Seal of identity

"And in a hollow voice he spake, and said --
'Sohrab, that were a proof that could not lie.
If thou show this, then thou art Rustum's son.'

Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed
His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm,
And show'd a sign in faint vermilion points
Prick'd: as a cunning workman, in Pekin,
Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase,
An emperor's gift --at early morn he paints,
And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp
Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands: --
So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd
On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal."

Sohrab and Rustum  Matthew Arnold

"Unknown"

"I am the tomb of one that was shipwrecked: but sail you on, for on the day that we perished the other ships sailed on."

from The Greek Anthology
[and see  Stephen Pentz on Callimachus, at First Known When Lost]

"...Kingfishers catch fire,"

"Dearest Bridges,

I am sorry to hear of our differing so much in taste; I was hardly aware of it. (It is not nearly so sad as differing in religion.)  I feel how great is the loss of not reading, as you say; but if I did read I do not much think the effect of it would be what you seem to expect, either on my compositions or on my judgments.

…The effect of studying masterpieces is to make me admire and do otherwise.  So it must be on every original artist to some degree,  on me to a marked degree.  Perhaps then more reading would only refine my singularity, which is not what you want …"

Letter to Robert Bridges,  sent from University College, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin.  Sept. 25 1888.  Gerard Manley Hopkins

"Benighted Travellers"

"A winding stair, a chamber arched with stone,
A grey stone fireplace with an open hearth,
A candle and a written page.
Il Penseroso's Platonist toiled on
In some like chamber, shadowing forth
How the daemonic rage
Imagined everything.
Benighted travellers
From markets and from fairs
Have seen his midnight candle glimmering."

From Meditations in Time of Civil War  W. B. Yeats

"Or let my Lamp at midnight hour,
Be seen in som high lonely Towr,
Where I may oft out-watch the Bear,… "

Il Penseroso  John Milton

"Hence vain deluded joys…"

"They went up to Proctor-Gould's room, a dark, lofty chamber on the third floor, furnished in the characteristic Imperial  baroque, and looking out over the Kremlin.  Proctor-Gould appeared to be not so much occupying the room as camping in it, like a rambler in some corner of the lawns at Versailles. An open suitcase lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, a tangled heap of possessions straggling out across the carpet.  Suspended on plastic hangers from the dark furniture all about the room were wet shirts and socks, dripping into antique ornamental bowls or on to pages of the Soviet newspapers.

…[Proctor-Gould] rummaged in the suitcase, found a little aluminium camper's kettle with a folding handle, and disappeared with it into the corridor.  Manning sat down in an uncomfortable carved chair, with brass lions' heads beneath his hands, and gazed about him, steeping himself in the profound melancholy of the room.  On a table in the corner were stacked dozens and dozens of English books, all still in their dust jackets.  Manning put his head on his shoulder to read the titles.  He made out Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, The Human Use of Human Beings, Philosophical Investigations, five copies of Lucky Jim, and seven copies of the Concise Oxford Dictionary.

'I see you're looking at my beads,' said Proctor-Gould, coming back into the room holding the kettle, now steaming, at arm's length.
'Your what?'
'My beads.  Presents for the natives.  I always bring a suitcase full of English books when I come over  -- they're like gold-dust here.'
He felt under the clothes in his case again, and produced two stout plastic mugs.  Inside a spare suede shoe he located a Woolworth's apostle spoon, and beneath a pile of dirty socks, the old familiar tin.

'Do you mind Nescafe?' he asked."

The Russian Interpreter  Michael Frayn

Who was Warrender Chase?

"God knows where I got Warrender Chase from; he was based on no one that I knew.

I know only that the night I started writing Warrender Chase I had been alone at a table in a restaurant near Kensington High Street Underground eating my supper.  I rarely ate out alone, but I must have found myself in funds that day.  I was going about my proper business, eating my supper while listening-in to the conversation at the next table.  One of them said, 'There we were all gathered in the living-room, waiting for him.'

It was all I needed.  That was the start of Warrender Chase, the first chapter.  All the rest sprang from that phrase.

But I invented for my Warrender a war record, a distinguished one, in Burma, and managed to make it really credible even although I filled in the war bit with a very few strokes, knowing, in fact, so little about the war in Burma.  It astonished me later to find how the readers found Warrender's war record so convincing and full when I had said so little -- one real war veteran of Burma wrote to say how realistic he found it -- but since then I've come to learn for myself how little one needs, in the art of writing, to convey the lot, and how a lot of words, on the other hand, can convey so little…..

