Klaus's Commonplace Blog

Thomas Carlyle's Advice

nobody@vox.com(Klaus) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:53:50 -0500

Dear Sir,—Some time ago your letter was delivered me; I take literally the first free half-hour I have had since to write you a word of answer.

It would give me true satisfaction could any advice of mine contribute to forward you in your honourable course of self-improvement, but a long experience has taught me that advice can profit but little—that there is a good reason why advice is so seldom followed; this reason, namely, that it is / so seldom, and can almost never be rightly given. No man knows the state of another; it is always to some more or less imaginary man that the wisest and most honest adviser is speaking.

As to the books which you—whom I know so little of— should read, there is hardly any thing definite that can be said. For one thing, you may be strenuously advised to keep reading. Any good book, any book that is wiser than yourself, will teach you something—a great many things indirectly and directly, if your mind be open to learn. This old counsel of Johnson’s is also good, and universally applicable—”Read the book you do honestly feel a wish and curiosity to read.” The very wish and curiosity indicates that you, then and there, are the person likely to get good of it. “Our wishes are presentiments of our capabilities;” that is a noble saying, of deep encouragement to all true men, applicable to our wishes and efforts in regard to reading as to other things.

Among all the objects that look wonderful and beautiful to you, follow with fresh hope the one which looks wonderfullest, beautifullest. You will gradually find, by various trials (which trials see that you make honest, manful ones, not silly, short, fitful ones), what is for you the wonderfullest, beautifullest—what is your true element and province, and be able to profit by that. True desire, the monition of nature, is much to be attended to. But here, also, you are to discriminate carefully between true desire and false. The medical men tell us we should eat what we truly have an appetite for; but what we only falsely have an appetite for, we should resolutely avoid. It is very true: and flimsy desultory readers, who fly from foolish book to foolish book, and get good of none, and mischief of all—are not these as foolish, unhealthy eaters, who mistake their superficial false desire after spiceries and confectioneries for their real appetite, of which even they are not destitute, though it lies far deeper, far quieter, after solid nutritive food? With these illustrations, I will recommend Johnson’s advice to you.

Another thing, and only one other, I will say. All books are properly the record of the history of past men—what thoughts past men had in them—what actions past men did; the summary of all books whatsoever lies there. It is on this ground that the class of books specifically named History can be safely recommended as the basis of all study of books, the preliminary to all right and full understanding of any thing we can expect to find in books. Past history, and especially the past history of one’s own native country, every body may be advised to begin with that. Let him study that faithfully; innumerable inquiries will branch out from it; he has a broad beaten highway, from which all the country is more or less visible; there traveling, let him choose where he will dwell.

Neither let mistakes and wrong directions—of which every man, in his studies and elsewhere, falls into many—discourage you. There is precious instruction to be got by finding that we are wrong. Let a man try faithfully, manfully, to be right, he will grow daily more and more right. It is, at bottom, the condition on which all men have to cultivate themselves. Our very walking is an incessant falling—a falling and a catching of ourselves before we come actually to the pavement!—it is emblematic of all things a man does.

In conclusion, I will remind you that it is not books alone, or by books chiefly, that a man becomes in all points a man. Study to do faithfully whatsoever thing in your actual situation, there and now, you find either expressly or tacitly laid to your charge; that is your post; stand in it like a true soldier. Silently devour the many chagrins of it, as all human situations have many; and see you aim not to quit it without doing all that it, at least, required of you. A man perfects himself by work much more than by reading. They are a growing kind of men that can wisely combine the two things—wisely, valiantly, can do what is laid to their hand in their present sphere, and prepare themselves withtal for doing other wider things, if such lie before them.

With many good wishes and encouragements, I remain, yours sincerely,

Thomas Carlyle

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"God wanted the world to be a valley of tears"

nobody@vox.com(Klaus) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:29:56 -0600

[Found at Durendal]

…Catholic civilisation, in its development in time and its extension in space… I will say that since its imperfections were born solely from its linkage with freedom, true human progress consists in subjugating the human element, the one that corrupts, to that which purifies – the divine.

Society has followed another course. It has brought an end to the rule of faith by proclaiming the independence of reason and the will of man. It has converted evil, which was relative, exceptional, and contingent, into a universal and necessary absolute. This period of rapid decline in Europe began with the restoration of pagan literature, which then successively produced the restoration of pagan philosophy, pagan religion, and pagan politics. Today the world is in the eve of the last of these restorations, the restoration of pagan socialism.

