But them I call the rabble who hang on others’ words and gestures, and, chamelon-wise, take their color from them, truckling to their benefactors, relishing applause, and making themselves the mirror of the multitude. Never do you find such men faithful wardens of their heritage, like a citadel; nor do they hand down their password from generation to generation; but rather let their children grow at random, without molding them. And everywhere they breed, like fungus, on the face of the earth.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Wisdom of the Sands
In 1978 at Oklahoma State University I sat through a course in the New Testament. OSU had a fine wrestling, golf, and baseball programs, but their “religious studies” wasn’t ranked in the top twenty in the nation. Our professor didn’t seem to believe that any of the New Testament was true. She seemed to think it was a record of the manipulative and sexist Paul, who was (along with the other apostles) clearly expecting Jesus to return any minute, but who died in his growing disillusionment.
Those of us who actually believe the Bible sometimes feel embarrassed by those (numerous) verses that almost drool with anticipation that something really big is getting ready to happen. And if we assume that they expected something like the end of the world any minute, then we have to scramble to explain how “any minute” could mean, say, in two thousand years (or more). (more…)
Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much,
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
—William Cowper, The Task, book 6, lines 88-97
There is in souls a sympathy with sounds,
And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on.
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
—William Cowper, The Task, book 6, lines 11-14
I’ve long been interested in William Cowper’s labyrinthine personality—the juxtaposition of grace and despair in his soul. I’ve been interested enough to read his shorter verse—including his Olney Hymns, published with John Newton (“Amazing Grace” is the most famous of those). And just today I grew interested enough to read Cowper’s The Task, a major poem of six books of about 800 lines each that started out as “a trifle.” Here’s what he said about it in the advertisement for its publication in 1785: (more…)
“It is a privilege of old people to seem to know everything. But it’s an act and a mask, like every other act and mask. Between ourselves, we old ones wink at each other and smile, saying, How do you like my mask, my act, my certainty? Isn’t life a play? Don’t I play it well?”
Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine, p. 142
Talk about a great summer read! Pick up Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine and enjoy….
The facts about John Huff, aged 12, are simple and soon stated. He could pathfind more trails than any Choctaw or Cherokee since time began, could leap from the sky like a chimpanzee from a vine, could live underwater two minutes and slide fifty yards downstream from where you last saw him. The baseballs you pitched him he hit in the apple trees, knocking down harvests. He could jump six-foot orchard walls, swing up branches and come down, fat with peaches, quicker than anyone else in the gang. He ran laughing. He sat easy. He was not a bully. He was kind. His hair was dark and curly and his teeth were white as cream. He remembered the words to all the cowboy songs and would teach you if you asked. He knew the names of all the wildflowers and when the moon would rise and set and when the tides came in or out. He was, in fact, the only god living in the whole of Green Town, Illinois, during the twentieth century that Douglas Spaulding knew of.
Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine, p. 102
Build not an empire where everything is perfect. “Good taste” is a virture of the keepers of museums. If you scorn bad taste, you will have neither painting nor dancing, neither palaces nor gardens. You will have acted like an over-squeamish man who never goes out for fear of being soiled by contact with the earth. At the core of your perfection will be emptiness, and you shall have no joy of it. Nay, rather build an empire where all is zeal.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Wisdom of the Sands
… the flower you single out is a rejection of all other flowers; nevertheless, only on these terms is it beautiful.
For a long time I’ve wanted a copy of Antione de Saint-Exupery’s Citadelle (Wisdom of the Sands in English). I recently received copy for my birthday—even though it’s about as far from my birthday as you can get in the calendar. Anyway, it’s a treasure, and I’ll pass on some of the wisdom as I’m able. If I can muster up some of my own reflections without clouding his, I’ll offer those up as well.
But no promises…
I just finished my third reading of C. S. Lewis’s An Experiment in Criticism. I read it first in 1993, then in 2003, then today. It may seem strange to return so often to a book of literary criticism—but for me it is a way to keep me grounded, to remind myself why I read. For example:
Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom realize the enormous extension of our being that we owe to authors. We realize it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense, but he inhabits a tiny word. In it, we should be suffocated. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through the eyes of others.