One Day Some As Yet Unborn Scholar

It Gets Harder All The Time, Bev Shaw Once Said. Harder, Yet Easier. One Gets Used To Things Getting Harder; One Ceases To Be Surprised That What Used To Be Hard As Hard Can Be Grows Harder Yet.

His Mouth Opens. From Inside Him Comes A Slow Stream, Without Breath, Without Interruption. It Flows Up Through His Body And Out Upon Me; It Passes Through The Cabin, Through The Wreck; Washing The Cliffs And Shores Of The Island, It Runs Northward And Southward To The Ends Of The Earth. Soft And Cold, Dark And Unending, It Beats Against My Eyelids, Against The Skin Of My Face.

Deprived Of Human Intercourse, I Inevitably Overvalue The Imagination And Expect It To Make The Mundane Glow With An Aura Of Self-transcendence. Yet Why These Glorious Sunsets, I Ask Myself, If Nature Does Not Speak To Us With Tongues Of Fire.

(i)f We Are Going To Be Kind, Let It Be Out Of Simple Generosity, Not Because We Fear Guilt Or Retribution.

Artists No Longer Starve In Garrets. Some People May Think This Is Not Wholly A Good Thing, That Being An Artist Has Become Too Comfortable, At Least In The West. I'm Not Sure I Agree. It's A Mark Of Civilization To Encourage The Arts And The Life Of The Mind.