Other Journal Volumes: Home Vol.1 Vol.2 Vol.3 Vol.4 Vol.5
Welcome to my journal... Vol.1
...just a few things found in books I've read
and places visited and thought were worth remembering...
From Tuesday's with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press sports writes and broadcast journalist
Morrie Schwartz, professor at Brandeis University
So many people walk around with a meaningless life.
They seem half-sleep, even when they are busy doing things they think are important.
This is because they are doing the wrong things.
The way to get meaning into life is to devote yourself to loving others,
and to create or do something that gives purpose and meaning and help each other.
~ Morrie
'Have I told you about the tension of opposites?' Morrie asks.
The tension of opposites?
'Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you
are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't.
You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take
anything for granted.
'A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.'
Sounds like a wrestling match, I say.
'A wrestling match,' Morrie laughs. 'Yes, you could describe life that way.'
So which side wins? I ask.
'Which side wins?'
Morrie smiles; the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth.
'Love wins. Love always wins.' "
From The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde Biography
Men are appealed to through their eyes --- women through their ears. The Epigrams of Oscar Wilde
Friends...
What is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means. The Devoted Friend
Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love,
but no friendship. Lady Windermere’s Fan
One has the right to judge a man by the effect he has over his friends. The Picture of Dorian Gray
It is personalities, not principles, that move the age. In Conversation
Women...
No man has any real success in this world unless he has got women to back him and women rule society.
In Conversation
Women defend themselves by attacking, just as they attack by sudden and strange surrender. An Ideal Husband
Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood. The Sphinx Without a Secret
I don’t think there is a woman in the world who would not be a little flattered if one made love to her.
It is that which makes women so irresistibly adorable. A Woman of No Importance
She’ll never love you unless you are always at her heels; women like to be bothered. Vera, or The Nihilists
A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as people are looking on. The Picture of Dorian Gray
It is perfectly brutal the way women nowadays behave to men who are not their husbands.
Lady Windremere’s Fan
My dear young lady, there was a great deal of truth, I dare say, in what you said, and you looked very
pretty while you said it, which is much more important. A Woman of No Importance
Love...
…not love at first sight, but love at the end of a season, which is so much more satisfactory.
Lady Windremere’s Fan
One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry. In Conversation
Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. Women have a more subtle
instinct about things: What they like is to be a man’s last romance. A Woman of No Importance
If one really loves a woman, all other women in the world become absolutely meaningless to one.
Lady Windremere’s Fan
Religion...
It is the confession, not the priest that gives us absolution. The Picture of Dorian Gray
Art...
The true artist is a man who believes in himself, because he is absolutely himself.
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did he would cease to be an artist.
The Decay of Lying
Bad artists always admire each other’s work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice.
But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions
other than those he has selected. The Critic as Artist
Paradox as it may seem --- and paradoxes are always dangerous things --- it is none the less true that
life imitates art far more than art imitates life.
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. The Picture of Dorian Gray
Marriage...
There is one thing worse than an absolutely loveless marriage. A marriage in which there is love, but
on one side only. An Ideal Husband
I am not in favor of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s
character before marriage, which I think is never advisable. The Importance of Being Earnest
If we men married the women we deserve we should have a very bad time of it. An Ideal Husband
For an artist to marry his model is as fatal as for a gourmet to marry his cook: the one gets no
sittings, and the other no dinner. In Conversation
Polygamy – how much more poetic is it to marry one and love many. In Conversation
No man should have a secret from his wife --- she invariably finds it out. In Conversation
There’s nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. It’s a thing no married man knows
anything about. Lady Windremere’s Fan
Pleasure...
An inordinate passion for pleasure is the secret for remaining young. Lord Author Savile’s Crime
Beauty
At twilight nature becomes a wonderfully suggestive effect, and is not without loveliness, though perhaps
its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets. The Decay of Lying
I have stood face to face with beauty, that is enough for one man’s life. The Duchess of Padua
Thought...
Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment
is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wisdom comes with winters. A Florentine Tragedy
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one’s
neighbor that he should think in the same way. The Soul of Man Under Socialism
“What are you thinking?” is the only question that any civilized being should ever be allowed to whisper
to another. The Critic as Artist
What seem to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. The Importance of Being Earnest
Action is limited and relative. Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches,
who walks in loneliness and dreams. In Conversation
Life...
We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that
experience as often as possible. The Picture of Dorian Gray
If a man treats life artistically, his brain is in his heart. The Picture of Dorian Gray.
From The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein
J.R.R. Tolkein
"Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
--Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
--One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadow lie.
--One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
--One Ring to bring them all in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadow lie."
(from The Lord of the Rings)
Notes from Fellowship of the Ring
The Followship of the Ring was comprised of eight companions of Free Peoples who were chosen by Elrond,
Master of the House of Rivendell, to accompany the Ring-bearer on the Quest for Mount Doom. They were:
Galdalf the Grey; Aragron, Dúnandan of the North, and Boromir, Prince of Gondor (of Men); Legolas, son of King
Thranduil (of the Elves); Gimli, son of Glóin (for the Dwarves); and four Hobbits - Meriadoc, Peregrin,
Samwise, and Frodo, the Ring-bearer. The Followship set out from Rivendell on December 25th in the year
3019 Third Age. (MC Note: some texts indicate the year as 3018)
Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, daughter of the River. p.121
"Handsome is as handsome does..." Pippin p.167
"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a file shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king."
Gandalf p.167
Golin p.222
The status of the 13 Dwarfs and Bilbo. p.223
History of The Rings and their origin and purpose. p.236
"...one must tread the path that need chooses." Gandalf p.289
When evening in the Shire was gray
his footsteps on the hills were heard;
before the dawn he went away
on journey long without a word.
From Wilderland to Western shore,
from northern waste to southern hills,
through dragon-lair and hidden door
and darkling woods he walked at will.
With Dwarf and Hobbit, Elves and Men,
with mortal and immortal folk,
with bird on bough and beast in den,
in their own secret tongues he spoke.
A deadly sword, a healing hand,
a back that bent beneath its load;
a trumpet-voice, a burning brand,
a weary pilgrim on the road.
A lord of wisdom throned he sat,
swift in anger, quick in laugh;
an old man in a battered hat
who leaned upon a thorny staff.
He stood upon the bridge alone
and Fire and Shadow he defied;
his staff was broken on the stone,
in Khazad-dum his wisdom died.
Poem by Frodo on believing Gandalf had died. p.350
"It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish." Sam p.352
"Memory is not what the heart desires." Gimli p.369
From The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
John Fowles Biography - # --- John Fowles wed page
Review
The novel was set largely in Lyme Regis in the 1860s and re-created the Victorian romance and the world
of Thomas Hardy. In the story a wealthy amateur paleontologist Charles Smithson, a supporter of Darwin's
evolution theory, falls in love with Sarah Woodruff. She is a passionate and imaginative governess who
is believed to have been deserted by a French naval lieutenant. This affair has ostracized her from society.
Another woman in Charles's life is Ernestina Freeman, whose conformity contrasts to Sarah's rebelliousness.
Fowles moves between past and present, adds footnotes, quotations from Darwin, Marx, and the greats
Victorian poets, and comments Victorian politics and customs. This experimental novel had different
endings, one heart-warming, another shocking. "In some ways the unhappy ending pleases the novelist. He
has set out on a voyage and announced, I have failed and must set out again. If you create a happy ending,
there is a somewhat false sense of having solved life's problems." Source: John Fowles Biography
Matthew Arnold: A Farewell, Parting, Culture and Anarchy, Notebooks
Tennyson: Maud, In Memoriam
A. H. Clough: Poem, Duty
Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass
Hardy: During Wind and Rain, Her Immortality, Timing Her
Page 7: Time
Page 11:
"Mrs. Poulteney believed in a God that never existed; and Sarah knew a God that did." p.41
Page 49:
Subjects discussed in first 13 chapters... p.69
Page 70:
"There is only one good definition of God: the freedom that allows other freedoms to exist." p.70
"Or in the light of deeper eyes
Is matter for a flying smile.
