La bohème
Original 1896 poster by Adolfo Hohenstein

La bohème is an opera in four acts, composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger.  The world premiere performance of La bohème was conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini.  The U.S. premiere took place the following year, 1897, in Los Angeles.  Since then, La bohème has become part of the standard Italian opera repertory and is one of the most frequently performed operas worldwide.

Synopsis

Place: Paris

Time: Around 1830.

Act 1

In the four bohemians’ garret

Marcello is painting while Rodolfo gazes out of the window. They complain of the cold. In order to keep warm, they burn the manuscript of Rodolfo’s drama. Colline, the philosopher, enters shivering and disgruntled at not having been able to pawn some books. Schaunard, the musician of the group, arrives with food, wine and cigars. He explains the source of his riches: a job with an eccentric English gentleman, who ordered him to play his violin to a parrot until it died. The others hardly listen to his tale as they set up the table to eat and drink. Schaunard interrupts, telling them that they must save the food for the days ahead: tonight they will all celebrate his good fortune by dining at Cafe Momus, and he will pay.

The friends are interrupted by Benoît, the landlord, who arrives to collect the rent. They flatter him and ply him with wine. In his drunkenness, he begins to boast of his amorous adventures, but when he also reveals that he is married, they thrust him from the room—without the rent payment—in comic moral indignation. The rent money is divided for their evening out in the Quartier Latin.

Marcello, Schaunard and Colline go out, but Rodolfo remains alone for a moment in order to finish an article he is writing, promising to join his friends soon. There is a knock at the door. It is a girl who lives in another room in the building. Her candle has blown out, and she has no matches; she asks Rodolfo to light it. She is briefly overcome with faintness, and Rodolfo helps her to a chair and offers her a glass of wine. She thanks him. After a few minutes, she says that she is better and must go. But as she turns to leave, she realizes that she has lost her key.

Her candle goes out in the draught and Rodolfo’s candle goes out too; the pair stumble in the dark. Rodolfo, eager to spend time with the girl, to whom he is already attracted, finds the key and pockets it, feigning innocence. He takes her cold hand (Che gelida manina – “What a cold little hand”) and tells her of his life as a poet, then asks her to tell him more about her life. The girl says her name is Mimì (Sì, mi chiamano Mimì – “Yes, they call me Mimì”), and describes her simple life as an embroiderer. Impatiently, the waiting friends call Rodolfo. He answers and turns to see Mimì bathed in moonlight (duet, Rodolfo and Mimì: O soave fanciulla – “Oh lovely girl”). They realize that they have fallen in love. Rodolfo suggests remaining at home with Mimì, but she decides to accompany him to the Cafe Momus. As they leave, they sing of their newfound love.

Act 2

Quartier Latin

As the men and Mimì dine at the cafe, Musetta, formerly Marcello’s sweetheart, arrives with her rich (and elderly) government minister admirer, Alcindoro, whom she is tormenting. It is clear she has tired of him. To the delight of the Parisians and the embarrassment of her patron, she sings a risqué song (Musetta’s waltz: Quando me’n vo’ – “When I go along”), hoping to reclaim Marcello’s attention. The ploy works; at the same time, Mimì recognizes that Musetta truly loves Marcello. To be rid of Alcindoro for a bit, Musetta pretends to be suffering from a tight shoe and sends him to the shoemaker to get her shoe mended. Alcindoro leaves, and Musetta and Marcello fall rapturously into each other’s arms.

The friends are presented with their bill. Schaunard’s purse has gone missing and no one else has enough money to pay. The sly Musetta has the entire bill charged to Alcindoro. The sound of a military band is heard, and the friends leave. Alcindoro returns with the repaired shoe seeking Musetta. The waiter hands him the bill and, dumbfounded, Alcindoro sinks into a chair.

Act 3

At the toll gate at the Barrière d’Enfer (late February)

Peddlers pass through the barriers and enter the city. Mimì appears, coughing violently. She tries to find Marcello, who is currently living in a little tavern where he paints signs for the innkeeper. She tells him of her hard life with Rodolfo, who abandoned her the night before, and of Rodolfo’s terrible jealousy (O buon Marcello, aiuto! – “Oh, good Marcello, help me!”). Marcello tells her that Rodolfo is asleep inside, and expresses concern about Mimì’s cough. Rodolfo wakes up and comes out looking for Marcello. Mimì hides and overhears Rodolfo first telling Marcello that he left Mimì because of her coquettishness, but finally confessing that his jealousy is a sham: he fears she is slowly being consumed by a deadly illness (most likely tuberculosis, known by the catchall name “consumption” in the nineteenth century). Rodolfo, in his poverty, can do little to help Mimì and hopes that his pretended unkindness will inspire her to seek another, wealthier suitor (Marcello, finalmente – “Marcello, finally”).

Out of kindness towards Mimì, Marcello tries to silence him, but she has already heard all. Her weeping and coughing reveal her presence, and Rodolfo hurries to her. Musetta’s laughter is heard and Marcello goes to find out what has happened. Mimì tells Rodolfo that she is leaving him, and asks that they separate amicably (Mimì: Donde lieta uscì – “From here she happily left”); but their love for one another is too strong for the pair to part. As a compromise, they agree to remain together until the spring, when the world is coming to life again and no one feels truly alone. Meanwhile, Marcello has found Musetta, and the couple quarrel fiercely about Musetta’s flirtatiousness: an antithetical counterpoint to the other pair’s reconciliation (quartet: Mimì, Rodolfo, Musetta, Marcello: Addio dolce svegliare alla mattina! – “Goodbye, sweet awakening in the morning!”).

Act 4

Back in the garret (some months later)

Marcello and Rodolfo are trying to work, though they are primarily talking about their girlfriends, who have left them and found wealthy lovers. Rodolfo has seen Musetta in a fine carriage and Marcello has seen Mimì dressed like a queen. The men both express their nostalgia (duet: O Mimì, tu più non torni – “O Mimì, will you not return?”). Schaunard and Colline arrive with a very frugal dinner and all parody eating a plentiful banquet, dance together and sing, before Schaunard and Colline engage in a mock duel.

Musetta suddenly appears; Mimì, who took up with a wealthy viscount after leaving Rodolfo in the spring, has left her patron. Musetta found her that day in the street, severely weakened by her illness, and Mimì begged Musetta to bring her to Rodolfo. Mimì, haggard and pale, is assisted onto a bed. Briefly, she feels as though she is recovering. Musetta and Marcello leave to sell Musetta’s earrings in order to buy medicine, and Colline leaves to pawn his overcoat (Vecchia zimarra – “Old coat”). Schaunard leaves with Colline to give Mimì and Rodolfo some time together. Mimì tells Rodolfo that her love for him is her whole life (aria/duet, Mimì and Rodolfo: Sono andati? – “Have they gone?”).

To Mimì’s delight, Rodolfo presents her with the pink bonnet he bought her, which he has kept as a souvenir of their love. They remember past happiness and their first meeting—the candles, the lost key. Suddenly, Mimì is overwhelmed by a coughing fit. The others return, with a gift of a muff to warm Mimì’s hands and some medicine. Mimì gently thanks Rodolfo for the muff, which she believes is a present from him, reassures him that she is better and falls asleep. Musetta prays. Schaunard discovers that Mimì has died. Rodolfo rushes to the bed, calling Mimì’s name in anguish.  He weeps as the curtain falls.

Langston Hughes
1936 photo by Carl Van Vechten

Today is the birthday of James Mercer Langston Hughes (Joplin, Missouri; February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967 New York City); poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist.  He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry.  Perhap best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City.  He famously wrote about the period that “the negro was in vogue”, which was later paraphrased as “when Harlem was in vogue”.

Hughes never married.

Hughes died at the age of 65 from complications after abdominal surgery related to prostate cancer.  His ashes are interred beneath a floor medallion in the middle of the foyer in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem.  It is the entrance to an auditorium named for him.  The design on the floor is an African cosmogram entitled Rivers.  The title is taken from his poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”.  Within the center of the cosmogram is the line: “My soul has grown deep like the rivers”.

Saudade (European Portuguese: [sɐwˈdadɨ], Brazilian Portuguese: [sawˈdadi] or [sawˈdadʒi], Galician: [sawˈðaðe]; plural saudades) is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. It means missingness. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. A stronger form of saudade might be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as a lost lover, or a family member who has gone missing, moved away, separated, or died.

Saudade was once described as “the love that remains” after someone is gone. Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone (e.g., one’s children, parents, sibling, grandparents, friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past) that should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this absence. It brings sad and happy feelings altogether, sadness for missing and happiness for having experienced the feeling.

Saudade is a word in Portuguese and Galician (from which it entered Spanish) that claims no direct translation in English. In Portuguese, “Tenho saudades tuas” (European Portuguese) or “Tenho saudades de você” (Brazilian Portuguese), translates as “I have (feel) saudade of you” meaning “I miss you”, but carries a much stronger tone. In fact, one can have saudade of someone whom one is with, but have some feeling of loss towards the past or the future. For example, one can have “saudade” towards part of the relationship or emotions once experienced for/with someone, though the person in question still is part of one’s life, as in “Tenho saudade do que fomos” (I feel “saudade” of the way we were). Another example can illustrate this use of the word saudade: “Que saudade!” indicating a general feeling of longing, whereby the object of longing can be a general and undefined entity/occasion/person/group/period etc. This feeling of longing can be accompanied or better described by an abstract will to be where the object of longing is.

Despite being hard to translate, saudade has equivalent words in other cultures, and is often related to music styles expressing this feeling such as the blues for African-Americans, dor in Romania, Tizita in Ethiopia, or Assouf for the Tuareg people. In Slovak, the word is clivota or cnenie, in Czech, the word is stesk and Sehnsucht in German.

Nascimento and Meandro (2005) cite Duarte Nunes Leão’s definition of saudade: “Memory of something with a desire for it.”

