Retreat Letter Quotes

[...] I grew up out of that strange, dreamy childhood of mine and went into the world of reality. I met with experiences that bruised my spirit - but they never harmed my ideal world. That was always mine to retreat into at will. I learned that that world and the real world clashed hopelessly and irreconcilably; and I learned to keep them apart so that the former might remain for me unspoiled. I learned to meet other people on their own ground since there seemed to be no meeting place on mine. I learned to hide the thoughts and dreams and fancies that had no place in the strife and clash of the market place. I found that it was useless to look for kindred souls in the multitude; one might stumble on such here and there, but as a rule it seemed to me that the majority of people lived for the things of time and sense alone and could not understand my other life. So I piped and danced to other people's piping - and held fast to my own soul as best I could.

December 27, 11:00 p.m. My Dear America, I’ve never written a love letter, so forgive me if I fail now. . . . The simple thing would be to say that I love you. But, in truth, it’s so much more than that. I want you, America. I need you. I’ve held back so much from you out of fear. I’m afraid that if I show you everything at once, it will overwhelm you, and you’ll run away. I’m afraid that somewhere in the back of your heart is a love for someone else that will never die. I’m afraid that I will make a mistake again, something so huge that you retreat into that silent world of yours. No scolding from a tutor, no lashing from my father, no isolation in my youth has ever hurt me so much as you separating yourself from me. I keep thinking that it’s there, waiting to come back and strike me. So I’ve held on to all my options, fearing that the moment I wipe them away, you will be standing there with your arms closed, happy to be my friend but unable to be my equal, my queen, my wife. And for you to be my wife is all I want in the world. I love you. I was afraid to admit it for a long time, but I know it now. I would never rejoice in the loss of your father, the sadness you’ve felt since he passed, or the emptiness I’ve experienced since you left. But I’m so grateful that you had to go. I’m not sure how long it would have taken for me to figure this out if I hadn’t had to start trying to imagine a life without you. I know now, with absolute certainty, that is nothing I want. I wish I was as true an artist as you so that I could find a way to tell you what you’ve become to me. America, my love, you are sunlight falling through trees. You are laughter that breaks through sadness. You are the breeze on a too-warm day. You are clarity in the midst of confusion. You are not the world, but you are everything that makes the world good. Without you, my life would still exist, but that’s all it would manage to do. You said that to get things right one of us would have to take a leap of faith. I think I’ve discovered the canyon that must be leaped, and I hope to find you waiting for me on the other side. I love you, America. Yours forever, Maxon

Sorry,” Kiersten says to Lake and I. “Mom says the FCC is responsible for inventing cusswords just for media shock value. She says if everyone would just use them enough, they wouldn’t be considered cusswords anymore and no one would ever be offended by them” This kid is hard to keep up with! “Your mother encourages you to cuss?” Gavin says. Kiersten nods. “I don’t see it that way. It’s more like she’s encouraging us to undermine a system flawed through overuse of words that are made out to be harmful, when in fact they’re just letters, mixed together like every other word. That’s all they are, mixed up letters. Like, take the word “butterfly” for example. What if someone decided one day that butterfly is a cussword? People would eventually start using butterfly as an insult, and to emphasize things in a negative way. The actual WORD doesn’t mean anything. It’s the negative association people give these words that make them cusswords. So if we all just decided to keep saying butterfly all the time, eventually people would stop caring. The shock value would subside…and it would just become another word again. Same with every other so-called bad word. If we would all just start saying them all the time, They wouldn’t be bad anymore. That’s what my mom says anyway.” “Kiersten?” Eddie says. “Will you be my new best friend?” Lake grabs a french fry off her plate and throws it at Eddie, hitting her in the face with it. “That’s Bullshit,” Lake says. “Oh, go BUTTERFLY yourself,” Eddie says. She returns a fry in Lakes direction.

He hated it when she smiled like this at him. It always made him retreat.

Well, well, well,” Santa said once the elf had retreated. “Come and sit on my lap, little boy.” This Santa’s beard was real, and so was his hair. He wasn’t fucking around. “I’m not really a little boy,” I pointed out. “Get on my lap, then, big boy.” I walked up to him. There wasn’t much lap under his belly. And even though he tried to disguise it, as I went up there, I swear he adjusted his crotch. “Ho ho ho!” he chortled. I sat gingerly on his knee, like it was a subway seat with gum on it. “Have you been a good little boy this year?” he asked. I didn’t feel that I was the right person to determine my own goodness or badness, but in the interest of speeding along this encounter, I said yes. He actually wobbled with joy. “Good! Good! Then what can I bring you this Christmas?” I thought it was obvious. “A message from Lily,” I said. “That’s what I want for Christmas. But I want it right now.” “So impatient!” Santa lowered his voice and whispered in my ear. “But Santa does have a little something for you”—he shifted a little in his seat—“right under his coat. If you want to have your present, you’ll have to rub Santa’s belly.” “What?” I asked. He gestured with his eyes down to his stomach. “Go ahead.” I looked closely and saw the faint outline of an envelope beneath his red velvet coat. “You know you want it,” he whispered. The only way I could survive this was to think of it as the dare it was. Fuck off, Lily. You can’t intimidate me. I reached right under Santa’s coat. To my horror, I found he wasn’t wearing anything underneath. It was hot, sweaty, Geshy, hairy … and his belly was this massive obstacle, blocking me from the envelope. I had to lean over to angle my arm in order to reach it, the whole time having Santa laugh, “Oh ho ho, ho ho oh ho!” in my ear. I heard the elf scream, “What the hell!” and various parents start to shriek. Yes, I was feeling up Santa. And now the corner of the envelope was in my hand. He tried to jiggle it away from me, but I held tight and yanked it out, pulling some of his white belly hair with me. “OW ho ho!” he cried. I jumped o1 his lap. “Security’s here!” the elf proclaimed. The letter was in my hand, damp but intact. “He touched Santa!” a young child squealed.

Books shed light unto the darkness. Darkness retreats one letter, one line, one page at a time and someday everything in the world will become clear.

Tomorrow you’ll forget that I have crowned you, that I burned my flowering soul with love, and the whirling carnival of trivial days will ruffle the pages of my books… Would the dry leaves of my words force you to a stop gasping for air? At least let me pave with a parting endearment your retreating path. —Vladimir Mayakovsky, from “Lilichka! (Instead of a Letter),” Backbone Flute: Selected Poetry Of Vladimir Mayakovsky. (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform April 18, 2008)

...DAMNATION!' No device of the printer's art, not even capital letters, can indicate the intensity of that shriek of rage. Emerson is known to his Egyptian workers by the admiring sobriquet of Father of Curses. The volume as well as the content of his remarks earned him the title; but this shout was extraordinary even by Emerson's standards, so much so that the cat Bastet, who had become more or less accustomed to him, started violently, and fell with a splash into the bathtub. The scene that followed is best not described in detail. My efforts to rescue the thrashing feline were met with hysterical resistance; water surged over the edge of the tub and onto the floor; Emerson rushed to the rescue; Bastet emerged in one mighty leap, like a whale broaching, and fled -- cursing, spitting, and streaming water. She and Emerson met in the doorway of the bathroom. The ensuing silence was broken by the quavering voice of the safragi, the servant on duty outside our room, inquiring if we required his assistance. Emerson, seated on the floor in a puddle of soapy water, took a long breath. Two of the buttons popped off his shirt and splashed into the water. In a voice of exquisite calm he reassured the servant, and then transferred his bulging stare to me. I trust you are not injured, Peabody. Those scratches...' The bleeding has almost stopped, Emerson. It was not Bastet's fault.' It was mine, I suppose,' Emerson said mildly. Now, my dear, I did not say that. Are you going to get up from the floor?' No,' said Emerson. He was still holding the newspaper. Slowly and deliberately he separated the soggy pages, searching for the item that had occasioned his outburst. In the silence I heard Bastet, who had retreated under the bed, carrying on a mumbling, profane monologue. (If you ask how I knew it was profane, I presume you have never owned a cat.)

