An Island Unto Herself

The following is a striking passage I heard on my Audiobooks app. last night. I've always thought that it is impossible for one person to really understand another; it couldn't have been said better than this:

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Book One, Chapter Three, Night Shadows -
(click the link to hear the passage read)

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life's end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?"

Or this, a lighter take on the same theme -

"That is the case with us all, Papa.  One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."--Jane Austen, Emma

A more positive view on the human condition is expressed in John Donne's No Man is An Island - 

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thine own

or of thine friend's were.

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

What is your take?

Michel de Montaigne

I finished reading the book of Montaigne's essays a few days ago and proceeded to do a sketch of the man modeled after a portrait of him I found on Google.  The big challenge was to capture that slightly sarcastic expression (smirk?) of his.  I'm not sure why I think there is something like that there, in the muscle tension of his face, perhaps.  Or, is it just my imagination?   And, as always, I manage to age my model, whoever he/she may be.  I had originally made his forehead too wide, as Kirk pointed out to me, but I found an easy fix - turning the excess portion into his hat.  Voila!

I was wondering if anybody is going to take up Joseph's invitation to attend his 50th birthday in France.  If so, I think, it's time to start brushing up your French.  No? 

How to Live

I recently started reading Montaigne's essays (as translated by Donald Frame) after reading a newly published biography of Montaigne by Sarah Bakewell titled, How to Live - or - A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (Other Press, 2010).  She has an original take on illuminating Montaigne to present day audience by gleaning choice reflections about life from his massive book of essays.  It must have been about 30 years ago since I first and last read a few of Montaigne's essays, while a college student studying English Literature.  This time around I expect my experience reading Montaigne will be very different, more congenial with age perhaps.  I was wondering if any of you would like to read the book along with me in your spare time.  I am reminded of the aborted effort by some of us in reading and writing about War and Peace; time short and interest fags.  But as Montaigne's essays are episodic, each one is only a couple of pages long, it stands a good chance that we may be able to plow through the book in due time.  As being reported by Bakewell, generations of readers take ownership of what is congenial to him or herself in these essays, I think each of us will have something to say, about one thing or another, while reading through the book. I plan to do some of that in future postings and I hope you will too.