John Collier Quotes

I sometimes marvel that a third-rate writer like me has been able to palm himself off as a second-rate writer.

Could we make it our own, there would be an eternally inexhaustible earth and a forever lasting peace.

Poets can dodge. ("Evening Primrose")

The truth about any artist, however terrible, is better than the silence.... I know many writers fight fanatically to keep their published self separate from their private reality.... But I've always thought of that as something out of our social, time-serving side; not our true artistic ones. I don't see how the "lies" we write and the "lies" we live can or should be divided. They are seamless, one canvas, for me. While we live we can keep them apart, but not command the future to do the same. The outrage some Thomas Hardy fans have shown over all the revelations about the private man seems to me hypocritical in the extreme. They hugely enrich our understanding of him.... I have had to convince a number of friends and relatives that the kindest act to the [writer] is remembering them - and that all art comes from a human being, not out of mysterious thin air. (Letter to Jo Jones, September 15, 1980, arguing for the preservation of John Collier's personal papers)

I nipped into this sanctuary late this afternoon and soon heard the dying footfalls of closing time. From now on, my only effort will be to dodge the night watchman. Poets can dodge.

My eyes were trying to tell me something that my brain refused to believe. They made their point. I was looking straight into another pair of eyes, human eyes, but large, flat, luminous. I have seen such eyes among the nocturnal creatures, which creep out under the artificial blue moonlight in the zoo.

Their laughter was like the stridulation of the ghosts of grasshoppers.

This morning I had not so much as carfare. Now I am here, on velvet. You are itching to learn of this haven; you would like to organize trips here, spoil it, send your relations-in-law, perhaps even come yourself. After all, this journal will hardly fall into your hands till I am dead. I’ll tell you. I am at Bracey’s Giant Emporium, as happy as a mouse in the middle of an immense cheese, and the world shall know me no more.

Yet Malone, remarkably, was a model of restraint compared with others, such as John Payne Collier, who was also a scholar of great gifts, but grew so frustrated at the difficulty of finding physical evidence concerning Shakespeare’s life that he began to create his own, forging documents to bolster his arguments if not, ultimately, his reputation. He was eventually exposed when the keeper of mineralogy at the British Museum proved with a series of ingenious chemical tests that several of Collier’s “discoveries” had been written in pencil and then traced over and that the ink in the forged passages was demonstrably not ancient. It was essentially the birth of forensic science. This was in 1859.

How happy I might be, if only she was less greedy, better tempered, not addicted to raking up old grudges, more affectionate, with slightly yellower hair, slimmer, and about twenty years younger! But what is the good of expecting such a woman to reform?

Franklin Fletcher dreamed of luxury in the form of tiger-skins and beautiful women. He was prepared, at a pinch, to forgo the tiger-skins. Unfortunately the beautiful women seemed equally rare and inaccessible. At his office and at his boarding-house the girls were mere mice, or cattish, or kittenish, or had insufficiently read the advertisements.

Life Savers and Black Jack and Chiclets and Baby Ruths and Whitman’s Sampler’s boxes of chocolates; soaps from Ivory, which was 9944/100% pure, to Lava, which scoured away grease with a stony abrasion, to the ferocious 29-Mule Team Borax; and magazines, on a rack just beside the diagonal entrance, Liberty and Collier’s and the Post and Ladies’ Home Journal

Among the best shows were these, some of which have attained cult followings: The Most Dangerous Game (Oct. 1, 1947), a showcase for two actors, Paul Frees and Hans Conried, as hunted and hunter on a remote island; Evening Primrose (Nov. 5, 1947), John Collier’s too-chilling-to-be-humorous account of a misfit who finds sanctuary (and something else that he hadn’t counted on) when he decides to live in a giant department store after hours; Confession (Dec. 31, 1947), surely one of the greatest pure-radio items ever done in any theater—Algernon Blackwood’s creepy sleight-of-hand that keeps a listener guessing until the last line; Leiningen vs. the Ants (Jan. 17, 1948) and Three Skeleton Key (Nov. 15, 1949), interesting as much for technical achievement as for story or character development (soundmen Gould and Thorsness utilized ten turntables and various animal noises in their creation of Three Skeleton Key’s swarming pack of rats); Poison (July 28, 1950), a riveting commentary on intolerance wrapped in a tense struggle to save a man from the deadliest snake in the world—Jack Webb stars

