Arthur Hugh Clough

Source: Poetry Foundation


Arthur Hugh Clough
Born: 1 January, 1819 - Liverpool, U.K.
Died: 13 November, 1861 - Florence, Italy


poet
educationalist
assistant to Florence Nightingale



Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there
In small bright specks upon the visible side
Of our strange being’s party-coloured web.
- The Thread of Truth (1839)


Grace is given of God, but knowledge is bought in the market;
Knowledge needful for all, yet cannot be had for the asking.
- The Bothie of Tober-na-vuolich, Pt. IV (1848)


No graven images may be
Worshipped, except the currency.
- The Latest Decalogue, l. 3-4 (1862)

Roy Sydney Porter

Roy Sydney Porter
Born: 31 December, 1946 - London, UK
Died: 3 March, 2002 - St Leonards-on-Sea, UK


historian - wrote or edited over 100 books
academic



I wish to explore what mad people meant to say, what was on their minds. Their testimonies are eloquent of their hopes and fears, the injustices they suffered, above all of what it was like to be mad or to be thought to be mad … My points of reference, therefore, are language, history and culture.
+
In the culture of madness ‘reality’ and ‘representations’ endlessly played off each other. What a crazy world in which the poor had to pretend to be mad in order to get a crust!
+
Every age gets the lunatics it deserves.
- A Social History of Madness: Stories of the Insane (1987)


The emergence of this high-tech scientific medicine may be a prime example of what William Blake denounced as 'single vision', the kind of myopia which (literally and metaphorically) comes from looking doggedly down a microscope. Single vision has its limitations in explaining the human condition; this is why Coleridge called doctors 'shallow animals', who 'imagine that in the whole system of things there is nothing but Gut and Body'.
- The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity (1997)

William Collins

Source of Image


William Collins
Born: December 25, 1721 - England
Died: June 12, 1759
(He was institutionalised in 1754 with mental illness)


poet


With eyes raised up, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sate retired
And from her wild sequestered seat
In notes by distance made more sweet
Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul.
- The Passions, An Ode for Music (1774)


Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part;
Nature in him was almost lost in Art.
- To Sir Thomas Hammer on his Edition of Shakespeare (1743)
(Sir Thomas Hammer (1677–1746) was a member of parliament from 1701 to 1727,
and was appointed speaker in 1714.)


NOTE
25th December 1863, William Makepeace Thackeray died in London

John Keats...

John Keats
Born: October 31st, 1795 - London, U.K.
Died: February 23rd, 1821 - Rome, Italy


poet


Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
- Ode on a Grecian Urn


Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness 
- Ode to Autumn


I met a lady in the meads, 
Full beautiful, a faery's child: 
Her hair was long, her foot was ligh, 
And her eyes were wild. 
- La Belle Dame Sans Merci


This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood,
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm'd.
See, here it is --
I hold it towards you --
Keats scribbled the lines hastily on the back of a longer work he was writing in December 1819.
It is probably the last poem he ever wrote...
More details on this poem so connected with Halloween mysteries HERE...


I will clamber through the clouds and exist. 
- Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends

Graham Greene...

Graham Greene 
Born: October 2nd, 1904 - Berkhamstead, U.K.
Died: April 3rd, 1991 - Vevey, Switzerland


novelist
short story writer
playwright
travel writer
screenplay writer
critic


A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.
+
Eternity is said not to be an extension of time but an absence of time.
- The End of the Affair


He gave her a bright fake smile; so much of life was a putting off of unhappiness for another time.
- The Heart of the Matter

We never get accustomed to being less important to other people than they are to us.
- The Third Man

It is always of interest to know what strikes another human being as remarkable.
The Ministry of Fear

There was always another side to a joke, the side of the victim.
- Our Man in Havana


Hate is a lack of imagination.
+
The world was in her heart already, like the small spot of decay in a fruit.
+
Oh well, perhaps when you're my age you'll know the heart is an untrustworthy beast.The mind too,but it doesn't talk about love.
+
And when we love our sin then we are damned indeed.
- The Power and the Glory


You cannot love without intuition.
- The Quiet American

T.S. Eliot...

T.S. Eliot
Born: September 26th, 1888 - Missouri, U.S.
Died; January 4th, 1965 - London, U.K.

He became a British citizen in 1927

Nobel Prize in Literature - 1948

poet
essayist
playwright


Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
+
For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock


We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
+
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
- The Hollow Men


A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
+
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you
I will show you fear in a handful of dust
- The Waste Land


Footfalls echo in the memory, down the passage we did not take,
towards the door we never opened, into the rose garden.
- Four Quartets

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity, 
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity. 
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare: 
At whatever time the deed took place - MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
- Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats


The last act is the greatest treason. To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
- Murder in the Cathedral

Fay Weldon...

Fay Weldon
Born: September 22nd, 1933 - Alvechurch, U.K.


novelist
essayist
playwright


Booker Prize for Fiction - 1979


The more you pay attention to the body, the less attention you've got left to pay the soul. I really do understand that.
- Darcy's Utopia

Food. Drink. Sleep. Books. They are all drugs.
- The Fat Woman's Joke

The language of distinction ceases to be available; is no longer available. We must search CD Rom for meanings which once were clear, but now are obscure. The words are too big for the narrow column of the contemporary newspaper. We are all one-syllable people now, two at most.
- Wicked Women 

A writer writes opaquely to keep some readers out, let others in. It is what he or she meant to do. It is not accidental - obscurity of language, inconsistency of thought ... it's not for everyone, it was never meant to be.
- Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen
(Interesting review of the letters HERE)

H. G. Wells...

H. G. Wells
Born: September 21st, 1866 - Bromley, U.K.
Died: August 13th, 1946 - London, U.K.


novelist
historian


Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.
- The Time Machine

All men, however highly educated, retain some superstitious inklings.
- The Invisible Man

Few people realise the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.
- The War of the Worlds
(Today is the International Day of Peace 2016)

So utterly at variance is Destiny with all the little plans of men.
- The First Men in the Moon

There is no liberty, save wisdom and self-control. Liberty is within--not without. It is each man's own affair.
- When the Sleeper Wakes

I hope, or I could not live.
- The Island of Dr. Moreau

William Golding...

