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Was His Life Nothing? Had He Nothing To Show, No Work? He Did Not Count His Work, Anyone Could Have Done It. What Had He Known, But The Long, Marital Embrace With His Wife. Curious, That This Was What His Life Amounted To! At Any Rate, It Was Something, It Was Eternal. He Would Say So To Anybody, And Be Proud Of It. He Lay With His Wife In His Arms, And She Was Still His Fulfillment, Just The Same As Ever. And That Was The Be-all And The End-all. Yes, And He Was Proud Of It.

-D. H. Lawrence

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Was His Life Nothing?

D. H. Lawrence

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Was His Life Nothing? Had He Nothing To Show, No Work? He Did Not Count His Work, Anyone Could Have Done It. What Had He Known, But The Long, Marital Embrace With His Wife. Curious, That This Was What His Life Amounted To! At Any Rate, It Was Something, It Was Eternal. He Would Say So To Anybody, And Be Proud Of It. He Lay With His Wife In His Arms, And She Was Still His Fulfillment, Just The Same As Ever. And That Was The Be-all And The End-all. Yes, And He Was Proud Of It.

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One Should Be Religious In Everything, Have God, Whatever God Might Be, Present In Everything.

I Never Knew How Soothing Trees Are-many Trees And Patches Of Open Sunlight, And Tree Presences; It Is Almost Like Having Another Being.

The Whole Question Of Pornography Seems To Me A Question Of Secrecy. Without Secrecy There Would Be No Pornography. But Secrecy And Modesty Are Two Utterly Different Things. Secrecy Has Always An Element Of Fear In It, Amounting Very Often To Hate. Modesty Is Gentle And Reserved. Today, Modesty Is Thrown To The Winds, Even In The Presence Of The Grey Guardians. But Secrecy Is Hugged, Being A Vice In Itself. And The Attitude Of The Grey Ones Is: Dear Young Ladies, You May Abandon All Modesty, So Long As You Hug Your Dirty Little Secret.

And This Is The Final Meaning Of Work: The Extension Of Human Consciousness. The Lesser Meaning Of Work Is The Achieving Of Self-preservation.

We Must Know, If Only In Order To Learn Not To Know. The Supreme Lesson Of Human Consciousness Is To Learn How Not To Know. That Is, How Not To Interfere.

If You Cut A Thing Up, Of Course It Will Smell. Hence, Nothing Raises Such An Infernal Stink At Last, As Human Psychology.

After All, The World Is Not A Stage-not To Me: Nor A Theatre: Nor A Show-house Of Any Sort. And Art, Especially Novels, Are Not Little Theatres Where The Reader Sits Aloft And Watches...and Sighs, Commiserates, Condones And Smiles. That's What You Want A Book To Be: Because It Leaves You So Safe And Superior, With Your Two-dollar Ticket To The Show. And That's What My Books Are Not And Never Will Be...whoever Reads Me Will Be In The Thick Of The Scrimmage, And If He Doesn't Like It If He Wants A Safe Seat In The Audience-let Him Read Someone Else.

The Nice Clean Intimacy Which We Now So Admire Between The Sexes Is Sterilizing. It Makes Neuters. Later On, No Deep, Magical Sex-life Is Possible.

The Trains Roared By Like Projectiles Level On The Darkness, Fuming And Burning, Making The Valley Clang With Their Passage. They Were Gone, And The Lights Of The Towns And Villages Glittered In Silence.

Tragedy Looks To Me Like Man In Love With His Own Defeat. Which Is Only A Sloppy Way Of Being In Love With Yourself.

For, Of Course, Being A Girl, One’s Whole Dignity And Meaning In Life Consisted In The Achievement Of An Absolute, A Perfect, A Pure And Noble Freedom. What Else Did A Girl’s Life Mean?

They Wanted Genuine Intimacy, But They Could Not Get Even Normally Near To Anyone, Because They Scorned To Take The First Steps, They Scorned The Triviality Which Forms Common Human Intercourse.

In My Very Own Self, I Am Part Of My Family.

Every Profound New Movement Makes A Great Swing Also Backwards To Some Older, Half-forgotten Way Of Consciousness.

What One Does In One's Art, That Is The Breath Of One's Being. What One Does In One's Life, That Is A Bagatelle For The Outsiders To Fuss About.

The Reaction To Any Word May Be, In An Individual, Either A Mob-reaction Or An Individual Reaction. It Is Up To The Individual To Ask Himself: Is My Reaction Individual, Or Am I Merely Reacting From My Mob-self? When It Comes To The So-called Obscene Words, I Should Say That Hardly One Person In A Million Escapes Mob-reaction.

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You Don't Learn Algebra With Your Blessed Soul. Can't You Look At It With Your Clear Simple Wits?

She Was Always Waiting, It Seemed To Be Her Forte.

And That Is How We Are. By Strength Of Will We Cut Off Our Inner Intuitive Knowledge From Admitted Consciousness. This Causes A State Of Dread, Or Apprehension, Which Makes The Blow Ten Times Worse When It Does Fall.

