Selected Quotes
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and Letters

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Austria B51 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (issued April 24, 1922)

Rome, April 14, 1770 I AM thankful to say that my stupid pen and I are all right, so we send a thousand kisses to you both. I wish that my sister were in Rome, for this city would assuredly delight her, because St. Peter's is symmetrical, and many other things in Rome are also symmetrical. Papa has just told me that the loveliest flowers are being carried past at this moment. That I am no wiseacre is pretty well known. Oh! I have one annoyance— there is only a single bed in our lodgings, so mamma may easily imagine that I get no rest beside papa. I rejoice at the thoughts of a new lodging. I have just finished sketching St. Peter with his keys, St. Paul with his sword, & St. Luke with my sister, &c., &c. I had the honor of kissing St. Peter's foot at San Pietro, & as I have the misfortune to be so short, your good old WOLFGANG MOZART was lifted up! (Letter 9)

Emily Anderson (Tr.), The Letters of Mozart & His Family, Vol. III (1923) Dresden, April 16, 1789 Dearest, Most Beloved Little Wife! What? Still in Dresden? Yes, my love. Well, I shall tell you everything as minutely as possible... My princely travelling companion invited the Neumanns and Madame Duschek to lunch. While we were at table a message came that I was to play at court on the following day, Tuesday, April 14th, at half past five in the evening. That is some thing quite out of the ordinary for Dresden, for it is usually very difficult to get a hearing, and you know that I never thought of performing at court here. We had arranged a quartet among ourselves at the Hotel de Pologne. So we performed it in the Chapel with Anton Teiber (who, as you know, is organist here) and with Herr Kraft, Prince Esterhazy's violoncellist, who is here with his son. At this little concert I introduced the trio [K.563] which I wrote for Herr von Puchberg and it was played quite decently. Madame Duschek sang a number of arias from "Figaro" and "Don Giovanni". The next day I played at court my new concerto in D [K.537], and on the following morning, Wednesday, April I5th, I received a very handsome snuff-box. Then we lunched with the Russian Ambassador, to whom I played a great deal. After lunch we agreed to have some organ playing and drove to the church at four o'clock Naumann was there too. At this point you must know that a certain Hassler, who is organist at Erfurt, is in Dresden. (Letter 562) — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)     Belgium B587: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at age 7 (issued March 5, 1956) Goethe's Italian Journey: 1786-1788: April 15, 1787—     And so it happened! Last night a torrent of rain came down from heaven. First thing next morning, I hurried down into the street to witness the miracle. It was indeed extraordinary. The flood, channelled between the pavements, had dragged the lighter rubblish down the street, pushing some of it into the sea and some into the drains, at least into those which were not choked. It had shifted the coarser litter from one place to another, so that curious meanders had been formed on the paving stones Hundreds and hundreds of people with shovels, brooms and pitchforks were now busy enlarging these clean patches an joining them together by piling the remaining refuse on one side or the other. In consequence, when the procession started, it could proceed down a clean road, serpentining between the mud, and the clergy in their long skirts and the Viceroy and nobility in their elegant footwear could pass without being incommoded and bespattered. In my imagination I saw the Children of Israel, for whom the angel prepared a dry path through the midst of swamp and slough, and tried to ennoble with this simile the shocking spectacle of so many devout and proper people praying and parading their way down an avenue of wet piles of muck.     When the streets have pavements, it is always possible to walk without getting dirty, but today, when we visited the inner city in order to see various things we had neglected so far, despite all the sweeping and heaping that had gone on, we found it almost impossible to get through.     Today's ceremonies gave us occasion to visit the cathedral and see its remarkable monuments. As we were stretching our legs in any case, we thought we would visit some more buildings. mong them a well-preserved Moorish house delighted us. It was not a big house, but its rooms were spacious and well proportioned; in a northern country it would not really be habitable, but in a southern it would make a most desirable residence. Expert architects should make a ground plan and a perspective view of it. In a dismal quarter we saw several fragments of antique marble statues, but we hadn't the patience to try and identify them. (pp. 250-251) Goethe's Italian Journey: 1786-1788: April 14, 1788— Germany B306, Goethe in Rome (issued August 15, 1949)     My state of confusion could hardly be greater. While I have never stopped working away at modelling the foot, it occurred to me that I must tackle Tasso forthwith [Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) was an Italian