Take a lucky dip in this refreshing pool of posts, randomly selected like literary Russian roulette (but more fun and much safer). Or filter by category to take a deeper dive into specific themes. Enjoy!
Saying what you think and writing how you want
This, in particular the second part, resonated with me. In an age where Search Engine Optimization sometimes seems to want...
As inert as …
Two fine similes to describe inertness, of which I lean to the first as being more euphonic and original.
'…...
Time-dimmed benevolence
This makes me think of grainy photos of harmless-looking old men whom you then discover are former Nazi or other...
On cultural relations
John Steinbeck and Robert Capa wrestle with their status in seeking some Soviet organization which would be willing to adopt...
Star-shivery water
Tarka the Otter is a magical book and stars sparkle in the sky and the water, here shivering with them. ...
A luminous spot in Chicago
What makes a city great? What makes a civilization? How about a bright, quiet, dazzling new building in the heart...
Worth the expense
George Eliot can be pithy, here singling out someone as being unworthy of the bullet a character might like to...
There is no method but yourself
Wisely or no, this has pretty much been my haphazard method of reading poetry since I left formal study. With...
A look of love
This is Lisbeth, mother of Adam Bede, looking closely at the beloved face of Dinah, who would become her daughter-in-law. ...
Key Performance Indicators … with a twist
'Here and there in the leafy glade of her letters a ripe berry of information gleams.'
When was the last...
Gamboge yellow
A gum resin produced by various East Asian trees, used as a yellow pigment and as a purgative in medicine....
Beloved Sir Benjamin
The old, fat, warm-hearted cousin of the young heroine. Both Merryweathers, he of the sun type, she of the moon....
Keen-eyed man
A fine description of Adam Bede's fine eyes and keen mind. As for Hetty, nowadays she'd be branded a teaser. ...
Appreciation is a better mode for the understanding of achievement than are all the analytical kinds of accounting for the emergence of exceptional individuals. Appreciation may judge, but always with gratitude, and frequently with awe and wonder.
By ‘appreciation’ I mean something more than ‘adequate esteem’. Need also enters into it, in the particular sense of turning to the genius of others in order to redress a lack in oneself, or finding in genius a stimulus to one’s own powers, whatever these may emerge as being.
Source: Harold Bloom, Genius (London: Fourth Estate, 2002), p. 5
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