As with all emotions, saudade has been an inspiration for many songs and compositions. “Sodade” (saudade in Cape Verdean Creole) is the title of the Cape Verde singer Cesária Évora’s most famous song. Étienne Daho, a French singer, also produced a song of the same name. The Good Son, a 1990 album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, was heavily informed by Cave’s mental state at the time, which he has described as saudade. He told journalist Chris Bohn: “When I explained to someone that what I wanted to write about was the memory of things that I thought were lost for me, I was told that the Portuguese word for this feeling was saudade. It’s not nostalgia but something sadder.”

Spanish singer Julio Iglesias, whose father is a Galician, speaks of saudade in his song “Un Canto a Galicia” (which roughly translates as “a song/chant for Galicia”). In the song, he passionately uses the phrase to describe a deep and sad longing for his motherland, Galicia. He also performs a song called “Morriñas”, which describes the Galicians as having a deeply strong saudade.

The Paraguayan guitarist Agustin Barrios wrote several pieces invoking the feeling of saudade, including Choro de Saudade and Preludio Saudade. The term is prominent in Brazilian popular music, including the first bossa nova song, “Chega de Saudade” (“No more saudade“, usually translated as “No More Blues”), written by Tom Jobim. Jazz pianist Bill Evans recorded the tune “Saudade de Brasil” numerous times. In 1919, on returning from two years in Brazil, the French composer Darius Milhaud composed a suite, Saudades do Brasil, which exemplified the concept of saudade. “Saudade (Part II)” is also the title of a flute solo by the band Shpongle. The singer Amália Rodrigues typified themes of saudade in some of her songs. J-Rock band Porno Graffitti has a song entitled “サウダージ”, “Saudaaji” transliterated (“Saudade”). The alternative rock band Love And Rockets has a song named “Saudade” on their album Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven. June 2012 brought Bearcat’s release of their self-titled indie album that included a song called “Saudade”.

The Dutch jazz/Rock guitarist Jan Akkerman recorded a composition called “Saudade”, the centerpiece of his 1996 album Focus in Time. The jazz fusion group Trio Beyond, consisting of John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette, and Larry Goldings released in 2006 an album dedicated to drummer Tony Williams (1945–1997), called Saudades. Dance music artist Peter Corvaia released a progressive house track entitled “Saudade” on HeadRush Music, a sub-label of Toes in the Sand Recordings. New York City post-rock band Mice Parade released an album entitled Obrigado Saudade in 2004. Chris Rea also recorded a song entitled “Saudade Part 1 & 2 (Tribute To Ayrton Senna)” as a tribute to Ayrton Senna, the Brazilian three-times Formula One world champion killed on the track in May 1994. There is an ambient/noise/shoegazing band from Portland, Oregon, named Saudade. The rock band Extreme has a Portuguese guitarist Nuno Bettencourt; the influence of his heritage can be seen in the band’s album Saudades de Rock. During recording, the mission statement was to bring back musicality to the medium. “Nancy Spain”, a song by Barney Rush, made famous by an adaptation by Christy Moore, is another example of the use of saudade in contemporary Irish music, the chorus of which is:

“No matter where I wander I’m still haunted by your name
The portrait of your beauty stays the same
Standing by the ocean wondering where you’ve gone
If you’ll return again
Where is the ring I gave to Nancy Spain?”

The Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa’s posthumous collection of writings The Book of Disquiet (Livro do Desassossego: Composto por Bernardo Soares, ajudante de guarda-livros na cidade de Lisboa) is written almost entirely in a tone of saudade.

• Walking on these streets, until the night falls, my life feels to me like the life they have. By day they’re full of meaningless activity; by night, they’re full of meaningless lack of it. By day I am nothing, and by night I am I. There is no difference between me and these streets, save they being streets and I a soul, which perhaps is irrelevant when we consider the essence of things.
  • “A Factless Autobiography”, number 3, tr. by Richard Zenith

• Whether or not they exist, we’re slaves to the gods.
  • A Factless Autobiography, number 21, tr. by Richard Zenith (Penguin Classics edition)

• … And I, who timidly hate life, fear death with fascination. I fear this nothingness that could be something else, and I fear it as nothing and as something else simultaneously, as if gross horror and non-existence could coincide there, as if my coffin could entrap the eternal breathing of a bodily soul, as if immortality could be tormented by confinement. The idea of hell, which only a satanic soul could have invented seems to me to have derived from this sort of confusion – a mixture of two different fears that contradict and contaminate each other.
  • Ibid., number 168

• I think of life as an inn where I have to stay until the abyss coach arrives. I don’t know where it will take me, for I know nothing.
  • Original: Considero a vida uma estalagem onde tenho que me demorar até que chegue a diligência do abismo. Não sei onde ela me levará, porque não sei nada.
  • A Factless Autobiography, Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006, p. 40

• Every day things happen in the world that cannot be explained by any law of things we know. Every day they’re mentioned and forgotten, and the same mystery that brought them takes them away, transforming their secret into oblivion. Such is the law by which things that can’t be explained must be forgotten. The visible world goes on as usual in the broad daylight. Otherness watches us from the shadows.
  • A Factless Autobiography, number 424, trans. Richard Zenith, Penguin Classics edition

• Having touched Christ’s feet is not an excuse for punctuation mistakes.
  • Original: O ter tocado os pés de Cristo não é desculpa para defeitos de pontuação.
  • A Factless Autobiography, Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006, p 229

• Strength without agility is a mere mass.
  • Original: A força sem a destreza é uma simples massa.
  • Ibid.

• There are those that even God exploits, and they are prophets and saints in the vacuousness of the world.
  • Original: Há os que Deus mesmo explora, e são profetas e santos na vacuidade do mundo.
  • Ibid., p. 45

• I come closer to my desk as to a bulwark against life.
  • Original: Achego-me à minha secretária como a um baluarte contra a vida.
  • Ibid.

• We are two abysses — a well staring at the sky.
  • Original: Somos dois abismos — um poço fitando o céu.
  • Ibid., p. 48

• A tedium that includes only the anticipation of more tedium; the regret, now, of tomorrow regretting having regretted today.
  • Original: Um tédio que inclui a antecipação só de mais tédio; a pena, já, de amanhã ter pena de ter tido pena hoje.
  • Ibid., p. 50

• The train slows down, it’s the Cais do Sodré. I arrived to Lisbon, but not to a conclusion.
  • Original: O comboio abranda, é o Cais do Sodré. Cheguei a Lisboa, mas não a uma conclusão.
  • Ibid.

• We become sphynxes, though fake, up to the point we no longer know who we are.
  • Original: Tornamo-nos esfinges, ainda que falsas, até chegarmos ao ponto de não sabermos quem somos.
  • Ibid., p. 52

• Fraternity has subtleties.
  • Original: A fraternidade tem subtilezas.
  • Ibid., p. 53

• I believe that saying a thing is to keep its virtues and take away its terror.
  • Original: Creio que dizer uma coisa é conservar-lhe a virtude e tirar-lhe o terror.
  • Ibid., p. 55

• I have now so many fundamental thoughts, so many really metaphysical things to say, that I suddenly get tired and decide not to write more, not to think more, but allow the fever of saying to make me sleepy, and fondle, with closed eyes, as if to a cat, all that I could have said.
  • Original: Tenho neste momento tantos pensamentos fundamentais, tantas coisas verdadeiramente metafísicas para dizer, que me canso de repente, e decido não escrever mais, não pensar mais, mas deixar que a febre de dizer me dê sono, e eu faça festas, como a um gato, a tudo quanto poderia ter dito.
  • Ibid., p. 56

• I’m all those things, even though I don’t want to, in the confuse depth of my fatal sensibility.
  • Original: Sou todas essa coisas, embora o não queira, no fundo confuso da minha sensibilidade fatal.
  • Ibid., p. 58

• I sleep and I unsleep. On the other side of me, beyond where I lie down, the silence of the house touches infinity. I hear time falling, drop by drop, and no falling drop is heard falling.
  • Original: Durmo e desdurmo.
    Do outro lado de mim, lá para trás de onde jazo, o silêncio da casa toca no infinito. Oiço cair o tempo, gota a gota, e nenhuma gota que cai se ouve cair.
  • Ibid., p. 59

• The house clock, place certain there at the bottom of things, strikes the half hour dry and null. All is so much, all is so deep, all is so dark and cold!
  • Original: O relógio da casa, lugar certo lá ao fundo das coisas, soa a meia hora seca e nula. Tudo é tanto, tudo é tão fundo, tudo é tão negro e frio!
  • Ibid., p. 60

• I pass times, I pass silences, formless worlds pass me by.
  • Original: Paso tempos, passo silêncios, mudos sem forma passam por mim.
  • Ibid., p. 60

• Everything was asleep as if the universe was a mistake.
  • Original: Dormia tudo como se o universo fosse um erro.
  • Ibid., p. 60

• Not pleasure, not glory, not power: freedom, only freedom.
  • Original: Não o prazer, não a glória, não o poder: a liberdade, unicamente a liberdade.
  • Ibid., p. 62

• Changing from the ghosts of faith to the spectres of reason is just changing cells.
  • Original: Passar dos fantasmas da fé para os espectros da razão é somente ser mudado de cela.
  • Ibid.

