Prose and poetry— It is noteworthythat the great masters of prosehave almost always been poets, too–if not publicly than at least secretly, in the ”closet.” Good prose is written only face to face with poetry. For it is an uninterrupted,well mannered war with poetry:all of its attractions depend on the way in which poetryis…
Spring is manifest in Batavia, Rising earlier than usual, I assisted to prepare for the yard sale. The town sponsors a weekend yard sale to fund the 4th of July fireworks display. I do not know what “middle class” means nowadays since so many are under-employed, underpaid relative to the time and effort a…
Joined with a group of friends last night to exchange ideas about morality. Is morality relative or absolute? The notion of an absolute, something not disposed to many interpretations, a universal standard, — inevitably is linked to the idea of a deity. Absolutes of any kind, morality included, are affairs of divinity, since we…
Art and nature — The Greeks (or at least the Athenians) liked to hear people speak well. Nothing distinguishes them so thoroughly from non-Greeks as does this truly greedy craving. Even of passion on the stage they demanded that it should speak well, and they endured the unnaturalness of dramatic verse with rapture. In…
Only artists, and especially those of the theater, have given men eyes and ears to see and hear with some pleasure… only they have taught us to esteem the hero that is concealed in everyday characters; only they have taught us the art of viewing ourselves as heroes from a distance and, as it…
The animal with a good conscience.– The vulgar element in everything that gives pleasure… does not escape me, but it does not offend me anymore… How come? Is it because there is no sense of shame and everything vulgar appears as poised and self-assured as anything noble, lovely, and passionate in the same sort…
Life by Edgar Guest Life is a gift to be used every day, Not to be smothered and hidden away; It isn’t a thing to be stored in the chest Where you gather your keepsakes and treasure your best; It isn’t a joy to be sipped now and then And promptly put back in…
The greatest dangerthat always hovered over humanityand still hovers over it is the eruption of madness–which means the eruption of arbitrariness in feeling, seeing, and hearing,the enjoyment of the mind’s lack of discipline,the joy in human un-reason. Not truth and certaintyare the opposite of the world of the madman,but the universality andthe universal binding…
Men and Women… The simultaneous attraction and risk inherent in the roles of men and women has been mined by poets, lyricists, and by philosophers. Nietzsche opined on women. As one reads one recognizes that Nietzsche’s experience with women was limited, and by any account, unfortunate. Nietzsche wrote some obtuse, even boneheaded things about…
Only As Creators! …what things are called is incomparably more important than what they are. The reputation, name, and appearance, the usual measure and weight of a thing, what it counts for — originally almost always wrong and arbitrary, thrown over things like a dress and altogether foreign to their nature and even to…
