This link has been bookmarked by 5 people . It was first bookmarked on 19 Jun 2009, by Carolina Caliaba.
-
11 Feb 14
-
Septimus Warren Smith, who found himself unable to pass, heard him. Septimus Warren Smith, aged about thirty, pale-faced, beak-nosed, wearing brown shoes and a shabby overcoat, with hazel eyes which had that look of apprehension in them which makes complete strangers apprehensive too. The world has raised its whip; where will it descend?
-
Septimus looked.
-
Septimus thought, and this gradual drawing together of everything to one centre before his eyes, as if some horror had come almost to the surface and was about to burst into flames, terrified him. The world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames. It is I who am blocking the way, he thought. Was he not being looked at and pointed at; was he not weighted there, rooted to the pavement, for a purpose? But for what purpose?
-
because Septimus had said, "I will kill myself"; an awful thing to say.
-
Only last autum
-
For Dr. Holmes had told her to make her husband (who had nothing whatever seriously the matter with him but was a little out of sorts) take an interest in things outside himself.
-
So, thought Septimus, looking up, they are signalling to me. Not indeed in actual words; that is, he could not read the language yet; but it was plain enough, this beauty, this exquisite beauty, and tears filled his eyes as he looked at the smoke words languishing and melting in the sky and bestowing upon him in their inexhaustible charity and laughing goodness one shape after another of unimaginable beauty and signalling their intention to provide him, for nothing, for ever, for looking merely, with beauty, more beauty! Tears ran down his cheeks.
-
A marvellous discovery indeed--that the human voice in certain atmospheric conditions (for one must be scientific, above all scientific) can quicken trees into life!
-
like plumes on horses' heads, feathers on ladies', so proudly they rose and fell, so superbly, would have sent him mad. But he would not go mad. He would shut his eyes; he would see no more.
-
And the leaves being connected by millions of fibres with his own body, there on the seat,
-
but Septimus had fought; he was brave; he was not Septimus now.
-
For he was gone, she thought--gone, as he threatened, to kill himself--to throw himself under a cart! But no; there he was;
-
There is a God.
-
Men must not cut down trees.
-
piercingly in Greek words how there is no crime
-
how there is no death.
-
the scapegoat, the eternal sufferer, but he did not want it, he moaned, putting from him with a wave of his hand that eternal suffering, that eternal loneliness.
-
having left Septimus, who wasn't Septimus any longer, to say hard, cruel, wicked things, to talk to himself, to talk to a dead man, on the seat over there;
-
But Septimus let himself think about horrible things, as she could too, if she tried. He had grown stranger and stranger.
-
Yet he could be happy when he chose.
-
Suddenly he said, "Now we will kill ourselves," when they were standing by the river, and he looked at it with a look which she had seen in his eyes when a train went by, or an omnibus--a look as if something fascinated him; and she felt he was going from her and she caught him by the arm.
-
explain how wicked people were; how he could see them making up lies as they passed in the street. He knew all their thoughts, he said; he knew everything. He knew the meaning of the world, he said.
-
e lay on the sofa and made her hold his hand to prevent him from falling down, down, he cried, into the flames! and saw faces laughing at him, calling him horrible disgusting names, from the walls, and hands pointing round the screen.
-
he rope was cut; he mounted; he was free, as it was decreed that he, Septimus, the lord of men, should be free; alone
-
called forth in advance of the mass of men to hear the truth,
-
The supreme secret must be told to the Cabinet;
-
painfully drawing out these profound truths which needed, so deep were they, so difficult, an immense effort to speak out, but the world was entirely changed by them for ever.
-
Heaven was divinely merciful, infinitely benignant. It spared him, pardoned his weakness. But what was the scientific explanation (for one must be scientific above all things)?
-
before he again interpreted,
-
to mankind. He lay very high, on the back of the world.
-
Red flowers grew through his flesh; their stiff leaves rustled by his head.
-
I leant over the edge of the boat and fell down, he thought. I went under the sea. I have been dead, and yet am now alive
-
he begged
-
and as, before waking, the voices of birds and the sound of wheels chime and chatter in a queer harmony, grow louder and louder and the sleeper feels himself drawing to the shores of life,
-
He had only to open his eyes; but a weight was on them; a fear.
