Reserved

More Emma quotes:

Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be found if anywhere; and Emma felt that, till she saw her in the way of cure, there could be no true peace for herself.

You are very fond of bending little minds; but where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great ones.

She meant to take her in the carriage, leave her at the Abbey Mill, while she drove a little farther, and call for her again so soon, as to allow no time for insidious applications or dangerous recurrences to the past, and give the most decided proof of what degree of intimacy was chosen for the future.

"And then, her reserve—I never could attach myself to any one so completely reserved." "It is a most repulsive quality, indeed," said he. "Oftentimes very convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person." "Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction may be the greater. But I must be more in want of a friend, or an agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of conquering any body's reserve to procure one. . . Such a dread of giving a distinct idea about any body, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to conceal.

The quote above reminds me a bit of myself, being reserved.



All young people would have their little whims. Quote above: I want to remember it.

A mind lively and at ease can do with seeing nothing and can see nothing that does not answer.

I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.—It depends upon the character of those who handle it.

Silly things are not always silly. Silly, isn't it?

When you wake up

Ooh, new skin! I'll see how this works. I've invested quite a sum of time on editing this so there will be no hasty return to my previous lovely skin despite any problems I may find with this one.

Deeply looking forward to a solid 75 minutes of reading Emma in tomorrow's English period.

And that should be all!



See you.

P.S. I recently found out that Dr. Seuss was an anti-semite and supporter of the American - Japanese internment. Below is a racist cartoon he drew for the Picture Magazine before straightening himself out and writing Horton Hears a Who! as an 'apology' for his earlier predicaments, and also as a dedication to a Japanese friend.

One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other

Hi, readers. This site will be going on a minor construction in its translation to becoming an actual Blogger blog under the predicament that I'm afraid there are no readers. I'd like to write for a larger audience. This blog skin disconnects itself with the larger Blogger community, so I end up writing to myself in a tiny internet realm, I'm afraid. If I realize I prefer things this way, I'll switch the skins around -- otherwise, expect a new skin soon!

I've been reading Emma and she reminds me of the type of woman I could have turned into. Bossy, know-it-all little lady that occasionally spews out something rather profound and worth remembering. Here are the quotes so far. Number 3 is lovely; woman independence at its prime.

I hope it may be allowed that if compassion has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that is truly important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves.

It is poverty only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable, old maid! The proper sport of boys and girls; but a single woman, of good fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant as anybody else.

I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much mistress of their husband's house, as I am of Hartfield; and never, never could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's.

A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.

A line (above) I must remember to throw at my brother.

The older a person grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not be bad—the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth, is detestable in later age.

I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. If she can hesitate as to 'Yes,' she ought to say 'No' directly. It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with half a heart.

So, Emma should tone down her primal instincts regarding Harriet's well being and focus a tad more on herself instead.

It's a funny book, though, at times. A nice recovery after The Road and Liquidation.

And here's another cute Skywalker twin picture:



Did I ever mention that my twin and I were Luke and Leia for Halloween, in a year far, far away? 

Well now you know.

Hummed of mystery

Well, I've just finished The Road and had a good cry.
Halfway through it ceased to be as comforting as I'd found it, as the terrible stories of post-apocalyptic American increasingly flitted in and out of the novel.

Nonetheless, the journey ended with a sliver of hope and faith in life itself.

In the nights in their thousands to dream the dreams of a child's imaginings, worlds rich or fearful such as might offer themselves but never the one to be.

Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.

Not all dying words are true and this blessing is no less real for being shorn of its ground.

Query: How does the never to be differ from what never was?

All the trees in the world are going to fall sooner or later. But not on us. How do you know? I just know.

No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.

The thin drum of rain on the metal roof and the slow darkness falling over everything.

The one above reminds me of “How often have I lain beneath rain on a strange roof, thinking of home” from As I Lay Dying.

Listen to me, he said, when your dreams are of some world that never was or some world that never will be, and you're happy again, then you'll have given up. Do you understand? And you can't give up, I won't let you.

What you alter in the remembering has yet a reality, known or not.

People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didnt believe in that. Tomorrow wasnt getting ready for them. It didnt even know they were there.

He tried to think of something to say but he could not. He'd had this feeling before, beyond the numbness and the dull despair. The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds.Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile thanhe would have thought. How much was gone already? The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality. Drawing down like something trying to preserve heat. In time to wink out forever.

So be it. Evoke the forms. When you've nothing left make ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them.

 

Cannot wait to move on to a more delightful book.

This the day to shape the days upon

I have commenced the reassuring journey of reading The Road.

It is a bitter book but lovely... it tells the story of a father and son travelling through burned America, with only each other to maintain company and warmth. The story wears the livery of a classic old-American tale.

It is not a book to read cursorily. Its language is stunningly truthful; the love McCarthy has spun into each lyrical passage is palpable: the words flow like liquid poetry.

The writing style resembles Faulkner (but nowhere near as complicated, blessedly).
I cannot quench my inexorable need to finish this book: it possesses, like in a capsule, the bedrock of nostalgic sentiments.

Anyway; here are the quotes below (so far):

“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that. You forget some things, dont you? Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.”

“Like the great pendulum in its rotunda scribing through the long day movements of the universe of which you may say it knows nothing and yet know it must.”

It's snowing, the boy said. He looked at the sky. A single gray flake sifting down. He caught it in his hand and watched it expire there like the last host of christendom.

He thought if he lived long enough the world at last would be lost. Like the dying world the newly blind inhabit, all of it slowly fading from memory.

He said the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril and all else was the call of languor and of death.