History is already at the stage of forming its judgment about these two great civilizations, one in which the reason and will of man conforms to the divine element, and the other, which sets aside the divine element and proclaims the independence and sovereignty of the human element. The golden age of Catholic civilisation, that is, the age in which the reason and will of man conformed more perfectly to the divine, or, to the Catholic element (which is the same as the divine), was, without a doubt, the fourteenth century. So the iron age of philosophical civilisation, that is, the age in which the reason and will of man arrived at the high point of its independence and sovereignty is, without a doubt, the nineteenth century.

…If Catholic civilisation had followed a path of continuous progress, the earth would have become a paradise for man. But God wanted the world to be a valley of tears… And God places this great valley between two great paradises, so that man might live between a great hope and a great memory…

-- The Marquis de Valdegamas

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"That sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil"

nobody@vox.com(Klaus) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 08:44:56 -0500

[From Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas]

There was madness in any direction, at any hour -- you could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle -- that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Sometimes I imagine this is how all the heretic Catholic bishops felt when they found out Ratzinger was elected Pope.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Criterion Collection

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Homecoming

nobody@vox.com(Klaus) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 22:56:19 -0500

Vienna Teng - Homecoming (Walter's Song)

Lyrics by Vienna Teng

It's desert ice outside but this diner has thawed my ears
Hot coffee in a clean white mug and a smile when the waitress hears
That I was born in North Carolina
Not an hour from her home town
And we used to play the same pizza parlor pinball

And there's a glance in time suspended as I wonder how it is
We've been swept up just by circumstance to where the coyote lives
Where my days are strips of highway
And she's wiping tables down
Holding on and still waiting for that windfall

But I've come home
Even though I've never had so far to go
I've come home

I pay the check and leave the change from a crumpled ten-dollar bill
Head across the street where VACANCY is burning in neon still
Well the night eats up my body heat
And there's no sign of another
And I find myself slipping down into that black

But things are good I've got a lot of followers of my faith
I've got a whole congregation living in my head these days
And I'm preaching from the pulpit
To cries of "Amen brother"
Closing my eyes to feel the warmth come back

And I've come home
Even though I swear I've never been so alone
I've come home

I just want to be living as I'm dying
Just like everybody here
Just want to know my little flicker of time is worthwhile
And I don't know where I'm driving to
But I know I'm getting old
And there's a blessing in every moment every mile

Thin white terry bars of soap and a couple little plastic cups
Old Gideons Bible in the nightstand drawer saying "Go on open up"
Well I'll kneel down on the carpet here
Though I never was sure of God
Think tonight I'll give Him the benefit of the doubt

I switch off the lights and imagine that waitress outlined in the bed
Her hair falling all around me
I smile and shake my head
Well we all write our own endings
And we all have our own scars
But tonight I think I see what it's all about

Because I've come home
I've come home

Warm Strangers

Vienna Teng

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The After Woman

nobody@vox.com(Klaus) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:29:56 -0500

By Francis Thompson (1859-1907)

Daughter of the ancient Eve,
We know the gifts ye gave--and give.
Who knows the gifts which YOU shall give,
Daughter of the newer Eve?
You, if my soul be augur, you
Shall--O what shall you not, Sweet, do?
The celestial traitress play,
And all mankind to bliss betray;
With sacrosanct cajoleries
And starry treachery of your eyes,
Tempt us back to Paradise!
Make heavenly trespass;--ay, press in
Where faint the fledge-foot seraphin,
Blest Fool! Be ensign of our wars,
And shame us all to warriors!
Unbanner your bright locks,--advance
Girl, their gilded puissance,
I' the mystic vaward, and draw on
After the lovely gonfalon
Us to out-folly the excess
Of your sweet foolhardiness;
To adventure like intense
Assault against Omnipotence!

Give me song, as She is, new,
Earth should turn in time thereto!
New, and new, and thrice so new,
All old sweets, New Sweet, meant you!
Fair, I had a dream of thee,
When my young heart beat prophecy,
And in apparition elate
Thy little breasts knew wax-ed great,
Sister of the Canticle,
And thee for God grown marriageable.
How my desire desired your day,
That, wheeled in rumour on its way,
Shook me thus with presentience! Then
Eden's lopped tree shall shoot again:
For who Christ's eyes shall miss, with those
Eyes for evident nuncios?
Or who be tardy to His call
In your accents augural?