-
e welcome, the world seemed to say; we accept; we create. Beauty, the world seemed to say.
-
all of this, calm and reasonable as it was, made out of ordinary things as it was, was the truth now; beauty, that was the truth now. Beauty was everywhere.
-
without his making them
-
But no mud was on him; no wounds; he was not changed. I must tell the whol
-
e world,
-
now sees light on the desert's edge which broadens and strikes the iron-black figure (and Septimus half ro
-
f this relief, of this joy,
-
He went to France to save an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare's plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking in a square.
-
manliness
-
congratulated himself upon feeling very little and very reasonably. The War had taught him. It was sublime.
-
Still, scissors rapping, girls laughing, hats being made protected him; he was assured of safety; he had a refuge.
-
But he could not taste, he could not feel.
-
-he could not feel. He could reason; he could read, Dante for example, quite easily
-
e could add up his bill; his brain was perfect; it must be the fault of the world then--that he could not feel.
-
t might be possible that the world itself is without meaning.
-
This was now revealed to Septimus; the message hidden in the beauty of words. The secret signal which one generation passes, under disguise, to the next is loathing, hatred, despair.
-
One cannot bring children into a world like this. One cannot perpetuate suffering, or increase the breed of these lustful animals, who have no lasting emotions, but only whims and vanities, eddying them now this way, now that.
-
For the truth is (let her ignore it) that human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.
-
And would HE go mad?
-
t last, with a melodramatic gesture which he assumed mechanically
-
and with complete consciousness of its insincerity, he dropped his head on his hands. Now he had surrendered; now other people must help him. People must be sent for. He gave in.
-
So there was no excuse; nothing whatever the matter, except the sin for which human nature had condemned him to death; that he did not feel.
-
The verdict of human nature on such a wretch was death.
-
Human nature, in short, was on him--the repulsive brute, with the blood-red nostrils.
-
Once you stumble, Septimus wrote on the back of a postcard, human nature is on you. Holmes is on you. Their only chance was to escape, without letting Holmes know; to Italy-- anywhere, anywhere, away from Dr. Holmes.
-
So he was deserted. The whole world was clamouring: Kill yourself, kill yourself, for our sakes. But why should he kill himself for their sakes? Food was pleasant; the sun hot;
-
quite alone, condemned, deserted, as those who are about to die are alone, there was a luxury in it, an isolation full of sublimity; a freedom which the attached can never know.
-
his last relic
-
outcast
-
rowned sailor, on the shore of the world.
-
So they returned to the most exalted of mankind; the criminal who faced his judges; the victim exposed on the heights; the fugitive; the drowned sailor; the poet of the immortal ode; the Lord who had gone from life to death; to Septimus Warren Smith, who sat in the arm-chair under the skylight staring at a photogr
-
Once you fall, Septimus repeated to himself, human nature is on you. Holmes and Bradshaw are on you. They scour the desert. They fly screaming into the wilderness. The rack and the thumbscrew are applied. Human nature is remorseless.
-
But if he confessed? If he communicated? Would they let him off then, his torturers?
-
"Try to think as little about yourself as possible," said Sir William kindly. Really, he was not fit to be about.
-
But Proportion has a sister, less smiling, more formidable, a Goddess even now engaged--in the heat and sands of India, the mud and swamp of Africa, the purlieus of London, wherever in short the climate or the devil tempts men to fall from the true belief which is her own--is even now engaged in dashing down shrines, smashing idols, and setting up in their place her own stern countenance. Conversion is her name and she feasts on the wills of the weakly, loving to impress, to impose, adoring her own features stamped on the face of the populace. At Hyde Park Corner on a tub she stands preaching; shrouds herself in white and walks penitentially disguised as brotherly love through factories and parliaments; offers help, but desires power; smites out of her way roughly the dissentient, or
-
Every power poured its treasures on his head, and his hand lay there on the back of the sofa, as he had seen his hand lie when he was bathing, floating, on the top of the waves, while far away on shore he heard dogs barking and barking far away.
-
Fear no more, says the heart in the body; fear no more.
-
He was not afraid.
