In the drive-shed Hazen Lewsi outlined the boy's body onto the plank walls with green chalk. Then he tacked wires back and forth across the outline as if realigning the veins in his son's frame. Muscles of cordite and the spine a tributary of the black powder fuse. This is how the boy remembers his father, studying the outline which the boy has just stepped away from as the lit fuse smoulders up and blows out a section of plank where the head had been.
Not here and now can we set down the precise contents of Pierre's letter, without a tautology illy doing justice to the ideas themselves. And though indeed the dread of tautology be the continual torment of some earnest minds, and, as such, is surely a weakness in them; and though no wise man will wonder at conscientious Virgil all eager at death to burn his AEneid for a monstrous heap of inefficient superfluity; yet not to dread tautology at times only belongs to those enviable earth, with the inexhaustible self-riches of vanity, and folly, a blind self-complacency.
In naturally stong-minded men, however young and inexperienced in some things, those great and sudden emergencies, which but confound the timid and the weak, only serve to call forth all their generous latentness, and teach them, as by inspiration, extraordinary maxims of conduct, whose counterpart, in other men, is only the result of a long, variously-tried and painstaking life. One of those maxims is, that when, through whatever cause, we are suddenly translated from opulence to need, or from a fair fame to a foul; and straightway it becomes necessary not to contradict the thing -- so far as the mere imputation goes, -- to some one previously entertaining high conventional regard for us, and from whom we would now solicit some genuine helping offices; then, all explanation of palliation, should be scorned; promptness, boldness, utter gladiatoriansim, and a defiant non-humility should mark every syllable we breathe, and every line we trace.
All round and round does the world lie as in a sharp-shooter's ambush, to pick off the beautiful illusions of youth, by the pitiless cracking rifles of the realities of the age.
He is walking on the water's light. And as I watch, he takes the first step off it, moving slowly away now into the deepest distance, above the earth, above the water, on air.It is summer. It is spring. I am immeasurably, unbearably happy. I am three years old. I am sixty. I am six.I am there.
I have become braver in my old age, ready at last for all the changes we must undergo, as painfully we allow our limbs to burst into a new form, let the crust of our flesh split and the tree break through, or the moth or bird abandon us for air. What else is death but the refusal any longer to grow and suffer for change?
IF HE IS AWAKE early enough the boy sees the men walk past the farmhouse down First Lake Road. Then he stands at the bedroom window and watches: he can see two or three lanterns between the soft maple and the walnut tree. He hears their boot on gravel. Thirty loggers, wrapped up dark, carrying axes and small packages of food which hang from their belts. The boy walks downstairs and moves to a window in the kitchen where he can look down the driveway. They move from right to left. Already they seem exhausted, before the energy of the sun.
This is a Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Copyright 1987 by Michael Ondaatje
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
Originally published in Canada by McClelland and Stewart Limited, Toronto.
Listening to the old man now, telling his stories in our little yard, I know what the different voices siginify: they are the north wind, they are wolves, they are a shinbone, a severed head, they are the bottom of the sea. The old man's stories are fabulous beyond anything I have retold from the Greeks; but savage, a form of extravagant play that eplains nothing, but speaks straight out of the nightmare landscape of this place and my dream journeys across it. Our civilized fables that account so elegantly for what we see and know seem feeble beside these elaborate and absurd jokes the old man mutters over. They are like winter here. They fill the world. They make the head buzz, they numb the blood. They seem absolutely true and yet they explain nothing.
ALL profound things, and emotions of things are preceded and
attended by Silence. What a silence is that with which the pale bride precedes
the responsive I will, to the priest's solemn question,
Wilt thou have this man for thy husband?. In silence, too,
the wedded hands are clasped. Yea, in silence the child Christ was born into the
world. Silence is the general consecration of the universe. Silence is the
invisible laying on of the Divine Pontiff's hands upon the world. Silence is at
once the most harmless and the most awful thing in all nature. It speaks of the
Reserved Forces of Fate. Silence is the only Voice of our God.