All these years since, the critics have been asking whether Warrender was in love with his nephew.  How do I know?  Warrender Chase never existed, he is only some hundreds of words, some punctuation, sentences, paragraphs, marks on the page.  If I had conceived Warrender Chase's motives as a psychological study I would have said so.  But I didn't go in for motives, I never have."

Loitering with Intent   Muriel Spark

Seasonal Greetings from frozenink.blogspot

A very big thank you to all those whose blogs I follow and enjoy reading regularly - including Spitalfields Life, English Buildings, Quad Royal, Fired Up, James Russell,  First Known when Lost, and many others.

And if you wish to raise a glass, you may find a tipple or a tavern to your taste here :…

"Home-made drinks in England are beer and ale, strong and small:  those of most note that are to be sold, are Lambeth ale, Margaret ale, and Derby ale; Herefordshire cider, perry, mede.  There are also several sorts of compounded ales, as cock-ale, worm-wood ale, lemon-ale, scurvygrass-ale, College-ale, &c.  These are to be had at Hercules Pillars, near the Temple; at the Trumpet, and other houses in Sheer Lane, Bell Alley; and, as I remember, at the English Tavern near Charing Cross."

Letters, 1697    John Locke
[and see www.pepysdiary.com for more detail]

St Nicholas arrives for Louise

"Albany,  N.Y.

Dear St. Nicholas:  I have scarlet fever at present and cannot write this to you with my own hand.  It has to be read to Mother through the sealed door of my room, and she writes it down and reads it over the telephone to my father's office, to his secretary.

You may be interested to know that this is the second time I have had scarlet fever at Christmas time.  Last year like this year I was in quarantine, and Father carried my gifts up in a bag like a Santa Claus, and came up a ladder to the roof under my window; and all the family came, too, except the cook, who was afraid to climb the ladder.  Several of our neighbours came too, to see me and my presents.  I got many beautiful things,  but I think I like you as well as any of them.

….of all the stories in St Nicholas,   The Lost Prince  is my favourite.  I have liked all of Mrs. Burnett's stories ever since I first read Little Lord Fauntleroy.  You keep me very happy until I have read you all through.  I always gobble you up at my very first chance.

Your interested reader,
Louise van Loon     (age 10)"

St Nicholas: an illustrated magazine for Young Folks   1915 

Competitive greenery

"And in my helm a triple plume shal spring,
Spangled with Diamonds dancing in the aire,
To note me Emperour of the three fold world,
Like to an almond tree ymounted high,
Upon the lofty and celestial mount,
Of ever greene Selinus quaintly dect
With blooms more white than Hericinas browes,
Whose tender blossoms tremble every one,
At every little breath that thorow heaven is blowen:"

 Tamburlaine,  Part 2, Act 4, sc.3   Christopher Marlowe


"Upon the top of all his loftie crest,
A bunch of haires discolourd diversly,
With sprincled pearl, and gold full richly drest,
Did shake, and seem'd to dance for iollity,
Like to an Almond tree ymounted hye
On top of greene Selinis all alone,
With blossoms brave bedecked daintily;
Whose tender locks do tremble every one
At every little breath, that under heaven is blowne."

The Faerie Queene  Bk. I, canto VII, 32.  Edmund Spenser

The diary maketh the man (according to Mr Pooter)

"December 18.  Another thing which is disappointing to me is, that Carrie and Lupin take no interest whatever in my diary.
I broached the subject at the breakfast-table today.  I said: 'I was in hopes that, if anything ever happened to me, the diary would be an endless source of pleasure to you both; to say nothing of the chance of remuneration which may accrue from its being published.'
Both Carrie and Lupin burst out laughing.  Carrie was sorry for this, I could see, for she said: 'I did not mean to be rude, dear Charlie; but truly I do not think your diary would sufficiently interest the public to be taken up by a publisher.'
I replied: 'I am sure it would prove quite as interesting as some of the ridiculous reminiscences which have been published lately.  Besides, it's the diary that makes the man.  Where would Evelyn and Pepys have been if it had not been for their diaries?"

The Diary of a Nobody  George & Weedon Grossmith