• Thing thrown to a corner, rag fallen on the road, my ignoble being feigns itself in front of life.
  • Original: Coisa arrojada a um canto, trapo caído na estrada, meu ser ignóbil ante a vida finge-se.
  • Ibid., p. 64

• It was just a moment, and I saw myself. Then I no longer could say what I was.
  • Original: Foi só um momento, e vi-me. Depois já não sei sequer dizer o que fui.
  • Ibid., p. 66

• As we wash our body so we should wash destiny, change life as we change clothes.
  • Original: Assim como lavamos o corpo devíamos lavar o destino, mudar de vida como mudamos de roupa.
  • Ibid., p. 68

• There’s a tiredness of abstract intelligence, and it’s the most horrible of tirednesses. It doesn’t weight on you like the tiredness of the body, nor does it worry you like the tiredness of knowledge and emotion. It’s a weightiness of the conscience of the world, an inability of the soul to breathe.
  • Original: Há um cansaço da inteligência abstracta, e é o mais horroroso dos cansaços. Não pesa como o cansaço do corpo, nem inquieta como o cansaço do conhecimento e da emoção. É um peso da consciência do mundo, um não poder respirar da alma.
  • Ibid., p. 69

• Then a overflowing desire comes to me, absurd, of a sort of satanism before Satan, in that one day […] an escape out of God can be found and the deepest of us stops, I don’t know how, to be a part of being or not being.
  • Original: E então vem-me o desejo transbordante, absurdo, de uma espécie de satanismo que precedeu Satã, de que um dia […] se encontre uma fuga para fora de Deus e o mais profundo de nós deixe, não sei como, de fazer parte do ser ou do não ser.
  • Os Grandes Trechos, s/n. Translated from the Portuguese Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006

• To stagnate in the sun, goldenly, like an obscure lake surrounded by flowers.
  • On a strictly intellectual life.
  • Original: Estagnar ao sol, douradamente, como um lago obscuro rodeado de flores.
  • A Factless Autobiography, Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006, p. 70

• For I am the size of what I see
  not my height’s size.
  • Original: Porque eu sou do tamanho do que vejo
    e não do tamanho da minha altura.
  • Attributed to the Caeiro alter ego, in A Factless Autobiography, Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006, p. 71

• In order to understand, I destroyed myself.
  • Original: Para compreender, destruí-me.
  • A Factless Autobiography, Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006, p. 73

• Solitude desolates me; company oppresses me.
  • Original: A solidão desola-me; a companhia oprime-me.
  • Ibid.

• Yes, talking to people makes me sleepy.
  • Original: Sim, falar com gente dá-me vontade de dormir.
  • Ibid.

• The idea of any social obligation […] just the idea of it embarasses my thoughts for a day, and sometimes it’s since the day before that I worry, and don’t sleep well, and the real affair, when it happens, is absolutely insignificant and justifies nothing; and the case repeats itself and I never learn to learn.
  • Original: A ideia de uma obrigação social qualquer […] só essa ideia me estorva os pensamentos de um dia, e às vezes é desde a mesma véspera que me preocupo, e durmo mal, e o caso real, quando se dá, é absolutamente insignificante, não justifica nada; e o caso repete-se e eu não aprendo a aprender.
  • Ibid.

• The beauty of a naked body is felt only by the dressed races.
  • Original: A beleza de um corpo nu só o sentem as raças vestidas.
  • Ibid., p. 75

• What is a disease is wishing with an equal intensity what is needed and what is desirable, and suffer for not being perfect as you would suffer for not having bread. The romantic error is this wanting the moon as if there was a way to get it.
  • Original: O que é doença é desejar com igual intensidade o que é preciso e o que ´desejável, e sofrer por não ser perfeito como se se sofresse por não ter pão. O mal romântico é este: é querer a lua como se houvesse maneira de a obter.
  • Ibid., p. 77

• I take with me the conscience of defeat as a victory banner.
  • Original: Levo comigo a consciência da derrota como um pendão de vitória.
  • Ibid., p. 79

• It is noble to be shy, illustrious not to know how to act, great not to have a gift for living.
  • Original: É nobre ser tímido, ilustre não saber agir, grande não ter jeito para viver.
  • Ibid., p. 86

• Blessed are those who never entrust their life to no one.
  • Original: Benditos os que não confiam a vida a ninguém.
  • Ibid.

• Everyone has his vanity, and each one’s vanity is his forgetting that there are others with an equal soul.
  • Original: Cada um tem a sua vaidade, e a vaidade de cada um é o seu esquecimento de que há outros com alma igual.
  • Ibid., p. 88

• I reread? I lied! I don’t dare to reread. I cannot reread. What’s the point, for me, in rereading?
  • Original: Releio? Menti! Não ouso reler. Não posso reler. De que me serve reler?
  • Ibid.

• Civilization consists in giving something an unfitting name, then dream about the result. And indeed the false name and the real dream create a new reality. The object really becomes another, because we turned it into another one. We manufacture realities.
  • Original: A civilização consiste em dar a qualquer coisa um nome que lhe não compete, e depois sonhar sobre o resultado. E realmente o nome falso e o sonho verdadeiro criam uma nova realidade. O objecto torna-se realmente outro, porque o tornámos outro. Manufacturamos realidades.
  • Ibid., p. 89

• The consciousness of life’s unconsciousness is intelligence’s oldest tax.
  • Original: A consciência da insonsciência da vida é o mais antigo imposto à inteligência.
  • Ibid., p. 91

• A sort of anteneurosis of what I will be when I will not longer be freezes my body and soul. A kind of remembrance of my future death makes me shudder from the inside.
  • Original: Uma espécie de anteneurose do que serei quando já não for gela-me o corpo e alma. Uma como que lembrança da minha morte futura arrepia-me dentro.
  • Ibid., p. 91

• What, I believe, produces in me the deep feeling, in which I live, of incongruity with others, is that most think with sensitivity, while I feel with thought.
  • Original: Aquilo que, creio, produz em mim o sentimento profundo, em que vivo, de inconguência com os outros, é que a maioria pensa com a sensibilidade, e eu sinto com o pensamento.
  • Ibid., p. 93

• You breathe better when you’re rich.
  • Original: Respira-se melhor quando se é rico.
  • Ibid., p. 95

• I never go to where’s a risk. I’m frightened of dangers down to boredom.
  • Original: Nunca vou para onde há risco. tenho medo a tédio dos perigos.
  • Ibid., p. 96

• Some sensations are sleeps that take up all the extent of the mind like a fog, don’t let us think, don’t let us act, don’t let us be clearly.
  • Original: Há sensações que são sonos, que ocupam como uma névoa toda a extensão do espírito, que não deixam pensar, que não deixam agir, que não deixam claramente ser.
  • Ibid., p. 98

• My joy is as painful as my pain.
  • Original: A minha alegria é tão dolorosa como a minha dor.
  • Ibid., p. 100

• Between me and life is a faint glass. No matter how sharply I see and understand life, I cannot touch it.
  • Original: Entre mim e a vida há um vidro ténue. por mais nitidamente que eu veja e compreenda a vida, eu não lhe posso tocar.
  • Ibid., p. 100

• My dreams are a stupid refuge, like an umbrella against a thunderbolt.
  • Original: Os meus sonhos são um refúgio estúpido, como um guarda-chuva contra um raio.
  • Ibid., p. 101

• My life is as if you’ve hit me with it.
  • Original: A minha vida é como se me batessem com ela.
  • Ibid., p. 101

• If we knew the truth, we’d see it; all else is system and outskirts.
  • Original: Se conhecêssemos a verdade, vê-la-íamos; tudo o mais é sistema e arrabaldes.
  • Ibid., p. 106

• They bring me faith like a closed package in someone else’s plate. They want me to accept it so that I don’t open it.
  • Original: Trazem-me a fé como um embrulho fechado numa salva alheia. Querem que o aceite para que não o abra.
  • Ibid.

• The superiority of the dreamer is that dreaming is much more practical than living, and that the dreamer extracts from life a much vaster and varied pleasure than the action man. In better and more direct words, the dreamer is the real action man.
  • Original: A superioridade do sonhador consiste em que sonhar é muito mais prático que viver, e em que o sonhador extrai da vida um prazer muito mais vasto e muito mais variado do que o homem de acção. Em melhores e mais directas palavras, o sonhador é que é o homem de acção.
  • Ibid., p. 110

• I never meant to be but a dreamer.
  • Original: Nunca pretendi ser senão um sonhador.
  • Ibid.

• There’s no regret more painful than the regret of things that never were.
  • Original: Ah, não há saudades mais dolorosas do que as das coisas que nunca foram!
  • Ibid., p. 111

• I always live in the present. The future I can’t know. The past I no longer have.
  • Original: Vivo sempre no presente. O futuro, não o conheço. O passado, já o não tenho.
  • Ibid., p. 118

• The supreme empire is that of the Emperor who renounces all normal life, that of other men, and in who the care of supremacy doesn’t weigh like a load of jewels.
  • Original: O império supremo é o do Imperador que abdica de toda a vida normal, dos outros homens, em quem o cuidado da supremacia não pesa como um fardo de jóias.
  • Ibid., p. 121

• I will be what I want. But I will have to want what I’ll be. Success is in having success, not conditions for success.
  • Original: Serei o que quiser. Mas tenho que querer o que for. O êxito está em ter êxito, e não em ter condições de êxito.
  • Ibid., p. 122

• To act is to rest.
  • Original: Agir é repousar.
  • Ibid., p. 122

• All problems are unsolvable. The essence of the existence of a problem is that there is no solution. Looking for a fact means there is no fact. To think is not to know how to be.
  • Original: Todos os problemas são insolúveis. A essência de haver um problema é não haver solução. Procurar um facto significa não haver um facto. Pensar é não saber existir.
  • Ibid., p. 123

• His livid face is a bewildered false green. I notice it, between the chest’s hard air, with the fraternity of knowing I will also be so.
  • Original: A sua cara lívida está de um verde falso e desnorteado. Noto-o, entre o ar difícil do peito, com a fraternidade de saber que também estarei assim.
  • Ibid., p. 124

• We never love someone. We just love the idea we have of someone. It’s a concept of ours – summing up, ourselves – that we love.
  • Original: Nunca amamos niguém. Amamos, tão-somente, a ideia que fazemos de alguém. É a um conceito nosso — em suma, é a nós mesmos — que amamos.
  • Ibid., p. 125

• To write is to forget. Literature is the pleasantest way of ignoring life.
  • Original: Escrever é esquecer. A literatura é a maneira mais agradável de ignorar a vida.
  • Ibid., p. 128

• Being pleased with what they give you is proper of slaves. Asking for more is proper of children. Conquering more is proper of fools.
  • Original: Contentar-se com o que lhe dão é próprio dos escravos. Pedir masi é próprio das crianças. Conquistar mais é próprio dos loucos [porque toda a conquista é [X]]
  • Ibid., p. 133
  • Note: [X]: text missing in the manuscript.