poet. Goethe's play about him began in 1780 at Weimar, written mostly in Italy (1786-1788) and completed in 1790], and all my thoughts are now turned in that direction. He will be a welcome companion on my imminent journey. In the meantime I have started packing. I had no conception, till I did, of how much stuff I have managed to accumulate. (p. 486) — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) Goethe's Italian Journey: 1786-1788: April 1788 In Retrospect—     The presence of works of art, like those of Nature, makes us restless. We wish to express our feelings and judgments in words, but before we can do that, we must first recognize, by intuition and understanding, what we are looking at; so we begin to identify, classify, differentiate. But then we find that this, too, if not impossible, is very difficult, so in the end we return to a wordless beholding.     The most decisive effect of all works of art is that they carry us back to the conditions of the period and of the individuals who created them. Standing amid antique statues, one feels as if all the forces of Nature were in motion around one. One is made aware of the multiplicity and diversity of human forms and brought back to man at his most authentic, so that the beholder himself is made more human and authentic. Even their drapery, which is true to Nature and brings out the figure in stronger relief, is agreeable as a rule. In Rome, where one is surrounded by such statues day after day, one becomes covetous and wishes to make them part of one's permanent surroundings, and the best way to do this is to acquire good plaster casts. Then, every morning, when one opens one's eyes, one is greeted by perfection; one's whole thinking becomes permeated by their presence, until it becomes impossible ever again to relapse into barbarism. (pp. 488-489) Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann (1901): April 15, 1829— Germany 4N11 (issued 12-17-1945)     We talked of people who, without having any real talent are excited to productiveness, and of others who write about things they do not understand.     "What seduces young people", said Goethe, "is this— we live in a time in which so much culture is diffused, that it has communicated itself, as it were, to this atmosphere which a young man breathes. Poetical and philosophic thoughts live and move within him, he has sucked them in with his very breath, but he thinks they are his own property, and utters them as such. But after he has restored to the time what he has received from it, he remains poor. He is like a fountain which plays for a while with the water with which it is supplied, but which ceases to flow as soon as the liquid treasure is exhausted" (p. 306) Michael Hamburger, Beethoven: Letters, Journals, and Conversations (1952) Austria B52 Ludwig van Beethoven (issued 4-24-1922) Vienna, April 12, 1811 To Goethe, Your Excellency, This pressing occasion offers me only a moment in which to write to you— for a friend of mine, and a great admirer of yours (like myself), is leaving here in great haste— to thank you for the long time that I have known you (for I have known you since my childhood): that is so little for so much. Bettine Brentano has assured me that you would receive me graciously, or even as a friend. Yet how could I think of such a reception when I can only approach you with the greatest reverence, with an unspeakable, profound feeling for your splendid creations. You will soon be receiving the music to "Egmont" from Leipzig through Breitkopf and Härtel, this glorious "Egmont" which, just as warmly as I read it, I have thought over once more, felt and set to music in sympathy with yourself. I should be very glad to have your judgment on it; even your adverse criticism would be profitable to me and to my art and accepted as readily as your highest praise, Your Excellency's great admirer, Ludwig van Beethoven (p. 97) Germany 9N80 Beethoven (issued 3-26-1952) Vienna, April 12, 1815 My dear, good Amenda, I cannot tell, I can say with some truth that I live almost alone in this, the largest city in Germany, as I have to live far Way from nearly all those whom I love or could love. In what sort of a states the art of music in your part of the country? Have you heard at all of my great works? Great, I say— compared with the works of the Supreme Creator, all things are small. Farewell, my dear, good Amenda! Think occasionally of your friend Ludwig van Beethoven (p. 137) — Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) A.C. Kalischer (Ed.), Beethoven's Letters (1909) To the opera singer Friedir Sebastian Mayer (Letter 104) Dahomey C129 Ludwig van Beethoven (issued 9-21-1970) April 1806 Dear Mayer, Baron Braun informs me that my opera is to be given on Thursdays; for this I will tell you the reason by word of mouth. Now, I beg you most earnestly to see that the choruses are better rehearsed, for the last time they were an utter failure. Also on Thursday we must have a rehearsal with full orchestra at the theatre ; the orchestra was really not bad, but on the stage were many slips. That, however, was to be expected, for the time was too short. I had, however, to risk the matter, for B. Braun threatened that if the opera was not given on Saturdays it would not be given at all. Your affection and friendship, which