Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the very brilliancy of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways, is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendour of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch.
—Walter Pater
My favourite quote. I love the conclusion to The Renaissance so much (and loved it from the moment I first laid eyes on it in 1870, I mean as an undergrad), that I've written a whole novel that takes that quote as its theme. More information on Sleep Before Evening can be found by clicking on my URL link or visiting my website at compulsivereader.com
Thanks for posting it. Maggie
Posted by: Magdalena Ball | 12 November 2007 at 21:49