Tennyson, In Memoriam" p.78
"She had only a candle's light to see by, but candlelight never did badly by any woman." p.79
"We all wrote poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words." p.110
Destinies p.111
Page 129:
"Mal (if I may add to your stock of useless knowledge) is an Old English borrowing from Old
Norwegian and was brought to us be the Vikings. It originally meant "speech," but since the only time
the Vikings went in for that rather womanish activity was to demand something at axeblade, it came
to mean "tax" or "payment in tribute." One branch of the Vikings went south and founded the Mafia
in Sicily; but another - and by this time mal was spelled mail - were busy starting
their own protection rackets on the Scottish border. If one cherished one's crops or one's daughter's
virginity one paid mail to the neighborhood chieftains; and the victims, in the due course of an
expensive time, called it black mail." p.154-5
"I am not fit for marriage. My misfortune is to have realized it too late."
"Have you read Malthus?" Charles shook his head. "For him the tragedy of Homo sapiens is that the
least fit to survive breed the most. So don't say you aren't made for marriage, my boy. And don't
blame yourself for falling for that girl. I think I know why the French sailor ran away. He knew she
had eyes a man could drown in."
Conversation between Charles Smithson and Dr Gorgan p.165
He could not tell the doctor his conviction about Ernestina; that she would never understand him. He
felt fatally disabused of his own intelligence. It had let him down in his first choice of a life
partner; for like so many Victorian, and perhaps more recent, men Charles was to live all his life
under the influence of the ideal. There are some men who are consoled by the idea that there are women
less attractive than their wives; and others who are haunted by the knowledge that there are more
attractive. p.166
... p.184
"Whenever I see you, sound fails, my tongue falters, thin fire steals through my limbs, an inner roar,
and darkness shrouds my ears and eyes." Catullus - # was translating Sappho - # here; and the Shappic remains
the best clinical description of love in European medicine. p.185
... p. 220
History is not like some individual person, which uses men to achieve its end.
History is nothing but the actions of men in pursuit of their ends.
Marx, Die Heilige Familie (1845) p.240
"I have since seen artists destroy work that might to the amateur seem perfectly good. I remonstrated
once. I was told that if an artist is not his own sternest judge he is not fit to be an artist.
I believe that is right. I believe I was right to destroy what had begun between us. There was a
falsehood in it..." p.336
"True piety is acting what one knows.
Matthew Arnold, Notebooks (1868) p.346
From The Art Spirit by Robert Henri (1865-1929)
This book is highly recommended for any art student...or student of the arts!
Robert Henri Biography - #
Excerpts from Robert Henri's Writings
"Robert Henri espoused radical views during his career that played an important role in defining American
art. In 1865 Robert was born in Cincinnati as Robert Henry Cozad. After his father was acquitted of a murder
charge, however, the family members found it prudent to adopt a new surname. The family left Ohio in 1872 for
the open plains of Nebraska, but eventually moved to New Jersey. A family friend encouraged Robert to attend
the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts after seeing his work. He took the advice, and, after two
years of drawing and painting at the Academy, Henri moved to Paris for more training. He traveled widely and
eagerly absorbed all that he could both in and out of the world of art. After 1900, he worked in New York and
built a reputation as both an artist and teacher. It was during this time that his views on art were forcefully
expressed. He revolted against the jaded academic training that he believed stifled creativity and called for
a new approach to art. He also felt it was time for America to step out of the shadow of Europe and develop its
own artistic language. Henri's defining moment came in 1908 when he organized a show in protest of the National
Academy of Design's standards. The eight artists that comprised the show later became known as The Eight and
were grouped together as members of the Ashcan School, so-called because of their bawdy realism and revolt
against outdated conventions. Robert Henri died in 1929."