at any rate you formerly showed, lead me to expect that you will also now see to this opera. After that it will not require such rehearsals any more, and, if you like, you can conduct it. Here are two books ; please give one to. Farewell, dear Mayer, and look well after this matter. Germany 1014 Beethoven (issued 3-20-1970) To Baron von Zmeskall (Letter 185) 14th April, 1809 Dear old Music Count ! I really believe it would be better if you let old Kraft play as it is indeed the first time that the Terzets will be performed before company— afterwards you will, of course, be able to play them. I, however, leave you free to act as you wish. If you find difficulties in the matter, for it might perhaps happen that Kraft and S. will not harmonise together; then, anyhow, Herr von Z. may distinguish himself, not as a music Count, but as an able musician. Your friend, Beethoven Germany 354 Beethoven (issued August 1927) To His Imperial Highness, the Archduke Rudolph (Letter 384) April 1814 Your Imperial Highness ! The song Germania belongs to the whole world which takes interest in it— and to you— above all others, also to myself. Pleasant journey to Palermo. Your Imperial Highness's faithful and most obedient, Beethoven. The Journal of Eugène Delacroix: Paris, Tuesday, April 15, 1823— Andrea del Sarto: Charity (1518) Louvre Museum, Paris Raphael: Holy Family (1518) Louvre Museum, Paris Delacroix: Drawing of Horse Friday, June 6, 1851 journal entry (p. 251)     Today I was lost in admiration of Andrea del Sarto's Charity. This painting really moves me more than Raphael's Holy Family. One can paint well in so many styles. How noble, elegant, and strong his children are! And his women— what a head— and the hands! I should like to have time to copy it. That would be a reminder for me, so that in copying from nature without the influence of the masters, I should remember that one ought to have a grander style. I must absolutely begin to draw horses. I must go to the stables every morning, go to bed early, and get up very early. (p. 46) — Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) The Journal of Eugène Delacroix: Paris, Friday, April 15, 1853— Courbet: The Bathers (1853) Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France     Went to see Courbet's paintings, astonished at the vigor and the relief in his principal picture; but what a picture! What a subject! Commonness of the forms would do no harm; it's the commonness and the uselessness of the thought which are abominable; and if only his idea, common and useless as it is, were clear!     Oh Rossini! Oh, Mozart! Oh, geniuses inspired in all the arts, who draw from things only such elements of them as are to be shown to the mind! What would you say before these pictures? Oh, Semiramis! Oh, entry of the priests to crown Ninias! (Semiramis was the legendary wife of King Nimrod, circa 2200 BC, written as a 1748 play by Voltaire) (pp. 292-293). France B259, Delacroix (issued June 2, 1951) Joel Porte (Ed.), Emerson in His Journals (1982), April 15-16, 1839— U.S. 861, Emerson (issued February 5, 1940) The simple knot of Now & Then will give an immeausrable value to any sort of catalogue or journal kept with common sense for a year or two. See in the Merchan't compting room for his peddling of cotton & indigo, the value that comes to be attached to any Blotting book or Leger, and if your aims & deeds are superior, how can any record of yours (suppose, of the books you wish to read, of the pictures you would see, of the facts you would scrutinize)— any record that you are genuinely moved to begin & continue— not have a value proportionately superior? It converts the heights you have reached into table land. That book or literary fact which had the whole emphasis of attention a month ago stands here along with one which was as important in preceding months, and with that of yesterday; &, next month, there will be another. Here they will occupy but four lines & I cannot read these together without juster views of each than when I read them singly. (pp. 217-218) April 14, 1842 If I should write an honest diary what should I say? Alas that Life has halfness, shallowness. I have almost completed 39 years and I have not yet adjusted my relation to my fellows on the planet, or to my own work. Always too young or too old. I do not satisfy myself; how can I satisfy others? (pp. 284-285) April 1842 I am not united. I am not friendly to myself. I hate & tear myself. I am ashamed of myself. When will the day dawn of peace & reconcilement when self-united & friendly I shall display one heart & energy to the world? (p. 285) April 1862 Spring. Why complain of the cold slow spring? the bluebirds don't complain, the blackbirds make the maples ring with social cheer & jubilee, the robins know the snow must go & sparrows with prophetic eye that these bare osiers yet will hide their future nest in the pride of their foliage. And you alone with all your six feet of experience are the fool of the cold of the present moment, & cannot see the southing of the sun. Besides the snowflake is freedom's star. (p. 501) — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)     Left: Portrait of Emerson (1858) by Samuel W. Rowse Odell Shepard (Ed.), The Heart of Thoreau's Journals (1961), U.S. 1327, Thoreau (issued Ju;y 12, 