Commonplace Book

'...This would have been a good spot for Paradise: infallible splendour, no serpents, impossible to live naked, and too many things to do to have any time left over for inventing a god.'

from The Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson (May 2)

Commonplace Book

'...The anarchist tinkers with his bombs in saloons, while the hacker arms his programs at his computer, but both need the society they deplore and target for destruction - which is their raison d'etre.

The hermit stays off to one side in polite refusal, like a guest who, with a simple gesture, declines the profferred dish. If society disappeared, the hermit would go on living as a hermit. Those in revolt against society, however, would find themselves technically out of work. The hermit does not oppose, but espouses a way of life. He seeks not to denounce a lie, but to find a truth...'

from The Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson (April 17)

Some Account of My Cousin Nicholas by Richard Barham (1841)

This was originally published in Blackwood's Magazine in 1834. It is proof, if any is needed, that Barham was far more than a one trick pony, and that, though The Ingoldsby Legends were a staple of Victorian literature, and are the only thing for which he is now remembered (if our current minimal interest can be called remembrance), he was capable of much more. This harks back to the eighteenth century in its farcical, blustering satiric swipe. It is the story of a practical joker, and exactly what whirlwinds his activities reap. Nicholas Bullwinkle is the son of a minor landed gentleman, Sir Oliver Bullwinkle, who, in true Ingoldsbyish fashion, has confounded and disturbed ideas of his family's importance, for which he relates 'family history' which is highly dubious but heartily and comically believed. The story of Nicholas' escapades, as evidenced by the title, is related by his cousin Charles Stafford, each jape overreaching its predecessor, steadily losing taste and proportion as time goes on. Nicholas is not only a joker, he's also a reprobate, running up gambling and other bills all over the land, and a cad, with queues of the disgruntled and offended ever expanding. Almost all of this we see at second hand through Charles' eyes, which adds to the fun as we discover exactly where in the nefarious web Nicholas' impositions apply along with him. His final joke is catastrophic, but only after a long puzzlement, and much digging by Charles and Sir Oliver. Having felt his own version of love for a young heiress to whom Charles is about to become engaged, he constructs a vast web of imposture, tale-telling, evasion, financial fiddling and nonsense to bamboozle them, and tries incognito to grab the gorgeous Amelia from under Charles' nose. Charles' reputation ends up in tatters and Amelia's father despises him. Through a few different agencies, but mainly his own failings, Nicholas is finally exposed - and then commits what will become his fatal mistake: he advertises that his father has died in a less rigorous newspaper. He has, to all extents and purposes, succeeded to the baronetcy, and tradesmen and fellow gamblers all over will extend him any credit he desires, at least for a while! He doesn't think too far ahead, and is considering "some time away on the continent", to let the heat die down. Hiding out at the family country house, in a final confrontation in the dark of his father's study, he is unknowingly surprised by him trying to steal some cash from his bureau; Sir Oliver shoots him as a burglar, and then is horrified as his identity is revealed. A gloriously funny and lackadaisical novel which updates the 'evil' characters of writers like Smollett to a new century. My edition also includes a classic supernatural tale, The Trance, which covers the alchemical summoning-up of the soul of a loved one in a stylish and serious way.

Commonplace Book

'Then he perceived in dimmest fashion that possibly a chance had come to ripeness, withered, and fallen, within the late scoffing seconds of time. Enraged at his blindness, and careful, lest he had wrongly guessed, not to expose his regret (the man was a lover), he remarked, both truthfully and hypocritically: "I've always thought you were born to be a lady." (You had that ambition, young madam.)

She answered: "That's what I don't understand." (Your saying it, O my friend!)

"You will soon take to your new duties." (You have small objection to them even now.)

"Yes, or my life won't be worth much." (Know, that you are driving me to it.)

"And I wish you happiness, Rhoda." (You are madly imperilling the prospect thereof.)

To each of them the second meaning stood shadowy behind the utterances. And further:

"Thank you, Robert." (I shall have to thank you for the issue.)

"Now it's time to part." (Do you not see that there's a danger for me in remaining?)

"Good night." (Behold, I am submissive.)

"Good night, Rhoda." (You were the first to give the signal of parting.)

"Good night." (I am simply submissive.)

"Why not my name? Are you hurt with me?"

Rhoda choked. The indirectness of speech had been a shelter to her, permitting her to hint at more than she dared clothe in words.

Again the delicious dusky rose glowed beneath his eyes.

But he had put his hand out to her, and she had not taken it.

"What have I done to offend you? I really don't know, Rhoda."

"Nothing." The flower had died.'

from Rhoda Fleming by George Meredith (Chapter XLIII)

Commonplace Book

'...Non-action sharpens all perception. The hermit absorbs the universe, paying acute attention to its smallest manifestation. Sitting cross-legged beneath an almond tree, he hears the shock of a petal striking the surface of a pond. He sees the edge of a feather vibrate as a crane flies overhead. He feels the perfume of a happy flower rise from the blossom to envelop the evening.'

from The Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson (March 28)

Commonplace Book

'...Master Gammon was not one who took the ordinary plunge into the gulf of sleep, and it was required to shake him and to bellow at him - to administer at once earthquake and thunder - before his lizard eyelids would lift over the great, old-world eyes; upon which, like a clayey monster refusing to be informed with heavenly fire, he rolled to the right of his chair and to the left, and pitched forward, and insisted upon being inanimate...'

from Rhoda Fleming by George Meredith (Chapter XLII)

Commonplace Book

'...Beer or the local dive, the alcohol of the poor. Beer is a sedative that anesthetizes thought and dissolves all spirit of revolt. With the beer hose, totalitarian states extinguish all of society's fires...'

from The Consolations of the Forest by Sylvain Tesson (March 2)