Hue Views

The fact is, we none of us enough appreciate the nobleness and sacredness of color. Nothing is more common than to hear it spoken of as a subordinate beauty, — nay, even as the mere source of a sensual pleasure; and we might almost believe that we were daily among men who

“Could strip, for aught the prospect yields
To them, their verdure from the fields;
And take the radiance from the clouds
With which the sun his setting shrouds.”

But it is not so. Such expressions are used for the most part in thoughtlessness; and if the speakers would only take the pains to imagine what the world and their own existence would become, if the blue were taken from the sky, and the gold from the sunshine, and the verdure from the leaves, and the crimson from the blood which is the life of man, the flush from the cheek, the darkness from the eye, the radiance from the hair, — if they could but see for an instant, white human creatures living in a white world, — they would soon feel what they owe to color. The fact is, that, of all God’s gifts to the sight of man, color is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn. We speak rashly of gay color, and sad color, for color cannot at once be good and gay. All good color is in some degree pensive, the loveliest is melancholy, and the purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the most.

• John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, Vol II, Chapter 5, xxx

S’éteignent, S’encroûtent, S’allument…

« Des soleils s’éteignent & s’encroûtent, des planètes périssent & se dispersent dans les plaines des airs ; d’autres soleils s’allument, de nouvelles planètes se forment pour faire leurs révolutions ou pour décrire de nouvelles routes, & l’homme, portion infiniment petite d’un globe, qui n’est lui-même qu’un point imperceptible dans l’immensité, croit que c’est pour lui que l’univers est fait, s’imagine qu’il doit être le confident de la nature, se flatte d’être éternel, se dit le roi de l’univers ! » — Baron d’Holbach, Système de la nature (1770), Partie 1, Chapitre 6

“Suns are extinguished or become corrupted, planets perish and scatter across the wastes of the sky; other suns are kindled, new planets formed to make their revolutions or describe new orbits, and man, an infinitely minute part of a globe which itself is only an imperceptible point in the immense whole, believes that the universe is made for himself, flatters himself that he is eternal, calls himself king of the universe!”


Post-Performative Post-Scriptum…

Mais… Mens Major Est Quam Materia…

Papillons de Papier

Tsavudz’ gvdjo
Hmorksa ržmju:
Í hmístaghjo,
Í hmůldzva lšju! — Franček Zymosjő (1883-1941)

White butterflies,
On paper wings,
Are mystagogues,
Enchanted things!


• Translation by Elena Nebotsaya in On Paper Wings: Selected Poems and Prose of Franček Zymosjő (Symban Press 1986)

Omnia e Tarot

« Une personne emprisonnée sans autre livre que le Tarot, s’il savait comment l’utiliser, pourrait dans quelques années acquérir une connaissance universelle et pourrait s’exprimer sur tous les sujets avec un savoir inégalé et une éloquence inépuisable. » – Éliphas Lévi (1810-75)

• “An imprisoned person, with no other book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a few years acquire universal knowledge, and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inexhaustible eloquence.” – Éliphas Lévi


Post-Performative Post-Scriptum

I’m not sure if the above is the French original. It might be a back-translation of the English translation of the French original, because I found it here, not in any online French texts by Lévi.

Luis’ Lip

“Decíamos ayer…” — Fray Luis de León (1527-1591)

Sus biógrafos cuentan que fray Luis acostumbraba, en sus años de docencia, resumir las lecciones explicadas en la clase anterior; y que, al volver a la Universidad a su nueva cátedra, retomó sus lecciones con la frase “Decíamos ayer…” (Dicebamus hesterna die) como si sus cuatro años de prisión no hubieran transcurrido. Pero, aunque la frase tiene sello luisiano, se supone que es una invención posterior de fray Nicolaus Crusenius. — Wikipedia


• “As we were saying yesterday…” — Fray Luis de León, in the lecture hall of the University of Salamanca, December 30, 1576, after he had returned from an imprisonment of nearly five years by the Spanish Inquisition. (From Anecdotes from History: Being a Collection of 1000 Anecdotes, Epigrams, and Episodes Illustrative of English and World History, Grant Uden, 1968)