1967) April 15, 1841— The gods are of no sect; they side with no man. When I imagine that Nature inclined rather to some few earnest and faithful souls, and specially existed for them, I go to see an obscure individual wo lives under the hill, letting both gods and men alone, and find that strawberries and tomatoes grow for him too in his garden there, and the sun lodges kindly under his hillside, and am compelled to acknowledge the unbribable charity of the gods. (p. 26) April 15, 1852— Channing calls our walks along the banks of the river, taking a boat for convenience at some distant point, riparial excursions. It is a pleasing epithet, but I mistrust such, even as good as this, in which the mere name is so agreeable, as if it would ring hollow ere lone; and rather the thing should make the true name poetic at last. Alcott wished me to name my book Sylvania! (p. 84) — Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) Bradford Torrey (Ed.), The The Journal of Henry D. Thoreau in 14 Volumes Bound As Two April 15, 1852— My face still burns with yesterday's sunning. It rains this morning, as if the vapor from the melting snow were falling again. There is so much sun and light reflected from the snow at this season that it is not only remarkably white and dazzling but tans in a few moments. It is fortunate, then, that the sun on the approach of the snows, the season of snow, takes his course so many degrees lower in the heavens; else he might burn us up, even at that season. The face comes from the house of winter, tender and white, to the house of summer, and these late snows convey the sun to it with sudden and scoring power. It was a still, warm beautiful day. I was out but three hours. It was the sun suddenly and copiously applied to a face from winter quarters. (p. 379) ( Vol. III, pp. 413-414) April 15, 1854— Morning— Snow and snowing; four inches deep. Yesterday was very cold. Now, I trust, it will come down and out of the air. Many birds must be hard put to it. Some tree sparrows and song sparrows have got close up to the sill of the house on the south side, where there is a line of grass visible, for shelter. When Father came down this morning he found a sparrow squatting in a chair in the kitchen, Doesn't know how it got there. I examined it a long time, but could not make it out. It was five or six inches long, with a somewhat finch-like bill (bluish-black above and light below)... (p. 713) (Vol. VI, p. 197) April 15, 1855— Portrait of Thoreau by Samuel W. Rowse (1854) No sun till setting. Another still, moist, overcast day, without sun, but all day a crescent of light, as if breaking away in the north. The waters smooth and full of reflections. A still cloudy day like this is perhaps the best to be on the water. To the clouds, perhaps, we owe both the stillness and the reflections, for the light is in great measure reflected from the waters. Robins sing now at 10 A.M. as in the morning, and the phoebe; and pigeon woodpecker's cackle is heard, and many martins (with white-bellied swallows) are skimming and twittering above the water, perhaps catching the small fuzzy gnats with which the air is filled. The sound of church bells, at various distances, in Concord and the neighboring towns, sounds very sweet to us on the water this still day. It is the song of the villages heard with the song of the birds. (p. 871) (Vol. VII, p. 307) April 15, 1856, 6:30 A.M.— It is warmer and quite still; somewhat cloudy in the east. The water quite smooth. — April smooth waters. I hear very distinctly Barrett's sawmill at my landing. The purple finch is singing on the elms about the house, together with the robins, whose strain its resembles, ending with a loud, shrill, ringing chilt chilt chilt chilt. I push across the meadow and ascend the hill. The white-bellied swallows are circling about and twittering above the apple trees and walnuts on the hillside. Not till I gain the hilltop do I hear the note of the Fringilla junco rum (huckleberry-bird) from the plains beyond. Returned again toward my boat. I hear the rich watery note of the martin, making haste over the edge of the flood. A warm morning, over smooth water, before the wind rises, is the time to hear it... Coming home from Emerson's house at 11 P.M., a still and rather warm night, I am surprised to hear the first loud, clear, prolonged ring of a toad.. While all the hillside else, perhaps, is asleep, this toad has just awaked to a new year. It was a rather warm, moist night, the moon partially obscured by misty clouds, all the village asleep, only a few lights to be seen in some windows, when, as I passed along under the warm hillside, I heard a clear, shrill, prolonged ringing note from a toad, the first toad of the year, sufficiently countenanced by its Maker in the night and the solitude, and then again I hear it, on a little higher key. (pp. 1001-1002) (Vol. VIII, pp. 284-286) April 15, 1858, P.M.— See a pair of woodpeckers on a rail and on the ground a-courting. One keeps hopping near the other, and the latter hops away a few feet, and so they accompany one another a long distance, uttering sometimes a faint or short a-week... The naturalist accomplishes a great deal by patience, more perhaps than by activity. He must take his position, and then wait and watch. It is equally true of quadrupeds and reptiles. Sit still in the midst of their haunts. (p. 1274) (Vol. X, pp. 368-369) April 15, 1859, P.M.