'the incomparably rich experience we ask and expect of all true art'

The business of education is to give the student both useful information and life-enhancing experience, one largely measurable, the other not; and since the life-enhancing value of a course in literature is difficult to measure—since, moreover, many people in a position to put pressure on educational programs have no real experience in or feeling for the arts—it is often tempting to treat life-enhancement courses as courses in useful information, putting them on the same “objective” level as courses in civics, geometry, or elementary physics. So it comes about that books are taught (officially, at least) not because they give joy, the incomparably rich experience we ask and expect of all true art, but because, as a curriculum committee might put it, they “illustrate major themes in American literature,” or “present a clearly stated point of view and can thus serve as a vehicle for such curriculum objectives as (1) demonstrating an awareness of the author’s purpose, (2) reading critically, and (3) identifying organizational patterns in literary selections used to support a point of view.” One cannot exactly say that such teaching is pernicious, but to treat great works of literature in this way seems a little like arguing for preservation of dolphins, whales, chimps, and gorillas solely on the grounds of ecological balance.

—John Gardner, The Art of Fiction (1983)

'a happiness so fraught by an awareness of its brevity'

Things were going so well with Leonard, the mood was so promising—even the weather lending a hand because, after they finished their food and left the diner, walking back to campus, a March drizzle forced them to share Madeleine’s collapsible umbrella—that a feeling came over her like those she’d had as a girl when treated to a pastry or a dessert, a happiness so fraught by an awareness of its brevity that she took the tiniest bites, making the cream puff or éclair last as long as possible. In this same way, instead of seeing where the afternoon led, Madeleine decided to check its progress, to save some for later, and she told Leonard she had to go home and study.

—Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot (2011)

'a pert coxcomb'

But man is a frivolous and incongruous creature, and perhaps, like a chess player, loves the process of the game, not the end of it. And who knows (there is no saying with certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is striving lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four, and such positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of death. Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing but seek that mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it, he dreads, I assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be nothing for him to look for. When workmen have finished their work they do at least receive their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to the police-station — and there is occupation for a week. But where can man go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when he has attained such objects. He loves the process of attaining, but does not quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very absurd. In fact, man is a comical creature; there seems to be a kind of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is after all, something insufferable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (1864) (trans. Garnett 1918)

dreamers, utopians and holy fools

But the merit and the whole significance of such people as Dostoevsky reside precisely in that they do not bow down before the force of fact and they do not serve that force. Set against this crude force of 'that which exists', they possess the spiritual force of faith in truth and goodness - in 'that which ought to exist'. Not to be led astray by the apparent domination of evil, and not to renounce the inapparent good on account of it, is a feat of faith. Man's entire strength resides in this. Whoever is incapable of this feat will achieve nothing and will have no word to address to humanity. Those people who acknowledge fact [alone] live by the grace of others, but it is not they who create life. It is the people of faith who create life. These are the people known as dreamers, utopians and holy fools - these are the prophets, truly the best people and the leaders of humanity. Today we commemorate such a person.

—Vladimir Soloviev, Three Speeches in Memory of F. M. Dostoevsky (1882)

The Religious Principle, The Juridical Order

The desire to unite with the whole is the essence of what Soloviev calls the "religious principle." The contrast with the juridical order is clear: law demarcates, delimits, distinguishes, divides; religion connects, embraces, unites. Put another way, religion is about love—the loving union realized in "a mystical or religious community, that is to say, the church." Loving union with the whole of things is the absolute end.

—Paul Valliere, "Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900): Commentary" (2007)

'All men ... are born with halters round their necks.'

But why say more? All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in a whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick ch. 60 (1851)

'Sweet dreams burn me'

"The thief who hung on the cross managed to recover the joy of life and a bold, realizable hope, though he probably had no more than an hour left to live. You still have long years ahead of you, and most likely I will not die as soon as it seems. What if, by a miracle, the present should turn out to be a dream, a terrible nightmare, and we should wake up renewed, pure, strong, proud of our truth? ... Sweet dreams burn me, and I can hardly breathe from excitement. I want terribly to live, I want our life to be holy, high, and solemn, like the heavenly vault. Let us live! The sun does not rise twice a day, and life is not given us twice—hold fast to the remains of your life and save them ..."

—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, "The Story of an Unknown Man" (1892) (trans. Pevear & Volokhonsky 2004)

'you armed yourself with an ironic attitude toward life'

"And your irony? Oh, how well I understand it! Living, free, spirited thought is inquisitive and imperious; for a lazy, idle mind, it is unbearable. To keep it from disturbing your peace, you, like thousands of your peers, hastened while still young to set limits to it; you armed yourself with an ironic attitude toward life, or whatever you want to call it, and your restricted, intimidated thought does not dare jump over the little palisade you have set around it, and when you jeer at the ideas that are supposedly all known to you, you are like a deserter who shamefully runs away from the field of battle but, to stifle his shame, mocks at war and courage. Cynicism stifles pain."

—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, "The Story of an Unknown Man" (1892) (trans. Pevear & Volokhonsky 2004)

'that ultimate outward and inward simplicity which enables the heart to see'

Today, anyone wishing to enter the Church of Jesus' Nativity in Bethlehem will find that the doorway five and a half meters high, through which emperors and caliphs used to enter the building, is now largely walled up. Only a low opening of one and a half meters has remained. The intention was probably to provide the church with better protection from attack, but above all to prevent people from entering God's house on horseback. Anyone wishing to enter the place of Jesus' birth has to bend down. It seems to me that a deeper truth is revealed here, which should touch our hearts on this holy night: if we want to find the God who appeared as a child, then we must dismount from the high horse of our "enlightened" reason. We must set aside our false certainties, our intellectual pride, which prevents us from recognizing God's closeness. We must follow the interior path of Saint Francis, the path leading to that ultimate outward and inward simplicity which enables the heart to see. We must bend down, spiritually we must as it were go on foot, in order to pass through the portal of faith and encounter the God who is so different from our prejudices and opinions, the God who conceals himself in the humility of a newborn baby.

—Pope Benedict XVI, homily on Christmas Eve 2011 (official Vatican translation, 2011)

'the improbable roads and cities of fidelity'

Fulfillment, Shevek thought, is a function of time. The search for pleasure is circular, repetitive, atemporal. The variety seeking of the spectator, the thrill hunter, the sexually promiscuous, always ends in the same place. It has an end. It comes to the end and has to start over. It is not a journey and return, but a closed cycle, a locked room, a cell.

Outside the locked room is the landscape of time, in which the spirit may, with luck and courage, construct the fragile, makeshift, improbable roads and cities of fidelity: a landscape inhabitable by human beings.

It is not until an act occurs within the landscape of the past and the future that it is a human act. Loyalty, which asserts the continuity of past and future, binding time into a whole, is the root of human strength; there is no good to be done without it.

—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed (1974)