On November 2, 1899, eight members of the United States Navy were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for extraordinary heroism and service beyond the call of duty. On the night of June 2, 1898, they had volunteered to scuttle the collier USS Merrimac, with the intention of blocking the entry channel to Santiago de Cuba. On orders of Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, who was in command, their intention was to trap Spanish Admiral Cervera’s fleet in the harbor. Getting the USS Merrimac underway, the eight men navigated the ship towards a predetermined location where sinking her would seal the port. Their course knowingly took them within the range of the Spanish ships and the shore batteries. The sailors were well aware of the danger this put them into, however they put their mission first. Once the Spanish gunners saw what was happening, they realized what the Americans were up to and started firing their heavy artillery from an extremely close range. The channel leading into Santiago is narrow, preventing the ship from taking any evasive action. The American sailors were like fish in a barrel and the Spanish gunners were relentless. In short order, the heavy shelling from the Spanish shore batteries disabled the rudder of the Merrimac and caused the ship to sink prematurely. The USS Merrimac went down without achieving its objective of obstructing navigation and sealing the port. ‎Fête du Canada or Canada Day is the anniversary of the July 1, 1867, enactment of the Canadian Constitution Act. This weekend Americans also celebrate the United States’, July 4, 1776 birthday, making this time perfect to celebrate George Fredrick Phillips heroic action. Phillips was one of the men mentioned in the story above of the USS Merrimac. He was born on March 8, 1862, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and joined the United States Navy in March 1898 in Galveston, Texas. Phillips became a Machinist First Class and displayed extraordinary heroism throughout the Spanish bombardment during their operation. He was discharged from the Navy in August 1903, and died a year later at the age of 42 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His body was returned to Canada where he was interred with honors at the Fernhill Cemetery in his hometown of Saint John, New Brunswick.

She will want to know all you do," said the old man. "All that has happened to you during the day. Every word of it. She will want to know what you are thinking about, why you smile suddenly, why you are looking sad." "That is love!" cried Alan.

At this court came the commissioners from Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven, viz., from Plymouth Mr. Edward Winslow and Mr. Collier, from Connecticut Mr. Haynes and Mr. Hopkins, with whom Mr. Fen wick of Saybrook joined, from New Haven Mr. Theophilus Eaton and Mr. Grigson. Our court chose a committee to treat with them, viz., the governor and Mr. Dudley, and Mr. Bradstreet, being of the magistrates; and of the deputies. Captain Gibbons, Mr. Tyng the treasurer, and Mr. Hathorn.[77] These coming to consultation encountered some difficulties, but being all desirous of union and studious of peace, they readily yielded each to other in such things as tended to common utility, etc., so as in some two or three meetings they lovingly accorded upon these ensuing articles, which, being allowed by our court, and signed by all the commissioners, were sent to be also ratified by the general courts of other jurisdictions; only Plymouth commissioners, having power only to treat, but not to determine, deferred the signing of them till they came home, but soon after they were ratified by their general court also.

There are certain people who do not come to full flower until they are well over fifty. Among these are all males named Murchison. A Mr. Murchison is nothing without pink cheeks, white whiskers, and vintage port.

I am never repelled or chilled, as many people are, by the cheerless self-centeredness of the nervous or the unhappy.

I have a great weakness for these dry, reserved characters who once or twice an evening come out with a vivid, penetrating remark that shows there is a volcanic core smouldering away at high pressure underneath.

I live with my guns. The world cannot utter its gross libidinous sneers at a girl who lives chastely with her Lee-Enfield, her Ballard, her light Winchester.

And she gave him a melting smile, the glutinous sweetness of which he devoured with the avidity of a diabetic who swallows a fatal spoonful of jam.

Just behind his jaw bones a tiny movement was perceptible, like the movement of gills in a fish.

There are some young almond tress, which ordinarily look as if drawn by a childish hand. Now, as the wind sets their weak branches gibbering, they seem like shamanistic scratches on the white bone of the brittle bright night.

