Guest Of Honour Quotes

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements? Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both. Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows -- then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason." And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky -- then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion." And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

the position of guests, Tess being honoured with

If a guest enters your house holding the severed head of your only son in his hand, you must still receive him, offer him food and drink and honour him as a guest.’ That is a wise law. But sometimes it is very difficult to keep

Upon Mrs Scorton's reappearance, she found herself confronted, not by the fool of his family, but by the Honourable Frederick Standen, a Pink of the Pinks, who knew to a nicety how to blend courtesy with hauteur, and who informed her, with exquisite politeness, that he rather fancied his cousin was tired, and would like to be taken home. One of the uninvited guests, entering the box in Eliza's wake, ventured on a warm sally, found himself being inspected from head to foot through a quizzing-glass, and stammered an apology.

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; For honour travels in a strait so narrow, Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; For emulation hath a thousand sons That one by one pursue: if you give way, Or hedge aside from the direct forthright, Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by And leave you hindmost; Or like a gallant horse fall'n in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, O'er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present, Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours; For time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time.

Pero las cuestiones humanas no conducían a conclusiones tajantes, al trazado de una línea ni a una suma total. Parecían resolverse, disolverse, cuando sólo se estaban formando de nuevo, reuniéndose en otra combinación. Incluso cuando estamos muertos, lo que hicimos continúa tramando estas nuevas combinaciones.

This being human is a Guest House Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, Some momentary awareness comes As an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, Who violently sweep your house Empty of its furniture. Still treat each guest honourably, He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.

If a guest enters your house holding the severed head of your only son in his hand, you must still receive him, offer him food and drink and honour him as a guest.’ That is a wise law. But sometimes it is very difficult to keep

Philip Conwell-Evans, who three years earlier had witnessed the book burning at Königsberg University with such equanimity. Choosing to operate discretely behind the scenes, Conwell-Evans had been instrumental in bringing together a number of influential British figures with leading Nazis. It was he, for instance who in December 1934, had been the driving force behind the first major dinner party Hitler ever hosted for foreigners and at which Lord Rothermere had been guest of honour. And it was now Conwell-Evans, in harness with his close friend Ribbentrop, who was masterminding the Lloyd-George expedition. 'He is so blind to the blemishes of the Germans,' Dr Jones wrote of his fellow Welshman in his diary,' as to make one see the virtues of the French.

And voices in me said, if you were a man You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off. But must I confess how I liked him, How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless, Into the burning bowels of this earth? Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured? I felt so honoured.

Scene I. A little dark Parlour in Boston: Guards standing at the door. Hazlerod, Crusty Crowbar, Simple Sapling, Hateall, and Hector Mushroom. Simple. I know not what to think of these sad times, The people arm'd,—and all resolv'd to die Ere they'll submit.—— Crusty Crowbar. I too am almost sick of the parade Of honours purchas'd at the price of peace. Simple. Fond as I am of greatness and her charms, Elate with prospects of my rising name, Push'd into place,—a place I ne'er expected, My bounding heart leapt in my feeble breast. And ecstasies entranc'd my slender brain.— But yet, ere this I hop'd more solid gains, As my low purse demands a quick supply.— Poor Sylvia weeps,—and urges my return To rural peace and humble happiness, As my ambition beggars all her babes. Crusty. When first I listed in the desp'rate cause, And blindly swore obedience to his will, So wise, so just, so good I thought Rapatio, That if salvation rested on his word I'd pin my faith, and risk my hopes thereon. Hazlerod. Any why not now?—What staggers thy belief? Crusty. Himself—his perfidy appears— It is too plain he has betray'd his country; And we're the wretched tools by him mark'd out To seal its ruins—tear up the ancient forms, And every vestige treacherously destroy, Nor leave a trait of freedom in the land. Nor did I think hard fate wou'd call me up From drudging o'er my acres, Treading the glade, and sweating at the plough, To dangle at the tables of the great; At bowls and cards to spend my frozen years; To sell my friends, my country, and my conscience; Profane the sacred sabbaths of my God; Scorn'd by the very men who want my aid To spread distress o'er this devoted people. Hazlerod. Pho—what misgivings—why these idle qualms, This shrinking backwards at the bugbear conscience; In early life I heard the phantom nam'd, And the grave sages prate of moral sense Presiding in the bosom of the just; Or planting thongs about the guilty heart. Bound by these shackles, long my lab'ring mind, Obscurely trod the lower walks of life, In hopes by honesty my bread to gain; But neither commerce, or my conjuring rods, Nor yet mechanics, or new fangled drills, Or all the iron-monger's curious arts, Gave me a competence of shining ore, Or gratify'd my itching palm for more; Till I dismiss'd the bold intruding guest, And banish'd conscience from my wounded breast. Crusty. Happy expedient!—Could I gain the art, Then balmy sleep might sooth my waking lids, And rest once more refresh my weary soul.

