More specifically concerning: love
Neither a borrower…
18 November 2002, around 16.31.
I have to remind myself it was only a book – mass-market paperback, pristine condition though bought used. I lent it to an acquaintance; I do not say she was a friend, because she was not. She was an acquaintance. At the time I would have compared her to a whirlwind, for wherever she went […]
an Observation (2)
31 January 2003, around 11.11.
Somewhere in his letters to Atticus, Cicero says something to the effect of: I would rather fight with Pompey, and lose, than see him victorious. The death of Pompey signaled the end of the optimate cause, and the beginning of Caesar’s supremacy. Had Pompey won, though, the optimate cause, along with the Republic, would still […]
Impossible Epistles
24 February 2003, around 7.59.
The letters arrived two weeks apart, sent by two different people; each requires a response, and yet I cannot think how to reply to them. The first letter was a love story; a year ago she’d met a young man, parted as friends, wrote to each other, talked on the telephone, fell in love at […]
Citation (8)
7 May 2003, around 8.08.
from Tamburlaine the Great…
Hours of Idleness
15 July 2003, around 11.07.
I will not advance, by the rules of romance, To humour a whimsical fair; Though a smile may delight, yet a frown won’t affright, Or drive me to dreadful despair. While my blood is thus warm I ne’er shall reform, To mix in the Platonists’ school; Of this I am sure, was my passion so […]
Crambe repetita (2)
3 November 2003, around 18.00.
Ananias, fr. 4.
Inquiries
7 April 2004, around 13.25.
On quires and choirs.
Citation (21)
11 April 2004, around 18.50.
Margaret Cavendish gazes into eternity…
experimentalist
21 April 2004, around 8.15.
…the judgement that someone is unliterary is like the judgement ‘This man is not in love’, whereas the judgement that my taste is bad is more like ‘This man is in love, but with a frightful woman’. And just as the mere fact that a man of sense and breeding loves a woman we dislike […]
they say it’s May
18 May 2004, around 8.22.
cf. She schools the flighty pupils of her eyes, With levell’d lashes stilling their disquiet; And puts in leash her pair’d lips lest surprise Bare the condition of a realm at riot. If he suspect that she has ought to sigh at His injury she’ll avenge with raging shame. She kept her love-thoughts on most […]
Put down the apple Adam
22 May 2004, around 18.10.
Mortality is fatal Gentility is fine Rascality, heroic Insolvency, sublime […] A coward will remain, Sir Until the fight is done; But an immortal hero Will take his hat and run… —Emily Dickinson No. 21 This entry’s title is from the same poem; the stanza runs: Put down the apple Adam And come away with […]
we like sheep
8 June 2004, around 20.33.
a versifying Pet-lamb.
natural selections
9 April 2006, around 18.02.
Thomas Malthus waxes sentimental
Crambe repetita (30)
2 August 2013, around 5.19.
Gyula Krúdy, The Adventures of Sindbad.
by heart
16 December 2013, around 18.06.
Having got to know Liska the way a man gets to know a woman only if he lives with her for years, sleeping with her all that time – well, he’s got not to know her again. It’s like reading a wonderful poem, and learning it off by heart because you like it so much […]
savoir-faire
1 January 2017, around 7.52.
The novel is made up of a series of the sort of letters it is generally not prudent to send. Break-up letters: familiar, contradictory, unpleasant. I need you. I detest you. Thank you. How could you?
Adversaria (3)
30 June 2023, around 4.22.
‘Their ideas were beautiful and academic, like pictures in a gallery, but somewhat remote’ —Carl Jung (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, trans. Richard & Clara Winston, p. 68) Just as his mission in life, to solve the puzzle of existence, represented an act of love for human kind, his love for Adele was analogous. His love of […]