I Am In Love - And, My God, It Is The Greatest Thing That Can Happen To A Man. I Tell You, Find A Woman You Can Fall In Love With. Do It. Let Yourself Fall In Love. If You Have Not Done So Already, You Are Wasting Your Life.

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In America The Cohesion Was A Matter Of Choice And Will. But In Europe It Was Organic.

One Could Laugh At The World Better If It Didn't Mix Tender Kindliness With Its Brutality.

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It's Bad Taste To Be Wise All The Time, Like Being At A Perpetual Funeral.

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

Along The Avenue Of Cypresses, All In Their Scarlet Cloaks And Surplices Of Linen, Go The Chanting Choristers, The Priests In Gold And Black, The Villagers. . . .

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Whatever God There Is Is Slowly Eliminating The Guts And Alimentary System From The Human Being, To Evolve A Higher, More Spiritual Being.

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How Beastly The Bourgeois Is Especially The Male Of The Species

The Peasants Of Sicily, Who Have Kept Their Own Wheat And Make Their Own Natural Brown Bread, Ah, It Is Amazing How Fresh And Sweet And Clean Their Loaf Seems, So Perfumed, As Home-made Bread Used All To Be Before The War.

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But Then Peace, Peace! I Am So Mistrustful Of It: So Much Afraid That It Means A Sort Of Weakness And Giving In.

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There Is Only One Thing That A Man Really Wants To Do, All His Life; And That Is, To Find His Way To His God, His Morning Star, Salute His Fellow Man, And Enjoy The Woman Who Has Come The Long Way With Him.

This Spring As It Comes Bursts Up In Bonfires Green, Wild Puffing Of Emerald Trees, And Flame-filled Bushes, Thorn-blossom Lifting In Wreaths Of Smoke Between Where The Wood Fumes Up And The Watery, Flickering Rushes. I Am Amazed At This Spring, This Conflagration Of Green Fires Lit On The Soil Of The Earth, This Blaze Of Growing, And Sparks That Puff In Wild Gyration, Faces Of People Streaming Across My Gaze.

One Can No Longer Live With People: It Is Too Hideous And Nauseating. Owners And Owned, They Are Like The Two Sides Of A Ghastly Disease.

I Want The Wonder Back Again, Or I Shall Die.

Try To Find Your Deepest Issue In Every Confusion, And Abide By That.

I Am Convinced That The Air We Normally Breathe Is A Kind Of Water, And Men And Women Are A Species Of Fish.

Homer Was Wrong In Saying, "would That Strife Might Pass Away From Among Gods And Men!" He Did Not See That He Was Praying For The Destruction Of The Universe.

People Always Make War When They Say They Love Peace.

For God’s Sake, Let Us Be Men Not Monkeys Minding Machines Or Sitting With Our Tails Curled While The Machine Amuses Us, The Radio Or Film Or Gramophone. Monkeys With A Bland Grin On Our Faces.

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

How Ravished One Could Be Without Ever Being Touched. Ravished By Dead Words Become Obscene And Dead Ideas Become Obsessions.

And All The Time She Felt The Reflection Of His Hopelessness In Her. She Couldn't Quite, Quite Love In Hoplessness. And He, Being Hopeless, Couldn't Ever Love At All.

The World Fears A New Experience More Than It Fears Anything. Because A New Experience Displaces So Many Old Experiences. . . . The World Doesn't Fear A New Idea. It Can Pigeon-hole Any Idea. But It Can't Pigeon-hole A Real New Experience.

New Experiences

The Great Home Of The Soul Is The Open Road.

I Should Feel The Air Move Against Me, And Feel The Things I Touched, Instead Of Having Only To Look At Them. I'm Sure Life Is All Wrong Because It Has Become Much Too Visual - We Can Neither Hear Nor Feel Nor Understand, We Can Only See. I'm Sure That Is Entirely Wrong.

[during The Renaissance] The Italians Said, "we Are One In The Father: We Will Go Back." The Northern Races Said, "we Are One In Christ, We Will Go On.

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Our Civilisation Cannot Afford To Let The Censor-moron Loose. The Censor-moron Does Not Really Hate Anything But The Living And Growing Human Consciousness.

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A Circle Swoop, And A Quick Parabola Under The Bridge Arches Where Light Pushes Through; A Sudden Turning Upon Itself Of A Thing In The Air. A Dip To The Water.

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Give Up Bearing Children And Bear Hope And Love And Devotion To Those Already Born.

It Seems To Me A Purely Lyric Poet Gives Himself, Right Down To His Sex, To His Mood, Utterly And Abandonedly, Whirls Himself Roundtill He Spontaneously Combusts Into Verse. He Has Nothing That Goes On, No Passion, Only A Few Intense Moods, Separate Like Odd Stars, And When Each Has Burned Away, He Must Die.

For My Part, I Prefer My Heart To Be Broken. It Is So Lovely, Dawn-kaleidoscopic Within The Crack.

