Servants Scheme Scandal
NHS Low Income Scheme
NHS Pension Scheme
Normal scheme
Numbering scheme
On shell renormalization scheme
Over Thirty Months Scheme
Panchor National Housing Scheme
Pearson Playwrights' Scheme
Pension Schemes Act 1993
Personal pension scheme
Petworth Emigration Scheme
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
Pharmaceutical Inspection Convention and Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme
Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme
Physics and Astronomy Classification Scheme
Pigmy Deposit Scheme
Ping-pong scheme
Police Mitra scheme
Polynomial-time approximation scheme
Ponzi scheme
Portable Antiquities Scheme
Pranahita Chevella lift irrigation scheme
Praya Reclamation Scheme
President of Madagascar's Small Grants Scheme
Prime Minister's Fee Reimbursement Scheme
Probabilistic signature scheme
Public schemes for energy efficient refurbishment
Pyramid scheme
Pyramid schemes in Albania
Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme
Qualified Non-UK Pension Scheme
Qualifying Recognised Overseas Pension Scheme
Quality Migrant Admission Scheme
QUICK scheme
Quot scheme
Radyr Hydro Scheme
Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme
Refill (scheme)
Rhyme scheme
Rimba Landless Indigenous Citizens' Housing Scheme
Roaring Meg hydro scheme
Robert Hoernschemeyer
Robodebt scheme
Royal Far West Children's Health Scheme
RScheme
Rubicon Hydroelectric Scheme
R. Vidyasagar Rao Dindi Lift Irrigation Scheme
Rythu Bandhu scheme
SakaiKasahara scheme
Sargent Scheme
Saubhagya scheme
Scapin the Schemer
Scheme
Scheme 48
Scheme $6,000
Scheme (mathematics)
Scheme of arrangement
Scheme (programming language)
Schemer-Dreamer
Scheme Requests for Implementation
Schemers (film)
Scheme-theoretic intersection
Schlfli orthoscheme
SCM (Scheme implementation)
Selborne-Fisher scheme
Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme
Shaadi Bhagya scheme
Shannon hydroelectric scheme
Shoalhaven Scheme
Singapore Area Licensing Scheme
SIP URI scheme
SMART (grant scheme)
Smooth scheme
Snowy Mountains Scheme
Soil Health Card Scheme
Solarized (color scheme)
Southern Theological Education and Training Scheme
Special Area Games Scheme
Special paint schemes on racing cars
Stakeholder pension scheme
Stalin (Scheme implementation)
Standard Compression Scheme for Unicode
Strasser Scheme
Tag URI scheme
Talk:Hong Kong plastic shopping bag environmental levy scheme
Tanganyika groundnut scheme
Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme
Teach Yourself Scheme in Fixnum Days
Technology Incubation Scheme
Telangana Sheep Distribution scheme
Tenancy deposit scheme
Tenancy deposit scheme (England and Wales)
Tenancy deposit schemes (Scotland)
Thames Tideway Scheme
The Hairbrain Scheme
The Scheme
The Scheme (band)
The Schemers
The Soap Opera Encyclopedia (Schemering book)
The Wedding Scheme
Timeline of the Central Plains Water Enhancement Scheme
Tobashi scheme
Tongariro Power Scheme
Traffic separation scheme
Traineeship scheme of the European Commission
Trondheim toll scheme
Tummel hydro-electric power scheme
Tungku Landless Indigenous Citizens' Housing Scheme Area 1
Tungku Landless Indigenous Citizens' Housing Scheme Area 2
Uganda Scheme
Unbalanced oil and vinegar scheme
Uniform Mark Scheme
United Kingdom EU Worker Registration Scheme
United Nations geoscheme
United Nations geoscheme for Africa
United Nations geoscheme for Asia
United Nations geoscheme for Europe
United Nations geoscheme for Oceania
United Nations geoscheme for the Americas
Universities Superannuation Scheme
Upper Yardman Scheme (Royal Navy)
Upwind differencing scheme for convection
Upwind scheme
User:Pknkly/WikiProject Chicago/Categories/Categorization scheme
Vaalharts Irrigation Scheme
Vegetable box scheme
Vehicle scrappage scheme
View-source URI scheme
Vine pull schemes
Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme
Vyborg HVDC scheme
Wealth Partaking Scheme
Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme
Whitford Development Scheme
Women's Domestic Violence Court Assistance Scheme (WDVCAS)
Work-at-home scheme
World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions
Yellow Card Scheme
convenience portal:
recent: Section Maps - index table - favoritesSavitri --Savitri extended toc Savitri Section Map --1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
authors -- Crowley - Peterson - Borges - Wilber - Teresa -Aurobindo -Ramakrishna - Maharshi -Mother
places -- Garden - Inf. Art Gallery - Inf. Building - Inf. Library - Labyrinth - Library - School -Temple - Tower - Tower of MEM
powers -- Aspiration - Beauty - Concentration - Effort - Faith - Force - Grace - inspiration -Presence - Purity - Sincerity - surrender
difficulties -- cowardice - depres. - distract. - distress - dryness - evil - fear - forget - habits - impulse - incapacity - irritation - lost - mistakes - obscur. - problem - resist - sadness - self-deception - shame - sin - suffering
practices -- Lucid Dreaming - meditation - project - programming - Prayer - read Savitri - studysubjects -- CS - Cybernetics - Game Dev - Integral Theory - Integral Yoga - Kabbalah - Language - Philosophy - Poetry - Zen
6.01 books -- KC - ABA - Null -Savitri - SA O TAOC -SICP - The Gospel of SRK - TIC - The Library of Babel -TLD -TSOY - TTYODAS - TSZ - WOTM II
8 unsorted / add here -- Always - Everyday - Verbs