Seven Notes from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s American Note-Books

  1. On being transported to strange scenes, we feel as if all were unreal. This is but the perception of the true unreality of earthly things, made evident by the want of congruity between ourselves and them. By and by we become mutually adapted, and the perception is lost.
  2. An old looking-glass. Somebody finds out the secret of making all the images that have been reflected in it pass back again across its surface.
  3. Our Indian races having reared no monuments, like the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, when they have disappeared from the earth their history will appear a fable, and they misty phantoms.
  4. A woman to sympathize with all emotions, but to have none of her own.
  5. A portrait of a person in New England to be recognized as of the same person represented by a portrait in Old England. Having distinguished himself there, he had suddenly vanished, and had never been heard of till he was thus discovered to be identical with a distinguished man in New England.
  6. Men of cold passions have quick eyes.
  7. A virtuous but giddy girl to attempt to play a trick on a man. He sees what she is about, and contrives matters so that she throws herself completely into his power, and is ruined,–all in jest.

From Nathaniel Hawthorne’s American Note-Books.

Book Transforming Itself into a Nude Woman — Salvador Dali

Allegorical Portrait of a Woman — Sandro Botticelli

Duel Scene, Barry Lyndon

When his son wept, he most frequently uttered a highly specific sound in A-flat minor (William T. Vollmann)

When his son wept, he most frequently uttered a highly specific sound in A-flat minor. Can one do anything with this? It hurts me, of course, not that I have anything to say about it, because, because, but the real point is that if it didn’t hurt me it would be unconscionable to build it into my music, but since I, my God, how can I not weep when my children suffer? And therefore, it would be unconscionable not to use that A-flat minor, when it might somehow, well, it’s important to remember that each one of us has his work.

From William Vollmann’s novel Europe Central; the “he”—which, via the novel’s free indirect speech pivots to an “I”—is Shostakovich.

Cosmic Map – Bruno Munari

“I can’t write incorrectly” | Lydia Davis Interview

Salon has posted a new interview with Lydia Davis. From the interview:

I can’t write incorrectly. I find it very difficult to just relax and have spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes and punctuation – I cannot do that. But I can’t do that even if I write a shopping list, so that’s not surprising. I can’t be casual, so it’s more correct. Sometimes I have fun writing it nicely – doing parallel constructions or, you know – but of course it’s more relaxed than a formal story, but it’s still a piece of writing that has an effect whether it’s a really good friend or a business email so I’m still quite conscious. It’s amazing how you can write something quickly and when I reread it – I always reread my emails – I make mistakes and I’m confusing and you’d think after all this time I could write a quick email that would be absolutely perfect, but I can’t.

Portrait of John Nada — Mike Mitchell

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Nude with Book — Iosif Iser

Sleeping Woman — Tamara de Lempicka

“Darling Commit Me” — Steve Earle

The Master (Film Poster) — Laurent Durieux

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No literary quality can be attained by reading writers who possess it (Schopenhauer)

No literary quality can be attained by reading writers who possess it: be it, for example, persuasiveness, imagination, the gift of drawing comparisons, boldness or bitterness, brevity or grace, facility of expression or wit, unexpected contrasts, a laconic manner, naïveté, and the like. But if we are already gifted with these qualities—that is to say, if we possess them potentia—we can call them forth and bring them to consciousness; we can discern to what uses they are to be put; we can be strengthened in our inclination, nay, may have courage, to use them; we can judge by examples the effect of their application and so learn the correct use of them; and it is only after we have accomplished all this that we actu possess these qualities. This is the only way in which reading can form writing, since it teaches us the use to which we can put our own natural gifts; and in order to do this it must be taken for granted that these qualities are in us. Without them we learn nothing from reading but cold, dead mannerisms, and we become mere imitators.

From Arthur Schopenhauer’s essay “On Reading and Books.”

The Book — Edwin Dickinson