Tag Archives: quotes

Thoughts on Aging

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These quotes are taken from The Oxford Book of Ages chosen by Anthony and Sally Sampson.

Hold fast to time! Use it!
Be conscious of each day, each hour!
They slip away unnoticed too easily and too swifty.

~ Thomas Mann, September 1938, written when he was 63


I am getting to an age when I can only enjoy the last sport left.
It is called hunting for your spectacles.

~ Lord Grey of Falloden in The Observer, 1927, written when he was 73


Every day in my old age is more important than I can say.
It will never return.
When one takes one’s leave of life
one notices how much
one has left
undone.

~ Sibelius, 1957, written when he was 91, shortly before his death

The one thing I regret
is that I will never have time
to read all the books
I want to read.

~ Françoise Sagan, Responses, 1979, written at age 43

Flexible Rigidity

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But the splendour of furrowed fields is this: that like all brave things they are made straight, and therefore they bend.  In everything that bows gracefully there must be an effort at stiffness.  Bows are beautiful when they bend only because they try to remain rigid; and sword-blades can curl like silver ribbons only because they are certain to spring straight again.  But the same is true of every tough curve of the tree trunk, of every strong-backed bend of the bough; there is hardly any such thing in Nature as a mere droop of weakness.  Rigidity yielding a little, like justice swayed by mercy, is the whole beauty of the earth. The cosmos is a diagram just bent beautifully out of shape.  Everything tries to be straight; and everything unfortunately fails.

The foil may curve in the lunge; but there is nothing beautiful about begnning the battle with a crooked foil.  So the strict aim, the strong doctrine, may give a little in the actual fight with facts; but that is no reason for beginning with a weak doctrine or a twisted aim. … Do not try to bend, any more than trees try to bend.  Try to grow straight, and life will bend you.            ~ G.K. Chesterton from Alarms and Discursions

Agree or disagree? 
  

Howard Pyle & N.C. Wyeth

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Illustration from  Robin Hood and Little John
       by N.C. Wyeth, pupil of Howard Pyle

“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty–except, of course, books of information.  The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all.”    ~  C.S. Lewis

In the preface to Robin Hood, Howard Pyle gives us an upside-down Lemony Snicket warning:

“You who so plod amid serious things that you feel it shame to give
yourself up even for a few short moments to mirth and joyousness in the
land of Fancy; you who think that life hath nought to do with innocent
laughter that can harm no one; these pages are not for you. Clap to the
leaves and go no farther than this, for I tell you plainly that if you
go farther you will be scandalized by seeing good, sober folks of real
history so frisk and caper in gay colors and motley that you would not
know them but for the names tagged to them.”

Was Robin Hood homeschooled?  Are not these good goals for our sons?
 

“She taught him to read and write,
to doff his cap without awkwardness,
and to answer directly and truthfully both lord and peasant.”

Perhaps Pyle is better known for his illustrating than his writing.  He left an immense legacy in the students he taught, referred to as  the “Brandywine School”: including N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, and Jessie Wilcox Smith.  Reading Robin Hood has been a delight with a turn of phrase jumping off the page at regular intervals: 

They feasted royally, and clinked each other’s cups,
until the sun had ceased to print the pattern of the leaves
upon the forest carpet.

It was a day so brimful of quiet joy that the two friends lay flat on their backs,
gazing up at the scurrying clouds,
and neither caring to break the silence.

[He] boot-licked his way to favour.

…but she was delightfully disappointed.

…and the merry chatter of the people went abroad
like the hum of bees in a hive.

The winter dragged its weary length through the Sherwood Forest…

So away went the Sheriff …and cudgelled his brain
on the way home for some plan of action.

“Mine is a simple nature and I care not
for the fripperies and follies of court life.
Give me a good meal and cup of right brew,
health, and enough for the day, and I ask no more.”
~ Richard sighed. “You ask the greatest thing
in the world, brother–contentment.
It is not mine to give or to deny.
But ask your God for it, and if belike He grant it,
then ask it also in behalf of your King.”

