Quotations from *Lord Jim*, 2 of 5
Joseph Conrad
1857-1924 Polish/British
There is such magnificent vagueness in the expectations that had driven each of us to sea, such a glorious indefiniteness, such a beautiful greed of adventures that are their own and only reward! What we get—well, we won’t talk of that; but can one of us restrain a smile? In no other kind of life is the illusion more wide of reality—in no other is the beginning all illusion—the disenchantment more swift—the subjugation more complete. Hadn’t we all commenced with the same desire, ended with the same knowledge, carried the memory of the same cherished glamour through the sordid days of imprecation?
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
He was there before me, believing that age and wisdom can find a remedy against the pain of truth...
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
And he had been deliberating upon death—confound him! He had found that to meditate about because he thought he had saved his life, while all its glamour had gone with the ship in the night.
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
He was then working for De Jongh, on my recommendation. Water-clerk.... You can’t imagine a mode of life more barren of consolation, less capable of being invested with a spark of glamour—unless it be the business of an insurance canvasser.
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
To bury him would have been such an easy kindness! It would have been so much in accordance with the wisdom of life, which consists in putting out of sight all the reminders of our folly, of our weakness, of our mortality; all that makes against our efficiency—the memory of our failures, the hints of our undying fears, the bodies of our dead friends. Perhaps he did take it too much to heart.
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
...still the idea obtrudes itself that he made so much of his disgrace while it is the guilt alone that matters. He was not—if I may say so—clear to me. He was not clear. And there is a suspicion he was not clear to himself either. There were his fine sensibilities, his fine feelings, his fine longings—a sort of sublimated, idealised selfishness. He was—if you allow me to say so—very fine; very fine—and very unfortunate. A little coarser nature would not have borne the strain; it would have had to come to terms with itself—with a grunt, or even with a guffaw; a still coarser one would have remained invulnerably ignorant and completely uninteresting.
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
Friday, May 23, 2008
“Suicide Is Painless”
theme song to M*A*S*H
Mike Altman
1955- American
Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me
I realize and I can see
That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
I try to find a way to make
All our little joys relate
Without that ever-present hate
But now I know that it’s too late
The game of life is hard to play
I’m gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I’ll someday lay
So this is all I have to say
The only way to win is cheat
And lay it down before I’m beat
And to another give my seat
For that’s the only painless feat
The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn’t hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger, watch it grin
A brave man once requested me
To answer questions that are key
“Is it to be or not to be?”
And I replied, “Oh why ask me?”
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
And you can do the same thing if you please
Six-Word Memoir
George Saunders
1958- American
Started small, grew, peaked, shrunk, vanished.
Quotations from *Lord Jim*, 3 of 5
Joseph Conrad
1857-1924 Polish/British
The time was coming when I should see him loved, trusted, admired, with a legend of strength and prowess forming round his name as though he had been the stuff of a hero.
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
He, on his side, had that faculty of beholding at a hint the face of his desire and the shape of his dream, without which the earth would know no lover and no adventurer.
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
Stein lifted his hand. ‘And do you know how many opportunities I let escape; how many dreams I had lost that had come in my way?’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘It seems to me that some would have been very fine—if I had made them come true. Do you know how many? Perhaps I myself don’t know.’ ‘Whether his were fine or not,’ I said, ‘he knows of one which he certainly did not catch.’ ‘Everybody knows of one or two like that,’ said Stein; ‘and that is the trouble—the great trouble....’
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
Yes! few of us understand, but we all feel it though, and I say all without exception, because those who do not feel do not count.
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
I don’t know how much Jim understood; but I know he felt, he felt confusedly but powerfully, the demand of some such truth or some such illusion—I don’t care how you call it, there is so little difference, and the difference means so little. The thing is that in virtue of his feeling he mattered.
—Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
“Shiloh:
A Requiem”
Herman Melville
1819-1891 American
Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
O’er the field in clouded days,
The forest-field of Shiloh --
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain,
Through the pauses of the night --
That followed the Sunday fight
Around the church of Shiloh --
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there --
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve --
Fame or country least their care:
(What like a bullet can undeceive!)
But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.
