A Few Words from Miss Austen

A few of my favorite Austen quotes:

Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.

Woe to the crappy clergymen:
It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.

The writer's delight:
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery.

The arrogance of men:
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.

Wit

I'm reading a play called "Wit" by Margaret Edson. I'm not finished with it, but I already recommend it. I find the tediousness of reading plays an aversion to picking them up in the first place, but I'd heard about the HBO film "Wit" starring Emma Thompson, from a friend for years who said I would absolutely love it.

But being the foot-dragger that I am when it comes to other people's recommendations I have yet to see it, however it is resting comfortably at the bottom of my Netflix queue, so eventually I will see the film.

However, the play ended up in my hands after we had dinner with my fiancee's professor, a lovely man, who loves literature and of the hundreds of books in his collection, pulled this slim paperback from the shelf and recommended it to me.

So, I'm reading "Wit". The play is accessible for the most part, directorial asides included sparingly to imagine with some precision the illustration of the characters' movements, but not overly pushy to the degree I lose focus of the orater. I appreciate the style of text, writing things side by side so as to show an internal dialogue while someone else is speaking, rather than overtly saying in a directorial aside, "This is internal dialogue. The character is distracted and is only half-listening to the other." The text respects me. Mostly though the play is deliciously clever, robustly intelligent, and emotionally prudent. Hence, I like it.

As a professor of English Poetry, particularly specialized in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne, Edson is clever, her writing intelligent (and as was said many times in grad school writing classes: "tight"), there are carefully plotted reflections on life, death, youth, health, words... Not the sentimental meanderings of a dying woman using poetics to magnify her suffering or inflate her own importance while contorting alongside her expiring mortality. Why is it when people are "literary" are they often schmaltzy when it comes to the things of life and death? Edson isn't.

An aquaintance of mine is often referred to as a "thoughtful" person, a "literary type" who is always operating on a "deeper level" than the rest of "us". Funny what a little reclusiveness can do, emerging from a hole of solitiude only to drop a few fancy words here and there in order to impress the impressionable.

What a terrific rouse. I do not think one can be thoughtful or "operating on a deeper level" simply by reading about things. One must live. Moving as a shadow cast over a playground, admittedly there is presence, even semblence of life. But it is not a person. Shadows are not in any danger of bleeding, getting run over, or being subjected to scorn. Shadows are safe. They only appear and fade, bending shape from time to time, but always, always unalive and unharmed.

Not that I wish anyone harm, but the challenges of life require participation of the flesh, accountability of the mouth, cooperation of the heart. I do not qualify thoughtfulness among the highest qualities a person can possess. I count it honesty and trust. Thougtfulness can be attained in solitide. Trust and honesty is cooperative. I see that in this play. An academic, a poet, a thinker... not hiding behind those grand avenues, but functioning fully in the midst of them. Certainly Edson does not seek out this experience. It comes upon her. But once upon her, she does not imagine it is not there. She experiences what is brought upon her. I find she is the one who, to put it shallowly, "operates on a deeper level."

As a lover of books, poetry, and now a play, I realize I walk a fine line when assessing the value of solitude, of composing oneself into the imagination, living only between the pages of someone elses recorded restlessness, romances or respites.

Edson, from what I have read thus far is setting herself up in the same fashion. Will she or won't she have to move among the dead, struggle with the un-exquisite physical pain of cancer, or just beat back the temptation of proposed melodrama of death and dying.

Virginia Woolf wrote, "If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people." I take this quote in many different directions. One as a rebuke against gossip. The truth about others is very rarely accessible, or even our business to know, and yet the human condition of prattling off supposedly informed opinions about other people based on the tattered truths of gossip, is a common practice. It is even mildly entertaining the way "reality television" is entertaining.

No one ever stops to consider that they themselves are hiding, afraid of accusation, only willing to weild their own assessments of others into the world, rather than consider the truth of their own lives. How much more pleasant churches, workplaces, families, and communities would be if they learned to shut their mouths about things that aren't true about other people, and tried to face the truth of themselves. How much richer relationships would be if people told the truth about themselves rather than pointing out the estimated truths or lies about someone else.

But of course it is more likely this quote is a direction to writers to be honest about their own condition, thoughts, beliefs before they begin writing on behalf of a character. The gravity of which is incomprehensible to me as a writer. How do I tell the truth about myself? Thoughtfulness, here, a most important component of telling the truth.

Edson does this, not just because she is the character in question, but because she must be honest about herself or the play fails. She must not hide and pretend she is not an academic, clever, or creative. She also cannot assume for herself or for her character in the play that she can honestly expect to romanticize or dramatize her experience becuase she has the tools to do so. She lives through it, reflects on it, writes it down, again and again until the truth is told. It's not true that she's afraid all the time. It's not true that dying means you lose your ability to appreciate humor. It's not true that writers are best at their most bleak.

I'm enjoying the experience of reading a play. A play I know is based on real life. I appreciate her boldness and look forward, not to the curtain, but to all the acts that come before it, as they are truly active and eager, urgent and alive.

Augustine's Confessions

If I were going to add a name to the blog to represent the theological side of our musings, it might very well be Augustine. I don't agree with him on everything, but his insight, his honesty, and his heart are staggering. I'm terribly fascinated by his Confessions, and, intellectual work aside, consider that his was the first autobiography, the first manuscript written in a painfully honest, introspective style. I've heard it said that until Augustine no one had considered so personal a story worth telling. It's kind of like Don Quixote being the first modern novel and establishing a genre we can't really imagine being without.