Her mind was like her room, in which lights advanced and retreated, came pirouetting and stepping delicately, spread their tails, pecked their way; and then her whole being was suffused, like the room again, with a cloud of some profound knowledge, some unspoken regret, and then she was full of locked drawers, stuffed with letters, like her cabinets.

undermine a system flawed through overuse of words that are made out to be harmful, when in fact they’re just letters, mixed together like every other word.

He hurried back. Walls seemed to shift and advance. Right here, it must be. Wasn’t this passage too short? No, it wasn’t a wall that blocked his way, only fog. The fog retreated before him—then at once yielded up a wall. Staggering crimson letters caught in the web of graffiti spelled KILLER.

This land on which so many centuries have left their mark is merely an obligatory retreat for you, whereas it has always been our dearest hope. Your too sudden passion is made up of spite and necessity.

There were books everywhere. Hundreds of books. Thousands of books. There were books of every size, shape, and color. They lined the walls from floor to ceiling, standing straight and rigid as soldiers on the polished mahogany shelves, the gilt lettering on their worn spines glinting in the soft light, the scent of supple leather and aging paper filling the air.

[Slipped beneath the minnow Pea front door] Nollopton Monty No-way 6 Insane woman named Ella: Retreat is what we want. Go away. Let we alone. Anonymess

Thérèse’s word in Letter 197 that “it is confidence and nothing but confidence that must lead us to Love.

Who goes to the beach without trying to touch the water? The one who cannot see the water, but if the blind wishes to FEEL the water, he shall not retreat, just as long as he holds hands with FAITH.

Life without a design is erratic. As soon as one is in place, principles become necessary. I think you’ll concede that nothing is more shameful than uncertain and wavering conduct, and beating a cowardly retreat. This will happen in all our affairs unless we remove the faults that seize and detain our spirits, preventing them from pushing forward and making an all-out effort.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 95.46

Mom says the FCC is responsible for inventing cuss words just for media shock value. She says if everyone would just use them enough, they wouldn’t be considered cuss words anymore, and no one would ever be offended by them.” This kid is hard to keep up with! “Your mother encourages you to cuss?” Gavin says. Kiersten nods. “I don’t see it that way. It’s more like she’s encouraging us to undermine a system flawed through overuse of words that are made out to be harmful, when in fact they’re just letters, mixed together like every other word. That’s all they are, mixed-up letters.

To retreat into oneself and meet nobody for hours on end—that is what one must be able to attain. To be alone, as one was alone as a child, when the grown-ups walked about involved in things which seemed great and important, because big people looked so busy and because one could comprehend nothing of their doings. And when one day one realises that their affairs are paltry, their professions benumbed and no longer connected with life, why not still like a child look upon them as something strange from without the depth of one's own world, regarding them from the immunity of one's own loneliness, which is itself work, position and profession? Why desire to exchange a child's wise incomprehension for self-defence and disdain? Incomprehension is loneliness, but self-defence and disdain are participation in that from which one is trying to separate oneself by these means.

We do not put to the test those things which cause our fear; we do not examine into them; we blench and retreat just like soldiers who are forced to abandon their camp because of a dust-cloud raised by stampeding cattle, or are thrown into a panic by the spreading of some unauthenticated rumour.

At five minutes to five,Jim walked into Mary's office, wearing his gray sweater and balancing four pieces of birthday cake on two plates. He put the plates down on Mary's empty desk and glanced at the doorway to Nick's office. "Where's Mary?" he asked. "She left almost an hour ago," Lauren said. "She said to tell you that the nearest fire extinguisher is beside the elevators-whatever that means. I'll be right back.I have to take these letters in to Nick." As she got up and started around the desk, she was looking down at the letters in her hand,and what happened next stunned her into immobility. "I miss you,darling," Jim said, quickly pulling her into his arms. A moment later he released her so suddenly that Lauren staggered back a step. "Nick!" he said. "Look at the sweater Lauren gave me for my birthday. She made it herself.And I brought you a piece of my birthday cake-she made that too." Seemingly oblivious to Nick's thunderous countenance,he grinned and added, "I have to get back downstairs." To Lauren he said, "I'll see you later, love." And then he walked out. In a state of shock, Lauren stared at his retreating back.She was still staring after him when Nick spun her around to face him. "You viindictive little bitch,you gave him my sweater! What else has he gotten that belongs to me?" "What else?" Lauren repeated, her voice rising. "What are you talking about?" His hands tightened. "Your delectiable body, my sweet.That's what I'm talking about." Lauren's amazement gave way to comprehension and then to fury. "How dare you call me names, you hypocrite!" she exploded, too incensed to be afraid. "Ever since I've known you, you've been telling me that there's nothing promiscuous about a woman satisfying her sexual desires with any man she pleases.And now-" she literally choked on her wrath "-and now,when you think I've done it,you call me a dirty name. You of all people-you,the United States contender for the bedroom Olympics!

The Tender Place Your temples , where the hair crowded in , Were the tender place. Once to check I dropped a file across the electrodes of a twelve-volt battery -- it exploded Like a grenade. Somebody wired you up. Somebody pushed the lever. They crashed The thunderbolt into your skull. In their bleached coats, with blenched faces, They hovered again To see how you were, in your straps. Whether your teeth were still whole . The hand on the calibrated lever Again feeling nothing Except feeling nothing pushed to feel Some squirm of sensation . Terror Was the cloud of you Waiting for these lightnings. I saw An oak limb sheared at a bang. You your Daddy's leg . How many seizures Did you suffer this god to grab you By the roots of the hair? The reports Escaped back into clouds. What went up Vaporized? Where lightning rods wept copper And the nerve· threw off its skin Like a burning child Scampering out of the bomb-flash. They dropped you A rigid bent bit of wire Across the Boston City grid. The lights In the Senate House dipped As your voice dived inwards Right through the bolt-hole basement. Came up, years later, Over-exposed, like an X-ray -- Brain-map still dark-patched With the scorched-earth scars Of your retreat . And your words , Faces reversed from the light , Holding in their entrails.

