Time does not bring relief (Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, 'There is no memory of him here!'
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

from Harrow the Ninth, Act One, chapter 10 (Tamsyn Muir)

Before Harrowhark could take this prompt to make a hasty exit, the necromancer of the Fifth said without transition: 'Are you interested in Lyctoral materials?'

This was an introduction, or a probe, or something different altogether.  Scrutiny into the Ninth's affairs might be deflected.  She was more intrigued by the idea of an introduction.

'If you are asking whether or not we have any within my House,' said Harrow slowly, 'I will not answer that question.'

'What a shame!  I understand,' said Pent, who did not appear to be discomfited by refusals, or by the sacramental paint.  'It was more to gauge your interest though.  This library is stuffed.  The books, now, the books are interesting - but the Lyctoral traces - phwoar.'

Abigail Pent had not seemed the type of woman to articulate phwoar.  She said it very boyishly.

from Evelina, volume I, letter XXXIII (Frances Burney)

When we had been out near two hours, and expected every moment to stop at the place of our destination, I observed that Lady Howard’s servant, who attended us on horseback, rode on forward till he was out of sight: and soon after returning, came up to the chariot window, and delivering a note to Madame Duval, said he had met a boy who was just coming with it to Howard Grove from the clerk of Mr. Tyrell.

While she was reading it, he rode round to the other window, and making a sign for secrecy, put into my hand a slip of paper, on which was written, “Whatever happens, be not alarmed - for you are safe - though you endanger all mankind!”

I readily imagined that Sir Clement must be the author of this note, which prepared me to expect some disagreeable adventure: but I had no time to ponder upon it; for Madame Duval had no sooner read her own letter, than, in an angry tone of voice, she exclaimed, “Why, now, what a thing is this! here we’re come all this way for nothing!”

from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, chapter thirty-eight, The Second War Begins (J.K. Rowling)

 'Yes, it was rather horrible,' said Luna conversationally.  'I still feel very sad about it sometimes.'

from The Balkan Trilogy (Olivia Manning)

The difficulty of dealing with Guy, she thought, lay in the fact that he was so often right.  She and Clarence could claim that their evening had been spoilt by the presence of Dubedat.  She knew it had, in fact, been spoilt not by Guy's generosity but their own lack of it. 

-

Guy had taken her there once but the visit had depressed her.  She liked the Greek boys but was shy with them - being so constituted that she could cope with only one or two people at a time; but Guy, she saw, was having the time of his life.  He was an adolescent among adolescents, and they were all elevated by the belief that, together, they would reform the world.  She was made uneasy by their faith in certain political leaders, their condemnation of others, the atmosphere of conspiracy and her own guilty self-doubt.  She was an individual and as such had no hope of reforming the world.  The stories that inspired them - stories of injustic and misery - merely roused in her a sense of personal failure.

'But you must sacrifice your individuality,' Guy told her.  'It's nothing but egoism.  You must unite with other right-thinking, self-abnegating people - then you can achieve anything.'

The idea filled her with gloom.

I Stop Writing the Poem (Tess Gallagher)

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I'm still a woman.
I'll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I'll get back
to the poem. I'll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there's a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it's done.

Odes 4.7 (Horace, trans. A.E. Housman)

diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis 
arboribusque comae;
mutat terra vices et decrescentia ripas
flumina praetereunt;

Gratia cum Nymphis geminisque sororibus audet
ducere nuda choros.
immortalia ne speres, monet annus et almum
quae rapit hora diem.

frigora mitescunt Zephyris, ver proterit aestas,
interitura simul
pomifer autumnus fruges effuderit, et mox
bruma recurrit iners.

damna tamen celeres reparant caelestia lunae:
nos ubi decidimus
quo pater Aeneas, quo dives Tullus et Ancus,
puluis et umbra sumus.

quis scit an adiciant hodiernae crastina summae
tempora di superi?
cuncta manus avidas fugient heredis, amico
quae dederis animo.

cum semel occideris et de te splendida Minos
fecerit arbitria,
non, Torquate, genus, non te facundia, non te
restituet pietas;

infernis neque enim tenebris Diana pudicum
liberat Hippolytum,
nec Lethaea valet Theseus abrumpere caro
vincula Pirithoo.

The snows are fled away, leaves on the shaws
And grasses in the mead renew their birth,
The river to the river-bed withdraws,
And altered is the fashion of the earth.

The Nymphs and Graces three put off their fear
And unapparelled in the woodland play.
The swift hour and the brief prime of the year
Say to the soul, Thou wast not born for aye.