Here are a couple of nuggets from F.J. Sheed's translation of the Latin:

But amongst these vices and crimes and countless iniquities are the sins into which men fall although they are in general on the right way. By those who judge rightly, these sins are blamed according to the rule of perfection, but the person themselves may still be praised for the hope of a better harvest, as the blade gives hope of the growing corn.

And here's another that I include for the vividness of the language. I'd like to know to say somethin' like this in Latin.

For swelling and undigested discord often belches forth bitter words when in the venom of intimate conversations with a present friend hatred at its rawest is breathed upon an absent enemy.

.

That's a mouthful, and not a delicious one at that.

Sonnets from the Portugueese XIV

XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of ease on such a day--
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheek dry,--
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Quote by George Eliot

"A friend is one to whom one may pour out the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away." -- George Eliot

I'm so grateful for my friends and for the thoughts of writers who can illustrate, so much better than I, the spirit of friendship, loyalty, honesty and fidelity.

Friendship is frail when saturated in the spirits of gossip, self-interest, and judgement... and will inevitably decay. I have known people who are baffled when the poison of their tounges, the cancerous jealousy of their hearts and the uncaring actions of their deeds who then wonder why communication, trust and fellowship do not exist. I've been that person from time-to-time, but usually find a means of humility and reconcilliation when I am in the wrong. Not so with everyone. Some find the channels of their egos spilling over with stubborn resistance to compassion and accountability.

If only friendship were as strong as steel. If only it never failed. If only the pain one causes another could be rectified every time, but an unwilling heart and smug insistance threaten the tender threads of friendship

Personally, I am guarded about with whom I share my life, my thoughts, my secrets. I am very blessed to have friends who are gentle, encouraging, humble and do not seek driving perfection from me. I am grateful for the generosity of their spirits to "blow the rest away"... It is a comfort to find the delicacy of friendship spoken truly in scripture, literature and in life...

Knowing God

I've recently started reading Knowing God by J.I. Packer, and while I can't claim to be in agreement with him on some points (especially concerning graven images), his stuff is well thought out, thorough, and interesting. I think his definition of wisdom is beautiful, from a chapter called "God Only Wise."

What does the Bible mean when it calls God wise? In Scripture, wisdom is a moral as well as an intellectual quality, more than mere intelligence or knowledge, just as it is more than mere cleverness or cunning. For us to be truly wise, in the Bible sense, our intelligence and cleverness must be harnessed to a right end. Wisdom is the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it.

Wisdom is, in fact, the practical side of moral goodness. As such, it is found in its fullness only in God. He alone is naturally and entirely and invariably wise. "His wisdom ever waketh," says the hymn, and it is true. God is never other than wise in anything that he does. Wisdom, as the old theologians used to say, is his essence, just as power, and truth, and goodness, are his essence-- integral elements, that is in his character.

I think this is a beautiful illustration of wisdom, with the capacity and will accompanying the ability to move, but all of these contingent on their alignment with "the best and highest goal." I'll have to dig up Augustine's writing on Satan's great sin (and subsequently Adam's and the rest of humanity): to choose to elevate lessers goods to the position of highest good.

Wisdom is the power to see, and the inclination to choose, the best and highest goal, together with the surest means of attaining it.

Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen is my all-time favorite (or should I say favourite) writer. I adore her illustrative tales of culture, relationships, and love.

I began reading Austen in my early college days under the tutelage of Marti Leighty, a professor of mine. I don't know whether I was reading Austen at the right time at the right place or just with the right person, but I was immediately enveloped in the passion that is Austen.

My favorite of the Austen novels is Pride and Prejudice. I will likely post about this several times as I plan to re-read the book this spring before my own nuptials. I find the heroine, Elizabeth Bennett, written as close to the true nature and heart of a woman if I have ever read one. She is not without flaw and failure, has a temper and can be rude, but is keenly aware of her place (and her family's place) among the society of the country and with valiant efforts, and true heroic form, tries to save them from perilous ruin by the un-managed manners of the Bennett household.

How often does she intelligently speak of her interests or of the people around her... how much does Austen give way to the failure of Lizzy to always be self-controlled (glorious!)... how much more victorious and enjoyable is the ending having witnessed such love, regret, humility and, yes, pride... more than a novel of politics, manners or quaint country folk. I believe this novel, better than any romance I have read, keenly defines the trappings of manhood and womanhood in society, regardless of time, culture, language... at the heart of a story is a woman, like a few modern women I know, fighting with her own desire to be whole without a man, but once in love or intrigued by love, can no longer deny she has a deep desire to be loved and to be acknowledged in her beauty, intelligence and talents.

Like Elizabeth, Darcy is a man coming to terms with his station as a gentleman... unexpected though she may have been Darcy must, once encountering Elizabeth, deal with her. She is not to be ignored, overlooked or simply, as we find, swept away by a mediocre proposal.

Happily ever after does not mean peace and happiness forever after and I believe, given the whole of P&P that these two will continue to conflict with one another, enjoy the passionate commonalities of their lives and revel in the strengths of the other... as any good marriage would.

More, of course, to come on this most fantastic work.