There is no such thing as maintaining the status quo. If you do not advance, you will retreat. It is that simple. In my aspect, being cautious is not the perfect way to succeed. No matter what we do, or even our lives, we must choose between taking risks and being cautious. And sometimes, the chance of winning by taking risks is much greater than by being cautious.

Every brilliant theory in physics, for example, has been proven mainly wrong, except for the most recent ones, which will be. The big players, like Newton and Copernicus, gave us answers that were later proved more wrong than right. What they did—and why they are valued—is direct our attention to more piercing and compelling questions or possibilities. (I’d suggest the same holds true for the big spiritual players, but that’s a different letter.)

We are attracted by wealth, pleasures, good looks, political advancement and various other welcoming and enticing prospects: we are repelled by exertion, death, pain, disgrace and limited means. It follows that we need to train ourselves not to crave for the former and not to be afraid of the latter. Let us fight the battle the other way round – retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that actually attack us.

A philosopher is a scientific tradesman, who, for a certain price, sells prescriptions of self-denial, temperance and poverty; he generally preaches the pains of wealth, till he becomes rich himself, when he abandons the world for a comfortable and dignified retreat. The father of the philosophers, Seneca, is said to have collected royal wealth. A poet is one who makes a great stir with printed prattle, falsehood and fury. Madness is the characteristic of the true poet. All those who express themselves, with clearness, precision and simplicity are deemed unworthy of the laurel wreath. The grammarians are a sort of military body, who disturb the public peace. They are distinguished from all other warriors, by dress and weapons. They wear black instead of colored uniforms, and wield pens rather than swords. They fight with as much obstinacy for letters and words as do the others for liberty and father-land.

Personal essayists write in large part to escape pent-up emotional anxiety, retreat behind the typewriter or digital keyboard in an attempt to regroup before blithely pushing forward on the cambered road of life. Some essayists might be uncomfortable reconnoitering their memories and, in a perverse twist, largely write in an effort to forget, to consign their uncomfortable emotional perplexities to a dead letter file. In contrast, I wonder if most people write poetry because they do not wish to wipe their mental kit clear. Poets might write because they wish to remember evocative experiences and they wish to share their feelings.

But Holms had proven stalwart and valiant. When Miss Jones had shown up to discover them in the castle hallway, because she’d heard a suspicious noise and had feared for her schoolchums’ safety, they’ d had to bring her along. She’d wanted to run straight to the headmistress, of course, but Armand had persuaded her not to. How he regretted that decision now! The duke had fired his guns at them all. They’d retreated, thought to go to the automobile to fetch a doctor and the sheriff, but they’d stumbled the wrong way and fallen down the slope to the beach instead. All three of them. And there, noble Jesse had died. Fact. Fiction. Likely because so much of it had happened, and because Armand’s red-eyed, stoic distress seemed so genuine, the adults around us had accepted it as truth. Mostly. I think if I hadn’t been discovered wearing only Armand’s coat as I knelt next to Jesse’s body, Mrs. Westcliffe might have found the whole thing easier to swallow. Yet the official version ruled the day. And here we all were basking in it, breathing fresh sea air, warmed by the generous spring sun. Burying a hero. A far, far greater hero than anyone standing around me at his funeral would ever suspect. Somewhere in deep-blue briny waters, a U-boat rested, filled with live torpedoes and solid-gold men. I thought I better understood Rue’s letters now. I understood her warning about the pain that would come with my Gifts. I understood my sacrifice.

December 22, 1849. To-day, the 22nd of December, we were all taken to Semionovsky Square. There the death-sentence was read to us, we were given the Cross to kiss, the dagger was broken over our heads, and our funeral toilet (white shirts) was made. Then three of us were put standing before the palisades for the execution of the death-sentence. I was sixth in the row; we were called up by groups of three, and so I was in the second group, and had not more than a minute to live. I thought of you, my brother, and of yours; in that last moment you alone were in my mind; then first I learnt how very much I love you, my beloved brother ! I had time to embrace Plechtcheyev and Dourov, who stood near me, and to take my leave of them. Finally, retreat was sounded, those who were bound to the palisades were brought back, and it was read to us that His Imperial Majesty granted us our lives. Then the final sentences were recited. Palm alone is fully pardoned. He has been transferred to the line with the :ame rank. F.

Have you got them?” “Got them! No. The old man’s not there.” He has been so horribly frightened in the short interval that his terror seizes the other, who makes a rush at him and asks loudly, “What’s the matter?” “I couldn’t make him hear, and I softly opened the door and looked in. And the burning smell is there—and the soot is there, and the oil is there—and he is not there!” Tony ends this with a groan. Mr. Guppy takes the light. They go down, more dead than alive, and holding one another, push open the door of the back shop. The cat has retreated close to it and stands snarling, not at them, at something on the ground before the fire. There is a very little fire left in the grate, but there is a smouldering, suffocating vapour in the room and a dark, greasy coating on the walls and ceiling. The chairs and table, and the bottle so rarely absent from the table, all stand as usual. On one chair-back hang the old man’s hairy cap and coat. “Look!” whispers the lodger, pointing his friend’s attention to these objects with a trembling finger. “I told you so. When I saw him last, he took his cap off, took out the little bundle of old letters, hung his cap on the back of the chair—his coat was there already, for he had pulled that off before he went to put the shutters up—and I left him turning the letters over in his hand, standing just where that crumbled black thing is upon the floor.” Is he hanging somewhere? They look up. No. “See!” whispers Tony. “At the foot of the same chair there lies a dirty bit of thin red cord that they tie up pens with. That went round the letters. He undid it slowly, leering and laughing at me, before he began to turn them over, and threw it there. I saw it fall.” “What’s the matter with the cat?” says Mr. Guppy. “Look at her!” “Mad, I think. And no wonder in this evil place.” They advance slowly, looking at all these things. The cat remains where they found her, still snarling at the something on the ground before the fire and between the two chairs. What is it? Hold up the light.

