Wilder
From The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder (Act Three).
"... Sometimes out there in the war --- standing all night on a hill --- I'd try and remember some of the words in these books. Parts of them and phrases would come back to me. And after a while I gave names to the hours of the night ... Nine o'clock I called Spinoza:
[Quoting.]
"After experience had taught me that the common occurences of daily life are vain and futile; and I saw that all the objects of my desire and fear were in themselves nothing good nor bad save insofar as the mind was affected by them; I at length determined to search out whether there was something truly good and communicable to man."
Wilder wrote that play in 1942. I believe there is something good and communicable.
As W. H. Auden wrote, "We must love one another or die." Cain seems to be winning.
"... Sometimes out there in the war --- standing all night on a hill --- I'd try and remember some of the words in these books. Parts of them and phrases would come back to me. And after a while I gave names to the hours of the night ... Nine o'clock I called Spinoza:
[Quoting.]
"After experience had taught me that the common occurences of daily life are vain and futile; and I saw that all the objects of my desire and fear were in themselves nothing good nor bad save insofar as the mind was affected by them; I at length determined to search out whether there was something truly good and communicable to man."
Wilder wrote that play in 1942. I believe there is something good and communicable.
As W. H. Auden wrote, "We must love one another or die." Cain seems to be winning.
posted by HH at 3:26 PM
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