• To be understood is to prostitute yourself.
  • Original: Ser compreendido é prostituir-se.
  • Ibid., p. 136

• I search and can’t find myself. I belong in chrysanthemum time, sharp in calla lily elongations. God made my soul into an ornamental thing.
  • Original: Busco-me e não me encontro. Pertenço a horas crisântemos, nítidas em alongamentos de jarros. Deus fez da minha alma uma coisa decorativa.
  • Ibid., p. 140

• ‘Any road’, said Carlyle, ‘even this road to Entepfuhl, will take you to the end of the world’. But the Entepfuhl road, if taken in its entirety, and to the end, goes back to Entepfuhl; so Entepfuhl, where we already were, is that very end of the world we were seeking.
  • Original: “Qualquer estrada”, disse Carlyle, “até esta estrada de Entepfuhl, te leva até ao fim do mundo”. Mas a estrada de Entepfuhl, se for seguida toda, e até ao fim, volta a Entepfuhl; de modo que o Entepfuhl, onde já estávamo, é aquele mesmo fim do mundo que íamos buscar.
  • Ibid., p. 142

• It’s been a long time since I’ve been me.
  • Original: Há muito tempo que não sou eu.
  • Ibid., p. 143

• Inside the henhouse from where he will be taken to be killed, the cock sings hymns to liberty because he was given two perches.
  • Original: Dentro da capoeira de onde irá a matar, o galo canta hinos à liberdade porque lhe deram dois poleiros.
  • Ibid., p. 144

• What’s most worthless about dreams is that everybody has them.
  • Original: O que há de mais reles nos sonhos é que todos os têm.
  • Ibid., p. 145

• The end is low, like all quantitative ends, personal or not, and it can be attained and verified.
  • Original: O fim é baixo, comotodos os fins quantitativos, pessoais ou não, e é atingível e verificável.
  • Ibid., p. 149

• The perfect man of pagans was the perfection of the man there is; the perfect man of christians, the perfection of the man there isn’t; the buddhists’ perfect man, the perfection of not existing a man.
  • Original: O homem perfeito do pagão era a perfeição do homem que há; o homem perfeito do cristão a perfeição do homem que não há; o homem perfeito do budista a perfeição de não haver homem.
  • Ibid., p. 150

• Nature is the difference between the soul and God.
  • Original: A natureza é a diferença entre a alma e Deus.
  • Ibid., p. 150

• There is no safe standard to tell man from animals.
  • Original: Não há critério seguro para distinguir o homem dos animais.
  • Ibid., p. 150

• Irony is the first hint that consciousness became conscious.
  • Original: A ironia é o primeiro indício de que a consciência se tornou consciente.
  • Ibid., p. 151

• Who am I to myself? Just a feeling of mine.
  • Original: Quem sou eu para mim? Só uma sensação minha.
  • Ibid., p. 156

• I will necessarily say what it seems to me, given that I’m me.
  • Original: Hei-de por força dizer o que me parece, visto que sou eu.
  • Ibid., p. 162

• Direct experience is the evasion, or hiding place of those devoid of imagination.
  • Original: A experiência directa é o subterfúgio, ou o esconderijo, daqueles que são desprovidos de imaginação.
  • Ibid., p. 163

• Action men are the unvoluntary slaves of wise men.
  • Ibid.

• To narrate is to create, for living is just being lived.
  • Original: Narrar é criar, pois viver é apenas ser vivido.
  • Ibid.

• I never cared about whatever tragic event happened in China. It’s faraway decoration, even if in blood and plague.
  • Original: Nunca me pesou o que de trágico se passasse na China. É decoração longínqua, ainda que a sangue e peste.
  • Ibid., p. 164

• The slope takes you to the windmill, but effort takes you nowhere.
  • Original: A ladeira leva ao moinho, mas o esforço não leva a nada.
  • Ibid., p. 171

• Destiny gave me only two things: a few accounting books and the gift of dreaming.
  • Original: Duas coisas só me deu o Destino: uns livros de contabilidade e o dom de sonhar.
  • Ibid.

• In today’s life, the world belongs only to the stupid, the insensitive and the agitated. The right to live and triumph is now conquered almost by the same means by which you conquer internment in an asylum: the inability to think, amorality and hiperexcitation.
  • Original: Na vida de hoje, o mundo só pertence aos estúpidos, aos insensíveis e aos agitados. O direito a viver e a triunfar conquista-se hoje quase pelos mesmos processos por que se conquista o internamento num manicómio: a incapacidade de pensar, a amoralidade e a hiperexcitação.
  • Ibid., p. 173

• What is art but the denial of life?
  • Original: Que é a arte senão a negação da vida?
  • Ibid., p. 174

• Common man, no matter how hard life is to him, at least has the fortune of not thinking it.
  • Original: O homem vulgar, por mais dura que lhe seja a vida, tem ao menos a felicidade de a não pensar.
  • Ibid., p. 181

• To think is to destroy. The very process of thought indicates it for the same thought, as thinking is decomposing.
  • Original: Pensar é destruir. O próprio processo do pensamento o indica para o mesmo pensamento, porque pensar é decompor.
  • Ibid.

• I sometimes think, with a sad delight, that if one day, in a future I no longer belong to, these sentences, that I write, last with praise, I will at last have the people who understand me, those mine, the true family to be born in and be loved. […] I will only be understood in effigy, when affection no longer repays the dead the unaffection that was, when living.
  • Original: Penso as vezes, com um deleite triste, que se um dia, num futuro a que eu já não pertença, estas frases, que escrevo, durarem com louvor, eu terei enfim a gente que me “compreenda”, os meus, a família verdadeiro para nela nascer e ser amado. […] Serei compreendido só em efígie, quando a afeição já não compense a quem morreu a só desafeição que houve, quando vivo.
  • Ibid., p. 182

• Enthusiasm is rude.
  • Original: O entusiasmo é uma grosseria.
  • Ibid., p. 200

• My God, my God, who am I attending to? How many am I? Who is me? What is this interval between me and me?
  • Original: Meu Deus, meu Deus, a quem assisto? Quantos sou? Quem é eu? O que é este intervalo que há entre mim e mim?
  • Ibid., p. 201

• Being a retired major looks like an ideal thing to me. What a pity you couldn’t eternally have been just a retired major.
  • Original: Ser major reformado parece-me uma coisa ideal. É pena não se poder ter sido eternamente apenas major reformado.
  • Ibid., p. 218

• My curiosity sister of larks.
  • Original: A minha curiosidade irmã das cotovias
  • Ibid., p. 219

• If a man can only write well when drunk, I’ll tell him: get drunk. And if he tells me that his liver suffers with it, I’ll answer: what’s your liver? It’s a dead thing that lives as long as you live, and the poems you’ll write will live without a as long as.
  • Original: Se um homem escreve bem só quando está bêbado dir-lhe-ei: embebede-se- E se ele me disser que o seu fígado sofre com isso, respondo: o que é o seu fígado? É uma coisa morta que vive enquanto você vive, e os poemas que escrever vivem sem enquanto.
  • English note by the hand of the poet in the same paper sheet: Your poems are of interest to mankind; your liver isn’t. Drink till you write well and feel sick. Bless your poems and be damned to you.
  • Ibid., p. 229

• My homeland is the portuguese language.
  • Original: Minha Pátria é a língua portuguesa.
  • Ibid., p. 230
    • Translation variants:
    • My fatherland is the Portuguese language.
    • My nation is the Portuguese language.
    • My country is the Portuguese language.
    • My home is the Portuguese language.

• Art consists in making others feel what we feel.
  • Original: A arte consiste em fazer os outros sentir o que nós sentimos.
  • Ibid., p. 231

• Art lies because it’s social.
  • Original: A arte mente porque é social
  • Ibid., p. 232

• Tedium is the lack of a mithology. To whom has no beliefs, even doubt is impossible, even skepticism has no strength to suspect.
  • Original: O tédio é a falta de uma mitologia. A quem não tem crenças, até a dúvida é impossível, até o cepticismo não tem força para desconfiar.
  • Ibid.

• Smell is a strange sight. It evokes sentimental landscapes through a sudden sketching of the subconscious.
  • Original: O olfacto é uma vista estranha. Evoca paisagens sentimentais por um desenhar súbito do subconsciente.
  • Ibid., p. 238

• Deceiving himself well is the first quality of the statesman.
  • Original: Saber iludir-se bem é a primeira qualidade do estadista.
  • Ibid., p. 241

• It’s certain that, when hearing from any of those people the story of their sexual marathons, a vague suspicion pervades us, at about the seventh deflowering.
  • Original: É certo que, ao ouvir contar a qualquer destes indivíduos as suas maratonas sexuais, uma vaga suspeita nos invade, pela altura do sétimo desfloramento.
  • Ibid., p. 243

• Liberty is the possibility of isolation.
  • Original: A liberdade é a possibilidade do isolamento.
  • Ibid., p. 246

• If you cannot live alone, you were born a slave.
  • Original: Se te é impossível viver só, nasceste escravo.
  • Ibid.