Listening to Beowulf

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The first eight years of our marriage were years sans television.  We did a lot more listening than watching in those days. Friday nights would find us laying on the floor in the dark and listening to radio drama.  PBS audio broadcasts of Star Wars and BBC dramas swept us into other galaxies. 

I was reminded of those evenings this week when an audio version of Beowulf arrived in the mail.  I’ve only read one translation, Seamus Heaney’s, and thrilled in his grasp of the greatness of language.  [I’d love to have another son, so I could name him Seamus (SHAY mus)].  We will soon re-read Beowulf and Lynne gave me the idea of listening to this epic.  The great Nobel prize winner reads his translation with his native Irish brogue. 

We sat down and listened to one section, submitting our whole attention to the poem.  My husband, who was not familiar with any part of the story, was captivated and stirred by the language.  So even if you don’t know this classic, you will delight in hearing it.  The muscular potency of Heaney’s translation is unrivaled in the world of literature.  Anglo-Saxon poetry stressed alliteration (matching sounds at the beginning of words) instead of rhyme (matching sounds at the end of words).  Heaney brings this across in his glorious translation:

                              Suddenly then
the God-cursed brute was creating havoc:
greedy and grim, he grabbed thirty men
from their resting places and rushed to his lair,
flushed up and inflamed from the raid,
blundering back with the butchered corpses.  (p. 11)

                                Oh, cursed is he
who in time of trouble has to thrust his soul
in the fire’s embrace, forfeiting help;
he has nowhere to turn.  But blessed is he
who after death can approach the Lord
and find friendship in the Father’s embrace. (p.15)

The DVD Beowulf and Grendel is available at Amazon.  It may or may not be worth watching.  At any rate, it ought to be a crime to watch the DVD without having read (visual or audio) the book. But this audio book could very well be one of the best listening events of the year. 

Even better: combine two senses by reading along while listening.         

One of my favorite lines:

He is hasped and hooped and hirpling with pain, limping and looped in it.  (p.65)

Hold Fast

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Fishing Boat at Anchor
Anonymous engraver after a picture by William Van de Velde (Younger)

“He [Gregory] never abandoned his religious exercises
even amid the concourse of an earthly palace.
For some of his fellow-monks were so devoted to him
that they accompanied him to the Imperial city,
and he began to maintain a regular religious observance with them.

In this way, as he records,
their example proved an anchor-cable
that held him fast
to the peaceful shore of prayer
while he was tossed
on the restless waves of worldly affairs,
and his studies in their company
enabled him to refresh a mind
distracted by earthly concerns.”

Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People p.99

Dr. Thorne

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Discovering a new favorite author is one of the joys of the reading life.  It’s like receiving a box of chocolates which should last several weeks, but tastes so good that it is rapidly disappearing. 

Trollope is my chocolate.

The locus of the first two books in Trollope’s Barset Chronicles, The Warden and Barchester Towers, is a cathedral city. The conflicts of diocesan appointments, the juxtaposition of humble clerics with self-serving ecclesiastical climbers, and the quest of three very different men to marry a wealthy widow carry the narrative along. 

The setting in Dr. Thorne is out in the countryside where landed gentry struggle to maintain the purity of their class connections and suffer from want of money.  To this strata of society every potential marriage is evaluated by the ability of the person marrying into the family to provide either increased prestige or an infusion of cash.  One phrase surfaces repeatedly:  “Frank must marry money.”   Unfortunately, the woman Frank loves does not have money; therein resides the conflict to be resolved.

Opposite the gentry are the merchants, manufacturers and professionals who insist they are equal in dignity to the Earls, Counts and Baronets.   Wealth is a passport into the aristocracy, but a man like Dr. Thorne holds stubbornly to his right to enter into the society of anyone regardless of  his own birth or wealth.  Class consciousness is everywhere in this novel.

Trollope writes with humor, grace and insight.  His portrayal of the ebb and flow of an alcoholic written in 1858 rings true today.  Little gems like this pop up:

Even in those bitterest days God tempered the wind to the shorn lamb.

