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In The Short Summer Night She Learned So Much. She Would Have Thought A Woman Would Have Died Of Shame... She Felt, Now, She Had Come To The Real Bedrock Of Her Nature, And Was Essentially Shameless. She Was Her Sensual Self, Naked An Unashamed. She Felt A Triumph, Almost A Vainglory. So! That Was How It Was! That Was Life! That Was How Onself Really Was! There Was Nothing Left To Disguise Or Be Ashamed Of. She Shared Her Ultimate Nakedness With A Man, Another Being.

-D. H. Lawrence

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In The Short Summer

D. H. Lawrence

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In The Short Summer Night She Learned So Much. She Would Have Thought A Woman Would Have Died Of Shame... She Felt, Now, She Had Come To The Real Bedrock Of Her Nature, And Was Essentially Shameless. She Was Her Sensual Self, Naked An Unashamed. She Felt A Triumph, Almost A Vainglory. So! That Was How It Was! That Was Life! That Was How Onself Really Was! There Was Nothing Left To Disguise Or Be Ashamed Of. She Shared Her Ultimate Nakedness With A Man, Another Being.

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Persephone Herself Is But A Voice Or A Darkness Invisible Enfolded In The Deeper Dark Of The Arms Plutonic, And Pierced With The Passion Of Dense Gloom, Among The Splendor Of Torches Of Darkness, Shedding Darkness On The Lost Bride And Her Groom.

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You Can't Insure Against The Future, Except By Really Believing In The Best Bit Of You, And In The Power Beyond It.

Be Careful, Then, And Be Gentle About Death. For It Is Hard To Die, It Is Difficult To Go Through The Door, Even When It Opens.

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Men Fight For Liberty And Win It With Hard Knocks. Their Children, Brought Up Easy, Let It Slip Away Again, Poor Fools. And Their Grandchildren Are Once More Slaves.

It Is No Good Casting Out Devils. They Belong To Us, We Must Accept Them And Be At Peace With Them.

The Only Justice Is To Follow The Sincere Intuition Of The Soul, Angry Or Gentle. Anger Is Just, And Pity Is Just, But Judgement Is Never Just.

I Believe That A Man Is Converted When First He Hears The Low, Vast Murmur Of Life, Of Human Life, Troubling His Hitherto Unconscious Self.

For God's Sake, All Of You, Say Spiteful Things About Me, Then I Shall Know I Mean Something To You. Don't Say Surgaries, Or I'm Done.

The Great Crime Which The Moneyed Classes And Promoters Of Industry Committed In The Palmy Victorian Days Was The Condemning Of The Workers To Ugliness, Ugliness, Ugliness: Meanness And Formless And Ugly Surroundings, Ugly Ideals, Ugly Religion, Ugly Hope, Ugly Love, Ugly Clothes, Ugly Furniture, Ugly Houses, Ugly Relationship Between Workers And Employers. The Human Soul Needs Actual Beauty More Than Bread.

The Deadly Hydra Now Is The Hydra Of Equality. Liberty, Equality And Fraternity Is The Three-fanged Serpent.

People Always Make War When They Say They Love Peace.

There Is No Evolving, Only Unfolding. The Lily Is In The Bit Of Dust Which Is Its Beginning, Lily And Nothing But Lily: And The Lily In Blossom Is A Ne Plus Ultra: There Is No Evolving Beyond.

Whatever Men You Take, Keep The Idea Of Man Intact: Let Your Soul Wait Whether Your Body Does Or Not.

We Have Buried So Much Of The Delicate Magic Of Life.

I Like To Write When I Feel Spiteful; It's Like Having A Good Sneeze.

When All Comes To All, The Most Precious Element In Life Is Wonder. Love Is A Great Emotion, And Power Is Power. But Both Love And Power Are Based On Wonder.

Why Is A Door-knob Deader Than Anything Else?

In The Short Summer Night She Learned So Much. She Would Have Thought A Woman Would Have Died Of Shame... She Felt, Now, She Had Come To The Real Bedrock Of Her Nature, And Was Essentially Shameless. She Was Her Sensual Self, Naked An Unashamed. She Felt A Triumph, Almost A Vainglory. So! That Was How It Was! That Was Life! That Was How Onself Really Was! There Was Nothing Left To Disguise Or Be Ashamed Of. She Shared Her Ultimate Nakedness With A Man, Another Being.

The Grim Frost Is At Hand, When Apples Will Fall Thick, Almost Thunderous, On The Hardened Earth.

And Every True Artist Is The Salvation Of Every Other. But Only Artists Produce For Each Other The World That Is Fit To Live In.

You're Spending Your Life Without Renewing It. You've Got To Be Amused, Properly Healthily Amused. You're Spending Your Vitality Without Making Any. Can't Go On You Know. Depression! Avoid Depression!

I'd Wipe The Machines Off The Face Of The Earth Again, And End The Industrial Epoch Absolutely, Like A Black Mistake.

Never Trust The Teller, Trust The Tale.

The Word Arse Is As Much God As The Word Face. It Must Be So, Otherwise You Cut Off Your God At The Waist.

At The Back Of My Life's Horizon, Where The Dreamings Of Past Lives Crowd.

It's Terrible, Once You've Got A Man Into Your Blood!" She Said.

Loud Peace Propaganda Makes War Seem Imminent.

I Wonder Which Was More Frightened Among Old Tribes -- Those Bursting Out Of Their Darkness Of Woods Upon All The Space Of Light, Or Those From The Open Tiptoeing Into The Forests.

Men Are Free When They Belong To A Living, Organic, Believing Community, Active In Fulfilling Some Unfulfilled, Perhaps Unrealized Purpose.

The Near Touch Of Death May Be A Release Into Life; If Only It Will Break The Egoistic Will, And Release That Other Flow.

Nothing That Comes From The Deep, Passional Soul Is Bad, Or Can Be Bad.

An Artist Is Only An Ordinary Man With A Greater Potentiality--same Stuff, Same Make Up, Only More Force. And The Strong Driving Force Usually Finds His Weak Spot, And He Goes Cranked, Or Goes Under.

Do Come Back And Draw The Ferrets, They Are The Most Lovely Noble Darlings In The World.

They Say Geniuses Mostly Have Great Mothers. They Mostly Have Sad Fates.

If We Lose Our Sanity ... We Can But Howl The Lugubrious Howl Of Idiots, The Howl Of The Utterly Lost Howling Their Nowhereness.

And Still I Look For The Men Who Will Dare To Be Roses Of England Wild Roses Of England Men Who Are Wild Roses Of England With Metal Thorns, Beware! But Still More Brave And Still More Rare The Courage Of Rosiness In A Cabbage World Fragrance Of Roses In A Stale Stink Of Lies Rose-leaves To Bewilder The Clever Fools And Rose-briars To Strangle The Machine.

And Yet - And Yet - One's Kite Will Rise On The Wind As Far As Ever One Has String To Let It Go. It Tugs And Tugs And Will Go, And One Is Glad The Further It Goes, Even If Everybody Else Is Nasty About It.

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Richard Carlson

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