• And let our despite go to those who work and fight and our hate to those who hope and trust.
  • Original: E seja o nosso desprezo para os que trabalham e lutam e o nosso ódio para os que esperam e confiam.
  • Ibid., p. 248

• We adore perfection because we can’t have it; it would disgust us if we had it. Perfect is inhuman, because human is imperfect.
  • Original: Adoramos a perfeição, porque não a podemos ter; repugná-la-íamos, se a tivéssemos. O perfeito é o desumano, porque o humano é imperfeito.
  • Ibid., p. 249

• If I had written King Lear, I would regret it all my life afterwards. Because that work is so big, that its defects show as huge, its monstrous defects, things even minimal in between some scenes and their possible perfection. It’s not the sun with spots; it’s a broken greek statue.
  • Original: Se eu tivesse escrito o Rei Lear, levaria com remorsos toda a minha vida de depois. Porque essa obra é tão grande, que enormes avultam os seus defeitos, os seus monstruosos defeitos, as coisas até mínimas que estão entre certas cenas e a perfeição possível delas. Não é o sol com manchas; é uma estátua grega partida.
  • Ibid., p. 250

• For valuing your own suffering sets on it the gold of a sun of pride. Suffering a lot can originate the illusion of being the Chosen of Pain.
  • Original: Porque dar valor ao próprio sofrimento põe-lhe o ouro de um sol do orgulho. Sofrer muito pode dar a ilusão de ser o Eleito da Dor.
  • Ibid., p. 253

• Everything is absurd.
  • Original: Tudo é absurdo.
  • Ibid., p. 255

• The world belongs to who doesn’t feel. The primary condition to be a practical man is the absence of sensitivity.
  • Original: O mundo é de quem não sente. A condição essencial para se ser um homem prático é a ausência de sensibilidade.
  • Ibid., p. 258

• What would happen to the world if we were human?
  • Original: Que seria do mundo se fôssemos humanos?
  • Ibid., p. 259

• Who doesn’t feel commands. He who only thinks what is required in order to win, wins.
  • Original: Manda quem não sente. Vence quem pensa só o que precisa para vencer.
  • Ibid., p. 260

• Sailing is necessary, living is not necessary.
  • Original: Navegar é preciso, viver não é preciso.
  • Ibid., pp. 133, 262
  • Note: This has been attributed to Pessoa. Indeed, it is from Plutarch’s “Parallel Lives”, about Pompeus, when demanding that soldiers board the ships, when they were afraid of dying at sea.

• All pleasure is a vice, for seeking pleasure is what everybody does in life, and the only dark vice is doing what everybody does.
  • Original: Todo o prazer é um vício, porque buscar o prazer é o que todos fazem na vida, e o único vício negro é fazer o que toda a gente faz.
  • Ibid., p. 265

• I’m upset by the happiness of all these men who don’t know they’re unhappy. […] Because of that, though, I love them all. Dear vegetables!
  • Original: Irrita-me a felicidade de todos estes homens que não sabem que são infelizes.[…] Por isto, contudo, amo-os a todos. Meus queridos vegetais!
  • Ibid., p. 266

• For the moment being, given that we live in society, the only duty of superior men is to reduce to a minimum their participation in the tribe’s life. Not to read newspapers, or read them only to know about whatever unimportant and curious is going on.
  […] The supreme honorable state for a superior man is in not knowing who is the Head of State of his country, or if he lives under a monarchy or a republic.
  All his attitude must be setting his soul so that the passing of things, of events doesn’t bother him. If he doesn’t do it he will have to take an interest in others in order to take care of himself.
  • Original: Por enquanto, visto que vivemos em sociedade, o único dver dos superiores é reduzirem ao mínimo a sua participação na vida da tribo. Não ler jornais, ou lê-los só para saber o que de pouco importante ou curioso se passa.
    […] O supremo estado honroso para um homem superior é não saber quem é o chefe de Estado do seu país, ou se vive sob monarquia ou sob república.
    Toda a sua atitude deve ser colocar-se a alma de modo que a passagem das coisas, dos acontecimentos não o incomode. Se o não fizer terá que se interessar pelos outros, para cuidar de si próprio.
  • Ibid., p. 267

• Wasting time has an esthetics to it.
  • Original: Perder tempo comporta uma estética
  • Ibid.

• I never was but an isolated bon vivant, which is absurd; or a mystic bon vivant, which is an impossible thing.
  • Original: Nunca fui mais que um boémio isolado, o que é um absurdo; ou um boémio místico, o que é uma coisa impossível.
  • Ibid., p. 271
  • Note: a possible play on Tertullian’s: “credo quia absurdum” (I believe because it’s absurd), “credo quia impossibilis est” (I believe because it’s impossible).
  • Note: Richard Zenith translates boémio as bohemian, not bon vivant.

• It’s in an inland sea that the river of my life ended.
  • Original: Foi num mar interior que o rio da minha vida findou.
  • Ibid.

• Every gesture is a revolutionary act.
  • Original: Todo o gesto é um acto revolucionário.
  • Ibid., p. 274

• Knowing not to have illusions is absolutely necessary in order to have dreams.
  • Original: Saber não ter ilusões é absolutamente necessário para se poder ter sonhos.
  • Ibid., p. 276

• Why is art beautiful? Because it’s useless. Why is life ugly? Because it’s all ends and purposes and intentions.
  • Original: Porque é bela a arte? Porque é inútil. Porque é feia a vida? Porque é toda fins e propósitos e intenções.
  • Ibid., p. 279

• And the supreme glory of all this, my love, is to think that maybe this isn’t true, neither may I believe it true.And when lying starts giving us pleasure, let’s speak the truth so that we lie to it.
  • Original: E a suprema glória disto tudo, meu amor, é pensar que talvez isto não seja verdade, nem eu o creia verdadeiro.E quando a mentira comece a dar-nos prazer, falemos a verdade para lhe mentirmos.
  • Ibid., p. 280

• My head and the universe ache me.
  • Original: Doem-me a cabeça e o universo.
  • Ibid.

• Yet I have no stylistic nobility. My head aches because my head aches. The universe aches me because my head aches.
  • Original: Eu, porém, não tenho nobreza estilística. Dói-me a cabeça porque me dói a cabeça. Dói-me o universo porque me dói a cabeça.
  • Ibid.

• Given that we cannot know all the elements in a problem, we never can solve it.
  • Original: Como nunca podemos conhecer todos os elementos de uma questão, nunca a podemos resolver.
  • Ibid., p. 282

• I don’t believe in the landscape.
  • Original: Não acredito na paisagem.
  • Ibid., p. 286

• I say it because I don’t believe.
  • Original: Digo-o porque não acredito.
  • Ibid.

• When I write, I solemnly visit myself.
  • Original: Quando escrevo, visito-me solenemente.
  • Ibid., p. 287

• Life is a thread that someone entangled.
  • Original: A vida é um novelo que alguém emaranhou.
  • Ibid.

• They were two and beautiful and wanted to be something else; love delayed itself to them in the tedium of the future, and regret of what would happen to be was already being the daughter of the love they hadn’t had.
  • Original: Eram dois e belos e desejavam ser outra coisa; o amor tardava-lhes no tédio do futuro, e a saudade do que haveria de ser vinha já sendo filha do amor que não tinham tido.
  • Ibid., p. 288

• Only sterility is noble and dignified. Only killing what never was is elevated and perverse and absurd.
  • Original: Só a esterilidade é nobre e digna. Só o matar o que nunca foi é alto e perverso e absurdo.
  • Ibid., p. 289

• I exempt you of being present in my idea of you.
  • Original: Dispenso-a de comparecer na minha ideia de si.
  • Ibid., p. 290

• That’s not my love; that’s just your life.
  • Original: Isso não é o meu amor; é apenas a sua vida.
  • Ibid.

• And as well as I dream, I reason if I want, for that’s just another kind of dream.
  • Original: E assim como sonho, raciocino se quiser, porque isso é apenas uma outra espécia de sonho.
  • Ibid., p. 320

• There is no happiness without knowledge. But knowledge of happiness is unhappy; for knowing ourselves happy is knowing ourselves passing through happiness, and having to, immediatly at once, leave it behind. To know is to kill, in happiness as in everything. Not to know, though, is not to exist.
  • Original: Não há felicidade senão com conhecimento. Mas o conhecimento da felicidade é infeliz; porque conhecer-se feliz é conhecer-se passando pela felicidade, e tendo, logo já, que deixá-la atrás. Saber é matar, na felicidade como em tudo. Não saber, porém, é não existir.
  • Ibid., p. 328

• I don’t write in Portuguese. I write myself.
  • Original: Eu não escrevo em português. Escrevo eu mesmo.
  • Ibid., p. 353

• To travel? In order to travel it’s enough to be. […] Why travel? In Madrid, in Berlin, in Persia, in China, at the Poles both, where would I be but in myself, and in the sort and kind of my sensations?Life is what we make of it. Travels are travellers. What we see is not what we see but what we are.
  • Original: Viajar? Para viajar basta existir. […] Para quê viajar? Em Madrid, em Berlim, na Pérsia, na China, nos Pólos ambos, onde estaria eu senão em mim mesmo, e no tipo e género das minhas sensações?A vida é o que fazemos dela. As viagens são os viajantes. O que vemos não é o que vemos, senão o que somos.
  • Ibid., p. 360

• I’d like to be in the country so that I’d could like being in the city.
  • Original: Gostava de estar no campo para poder gostar de estar na cidade.
  • Ibid., p. 367

• Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face. That’s what’s most terrible. Nature gave him the possibility of not seeing it, as well as the incapacity of not seeing his own eyes.
  • Original: O homem não deve poder ver a sua própria cara. Isso é o que há de mais terrível. A Natureza deu-lhe o dom de não a poder ver, assim como a de não poder fitar os seus próprios olhos.
  • Ibid., p. 371

• In any spirit that isn’t deformed there is the belief in God. In any spirit that is not deformed there isn’t the belief in a particular God.
  • Original: Em qualquer espírito, que não seja disforme, existe a crença em Deus. Em qualquer espírito, que não seja disforme, não existe crença em um Deus definido.
  • Ibid., p. 375

• I’m a man for whom the outside world is an inner reality.
  • Original: Sou um homem para quem o mundo exterior é uma realidade interior.
  • Ibid., p. 376

• Humanitarianism is rude.
  • Original: O humanitarismo é uma grosseria.
  • Ibid.

• Property isn’t theft: it’s nothing.
  • Original: A propriedade não é roubo: não é nada.
  • Ibid.