Who shall not feel the Heavens hid
Impend, at tremble of your lid,
And divine advent shine avowed
Under that dim and lucid cloud;
Yea, 'fore the silver apocalypse
Fail, at the unsealing of your lips?
When to love YOU is (O Christ's Spouse!)
To love the beauty of His house;
Then come the Isaian days; the old
Shall dream; and our young men behold
Vision--yea, the vision of Thabor mount,
Which none to other shall recount,
Because in all men's hearts shall be
The seeing and the prophecy.
For ended is the Mystery Play,
When Christ is life, and you the way;
When Egypt's spoils are Israel's right,
And Day fulfils the married arms of Night.
But here my lips are still.
Until
You and the hour shall be revealed,
This song is sung and sung not, and its words are sealed.

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Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres

nobody@vox.com(Klaus) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:04:39 -0500

By Henry Adams (1838-1918), sometimes philosopher, cynic and autobiographer.

Gracious Lady:—
Simple as when I asked your aid before;
Humble as when I prayed for grace in vain
Seven hundred years ago; weak, weary, sore
In heart and hope, I ask your help again.

You, who remember all, remember me;
An English scholar of a Norman name,
I was a thousand who then crossed the sea
To wrangle in the Paris schools for fame.

When your Byzantine portal was still young
I prayed there with my master Abailard;
When Ave Maris Stella was first sung,
I helped to sing it here with Saint Bernard.

When Blanche set up your gorgeous Rose of France
I stood among the servants of the Queen;
And when Saint Louis made his penitence,
I followed barefoot where the King had been.

For centuries I brought you all my cares,
And vexed you with the murmurs of a child;
You heard the tedious burden of my prayers;
You could not grant them, but at least you smiled

If then I left you, it was not my crime,
Or if a crime, it was not mine alone.
All children wander with the truant Time.
Pardon me too! You pardoned once your Son!

For He said to you:—"Wist ye not that I
Must be about my Father’s business?" So,
Seeking his Father he pursued his way
Straight to the Cross towards which we all must go.

So I too wandered off among the host
That racked the earth to find the father’s clue.
I did not find the Father, but I lost
What now I value more, the Mother,—You!

I thought the fault was yours that foiled my search;
I turned and broke your image on its throne,
Cast down my idol, and resumed my march
To claim the father’s empire for my own.

Crossing the hostile sea, our greedy band
Saw rising hills and forests in the blue;
Our father’s kingdom in the promised land!
—We seized it, and dethroned the father too.

And now we are the Father, with our brood,
Ruling the Infinite, not Three but One;
We made our world and saw that it was good;
Ourselves we worship, and we have no Son.

Yet we have Gods, for even our strong nerve
Falters before the Energy we own.
Which shall be master? Which of us shall serve?
Which wears the fetters? Which shall bear the crown?

Brave though we be, we dread to face the Sphinx,
Or answer the old riddle she still asks.
Strong as we are, our reckless courage shrinks
To look beyond the piece-work of our tasks.

But when we must, we pray, as in the past
Before the Cross on which your Son was nailed.
Listen, dear lady! You shall hear the last
Of the strange prayers Humanity has wailed.

PRAYER TO THE DYNAMO

Mysterious Power! Gentle Friend!
Despotic Master! Tireless Force!
You and We are near the End.
Either You or We must bend
To bear the martyrs’ Cross.
We know ourselves, what we can bear
As men; our strength and weakness too;
Down to the fraction of a hair;
And know that we, with all our care
And knowledge, know not you.
You come in silence, Primal Force,
We know not whence, or when, or why;
You stay a moment in your course
To play; and, lo! you leap across
To Alpha Centauri!
We know not whether you are kind,
Or cruel in your fiercer mood;
But be you Matter, be you Mind,
We think we know that you are blind,
And we alone are good.
We know that prayer is thrown away,
For you are only force and light;
A shifting current; night and day;
We know this well, and yet we pray,
For prayer is infinite,
Like you! Within the finite sphere
That bounds the impotence of thought,
We search an outlet everywhere
But only find that we are here
And that you are—are not!
What are we then? the lords of space?
The master-mind whose tasks you do?
Jockey who rides you in the race?
Or are we atoms whirled apace,
Shaped and controlled by you?
Still silence! Still no end in sight!
No sound in answer to our cry!
Then, by the God we now hold tight,
Though we destroy soul, life and light,
Answer you shall—or die!
We are no beggars! What care we
For hopes or terrors, love or hate?
What for the universe? We see
Only our certain destiny
And the last word of Fate.
Seize, then, the Atom! rack his joints!
Tear out of him his secret spring!
Grind him to nothing!—though he points
To us, and his life-blood anoints
Me—the dead Atom-King!