Thaw follows frost; hard on the heel of spring
Treads summer sure to die, for hard on hers
Comes autumn with his apples scattering;
Then back to wintertide, when nothing stirs.

But oh, whate’er the sky-led seasons mar,
Moon upon moon rebuilds it with her beams;
Come we where Tullus and where Ancus are
And good Aeneas, we are dust and dreams.

Torquatus, if the gods in heaven shall add
The morrow to the day, what tongue has told?
Feast then thy heart, for what thy heart has had
The fingers of no heir will ever hold.

When thou descendest once the shades among,
The stern assize and equal judgment o’er,
Not thy long lineage nor thy golden tongue,
No, nor thy righteousness, shall friend thee more.

Night holds Hippolytus the pure of stain,
Diana steads him nothing, he must stay;
And Theseus leaves Pirithous in the chain
The love of comrades cannot take away.

from Conversations with Friends, part two, chapter 24 (Sally Rooney)

The next day, I received an email from Melissa.  I was sitting in the library, typing up a page of notes, when her email arrived.  I decided that before reading it I would take a walk around the library desks.  Slowly I arose from my seat and began my walk.  Inside, everything was very brown.  Out of the windows I could see a rattle of wind making its way through the trees.  On the cricket green a woman in shorts was running with her elbows working up and down like small pistons.  I cast a glance back at my own library desk to ensure my laptop was still there.  It sat glowing ominously into the nothingness.  I walked halfway around the room before looping back to my own seat, as if this circuit around the library desks was actually a physical endurance test of some kind.  Then I opened the email.

from a letter to Christopher Tolkien, 11 July 1972 (J.R.R. Tolkien)

I have at last got busy about Mummy's grave ... The inscription I should like is:

EDITH MARY TOLKIEN

1889-1971

Lúthien

: brief and jejune, except for Lúthien, which says for me more than a multitude of words: for she was (and knew she was) my Lúthien.*

July 13.  Say what you feel, without reservation, about this addition.  I began this under the stress of great emotion & regret - and in any case I am afflicted from time to time (increasingly) with an overwhelming sense of bereavement.  I need advice.  Yet I hope none of my children will feel that the use of this name is a sentimental fancy.  It is at any rate not comparable to the quoting of pet names in obituaries.  I never called Edith Lúthien - but she was the source of the story that in time became the chief part of the Silmarillion.  It was first conceived in a small woodland glade filled with hemlocks at Roos in Yorkshire (where I was for a brief time in command of an outpost of the Humber Garrison in 1917, and she was able to live with me for a while).  In those days her hair was raven, her skin clear, her eyes brighter than you have seen them, and she could sing - and dance.  But the story has gone crooked, & I am left, and I cannot plead before the inexorable Mandos.

I will say no more now.  But I should like ere long to have a long talk with you.  For if as seems probable I shall never write any ordered biography - it is against my nature, which expresses itself about things deepest felt in tales and myths - someone close in heart to me should know something about things that records do not record: the dreadful sufferings of our childhoods, from which we rescued one another, but could not wholly heal the wounds that later often proved disabling; the sufferings that we endured after our love began - all of which (over and above our personal weaknesses) might help to make pardonable, or understandable, the lapses and darknesses which at times marred our lives - and to explain how these never touched our depths nor dimmed our memories of our youthful love.  For ever (especially when alone) we still met in the woodland glade, and went hand in hand many times to escape the shadow of imminent death before our last parting.

*She knew the earliest form of the legend (written in hospital), and also the poem eventually printed as Aragorn's song in L.R.

from The Young Visiters, chapter 9, A Proposale (Daisy Ashford)

Next morning while imbibing his morning tea beneath his pink silken quilt Bernard decided he must marry Ethel with no more delay. I love the girl he said to himself and she must be mine but I somehow feel I can not propose in London it would not be seemly in the city of London. We must go for a day in the country and when surrounded by the gay twittering of the birds and the smell of the cows I will lay my suit at her feet and he waved his arm wildly at the gay thought. Then he sprang from bed and gave a rat tat at Ethels door.
Are you up my dear he called.

Well not quite said Ethel hastilly jumping from her downy nest.

Be quick cried Bernard I have a plan to spend a day near Windsor Castle and we will take our lunch and spend a happy day.

Oh Hurrah shouted Ethel I shall soon be ready as I had my bath last night so wont wash very much now.

No dont said Bernard and added in a rarther fervent tone through the chink of the door you are fresher than the rose my dear no soap could make you fairer.