The expectation of some people that doctors should work only from altruistic motivation made me laugh aloud:

It would have behoved him, as a physician, had he had the feelings of a physician under his hat, to have regarded his own pursuits in a purely philosophical spirit, and to have taken any gain which might have accrued as a accidental adjunct to his station in life.

The Victorian Web is a good resource to learn more about Trollope.  Contributors include P.D. James, Antonia Fraser, Paul Johnson, Maeve Binchy, and Louis Auchincloss.   P.D. James has written an introduction to Dr. Thorne here.

Hawthorne’s quote on Trollope mirrors my thoughts:

“Have you ever read the novels of Anthony Trollope? They precisely suit
my taste; solid, substantial, written on strength of beef and through
inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great
lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its
inhabitants going about their daily business, and not suspecting that
they were made a show of.”

Skimming the Cream of Augustine

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St. Augustine’s (whose name is pronounced either a-GUS-tin or AW-gus-teen – in my experience the academy goes with the former) Confessions are on every Great Books list that exists.  And for good reason.  Who am I to review the great saint’s work?  I’d rather offer you portions that will make you hungry for more:

The thought of you [God] stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.  p. 21

My soul is like a house, small for you to enter, but I pray you to enlarge it.  It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it.   p. 24

This clearly shows that we learn better in a free spirit of curiosity than under fear and compulsion.  p.35

The brambles of lust grew high above my head and there was no one to root them out, certainly not my father. p. 45

Sloth poses as the love of peace: yet what certain peace is there besides the Lord?  p.50

You follow close behind the fugitive..  p.75

We [friends] could talk and laugh together and exchange small acts of kindness.  We could join in the pleasure that books can give.  We could be grave or gay together.  If we sometimes disagreed, it was without spite, as a man might differ with himself, and the rare occasions of dispute were the very spice to season our usual accord.  Each of us had something to learn from the others and something to teach in return.  If any were away, we missed them with regret and gladly welcomed them when they came home. Such things as these are heartfelt tokens of affection between friends.  They are signs to be read on the face and in the eyes, spoken by the tongue and displayed in countless acts of kindness.  They can kindle a blaze to melt our hearts and weld them into one.  p. 79

…opinions, like so many puffs of wind that waft the soul hither and thither and make it veer and turn. p.85

Sins of self-indulgence are committed when the soul fails to govern the impulses from which it derives bodily pleasure.  p.86

…exhausted by the canker of anxiety...   p.158

You saw how deep I was sunk in death, and it was your power that drained dry the well of corruption in the depths of my heart.   p.181

The tears flowed from me when i heard your hymns and canticles, for the sweet singing of your Church moved me deeply.  The music surged in my ears, truth seeped into my heart, and my feelings of devotion overflowed, so taht the tears streamed down.  But they were tears of gladness.  p.190

I posted a few more quotes earlier this week in my post Eating with Augustine. 

Oh, do read Augustine. He is readable.  He is remarkable.  He is real.

Runaway Bunny and Brahms

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One of the joys of looking and listening is discovering obscure connections. 

I’m listening to a Teaching Company course on Johannes Brahms.  I can’t say enough wonderful things about Professor Robert Greenberg’s music courses.  Greenberg teaches in such a lively, entertaining manner that his subjects breath and pulse and truly come alive. 

Brahm’s Quartet for Four Voices and piano, Op. 31, No. 2, Teasing, based on the poem Teasing by Josef Wenzig has the men singing several lines followed by the women’s response.  Here are the lyrics:

 It's true, my dear, I am now courting,
 and I will establish you as my wife;
 you will be mine, my dear, truly mine,
 and even if you don't also want it.
 
 "Then I'll become a dove with a white form -
 I will fly from you, fly into the wood,
 and so I may not be yours, may not be yours:
 that hour will never come."
 
 I have a flintlock that can fire quickly -
 I'll shoot the dove down in the wood;
 You will be mine, my dear, truly mine,
 and even if you don't also want it.
 
 "Then I'll become a little fish, a golden fish -
 I'll spring into the fresh water;
 and so I may not be yours, may not be yours:
 that hour will never come."
 