Are you Hilary Westfield?” She sounded like she hoped it wasn’t the case. Hilary nodded. “Oh. Well, I’m Philomena. I have to show you to your room.” Hilary looked wildly at Miss Greyson. “I’m Miss Westfield’s governess,” Miss Greyson said, to Hilary’s relief. Maybe talking politely to people like Philomena was something you learned at Miss Pimm’s, or maybe getting past Philomena was a sort of entrance exam. “Is there any chance we could see Miss Pimm? We’re old acquaintances. I used to go to school here, you see.” Miss Greyson smiled for the second time that day—the world was getting stranger and stranger by the minute—but Philomena didn’t smile back. “I’m terribly sorry,” said Philomena, “but Miss Pimm doesn’t receive visitors. You can leave Miss Westfield with me, and the porter will collect Miss Westfield’s bags.” She raised her eyebrows as the carriage driver deposited the golden traveling trunk on the doorstep. “I hope you have another pair of stockings in there.” “I do.” Hilary met Philomena’s stare. “I have nineteen pairs, in fact. And a sword.” Miss Greyson groaned and put her hand to her forehead. “Excuse me?” said Philomena. “I’m afraid Miss Westfield is prone to fits of imagination,” Miss Greyson said quickly. Philomena’s eyebrows retreated. “I understand completely,” she said. “Well, you have nothing to worry about. Miss Pimm’s will cure her of that nasty habit soon enough. Now, Miss Westfield, please come along with me.” Hilary and Miss Greyson started to follow Philomena inside. “Only students and instructors are permitted inside the school building,” said Philomena to Miss Greyson. “With all the thefts breaking out in the kingdom these days, one really can’t be too careful. But you’re perfectly welcome to say your good-byes outside.” Miss Greyson agreed and knelt down in front of Hilary. “A sword?” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Miss Greyson.” “All I ask is that you take care not to carve up your classmates. If I were not a governess, however, I might mention that the lovely Philomena is in need of a haircut.” Hilary nearly laughed, but she suspected it might be against the rules to laugh on the grounds of Miss Pimm’s, so she gave Miss Greyson her most solemn nod instead. “Now,” said Miss Greyson, “you must promise to write. You must keep up with the news of the day and tell me all about it in your letters. And you’ll come and visit me in my bookshop at the end of the term, won’t you?” “Of course.” Hilary’s stomach was starting to feel very strange, and she didn’t trust herself to say more than a few words at a time. This couldn’t be right; pirates were hardly ever sentimental. Then again, neither was Miss Greyson. Yet here she was, leaning forward to hug Hilary, and Hilary found herself hugging Miss Greyson back. “Please don’t tell me to be a good little girl,” she said. Miss Greyson sniffed and stood up. “My dear,” she said, “I would never dream of it.” She gave Hilary’s canvas bag an affectionate pat, nodded politely to Philomena, and walked down the steps and through the gate, back to the waiting carriage. “Come along,” said Philomena, picking up the lightest of Hilary’s bags. “And please don’t dawdle. I have lessons to finish.” HILARY FOLLOWED PHILOMENA through a maze of dark stone walls and high archways. From the inside, the building seemed more like a fortress

From experience in Boulogne and Calais, Tennant had a good idea of the chaos he might encounter of an army – possibly even two armies – in full retreat. He and Ramsay hoped that the distinctive blue of a naval uniform would be able to assert some authority, when army officers and men were all dressed in khaki battledress. On the way across, his sailors were issued with revolvers, much to their surprise, and were told they were to shoot anyone who tried to jump the queues.  Tennant’s officers were sceptical and told him he needed some additional nomenclature. They decided he should have the letters SNO, for ‘Senior Naval Officer’, on his white helmet. There was no paint available, so he cut out the letters from the silver paper from a cigarette packet, and stuck them on with the pea soup he had just been served for lunch.

for the day, I was happy to let World War II retreat into history. Every new thing I learned pulled me deeper into an abyss of hate and horror. Spending

To give just one example of what the inside of this world (largely upper-class and Oxbridge world of wealth, power, and privilege) looked like: Huxley sent the UNESCO documents to his close friend the English poet Stephen Spender. In his reply, from his regular retreat at the Chalet Waldegg in Gstaad, Switzerland, Spender says that he won't burden Huxley with his own views on human rights, since he doesn't have anything 'worth saying' on the topic, but then goes on to suggest that Huxley send the documents to some of his acquaintances. This curious list of the great and the good includes the psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers, the first and second president of Czechoslovakia, the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, Isaiah Berlin, A.J. Ayer, and W.H. Auden. Spender even gives Huxley some advice about whom to avoid: 'I honestly don't think there are any outstanding Belgians.

We live, whether we know it or not, simultaneously upon two levels of consciousness—the outward and the inward, the physical and the spiritual. Only a few people in the history of the world, I imagine, have achieved a whole self, integrated, with absolute freedom from discouragement, and with a serenity which is complete both inside and out. Only a few have been able to divorce themselves from anxiety, sorrow and responsibility—as well as joy—and to remove from their consciousness all the frustrations, limitations, disappointments and worries implicit in life upon earth. Every person I have ever known, however rooted in marvelous trust in God—with which some are born and others win with difficulty and frequent backsliding—is often cast down, has dark moods and desperate hours. I am many times discouraged, mainly about myself and my failures in endeavors or relationships, or about people I love who are going through something hard to endure. Therefore, on the surface, which is where we at least appear to live during our waking hours, I am often as unquiet as the February day. Few escape; and in the black hours it seems useless to tell ourselves—however true—that this, too, will pass; that this is also a lesson to be learned. It will, and it is; but there are moments when words are just words without more than the dictionary meaning. One thing is certain: if we can alter the circumstance which threatens to defeat us, that is our responsibility; if we cannot, and know it is God's will, we can, however unhappily, accept it. Sometimes I feel that I'm mistreated; that I have waited too long for the telephone which didn't ring, the letter which didn't come; that I have suffered too many vigils during the nights and days when someone I loved lay critically ill or upon an operating table. Yet, in recent years, I know—as truly as I know I am breathing at this very moment—I have achieved an inner quietude which is undisturbed by the procession of outer events. I have learned painfully, if not wholly, to retreat within this fortress when matters go wrong beyond any remedial measure of my own, past any effort I can make, and beyond my comprehension as well. This is the lull in the February storm, the gentling of the wind, the essential safety, warmth and the breaking through the light.

She retreated into the table, before remembering that she didn’t want him to know he made her nervous. Still, she gulped before she spoke. It was just that he was so tall, and he watched her with such attention. And that wet shirt stuck so lovingly to every line of his impressive torso. When she read her father’s letter, she’d pictured Lord Lyle as a weedy creampuff. The sort of milksop who let other people arrange his life. The man standing near enough for her to catch the delicious scents of rain and male was more roast beef dinner than fussy French patisserie. “Miss

He said he commenced it on the deck of their vessel, in the fervor of the moment when he saw the enemy hastily retreating to their ships, and looked at the flag he had watched for so anxiously as the morning opened: that he had written some lines or brief notes that would aid him in calling them to mind upon the back of a letter which he happened to have in his pocket, and for some of the lines as he proceeded he was obliged to rely altogether on his memory, and that he finished it in the boat on his way to the shore and wrote it out as it now stands at the hotel on the night he reached Baltimore, and immediately after he arrived; he said that on the next day he immediately sent it to a printer, and directed copies to be struck off in hand-bill form, and that he — Mr. Key — believed it to have been favorably received by the Baltimore public.” In fact, Key composed the song on the back of a letter he was carrying in his pocket, and he completed it during a stay at the Indian Queen Hotel following his release. He titled his work, “Defence of Fort M’Henry.

In At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, the historian A. Roger Ekirch asserts that before the Industrial Revolution, it was normal to divide the night into two periods of sleep: the “first sleep”, or “dead sleep”, lasting from the evening until the early hours of the morning; and the “second” or “morning” sleep, which took the slumber safely to daybreak. In between, there was an hour or more of wakefulness known as the “watch”, in which “Families rose to urinate, smoke tobacco, and even visit close neighbors. Many others made love, prayed, and ... reflected on their dreams, a significant source of solace and self-awareness.” In the intimacy of the darkness, families and lovers could hold deep, rich, wandering conversations that had no place in the busy daytime. This was a function of the times in which the night really was dark, when the poor would go to sleep early to save the price of candles, and even the rich would have the choice of struggling on with their occupation in limited light or surrendering to sleep. Outside the house, the streets were usually unlit, so the only navigable space was home. This was so ordinary, and perhaps also so private moment in the day, that little was written about it. Ekirch picks up a range of passing references to the first and second sleeps in diaries, letters, and literature, but this ancient practice is nearly invisible to the contemporary eye.

