To celebrate the bank accepting our offer we went for cheeseburgers... I know, not very fancy, but we've got to save the coinage. Then we looked into the depressing, terrifying reverse-mirror that is Revolutionary Road... such "great" timing. We are just glad everything truly seemed our opposite.
After the flick, I looked at the special feature titled "Lives of Quiet Desperation." I asked J.D. what writer they were quoting. He immediately guessed "Hemingway"; then I told him he could have hints. The first question he asked was "American?" "Yes." "19th or 20th century?" "19th." Then he guessed "Whitman." "No, close." Then "Thoreau." "Yep."
So I read the section that people often misquote: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" (Walden 8). And then the other section people often quote, which yes, is one of my favorites too: "I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived" (90).
Very eloquent Thoreau. I should have stopped reading out loud there. But, I went on, past even the part about fighting pygmies and cranes: "Still, we live meanly, like ants; though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout, and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest" (91).
I looked over and my hard working, sweet husband was asleep. Showing more wisdom than both Thoreau and myself.
Goodnight all. Thanks for all the love and support.
No comments:
Post a Comment