Without Lifting A Finger

 

  “I’ll be around,” she said calmly, “because it’s not going to take long.”  It was too bad she had to have opinions; she had been so agreeable to be with before she had started to express them. And then, the terrible truth was that neither she nor he was right. It would not help the Moslems or the Hindus or anyone else to go ahead, nor, even if it were possible, would it do them any good to stay as they were. It did not really matter whether they worshipped Allah or carburetors—they were lost in any case. In the end, it was his own preferences which concerned him. He would have liked to prolong the status quo because the décor that went with it suited his personal taste.

 

The road had dipped down to the river and climbed up again, it had gone near to the ramparts, past the arches of Bab Fteuh, veered off into the country, still descending through deserted terrain, as though it would never stop. When it flattened out, the pace slowed a little, and later, when it began to wind upward once more, the driver occasionally cracked his whip, calling a lengthy, falsetto: “Eeeee!” to the tired horses. “Don’t let him whip them, please,” she implored, as the long leather thong descended with the sound of a firecracker for the fifth or sixth time. Stenham knew the uselessness of arguing with an Arab about anything at all, and particularly if it had to do with the performance of his daily work, but he leaned forward, saying in a tone of authority: “Allèche bghitsi darbou? Khallih.” The fat man turned halfway around and said laughing: “They’re lazy. They always have to be beaten.” “What does he say?” she inquired. Taking a chance, he replied: “He says if you don’t wan...

“You don’t drink! Not even wine? Why not?” “Don’t get me started on it,” he said, raising his voice slightly. “Let’s say that for me it’s what we Americans call a low-grade kick. You understand that?” He was looking only at Moss. “Oh, quite! And may I ask what you consider a high-grade kick?” “There are plenty of those,” he replied imperturbably. His tone may have nettled Moss, for he pressed on. “Such as—?” “You’re on the carpet, Mr. Stenham,” said Mme Veyron. Stenham pushed away his plate; he had finished anyway, but he liked the dramatic gesture as an accompaniment to the words he was going to say. A sudden gust of wind from the south swept through the garden, bringing with it the smell of the damp river valley below. A corner of the tablecloth flapped up and covered the serving dishes. Kenzie lifted it and dropped it back where it belonged. “Such as keeping these very things private. After all, one’s thoughts belong to oneself. They haven’t yet invented a machine to make the human ...

He knew just which table he wanted. It was behind the door, beside the window, all by itself. Often when he was not working he had come here and sat an entire afternoon, lulled by the din and music from the other rooms into a stage of vague ecstasy, while he contemplated the small sheet of water outside the window. It was that happy frame of mind into which his people could project themselves so easily—the mere absence of immediate unpleasant preoccupation could start it off, and a landscape which included the sea, a river, a fountain, or anything that occupied the eye without engaging the mind, was of use in sustaining it. It was the world behind the world, where reflection precludes the necessity for action, and the calm which all things seek in death appears briefly in the guise of contentment, the spirit at last persuaded that the still waters of perfection are reachable. The details of market life and the personal financial considerations that shoot like rockets across the dark he...

 

He understood why they were willing to risk dying in order to derail a train or burn a cinema or blow up a post office. It was not independence they wanted, it was a satisfaction much more immediate than that: the pleasure of seeing others undergo the humiliation of suffering and dying, and the knowledge that they had at least the small amount of power necessary to bring about that humiliation. If you could not have freedom you could still have vengeance, and that was all anyone really wanted now. Perhaps, he thought, rationalizing, trying to connect the scattered fragments of reality with his image of truth, vengeance was what Allah wished His people to have, and by inflicting punishment on unbelievers the Moslems would merely be imposing divine justice. “Ed dounia ouahira,” he sighed. “The world is a difficult place.”

“In the school they teach you what the world means, and once you have learned, you will always know,” Amar’s father had told him. “But suppose the world changes?” Amar had thought. “Then what would you know?” However, he was careful not to let his father guess what he was thinking.

Pygmy Nuthatch @ Wrightwood CA. Though it's cooler in the mountains this was last Monday ("feels like 90" above, 100+ below) and the waterholes were few. This little guy stopped by for a drink and dip.  #rlswihart13 #wrightwoodca #pygmynutchatch #stoppingforadrink #nuthatchesofinstagram #poetry #nature #beauty #smallthings #readmorepoetry2024🎈♥️🪶

Was bumping around the Net, reading about the use of "writing therapy" in mental health. Found several things of interest, including this quote by Graham Greene (from his book Ways of Escape ): Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.

The Superior said, ‘We all analyse motives too much. I said that once to Father Thomas. You remember what Pascal said, that a man who starts looking for God has already found him. The same may be true of love—when we look for it, perhaps we’ve already found it.’

Nobody cared that a small dissident group who had nothing to do with the local tribe sang their own hymns apart. Only the doctor, who had once worked in the Lower Congo, recognized them for what they were, trouble-makers from the coast more than a thousand kilometres away. It was unlikely that any of the lepers could understand them, so he let them be. The only sign of their long journey by path and water and road was an unfamiliar stack of bicycles up a side-path into the bush which he had happened to take that morning. ‘E ku Kinshasa ka bazeyi ko: E ku Luozi ka bazeyi ko….’ ‘In Kinshasa they know nothing: In Luozi they know nothing.’ The proud song of superiority went on: superiority to their own people, to the white man, to the Christian god, to everyone beyond their own circle of six, all of them wearing the peaked caps that advertised Polo beer. ‘In the Upper Congo they know nothing: In heaven they know nothing: Those who revile the Spirit know nothing: The Chiefs know nothing. Th...

Parkinson leaned forward on the bed and then swayed back like a Chinese wobbling toy made in the likeness of the fat God of Prosperity. He said, ‘Do you consider that the love of God or the love of humanity is your principal driving force, Querry? What in your opinion is the future of Christianity? Has the Sermon on the Mount influenced your decision to give your life to the lepers? Who is your favourite saint? Do you believe in the efficacy of prayer?’ He began to laugh, the great belly rolling like a dolphin. ‘Do miracles still occur? Have you yet visited Fatima?’

‘There are enough problems without sex I can assure you. St Paul wrote, didn’t he, that it was better to marry than burn. Marie will stay young long enough to save me from the furnace.’ He added quickly, ‘Of course I’m only joking. We have to joke, don’t we, about serious things. At the bottom of my heart I believe very profoundly in love.’ He made the claim as some men might claim to believe in fairies.

A Family of Rock Wrens @ The Beach in Palos Verdes. I went one way, then the other: finally they came out (at least three) and gave me a wonderful performance. Happy 4th and "rock" safely.;)❤️🎈🎇 #rlswihart13 #palosverdes #socal #rockwrens #rockwrensofinstagram #nature #beauty #poetry #july4th #readmorepoetry2024❤️🎈🪶

‘Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving –for ever? If I said you can have twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money –without hesitation? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax.’

Martins sat on a hard chair just inside the stage door of the Josefstadt Theatre. He had sent up his card to Anna Schmidt after the matinée, marking it ‘a friend of Harry’s’. An arcade of little windows, with lace curtains and the lights going out one after another, showed where the artists were packing up for home, for the cup of coffee without sugar, the roll without butter to sustain them for the evening performance. It was like a little street built indoors for a film set, but even indoors it was cold, even cold to a man in a heavy overcoat, so that Martins rose and walked up and down underneath the little windows. He felt, he said, rather like a Romeo who wasn’t sure of Juliet’s balcony.