To practice zazen, Suzuki-roshi often reminded his students, is to study the self. By 1983, the senior priests at Zen Center had logged a lot of hours in the study hall. The work and meditation schedule they kept was famous for its rigor. Typically, they sat for almost two hours every morning, beginning at five, attended a midday service, and sat again for an hour or two in the evening until nine. During the two annual Practice Periods, the daily meditation periods were extended. Once a month, they sat for twelve or fourteen hours—a one-day sesshin (intensive retreat). At the end of each Practice Period, they sat a seven day sesshin—twelve to fourteen hours a day for seven straight days, during which they took their meager meals in the zendo, and slept on their cushions. In fifteen years, Reb, Yvonne, Lew, and the other senior students who'd kept the daily schedule had each sat zazen for at least 10,000 to 15,000 hours. And yet, by any common-sense standard, the most seasoned meditators at Zen Center repeatedly flunked simple tests of self-awareness. "I wonder," wrote a former Zen Center student in a letter to Yvonne in 1987, "if in some cases doing zazen doesn't augment or aggravate the dissociative process—as if in some way it cauterizes the personality and seals it off, encapsulates it, widens the breach between heart and mind.

The letters fading like retreating strangers in a fog.

The Romance Some couples only live together as roommates, which is bad. All the wife does is just cook, take care of the house etc, all the husband does is provide for the house, act like the boss of the house ask for sex whenever he feels like it. Some even only ask for sex from their wife when they feel like it's time to have another baby and women thought it is taboo to ask their husbands for sex when they feel horny, whereas, some are shy to do so. Hmmm!! In some Marriages, there is nothing like gisting, romancing, going on dates, attending events together, praying together, studying the word together apart from the general family retreat. This has led many women to the arms of strange men, although that is not an excuse to commit adultery. It was even recorded in the Scripture that Father Isaac caressed his beloved wife Rebekah. Spoil each other with romance. Write love letters to your spouse and put them in his or her pocket or handbag

Ross was certainly drawn to Lopez, but he was also searching for new models, frustrated by the existing unity councils. Ross found that despite their good intentions, most were inherently conservative. They wanted change, but they didn’t want to risk alienating their peers in the process. “The average member thinks he is dependent upon community good will for his livelihood,” Ross wrote. Compromised in such a manner, Ross complained, they were destined to “meet, seat, eat, and repeat (or retreat).”7 Tuck had reached a similar conclusion, lamenting that many groups of Anglo do-gooders were “floundering along in a morass of minutes, letter-heads, and empty objectives.”8

Having completed its conquest of California in 1844, the United States looked across the Pacific for new business opportunities. In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo (then called Edo) Bay with four men-of-war, and handed over a letter for the Japanese emperor from the American president which began with the ominous words, ‘You know that the United States of America now extend from sea to sea.’ Denied an audience with the emperor, Perry retreated with subtle threats to return with more firepower if the Japanese did not agree to open their ports to American trade. They refused. He did as he said; and the Japanese succumbed.

My bout with the Marquis was much like the others. Even more than usual I was hopelessly outclassed, but I stuck grimly to my place, refusing to back up, and took hit after hit, though my parrying was steadily improving. Of course I lost, but at least it wasn’t so easy a loss as I’d had when I first began to attend practice--and he didn’t insult me with obvious handicaps, such as never allowing his point to hit me. Bran and Savona finished a moment later, and Bran was just suggesting we exchange partners when the bells for third-gold rang, causing a general outcry. Some would stay, but most, I realized, were retreating to their various domiciles to bathe and dress for open Court. I turned away--and found Shevraeth beside me. “You’ve never sampled the delights of Petitioners’ Court,” he said. I thought of the Throne Room again, this time with Galdran there on the goldenwood throne, and the long lines of witnesses. I repressed a shiver. Some of my sudden tension must have exhibited itself in my countenance because he said, “It is no longer an opportunity for a single individual to practice summary justice such as you experienced on your single visit.” “I’m certain you don’t just sit around happily and play cards,” I muttered, looking down at the toes of my boots as we walked. “Sometimes we do, when there are no petitioners. Or we listen to music. But when there is business, we listen to the petitioners, accept whatever they offer in the way of proof, and promise a decision at a later date. That’s for the first two greens. The last is spent in discussing impressions of the evidence at hand; sometimes agreement is reached, and sometimes we decide that further investigation is required before a decision can be made.” This surprised me so much I looked up at him. There was no amusement, no mockery, no threat in the gray eyes. Just a slight question. I said, “You listen to the opinions of whoever comes to Court?” “Of course,” he said. “It means they want to be a part of government, even if their part is to be merely ornamental.” I remembered that dinner when Nee first brought up Elenet’s name, and how Shevraeth had lamented how most of those who wished to give him advice had the least amount worth hearing. “Why should I be there?” I asked. “I remember what you said about worthless advisers.” “Do you think any opinion you would have to offer would be worthless?” he countered. “It doesn’t matter what I think of my opinion,” I retorted, and then caught myself. “I mean to say, it is not me making the decisions.” “So what you seem to be implying is that I think your opinion worthless.” “Well, don’t you?” He sighed. “When have I said so?” “At the inn in Lumm, last year. And before that. About our letter to Galdran, and my opinion of courtiers.” “It wasn’t your opinion I pointed up, it was your ignorance,” he said. “You seem to have made truly admirable efforts to overcome that handicap. Why not share what you’ve learned?” I shrugged, then said, “Why don’t you have Elenet there?”--and hated myself for about as stupid a bit of pettiness as I’d ever uttered. But he took the words at face value. “An excellent suggestion, and one I acted on immediately after she arrived at Athanarel. She’s contributed some very fine insights. She’s another, by the way, who took her own education in hand. Three years ago about all she knew was how to paint fans.” I had talked myself into a corner, I realized--all through my own efforts. So I said, “All right, then. I’ll go get Mora to dig out that Court dress I ordered and be there to blister you all with my brilliance.” He bowed, lifted his gray-gloved hand in a casual salute, and walked off toward the Royal Wing. I retreated in quick order to get ready for the ordeal ahead.

Breathing is the fundamental act of being alive. One can go without thoughts, emotions or sensations, sleeping, talking or any other activity for a long time, without food for weeks, without water for days. But if you stop breathing, you’ll be dead before you finish reading this letter. Because it is the essence of life, some focus upon it seems appropriate.