This being human is a guest house, Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still treat each guest honourably, He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has sent as a guide from beyond.

Thelma Cazalet MP, unlike most of the other British 'honoured guests' attending [the 1938 Reichsparteitag], was strongly anti-Nazi and had accepted Ribbentrop's invitation only because she thought it important 'to be aware of what was going on.' As she entered the dining room of the Grand Hotel on the first night, she immediately caught sight of Unity Mitford seated at the long 'British' table with her parents Lord and Lady Redesdale. 'Unity is alarmingly pretty,' she wrote in her diary, 'but I have never seen anyone so pretty with absolutely no charm in her face and a rather stupid expression.

During dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness. Lady Catherine de Bourgh's attention to his wishes, and consideration for his comfort, appeared very remarkable. Mr. Bennet could not have chosen better. Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise. The subject elevated him to more than usual solemnity of manner, and with a most important aspect he protested that "he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in a person of rank—such affability and condescension, as he had himself experienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to approve of both of the discourses which he had already had the honour of preaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings, and had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of quadrille in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many people he knew, but he had never seen anything but affability in her. She had always spoken to him as she would to any other gentleman; she made not the smallest objection to his joining in the society of the neighbourhood nor to his leaving the parish occasionally for a week or two, to visit his relations. She had even condescended to advise him to marry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion; and had once paid him a visit in his humble parsonage, where she had perfectly approved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed to suggest some herself—some shelves in the closet upstairs.

Such good relations we had that if there was any function that we had, then we used to call Musalmaans to our homes, they would eat in our houses, but we would not eat in theirs and this is a bad thing, which I realize now. If they would come to our houses we would have two utensils in one corner of the house, and we would tell them, pick these up and eat in them; they would then wash them and keep them aside and this was such a terrible thing. This was the reason Pakistan was created. If we went to their houses and took part in their weddings and ceremonies, they used to really respect and honour us. They would give us uncooked food, ghee, atta, dal, whatever sabzis they had, chicken and even mutton, all raw. And our dealings with them were so low that I am even ashamed to say it. A guest comes to our house and we say to him, bring those utensils and wash them, and if my mother or sister have to give him food, they will more or less throw the roti from such a distance, fearing that they may touch the dish and become polluted ... We don’t have such low dealings with our lower castes as Hindus and Sikhs did with Musalmaans.

So much for Caligula as emperor; we must now tell of his career as a monster.... He lived in habitual incest with all his sisters, and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above. Many men of honourable rank were first disfigured with the marks of branding-irons and then condemned to the mines, to work at building roads, or to be thrown to the wild beasts; or else he shut them up in cages on all fours, like animals, or had them sawn asunder. Not all these punishments were for serious offences, but merely for criticising one of his shows, or for never having sworn by his genius. Having asked a man who had been recalled from an exile of long standing, how in the world he spent his time there, the man replied by way of flattery: "I constantly prayed the gods for what has come to pass, that Tiberius might die and you become emperor." Thereupon Caligula, thinking that his exiles were likewise praying for his death, sent emissaries from island to island to butcher them all. Wishing to have one of the senators torn to pieces, he induced some of the members to assail him suddenly, on his entrance into the House, with the charge of being a public enemy, to stab him with their styles, and turn him over to the rest to be mangled; and his cruelty was not sated until he saw the man's limbs, members, and bowels dragged through the streets and heaped up before him. He used to say that there was nothing in his own character which he admired and approved more highly than what he called his ἀδιατρεψία, that is to say, his shameless impudence. He seldom had anyone put to death except by numerous slight wounds, his constant order, which soon became well-known, being: "Strike so that he may feel that he is dying." When a different man than he had intended had been killed, through a mistake in the names, he said that the victim too had deserved the same fate. He even used openly to deplore the state of his times, because they had been marked by no public disasters, saying that the rule of Augustus had been made famous by the Varus massacre, and that of Tiberius by the collapse of the amphitheatre at Fidenae,​ while his own was threatened with oblivion because of its prosperity; and every now and then he wished for the destruction of his armies, for famine, pestilence, fires, or a great earthquake. While he was lunching or revelling capital examinations by torture were often made in his presence, and a soldier who was adept at decapitation cut off the heads of those who were brought from prison. At a public banquet in Rome he immediately handed a slave over to the executioners for stealing a strip of silver from the couches, with orders that his hands be cut off and hung from his neck upon his breast, and that he then be led about among the guests.

Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles; Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles; Fame's but a hollow echo, Gold, pure clay; Honour the darling but of one short day; Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin; State, but a golden prison, to live in And torture free-born minds; embroider'd Trains, Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins; And Blood allied to greatness is alone Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own. Fame, Honour, Beauty, State, Train, Blood and Birth, Are but the fading blossoms of the earth. I would be great, but that the sun doth still Level his rays against the rising hill: I would be high, but see the proudest oak Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke: I would be rich, but see men, too unkind Dig in the bowels of the richest mind: I would be wise, but that I often see The fox suspected, whilst the ass goes free: I would be fair, but see the fair and proud, Like the bright sun, oft setting in a cloud: I would be poor, but know the humble grass Still trampled on by each unworthy ass: Rich, hated wise, suspected, scorn'd if poor; Great, fear'd, fair, tempted, high, still envy'd more. I have wish'd all, but now I wish for neither. Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair: poor I'll be rather. Would the World now adopt me for her heir; Would beauty's Queen entitle me the fair; Fame speak me fortune's minion, could I " vie Angels " with India with a speaking eye Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike justice dumb, As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue To stones by epitaphs, be call'd " great master " In the loose rhymes of every poetaster ? Could I be more than any man that lives, Great, fair, rich wise, all in superlatives; Yet I more freely would these gifts resign Than ever fortune would have made them mine. And hold one minute of this holy leisure Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure. Welcome, pure thoughts; welcome, ye silent groves; These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves. Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring: A pray'r-book, now, shall be my looking-glass, In which I will adore sweet virtue's face. Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares, No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-fac'd fears; Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly, And learn t' affect an holy melancholy: And if contentment be a stranger then, I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven, again.

In Memory of W. B. Yeats I He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, And snow disfigured the public statues; The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. Far from his illness The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests, The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays; By mourning tongues The death of the poet was kept from his poems. But for him it was his last afternoon as himself, An afternoon of nurses and rumours; The provinces of his body revolted, The squares of his mind were empty, Silence invaded the suburbs, The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers. Now he is scattered among a hundred cities And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections, To find his happiness in another kind of wood And be punished under a foreign code of conscience. The words of a dead man Are modified in the guts of the living. But in the importance and noise of to-morrow When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the bourse, And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom A few thousand will think of this day As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day. II You were silly like us; your gift survived it all: The parish of rich women, physical decay, Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry. Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its making where executives Would never want to tamper, flows on south From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth. III Earth, receive an honoured guest: William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry. In the nightmare of the dark All the dogs of Europe bark, And the living nations wait, Each sequestered in its hate; Intellectual disgrace Stares from every human face, And the seas of pity lie Locked and frozen in each eye. Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise.

„A failure! Of course he's a failure, whether rich or poor;-a miserable imposition, a hollow vulgar fraud from beginning to end, — too insignificant for you and me to talk of, were it not that his position is a sign of the degeneracy of the age. What are we coming to when such as he is an honoured guest at our tables?

All these considerations, conscious and unconscious, strengthened my opinion that war could be avoided only at the cost of the honour of Prussia and of the national confidence in it. Under this conviction I made use of the royal authorisation communicated to me through Abeken, to publish the contents of the telegram; and in the presence of my two guests I reduced the telegram by striking out words, but without adding or altering, to the following form : `After the news of the renunciation of the hereditary Prince of Hohenzollern had been officially communicated to the imperial government of France by the royal government of Spain, the French ambassador at Ems further demanded of his Majesty the King that he would authorise him to telegraph to Paris that his Majesty the King bound himself for all future time never again to give his consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature.

