I haven't had to go into an office since March of this year. Which
is good as far as saving money on buying office clothes. But... I get
bored with putting on the same T-shirts every day, the only difference
being the color. Today I splurged on Joan/George/Plath at an online
T-shirt place, just to have a "change of mood" when I put on my work-at-home T-shirt
for the day. (Though, good lord, what kind of "mood" might each of these put me in?)
Just received this e-mail from Yelp:
1888 (January 24):
I find that my politics really are neither Tory nor Radical. I may be called an Intrinsicalist. I am against privilege derived from accident of any kind, and am therefore equally opposed to aristocratic privilege and democratic privilege. (By the latter I mean the arrogant assumption that the only labour is hand-labour---a worse arrogance than that of the aristocrat,---the taxing of the worthy to help those masses of the population who will not help themselves when they might, etc.) Opportunity should be equal for all, but those who will not avail themselves of it should be cared for merely --- not be a burden to, nor the rulers over, those who do avail themselves thereof.
1888 (September 10):
Destitution sometimes reaches the point of grandeur in its pathetic grimness: e.g., as shown in the statement of the lodging-house keeper in the Whitechapel [Jack the Ripper] murder:
"He had seen her in the lodging-house as late as half-past one o'clock or two that morning. He knew her as an unfortunate, and that she generally frequented Stratford for a living. He asked her for her lodging-money, when she said, 'I have not got it. I am weak and ill, and have been in the infirmary.' He told her that she knew the rules, whereupon she went out to get some money." (Times report)
O richest City in the world! "She knew the rules."
1889 (January 9):
To the City. Omnibus horses, Ludgate Hill. The greasy state of the streets caused constant slipping. The poor creatures struggled and struggled but could not start the omnibus. A man next to me said: "It must take all heart and hope out of them! I shall get out." He did; but the whole remaining selfish twenty-five of us sat on. The horses despairingly got us up the hill at last. I ought to have taken off my hat to him and said: "Sir, though I was not stirred by your humane impulse I will profit by your good example"; and have followed him. I should like to know that man; but we shall never meet again!
1889 (April 7):
A woeful fact---that the human race is too extremely developed for its corporal conditions, the nerves being evolved to an activity abnormal in such an environment. Even the higher animals are in excess in this respect. It may be questioned if Nature, or what we call Nature, so far back as when she crossed the line from invertebrates to vertebrates, did not exceed her mission. This planet does not supply the materials for happiness to higher existences. Other planets may, though one can hardly see how.
1891 (April 28):
Next day -- wet -- at the British Museum: Crowds parading and gaily traipsing round the mummies, thinking today is for ever, and the girls casting sly glances at young men across the swathed dust of Mycerinus. They pass with flippant comments the illuminated MSS---the labor of years---and stand under Rameses the Great, joking. Democratic government may be justice to man, but it will probably merge in proletarian, and when these people are our masters it will lead to more of this contempt, and possibly be the utter ruin of art and literature...
...and so have been called a "racist," a "deplorable," etc.
All of the CNN/Twitter name-calling made me think back to my history of voting since I came of age:
1984: Dem Primary: Gary Hart. General: Walter Mondale.
1988: Mike Dukakis.
1992: Bill Clinton.
1996: Ross Perot.
2000: Repub Primary: John McCain. General: Al Gore.
2004: John Kerry.
2008: Dem Primary: Hillary Clinton. General: John McCain
2012: Barack Obama.
2016: Donald Trump. [I got "woke" this year.]
Before you read the poem itself: I can't find the quote from a particular bio, but Hardy once told an acquaintance that he found it somehow soothing to walk around in the world as if he had already died and left it. That way, he didn't mourn anything---because he was already, in his mind, gone. I never tried THAT mental trick! Anyway, here's his poem on the subject, though not as subtle a concept as what he initially told his friend.
The Dead Man Walking
They hail me as one living,
But don’t they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?
I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.
Not at a minute’s warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time’s enchantments
In hall and bower.
There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death…
A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.
But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.
When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;
And when my Love’s heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.
And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day,
Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.