Then he dashed off very embarrased to dress. Ethel blushed and felt a bit excited as she heard the words and she put on a new white muslin dress in a fit of high spirits. She looked very beautifull with some red roses in her hat and the dainty red ruge in her cheeks looked quite the thing. Bernard heaved a sigh and his eyes flashed as he beheld her and Ethel thorght to herself what a fine type of manhood he reprisented with his nice thin legs in pale broun trousers and well fitting spats and a red rose in his button hole and rarther a sporting cap which gave him a great air with its quaint check and little flaps to pull down if necesarry. Off they started the envy of all the waiters.

They arrived at Windsor very hot from the jorney and Bernard at once hired a boat to row his beloved up the river. Ethel could not row but she much enjoyed seeing the tough sunburnt arms of Bernard tugging at the oars as she lay among the rich cushons of the dainty boat. She had a rarther lazy nature but Bernard did not know of this. However he soon got dog tired and sugested lunch by the mossy bank.

Oh yes said Ethel quickly opening the sparkling champaigne.

Dont spill any cried Bernard as he carved some chicken.

They eat and drank deeply of the charming viands ending up with merangs and choclates.

Let us now bask under the spreading trees said Bernard in a passiunate tone.

Oh yes lets said Ethel and she opened her dainty parasole and sank down upon the long green grass. She closed her eyes but she was far from asleep. Bernard sat beside her in profound silence gazing at her pink face and long wavy eye lashes. He puffed at his pipe for some moments while the larks gaily caroled in the blue sky. Then he edged a trifle closer to Ethels form.

Ethel he murmured in a trembly voice.

Oh what is it said Ethel hastily sitting up.

Words fail me ejaculated Bernard horsly my passion for you is intense he added fervently. It has grown day and night since I first beheld you.

Oh said Ethel in supprise I am not prepared for this and she lent back against the trunk of the tree.

Bernard placed one arm tightly round her. When will you marry me Ethel he uttered you must be my wife it has come to that I love you so intensly that if you say no I shall perforce dash my body to the brink of yon muddy river he panted wildly.

Oh dont do that implored Ethel breathing rarther hard.

Then say you love me he cried.

Oh Bernard she sighed fervently I certinly love you madly you are to me like a Heathen god she cried looking at his manly form and handsome flashing face I will indeed marry you.

How soon gasped Bernard gazing at her intensly.

As soon as possible said Ethel gently closing her eyes.

My Darling whispered Bernard and he seiezed her in his arms we will be marrid next week.

Oh Bernard muttered Ethel this is so sudden.

No no cried Bernard and taking the bull by both horns he kissed her violently on her dainty face. My bride to be he murmered several times.

Ethel trembled with joy as she heard the mistick words.

Oh Bernard she said little did I ever dream of such as this and she suddenly fainted into his out stretched arms.

Oh I say gasped Bernard and laying the dainty burden on the grass he dashed to the waters edge and got a cup full of the fragrant river to pour on his true loves pallid brow.

She soon came to and looked up with a sickly smile Take me back to the Gaierty hotel she whispered faintly.

With plesure my darling said Bernard I will just pack up our viands ere I unloose the boat.

Ethel felt better after a few drops of champagne and began to tidy her hair while Bernard packed the remains of the food. Then arm in arm they tottered to the boat.

I trust you have not got an illness my darling murmured Bernard as he helped her in.

Oh no I am very strong said Ethel I fainted from joy she added to explain matters.

Oh I see said Bernard handing her a cushon well some people do he added kindly and so saying they rowed down the dark stream now flowing silently beneath a golden moon. All was silent as the lovers glided home with joy in their hearts and radiunce on their faces only the sound of the mystearious water lapping against the frail vessel broke the monotony of the night.

So I will end my chapter.

from De Amicitia, sections 87-8 (Cicero)

quin etiam si quis asperitate ea est et immanitate naturae, congressus ut hominum fugiat atque oderit, qualem fuisse Athenis Timonem nescio quem accepimus, tamen is pati non possit, ut non anquirat aliquem, apud quem evomat virus acerbitatis suae. atque hoc maxime iudicaretur, si quid tale possit contingere, ut aliquis nos deus ex hac hominum frequentia tolleret et in solitudine uspiam collocaret atque ibi suppeditans omnium rerum quas natura desiderat, abundantiam et copiam, hominis omnino aspiciendi potestatem eriperet - quis tam esset ferreus qui eam vitam ferre posset cuique non auferret fructum voluptatum omnium solitudo? verum ergo illud est, quod a Tarentino Archyta, ut opinor, dici solitum nostros senes commemorare audivi ab aliis senibus auditum: si quis in caelum ascendisset naturamque mundi et pulchritudinem siderum perspexisset, insuavem illam admirationem ei fore, quae iucundissima fuisset, si aliquem cui narraret habuisset. sic natura solitarium nihil amat semperque ad aliquod tamquam adminiculum adnititur, quod in amicissimo quoque dulcissimum est.