"The charismatic Henri, who had trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and at the Ecole des
Beaux Arts in Paris, believed art should embody the spirit of its own time. He urged his students to go into
the streets to capture the spontaneity and character of the people they encountered. In his own work---whether
of elegant New Yorkers or the Irish children and Spanish gypsies he painted on annual trips abroad---he said
he tried to portray "this thing that I call dignity in a human being."
"There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual.
Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. If one
could but recall his vision by some sort of sign. It is in this hope that the arts were invented.
Sign-posts on the way to what may be. Sign-posts toward greater knowledge." p.14
"No knowledge is so easily found as when it is needed"
"Men either get to know what they want, and go after it or some other persons tell them what they
want and drive them after it." p.213
"It is a mistake to think that spirituality is seen only through a mist." p.196
"The reason so many artists have lived to great age and have been so young at great age is that to
such extent they have lived living, whereas most people live dying."
"I believe that keeping one's facilities in full exercise is the secret of good health and longevity.
It made Titan a young man at nearly a hundred. Perhaps mental inactivity is the most fatiguing thing
in the world. It is a common thing for businessmen to die soon after they retire. That is, if they
do not take up some new enterprise in life.
There are cases of actual rejuvenation as a result of new enterprise more interesting than that which
preceded." p.191
"Each man must take the material he finds at hand, see that in it there are the big truths of live,
the fundamentally big forces and then express in his art whatever is the cause of his pleasure. It is
not so much the actual place or the immediate environment; it is personal greatness and person freedom
which demands a final art expression.
"A man must be master of himself and master of his word to achieve the full realization of himself
as an artist." p.136
"Today we do not know how much we owe to Shakespeare. His work is no longer confined to his writings. All
literature has been influenced by him. Life is permeated with the thoughts of Plato, with the thoughts of
all great artists who have lived. If you are to make great art it will be because have become a deep
thinker." p.186
"I am not interest in art as a means of making a living, but I am interested in art as a means of living
a life. It is the most important of all studies, and all studies are tributary to it." p.158
"It would be easy to divide artists into two classes; those who grow so much within themselves as to master
technique by the force of their need, and those who are mastered by technique and become stylists." p.172
"An art student should read, or talk a great deal to those who have read." p.183
Gesture...
"Gesture, the most ancient form of expression - of communication between living creatures."
"A language we have almost lost."
"Its infinite possibilities of expression."
"The recaptured gesture as a means of expression would mean not only added powers of communication but
would mean also a greater health and strength." p.189
"A refined pose speaks volumes in a piece - a relaxed confident pose of a woman gives strength to a
work - it speaks without words - form and graceful composition gives life to an image." (MC Note.)
Beauty in things...
"A thing is beautiful when it is strong in its kind." p.77
"Beauty is no material thing.
Beauty cannot be copied.
Beauty is the sensation of pleasure on the mind of the seer.
No thing is beautiful. But all things await the sensitive and imaginative mind that may be aroused
to pleasurable emotion at the sight of them. This is beauty." p.79
"No material thing is beautiful. All is as beautiful as we think it." p.83
"Artists may be men (or women) of wit, consciously or unconsciously philosophers, read, study, think
a great deal of life, be filled with the desire todeclare and specify their particular and most personal
interest in its manifestation, and must invent." p.179
The Figure...
"There is nothing in all the world more beautiful or significant of the laws of the universe then the
nude human body. In fact it is not only among the artists but among all people that a greater
appreciation and respect for the human body should develop. When we respect the nude we will no longer
have any shame about it." p.47
"The nude is exquisite, the most beautiful thing in all the world." p.263
"The human body is beautiful as the spirit shines through, and art is great as it translates and embodies
this spirit." p.148
From A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway Biography
"When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve." p.72
"Life isn't hard to manage when you've nothing to lose." p.137
"Nothing ever happens to the brave."
"They die of course."
