Texts and Archives

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Thursday, December 29, 2022

Fallen Angel

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Otto von Bismarck, quoted in: Emil Ludwig, Bismarck; The Story of a Fighter , (Blue Ribbon Books, 1927, reprinted 1934), tr. Eden and Cedar ...

When Gloom Is Incurable

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William Cowper,  The Shrubbery, Written in a Time of Affliction :           O happy shades! to me unblest!             Friendly to peace, bu...
Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Losing The Tragic And Gaining Despair

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Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or , pt. I., tr. Hans Hong and Edna Hong, (Princeton, 1987), The Tragic in Ancient Drama Reflected in the Tragic i...
Sunday, December 25, 2022

Visions Of Eighteen

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From a letter by Thomas Carlyle to Baillie/Jane Welsh, letter 101, 2 September, 1824: The visions of eighteen are beautiful as the path of A...

Amanda

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James Thomson, The Four Seasons , Spring:           And thou, Amanda, come, pride of my song!           Form'd by the Graces, loveliness...
Saturday, December 24, 2022

Dispelling Sorrow

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Al-Kindī, Philosophical Works of al-Kindī , tr. Peter Adamson and Peter Pormann, (Oxford, 2012), sect. 4, Ethics, Letter on the Method of ho...
Friday, December 16, 2022

Too Hard To Bear

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James Hinton, Love's Offering , 1883, LII., p. 130:           When I think sometimes that for years and years             New springs ma...
Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Sin

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A sonnet by Luís de Camões, Sin , tr. William Baer ( Selected Sonnets , University of Chicago Press, 2008, pp. 46-47):           Happy is he...
Tuesday, December 13, 2022

Ghostly And Unreal

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Egon Friedell, A Cultural History of the Modern Age , tr. Charles Francis Atkinson, Vol. I (1930; rpt. London: Vision Press, 1953), p. 147: ...
Monday, December 12, 2022

Liberation Through Restriction

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Goethe, as quoted in: Emil Ludwig, Goethe: The History of a Man , tr. Ethel Colburn Mayne (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1928), p. 136: To live w...
Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Two Risks

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Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena , tr. E. F. J. Payne, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 [1974]), vol. II., ch. XXII...

Two Ways With Philosophy

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Entry from my personal Journal , written in November 24, 2022: There are at least two ways in dealing with and making use of Philosophy, dec...
Monday, November 28, 2022

Lucretius On Love

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Titi Lucreti Cari, De Rerum Natura , tr. H. A. J. Munro, (Cambridge, London, 1864 [2009]), vol. I., bk. IV., nearly lines 1045-1209, pp. 199...
Sunday, November 27, 2022

Our Duty

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Henri-Frédéric Amiel,  The Journal Intime , May 27, 1849: To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of li...

That Women Are All Bitter-Sweet

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Achilleus Tatios, The Loves of Clitopho and Leucippe , bk. I., found in: The Greek Romances (Scriptores Erotici Græci), tr. Rowland Smith,...
Friday, November 25, 2022

A Human Voice

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From a letter by Thomas Carlyle to Relph Emerson, Chelsea, London, 30 April, 1860: I feel always, what I have some times written, that there...
Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Enrichment Of One's Soul

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Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or , pt. I., tr. Hans Hong and Edna Hong, (Princeton, 1987), The Immediate Erotic Stages, pp. 60-61: What one has ...
Monday, November 21, 2022

Forgetting How To Laugh

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Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or , pt. I., tr. Hans Hong and Edna Hong, (Princeton, 1987), Diapsalmata, p. 34: When I was very young, I forgot i...

A Heavy Soul

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Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or , pt. I., tr. Hans Hong and Edna Hong, (Princeton, 1987), Diapsalmata, p. 29: My soul is so heavy that no thoug...
Sunday, November 20, 2022

Literary Criticism, How It Should Be

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Leslie Stephen, Hours in a Library , vol. III., (London, 1892), Charlotte Brontë, pp. 1-2: . . . After all, though criticism cannot boast of...