How would love for books be developed?
W Somerset
Maugham: Philip starts reading
From:
W Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage,
ch. 9
Page 2
|
Space of happiness
It was a vast stretch of country, sparkling with
golden light, with cities in the distance; and through it meandered
the silver ribband of the river. Wide spaces are rare in the corner
of Kent which Philip knew, the sea offers the only broad horizon,
and the immense distance he saw now gave him a peculiar, an
indescribable thrill. He felt suddenly elated. Though he did not
know it, it was the first time that he had experienced, quite
undiluted with foreign emotions, the sense of beauty. They sat on a
bench, the three of them, for the others had gone on, and while the
girls talked in rapid German, Philip, indifferent to their
proximity, feasted his eyes.
"By Jove, I am happy," he said to himself
unconsciously.
Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage, ch.
22 |
He put some more coals on the fire so that there
should be a cheerful blaze when he came in to tea, and went into the
drawing- room. He loosened his collar, arranged the cushions, and settled
himself comfortably on the sofa. But thinking the drawing-room a little
chilly, Mrs. Carey brought him a rug from the hall; she put it over his
legs and tucked it round his feet. She drew the blinds so that the light
should not offend his eyes, and since he had closed them already went out
of the room on tiptoe. The Vicar was at peace with himself today, and in
ten minutes he was asleep. He snored softly.
It was the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, and the
collect began with the words: O God, whose blessed Son was manifested that
he might destroy the works of the devil, and make us the sons of God, and
heirs of Eternal life. Philip
read it through. He could make no sense of it. He began saying the words
aloud to himself, but many of them were unknown to him, and the
construction of the sentences was strange. He could not get more than two
lines in his head. And his attention was constantly wandering: there were
fruit trees trained on the walls of the vicarage, and a long twig beat now
and then against the windowpane; sheep grazed stolidly in the field beyond
the garden. It seemed as though there were knots inside his brain. Then
panic seized him that he would not know the words by tea-time, and he kept
on whispering them to himself quickly; he did not try to understand, but
merely to get them parrot-like into his memory.
Cf. Somerset Maugham, Discovering
the unreal [at Kierkegaard's margin]
|
Rilke, Letter to a Young Poet |
Plato, Whom are we talking to? |
Kierkegaard, My work as an author
| Emerson, Self-knowledge |
Gibson - McRury, Discovering one's face |
Emerson, We differ in art,
not in wisdom
| Joyce,
Portrait of the Artist
