“Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the essential dearth in which its subject's roots are plunged. The natural inheritance of everyone who is capable of spiritual life is an unsubdued forest where the wolf howls and the obscene bird of night chatters." (From Henry James Sr.’s Substance & Shadow, 1866)
Discuss.
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3 comments:
Oh dear Peter. Bit heavy. Though add to final line the rat somewhere in our house currently. There's always something to prick the bubble of paradise.
On the contrary, today everyone has a right to the full flowering and fructifying of their lives without any tragic depths. Besides, Henry James Sr. is just another dead white man.
Yes, I often g0 out at might to sort out the dogs barking on the asphalt. You have to be a little careful, carry a stick, they have this pack attitude at night, but instinctively they move away when you raise a stick to rifle position. Birds screeches I usually don’t mind, but when I could stand it no longer I went down to murder the geese honking every day at 4am. It was not going to be easy. They were secluded behind a domestic 3 metre concrete wall, with broken glass on top.
I went to see the owner. He was Thai. He said this is not a jungle you can’t just murder the geese or even me. Typical, I thought. Thai slack I don’t care, non aggressive attitude.
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