A Pox on Poetry

From The Ultimate Christmas Cracker (2019), compiled by John Julius Norwich:

How beautiful, I have often thought, would be the names of many of our vilest diseases, were it not for their disagreeable associations. My old friend Jenny Fraser sent me this admirable illustration of the fact by J.C. Squire:

So forth then rode Sir Erysipelas
From good Lord Goitre’s castle, with the steed
Loose on the rein: and as he rode he mused
On Knights and Ladies dead: Sir Scrofula,
Sciatica, he of Glanders, and his friend,
Stout Sir Colitis out of Aquitaine,
And Impetigo, proudest of them all,
Who lived and died for blind Queen Cholera’s sake:
Anthrax, who dwelt in the enchanted wood
With those princesses three, tall, pale and dumb,
And beautiful, whose names were Music’s self,
Anaemia, Influenza, Eczema.
And then once more the incredible dream came back,
How long ago upon the fabulous Shores
Of far Lumbago, all of a summer’s Day,
He and the maid Neuralgia, they twain,
Lay in a flower-crowned mead, and garlands wove,
Of gout and yellow hydrocephaly,
Dim palsies, and pyrrhoea, and the sweet
Myopia, bluer than the summer Sky:
Agues, both white and red, pied common cold,
Cirrhosis and that wan, faint flower
The shep­herds call dyspepsia. — Gone, all gone:
There came a Knight: he cried ‘Neuralgia!’
And never a voice to answer. Only rang
O’er cliff and battlement and desolate mere
‘Neuralgia!’ in the echoes’ mockery.


Elsewhere Other-Accessible…

J.C. Squire at Wikipedia

Post-Performative Post-Scriptum

nosopoetic (obsolete rare) Producing or causing disease. ← noso- comb. form + ‑poetic comb. form, after Hellenistic Greek νοσοποιός causing illness; compare ancient Greek νοσοποιεῖν to cause illness. — Oxford English Dictionary

Drain Brain

Eh bien, avant-hier 17 mars 1838, cet homme est mort. Des médecins sont venus, et ont embaumé le cadavre. Pour cela, à la manière des Égyptiens, ils ont retiré les entrailles du ventre et le cerveau du crâne. La chose faite, après avoir transformé le prince de Talleyrand en momie et cloué cette momie dans une bière tapissée de satin blanc, ils se sont retirés, laissant sur une table la cervelle, cette cervelle qui avait pensé tant de choses, inspiré tant d’hommes, construit tant d’édifices, conduit deux révolutions, trompé vingt rois, contenu le monde.

Les médecins partis, un valet est entré, il a vu ce qu’ils avaient laissé : Tiens ! ils ont oublié cela. Qu’en faire ? Il s’est souvenu qu’il y avait un égout dans la rue, il y est allé, et a jeté ce cerveau dans cet égout. — Victor Hugo, Choses vues: Talleyrand, 1838


And so, the day before yesterday, March 17, 1838, this man died. Doctors came and embalmed the corpse. They did this like the Egyptians, removing the entrails from the stomach and the brain from the skull. When they were done, having transformed Prince Talleyrand into a mummy and nailing this mummy in a bier lined with white satin, they withdrew, leaving the brain on a table, this brain that had thought so many things, inspired so many men, built so many buildings, led two revolutions, deceived twenty kings, had contained the world.

With the doctors gone, a valet came in and saw what they had left: Hey! they forgot that. What shall I do with it? He remembered that there was a sewer in the street, so he went out and threw the brain into the sewer. — Victor Hugo, Things Seen, 1838

Look with Luther

Denn in der wahren Natur der Dinge ist, wenn wir recht bedenken, jeder grüne Baum viel herrlicher, als wenn er aus Gold und Silber wäre. — Martin Luther

• “For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.”


Post-Performative Post-Scriptum

I’ve tried to find where — and indeed if — Luther originally wrote this but can’t find anything but “Inspirational Quotes” pages. And some of those attribute it to Martin Luther King. It doesn’t sound like MLK to me and the German doesn’t look translated from English. It’s a good quote whoever first said it and whatever language it was first said in.