Begging Your Indulgence

Four and a half years ago, I opened my heart to you all regarding the disaster that occurred on 26th January 2012.

I know that this is most likely of little interest, but I have to say something - for purely selfish reasons - there! I have admitted it!

I just want to say that I would give anything for it to be five years ago - right now.

Those of you who have loved and failed (and made a commitment that you prefer to keep despite the actions of the other side) will understand.

Until the next time.

648: A Sharp Reminder

 Le Comte d'Orsay

In an attempt at self-reassurance I have to say that I firmly believe that everyone, at some time or another has discovered to their regret that someone has "got there first." To be reminded of this problem at my time of life is singularly distressing; after all, one - in theory at least - would like to imagine that such discoveries are normally made at an early(ish) age!

By now you are wondering (or at least I hope you are wondering) what I am rambling about; well, this cri de coeur has been prompted by discovering a piece by one of my most favourite writers, Sir Max Beerbohm, entitled Dandies and Dandies.

A little over two years ago, inspired by the Love of my Life, I entertained literary ambitions - or perhaps more realistically, the ambitions of a scribbler.  I cannot speak for my more erudite, dare I say it, brethren, but for me the first task was to find a subject.

Having at that time just read a biography of Beau Brummell, and having always loved clothes and costume, I immediately settled on the subject of dandies.  Enthused I began some research, in attempt to identify various notables including Le Comte d'Orsay (pictured above) Balzac, Proust etc.  And Beerbohm was indeed a dandy too, exceptionally for the time always insisting on pressing his clothes himself.

Devastated by the end of my relationship, I became totally demotivated, and it was with powerful pangs that today I discovered that the Great Max - "The Master" - had already covered the ground in his superb and inimitable style.

This I discovered in the Works of Max Beerbohm which are to be found under the aegis of the Gutenberg Project (God bless 'em).  Please, please, please, do read Dandies and Dandies and feast your eyes, brain and intellect on some truly elegant English written in great style.  Now I'm off to read Beerbohm on King George IV; I'll bet it will be wonderful...

Until the next time

646: Poetry Time

Poetry: a medium for the realist, the escapist, the romantic, the broken-hearted or even the optimist.

Though frequently baffled by the likes of Shakespeare, Donne, Shelley, Eliot and many others, I am still drawn from time to time by poetry.  This time here's a piece from one of Russia's greatest writers, Alexander S. Pushkin; it has the title Outlived Desire:

Outlived desire now departs,

My dreams I cannot love again;

I reap the fruit of empty hearts,

The fruit of pain.

The tempests of a cruel fate

My fair and flowery garlands rend;

Unhappy and alone I wait;

When comes the end?

So, stricken by the early cold,

The whistling, bitter gales of grief,

Still the autumn branches hold

One shuddering leaf.

(Tr. Frances Cornford and E. Polianowsky Salaman)

 

If the above suggests to you a particular mood on my part, then I can assure you that you are entirely correct.

Until the next time

643: Rose Macaulay and "The World My Wilderness"

In 1950, Rose Macaulay’s penultimate novel, The World My Wilderness was published by Collins; I am fortunate in owning a first edition of this wonderful book, which I have just read for the third time.  Miss Macaulay was, in my opinion one of England’s greatest writers of the 20^th Century; a highly-learned individual, it is fortunate for me that unlike some others, she did not “wear her learning” too prominently – at least in her writing!

I also own a copy of her 1920s novel Told by an Idiot which too, is excellent and a copy of Jane Emery’s first-class biography of the writer; from this I should like to quote the following (by Macaulay herself from her final novel The Towers of Trebizond):

“And now the joy was killed, and there seemed no reason why life too should not run down and stop now that its mainspring was broken.  When a companionship like ours suddenly ends, it is to lose a limb or the faculty of sight; one is quite simply cut off from life and scattered adrift, lacking the coherence and integration of love.  Life, I supposed, would proceed; I should see my friends, go abroad, go on with my work, such as it was, but the sentient, enjoying principle which kept it all ticking, was destroyed.”

In The Common Reader (first series) Virginia Woolf includes an essay titled Montaigne, in which she explains how difficult it is for the pen to express the nature of the soul.  I think that Miss Macaulay made a good fist of it, don’t you?

Meanwhile I am searching for a copy of Miss Macaulay's  The Secret River written in 1909; all I can find are first editions at around £60...

Until the next time

638: Promise Kept

This symbol represents infinity.

Infinity is what I promised two-and-a-half years ago.

I am keeping the promise.

Until the next time

637: Today, Google Says...

Google today features a .png file which I cannot download or save to show you; anyhow, it wishes me a "Happy International Women's Day."

I managed a screen-dump; clever Google:

Philip Marlowe once observed: "women make me sick."

Something for me on which to reflect; for two years and nearly two months I have been sick .

Until the next time

612:That Time of Year

Once again February 14th looms. Some of you may already be aware of what to me is a grime "feast day."

This of course relates to events of over two years ago, promises of infinite love, given and received. There were no tacky, pinky, satiny, plasticky greetings cards, no "champagne supper for two" but this was the real thing,

In defiance of all advice and logic, I am keeping my promise; there will be no change - change is not an option.

This year in place of Rupert Brooke I have chosen Percy Shelley:

And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

 And John Donne:

Such wilt thou be to mee, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end, where I begun.

 

Until the next time