The date was set for March 29, at 9:00 A.M. That delay ... was caused by the administrative desire to work impersonally and deliberately, as vegetables do, or planets.
----
The Aleph
I do, however, recall these lines from a satire in which he lashed out vehemently against bad poets:
This one fits the poem with a coat of mail
Of erudition; that one, with gala pomps and circumstance.
Both flail their absurd pennons to no avail,
Neglecting, poor wretches, the factor sublime -- its LOVELINESS!
It was only out of concern that he might create an army of implacable and powerful enemies, he told me, that he did not fearlessly publish the poem.
----
The Aleph (1949)
"I picture him," he said with an animation that was rather unaccountable, "in his study, as though in the watchtower of a great city, surrounded by telephones, telegraphs, phonographs, the latest in radio-telephone and motion-picture and magic-lantern equipment, and glossaries and calendars and timetables and bulletins..."
He observed that for a man so equipped, the act of traveling was supererogatory; this twentieth century of ours had upended the fable Muhammad and the mountain -- mountains nowadays did in fact come to the modern Muhammad.
No comments:
Post a Comment