No, even if anyone were of a nature so harsh and monstrous as to shun and loathe human society - such, for example, as we hear that a certain Timon of Athens once was - yet even such a person could not avoid seeking out someone in whose direction he might pour out the venom of his embittered soul. And this might best be judged if something like this could happen: suppose that a god were to remove us from this human world and put us in some solitary place, and, while providing us there in abundance and plenty with all the material things our nature desires, were to take from us altogether the ability to see any other person - who would be so iron-hearted as to be able to endure that sort of a life? And who is there from whom solitude would not take away the enjoyment of every pleasure? It is certainly true, therefore, what Archytas of Tarentum (I think it was) famously said, something which I have heard repeated by our old men who in their turn heard it from their elders. I mean when he said, 'If someone were to  ascend  into heaven and gaze upon the whole workings of the universe and the beauty of the stars, the marvellous sight would give him no joy if he had to keep it to himself.  And yet, if only there had been someone to describe the spectacle to, it would have filled him with delight.'  Nature therefore, abhors solitude, and always strives for some sort of support; and the best support is a really dear friend.

from Crampton Hodnet, chapter 11, Love in the British Museum (Barbara Pym)

'What can we do?' she said, dealing rather inefficiently with the tea.  'There isn't anything we can do.'  She was feeling more normal now, although still a little dazed, as if she had just woken out of a dream.

'But ...' Francis went on stirring his tea, into which he had forgotten to put sugar.  'We love each other.  I love you and you love me too, don't you?'

'Yes,' said Barbara doubtfully.  'I do, only ...'  How could she explain to him what her love was like?  That although it was a love stronger than death, it wasn't the kind of love one did anything about?  On the contrary, doing nothing about it was one of its chief characteristics, because if one did anything it would be different - it might even disappear altogether.

'Aren't you sure then?' he asked.

'Oh, yes ...' she said uncertainly.  She dug her fork into a cake and it broke into little pieces.  She chased the hard bits unhappily round her plate.

from Marking Time (Elizabeth Jane Howard)

But really, she felt, although it might be OK in a sort of personal way the fact remained that she had failed to have a calm disagreeing conversation with two of the people she was most attached to, and she, who had often watched with contempt her parents and their peers saying things to one another that they did not mean found herself wondering uneasily whether concealment and deceit were a necessary part of human relationships.  Because if they were, she was going to be pretty bad at them.

Beeny Cliff (Thomas Hardy)

I

O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free -
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.


II

The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.


III

A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.


IV

- Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?


V

What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is - elsewhere - whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.

from True at First Light (Ernest Hemingway)

'Everybody was so serious,' Miss Mary said. 'I never saw all of you joke people get so serious.'

'Honey, it would have been awful if I had had to kill her. And I was worried about you.'

'Everybody so serious,' she said. 'And everybody holding on to my arm. I knew how to get back to the car. Nobody had to hold on to my arm.'

--

The day after a heavy rain is a splendid day for the propagation of religion while the time of the rain itself seems to turn men's minds from the beauty of their faith. All rain had stopped now and I was sitting by the fire drinking tea and looking out over the sodden country. Miss Mary was still sleeping soundly because there was no sun to wake her. Mwindi came to the table by the fire with a fresh pot of hot tea and poured me a cup.

'Plenty rain,' he said. 'Now finished.'

'Mwindi,' I said. 'You know what the Mahdi said. "We see plainly in the laws of nature that rain comes down from the heavens in the time of need. The greenness and verdure of the earth depend upon heavenly rain. If it ceases for a time the water in the upper strata of the earth gradually dries up. Thus we see that there is an attraction between the heavenly and the earthly waters. Revelation stands in the same relation to human reason as heavenly water does to the earthly water."'

'Too much rain for campi. Plenty good for Shamba,' Mwindi announced.

'"As with the cessation of heavenly water earthly water begins gradually to dry up; so also is the case of the human reason which without the heavenly revelation loses its purity and strength."'

'How I know that is Mahdi?' Mwindi said.

'Ask Charo.'

Mwindi grunted. He knew Charo was very devout but not a theologian.