There is a dark, mad mystery in some human hearts, which,
sometimes, during the tyranny of a usurper mood, leads them to be all eagerness
to cast off the most intense beloved bond, as a hindrance to the attainment of
whatever transcendental object that usurper mood so tyrannically suggests. Then
the beloved bond seems to hold us to no essential good; lifted to exalted
mounts, we can dispense with all the vale; endearments we spurn; kisses are
blisters to us; and forsaking the palpitating forms of mortal love, we emptily
embrace the boundless and the unbodied air. We think we are not human; we become
as immortal bachelors and gods; but again; like the Greek gods themselves, prone
we descend to earth; glad to be uxorious once more; glad to hide these god-like
heads within the bosoms made of too-seducing clay.
Instantly the room was populous with sounds of melodiousness, and
mournfulness, and wonderfulness; the room swarmed with the unintelligible but
delicious sounds. The sounds seemed waltzing in the room; the sounds hung
pendulous like glittering icicles from the corners of the room; and fell upon
him with a ringing silveryness; and were drawn up again to the ceiling, and hung
pendulous again, and dropped down upon him again with the ringing silveryness.
Fire-flies seemed buzzing in the sounds; summer-lightnings seemed vividly yet
softly audible in the sounds.
His burst of impatience against the sublime Italian, Dante, arising
from that poet being the one who, in a former time, had first opened to his
shuddering eyes the infinite cliffs and gulfs of human mystery and misery; --
though still more in the way of experimental vision, than of sensational
presentiment or experience (for as yet he had not seen so far and deep as Dante,
and therefore was entirely incompetent to meet the grim bard fairly on his
peculiar ground), this ignorant burst of his young impatience, -- also arising
from that half-contamptuous dislike, and sometimes self-loathing, with which,
either naturally feebele or undeveloped minds, regard those dark ravings of the
loftier poets, which are in eternal opposition to their own finespun, shallow
dreams of rapturous or prudential Youth; -- this rash, untutured burst of
Pierre's young impatience, seemed to have carried off with it, all the other
forms of his melancholy -- if melancholy it had been -- and left him now serene
again, and ready for any tranquil pleasantness the gods might have in store. For
his, indeed, was true Youth's temperament, -- summary with sadness, swift to
joyfulness, and long protracting, and detaining with that joyfulness, when once
it came fully night to him.
IT is the desolateness of this place that day after day fills my mind with its perspectives. A line of cliffs, oblique against the sky, and the sea leaden beyond. To the west and south, mountains, heaped under cloud. To the north, beyond the marshy river mouth, empty grasslands, rolling level to the pole.
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, JUNE 1996
Copyright 1978 by David Malouf
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada, Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by George Braziller, Inc., New York, in 1978.
Printed in the United States of America
But is life, indeed, a thing for all infidel levities, and we, its misdeemed beneficiaries, so utterl fools and infatuate, that what we take to be our strongest tower of delight, only stands at the caprice of the minutest event -- the falling of a leaf, the hearing of a voice, or the receipt of one little bit of paper scratched over with a few small characters by a sharpened feather? Are we so entirely insecure, that that casket, wherein we have placed our holiest and most final joy, and which we have secured by a lock of infinite deftness; can that casket be picked and desecrated at the merest stranger's touch, when we think that we alone hoold the only and chosen key?
Pierre now seemed distinctly to feel two antagonistic agencies within him; one of which was just struggling into his consciousness, and each of which was striving for the mastery; and between whose respective final ascendencies, he thought he could perceive, though but shadowly, that he himself was to be the only umpire. One bade him finsih the selfish destruction of the note; for in some dark way the reading of it would irretrieveably entangle his fate. The other bade him dimiss all misgivings; not because there was no possible ground for them, but because to dismiss them was the manlier part, never mind what might betide. This good angel seemed mildly to say -- Read, Pierre, though by reading though may'st entangle thyself, yet may'st though thereby disentangle others. Read, and feel that best blessedness which, with the sense of all duties discharged, holds happiness indifferent. The bad angel insinuatingly breathed -- Read it not, dearest Pierre; but destroy it, and be happy. Then, at the blast of his noble heart, the bad angel shrunk upinto nothingness; and the good one defined itself clearer and more clear, and came nigher and more nigh to him, smiling sadly but benignantly; while forth from the infinite distances wonderful harmonies stole into his heart; so that every vein in him pulsed to some heavenly swell.