 I have however a net that fishes very well;
 I will catch me this golden fish in the water.
 You will be mine, my dear, truly mine,
 and even if you don't also want it.
 
 "Then I'll become a hare, full of swiftness -
 and run in the fields, the broad fields.
 and so I may not be yours, may not be yours:
 that hour will never come."
 
 I have however a hound that's smart and fine;
 he'll catch me that hare in the fields.
 You will be mine, my dear, truly mine,
 and even if you don't also want it.

Are you a Margaret Wise Brown fan? (If not, you should be!)  Do you recognize The Runaway Bunny?

Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away.
So he said to his mother, “I am running away.”
“If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you.
For you are my little bunny.”

“If you run after me,” said the little bunny,
“I will become a fish in a trout stream
and I will swim away from you.”

“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother,
“I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”

The book continues in the same vein.  It’s a delightful book to read aloud to a young child, making the little bunny’s voice high and squeaky and the mother’s voice calm and low. It captures the pull and push of budding independence and the security of a mother’s love.  I sure like the theme much better in the context of a mother’s love than as talk between a man and a woman.  

Who knew that you would find a German Lieder in classic children’s literature?  Isn’t that just plain fun?

Eating with Augustine

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There can be no hope for me except in your great mercy.  Give me the grace to do as you command, and command me to do what you will!  You command us to control our bodily desires.  And, as we are told, when I knew that no man can be master of himself, except of God’s bounty, I was wise enough already to know whence the gift came. [quote from Apocrypha – Wisdom 8:21]  Truly it is by continence [moderation] that we are made as one and regain than unity of self which we lost by falling apart in the search for a variety of pleasures. (p.233)

For the process itself [eating] is a pleasure and there is no other means of satisfying hunger except the one which we are obliged to take.  And although the purpose of eating and drinking is to preserve health, in its train there follows an ominous kind of enjoyment, which often tries to outstrip it, so that it is really for the sake of pleasure that I do what I claim to do and mean to do for the sake of my health.  Moreover, health and enjoyment have not the same requirements, for what is sufficient for health is not enough for enjoyment, and it is often hard to tell whether the body, which must be cared for, requires further nourishment, or whether we are being deceived by the allurements of greed demanding to be gratified.  My unhappy soul welcomes this uncertainty, using it to vindicate and excuse itself. (p.235)

Every day I try my hardest to resist these temptations.  I call for your helping hand and tell you of my difficulties, because this is a problem which I have not yet resolved. … Drunkenness is far from me. By your grace may you prevent it from coming hear! But there have been times when overeating has stolen upon your servant.  By your mercy may you keep it far from me!

Give me strength, O Lord, so that I may do all things.  Give me the grace to do as you command, and command me to do what you will!

How do you respond to these quotes?  Do you agree that we are hopeless without God’s mercy?  Is enjoyment of food ominous?  Is it wrong to eat for any other reason than to preserve health?  Does his struggle strike a chord with you?

I find Augustine’s grasp of the heart issues involved with overeating very helpful.  Dependence on God’s mercy, grace and strength is essential to controlling bodily desires.  The second quote reminds me of the maxim “Do you eat to live or live to eat?”  While I don’t view enjoyment of food as a menace, I know that the enjoyment factor is often the reason why overeating has stolen upon this servant. 

I would love to come to a place where I eat in moderation six days a week (it is work in my mind – you know, being moderate) and feast on the Lord’s Day, celebrating His deliverance. 

There is a lot to process in these words of Augustine.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.
   


Stamp Thine Image

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It is a particular delight to discover new verses to familiar songs.  On Sunday we sang a verse to
Hark! the Herald Angels Sing I had never heard before:

Adam’s likeness, Lord efface,
Stamp Thine image in its place:
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in Thy love.

Let us Thee, though lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the inner man:
O, to all Thyself impart,
Formed in each believing heart.

Hark! the herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King.”

A line from Athanasius, On the Incarnation (the emphasis is my own):

He made all things out of nothing through His own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ; and of all these His earthly creatures He reserved especial mercy for the race of men.  Upon them, therefore, upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked–namely, the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree, they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of saints in paradise.