The Art of Memory When we can traverse the plains of memory, stopping at each fire to warm ourselves before we start again on our journey, there is a world inside a world that keeps going on to infinity. If we are lucky enough to hear the eternal melody that is at work in these moments, many fine hours may come upon us. But sometimes the solace and hospitality are too much and we live with our new found companions, taking them along wherever we go, as a shadow upon our eyes. The memories of Thoreau, or the early frontier narratives of Indian captivity, are something that I have felt eternal and unchangeable in human nature, not for any piece of information they have given me, but because my melancholy has always found peace in their environment. For some the world is old or the world is new, but the point is that we tend to look at it through memory. One memorable event confounds all future celebrations; we remember so as not to forget, but we do not remember that we are able t
We have left the solstice behind and our days are now guided by declining light and the heat of summer. Let us take a moment then to step toward the pleasures of another world and warm ourselves with poetry. Please scroll down or click on the following link to read the new translation: A Translation of André Chénier’s ‘Elegy XX’ by Douglas Thornton Art, feeble interpretation Of the soul! Art and only verse, While the heart alone is poet! Oppressive to the fruitful mind Are those adornments, which despite Themselves, hide within such words As truth and surety commit To thought, the loss of thought itself. The heart speaks, genius writes: master To obey, his hand turns divine, But only if loved and happy, Freed of torment, only if joy Light-hearted and ardent youth spread Across his face their beaming glow, Will his verse, as clear as amber, Or as flowers blush, find renewed With their fairest looks, a sweetness To the world, and in ripe old age A guide. But m