A curious prayer, dear lady! is it not?
Strangely unlike the prayers I prayed to you!
Stranger because you find me at this spot,
Here, at your feet, asking your help anew.

Strangest of all, that I have ceased to strive,
Ceased even care what new coin fate shall strike.
In truth it does not matter. Fate will give
Some answer; and all answers are alike.

So, while we slowly rack and torture death
And wait for what the final void will show,
Waiting I feel the energy of faith
Not in the future science, but in you!

The man who solves the Infinite, and needs
The force of solar systems for his play,
Will not need me, nor greatly care what deeds
Made me illustrious in the dawn of day.

He will send me, dethroned, to claim my rights,
Fossil survival of an age of stone,
Among the cave-men and the troglodytes
Who carved the mammoth on the mammoth’s bone.

He will forget my thought, my acts, my fame,
As we forget the shadows of the dusk,
Or catalogue the echo of a name
As we the scratches on the mammoth’s tusk.

But when, like me, he too has trod the track
Which leads him up to power above control,
He too will have no choice but wander back
And sink in helpless hopelessness of soul,

Before your majesty of grace and love,
The purity, the beauty and the faith;
The depth of tenderness beneath; above,
The glory of the life and of the death.

When your Byzantine portal still was young,
I came here with my master Abailard;
When Ave Maris Stella was first sung,
I joined to sing it here with Saint Bernard.

When Blanche set up your glorious Rose of France,
In scholar’s robes I waited on the Queen;
When good Saint Louis did his penitence,
My prayer was deep like his: my faith as keen.

What loftier prize seven hundred years shall bring,
What deadlier struggles for a larger air,
What immortality our strength shall wring
From Time and Space, we may—or may not—care;

But years, or ages, or eternity,
Will find me still in thought before your throne,
Pondering the mystery of Maternity,
Soul within Soul,—Mother and Child in One!

Help me to see! not with my mimic sight—
With yours! which carried radiance, like the sun,
Giving the rays you saw with—light in light—
Tying all suns and stars and worlds in one.

Help me to know! not with my mocking art—
With you, who knew yourself unbound by laws;
Gave God your strength, your life, your sight, your heart,
And took from him the Thought that Is—the Cause.

Help me to feel! not with my insect sense,—
With yours that felt all life alive in you;
Infinite heart beating at your expense;
Infinite passion breathing the breath you drew!

Help me to bear! not my own baby load,
But yours; who bore the failure of the light,
The strength, the knowledge and the thought of God,—
The futile folly of the Infinite!

Adams' Wife's Grave Statue

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A Reading List for Catholics

nobody@vox.com(Klaus) — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:22:45 -0500

A work in progress...

A Reading Priest

About the Faith
The Baltimore Catechism
Theology for Beginners, by Frank Sheed
The Tridentine Creed

Scripture
Genesis
Exodus
Joshua
Judges
1 & 2 Samuel (1 & 2 Kings in some older Bibles)
Tobit
Job
Wisdom
The Gospel According to St. Mark
The Gospel According to St. John
The Acts of the Apostles
Hebrews
1 & 2 Peter

Church Fathers
Letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch
First and Second Apology, by St. Justin Martyr
The Incarnation of the Word, by St. Athanasius
Sermons of St. John Chrysostom (selected)
The Confessions, by St. Augustine
Letters of St. Leo the Great (selected)

Spiritual/Moral Reading
Introduction to Devout Life, by St. Francis de Sales
The World's First Love, by Bishop Fulton Sheen
In Defense of Purity, by Dietrich von Hildebrand
The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence
The Story of a Soul, by St. Therese of Lisieux
Transformation in Christ, by Dietrich von Hildebrand
The Secret of the Rosary, by St. Louis de Montfort

Literature
Beowulf
The Golden Legend (selections)
The Song of Roland
The Divine Comedy, by Dante
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Quo Vadis, by Henryk Sienkiewicz
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien

Understanding the Times
On the Threshold of Hope, by Pope John Paul II
The Syllabus of Errors, by Pope Pius IX
Iota Unum, by Romano Amerio
The Devastated Vineyard, by Dietrich von Hildebrand

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A Book List

nobody@vox.com(Klaus) — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:08:50 -0500

books

Found here, but who knows from whence it came?

