84
" It was his power, his gift, suddenly to shed all superfluities, to shrink and diminish so that he looked barer and felt sparer, even physically, yet lost none of his intensity of mind, and so to stand on his little ledge facing the dark of human ignorance, how we know nothing and the sea eats away the ground we stand on - that was his fate, his gift. But having thrown away, when he dismounted, all gestures and fripperies, all trophies of nuts and roses, and shrunk so that not only fame but even his own name was forgotten by him, he kept even in that desolation a vigilance which spared no phantom and luxuriated in no vision, and it was in this guise that he inspired in William Bankes (intermittently) and in Charles Tansley (obsequiously) and in his wife now, when she looked up and saw him standing at the edge of the lawn, profoundly, reverence, and pity, and gratitude too, as a stake driven into the bed of a channel upon which the gulls perch and the waves beat inspires in merry boat-loads a feeling of gratitude for the duty it is taking upon itself of marking the channel out there in the floods alone. "
― Virginia Woolf , To the Lighthouse
88
" I thought how lovely and how strange a river is. A river is a river, always there, and yet the water flowing through it is never the same water and is never still. It’s always changing and is always on the move. And over time the river itself changes too. It widens and deepens as it rubs and scours, gnaws and kneads, eats and bores its way through the land. Even the greatest rivers- the Nile and the Ganges, the Yangtze and he Mississippi, the Amazon and the great grey-green greasy Limpopo all set about with fever trees-must have been no more than trickles and flickering streams before they grew into mighty rivers.
Are people like that? I wondered. Am I like that? Always me, like the river itself, always flowing but always different, like the water flowing in the river, sometimes walking steadily along andante, sometimes surging over rapids furioso, sometimes meandering wit hardly any visible movement tranquilo, lento, ppp pianissimo, sometimes gurgling giacoso with pleasure, sometimes sparkling brillante in the sun, sometimes lacrimoso, sometimes appassionato, sometimes misterioso, sometimes pesante, sometimes legato, sometimes staccato, sometimes sospirando, sometimes vivace, and always, I hope, amoroso.
Do I change like a river, widening and deepening, eddying back on myself sometimes, bursting my banks sometimes when there’s too much water, too much life in me, and sometimes dried up from lack of rain? Will the I that is me grow and widen and deepen? Or will I stagnate and become an arid riverbed? Will I allow people to dam me up and confine me to wall so that I flow only where they want? Will I allow them to turn me into a canal to use for they own purposes? Or will I make sure I flow freely, coursing my way through the land and ploughing a valley of my own? "
― Aidan Chambers , This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn
91
" DICK’S DESIRE
Dick's eyes-
Soft, cold, and blue-
Meet Devonshire's-
Dark, sexy, and yearning.
Turning away-
Dick grabs two packets of sugar-
While Devonshire's eyes-
Are still upon him-
Pondering his every move.
Is Dick a playboy,
A ladies' man,
A mans' man,
Or a killer?
Does his sex long for,
Something hard-
Or something soft?
Does he need cream in his coffee-
The screaming splash of a man,
Or the sweet flow of a woman?
Finishing up at the bar-
Dick turns to leave-
Meets Devonshire's gaze again-
Hot, thirsty, and longing-
But full of trepidation.
Following the flow of etiquette-
Dick shoots out of the cafe,
Past Devonshire,
And into a world of dashed hopes,
And regrets.
But Devonshire-
No longer of two worlds-
Rises in pursuit-
Goes after Dick,
And taps him on the shoulder.
Dick gives a turn,
Raises his shoulders,
And smiles with interest-
Taking Devonshire's hand,
And asking his name.
Devonshire answers-
Desire.
Dick invites Devonshire to dinner,
Where he eats everything,
Swallowing Dick's life stories,
And devouring his misgivings.
For dessert,
Devonshire takes Dick home,
Into his bed,
Against his flesh,
And gives Dick all of him-
His deepest desires,
The love in his eyes,
And the fire in his soul. "
― Giorge Leedy , Uninhibited From Lust To Love
96
" There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one's means of livelihood. I have nothing but contempt for the people who despise money. They are hypocrites or fools. Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five. Without an adequate income half the possibilities of life are shut off. The only thing to be careful about is that you do not pay more than a shilling for the shilling you earn. You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent. I pity with all my heart the artist, whether he writes or paints, who is entirely dependent for subsistence upon his art. "
― W. Somerset Maugham , Of Human Bondage