"But only once."
"I don't know. Who said that?"
"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but once." p.139
"That's why I never think of these things. I never think and yet when I begin to talk I say
the things I have found out in my mind without thinking." p.179
... p.249
No, this is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful. p.261
Gluhwein - # - hot red wine with spices and lemon. p.302
"Do you see the man with the tiny gold earrings?"
"He is a chamois hunter. They wear them to show they are chamois hunters." p.303
Wines: Margaux, Fresa, Barbera (192), Capri
Various drinks (143)
Capri and St. Estephe (153)
Brandy and Cognac
Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930
February 03, 2001 - April 22, 2001
Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC
Exhibit review - #
Resource Library Magazine Review
The City Review (Manhattan) Review
American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
May 29 - September 1, 2002
Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC
Greenville Museum Review
Greenville Online Review
"Never is nature more lovely then when it's snowing, everything is so quiet and the whole earth
seems wrapped in a mantle."
~ John Henry Twachtman, artist (1853 - 1902)
"Art's mission is not literary, the telling of a story, but decorative, the conveying of a pleasant
optical sensation."
~ Richard E. Miller, artist (1875 - 1943)
Other impressive artists...
Charles Courtney Curran ("Lavender and Old Lace")
Peter Drake
Locations: Natural Bridge, Va and Isle of Palms near Charleston, SC
"She was my mist perfect model, and part of why she was so satisfying was that she worked hard at it.
Helga posed nonstop."
~ Andrew Weyth
From A Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
Amy Tan Biography - #
China the Beautiful - very informative web site
Chinese Words
Chinese History Time Line - #
"When there is great suffering, he said, everyone struggles the same. But when there is peace, no one wants to
be the same. The rich no longer share. The less rich envy and steal." An old man from Nanjing ch.2-p.39
"...the five elements that make up the physical world: metal, wood, water, fire, earth.
...what makes the world a living place: sunrise and sunset, heat and cold, dust and heat, dust and wind,
dust and rain.
...what is worth listening to in this world: wind, thunder, horses galloping in the dust, pebbles falling
in water.
...What is frightening to hear: fast footsteps at night, soft cloth slowly ripping, dogs barking, the silence
of crickets.
...two things mixed together produce another: water and dirt make mud, heat and water make tea, foreigners
and opium make trouble.
...the five tastes that give us the memories of life: sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, salty." ~ Kwan ch.3-p.54
(An example of the above) ch.3-p.55
"Too much happiness always overflows into tears of sorrow." ~ An old man from Nanjing ch.4-p.69
The Blues Project - # ch.7-p.107
Danny Kalb
Sixties Rock
Yin World... ch.7-p.110
"What's a secret sense?"
"How can I say? Memory, seeing, hearing, feeling, all come together, then you know something true in
your heart. Like one sense, I don't know how to say, maybe sense of tingle. You know this: Tingly bones
means rain coming, refresh mind. Tingly skin on arms, something scaring you, close you up, still pop
out lots a goose bump. Tingly skin on top a you brain, oh-oh, now you know something true, leak into
you heart, still you don't want believe it. Then you also have tingly hair in you nose. Tingly hair
under you arm. Tingly spot in back of you brain--that one, you don't watch out, you got a disaster
come, mm-hm. You use you secret sense, sometimes can get message back and forth fast between two
people, living, dead, doesn't matter, same sense." ch.7-p.114
"Kwan said that people in the Yin World were vary bad about making appointments, because nobody used
a calendar or a clock anymore. The best method was to watch the moon. That was why so many strange
things happened when the moon was at its brightest, Kwan said: Like porch light, telling you guests
welcome-welcome, come inside." ch.7-p.115
yinyuan - the fate that brings lovers together. ch.10-p.158
... Story of Young Girl's Wish ch.13-p.217
"...five is for all the common things that attach mortals to the living world---the five colors, the
five flavors, the five senses, the five elements, the five emotions--" ch.16-p.271
"...there are seven emotions, ah, not just five... Joy, anger, fear, love, hate, desire ...sorrow." ch.16-p.271
Pickle-mouse wine... ch.18-p.300
...ChangMian. Chang means 'sing', main means 'silk,' something soft but go on forever like thread.