Before either men could commence a deliberation over who knew more of the hotel’s history, Coraline injected, “India was writing the last chapters of its saga of independence when The Imperial opened its doors in the 1930s.” She paused before proceeding, “Pandit Nehru, Mahatama Gandhi, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Lord Mountbatten met under congenial conditions to discuss the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan on the very ground we stand on. Adding to that, the Nehru family also had a permanent suite within the walls of this ‘Maiden of the East.’” She let out a discreet chuckle that I think only I caught. Both men stared at the female, not knowing how to respond. Before either one of them could opine, she continued, “If only walls could speak. Here indeed is a repository of fascinating anecdotal material for authors of romantic and detective fiction. It was here, at this very site, that one could clink glasses for the Royals to their war efforts, urge Gandhi to quit the India movement, or dance to the strains of Blue Danube, belly dance like a belle from Beirut or be serenaded by an orchestra from London.” The group of us stared at the big sister, wondering how in the world she knew so much about The Imperial. My teacher and Jabril pressed for affirmation. Instead, she vociferated, “Notably, The Imperial has the largest collection on display of land war gallantry awards in India and among its neighbouring countries such as Afghanistan, Burma, Bhutan and China. It also holds a sizeable record of orders and decorations bestowed by the British Royalties to the Emperor of India as an honour to the local Maharajas, Sultans and ruling Princes from the various Indian states.” While Narnia’s chaperone continued her historical spiel, the recruit pulled me aside and whispered amusingly, “Although everything my big sister said is true, she’s having fun with you guys. Her information is from the hotel’s brochure in the guest rooms.” I quipped. “Why didn’t you tell the rest of our group? I thought she was an expert in India’s history!” She gave me a wet kiss and said saucily, “I’m telling you because I like you.” Stunned by her raciness, I was speechless. I couldn’t decide whether to tell her there and then that I was gay – but at that very moment, Andy appeared from around the corner. “Where did you two disappear to?” he inquired. When Narnia was out of earshot, I muttered knowingly to my BB, “I’ll tell you later.”, as we continued the art tour browsing portraitures of India’s Princely Rulers of yore.

contrast to Nasser, who interacted with his people as a missionary figure charting a path to national glory and redemption, Sadat was the village chief (oumda): a traditionally dressed, honoured, pious and modest guest at weddings, funerals and regional celebrations, ready to engage in discussions on matters of day-to-day concern.

I do love dancing. I even like going to balls. It’s just the thought of one being given in my honour … of so many eyes being on me throughout the evening … of having to talk to so many people I don’t know very well, and having the whole assembly of guests look on while I lead in the first dance that makes me feel ice-cold.

The speeches she is making with almost weekly regularity are a further satisfying feature of her royal life. Some she writes herself, others by a small coterie of advisers, including her private secretary Patrick Jephson, now a firm ally in the royal camp as she personally appointed him last November. It is a flexible informal group who discuss with the Princess the points she wants to make, research the statistics and then construct the speech. The contrast between her real interests and the role assigned for her by her palace “minders” was amply demonstrated in March this year where on the same day she was guest of honour at the Ideal Home Exhibition and in the evening made a passionate and revelatory speech about AIDS. There was an interesting symbolism to these engagements, separated only by a matter of hours but by a generation in personal philosophy. Her exhibition visit was organized by the palace bureaucracy. They arranged everything from photo opportunities to guests lists while the subsequent media coverage concentrated on an off-the-cuff remark the Princess made about how she couldn’t comment on her plans for National Bed Week because this was “a family show”. It was light, bright and trite, the usual offering which is served up by the palace to the media day in day out. The Princess performed her role impeccably, chatting to the various organizers and smiling for the cameras. However her performance was just that, a role which the palace, the media and public have come to expect. A glimpse of the real Diana was on show later that evening when in the company of Professor Michael Adler and Margaret Jay, both AIDS experts, she spoke to an audience of media executives at a dinner held at Claridges. Her speech clearly came from the heart and her own experience. Afterwards she answered several rather long-winded questions from the floor, the first occasion in her royal life where she had subjected herself to this particular ordeal. This episode passed without a murmur in the media even though it represented a significant milestone in her life. It illustrates the considerable difficulties she faces in shifting perceptions of her job as a Princess, both inside and outside the palace walls.

Three hundred persons took their seats in the dining-room, according to their rank and importance: the more important nearer to the honoured guest, as naturally as water flows deepest where the land lies lowest.

At Tolimundarni, on the fringe of the war zone itself, they’d been thrown off the train by military police who weren’t falling for Y’sul’s pre-emptively outrage-fuelled arguments regarding the summit-like priority and blatant extreme officiality of an expedition - nay, a quest! - he was undertaking with these - yes, these, two - famous, well-connected, honoured alien guests of immeasurably high intrinsic pan-systemic cross-species reputation, concerning a matter of the utmost import the exact details of which he was sadly not at liberty to divulge even to such patently important and obviously discreet members of the armed forces as themselves, but who would, nevertheless, he was sure, entirely understand the significance of their mission and thus their clear right to be accorded unhindered passage due to simple good taste and a fine appreciation of natural justice and would in no way be swayed by the fact that their cooperation would be repaid in levels of subsequent kudos almost beyond crediting…

And the priestess spoke again and said: “Speak to us of Reason and Passion“ And he answered saying: Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements? Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both. Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows – then let your heart say in silence, “God rests in reason.” And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky – then let your heart say in awe, “God moves in passion.” And since you are a breath in God’s sphere, and a leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

The guest at our table must be honoured thereafter; you cannot break bread with someone and then stab that person.