— Consider how much is annually spent on the farmer's life: the beauty of his abode, which has inspired poets since the world was made; the hundreds of delicate and beautiful flowers scattered profusely under his feet and all around him , as he walks or drives his team afield,Ñ he cannot put his spade into the cultivated ground without disturbing some of them; a hundred or two of equally beautiful birds to sing to him morning and evening, and some at noonday, a good part of the year; a perfect sky arched over him, a perfect carpet spread under him, etc., etc,! And can the farmer speak or think carelessly of these gifts? Will he find it in his heart to curse the flowers and shoot the birds? (p. 1468) (Vol. XII, pp. 144-145) Jay Leyda, The Years and Hours of Emily Dickinson, Vol. 2 (1960) Amherst, Tuesday, April 15, 1862— Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) To: Thomas Wentworth Higginson Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive? The Mind is so near itself— it cannot see, distinctly— and I have none to ask— Should you think it breathed— and had you the leisure to tell me, I should feel quick gratitude— If I make the mistake— that you dared to tell me— would give me sincerer honor— toward you— I enclose my name— asking you, if you please— Sir— to tell me what is true? That you will not betray me— it is needless to ask- since Honor is it's own pawn— Four poems enclosed— "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers" (216) "We play at Paste" (320) "The nearest Dream recedes unrealized" (319) "I'll tell you how the Sun rose" (318) (pp. 52-54; Letter 260) Amherst, April 15, 1875 To Louise and Frances Norcross, at Concord: I have only a buttercup to offer for the Centennial, as an "embattled farmer"* [* R.W. Emerson's "Concord Hymn" (1837) is in familiar use this year] has but little time. Begging you not to smile at my limited meadows, I am modestly Yours. (p. 233; Letter 436) Amherst, April 15, 1886 U.S. 1436 Dickinson (issued August 28, 1971) To Charles H. Clark: Thank you, dear friend, I am better. The velocity of the ill, however, is like that of the snail. I am glad of your father's tranquillity, and of your own courage. Fear makes us all martial. I could hardly have thought it possible that the scholarly stranger to whom my father introduced me, could have mentioned my friend, almost itself a vision, or have still left a legend to relate his name. With the exception of my Sister, who never saw Mr. Wadsworth, your name alone, remains— "Going Home", was he not an Aborigine of the Sky?... But the loved Voice has ceased, and to some one who heard him "Going Home" it was sweet to speak... Thank you for each circumstance, and tell me all you love to say of what said your lost Brother. "The Doctor opened his Heart to Charlie." Excuse me for the Voice, this moment immortal. (pp. 467-468; Letter 1040) — Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) Walter Teller (Ed.), Walt Whitman's Camden Conversations (1973) Horace Traubel visited Whitman daily for four years (1888-1892), & took notes whatever Whitman said. In 1906, fourteen years after Whitman's death, he published With Walt Whiman in Camden. Four volumes followed, a total of 2600 pages. Teller selected the best of Whitman from Traubel's pages. U.S. 867 Walt Whitman (issued 2-20-1940) April 15, 1888 To W's in the forenoon. "I'm going up to Tom's for tea— you will be there?" He was trying on a new red tie. "Red has life in it— our men mostly look like funerals, undertakers: they set about to dress as gloomy as they can." (p. 68) April 16, 1888 American life— every man is trying to outdo every other man— giving up modesty, giving up honesty, giving up generosity, to do it: creating a war, every man against every man: the whole wretched business falsely keyed by money ideals, money politics, money religions, money men. (p. 30) Czechoslovakia 726 Walt Whitman (issued 10-27-1955) April 20, 1888 The common heroisms of life are anyhow the real heroisms: the impressive heroisms: not the military kind, not the political kind: just the ordinary world kind, the bits of brave conduct happening about us: things that don't get into the papers— things that the preachers don't thank God for in their pulpits— the real things, nevertheless— the only things that eventuate in a good harvest. (p. 93) April 12, 1889 I am in favor of agitation— agitation— agitation and agitation: without the questioner, the agitator, the disturber, to hit away at our complacency, we'd get into a pretty pass indeed. (p. 149) — Walt Whitman (1819-1892) William Frederic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir, Vol. 9 (1923) Yosemite, April 13th, 1870, To Mrs. Ezra S. Carr U.S. 1245 John Muir (issued April 29, 1964) Dear Mrs. Carr: About twelve inches of snow fell in that last snowstorm. It disappeared as suddenly as it came, snatched away hastily almost before it had time to melt, as if a mistake had been made in allowing it to come here at all. A week of spring days, bright in every hour, without a stain or thought of the storm, came in glorious colors, giving still greater pledges of happy life to every living creature of the spring, but a loud energetic snowstorm