A historian has to do with the results of an event, the artist with the fact of the event. A historian, describing a battle, says: the left flank of such-and-such army was moved against such-and-such village, cut down the enemy, but was forced to retreat; then the cavalry, going into the attack, overthrew . . . and so on. The historian cannot speak otherwise. And yet these words have no meaning for an artist and do not even touch upon the event itself. The artist, using his own experience, or letters, memoirs, and accounts, derives for himself an image of the event that took place, and quite often (in a battle for example) the conclusion which the historian allows himself to draw about the activity of such-and-such army turns out to be the opposite of the artist’s conclusion.5 Despite that, though, Tolstoy also notes that

And if you are among those who are literate, then impose on yourself reading a section (wird) of the Qurʾān from the written text. [While you are] in your place of retreat, pick up the Qurʾānic text, placing your left hand under the book, while your right hand follows the letters as you are looking at them, raising your voice enough so you hear yourself while you are reciting the Qurʾān. Ask and inquire [of God], with regard to each Sūra, what it is you ought to ask about regarding that. Try to figure out for every verse its special relevance and lesson for you.21

Rage and despair shook her for minutes or hours. She was unaware of the passage of time. Finally spent, she retreated inward and collapsed onto the floor in a fetal position, the letter in shreds around her. The room had grown dark. Like a gentle snowfall, the cold mantle of an unbearable silence descended.

I leered at him and lifted my eyebrows up as I looked pointedly at his belt buckle. “It wasn’t anything to write home about. I’ve seen bigger and better.” His deserved more than a letter home, it deserved a whole novel of descriptive words and flowery admiration. I would even go so far as to say it deserved a medal and an award of honor.

Then, it was easier to build the need for love and sex into the end-all purpose of life, avoiding personal commitment to truth in a catch-all commitment to "home" and "family." . . . . Irwin Shaw, who once goaded the American conscience on the great issues of war and peace and racial prejudice now wrote about sex and adultery; Norman Mailer and the young beatnik writers confined their revolutionary spirit to sex and kicks and drugs and advertising themselves in four-letter words. It was easier and more fashionable for writers to think about psychology than politics, about private motives than public purposes. Painters retreated into an abstract expressionism that flaunted discipline and glorified the evasion of meaning. Dramatists reduced human purpose to bitter, pretentious nonsense: "the theater of the absurd." Freudian thought gave this whole process of escape its dimension of endless, tantalizing, intellectual mystery: process within process, meaning hidden within meaning, until meaning itself disappeared and the hopeless, dull outside world hardly existed at all. As a drama critic said, in a rare note of revulsion at the stage world of Tennessee Williams, it was as if no reality remained for man except his sexual perversions, and the fact that he loved and hated his mother.

She called it a ‘still—Volcano—Life’, and that volcano heaves, close to the surface, throughout her poetry and a thousand letters. Stillness, for her, was not a retreat from life but a form of control.

Kiersten nods. “I don’t see it that way. It’s more like she’s encouraging us to undermine a system flawed through overuse of words that are made out to be harmful, when in fact they’re just letters, mixed together like every other word. That’s all they are, mixed-up letters. Like, take the word ‘butterfly,’ for example. What if someone decided one day that ‘butterfly’ is a cuss word? People would eventually start using the word ‘butterfly

But in our society today, the children of the rich are in a situation where they do not advance or retreat. Unfortunately, many of them lack the enterprising spirit, but are prone to leisure and profligacy, so even though they grew up in a wealthy environment, they die in poverty.

Beginning Anew: A Tool for Bringing Closeness out of Conflict No matter how skillful and grounded we are, there will still be conflicts and problems in our families. The tools of mindfulness meditation, loving-kindness, reflective listening, I-messages, and more will greatly reduce the number and severity of those conflicts, but we will still have them. Conflicts can, however, bring us even closer together if we use these moments as opportunities to be real and vulnerable, and to come together to repair the damage done. On a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, I learned the Beginning Anew framework for repairing a relationship—including a relationship with a child. It teaches us to look deeply and honestly at ourselves and our past actions, speech, and thoughts. We take this moment as a fresh beginning for ourselves and in our relationships with others. Beginning Anew has three parts: offering appreciation, sharing regrets, and expressing hurts and difficulties. You can do this in person, or write a letter of Beginning Anew if your child reads. Part 1: Offering appreciation. This is an opportunity to shine light on the other’s strengths and contributions, and to encourage the growth of his or her positive qualities. You may mention specific instances when the other person said or did something that you appreciated. This first step shows that you see the wonderful things about this person. Part 2: Sharing regrets. This is your chance to mention any unskillful actions, speech, or thoughts that you feel bad about and haven’t yet had an opportunity to apologize for. For example, you might say, “I’m sorry that I said you were selfish. I was wrong to do that. I realize how my comment hurt you, and I shouldn’t have spoken in that way.” Part 3: Expressing hurts and difficulties. Now you share how you felt hurt by something the other person did or said. Use your I-messages here. Don’t attack or blame. Speak or write about your hurts in a calm way, never in an exaggerated, reproachful, accusatory, or desperate manner

from the war against Austrian rule, taking the course opposite to the one Mazzini had urged in his open letter of six months before. Pressured by Catholic monarchies on the run in France, Austria, and Spain to retreat from civil leadership, Pio Nono now instructed the people of Italy to “abide in close attachment to their respective sovereigns.

At this time, we'd better push it. If we are lazy, retreating, and waiting for others to take the initiative to kickstart things, the result will be disappointing.

About the “Direct Path” (直通の位の事) ◎ Jikitsū-no-kurai (“direct path”) is the soul of combat.15 All the teachings I have outlined above are like parts of the human body.16 Nothing more is needed. They must never be neglected. Depending on the situation, there are times when some techniques will not be suitable, but nothing will work without them [in your repertoire]. For example, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, hands and feet are what our bodies are comprised of. If one of these things is missing, then we are incomplete. The sword techniques that I have conveyed must all be committed to memory and used intuitively. Without the soul and spirit of the “direct path,” they amount to random madness. In all the techniques, be sure to seize the initiative and take the attack to the enemy. This will enable you to identify target areas. You must then determine what techniques or guards will be effective and what are not viable in a particular situation. Gauge how to close the distance, then commit with single-minded resolve to follow through to your mark (star) and attack without deviating. For example, even if you have to deflect the whole world, the flight of your sword must not diverge from its path. Purge yourself of fear. When you know the moment for that one [direct and decisive] strike of jikitsū, let the power surge through you to deliver the cut. It is no different when you enter the opponent’s space to arrest him. Advance rapidly, thinking of nothing other than grabbing hold of him. The further in you get, the better. Without the mind of “direct path,” your swords will be lifeless. Even this and discover what it means. Even retreat counts as a loss. When we speak of the “interior” (deepest principles), nothing is deeper than this. When we talk of the gateway (fundamental principles), nothing is more fundamental than this. The great monk Kūkai17 traveled deep into the mountain when planning to construct a monastery in the innermost reaches of Mount Kōya. Thinking it was still not far enough, he continued walking further, but eventually came across dwellings again. He said, “The further I entered, the closer I came to human habitation; I had looked too far in.”18 The interior is not the interior. The gate is not the gate. There are no special, secret interior teachings to look for if the great wisdom of combat strategy surges through your sinews and veins. Just make sure that nobody to your front or back can ever get the better of you. This cannot be conveyed with words and letters.

