Sublime

‘Yes, Lydgate is bored,’ said Will, who had more comprehension of Lydgate than Rosamond had, and was not offended by his manner, easily imagining outdoor causes of annoyance. ‘There is the more need for you to stay,’ said Rosamond, playfully, and in her lightest accent; ‘he will not speak to me all the evening.’ ‘Yes, Rosamond, I shall,’ said Lydga

It is true Lydgate was constantly visiting the homes of the poor and adjusting his prescriptions of diet to their small means; but, dear me! has it not by this time ceased to be remarkable – is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other? Expendi

For George is an old gray cat who has accumulated a hatred of people and things so intense that even hidden upstairs he communicates his prayer that you will go away. If the bomb should fall and wipe out every living thing except Miss Brace, George would be happy. That’s the way he would design a world if it were up to him.

Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Man of the Crowd.

‘What comet?’ ‘Thomas! Do you never look up? They call it Hale–Bopp. It’s been on the news.’ ‘Hale–Bopp,’ said Thomas. ‘I see. I never watch the news.’ He raised the planisphere towards the editor. ‘I have no interest in astronomy. This comet could crash through the window and land on the carpet and I’d have nothing to say about it.’

T. S. Eliot wrote almost a century ago about a phenomenon that he believed to be the product of the nineteenth century: “When there is so much to be known, when there are so many fields of knowledge in which the same words are used with different meanings, when everyone knows a little about a great many things, it becomes increasingly difficult for

You do look, my son, in a moved sort,209 As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all

And all the time, and all the time, my love, 950 You too are there, beneath the word, above The syllable, to underscore and stress The vital rhythm. One heard a woman’s dress Rustle in days of yore. I’ve often caught The sound and sense of your approaching thought. And all in you is youth, and you make new, By quoting them, old things I made for yo