possessed every hour of yesterday. Every tree and broken weed bloomed yet once more. All summer distinctions were leveled off. All plants and the very rocks and streams were equally polypetalous.This morning winter had everything in the Valley. The snow drifted about in the frosty wind like meal and the falls were muffled in thick cheeks of frozen spray. Thus do winter and spring leap into the Valley by turns, each remaining long enough to form a small season or climate of its own, or going and coming squarely in a single day. Whitney says that the bottom has fallen out of the rocks here— which I most devoutly disbelieve. Well, the bottom frequency falls out of these winter clouds and climates. It is seldom that any long transition slant exists between dark and bright days in this narrow world of rocks.I know that you are enchanted with the April loveliness of your new home. You enjoy the most precious kind of sunshine, and by this time flower patches cover the hills about Oakland like colored clouds. I would like to visit chose broad outspread blotches of social flowers that are so characteristic of your hills, but far rather would I see and feel the flowers that are now at Fountain Lake, and the lakes of Madison. Mrs. Hutchings thought of sending you a bulb of the California lily by mail, but found it too large. She wishes to be remembered to you. Your Squirrel [Florence Hutchings] is very happy. She is a rare creature. I hope to see you and the Doctor soon in the Valley. I have a great deal to say to you which I will not try to write. Remember me most cordially to the Doctor, to Allie & all the boys. I am much obliged to you for those botanical notes, etc., and I am, Ever most cordially yours John Muir (pp. 214-216) William Frederic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir, Vol. 10 (1924) New Sentinel Hotel, Yosemite Valley, April, 1872 To Mrs. Ezra S. Carr Sunday night I was up in the moon among the lumined spray of the upper Falls. The lunar bows were glorious and the music Godful as ever. You will yet mingle amid the forms and voices of this peerless fall. I wanted to have you spend two or three nights up there in full moon, and planned a small hut for you, but since the boisterous waving of the rocks, the danger seems forbidding, at least for you. We can go up there in the afternoon, spend an hour or two, and return. I had a grand ramble in the deep snow outside the Valley, and discovered one beautiful truth concerning snow structure, and three concerning the forms of forest trees. These earthquakes have made me immensely rich. I had long been aware of the life and gentle tenderness of the rocks, and instead of walking upon them as unfeeling surfaces, began to regard them as a transparent sky. Now they have spoken with audible voice and pulsed with common motion. This very instant just as my pen reached "and" on the third line above, my cabin creaked with a sharp shock and the oil waved in my lamp. We had several shocks last night. I would like to go somewhere on the west South American coast to study earthquakes. I think I could invent some experimental... [Rest of letter lost.] (pp. 328-329); Photo: John Muir (1829-1916) by Carleton Watkins (1875) James Joyce Letters, Vol. I (Edited by Stuart Gilbert, 1957): Ireland 1555 (issued June 16, 2004) April 16, 1927, Paris To: Harriet Shaw Weaver Dear Miss Weaver: I wish you a pleasant Easter up in the north. I finished my revision and have passed 24 hours prostrate more than the priests on Good Friday. I think I have done what I wanted to do. I am glad you liked my punctuality as an engine driver. I have taken this up because I am really one of the greatest engineers, if not the greatest, in the world besides being a music maker, philosophist and heaps of other things. All the engines I know are wrong. Simplicity. I am making an engine with only one wheel. No spokes of course. The wheel is a perfect square. You see what I am driving at, don't you? I am awfully solemn about it, mind you, so you must think it a silly story about the mouse and the grapes. No, it's a wheel, I tell the world. And it's all square. (p. 251) James Joyce Letters, Vol. II (Edited by Stuart Gilbert, 1957): April 15, 1906, Via Giovanni Boccaccio 1, IIo, Trieste, Austria To: Grant Richard Kindly excuse me for not keeping my word. I have had very little time for writing lately. However, as you need the story, I shall finish it at once and send it to you. Jas A Joyce (p. 132) James Joyce Letters, Vol. II (Edited by Stuart Gilbert, 1957): Ireland 1220c Joyce (issued June 16,2000) April 15, 1914, Trieste, Austria To: Katharine Tynan Madam: Allow me to thank you for the honor you have done me by including in an anthology recently brought out by you some verses of mine-- I hear an army charging upon the land. I have not seen your anthology, but some days ago I saw a collection of verses brought out in New York which also contains these verses. This version and also that in your anthology from which it was taken contains two mistakes, viz:         stanza 2, line 1         'into' for 'unto'         stanza 3, line 1         'grey' for 'green' (v. Chamber Music (Elkin Mathews, London, 1907, p. 36). If a second edition of your anthology be called for perhaps you will be kind enough to make these two changes. Sincerely