John, every crucial competition is a battle that determines fate. “Retreat means surrender! Retreat will turn you into a slave!” The war is inevitable, let it come! In this world, competition will not stop for a moment, and we will have no time to rest. All we can do is bring a steel-like determination to face all kinds of challenges and competitions, and we must be in high spirits and happy, otherwise, it will not produce good results. To win the competition, it is more important that you stay alert. When you constantly see your opponent wanting to weaken you, that is the beginning of the competition. At this point in time you need to know what you have, that kindness and tenderness may hurt you, but then you need to use all the resources to win the battle.

What are we in the great scale of events, we poor defenceless frontier inhabitants? What is it to the gazing world whether we breathe or whether we die? Whatever virtue, whatever merit and disinterestedness we may exhibit in our secluded retreats, of what avail? We are like the pismires destroyed by the plough, whose destruction prevents not the future crop.

March 28th COWARDICE AS A DESIGN PROBLEM “Life without a design is erratic. As soon as one is in place, principles become necessary. I think you’ll concede that nothing is more shameful than uncertain and wavering conduct, and beating a cowardly retreat. This will happen in all our affairs unless we remove the faults that seize and detain our spirits, preventing them from pushing forward and making an all-out effort.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 95.46 The opposing team comes out strong, establishes an early lead, and you never had time to recover. You walk into a business meeting, are caught off guard, and the whole thing goes poorly. A delicate conversation escalates into a shouting match. You switched majors halfway through college and had to start your coursework over and graduate late. Sound familiar? It’s the chaos that ensues from not having a plan. Not because plans are perfect, but because people without plans—like a line of infantrymen without a strong leader—are much more likely to get overwhelmed and fall apart. The Super Bowl–winning coach Bill Walsh used to avoid this risk by scripting the beginning of his games. “If you want to sleep at night before the game,” he said in a lecture on game planning, “have your first 25 plays established in your own mind the night before that. You can walk into the stadium and you can start the game without that stress factor.” You’ll also be able to ignore a couple of early points or a surprise from your opponent. It’s irrelevant to you—you already have your marching orders. Don’t try to make it up on the fly. Have a plan.

The difficulty is that concern for ways and means, which is the heart of the contemplative life, is very low on the agenda of the American pastor, especially for the pastor who wants to make an “impact” on the culture. Even the word contemplative itself is consigned to the far margins of interest, something to be indulged occasionally, perhaps on a weekend retreat or on a walk through the woods.

the ends. Jesus saw through it at once; why are pastors so intoxicated with visions and goals and so muddled when it comes to ways and means? The difficulty is that concern for ways and means, which is the heart of the contemplative life, is very low on the agenda of the American pastor, especially for the pastor who wants to make an “impact” on the culture. Even the word contemplative itself is consigned to the far margins of interest, something to be indulged occasionally, perhaps on a weekend retreat or on a walk through the woods. When I am in Tyler, Texas, and its many suburbs that fill the pews in evangelical congregations all over the country, I am simply overwhelmed with the seeming impossibility of arousing any interest in caring about ways and means—how we live this life the way Jesus led us to do it. The ways and means adopted by all my erstwhile and admiring friends revolve around instant communication, efficiency, hurry, planning, and counting. Anything small or slow, which includes any person small or slow, is treated with condescension.

the ends. Jesus saw through it at once; why are pastors so intoxicated with visions and goals and so muddled when it comes to ways and means? The difficulty is that concern for ways and means, which is the heart of the contemplative life, is very low on the agenda of the American pastor, especially for the pastor who wants to make an “impact” on the culture. Even the word contemplative itself is consigned to the far margins of interest, something to be indulged occasionally, perhaps on a weekend retreat or on a walk through the woods. When I am in Tyler, Texas, and its many suburbs that fill the pews in evangelical congregations all over the country, I am simply overwhelmed with the seeming impossibility of arousing any interest in caring about ways and means—how we live this life the way Jesus led us to do it. The ways and means adopted by all my erstwhile and admiring friends revolve around instant communication, efficiency, hurry, planning, and counting. Anything small or slow, which includes any person small or slow, is treated with condescension. Your mother and I have been thinking about this trust—we have named it the Selah Trust—and so have been trying to get a focus on just what it is that we have been about all our lives and how we want our money to be used in a way consistent with that. The word that keeps coming up is contemplation. What we are looking for is not primarily the causes and ends that people/organizations are committed to, but how they go about it—the test for gospel authenticity is the way, not the what. Standard fundraising is all about the what. Any how will do, so long as it brings in the money. So we find ourselves staying very local, very close to the ground, as we make our decisions and plans. I am not sure, Eric, that this is a letter; it qualifies more as a rant. At one time in the course of those earlier deletions, I started out by reflecting on what it feels like to be seventy. But that will come later. Actually, it feels pretty good. I can’t remember being as reflective regarding any other decade marker. There is a contemplative feel to this one. But maybe I had to get the “rant” out of my system to get down to what is really going on in me. With much love,

The difficulty is that concern for ways and means, which is the heart of the contemplative life, is very low on the agenda of the American pastor, especially for the pastor who wants to make an “impact” on the culture. Even the word contemplative itself is consigned to the far margins of interest, something to be indulged occasionally, perhaps on a weekend retreat or on a walk through the woods. When I am in Tyler, Texas, and its many suburbs that fill the pews in evangelical congregations all over the country, I am simply overwhelmed with the seeming impossibility of arousing any interest in caring about ways and means—how we live this life the way Jesus led us to do it. The ways and means adopted by all my erstwhile and admiring friends revolve around instant communication, efficiency, hurry, planning, and counting. Anything small or slow, which includes any person small or slow, is treated with condescension.

Blaming Goldwater’s retreat on his effort to win over the majority of voters (and recoiling, too, from the senator’s military adventurism), Crane went on to join the Libertarian Party, which had been summoned into being in a Denver living room in December 1971. Its founders sought a world in which liberty was preserved by the total absence of government coercion in any form. That entailed the end of public education, Social Security, Medicare, the U.S. Postal Service, minimum wage laws, prohibitions against child labor, foreign aid, the Environmental Protection Agency, prosecution for drug use or voluntary prostitution—and, in time, the end of taxes and government regulations of any kind.46 And those were just the marquee targets. Crane was as insistent as Rothbard and Koch about the need for a libertarian revolution against the statist world system of the twentieth century. “The Establishment” had to be overthrown—its conservative wing along with its liberal wing. Both suffered “intellectual bankruptcy,” the conservatives for their “militarism” and the liberals for their “false goals of equality.” The future belonged to the only “truly radical vision”: “repudiating state power” altogether.47 Once Crane agreed to lead the training institute, all that was lacking was a name, which Rothbard eventually supplied: it would be called the Cato Institute. The name was a wink to insiders: while seeming to gesture toward the Cato’s Letters of the American Revolution, thus performing an appealing patriotism, it also alluded to Cato the Elder, the Roman leader famed for his declaration that “Carthage must be destroyed!” For this new Cato’s mission was also one of demolition: it sought nothing less than the annihilation of statism in America.48

A guided meditation is like sending your subconscious an email newsletter while hypnosis is like sending your subconscious a handwritten letter.

