Baudelaire drunk on poetry

“Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.

Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken.

And if sometimes, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, of whatever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks, ask what hour it is; and the wind, wave, star, bird, clock, will answer you: ‘It is the hour to be drunken! Be drunken, if you would not be martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.’”

—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), “Be Drunken,” translated from the French by Arthur Symons

She is too fond of books

Mr. and Mrs. Stuart spent their evenings in chasing that bright bubble called social success, and usually came home rather cross because they could not catch it.

On one of these occasions they received a warm welcome, for, as they approached the house, smoke was seen issuing from an attic window, and flames flickering behind the half-drawn curtain. Bursting out of the carriage with his usual impetuosity, Mr. Stuart let himself in and tore upstairs shouting “Fire!” like an engine company.

In the attic Christie was discovered lying dressed upon her bed, asleep or suffocated by the smoke that filled the room. A book had slipped from her hand, and in falling had upset the candle on a chair beside her; the long wick leaned against a cotton gown hanging on the wall, and a greater part of Christie’s wardrobe was burning brilliantly.

“I forbade her to keep the gas lighted so late, and see what the deceitful creature has done with her private candle!” cried Mrs. Stuart with a shrillness that roused the girl from her heavy sleep more effectually than the anathemas Mr. Stuart was fulminating against the fire.

Sitting up she looked dizzily about her. The smoke was clearing fast, a window having been opened; and the tableau was a striking one. Mr. Stuart with an excited countenance was dancing frantically on a heap of half-consumed clothes pulled from the wall. He had not only drenched them with water from bowl and pitcher, but had also cast those articles upon the pile like extinguishers, and was skipping among the fragments with an agility which contrasted with his stout figure in full evening costume, and his besmirched face, made the sight irresistibly ludicrous.

Mrs. Stuart, though in her most regal array, seemed to have left her dignity downstairs with her opera cloak, for with skirts gathered closely about her, tiara all askew, and face full of fear and anger, she stood upon a chair and scolded like any shrew.

The comic overpowered the tragic, and being a little hysterical with the sudden alarm, Christie broke into a peal of laughter that sealed her fate.

“Look at her! look at her!” cried Mrs. Stuart gesticulating on her perch as if about to fly. “She has been at the wine, or lost her wits. She must go, Horatio, she must go! I cannot have my nerves shattered by such dreadful scenes. She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain...”

—Louisa May Alcott, Work: A Story of Experience, 1873

Image:  Public domain. Mezzotint by P. Dawe after J. Foldsone. 1772. Modified t.g. Courtesy of Wellcome Collection, wellcomecollection.org. Picture changed in 2021 from original blog post image.

Thus danced Nietzsche

“I desire to have goblins round me, for I am brave. Courage that dispelleth ghosts createth goblins for itself,—courage desireth to laugh...

Which of you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?

He who strideth across the highest mountains laugheth at all tragedies whether of the stage or of life...

Ye say unto me: ‘Life is hard to bear.’ But for what purpose have ye got in the morning your pride and in the evening your submission?

Life is hard to bear. But do not pretend to be so frail! We are all good he-asses and she-asses of burden.

What have we in common with the rose-bud that trembleth because a drop of dew lieth on its body?

It is true: we love life, not because we are accustomed to life, but because we are accustomed to love.

There is always a madness in love. There is however also always a reason in madness.

And to my thinking as a lover of life, butterflies, soap-bubbles, and whatever is of their kind among men, know most of happiness.

To see these light, foolish, delicate, mobile little souls flitting about—that moveth Zarathustra to tears and to song.

I could believe only in a God who would know how to dance.

And when I saw my devil, I found him earnest, thorough, deep, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity,—through him all things fall.

Not through wrath but through laughter one slayeth. Arise! let us slay the spirit of gravity!

I learned to walk: now I let myself run. I learned to fly: now I need no pushing to move me from the spot.

Now I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a God danceth through me.”

Thus spake Zarathustra.

—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), “Of Reading and Writing,” Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, translated from the German by Alexander Tille, 1896

A simple definition of life

“A simple definition of life:
The chance you’ve been waiting for.”
– Robert Brault –

And be a friend to man...

The House by the Side of the Road

      “He was a friend to man,
      and lived in a house by the
      side of the road.”
      —Homer

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
    In the peace of their self-content;
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart,
    In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
    Where highways never ran;—
But let me live by the side of the road
    And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
    Where the race of men go by—
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
    As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner's seat,
    Or hurl the cynic's ban;—
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
    And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road,
    By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
    The men who are faint with the strife.
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears—
    Both parts of an infinite plan;—
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
    And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead
    And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
    And stretches away to the night.
But still I rejoice when the travellers rejoice,
    And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
    Like a man who dwells alone.

Let me live in my house by the side of the road
    Where the race of men go by—
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
    Wise, foolish—so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat
    Or hurl the cynic's ban?—
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
    And be a friend to man.

—Sam Walter Foss (1858–1911)

“The House by the Side of the Road” was published in The Independent, 1897, and in Foss’ own book, Dreams in Homespun. According to The Alumnæ News of The Normal College, New York, the sentiments of this poem were inspired by the Roadside Settlement in Des Moines, Iowa. And the wording was inspired by Homer, as seen in the epigraph to this beautiful poem. I’m not the best of Greek scholars, but I think the excerpt would be:
          “Axylus: in Arisba fair he dwelt
          With riches blest, near to the public way
          His dwelling: thus a general friend to man
          He lov’d them all, and all their wants reliev’d...”

And as if Foss’ poetry wasn’t enough to give me joy, get this — he was also a librarian. Swoon!

Image source: “A Poet of the Common Life: Editorial Sketch of Sam Walter Foss,” in The Coming Age, October 1899

There’s a quotemark in my lunch!

What a quotatious day I had. First there was lunch at a salad buffet where my radishes were shaped like quotation marks or speech bubbles! And after work I relaxed by flipping on the TV to a rerun of The Middle, and it turned out to be the episode (S3,E6) in which Brick repeatedly quotes Shakespeare. Ahhh, some days are just better than others.

“I do remember him... like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring. When ’a was naked, he was for all the world like a fork’d radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife.” ~William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II  [III, 2, Falstaff]

“My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
To say as I said then! But, come, away;
Get me ink and paper...”
~William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra  [I, 5, Cleopatra]

“’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.” ~William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well  [IV, 5, Lafeu]

And, as if life couldn’t get much sweeter, while trying to find an appropriate quotation for this blog entry I happened upon a book from the 1800s, The Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare by H. N. Ellacombe, in which the quotes are all related to gardening, plants, and flowers. What a find!