yours, JAMES JOYCE (pp. 330-331) — James Joyce (1882-1941) Helen Dukas & Banesh Hoffmann (Eds.), Albert Einstein, the Human Side (1979): U.S. 1285 Einstein (issued March 14, 1966) April 11, 1946, Princeton, NJ To: Dr. Otto Juliusburger You take a definite stand about Hitler's responsibility. I myself have never really believed in the subtler distinctions that lawyers foist upon physicians. Objectively, there is, after all, no free will. I think that we have to safeguard ourselves against people who are a menace to others, quite apart from what may have motivated their deeds. What need is there for a criterion of responsibility? I believe that the horrifying deterioration in the ethical conduct of people today stems primarily from the mechanization and dehumanization of our lives— a disastrous byproduct of the development of the scientific and technical mentality. Nosra culpa! I don't see any way to tackle this disastrous short-coming. Man grows cold faster than the planet he inhabits. (pp. 81-82) — Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Max Born (Ed.), The Born-Einstein Letters (1971): Switzerland 549 Einstein (issued 9-21-1972) April 12, 1949, Princeton, NJ To: Max & Hedwig Born     Your thesis, Mrs Born, that liberation from the bondage of the self constitutes the only way towards a more satisfactory human society, I regard as absolutely right. But is it not also a fact that one cannot put everything down to the individual, as the social orientation of the individual is bound to wither in a society geared to ruthless competition? The effort to improve must therefore take both these sources of human behaviour into account.     Now you ask me what my attitude is towards the simple life. I simply enjoy giving more than receiving in every respect, do not take myself nor the doings of the masses seriously, am not ashamed of my weaknesses and vices, and naturally take things as they come with equanimity and humour. Many people are like this, and I really cannot understand why I have been made into a kind of idol. I suppose it is just as incomprehensible as why an avalanche should be triggered off by one particular particle of dust, and why it should take a certain course. Kind regards and wishes Yours A.E. (pp. 181-182) Memorable Quotes of Albert Einstein "Good acts are like good poems. One may easily get their drift, but they are not rationally understood." — quote to Maurice Solovine, April 9, 1947. "and knowledge is one of the finest attributes of man— though often it is most loudly voiced by those who strive for it the least." — quote from The Goal of Human Existence, April 11, 1943. [AEA 28-587] "Fear or stupidity has always been the basis of most human actions." — Letter to E. Mulder, April 1954; Einstein Archive 60-609. "My life is a simple thing that would interest no one. It is a known fact that I was born, and that is all that is necessary." — quoted in The Tower, April 13, 1935. Ireland 1219d Einstein (issued 2-29-2000) Sri Munagala Venkataramiah: Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi (1968): April 15, 1937— Ramana: Now they say that the world is unreal. Of what degree of unreality is it? Is it like that if a son of a barren mother or a flower in the sky, mere words without any reference to facts? Whereas the world is a fact and not a mere word. The answer is that it is a superimposition on the one Reality, like the appearance of a snake on a coiled rope seen in dim light. India 539, Ramana Maharshi (issued April 14, 1971)     But here too the wrong identity ceases as soon as the friend points out that it is a rope. Whereas in the matter of the world, it persists even after it is known to be unreal. How is that? Again the appearance of water in a mirage persists even after the knowledge of the mirage is recognized. So it is with the world. Though knowing it to be unreal, it continues to manifest. But the water of th mirage is not sought to satisfy one's thirst. As soon as one knows that it is a mirage, one gives it up as useless and does not run after it for procuring water. It is like a man satisfying his dream wants by dream creations. There are objects, there are wants and there is satisfaction. The dream creation is as purposeful as the jagrat [Sanskrit: waking state] world and yet it is not considered real.     Thus we see that each of these illustrations serves a distinct purpose in establishing the stages of unreality. The realised sage finally declares that in the regenerate state, the jagrat world also is found to be as unreal as the dream world is found to be in the jagrat state. (p. 372) — Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950) B.V. Narasimha: Self Realisation: Life & Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (1962): April 14, 1950— Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950)     Around the sofa sat the disciples, some chanting Maharishi's verses and other devotional hymns, and some silently. Sandal-wood paste, and jasmin flowers now cover the body, and incense burns by its side.     