So Pierre went up-stairs, but paused on the threshold of the open door. He never had entered that chamber but with feelings of a wonderful reverentialness. The carpet seemed as holy ground. Every chair seemed sanctified by some departed saint, there once seated long ago. Here his book of Love was all a rubric, and said -- But now, Pierre, bow. But this extreme loyalty to the piety of Love, called from him by such glimpses of its most secret inner shrine, was not unrelieved betimes by such quickenings of all his pulses, that in fantasy he pressed the wide beauty of the world in his embracing arms; for all his world resolved itself into his heart's best love for Lucy.
No Cornwall miner ever sunk so deep a shaft beneath the sea, as Love will sink beneath the floatings of the eyes. Love sees ten million fathoms down, till dazzled by the floor of pearls. The eyes is Love's own magic glass, where all things that are not of earth, glide in supernatural light. There are not so many fishes in the sea, as there are sweet images in lovers' eyes. In those miraculous translucencies swim the strange eye-fish with wings, that somtimes leap out, intinct with joy; moist fish-wings wet the lover's cheek. Love's eyes are holy things; therein the mysteries of life are lodged; looking in each other's eyes, lovers see the ultimate secret of the worlds; and with thrills eternally untranstable, feel that Love is god of all. Man or woman who has never loved, nor once looked deep down into their own lover's eyes, they know not the sweetest and the loftiest religion of this earth. Love is both Creator's and Saviour's gospel to mankind; a volume bound in rose-leaves, clasped with violets, and by the breaks of humming-birds printed with peach-juice on the leaves of lilies.
Love was first begot by Mirth and Peace, in Eden, where the world was young. The man oppressed with cares, he can not love; the man of gloom finds not the god. So, as youth, for the most part, has no cares, and knows no gloom, therefore, ever since time did begin, youth belongs to love. Love may end in grief and age, and pain and need, and all other modes of human mournfulness; but Love begins in joy. Love's first sigh is never breathed, till after Love hath laughed. Love laughs first, and then sighs after. Love has not hands, but cymbals; Love's mouth is chambered like a bugle, and the instinctive breathings of his life breathe jubilee notes of joy!
Oh, praised be the beauty of this earth, the beauty, and the bloom, and the mirthfulness thereof! The first worlds made were winter worlds; the second made, were vernal worlds; the third, and last, and perfectest, was this summer world of ours. In the cold and nether spheres, preachers preach of earth, as we of Paradise above. Oh, there, my friends, they say, they have a season, in their language known as summer. Then their fields spin themselves green carpets; snow and ice are not in all the land; then a million strange, bright, fragrant things powder that sward with perfumes; and high, majestic beings, dumb and grand, stand up with outstretched arms and hold their green canopies over merry angels -- men and women -- who love and wed, and sleep and dream, beneath the approving glances of their visible god and godless, glad-hearted sun, and pensive moon!Oh, praised be the beauty of this earth, the beauty, and the bloom, and the mirthfulness thereof! We lived before, and shall live again; and as we hope for a fainrer world than this to come; so we came form one less fine. From each successive world, the demon Principle is more and more dislodged; he is the accursed clog from chaos, and thither, by every new translation, we drive him further and further back again. Hosannahs to this world! so beautiful itself, and the vestibule to more. Out of some past Egypt, we have come to this new Canaan; and from this new Canaan, we press on to some Circassia. Though still the villains, Want and Woe, followed us out of Egypt, and now beg in Canaan's streets: yet Circassia's gates shall not admit them; they, with their sire, the demon Principle, must back to chaos, whence they came.