• To have defined and sure opinions, fixed and known instincts, passions and character — all that is the horror of turning our soul into a fact, materialize it and make it external.
  • Original: Ter opiniões definidas e certas, instintos, paixões e carácter fixo e conhecido — tudo isto monta ao horror de tornar a nossa alma num facto, de a materializar e tornar exterior.
  • Ibid., p. 413<ǃ–Assírio & Alvim, 2008–>
  • As quoted in Os Grandes Trechos, Richard Zenith Edition, Lisbon, 2006, p. 413

Today is the birthday of Bernardo Bellotto (c. 1721/2 or 30 January 1721 – 17 November 1780); urban landscape painter or vedutista, and printmaker in etching famous for his vedute of European cities – Dresden, Vienna, Turin, and Warsaw. He was the student and nephew of the renowned Giovanni Antonio Canal Canaletto and sometimes used the latter’s illustrious name, signing himself as Bernardo Canaletto.  In Germany and Poland, Bellotto called himself by his uncle’s name, Canaletto. This caused some confusion, however Bellotto’s work is more sombre in color than Canaletto’s and his depiction of clouds and shadows brings him closer to Dutch painting.

Gallery

Piazza San Martino con la cattedrale» (Lucca, 1740)

And today is the birthday Patrick Heron (30 January 1920 – 20 March 1999); abstract and figurative artist, critic, writer, and polemicist, who lived in Zennor, Cornwall.

Mac Tag

Today is the birthday of Henry Ward Ranger (western New York state; January 29, 1858 – November 7, 1916); artist.  He was a prominent landscape and marine painter, an important Tonalist, and the leader of the Old Lyme Art Colony.  Among his paintings are, Top of the Hill, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and East River Idyll, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In 1883, he married an Helen Jennings, a divorced actress with a son.

Gallery

The sermon

 

• The Windmill

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  Spring Woods

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  The Lone Sentinel

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  Autumn Woodlands

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  Groton Long Point

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  New England Village

  Anton Chekhov

  Today is the birthday of Anton Chekhov (born Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Taganrog, Russian Empire, 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904 Badenweiler, German Empire); playwright and short story writer. In my opinion, one of the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: “Medicine is my lawful wife”, he once said, “and literature is my mistress.”

  Chekhov’s plays often present a challenge to the acting ensemble as well as to audiences, with their reliance on “theatre of mood” and a “submerged life in the text”, instead of conventional action.

  Chekhov had at first written stories only for financial gain, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations which have influenced the evolution of the modern short story. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.

  

  Young Chekhov in 1882

  

  Portrait of young Chekhov in country clothes

  

  Young Chekhov (left) with brother Nikolai in 1882

  

  Chekhov family and friends in 1890 (Top row, left to right) Ivan, Alexander, Father; (second row) unknown friend, Lika Mizinova, Masha, Mother, Seryozha Kiselev; (bottom row) Misha, Anton

  

  Chekhov’s classic look: pince-nez, hat and bow-tie

  

  Chekhov in 1893

  

  Osip Braz: “Portrait of Anton Chekhov”

  

  Chekhov with Leo Tolstoy at Yalta, 1900

  

  Chekhov and Olga, 1901, on their honeymoon

  

  Chekhov monument in Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky, Russia

   

  On 25 May 1901, Chekhov married Olga Knipper quietly, owing to his horror of weddings. She was a former protegée and sometime lover of Nemirovich-Danchenko whom he had first met at rehearsals for The Seagull. Up to that point, Chekhov, known as “Russia’s most elusive literary bachelor,” had preferred passing liaisons and visits to brothels over commitment. He had once written:

  By all means I will be married if you wish it. But on these conditions: everything must be as it has been hitherto — that is, she must live in Moscow while I live in the country, and I will come and see her … I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, won’t appear in my sky every day.

  The letter proved prophetic of Chekhov’s marital arrangements with Olga: he lived largely at Yalta, she in Moscow, pursuing her acting career. In 1902, Olga suffered a miscarriage.

  By May 1904, Chekhov was terminally ill with tuberculosis. His brother, Mikhail Chekhov recalled that “everyone who saw him secretly thought the end was not far off, but the nearer [he] was to the end, the less he seemed to realise it.” On 3 June, he set off with Olga for the German spa town of Badenweiler in the Black Forest, from where he wrote outwardly jovial letters to his sister Masha, describing the food and surroundings, and assuring her and his mother that he was getting better. In his last letter, he complained about the way German women dressed.

  Chekhov’s death has become one of “the great set pieces of literary history,” retold, embroidered, and fictionalised many times since, notably in the short story “Errand” by Raymond Carver. In 1908, Olga wrote this account of her husband’s last moments:

  Anton sat up unusually straight and said loudly and clearly (although he knew almost no German): Ich sterbe (“I’m dying”). The doctor calmed him, took a syringe, gave him an injection of camphor, and ordered champagne. Anton took a full glass, examined it, smiled at me and said: “It’s a long time since I drank champagne.” He drained it and lay quietly on his left side, and I just had time to run to him and lean across the bed and call to him, but he had stopped breathing and was sleeping peacefully as a child …

  Chekhov’s body was transported to Moscow in a refrigerated railway car meant for oysters. Some of the thousands of mourners followed the funeral procession of a General Keller by mistake, to the accompaniment of a military band. Chekhov was buried next to his father at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

  Quotes

  • Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.
    • Seeing Chekhov: Life And Art

  • A fiancé is neither this nor that: he’s left one shore, but not yet reached the other.
    • Love (1886)

  • Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.
    • Enemies (1887)

  • The sea has neither meaning nor pity.
    • Gusev (1890)

  • Death can only be profitable: there’s no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.
    • Rothschild’s Fiddle (1894)

  • By poeticizing love, we imagine in those we love virtues that they often do not possess; this then becomes the source of constant mistakes and constant distress.
    • Ariadna (1895)

  • People who live alone always have something on their minds that they would willingly share.
    • About Love (1898)

  • There is something beautiful, touching and poetic when one person loves more than the other, and the other is indifferent.
    • After the Theatre

  • Faith is an aptitude of the spirit. It is, in fact, a talent: you must be born with it.
    • On the Road

  • Thought and beauty, like a hurricane or waves, should not know conventional, delimited forms.
    • The Letter

  • Exquisite nature, daydreams, and music say one thing, real life another.
    • In a Native Corner

  • Love is a scandal of the personal sort.
    • The Piano Player

  • We live not in order to eat, but in order not to know what we feel like eating.
    • The Fruits of Long Meditations

  • Once you’ve married, be strict but just with your wife, don’t allow her to forget herself, and when a misunderstanding arises, say: “Don’t forget that I made you happy.”
    • Guide for Those Wishing to Marry

  • If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.
    • Ilia Gurliand Reminiscences of A. P. Chekhov, in Teatr i iskusstvo 1904, No 28, 11 July, p. 521. commonly known as Chekhov’s dictum or Chekhov’s gun.

  • Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred for something.
    • Alternate Version: Nothing better forges a bond of love, friendship or respect than common hatred toward something.
    • Quoted in “Psychologically Speaking: A Book of Quotations” – Page 96 – by Kevin Connolly, Margaret Martlew – 1999

  Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

  • Death is terrible, but still more terrible is the feeling that you might live for ever and never die.

  • When one longs for a drink, it seems as though one could drink a whole ocean—that is faith; but when one begins to drink, one can only drink altogether two glasses—that is science.

  • If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.

  • If you wish women to love you, be original; I know a man who used to wear felt boots summer and winter, and women fell in love with him.

  • As I shall lie in the grave alone, so in fact I live alone.

  • I observed that after marriage people cease to be curious.

  Letters

  • In order to cultivate yourself and to drop no lower than the level of the milieu in which you have landed, it is not enough to read Pickwick and memorize a monologue from Faust…. You need to work continually day and night, to read ceaselessly, to study, to exercise your will…. Each hour is precious.
    • Letter to his brother, N.P. Chekhov (March 1886)

  • When in a serious mood, it seems to me that those people are illogical who feel an aversion toward death. As far as I can see, life consists exclusively of horrors, unpleasantnesses and banalities, now merging, now alternating.
    • Letter to M.V. Kiseleva (September 29, 1886)

  • Despite your best efforts, you could not invent a better police force for literature than criticism and the author’s own conscience.
    • Letter to M.V. Kiseleva (January 14, 1887

  • I was so drunk the whole time that I took bottles for girls and girls for bottles.
    • Letter to the Chekhov family (April 25, 1887)

  • In Western Europe people perish from the congestion and stifling closeness, but with us it is from the spaciousness…. The expanses are so great that the little man hasn’t the resources to orient himself…. This is what I think about Russian suicides.
    • Letter to D.V. Grigorovich (February 5, 1888)

  • Happiness does not await us all. One needn’t be a prophet to say that there will be more grief and pain than serenity and money. That is why we must hang on to one another.
    • Letter to K.S. Barantsevich (March 3, 1888)

  • I feel more confident and more satisfied when I reflect that I have two professions and not one. Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress. When I get tired of one I spend the night with the other. Though it’s disorderly it’s not so dull, and besides, neither really loses anything, through my infidelity.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (September 11, 1888)

  • My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love, and the most absolute freedom imaginable, freedom from violence and lies, no matter what form the latter two take. Such is the program I would adhere to if I were a major artist.
    • Letter to Alexei Pleshcheev (October 4, 1888)

  • An artist must pass judgment only on what he understands; his range is limited as that of any other specialist—that’s what I keep repeating and insisting upon. Anyone who says that the artist’s field is all answers and no questions has never done any writing or had any dealings with imagery. An artist observes, selects, guesses and synthesizes.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 27, 1888)

  • It is a poor thing for the writer to take on that which he doesn’t understand.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 27, 1888)

  • You are right to demand that an artist engage his work consciously, but you confuse two different things: solving the problem and correctly posing the question.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 27, 1888)

  • I have in my head a whole army of people pleading to be let out and awaiting my commands.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 27, 1888)

