Without Lifting A Finger

A bit scattered. The stepping stones pretty much go: Coleridge, D. Wordsworth, Keller, Solstad. * Excerpt from Solstad's Shyness & Dignity :      It was not that they were bored, it was rather that look of injury through which their boredom became manifest. There was nothing strange about being bored in a Norwegian class where a drama by Henrik Ibsen was being studied. They were, after all, eighteen-year-olds who were supposed to acquire a liberal education. They were youths who could not be viewed as fully developed individuals. To characterize them as immature, therefore, would not offend anyone, neither themselves nor those with authority over them, at any rate when considered from a sober and objective viewpoint. These immature individuals were placed in school in order to obtain knowledge about classical Norwegian literature, which it was his to offer them. He was, in fact, officially appointed to do just that. The main problem with such a job was tha...

The whole letter is fascinating but I ran out of steam (pecking things out on a tablet in MI) -- so this is the best I could do. * To James Gillman October 10, 1825 My dear Friend, -- It is a flat'ning thought that the more we have seen, the less we have to say. In youth and early manhood the mind and nature are, as it were, two rival artists both potent magicians, and engaged, like the King's daughter and the rebel genie in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, in sharp conflict of conjuration, each having for its object to turn the other into canvas to paint on, clay to mould, or cabinet to contain. For a while the mind seems to have the better in the contest, and makes of Nature what it likes, takes her lichens and weatherstains for types and printers' ink, and prints maps and facsimiles of Arabic and Sanscrit MSS. on her rocks; composes country dances on her moonshiny ripples, fandangos on her waves, and waltzes on her eddy-pools, transforms her summer gales ...

Still enjoying Coleridge's letters. He's now in the Lake District, at Keswick (I've always wanted to return to the L.D., so this might be a small beginning to another trip). Will peck out a meaty (or drug induced) excerpt of a letter from Coleridge to Thomas Poole (a lifelong friend), and then get to my more mundane work: collecting data to answer questions re what I pretty much already know better than the numbers can communicate. :) * To Thomas Poole Monday, March 16, 1801 My dear Friend, -- The interval since my last letter has been filled up by me in the most intense study. If I do not greatly delude myself, I have not only completely extricated the notions of time and space , but have overthrown the doctrine of association, as taught by Hartley, and with it all the irreligious metaphysics of modern infidels -- especially the doctrine of necessity. This I have done ; but I trust that I am about to do more -- namely, that I shall be able to evolve all th...