Excerpt from John McGahern's new Memoir.
My own experience of Ireland is embodied in this paragraph --
I am sure it is from those days that I take the belief that the best of life is life lived quietly, where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible and the precious life is everything.
Today is the birthday of my hero George Santayana, according to the Writer's Almanac. Santayana was born in Spain but he spent almost his entire life in the United States, though without ever becoming a citizen. For many years he taught philosophy at Harvard, and his students included Conrad Aiken, Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens.
Santayana wrote a great deal about art and the importance of creative thinking. As he grew older, he became tired of teaching and what he called the 'thistles of trivial and narrow scholarship,' so he left Harvard and spent the rest of his life writing. His books include many philosophical works, as well as collections of poetry. He said --
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
The Writer's Almanac continues --.
[Santayana] was the man who coined the famous warning, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." . . . Santayana wrote a great deal about art and the importance of creative thinking. . . . As he grew older, he became tired of teaching and what he called the "thistles of trivial and narrow scholarship," so he left Harvard and spent the rest of his life writing. His books include many philosophical works, as well as collections of poetry. He also spent about 20 years working on a novel, The Last Puritan (1935), about a young man's struggles in Boston high society just before World War I.
Today the Writer's Almanac informs us that when Jane Austen's later novels proved much less popular than her earlier, her relatives suggested she try writing another kind of novel, perhaps historical romance. She replied --
"
I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.
A Doll's House and Other Plays
Edvard Munch site --
Portrait of Inger, The Artist's Sister, oil, 1892.Henrik Ibsen in the Cafe of the Grand Hotel, lithograph, 1902.
According to Andrea Barrett, "It's hard to explain how much one can love writing. If people knew how happy it can make you, we would all be writing all the time. It's the greatest secret of the world." (from the Writer's Almanac
The grave of philosopher-psychologist William James (d. 1910), at Cambridge Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts. His brother, novelist Henry James (d. 1916), is buried immediately next to him.
What Makes a Life Significant, another essay by William James.
His students remember William James.
William James, an Emory University site.
Today's Writer's Almanac entry is so good that I'll just provide a link to the whole thing.
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