Soft song, never ending. But some people pronounce 'Changmian' other way, rising tone change to falling,
like this: Chang. This way chang means 'long,' mian means 'sleep.' Long Sleep. Now you understand?
"You mean songs that put you to sleep."
"No-no-no-no-no. Long Sleep--this another name for death. That's why everybody say, 'Changmian cave,
don't go there. Doorway to World of Yin'." ch.18-p.308
Emotions... ch.18-19-p.310-15
Taiping. Tai means "great." Ping means "peace." Taiping, Great Peace. That
took place--when?--sometime in the mid-nineteenth century. ch.20-p.357
"I think Chinese people don't like to have different opinions at the same time. We believe one thing, we stick
to it for one hundred years, five hundred years. Less confusion that way. Of course, I'm not saying Chinese
people never change their minds, not so. We can change if there's a good reason. I'm just saying we don't
change back and forth, right and left, whenever we like, just to be interesting. Actually, maybe today,
Chinese people are changing too much, whichever way the money is blowing, that's the direction they'll
chase." ch.20-p.360
"Americans have short memories too, I think. No respect for history, only what's popular." ch.20-p.360
"I survey the night sky, now clear of rain clouds. I remember another night long ago with Simon, when I said
something stupid about the night sky, how the stars were the same that the first lovers on earth had seen. I
had been hoping with all my soul that someday he would love me above all others, above all else. But it was
for just a brief moment, because my hopes felt too vast, like the heavens and it was easier to be afraid and
keep myself from flying out there. Now I'm looking at the heavens again. This is the same sky that Simon is
now seeing, that we have seen all our lives, together and apart. The same sky that Kwan sees, that all her
ghosts saw, Miss Banner. Only now I no longer feel it is a vacuum for hopes or a backdrop for fears. I see
what is so simple, so obvious. It holds up the stars, the planets, the moon, all of life, for eternity. I
can always find it, it will always find me. It is continuous, light within dark, dark within light. It
promises nothing but to be constant and mysterious, frightening and miraculous. And if only I can remember
to look at the sky and wonder about this, I can use this as my compass. I can find my way through chaos no
matter what happens. I can hope with all my soul, and the sky will always be there, to pull me
up...." ch.20-p.361-2
"I've has almost two years to think about Kwan, why she came into my life, why she left. What she said about
fate waiting to happen, what she might have meant. Two years is enough time, I know, to layer memories of
what was with what might have been. And that's fine, because I now believe truth lies not in logic but in
hope, both past and future. I believe hope can surprise you. It can survive the odds against it, all sorts
of contradictions, and certainly any skeptic's rationale of relying on proof through fact." ch.24-p.398
"I think Kwan intended to show me the world is not a place but the vastness of the soul. And the soul is
nothing more than love, limitless, endless, all that moves us toward knowing what is true. I once thought
love was supposed to be nothing but bliss. I now know it is also worry and grief, hope and trust. And believing
in ghosts--that's believing that love never dies. If people we love die, then they are lost only to our
ordinary senses. If we remember, we can find them anytime with our hundred secret senses. "This is a secret,"
I can still hear Kwan whispering. "Don't tell anyone. Promise, Libby-ah." ch.24-p.399
Some rambling thoughts...
Three thoughts to ponder:
Actions speak more clearly than words...
Perception is more real than facts...
This too shall pass... (This is true of good things and bad...no exceptions)
It's easier to belief the bad stuff...
Fear of what could be clouds our vision of what is...
Imagination can be disconcerting, especially when tainted by negative facts...or perceptions...
Negative imagination destroys all hope...
Try this exercise...