William Golding
Born: September 19th, 1911 - Newquay, U.K.
Died: June 19th, 1993 - Perranarwarthal, U.K.
Nobel Prize for Literature 1983


novelist



Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.
+
The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge. 
- Lord of the Flies


I am here; and here is nowhere in particular.
- The Spire

We're all mad, the whole damned race. We're wrapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we're all mad and in solitary confinement.
- Darkness Visible

Perhaps the various burnings of the Alexandria Library were necessary, like those Australian Forest Fires without which the new seeds cannot burst their shells and make a young, healthy forest.
- A Moving Target

Art is partly communication, but only partly. The rest is discovery.
- Free Fall

Dr Samuel Johnson...

Dr Samuel Johnson
Born: September 18th, 1709 - Lichfield, U.K.
Died: December, 13th. 1784 - London, U.K.


poet
essayist
lexicographer
biographer



Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
+
Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.
- The Rambler

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
- A Dictionary of the English Language

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
- The Idler 

Language is the dress of thought.
- The Life of Cowley

John Gay's baptism ...

John Gay
Baptised: September 16th, (but actually born June 30th), 1685) - Barnstaple, U.K.
(Birthdays were not generally celebrated in the 17th century.
Some people marked the anniversary of their baptism, as the day of their birth as a Christian.)
Died: December 4th, 1732 - London, U.K.


poet
dramatist


I hate the man who builds his name
On ruins of another's fame.
Thus prudes, by characters o'erthrown,
Imagine that they raise their own.
Thus Scribblers, covetous of praise,
Think slander can transplant the bays.
+
Fools may our scorn, not envy raise,
For envy is a kind of praise.
- Fables

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.  - The What D'ye Call It

Lions, wolves, and vultures don't live together in herds, droves or flocks. Of all animals of prey, man is the only sociable one. Every one of us preys upon his neighbour, and yet we herd together.
- The Beggar's Opera

Agatha Christie...

Agatha Christie
Born: September 15th, 1890 - Torquay, U.K.
Died: January 12th, 1976 - Winterbrook, U.K.


novelist
short story writer
playwright


The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.
- Murder on the Orient Express

Everybody always knows something," said Adam, "even if it's something they don't know they know.
- Cat Among the Pigeons

Many homicidal lunatics are very quiet, unassuming people. Delightful fellows.
- And Then There Were None: A Mystery Play in Three Acts

There is no detective in England equal to a spinster lady of uncertain age with plenty of time on her hands.
- Murder at the Vicarage

I know there's a proverb which that says 'To err is human,' but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.
- Hallowe'en Party

It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down.
- The Clocks


NOTE
2016 marks the centenary of Agatha Christie writing her first detective story
 – The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
The Royal Mail is marking the centenary with the release of 6 stamps representing 6 of her novels...
- more HERE

D.H. Lawrence...

D. H. Lawrence
Born: September 11, 1885 - U.K.
Died: March 2nd, 1930 - Vence, France


novelist
poet
short story writer


I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze.
(Letter to Cynthia Asquith, November 1913)

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- The Complete Poems

Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself.
- Women in Love

And in this passion for understanding her soul lay close to his; she had him all to herself. But he must be made abstract first.
- Sons and Lovers

Perhaps only people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the universe. The others have a certain stickiness, they stick to the mass.
- Lady Chatterley's Lover 


A snake came to my water-trough 
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, 
 To drink there. 
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree 
I came down the steps with my pitcher 
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before 
me. 

 He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom 
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of 
the stone trough 
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom, 
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness, 
He sipped with his straight mouth, 
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body, 
 Silently.
- Snake

Dame Edith Sitwell...

Dame Edith Sitwell
Born: September 7th, 1887 - UK (same birthday as Elizabeth I)
Died: December 9th, 1964 - UK


poet
biographer



Poetry is the deification of reality.


Still falls the Rain—-
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss—-
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.

 Still falls the Rain
With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat
In the Potter's Field, and the sound of the impious feet

 On the Tomb:
                          Still falls the Rain


Bells of gray crystal
Break on each bough—
The swans' breath will mist all
The cold airs now.
Like tall pagodas
Two people go,
Trail their long codas
Of talk through the snow. 


POETRY
Enobles the heart and the eyes, 
 and unveils the meaning of all things 
 upon which the heart and the eyes dwell. 
 It discovers the secret rays of the universe, 
 and restores to us forgotten paradises.

Mary Shelley...

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Born: 30th August, 1797 - UK

Died: February 1, 1851 - UK

novelist

short story writer

essayist

biographer

travel writer

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.

- Frankenstein

I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine

and rage the likes of which you would not believe.

If I cannot satisy the one, I will indulge the other.

- Frankenstein

Christopher Isherwood...

Christopher Isherwood
Born: August 26, 1904 - UK
Died: January 4, 1986 - US
novelist
playwright
screen-writer
autobiographer
diarist


One should never write down or up to people, but out of yourself. 

If it’s going to be a world with no time for sentiment, it’s not a world that I want to live in.
 ― A Single Man 

We live in stirring times-  tea-stirring times. 

I have had an unpleasant feeling, such as one has in a dream, that I myself do not exist.
 ―  Goodbye to Berlin