Christ is to be lifted up now in the days of the gospel... in the preaching of the gospel, and that first for justification and life, as the only priest, atonement and peacemaker between God and his people... He is to be lifted up as the only prophet to teach as the only King and lawgiver to his church and people: and this is to be done both in the preaching of the gospel, and in the hearts of believers... In the preaching of the gospel, Christ is to be lifted up for justification and life; this was the end for which Christ came into the world... ‘That you might have [life] yet more abundantly’ (John 10:10).[25]

three paintings I recognize. The first is Ary Scheffer’s, Francesca da Rimini painting showing a couple in lust. The second painting is John Collier, depicting Lilith with a snake wrapped around her body known as a demoness for thirst and revenge[KW1] . The third painting is of Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son but if I remember it correctly, it is argued that the body being devoured looks like a female instead of male.

The most infamous Shakespeare forger emerged in the 1830s. John Payne Collier’s

a rage for Shakespeare biographies. John Payne Collier (whose forgeries had not yet been exposed) published one the next year. The fireside scene became a particular fixation in the Victorian imagination. Another biographer, asserting that the Shakespeare family liked to tell stories by the fire on winter nights, had the decency to admit, “Like most things written about Shakespeare, this is pure speculation.

Here is a liquid as colorless as water, almost tasteless, quite imperceptible in coffee, milk, wine, or any other beverage. It is also quite imperceptible to any known method of autopsy.” “Do you mean it is a poison?” cried Alan, very much horrified. “Call it cleaning fluid if you like,” said the old man indifferently. “Lives need cleaning. Call it a spot-remover. ‘Out, damned spot!’ Eh? ‘Out, brief candle!’ ” “I want nothing of that sort,” said Alan. “Probably it is just as well,” said the old man. “Do you know the price of this? For one teaspoonful, which is sufficient, I ask five thousand dollars. Never less. Not a penny less.

The picture of the Pythia breathing in vapors from a chasm below her tripod has always been the dominant model for understanding how the oracle at Delphi functioned. To such an extent that finding the mechanism of the vapors was originally regarded as the litmus test for successful archaeological investigation at Delphi. The original excavators of the site were extremely disappointed not to find a chasm below the temple—they felt almost cheated by the “deception” of the literary sources. The stakes were understandably high: at the time of Delphi’s excavation in the 1890s, interest in the oracle, and in psychic research more generally, could not have been stronger. In 1891 the burlesque opera Apollo, or The Oracle at Delphi played to great acclaim on Broadway. In the same year, John Collier painted his famous Priestess of Delphi in which a sensual priestess breathes in vapors from her tripod over a chasm (see plate 4), and the Society of Psychical Research was started by Cambridge academics and published its first volume examining the oracle at Delphi. In the wake of the disappointing excavations, thus, there was a feeling that the ancient sources had lied. The scholar A. P. Oppé in 1904 in the Journal of Hellenic Studies argued that the entire practice at Delphi was a farce, a sham, put on by the priests of Apollo, tricking the ancient world. Others sought different explanations for the Pythia’s madness: they focused on the laurel leaves, and suggested the Pythia had been high from eating laurel. One German scholar, Professor Oesterreich, even ate laurel leaves to test the theory, remarking disappointedly that he felt no different. Others opined that the answer relied not in some form of drug, but in psychology. Herbert Parke and Donald Wormell argued in the 1950s that the Pythia, in the heat of the moment after so much preparation on the particular day of consultation, and after so many years perhaps involved with the temple as one of the women guarding the sacred flame, would have found herself in an emotionally intense relationship with the god, and could easily have fallen victim to self-induced hypnosis. More recently, scholars have employed a series of anthropological approaches to understand belief in spirit possession, and applied these to how the Pythia may have functioned.

Winchell was enormously entertaining to the common man, his harsh and staccato voice wrapped in a fearless facade. He saw himself as a “protector of little people,” wrote Dickson Hartwell in a 1948 Collier’s profile. “Nobody browbeats a waiter in his presence.” He took on Hitler, Congress, and the president, and he wasn’t afraid to lambaste by name prominent Americans he suspected of a pro-Axis attitude. At various times he heaped scorn upon Huey Long, Hamilton Fish, Charles A. Lindbergh, Martin Dies, and the Ku Klux Klan. He sometimes referred to Congress as “the House of Reprehensibles,” and he got in trouble with his sponsor and network (one of many such troubles) when he characterized as “damn fools” voters who had returned isolationists to office.