At about 9 pm, Henri Cartier-Bresson, the famous French photographer, related an expression of his to me. He said: 'It is a most astonishing experience: I was in the open space in front of my house, when my friends drew my attention to the sky, where I saw a vividly-luminous shooting-star with a lumnous tail, unlike any shooting-star I had before seen, coming from the South, and moving slowly across the sky, reached the top of Arunachala and disappeared behind it. Because of its singularity we all guessed its import and immediately looked at our watches— it was 8:47 pm (when Ramana died). We raced to the Ashram only to find that our premonition was too sadly true: the Master had passed into Mahanirvana at that very minute. Other devotees in the Ashram & in the town told me that they too had seen the prophetic meteor. (p. 260) Cartier-Bresson's Photos: Ramana's funeral B.V. Narasimha: Self Realisation: Life & Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (1962): April 15, 1950— Life & Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi (1962): April 14, 1950—     Many devotees kept vigil the whole of last night, singing and chanting the Veda, as did the queues of worshippers, till 11:30 am today, when the body was taken out to the south Vrandah for puja and abishekam. At 6:30 pm, the body which by then had received the homage of not less than about 40,000 persons was carried in a decorated palanquin, reserved for the God of the temple, to the samadhi. Here it was placed in the same Yoga-asana posture into a bag made of the finest kaddar (home-spun cloth), which was then filled with pure camphor, and lowered into the area in the pit which had been reserved for it. Then the pit was filled to the brim with camphor, salt, and sacred ashes to preserve the body from worms and rapid disintegration, and closed with masonry work. Left: Photo of Ramana Maharshi (1879-1950)     Mr. Kakobad, a Parsi devotee of the Master of long-standing, last night happened to be on the terrace of his house in Madras (120 miles away) when he saw the shooting-star to which Mr. Cartier-Bresson and others referred last night, and intuitively associated it with the Mahanirvana of the Master and, without waiting for the morning, he immediately hired a car and came at top speed. (pp. 260-261) (Ramana's final years) The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982 (2007) Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) April 12, 1977—     Lovely warm day, like summer. Went for a long walk. Reread Unholy Loves (By deliberately withholding a "dramatic" conclusion I weaken the narrative. It could end otherwise: both Brigit and Alexis are emotional, volatile people. Yet it seems to me the weak, tentative, hesitant conclusion is the most satisfying one.)     Pheasant in the backyard this morning. Curious sound it made. Many birds— unidentifiable warblers. A few days agao a blizzard, and now summer. Must be difficult for the body to adjust.     Possibility of my going to Princeton for 1978-79— Awfully far in the future. It would be ideal though: a lovely town, stimulating people, proximity to New York. The back lawn flooded with sunlight & forsythia. River quite placid. Faint blue sky, summer winds, an air of uneaned paradise.     Am I as lazy as I feel myself to be... Wasted today, practically. Mind idling. Tomorrow the chaos of 120 exams, yet I let today slip by without doing much. Dissatisfied with the poems, really... dissatisfied with everything... yet inert, indifferent... That's an exaggeration, I suppose. The cessation of conflict brings a kind of benign inertia. I wish I valued the emotions more, as I once did. However... Bleak, economical, precise, pared-down: humanity only between the lines. That is Jigsaw [1985] and perhaps its rigors have discouraged me. (pp. 187-188)

The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982 (2007)

Joyce Carol Oates

April 14, 1980—     A November of the soul. Rain, exhaustion. My mind darts about these days plotting and fantasizing not scenes in my novel but ways of getting out of social engagements.     (Princeton fantasies! Not sexual exploits or romantic encounters; not even literary, academic, or scholarly esteem; but quiet... peace... tranquility... anonymity... invisibility... no dinner parties for a week! two weeks! Could anything be more shameless, more gloriously and deliciously self-indulgent, than to fantasize no dinner parties for two weeks!!!!). The consolation of philosophy, which is to say art; which is a way of saying too secrecy and silence. Silence, exile, cunning. To which I must add my favorite: invisibility. (p. 365)

Helen M. Luke: Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On: Autobio & Journals (2000): April 15, 1984—

Helen M. Luke (1904-1995)

So often have I talked of self-knowledge, of knowing the Shadow, for example, but the experience which comes now in old age of the need for "total surrender to the truth of oneself" (van der Post?) is something hitherto unknown. It is this "recognition" of the all-pervasiveness of one's ego's self-interest that is the terrifying "judgement" without which "Eunoe" cannot be passed. (I think of that terrible judgment scene in Till We Have Faces.) Only passing through the near despair of this recognition can the self-knowledge come that reveals the City of God... Perhaps the only thing that keeps one from the despair Prospero talks of is the pride of my ego— and that is a mere cover-up. Only "prayer" can save— not the ego's prayer but the prayer of the "other", the "exchange" of the crucified Self. (pp. 218-219)