-
At every moment Nature signified by some laughing hint
-
her determination to show,
-
beautifully, always beautifully,
-
e through her hollowed hands Shakespeare's words,
-
her meaning.
-
aved his hands and cried out that he knew the truth! He knew everything!
-
The fallen, he said, they tear to pieces. "Holmes is on us," he would say, and he would invent stories about Holmes; Holmes eating porridge; Holmes reading Shakespeare--making himself roar with laughter or rage, for Dr. Holmes seemed to stand for something horrible to him. "Human nature," he called him. Then there were the visions.
-
e would look over the edge of the sofa down into the sea. Or he was hearing music. Really it was only a barrel organ or some man crying in the street. But "Lovely!" he used to cry, and the tears would run down his cheeks, which was to her the most dreadful thing of all, to see a man like Septimus, who had fought, who was brave, crying.
-
He began, very cautiously, to open his eyes, to see whether a gramophone was really there. But real things--real things were too exciting. He must be cautious. He would not go mad.
-
for though he had no fingers, could not even do up a parcel, he had a wonderful eye, and often he was right, sometimes absurd, of course, but sometimes wonderfully right.
-
He was very happy. He would sleep. He shut his eyes. But directly he saw nothing the sounds of the game became fainter and stranger and sounded like the cries of people seeking and not finding, and passing further and further away. They had lost him!
-
Nobody was there
-
That was it: to be alone forever.
-
As for the visions, the faces, the voices of the dead, where were they?
-
where he had seen faces,
-
where he had seen beauty, there was a screen.
-
"Must," "must," why "must"? What power had Bradshaw over him? "What right has Bradshaw to say 'must' to me?" he demanded.
-
So he was in their power! Holmes and Bradshaw were on him! The brute with the red nostrils was snuffing into every secret place! "Must" it could say!
-
Holmes was coming upstairs. Holmes would burst open the door. Holmes would say "In a funk, eh?" Holmes would get him. But no; not Holmes; not Bradshaw.
-
ut he would wait till the very last moment. He did not want to die. Life was good. The sun hot.
-
-
21 Apr 13
-
opes stretching over the palings, beauty sprang instantly. To watch a leaf quivering in the rush of air was an exquisite joy. Up in the sky swallows swooping, swerving, flinging themselves in and out, round and round, yet always with perfect control as if elastics held them; and the flies rising and falling; and the sun spotting now this leaf, now that, in mockery, dazzling it with soft gold in pure good temper; and now and again some chime (it might be a motor horn) tinkling divinely on the grass stalks-- all of this, calm and reasonable as it was, made out of ordinary things as it was, was the truth now; beauty, that was the truth now. Beauty was everywhere. "It is time," said Rezia.
-
Love--but here the other clock, the clock which always struck two minutes after Big Ben, came shuffling in with its lap full of odds and ends, which it dumped down as if Big Ben were all very well with his majesty laying down the law, so solemn, so just, but she must remember all sorts of little things besides--Mrs. Marsham, Ellie Henderson, glasses for ices--all sorts of little things came flooding and lapping and dancing in on the wake of that solemn stroke which lay flat like a bar of gold on the sea. Mrs. Marsham, Ellie Henderson, glasses for ices. She must telephone now at once. Volubly, troublously, the late clock sounded, coming in on the wake of Big Ben, with its lap full of trifles.
-
-
19 Jun 09
-
A small crowd meanwhile had gathered at the gates of Buckingham Palace. Listlessly, yet confidently, poor people all of them, they waited; looked at the Palace itself with the flag flying; at Victoria, billowing on her mound, admired her shelves of running water, her geraniums; singled out from the motor cars in the Mall first this one, then that; bestowed emotion, vainly, upon commoners out for a drive; recalled their tribute to keep it unspent while this car passed and that; and all the time let rumour accumulate in their veins and thrill the nerves in their thighs at the thought of Royalty looking at them; the Queen bowing; the Prince saluting; at the thought of the heavenly life divinely bestowed upon Kings; of the equerries and deep curtsies; of the Queen's old doll's house; of Princess Mary married to an Englishman, and the Prince--ah! the Prince! who took wonderfully, they said, after old King Edward, but was ever so much slimmer. The Prince lived at St. James's; but he might come along in the morning to visit his mother.
-
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.