You come into my home and sully my honour in front of my guests? By all the gods, if I were a man I would strike you down, whoever you were. It is only my womanly modesty that restrains me.

I also made sure to stock condoms in the guest bedroom in your honour. Extra-large ones too,” she says, winking at Bo.

Ignorance about sharks and their important role is remarkable: even at a marine science conference in China, I was served shark-fin soup (and my refusal, as a guest of honour, caused bafflement as much as consternation).

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements? Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes. I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both. Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows - then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason." And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, - then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion." And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

I also made sure to stock condoms in the guest bedroom in your honour. Extra-large ones too,” she says, winking at Bo. He sputters a cough, which I find deeply rewarding.

Curled time It was the moment of last reckoning, The last moment for time and life as well, Because for long life had been meandering, Along the highways of time, until they all crashed and fell, They fell into the self terminating moments of time, For time no longer found a reason to tarry in this world, It had lost its melody, its symphony, and its every happy rhyme, Thus forcing time to create moments that always flowed in formations curled, Always moving back to where they began, Thereby cancelling every prospect of future, With future dead, the present too died and moments of time no longer ran, Because there was no present to stand on, no future to go to, and ah the time’s torture, To live in this curled formation, Where every moment ended the moment it began, Time existed but it had lost its original sensation, Now that present didn't exist , future had no existence at all; I wondered whose was this plan, Not the Sky, not the Earth, not the Sun and not at all the Moon, They all existed in their orbits like before, So who could be this senseless goon, Who forced time to lead a curled path, where only past existed now and rest it was forced to ignore, Life existed like a past memory, Where nothing new took place, It was like a devil’s ceremony, Whee the guest of honour was expected to be the grace, And can there be a worst oxymoron than this, Where the devil romances the grace, And when the devil approached her with the desire to kiss, Grace fled into the curled formation of time and thus began the eternal race, Where grace is at the front tip of these curled moments of time, The hungry Devil is chasing her in the last moment riding this curl, Grace who is keen not to commit this crime, Keeps running, as if on the fast moving rollet of life it were a forcefully cast pearl, Where the pearl wants to stop, to feel the moments passing by, But the rollet of life moves relentlessly in the time’s curl, And the pearl turns dizzy when the speed is too high, But the thought about the devil forces it to stay within this endless whirl.

In the same year, Musashi adopted another son, but this time it was a blood relative. Iori was the second son of Tahara Hisamitsu, Musashi’s older brother by four years, and he was retained to serve the Akashi daimyō, Ogasawara Tadazane. With his newly adopted son gainfully employed, Musashi became a “guest” of Tadazane and moved to Akashi. Iori was clearly a gifted young man, and five years later, at the age of twenty, was promoted to the distinguished position of “elder” of the domain. As a guest in the Honda house in Himeji and then the Ogasawara house, Musashi cultivated his artistic expression. He started studying Zen, painting, sculpture and even landscape design, and fraternized with distinguished artists and scholars such as Hayashi Razan. He had a free hand to do as he liked, and he liked to be creative. Having just emerged from an era of incessant warfare, proficiency in the more refined arts had become once again a desirable attribute in high society. It was during this period that Musashi realized how the various arts had much in common in terms of the search for perfection. He understood that the arts and occupations were “Ways” in their own right, by no means inferior to the Way of the warrior. This attitude differs from writings by other warriors, which are typically underpinned by hints of exclusivity, even arrogance, toward those not in “Club Samurai.” That said, the ideal of bunbu ryōdō (the two ways of brush and sword in accord) had long been a mainstay of samurai culture. Samurai literature from the fourteenth century onwards exhibits a concern for balancing martial aptitude with the refinement in the genteel arts and civility; namely an equilibrium between bu (martial) and bun (letters or the arts). For example, Shiba Yoshimasa’s Chikubasho (1383) admonishes the ruling class to pay attention to matters of propriety, self-cultivation, and attention to detail. “If a man has attained ability in the arts, it is possible to ascertain the depth of his mind, and the demeanor of his clan can be ascertained. In this world, honour and reputation are valued above all else. Thus, a man is able to accrue standing in society by virtue of competence in the arts and so should try to excel in them too, regardless of whether he has ability or not… It goes without saying that a man should be dexterous in military pursuits using the bow and arrow…” This was easier said than done in times of constant social turmoil and the chaos of war, but is exactly what Musashi turned his attention to as he entered the twilight years of his life. His pursuit for perfection in both military arts and other artistic Ways is perhaps why he is so revered to this day.