  • I don’t care for success. The ideas sitting in my head are annoyed by, and envious of, that which I’ve already written.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 27, 1888)

  • We learn about life not from pluses alone, but from minuses as well.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (December 23, 1888)

  • It doesn’t matter that your painting is small. Kopecks are also small, but when a lot are put together they make a ruble. Each painting displayed in a gallery and each good book that makes it into a library, no matter how small they may be, serve a great cause: accretion of the national wealth.
    • Letter to S.P. Kuvshinnikova (December 25, 1888)

  • Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far as blather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (January 4, 1889)

  • In one-act pieces there should be only rubbish—that is their strength.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (January 6, 1889)

  • Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress.
    • Letter to A.N. Pleshcheev (January 15, 1889)

  • Everything is good in due measure and strong sensations know not measure.
    • Letter to N.M. Lintvareva (February 11, 1889)

  • Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don’t know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hard and tortuous to write a bad one.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (May 4, 1889)

  • Life is difficult for those who have the daring to first set out on an unknown road. The avant-garde always has a bad time of it.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (May 14, 1889)

  • When a person doesn’t understand something, he feels internal discord: however he doesn’t search for that discord in himself, as he should, but searches outside of himself. Thence a war develops with that which he doesn’t understand.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (May 15, 1889)

  • Without a knowledge of languages you feel as if you don’t have a passport.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (November 1889)

  • Wherever there is degeneration and apathy, there also is sexual perversion, cold depravity, miscarriage, premature old age, grumbling youth, there is a decline in the arts, indifference to science, and injustice in all its forms.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (December 27, 1889)

  • I divide all literary works into two categories: Those I like and those I don’t like. No other criterion exists for me.
    • Letter to I.L. Leontev (March 22, 1890)
      • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (March 29, 1890)

  • The world is a fine place. The only thing wrong with it is us. How little justice and humility there is in us, how poorly we understand patriotism!
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (December 9, 1890)

  • I think that it would be less difficult to live eternally than to be deprived of sleep throughout life.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (December 9, 1890)

  • One had better not rush, otherwise dung comes out rather than creative work.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (August 18, 1891)

  • Satiation, like any state of vitality, always contains a degree of impudence, and that impudence emerges first and foremost when the sated man instructs the hungry one.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (October 20, 1891)

  • The wealthy man is not he who has money, but he who has the means to live in the luxurious state of early spring.
    • Letter to L.A. Avilova (April 29, 1892)

  • There is nothing more vapid than a philistine petty bourgeois existence with its farthings, victuals, vacuous conversations, and useless conventional virtue.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (June 16, 1892)

  • The person who wants nothing, hopes for nothing, and fears nothing can never be an artist.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (November 25, 1892)

  • By all means I will be married if you wish it. But on these conditions: everything must be as it has been hitherto—that is, she must live in Moscow while I live in the country, and I will come and see her. … I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, will not appear every day in my sky.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (March 23, 1895)

  • The bourgeoisie loves so-called “positive” types and novels with happy endings since they lull one into thinking that it is fine to simultaneously acquire capital and maintain one’s innocence, to be a beast and still be happy.
    • Letter to A.S. Suvorin (April 13, 1895)

  • A man who doesn’t drink is not, in my opinion, fully a man.
    • Letter to N.A. Leikin (May 8, 1895)

  • It’s worth living abroad to study up on genteel and delicate manners. The maid smiles continuously; she smiles like a duchess on a stage, while at the same time it is clear from her face that she is exhausted from overwork.
    • Letter to I.P. Chekhov (October 2, 1897)

  • When a person expends the least amount of motion on one action, that is grace.
    • Letter to Maxim Gorky (January 3, 1899)

  • Is it our job to judge? The gendarme, policemen and bureaucrats have been especially prepared by fate for that job. Our job is to write, and only to write.
    • Letter to L.A. Avilova (April 27, 1899)

  • There are plenty of good people, but only a very, very few are precise and disciplined.
    • Letter to V.A. Posse (February 15, 1900)

Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette

Today is the birthday of Colette (Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Yonne; Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, 28 January 1873 – 3 August 1954 Paris); novelist nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.  Perhaps her best known work, the novella Gigi (1944), was the basis for the film and Lerner and Loewe stage production of the same name.  She was also a mime, an actress and a journalist.

In 1893 she married Henry Gauthier-Villars (1859–1931) or ‘Willy’, his nom-de-plume, an author and publisher.  Her first four novels, the four Claudine stories, Claudine à l’école (1900), Claudine à Paris (1901), Claudine en menage (1902), and Claudine s’en va (1903), appeared under his name.

Willy, fourteen years older than his wife and one of the most notorious libertines in Paris, introduced Colette into avant-garde intellectual and artistic circles while engaging in sexual affairs and encouraging her own lesbian dalliances.  It was he who chose the titillating subject-matter of the Claudine novels, the girls’ school or convent ruled by a seductive female teacher.  Colette later said that she would never have become a writer if not for Willy.

Colette and Willy separated in 1906, although it was not until 1910 that the divorce became final.  She had no access to the sizable earnings of the Claudine books—the copyright belonged to Willy—and until 1912 she followed a stage career in music halls across France, sometimes playing Claudine in sketches from her own novels, earning barely enough to survive.  This period of her life is recalled in La Vagabonde (1910), which deals with women’s independence in a male society, a theme to which she would regularly return in future works.  During these years she embarked on a series of relationships with other women, notably with Mathilde de Morny, Marquise de Belbeuf (“Missy”), with whom she sometimes shared the stage.  On January 3, 1907, an onstage kiss between Missy and Colette in a pantomime entitled Rêve d’Égypte caused a near-riot, and as a result they were no longer able to live together openly, although their relationship continued for another five years.

In 1912 she married Henry de Jouvenel, the editor of Le Matin.  During the war she devoted herself to journalism, but marriage allowed her to devote her time to writing. 

In 1920 Colette published Chéri, portraying love between an older woman and a much younger man.  Chéri is the lover of Léa, a wealthy courtesan; Léa is devastated when Chéri marries a girl his own age, and delighted when he returns to her, but after one final night together she sends him away again.

The marriage to Jouvenel ended in divorce in 1924, partly due to Jouvenel’s infidelities and partly to Colette’s own affair with her sixteen-year-old stepson, Bertrand de Jouvenel.  In 1925 she met Maurice Goudeket, who became her final husband (the couple stayed together until her death).

On her death on August 3, 1954, she was refused a religious funeral by the Catholic Church on account of her divorces, but was given a state funeral, the first French woman of letters to be granted this honour, and interred in Père-Lachaise cemetery.

Neel in her studio
photographed by Lynn Gilbert (1976)

Today is the birthday of Alice Neel (Merion Square,  Pennsylvania; January 28, 1900 – October 13, 1984 New YorkCity); visual artist, who was known for her portraits depicting friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and strangers. Her paintings have an expressionistic use of line and color, psychological acumen, and emotional intensity. Her work depicts women through a female gaze, illustrating them as being consciously aware of the objectification by men and the demoralizing effects of the male gaze.  Her work contradicts and challenges the traditional and objectified nude depictions of women by her male predecessors.^[1] She pursued a career as a figurative painter during a period when abstraction was favored, and she did not begin to gain critical praise for her work until the 1960s. Neel was called “one of the greatest portrait artists of the 20th century” by Barry Walker, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which organized a retrospective of her work in 2010.

Gallery

And today is the birthday of Jackson Pollock (Paul Jackson Pollock; January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956); painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his “drip technique” of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a horizontal surface, enabling him to view and paint his canvases from all angles. It was called all-over painting and action painting, since he covered the entire canvas and used the force of his whole body to paint, often in a frenetic dancing style. This extreme form of abstraction divided the critics: some praised the immediacy of the creation, while others derided the random effects.

Gallery

Mac Tag

Samuel Palmer
Self portrait, circa 1826

Today is the birthday of Samuel Palmer (London 27 January 1805 – 24 May 1881 Redhill, Surrey); landscape painter, etcher and printmaker.  He was also a prolific writer.  Palmer was a key figure in Romanticism in Britain and produced visionary pastoral paintings.

Palmer fell in love with the fourteen-year-old Hannah Linnell, whom he later married.

Gallery

“The Rising of the Skylark”

Arkhip Kuindzhi
Portrait of Kuindzhi by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1869

Today is the birthday of Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (or Kuinji; Mariupol January 27, 1842(?) – July 24, 1910 St. Petersburg); landscape painter.

Gallery

Winter

• 

  Lake Ladoga (1873)

• 

  The birch grove (1879)

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  Dnepr in the morning (1881)

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  Night on the Dnepr (1880)

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  Surf and Clouds (1882)

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  Elbrus (1890–1895)

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  Evening in Ukraine (1878–1901)

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  Moonspots in the Forest, Winter (1898–1908)

by Marion Collier (nÈe Huxley), oil on canvas, 1882-83

Today is the birthday of John Maler Collier (27 January 1850 – 11 April 1934); artist, and an author.  He painted in the Pre-Raphaelite style, and was one of the most prominent portrait painters of his generation.  Both his marriages were to daughters of Thomas Henry Huxley.  He studied painting at the Munich Academy where he enrolled on 14 April 1875 at the age of 25.

In due course, Collier became an integral part of the family of Thomas Henry Huxley PC, President of the Royal Society from 1883 to 1885. Collier married two of Huxley’s daughters. Collier’s first wife, in 1879, was Marian (Mady) Huxley.  She was a painter who studied, like her husband, at the Slade and exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere.  After the birth of their only child, a daughter, she suffered severe post-natal depression and was taken to Paris for treatment where, however, she contracted pneumonia and died in 1887.

In 1889 Collier married Mady’s younger sister Ethel Huxley.  Until the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Marriage Act 1907 such a marriage was not possible in England, so the ceremony took place in Norway.

Gallery 

Lilith

The sleeping beauty

Today is the birthday of Louis Anquetin ( Étrépagny, France 26 January 1861 – 19 August 1932 Paris); painter.

