Serene Falcon

I Think I Could Turn And Live With Animals, They Are So Placid And Self-Contain’d

January 3rd, 2008 at 4:00 am

‘So that I, finding my service by this means lightly regarded, my affection despised, and myself unknown, remained no fuller of desire than void of counsel how to come to my desire; which, alas, if these trees could speak, they might well witness. For many times have I stood here, bewailing myself unto them. Many times have I, leaning to yonder palm, admired the blessedness of it that it could bear love without sense of pain. Many times, when my master’s cattle came hither to chew their cud in this fresh place, I might see the young bull testify his love, but how ? With proud looks and joyfulness.

‘”O wretched mankind,’ said I then to myself, “in whom wit, which should be the governor of his welfare, becomes the traitor to his blessedness ! These beasts, like children to nature, inherit her blessings quietly: we, like bastards, are laid abroad, even as found­lings to be trained up by grief and sorrow. Their minds grudge not at their bodies’ comfort, nor their senses are letted from enjoying their objects: we have the impediments of honour and the tor­ments of conscience.’

‘Truly in such cogitations have I sometimes so long stood that methought my feet began to grow into the ground, with such a darkness and heaviness of mind that I might easily have been persuaded to have resigned over my very essence. But love ( which one time layeth burdens, another time giveth wings ) when I was at the lowest of my downward thoughts, pulled up my heart to remember that nothing is achieved before it be throughly at­tempted, and that lying still doth never go forward; and that therefore it was time, now or never, to sharpen my invention to pierce through the hardness of this enterprise, never ceasing to assemble all my conceits one after the other how to manifest both my mind and estate.’

Sir Philip Sidney : The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia

Comments

Herbert I : Not Varying From His Principle

January 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 ammarketing (Other Writ, Charles I, Correctitude, Stuarts, The King of Terrors)

Monday the 22d. of January, Col. Hacker brought his Majesty the Second time before the Court, then sitting, as formerly in Westminster-Hall. Now the more noble the Person is, the more heavy is the Spectacle, and enclines generous Hearts to a Sympathy in his Sufferings ; here it was otherwise; for so soon as his Majesty came into West­minster-Hall, some Soldiers made a hideous Cry for Justice, Justice ; some of the Officers joyning with them. At which uncouth Noise the King seem’d somewhat abash’d, but overcame it with Patience. Sure, to persecute a distress­ed Soul, and to vex him that is already wounded at the Heart, is the very pitch of Wickedness ; yea, the utmost Extremity Malice can do, or Affliction suffer, saith Dr. Andrews, the Learned Bishop of Win­chester, in one of his Sermons upon the Passion, preach’d before Queen Elizabeth upon Good-Friday, and here applicable. As his Majesty returned from the Hall to Cotton-House, a Souldier that was upon the Guard, said aloud, as the King pass’d by, God bless you, Sir. The King thank’d him ; but an uncivil Officer struck him with his Cane upon the Head ; which his Majesty observ­ing, said The Punishment exceeded the Offence. Being come to his Apartment in Cotton-House, he immediately, upon his Knees, went to Prayer. Afterwards he asked Mr. Herbert if he heard that Cry of the Soldiers for Justice ? Who answer’d, he did, and marvell’d thereat. So did not I ( said the King ) for l am well assur’d the Soldiers bear no Malice to me ; The Cry was, no doubt given by their Officers, for whom the Soldiers would do the like, were there occasion.

His Majesty likewise demanded of him, How many there were that sate in the Court, and who they were ? He replied, They were upwards of Three­score, some of them Members of the House of Commons, others were Com­manders in the Army, and other some Citizens of London ; some of them he knew, but not all. The King then said, He view’d all of them, but knew not the Faces of above Eight, and those he named.

Tuesday the 23d of January, the King was the Third time summoned, and, as formerly, guarded to the Court; where ( as at other times ) he persisted in his Judgment, That they had no legal Jurisdiction or Authority to proceed after that manner against him. Upon which, the Solicitor began to offer something to the President of the Court, but was interrupted by the King, gently laying his Staff upon the Solicitor’s Arm, the Head of which being Silver, happen’d to fall off, which Mr. Herbert ( who as his Majesty appointed, waited near his Chair ) stoop’d to take up; but falling on the contrary side, to which he could not reach, the King took it up himself. This by some was look’d upon as a bad Omen.

The Court sate but a little while that day ; the King not varying from his Principle. At his going back to Cotton-House, there were many Men and Women, who ( not without some Ha­zard ) crowded into the Passage behind the Soldiers, that as his Majesty pass’d, said aloud, God Almighty preserve your Majesty. The King return’d them Thanks for their Prayers.

Sir Thomas Herbert : Memoirs of the Two Last Years of the Reign of KING CHARLES I — 1839 4th edition.

Comments

Ah, Take One Consideration With Another

January 1st, 2008 at 7:00 am

Parts 1 – 4 of Erik Jorgensen‘s award-winning video of anti-war protests in Northern California in 2003′.

Quite apart from the fact that protests rarely succeed in altering anything, any more than voting does, or contacting one’s — and I may add that I take it as a deep and perpetual insult to suppose that anyone can ‘represent’ me — representatives does; ultimately protesters and fascistic guardians are locked in a dance, and in the longer run keep exchanging roles. As Göring once affably pointed out to some ( agreeing ) communist prisoners: it could have easily been him in jail and them as the jailers. In this case I prefer the protesters philosophically, and despise the rigid guardians > yet in another I would as easily crush the iron heel down on protesters I personally despised… And in this case, neither side are efficient — beyond the habitual national characteristic of inefficiency — mainly because each claims to be speaking on behalf of ‘The People’: an entity, who like the Almighty, to which any assorted randomly chosen beliefs and feelings may be attributed. Oddly enough, the protesters prefer not to point out that thus they are speaking on behalf of redneck gun-toting anti-commies who gibber for Bush; whilst the state spokespeople equally refrain from acknowledging part of their constituency are shiftless liberal slackers who would elect for all war-mongers to be hung from apple-trees. Which is one of the prime jokes of conceptual democracy.

But anyway, this is funny and exquisitely chosen: for a state with such a worldwide reputation for wackiness ranging from hippydom to the extreme marcusian egalitarianism enshrined in PC to various cults, Californian policing appears to be modelled on the vague inchoate fascisimo of a Latin American country run by a demented authoritarian general who has been delaying death from extreme old age for thirty years during the mid twentieth century.

 
 
As a bon-bouché for a reprise…

Comments