It has been said that the beautiful country round about Pierre
appealed to very proud memories. But not only through the mere chances of
things, had that fine country become ennobled by the deeds of his sires, but in
Pierre's eyes, all its hills and swales seemed as sanctified through their very
long uninterrupted possession of his race. That ond ideality which, in the eyes of affection, hallows the
least trinket once familiar to the person of a departed love; with Pierre that
talisman touched the whole earthly landscape about him; for remembering that on
those hills his own fine fathers had gazed; through those woods, over these
lawns, by that stream, along these tangled paths; many a grand-dame of his had
merrily strolled when a girl; vividly recalling these things, Pierre deemed all
that part of the earth a love-token; so that his very horizon was to him as a
memorial ring.The monarchical world very generally imagines, that in demagogical
America the sacred Past hath no fixed statues erected to it, but all things
irreverently seethe and boil in the vulgar cauldron of an everlasting
uncrystalizing Present. This conceit would seem peculiarly applicable to the
social condition. With no chartered aristocracy, and no law of entail, how can
any family in America imposingly perpetuate itself? Certainly that common saying
among u, which declares, that be a family conspicuous as it may, a single
half-century shall see it abased; that maxim undoubtedly holds true with the
commonality. In our cities families rise and burst like bubbles in a vat. For
indeed the democratic element operates as a subtile acid among us; as in the
south of France verdigris, the primitive material of one kind of green paint, is
produced by grape-vinegar poured upon copper plates. Now in general nothing
can be more significant of decay than the idea of corrosion; yet on the
other hand, nothing can more vividly suggest luxuriance of life, than the idea
of green as a color; for green is the peculiar signet of all-fertile Nature
herself. Herein by apt analogy we behold the marked anomalousness of
America; whose character abroad, we need not be surprised is misconceived, when
we consider how strangely it contradicts all prior notions of human things; and
how wonderfully to her, Death itself becomes transmuted into Life. So that
political institutions, which in other lands seem above all things intensely
artificial, with America seem to possess the divine virtue of a natural
law; for the most mighty of natures laws is this, that out of death she brings
Life.
In the Provisional Parliament, orthodox members claimed that the Hindu laws had stayed unchanged from time immemorial. "The rules of conduct and duties of men in our country are determined by the Vedas," said Ramnarayan Singh. Despite the challenges down the ages -- posed by Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity -- "the Vedic religion did not perish ... [the] Vedic religion is still there." But now, "we have Pandit Nehru's administration whose representative Dr. Ambedkar wants to abrogate with a single stroke all those rules which have existed since the beginning of the world."
BOOK IPIERRE JUST EMERGINGFROM HIS TEENS.I.THERE are some strange summer mornings in the country, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the fields, and be wonder-smitten with the trance-like aspect of the green and golden world. Not a flower stirs; the trees forget to wave; the grass itself seems to have ceased to grow; and all Nature, as if suddenly become conscious of her own profound mystery, and feeling no refuge from it but silence, sinks into this wonderful and indescribable repose.CAREFULLY SELECTED, EDITED AND PRINTED,SIGNET CLASSICS PROVIDE A TREAURY OF THE WORLD'S GREAT WRITINGS IN HANDSOMELY DESIGNED VOLUMES.FOREWORD COPYRIGHT 1964 BY THE NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY OFWORLD LITERATURE, INC.COPYRIGHT 1949 BY HENDRICKS HOUSEAll rights reserved. No part of the copyrighted material of this book may be reproduced in any form, by mimeograp of any other means, without written permission from the publilsher. For information address Hendricks House, Inc., 103 Park Avenue,New York, New York 10017.First Printing,,Novemmber, 1964Publlished as a SIGNET CLASSICby arrangement with Hendricks House, Inc..who have authorised this softcover edition.A hardcore edition is availablefrom Hendricks House, Inc.This edition does not include the Introduction or the ExplanatoryNotes from the Hendricks House edition.SIGNET CLASSICS are published byThe New American Library of World Literature, Inc.,501 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10022PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daitiest of fragrant spermacetti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum santorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled -- the delicious death os an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and sweetly perished there?
NIMBLE as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his erect posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging main-yard-arm, to the part where it exactly projects over the hoisted Tun. He has carried with him a light tackle called a whip, consisting of only two parts, travelling through a single-sheaved block.
Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter, Death himself might well have been the post-boy.
"Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are you linked analogies! not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind."
Espied by some timid man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the whale's unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the log - shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts: beware! And for years afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held. There's your law of precedents; there's your utility of traditions; there's the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the eart, and now not even hovering in the air! There's orthodoxy!
