'The triform porter stands amazed'

Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy is one of those books that is worth revisiting later in life. It contains much that is useful to know and remember, even though it was written for and about late Roman audiences and times - particularly criminal emperors with fantastic wealth, Theodoric!

Of all the parts of the book, my interest was most piqued by the discussion early in Book IV about the nature of evil and evil acts. The principal claim is that the wicked do not exist: "anything which turns away from goodness ceases to exist ... That [the wicked] used to be human is shown by the human appearance of their body which still remains...[Anyone who is wicked] sinks to the level of an animal." Recently, a friend with high moral sense referred to those who frequent nightclubs as moths attracted by one of those insect zappers. Whether consciously or not, he was echoing Boethius's thoughts more than 1500 years ago!

Five Gothic Tales

After only reading five instalments, I have quickly to return Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen to the local library. What tales they were! Gloomy and grotesque, limpid and long-winded. My favourite tale of hers is "The Monkey", in which the best laid plans of a scheming Virgin Prioress of Closter Seven "gang aft agley", although she seems to secure a nominal triumph in the end.

Given my limited range of expression, I feel that the quality of the writing can only be expressed by direct quotation:

"'I suppose,' she then said, 'that even in your country you have parties, balls, and conversazioni?'

'Yes,' he said, 'we have those.'

'Then you will know,' she went on slowly, 'that the part of a guest is different from that of a host or hostess, and that people do not want or expect the same things in the two different capacities?'

'I think you are right,' said Augustus.

'Now God,' she said, 'when he created Adam and Eve, arranged it so that man takes, in these matters, the part of a guest, and woman that of a hostess. Therefore man takes love lightly, for the honour and dignity of his house is not involved therein. And you can also, surely, be a guest to many people to whom you would never want to be a host. Now, tell me, Count, what does a guest want?'

'I believe,' said Augustus when he had thought for a moment, 'that if we do, as I think we ought to here, leave out the crude guest, who comes to be regaled, takes what he can get and goes away, a guest wants first of all to be diverted, to get out of his daily monotony or worry. Secondly the decent guest wants to shine, to expan himself and impress his own personality upon his surroundings. And thirdly, perhaps, he wants to find some justification for his existence altogether. But since you put it so charmingly, Signora, please tell me now: What does a hostess want?'

'The hostess,' said the young lady, 'wants to be thanked.'

Here loud voices outside put an end to their conversation."

"I have always thought it unfair to woman that she has never been alone in the world. Adam had a time, whether long or short, when he could wander about on a fresh and peaceful earth, among the beasts, in full possession of his soul, and most men are born with a memory of that period. But poor Eve found him there, with all his claims upon her, the moment she looked into the world. That is a grudge that woman has always had against the Creator: she feels that she is entitled to have that epoch of paradise back for herself."

"Boris, in the meantime, had been looking at Athena, and had let a fantasy take hold of his mind. He thought that she must have a lovely, an exquisitely beautiful skeleton. She would lie in the ground like a piece of matchless lace, a work of art in ivory, and in a hundred years might be dug up and turn the heads of old archaeologists. Every bone was in place, as finely finished as a violin. Less frivolous than the traditional old libertine who in his thoughts undresses the women with whom he sups Boris liberated the maiden of her strong and fresh flesh together with her clothes, and imagined that he might be very happy with her, that he might even fall in love with her, could he have her in her beautiful bones alone. He fancied her thus, creating a sensation on horseback, or trailing her long dresses through the halls and galleries at Court, with the famous tiara of her family, now in Poland, upon her polished skull. Many human relations, he thought, would be infinitely easier if they could be carried out in the bones only."

"We must cultivate our garden"

I have finished reading Voltaire's Candide, the fast-paced chronicle of all the outrages that befall a simpleton and his beloved, friends and relatives in "the best of all possible worlds". The sad thing about the horrors that befall the characters, particularly the women, is that they still recur four centuries after the time this tale was written. One only has to look at the pages of the Economist, that sober and sensible journal. But even Dr Pangloss, who maintained that the world was the best of all possible worlds, no longer believed it by the end of the tale. In the end, they come to the conclusion that "we must cultivate our garden."

A Christmas Carol

A cold coming they had of it, all the characters in Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Temperatures below freezing, the early onset of darkness, and of course the deep frost rimming the soul of Ebenezer Scrooge.

"'If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.'"

I enjoyed the suggestion that as a young boy, he had the imagination to call forth visits from Valentine and Orson, Ali Baba, and other characters from the Arabian Nights, to assuage his loneliness.

"... I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round ... as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."
- Fred, Scrooge's nephew, A Christmas Carol

A handful of salt

Recently, I have been reading a little about Mahatma ("Great Soul") Gandhi for a speech at my local Rostrum club, a not-for-profit public speaking organisation.

In India he is regarded as the father of the nation and indeed, he achieved his goal of Indian independence during his lifetime. However, in the Western world Gandhi is probably most famous for satyagraha ("truth-force").

Satyagraha was Gandhi's doctrine of non-violent resistance. As Orwell put it, "a way of defeating the enemy without hurting him and without feeling or arousing hatred".

In Gandhi's time, the British Empire had passed laws that required Indians to purchase all their salt needs from the British at a prohibitively taxed price.

But in 1930, Gandhi led thousands of followers on a march from his ashram to the coast of Dandi, where he bent down and picked up a handful of salty mud left by the retreating sea. This peaceful act of defiance prompted millions of Indians to similar acts of civil disobedience, shaking the foundations of the British Empire in India.

One may therefore readily concede satyagraha's effectiveness against a state or an Empire, dependent as it is on civil order for existence. Yet that is probably its only use.

Sadly, it would hardly be a deterrent to the terrorists that threaten states today. These are usually people acting in religious fervour and without remorse, slaughtering hundreds of civilians from Bali to New York.

As an aside, one of my favourite sources is George Orwell's essay, 'Reflections on Gandhi', a contemporaneous, rational discussion of Gandhi's beliefs and saintliness. Here is a succulent quotation:

"As a frontispiece to the book [under review] there is a photograph of Gandhi’s possessions at the time of his death. The whole outfit could be purchased for about 5 pounds, and Gandhi’s sins, at least his fleshly sins, would make the same sort of appearance if placed all in one heap. "

"'Something happened to me,' he said after a short silence, 'that I could not turn into poetry. I have written both comedies and tragedies, but I could not fit it into either.'"
- 'The Roads Round Pisa', Seven Gothic Tales, by Isak Dinesen

Four centuries ago, in France, Michel de Montaigne wrote 107 essays over the course of 20 years. He composed a majority of them in the tower of his family's ancestral castle. His library of more than 1,000 tomes was adorned with inscriptions from the classics and the Bible. In his essays, he would quote directly from authors "the better to express himself", sometimes without attribution!