Below is a list of the 106 books most likely to languish, unread, on the bookshelves of people who only want to seem cultured and well-read. If you want to play along:

green for the titles you've read on your own,

teal for the ones you had to read for school,

purple for the ones you started but didn't finish,

red for the ones you hated,

blue for those you'd recommend

orange for those you'd like to/plan to read

Let the List begin

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Anna Karenina

Crime and Punishment

Catch-22

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Wuthering Heights

The Silmarillion

Life of Pi : a novel

The Name of the Rose

Ulysses

Don Quixote

The Odyssey

Moby Dick

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Eyre

A Tale of Two Cities

The Brothers Karamazov

Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies

War and Peace

Vanity Fair

The Time Traveler's Wife

The Illiad

Emma

The Blind Assassin

The Kite Runner

Mrs. Dalloway

Great Expectations

American Gods

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Atlas Shrugged

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

Memoirs of a Geisha

Middlesex

Quicksilver

Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West

The Canterbury Tales - Excerpts

The Historian: a novel

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Love in the Time of Cholera

Brave New World

The Fountainhead

Foucault’s Pendulum

Middlemarch

Frankenstein

The Count of Monte Cristo

Dracula

A Clockwork Orange

Anansi Boys

The Once and Future King

The Grapes of Wrath

The Poisonwood Bible : a novel

1984

Angels & Demons

The Inferno

The Satanic Verses

Sense and Sensibility

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Mansfield Park

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

To the Lighthouse

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Oliver Twist

Gulliver's Travels

Les Misérables

The Corrections

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Dune

The Prince

The Sound and the Fury

A People's History of the United States: 1492-present

Angela’s Ashes : a memoir

Cryptonomicon

Neverwhere

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Dubliners

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Beloved

Slaughterhouse Five

The Scarlet Letter

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

The Mists of Avalon

Oryx and Crake : a novel

Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed

Cloud Atlas

The Confusion

Lolita

Persuasion

Northanger Abbey

The Catcher in the Rye

On the Road

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values

The Aeneid

Watership Down

Gravity's Rainbow

The Hobbit

In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences

White Teeth

Treasure Island

David Copperfield

The Three Musketeers

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Some Ado About Melancholy

nobody@vox.com(Klaus) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:54:36 -0600

[From Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare, I.3]

    There is no measure in the occasion that breeds;
    therefore the sadness is without limit.[...]
    I wonder that thou, being, as thou sayest thou art,
    born under Saturn, goest about to apply a moral
    medicine to a mortifying mischief. I cannot hide
    what I am: I must be sad when I have cause and smile
    at no man's jests, eat when I have stomach and wait
    for no man's leisure, sleep when I am drowsy and
    tend on no man's business, laugh when I am merry and
    claw no man in his humour.[...]
    I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in
    his grace, and it better fits my blood to be
    disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob
    love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to
    be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied
    but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with
    a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I
    have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my
    mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do
    my liking: in the meantime let me be that I am and
    seek not to alter me.

-Don John

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Jesus, Party Animal

nobody@vox.com(Klaus) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:40:09 -0600

[From The Sacred Heart, by Dietrich von Hildebrand, p. 124]

The first miracle of our Lord at the wedding of Cana is one of the three mysteries of the feast of Epiphany. The Gospel says: "He manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him." The Church sees in this miracle the manifestation of the divinity of Christ primarily. Yet, it also is a revelation of the boundless superabundance of divine love. The first miracle of Christ was neither the healing of the sick, nor the restoration of a natural good--like the sight to the blind--nor even an indispensable good like the multiplication of the loaves. The transmutation of water into wine was not an indispensable good either for the couple or for the wedding as such. It served merely to heighten the joy of the feast. It was not even absolutely lacking, but was only in insufficient quantity. Divine superabundance! Christ our Redeemer, who continually exhorts us to seek only the one thing necessary, manifesting such an interest in the wedding taking place in cloudless joy, that the bridegroom should not be humiliated or perturbed by the insufficiency of wine!

Divine, boundless superabundance of love! What an abyss separates it from the hard zeal of many pious people who are moved and interested only when either something vital to their neighbor's eternal welfare or at least some elementary indispensable good is at stake. That the wine was not sufficient for a wedding would strike those "pious souls" as a trifle not deserving their attention. They forget that the sublime words of St. Aloysius, Quid ad aeternitatem? "What is this to eternity?" should be applied to one's own person only, but never to one's neighbor.

The Marriage in Cana

The Heart: An Analysis of Human and Divine Affectivity

Dietrich von Hildebrand

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