9 January (1796): Jane Austen to Cassandra Austen
…I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend and I behaved. Imagine to yourself everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together.
8 January (1852): Herman Melville to Sophia Hawthorne
I had some vague idea while writing it, that the whole book was susceptible of an allegoric construction, & also that parts of it were…
Nietzsche Apostle: The Emancipatory Potential of Self-PraiseFrom the Print
To learn more about Nietzsche’s theory and praxis of generosity, it is also—or above all—necessary to address his “megalomania,” supposing this an appropriate designation for this author’s extraordinary talent to speak about himself, his mission, and his writings in the highest of tones…
7 January (1922): Frederico Garcio Lorca to Regino Sainz de la Maza
Study a lot, Regino, and comb with care the invisible strands of your heart. Be careful not to tangle them!
Micro-Review: On Charles Bernstein's “Recalculating”
We are used to hearing these terms derogatorily regarding poetry of less than exemplary literary value; perhaps suggesting either clumsy or downright ugly rhythms: inept, sentimental, misordered, trivial, cliché. But what if a poem’s great literary value is rather because it embraces these taboo registers, willingly, wildly, playfully?
6 January (1951): C.S. Lewis to Ruth Pitter
One might as well read everyone who had the same job or the same coloured hair, or the same income, or the same chest measurements, as far as I can see…
FeatsFrom the Print
Emmett could neither defend himself nor keep from growing sicker with every blow, his blackened eyes scanning the distance for a horizon by which to orient himself as his father cried and struck…
3 January (1970): Martha Gellhorn to Alvah Bessie
If I had a fine memory (one of the basic ingredients of talent), I might be able to write Memoirs, better than George Kennan for instance because, from my worm’s eye view, I do believe I saw the world more truly. But I have absolutely no memory; this is not a joke.
2 January (1896): Willa Cather to "Push"
I dont [sic] know when I will appear in Lincoln next, nor do I much care. One of the charms of the Province is that one gets indifferent toward everything, even suicide. “Then think of me as one already dead, and laid within the bottom of a tomb.”
1 January (1918): Ezra Pound to Harriet Monroe
Anything really made to speak or sing is bound to lose on the page, unless the readers have some sense of sound.