Another scene from universal myth unfolds -- here powerfully reminiscent of the Underworld quests of Orpheus for Eurydice and of Demeter for Persephone. The ancient Japanese recension of this mysteriously global story is given in the Kojiki and the Nihongi, where we read that Izanagi, mourning for his dead wife, followed after her to the Land of Yomi in an attempt to bring her back to the world of the living: 'Izanagi-no-Mikoto went after Izanami-no-Mikoto and entered the Land of Yomi ... So when from the palace she raised the door and came out to meet him, Izanagi spoke saying; 'My lovely younger sister! The lands that I and thou made are not yet finished making; so come back!' Izanami is honoured by Izanagi's attention and minded to return. But there is one problem. She has already eaten food prepared in the Land of Yomi and this binds her to the place, just as the consumption of a single pomegranate seed binds Persephone to hell in the Greek myth. Is it an accident that ancient Indian myth also contains the same idea? In the Katha Upanishad a human, Nachiketas, succeeds in visiting the underworld realm of Yama, the Hindu god of Death (and, yes, scholars have noted and commented upon the weird resonance between the names and functions of Yama and Yomi). It is precisely to avoid detention in the realm of Yama that Nachiketas is warned: 'Three nights within Yama's mansion stay / But taste not, though a guest, his food.' So there's a common idea here -- in Japan, in Greece, in India -- about not eating food in the Underworld if you want to leave. Such similarities can result from common invention of the same motif -- in other words, coincidence. They can result from the influence of one of the ancient cultures upon the other two, i.e. cultural diffusion. Or they can result from an influence that has somehow percolated down to all three, and perhaps to other cultures, stemming from an as yet unidentified common source.

On 14 September 1869, one hundred years after his birth, Alexander von Humboldt’s centennial was celebrated across the world. There were parties in Europe, Africa and Australia as well as the Americas. In Melbourne and Adelaide people came together to listen to speeches in honour of Humboldt, as did groups in Buenos Aires and Mexico City. There were festivities in Moscow where Humboldt was called the ‘Shakespeare of sciences’, and in Alexandria in Egypt where guests partied under a sky illuminated with fireworks. The greatest commemorations were in the United States, where from San Francisco to Philadelphia, and from Chicago to Charleston, the nation saw street parades, sumptuous dinners and concerts. In Cleveland some 8,000 people took to the streets and in Syracuse another 15,000 joined a march that was more than a mile long. President Ulysses Grant attended the Humboldt celebrations in Pittsburgh together with 10,000 revellers who brought the city to a standstill. In New York City the cobbled streets were lined with flags. City Hall was veiled in banners, and entire houses had vanished behind huge posters bearing Humboldt’s face. Even the ships sailing by, out on the Hudson River, were garlanded in colourful bunting. In the morning thousands of people followed ten music bands, marching from the Bowery and along Broadway to Central Park to honour a man ‘whose fame no nation can claim’ as the New York Times’s front page reported. By early afternoon, 25,000 onlookers had assembled in Central Park to listen to the speeches as a large bronze bust of Humboldt was unveiled. In the evening as darkness settled, a torchlight procession of 15,000 people set out along the streets, walking beneath colourful Chinese lanterns. Let us imagine him, one speaker said, ‘as standing on the Andes’ with his mind soaring above all. Every speech across the world emphasized that Humboldt had seen an ‘inner correlation’ between all aspects of nature. In Boston, Emerson told the city’s grandees that Humboldt was ‘one of those wonders of the world’. His fame, the Daily News in London reported, was ‘in some sort bound up with the universe itself’. In Germany there were festivities in Cologne, Hamburg, Dresden, Frankfurt and many other cities. The greatest German celebrations were in Berlin, Humboldt’s hometown, where despite torrential rain 80,000 people assembled. The authorities had ordered offices and all government agencies to close for the day. As the rain poured down and gusts chilled the air, the speeches and singing nonetheless continued for hours.