--

Miss Mary was writing a great poem about Africa but the trouble was that she made it up in her head sometimes and forgot to write it down and then it would be gone like dreams. She wrote some of it down but she would not show it to anybody. We all had great faith in her poem about Africa and I still have but I would like it better if she would actually write it. We were all reading the Georgics then in the C. Day Lewis translation. We had two copies but they were always being lost or mislaid and I have never known a book to be more mis-layable. The only fault I could ever find with the Mantovan was that he made all normally intelligent people feel as though they too could write great poetry. Dante only made crazy people feel they could write great poetry. That was not true of course but then almost nothing was true and especially not in Africa. In Africa a thing is true at first light and a lie by noon and you have no more respect for it than for the lovely, perfect weed-fringed lake you see across the sun-baked salt plain. You have walked across that plain in the morning and you know that no such lake is there. But now it is there absolutely true, beautiful and believable.

--

That night Mary said she was very tired and she went to sleep in her own bed. I lay awake for a while and then went out to sit by the fire. In the chair watching the fire and thinking of Pop and how sad it was he was not immortal and how happy I was that he had been able to be with us so much and that we had been lucky to have three or four things together that were like the old days along with just the happiness of being together and talking and joking, I went to sleep.

from The French Lieutenant's Woman (John Fowles)

He had thought by his brief gesture and assurance to take the first step towards putting out the fire the doctor had told him he had lit; but when one is oneself the fuel, firefighting is a hopeless task.

-

He was invited to use the Athenaeum, he had shaken hands with a senator, no less; and with the wrinkled claw of one even greater, if less hectoringly loquacious - old Nathaniel Lodge, who had heard the cannon on Bunker Hill from his nurse's room in Beacon Street. An even greater still, whom one might have not very interestedly chatted to if one had chanced to gain entry to the Lowell circle in Cambridge, and who was himself on the early threshold of a decision precisely the opposite in its motives and predispositions, a ship, as it were, straining at its moorings in a contrary current and arming for its sinuous and loxodromic voyage to the richer though silted harbour of Rye (but I must not ape the master), Charles did not meet.

-

Once, as he made his way to the Athenaeum across the Common, he saw a girl ahead of him on an oblique path. He strode across the grass, he was so sure. But she was not Sarah. And he had to stammer an apology. He went on his way shaken, so intense in those few moments had been his excitement. The next day he advertised in a Boston newspaper. Wherever he went after that he advertised.

'If truth in hearts that perish' (A.E. Housman)

If truth in hearts that perish
Could move the powers on high,
I think the love I bear you
Should make you not to die.

Sure, sure, if stedfast meaning,
If single thought could save,
The world might end to-morrow,
You should not see the grave.

This long and sure-set liking,
This boundless will to please,
— Oh, you should live for ever
If there were help in these.

But now, since all is idle,
To this lost heart be kind,
Ere to a town you journey
Where friends are ill to find.

from Der Rosenkavalier, Act Three (Hugo von Hofmannsthal)

Marschallin:

Hab' mir's gelobt, ihn lieb zu haben in der richtigen Weis',
daß ich selbst sein Lieb' zu einer andern
noch lieb hab! Hab' mir freilich nicht gedacht,
daß es so bald mir auferlegt sollt' werden!

(seufzend)

Es sind die mehreren Dinge auf der Welt,
so daß sie ein's nicht glauben tät',
wenn man sie möcht' erzählen hör'n.
Alleinig wer's erlebt, der glaubt daran und weiß nicht wie -
Da steht der Bub' und da steh' ich, und mit dem fremden Mädel dort
wird er so glücklich sein, als wie halt Männer
das Glücklichsein versteh'n.

(I chose to love him in the right way,
so that I would love even his love for another!
I truly didn't believe
that I would have to bear it so soon!

(sighing)

Most things in this world
are unbelievable
when you hear about them.
But when they happen to you, you believe them, and don't know why -
There stands the boy and here I stand, and with that strange girl
he will be as happy as any man
knows how to be.)

from The Invention of Love, Act Two (Tom Stoppard)

Housman (watching the runners) What do I want?

Chamberlain Nothing which you'd call indecent, though I don't see what's wrong with it myself. You want to be brothers-in-arms, to have him to yourself ... to be shipwrecked together, (to) perform valiant deeds to earn his admiration, to save him from certain death, to die for him - to die in his arms, like a Spartan, kissed once on the lips ... or just run his errands in the meanwhile. You want him to know what cannot be spoken, and to make the perfect reply, in the same language. (Pause. Still without inflection) He's going to win it. (Finally he warms into excitement as the race passes in front of them.) By God, he is! Come on, Jackson! Up the Patent Office! ... He's won it!

from Uncle Vanya, Act Two (Anton Chekhov, trans. Michael Frayn)

ASTROV. A woman can become a man's friend only through the following progression: first - acquaintance; then - mistress; thereafter, certainly - friend.