In 1882 he came to Paris and began studying art at Léon Bonnat’s studio, where he met Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The two artists later moved to the studio of Fernand Cormon, where they befriended Émile Bernard and Vincent van Gogh.

Around 1887, Anquetin and Bernard developed a painting style that used flat regions of color and thick, black contour outlines. This style, named cloisonnism by critic Edouard Dujardin, was inspired by both stained glass and Japanese ukiyo-e. One example of this can be seen in Avenue de Clichy: Five O’Clock in the Evening.

He eventually opted to study the methods of the Old Masters. Thus, Anquetin’s works following the mid-1890s, such as Rinaldo and Armida, were especially Rubensian and allegorical in nature. In 1907 he met Jacques Maroger, a young artist who shared his interest, with whom he collaborated.

Later in life, Anquetin wrote a book on Rubens, which was published in 1924.

Gallery 

Femme se peignant les cheveux

•  
• 

  Moulin Rouge, 1893

• 

  Elégante de profil au Bal Mabille, 1888

• 

  Woman with Umbrella, 1891

• 

  Reaper, 1887

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  Le pont de l’Europe, 1889, pastel on paper

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  Inside Bruant’s Mirliton, 1886-1887

Today is St. Dwynen’s Day.  St. Dwynwen is Wales’ patron saint of lovers, although she was rather unlucky in that department after falling head over heels for a man she wasn’t allowed to marry. The 5th-century princess’s heartache led her to dedicate her life to God and pray for true lovers to have better fortune than her own.

The original tale has become mixed with elements of folktales and Celtic stories, and so there are a number of variations on the tale. Dwynwen is believed to have been a daughter of King Brychan Brycheiniog, who lived in the 5th century, making her the half-sister of Saint Ninnoc. Her mother may have been Rigrawst. Dwynwen lived in Anglesey.

In the tale told of her, either a young man named Maelon Dafodrill falls in love with, but she rejects his advances; or she is unable to marry him because her father forbade the marriage and had already promised her to someone else. Distraught over her love for Maelon, Dwynwen prayed she would fall out of love with him. An angel provides her with a potion; Maelon turns to ice. God then grants her three requests: that Maelon be released; that, through her, God look after all true lovers; and that she remain unmarried. As a mark of her thanks, she then retreats to the solitude of Ynys Llanddwyn off the west coast of Anglesey to become a hermit until her death, in about AD 460; although it has been written in some texts that she had fled there because of her fear of Maelgwn Gwynedd.

Dwynwen reportedly studied the healing properties of local herbs and thus was able to cure many illnesses of people who sought her from all over Wales.

Dwynwen withdrew to a small tidal island off the southwest coast of Anglesey. (Newborough is the closest town.) There she built a Church; which became known as Llanddwyn, (“Church of Dwynwen”). Its remains can still be seen on Ynys Llanddwyn. There was also Dwynwen’s well, where, allegedly, a sacred fish swims, whose movements predict the future fortunes and relationships of various couples.

Robert Burns
The best-known portrait of Burns, by Alexander Nasmyth, 1787 (detail)

Today is the birthday of Robert Burns (Alloway, Ayrshire 25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796 Dumfries), also known as Rabbie Burns, the Bard of Ayrshire, Ploughman Poet and various other names and epithets; poet and lyricist.  Widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and celebrated worldwide.  He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a light Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland.  He also wrote in standard English, and in these writings his political or civil commentary is often at its bluntest.

He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish diaspora around the world.  Celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature.  In 2009 he was chosen as the greatest Scot by the Scottish public in a vote run by Scottish television channel STV.

As well as making original compositions, Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them.  His poem (and song) “Auld Lang Syne” is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and “Scots Wha Hae” served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country.  Other poems and songs of Burns that remain well known across the world today include “A Red, Red Rose”, “A Man’s a Man for A’ That”, “To a Louse”, “To a Mouse”, “The Battle of Sherramuir”, “Tam o’ Shanter” and “Ae Fond Kiss”.

His first child, Elizabeth Paton Burns (1785–1817), was born to his mother’s servant, Elizabeth Paton (1760–circa 1799), while he was embarking on a relationship with Jean Armour, who became pregnant with twins in March 1786.  Burns signed a paper attesting his marriage to Jean, but her father “was in the greatest distress, and fainted away”.  To avoid disgrace, her parents sent her to live with her uncle in Paisley.  Although Armour’s father initially forbade it, they were eventually married in 1788.  Armour bore him nine children, only three of whom survived infancy.

About 1786, Burns fell in love with Mary Campbell (1763–1786), whom he had seen in church while he was still living in Tarbolton.  She was born near Dunoon and had lived in Campbeltown before moving to work in Ayrshire.  He dedicated the poems “The Highland Lassie O”, “Highland Mary”, and “To Mary in Heaven” to her.  His song “Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave auld Scotia’s shore?” suggests that they planned to emigrate to Jamaica together.  Their relationship has been the subject of much conjecture, and it has been suggested that on 14 May 1786 they exchanged Bibles and plighted their troth over the Water of Fail in a traditional form of marriage.  Soon afterwards Mary Campbell left her work in Ayrshire, went to the seaport of Greenock, and sailed home to her parents in Campbeltown.

In October 1786, Mary and her father sailed from Campbeltown to visit her brother in Greenock.  Her brother fell ill with typhus, which she also caught while nursing him.  She died of typhus on 20 or 21 October 1786 and was buried there.

Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf in 1902; photograph by George Charles Beresford.

Today is the birthday of Adeline Virginia Woolf (Kensington, Middlesex, née Stephen; 25 January 1882 – 28 March 1941 River Ouse, near Lewes, Sussex); writer and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century.

During the interwar period, Woolf was a significant figure in London literary society and a central figure in the influential Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals.  Her best-selling works include the novels Mrs Dalloway (1925), To the Lighthouse (1927) and Orlando (1928), and the book-length essay A Room of One’s Own (1929), with its dictum, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

Virginia Stephen married the writer Leonard Woolf on 10 August 1912.  Despite his low material status (Woolf referring to Leonard during their engagement as a “penniless Jew”) the couple shared a close bond. In 1937, Woolf wrote in her diary: “Love-making—after 25 years can’t bear to be separate … you see it is enormous pleasure being wanted: a wife. And our marriage so complete.”  The two also collaborated professionally, in 1917 founding the Hogarth Press, which subsequently published Virginia’s novels along with works by T. S. Eliot, Laurens van der Post, and others.

The ethos of the Bloomsbury group encouraged a liberal approach to sexuality, and in 1922 she met the writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West, wife of Harold Nicolson.  After a tentative start, they began a sexual relationship, which, according to Sackville-West in a letter to her husband dated 17 August 1926, was only twice consummated.  However, Virginia’s intimacy with Vita seems to have continued into the early 1930s.  In 1928, Woolf presented Sackville-West with Orlando, a fantastical biography in which the eponymous hero’s life spans three centuries and both sexes.  Nigel Nicolson, Vita Sackville-West’s son, wrote, “The effect of Vita on Virginia is all contained in Orlando, the longest and most charming love letter in literature, in which she explores Vita, weaves her in and out of the centuries, tosses her from one sex to the other, plays with her, dresses her in furs, lace and emeralds, teases her, flirts with her, drops a veil of mist around her.”  After their affair ended, the two women remained friends until Woolf’s death in 1941.

Woolf suffered from severe bouts of mental illness throughout her life and died by suicide by drowning in 1941 at the age of 59.

Prose

“What is this romance?” she mused.
“Ah, that’s the question. I’ve never come across a definition that satisfied me, though there are some very good ones”—he glanced in the direction of his books.
“It’s not altogether knowing the other person, perhaps—it’s ignorance,” she hazarded.
“Some authorities say it’s a question of distance—romance in literature, that is—”
“Possibly, in the case of art. But in the case of people it may be—” she hesitated.

• Night and Day (1919).

Dearest,
I want to tell you that you have given me complete happiness. No one could have done more than you have done. Please believe that.
But I know that I shall never get over this: and I am wasting your life. It is this madness. Nothing anyone says can persuade me. You can work, and you will be much better without me. You see I can’t write this even, which shows I am right. All I want to say is that until this disease came on we were perfectly happy. It was all due to you. No one could have been so good as you have been, from the very first day till now. Everyone knows that.
V.

• Letter to Leonard Woolf (28 March 1941), from The Virginia Woolf Reader (1984) edited by Mitchell A. Leaska

Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.

I feel so intensely the delights of shutting oneself up in a little world of one’s own, with pictures and music and everything beautiful.

And today is the birthday of Luis Marden (born Annibale Luigi Paragallo) (January 25, 1913 – March 3, 2003); photographer, explorer, writer, filmmaker, diver, navigator, and linguist who worked for National Geographic Magazine. He worked as a photographer and reporter before serving as chief of the National Geographic foreign editorial staff. He was a pioneer in the use of color photography, both on land and underwater, and also made many discoveries in the world of science.

Though he officially retired in 1976, Marden continued to write occasional stories. In total, he wrote more than 60 articles for the magazine.

Gallery

A cowgirl puts a nickel in an El Paso parking meter to hitch her pony, October 1939.

Two young women stand near a turning aircraft propeller, 1940.

Coffee queen

Mac Tag

Desert

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  Tropical Landscape, 1906

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  Sea Shore, 1907

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  South Country. A cave town 1908

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  Italian landscape, 1911

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  Cloud, 1920s

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  Rainbow, 1931

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  Port of an Imaginable City 1932

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  Recollection of Mantegna, 1942

Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton, c. 1889

Today is the birthday of Edith Wharton (New York; born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937 Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, France); Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, short story writer, and designer.  She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930.  Wharton combined her insider’s view of America’s privileged classes with a natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels and short stories of social and psychological insight.

Wharton said, “Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.”  She wrote about frustrated love in novels like The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), and The Age of Innocence (1920), for which she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.