Without Lifting A Finger

I think it was C S Lewis who said something to the effect of "Christianity would one day need to explain the crusades." Not sure we really can. That -- and all things relevant -- came to my head in the brief reading from Novalis' Heinrich this a.m. * The knights spoke of the holy land, of the wonders of the sacred tomb, of the adventures of their enterprise and voyage, of the Saracens in whose power some of them had been, and of the joyous and wonderful life of field and camp. They expressed with great animation their indignation, when they learned that the heavenly birth-place of Christendom was in the power of the unbelieving heathen. They exalted those great heroes, who had earned for themselves and immortal crown, by their persevering endeavors against this lawless people. The lord of the castle showed the rich sword, which he had taken from their leader with his own hand, after he had conquered his castle, slain him, and made his wife and children prisoners, wh...

Should finish Penelope's "opus" by the end of the weekend. Have also dipped into the "fragment" that started it all: Heinrich ( Henry) von Ofterdingen .     *         

Not a showcase of great writing (so I won't need to read more Penelope anytime soon), but I'm learning a little bit (mostly names and places) and I can appreciate the research (can't make everything up when it's "historical"). I can see, however, what at least one critic has said: Weak in terms of the philosophy behind the movement and the man. Perhaps her Blue Flower will inspire me to dig deeper? * 'But there is something else which I have written and which I want to read to you while I still have time,' Fritz told Karoline. 'It will not truly exist until you have heard it.'      'Is it then poetry?'      'It is poetry, but not verse.'      'Then it is a story?' asked Karoline, who dreaded the reappearance of Fichte's triads.      'It is the beginning of a story.'      'Well, we will wait until my Aunt Rahel comes back from the evening service.'   ...

Flip-flopping between Bernhard's Lime Works and Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower (via Bernhard, Kropotkin and Novalis, I got to Fitzgerald's "opus" -- wasn't sure about historical fiction, not my fave genre, but I figured it would be relatively short and informational: OK so far). * Anyway, Blue Flower kicked up Dr. John Brown. From Blue Flower : Dr. Brown, of Edinburgh, had cured a number of patients by refusing to let blood, and by recommending exercise, sufficient sex, and fresh air. But he held that to be alive was not a natural state, and to prevent immediate collapse the constitution must be held in perpetual balance by a series of stimuli, either jacking it up with alcohol, or damping it down with opium. From the online Britannica : 

Will read his Short History of Decay next. Have already started. Earlier Cioran. Let's compare. * A final word (the final words) from Drawn and Quartered : Novalis says; (sic) "It depends on us to make the world accord with our will." This is precisely the contrary of everything we can think and feel at the end of a life, and, with all the more reason, at the end of history . . .

Novalis ( German: [noˈvaːlɪs] ) was the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (May 2, 1772 – March 25, 1801), a poet, author, and philosopher of early German Romanticism . Writing Novalis, who had great knowledge in science, law, philosophy, politics and political economy, started writing quite early. He left an astonishing abundance of notes on these fields of knowledge and his early work shows that he was very educated and well read. His later works are closely connected to his studies and his profession. Novalis collected everything that he had learned, reflected upon it and drew connections in the sense of an encyclopaedic overview on art, religion and science. These notes from the years 1798 and 1799 are called Das allgemeine Brouillon , and are now available in English under the title Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia . Together with Friedrich Schlegel , Novalis developed the fragment as a literary form of art. The core of Hardenberg’s literary w...

Excerpt from Correction : I'm no philosopher, he'd always said. He had a preference for old clothes, early rising, and washing in cold water. He placed Novalis above everything. Nature, not yet polluted by human beings, hence his early rising. A minimal breakfast, thick socks his sister had knitted from raw, untreated wool, and one of Novalis's ideas. Time was to him only a means toward the constant study of time.

     This nothingness had a definite, if indefinable, content. For a long time she had been in the habit of repeating to herself, on all sorts of occasions, words of Novalis: "What then can I do for my soul, that lives within me like an unsolved riddle, even while it grants the visible man the utmost license, because there is no way it can control him?"