Translating

'An idea need have no intrinsic reality except what it derives from my thought, of which it is a mode. But any idea that has representative reality must surely come from a cause that contains at least as much intrinsic reality as there is representative reality in the idea. For if we suppose that an idea contains something that was not in its cause, it must have got this from nothing; yet the kind of reality that is involved in something’s being represented in the mind by an idea, though it may not be very perfect, certainly isn’t nothing, and so it can’t come from nothing. It might be thought that since the reality that I am considering in my ideas is merely representative, it might be possessed by its cause only representatively and not intrinsically. That would mean that the cause is itself an idea, because only ideas have representative reality. But that would be wrong. Although one idea may perhaps originate from another, there can’t be an infinite regress of such ideas; eventually one must come back to an idea whose cause isn’t

Cold Commemorative

'Umbra ta, lovindu-se de ziduri,

iar se sparge-n cioburi colorate.

Oh, de-aceea m-ai zărit în stradă

adunând pierdutele-i pătrate.

Şi s-o fac la loc, în ceasul nopţii,

peste geamuri ţi le-aşez cu grijă,

verzi, albastre, galbene şi roşii,

încoifate-n creştet cu o sprijă.'

(

Nichita Stănescu - Vitraliu )

Habit of mind

'..the doubt of one who would rather walk in mystery than in false lights, who awaits that he may win, and who prefers the broken fragments of truth to the imposing completeness of a delusion.'

Craft

For listeners (and readers), stories instruct. From Aesop's fables to essays in women's magazines, they encourage us to think about what happens to people (or anthropomorphized animals) who, say, behave more like hares than tortoises or have a threesome with their best friend and her husband. Stories socialize. By demonstrating the intricacies of human relationships, novels and memoirs encourage us to rehearse what we would do and say in a variety of situations: platonic, familial, and maybe especially romantic. Stories, particularly fictional ones—moralize. They help us figure out our values and whet our need for justice.

Saturn’s modern melancholy

'In an article Verlaine wrote at the same time as the publication of Poèmes Saturniens he attacked the Romantic idea of inspiration and of “life” and “human nature” and came out in favour of a poetry completely mastered, controlled and formal. Nor did he in his best work present “themes” that preceded and were external to the actual poems; as we read we feel that we are watching those poems materialize under his pen, just as Chopin’s Nocturnes come to life under his improvising fingers. Nevertheless, since this first book brought together some very early poems written in his collège days as well as his most up-to-date experiments, it is something of a grab-bag, and anything but consistent or programmatic.'

Constelaţii răsturnate

"Dropia magică, de o-nălţime amară şi o supleţe noptatică, întâlnită numai la seminţiile nomade, desfăcu larg aripile şi înaintă cu paşi siguri spre fântâna cu mir răsărită şi ea pe neaşteptate în micul vad al bălţii. O trupă de arici cu ţepii ascuţiţi făcu roată în jurul fântânii, gata să răspundă oricărui atac. Din surpări de timp, poate din constelaţii răsturnate, se auzi din nou glasul doamnei cu mantilă violet şi mănuşi albe: -E vremea ca puii de zeu egiptean să se arate. O privighetoare roşie începu un cântec fermecat în cuibul ei dintre trestii. Întrupaţi parcă din trilurile vrăjite sau răsăriţi din fântâna de mir, puii de zeu egiptean se înfăţişară în poiană: închipuiri de abur şi de lună. "

The Question is

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover’d country from whose bourn

No traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all