I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping.  I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there.  Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.

. I will start our own little group there, in some place like Ometepe, as described in Disputed Questions. Howard Frankl, the ex-beatnik poet who translated my poems and just recently entered the monastery of Cuernavaca, would go there also; there is another young poet in Nicaragua who also wants to go, and a young Father [Father García], who is a professor in the seminary of Managua, who is also planning to write to you in the next few days, to consult with you regarding his vocation. We would naturally be above politics, but we would help them with advice, letters, etc., and with a place of retreat where they could go to think and meditate. I have spoken a lot about all of this with Coronel, and he too has planned these things a lot with me, and would be a very permanent guest. He already leads a very eremitic life in Río San Juan, even though he lives with his wife; every day he reads the Rule of Saint Benedict, and his life is very Benedictine. He says that he is not going to participate in the new government, that this is for Pablo Antonio, and that it will be up to us to help them with advice and prayer. I was in Ometepe because my grandmother has some properties there and I went to take a look. They do not seem very good to me, and

In his famous Letters and Papers from Prison, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: . . . how wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know.

And who would be willing to travel through hundreds of miles of wilderness, risking capture, carrying a letter telling the French to retreat? A young Virginian volunteered. George Washington, only twenty-one years old... found a wilderness guide and a translator to accompany him and set off...

On a bleak winter day, Dostoyevsky and his fellow prisoners were marched through the snow in front of the firing squad. As a military official shouted out the death sentences, a priest led each man to a platform, giving him an opportunity to kiss the cross the priest carried. Three of the prisoners were then marched forward and tied to a stake. Dostoyevsky looked on, realizing he would be next in line. He watched the soldiers pull the men’s caps down over their eyes. He felt revulsion in his stomach as the firing squad lifted their rifles, adjusted their aim, and stood ready to pull the triggers. Out of suffering and defeat often comes victory. Frozen in suspense, Dostoyevsky waited for what seemed like a lifetime. Then he heard the drums start up again. But they were beating retreat! He watched, stunned, as the firing squad lowered their rifles and the soldiers removed the prisoners’ caps from their eyes. Their lives—and his—would be spared.2 Immediately after this incident, Dostoyevsky wrote a letter to his brother about the change the experience had worked in him: “When I look back on my past and think how much time I wasted on nothing, how much time has been lost in futilities, errors, laziness, incapacity to live; how little I appreciated it, how many times I sinned against my heart and soul—then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift. … Now, in changing my life, I am reborn in a new form. Brother! I swear that I will not lose hope and will keep my soul and heart pure. I will be reborn for the better. That’s all my hope, all my consolation!

Her Grace is coming to High Scape,” Karish said quietly. I scraped some soap from the bar into the sink. “Who?” “The Dowager Duchess of Westsea.” I hesitated a moment. His mother. “Well, it’s been a good while since you’ve seen her.” I handed him a soapy dish. He snorted. “I’ve gone a good seventeen years without seeing her.” What could I say to that? “Oh.” “Apparently she had been on some kind of retreat in the country—” “Flown Raven is the country,” I muttered. “City slave,” he said. “Farm boy,” I shot back. “I’ve never even seen a farm.” “Don’t trifle me with details.” “Anyway,” he continued, but he looked a little less grim, which had been the point of the interruption. “The gossip failed to catch up with her at the rustic chalet where she was meditating or whatever,” he sneered at the word ‘meditating, ’ “and she only recently learned that I had abjured the title.” “Ah.” I could see where this was going. “Displeased, was she?” The sound he made might have been a breathy laugh. “Furious. Enraged. Maddened. I fear for the life of the poor servant who handed the letter to her.” He opened a cabinet—the correct one, as it happened—and placed the dish inside.

Once she had flicked to the last page, she saw one of her very last regrets — 'I was bad at looking after Voltaire' — slowly disappear from the page. The letters fading like retreating strangers in a fog.

Furthermore, in contests of which the deity, the master of all, has disposed the outcome as it chose, it is necessary of course to acquit all others, being but human, of the charge of cowardice, but when it comes to the means by which the leader of our opponents prevailed over those appointed to the command of our army, no one could justly locate the cause in the rank and file of either the enemy or ourselves. But if, after all, there is any human being who might rightly lay a charge concerning the issue of that battle, he would with good reason advance it against those of the Thebans* who were appointed to this command, nor could anyone rightly lay blame upon the rank and file of either the Thebans or ourselves. * Philip seems to have deceived the Athenians by a feigned retreat while throwing his strongest troops against the Thebans. This stratagem broke the line and decided the battle. The Theban general Theagenes and his colleagues seem to have been no more to blame than the rest. (Funeral Speech section 21-22)

The mere philosopher is a character, which is commonly but little acceptable in the world, as being supposed to contribute nothing either to the advantage or pleasure of society; while he lives remote from the communication with mankind, and is wrapped up in principles and notions equally remote from their comprehension. On the other hand, the mere ignorant is still more despised; nor is any thing deemed a surer sign of an illiberal genius in an age and nation where the sciences flourish, than to be entirely destitute of all relish for those noble entertainments. The most perfect character is supposed to lie between those extremes; retaining an equal ability and taste for books, company, and business; preserving in conversation that discernment and delicacy which arise from polite letters; and in business, that probity and accuracy which are the natural result of a just philosophy. In order to diffuse and cultivate so accomplished a character, nothing can be more useful than compositions of the easy style and manner, which draw not too much from life, require no deep application or retreat to be comprehended, and send back the student among mankind full of noble sentiments and wise precepts, applicable to every exigence of human life. By means of such compositions, virtue becomes amiable, science agreeable, company instructive, and retirement entertaining.

The mere philosopher is a character, which is commonly but little acceptable in the world, as being supposed to contribute nothing either to the advantage or pleasure of society; while he lives remote from the communication with mankind, and is wrapped up in principles and notions equally remote from their comprehension. On the other hand, the mere ignorant is still more despised; nor is any thing deemed surer sign of an illiberal genius in an age and nation where the sciences flourish, than to be entirely destitute of all relish for those noble entertainments. The most perfect character is supposed to lie between those extremes; retaining an equal ability and taste for books, company, and business; preserving in conversation that discernment and delicacy which arise from polite letters; and in business, that probity and accuracy which are the natural result of a just philosophy. In order to diffuse and cultivate so accomplished a character, nothing can be more useful than compositions of the easy style and manner, which draw not too much from life, require no deep application or retreat to be comprehended, and send back the student among mankind full of noble sentiments and wise precepts, applicable to every exigence of human life. By means of such compositions, virtue becomes amiable, science agreeable, company instructive, and retirement entertaining.

That’s where I tied him to a table and carved those letters into his skin. That’s where I removed his eyes with a melon baller, all while he was still alive.

That’s where I tied him to a table and carved those letters into his skin. That’s where I removed his eyes with a melon baller, all while he was still alive. He would die with that child’s brand on his skin, and he would never look at another innocent babe with lust again.