Look at an incomplete picture or an abstract image and the mind will fill in what is missing in an attempt
to complete the picture. This is how we "perceive" art. The total of our knowledge, thoughts, fears and
experiences are drawn upon to complete the picture. When hearing only few details about a situation the
mind begins to fill in the blanks. Listen to someone tell a story or read a book and the mind tries to
perceived what is going to happen next? This happens in real life when situations confront us and there
are unknowns. Good or bad, the perception we have is determined by the pieces we do see…the facts. Everyone
knows the thoughts resulting from the shadow on the wall of a hand holding a dripping dagger. Sometimes the
picture that results is not positive or pleasant regardless of what would be desired. It's certainly not
based on all the facts…perception plays a part. And the perception is the reality until the perception is
dispelled.
From Watership Down by Richard Adams
Richard Adams Biography - #
"...I'd rather succeed in doing what we can than fail to do what we can't." ch.10-p.66
"My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today," he said to Blackberry, quoting a
rabbit proverb. ch.17-p.126
"What is now proved was once only imagin'd. William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" ch.18-p.133
"The full moon, well risen in a cloudless eastern, covered the high solitude with its light. We are not
conscious of daylight as that which displaces darkness. Daylight, even when the sun is clear of clouds,
seems to us simply the natural condition of the earth and air. When we think of the downs, we think of
the downs in daylight, as we think of a rabbit with its fur on. Stubbs may have envisaged the skeleton
inside the horse, but most of us do not: and we do not usually envisage the downs without daylight, even
though the light is not a part of the down itself as the hide is part of the horse itself. We take daylight
for granted. But moonlight is another matter. It is inconstant. The full moon wanes and returns again.
Clouds may obscure it to an extent to which they cannot obscure daylight. Water is necessary to us, but a
waterfall is not. Where it is to be found it is something extra, a beautiful ornament. We need daylight
and to that extent it is utilitarian, but moonlight we do not need. When it comes, it serves no necessity.
It transforms. It falls upon the banks and the grass, separating one long blade from another; turning a
drift of brown, frosted leaves from a single heap to innumerable flashing fragments; or glimmering
lengthways along wet twigs as though light itself were ductile. Its long beams pour, white and sharp,
between the trunks of trees, their clarity fading as they recede into the powdery, misty distance of beech
woods at night. In moonlight, two acres of course bent grass, undulant and ankle deep, tumbled and rough as
a horse's mane, appear like a bay of waves, all shadowy troughs and hollows. The growth is so thick and
matted that even the wind does not move it, but it is the moonlight that seems to confer stillness upon it.
We do not take moonlight for granted. It is like snow, or like the dew on a July morning. It does not
reveal but changes what it covers. And its low intensity--so much lower than that of daylight--makes us
conscious that it is something added to the down, to give it, for only a little time, a singular and
marvelous quality that we should admire while we can, for soon it will be gone again." ch.22-p.176
"Human beings say, "It never rains but it pours." This is not very apt, for it frequently rains without
pouring. The rabbits' proverb is better expressed. They say, "One cloud feels lonely": and indeed it is
true that the appearance of a single cloud often means that the sky will soon be overcast." ch.23-p.190
"I should have thought not," said Holly. "Big warrens are often overcrowded and some of the rabbits can't
get enough to eat. The young does get edgy and nervous and some of them don't have any kittens on that
account. At lease, kittens begin to grow inside them and then they melt away again into their bodies.
You know this?"
"I didn't know," said Strawberry
"That's because you've never been overcrowded. But our warren--the Threarah's warren--was overcrowded a
year or two back and a lot of the younger does were reabsorbing their litters before they were born. The
Threarah told me that long ago El-ahrairah made a bargain with Frith. Frith promised him that rabbits were
not to be born dead or unwanted. If there's little chance for a decent life for them, it's a doe's
privilege to take them back into her body unborn." ch.23-p.206
"For what is is what must be." ch.31-p.288
"Wisdom is found on the desolate hillside." ch.31-p.291
"Not all strange things are bad." ch.33-p.304
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