There Is No Smooth Road Into The Future: But We Go Round, Or Scramble Over The Obstacles.

Only The Desert Has A Fascination--to Ride Alone--in The Sun In The Forever Unpossessed Country--away From Man. That Is A Great Temptation.

And Can A Man His Own Quietus Make With A Bare Bodkin?

God Doesn't Know Things. He Is Things.

Melville Had To Fight, Fight Against The Existing World, Against His Own Very Self. Only He Would Never Quite Put The Knife In The Heart Of His Paradisal Ideal. Somehow, Somewhere, Somewhen, Love Should Be A Fulfillment, And Life Should Be A Thing Of Bliss. That Was His Fixed Ideal. Fata Morgana. That Was The Pin He Tortured Himself On, Like A Pinned-down Butterfly.

Sight Is The Least Sensual Of All The Senses. And We Strain Ourselves To See, See, See--everything, Everything Through The Eye, Inone Mode Of Objective Curiosity.

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.

In Every Great Novel, Who Is The Hero All The Time? Not Any Of The Characters, But Some Unnamed And Nameless Flame Behind Them All.

I Would Rather Sit Still In A State Of Peace On A Stone Than Ride In The Motor-car Of A Multi-millionaire And Feel The Peacelessness Of The Multi-millionaire Poisoning Me.

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.

The Near End Of The Street Was Rather Dark And Had Mostly Vegetable Shops. Abundance Of Vegetables - Piles Of White And Green Fennel, Like Celery, And Great Sheaves Of Young, Purplish, Sea-dust-coloured Artichokes . . . Long Strings Of Dried Figs, Mountains Of Big Oranges, Scarlet Large Peppers, A Large Slice Of Pumpkin, A Great Mass Of Colours And Vegetable Freshness. . . .

Now In November Nearer Comes The Sun Down The Abandoned Heaven.

He Always Ran Away From The Battle With Himself. Even In His Own Heart's Privacy, He Excused Himself, Saying, "if She Hadn't Said So-and-so, It Would Never Have Happened.

A Man Must Keep His Earnestness Nimble, To Escape Ridicule.

Pornography Is The Attempt To Insult Sex, To Do Dirt On It.

The Trees Down The Boulevard Stand Naked In Thought, Their Abundant Summery Wordage Silenced, Caught In The Grim Undertow; Naked The Trees Confront Implacable Winter's Long, Cross-questioning Brunt.

A Snake Came To My Water Trough On A Hot, Hot Day, And I In Pajamas For The Heat, To Drink There.

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.

Literature Is A Toil And A Snare, A Curse That Bites Deep.

A Book Lives As Long As It Is Unfathomed.

We Are Dying, We Are Dying, We Are All Of Us Dying And Nothing Will Stay The Death-flood Rising Within Us And Soon It Will Rise On The World, On The Outside World.

Patience! Patience! The World Is A Vast And Ghastly Intricacy Of Mechanism, And One Has To Be Very Wary, Not To Get Mangled By It.

I Do Esteem Individual Liberty Above Everything.

We Do All Like To Get Things Inside A Barb-wire Corral. Especially Our Fellow-men. We Love To Round Them Up Inside The Barb-wire Enclosure Of Freedom, And Make 'em Work. Work, You Free Jewel, Work! Shouts The Liberator, Cracking His Whip.

[u]nless A Woman Is Held, By Man, Safe Within The Bounds Of Belief, She Becomes Inevitably A Destructive Force.

Reach Me A Gentian, Give Me A Torch! Let Me Guide Myself With The Blue, Forked Torch Of A Flower Down The Darker And Darker Stairs, Where Blue Is Darkened On Blueness Even Where Persephone Goes, Just Now, From The Frosted September To The Sightless Realm Where Darkness Is Awake Upon The Dark.

Are You Willing To Be Sponged Out, Erased, Cancelled, Made Nothing? Are You Willing To Be Made Nothing? Dipped Into Oblivion? If Not, You Will Never Really Change.

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

Let Man Only Approach His Own Self With A Deep Respect, Even Reverence For All That The Creative Soul, The God-mystery Within Us, Puts Forth. Then We Shall All Be Sound And Free. Lewdness Is Hateful Because It Impairs Our Integrity And Our Proud Being. The Creative, Spontaneous Soul Sends Forth Its Promptings Of Desire And Aspiration In Us. These Promptings Are Our True Fate, Which Is Our Business To Fulfill. A Fate Dictated From Outside, From Theory Or From Circumstance, Is A False Fate.

It's No Good Trying To Get Rid Of Your Own Aloneness. You've Got To Stick To It All Your Life. Only At Times, At Times, The Gap Will Be Filled In. At Times! But You Have To Wait For The Times. Accept Your Own Aloneness And Stick To It, All Your Life. And Then Accept The Times When The Gap Is Filled In, When They Come. But They've Got To Come. You Can't Force Them.

I Think New Mexico Was The Greatest Experience From The Outside World That I Have Ever Had.

Any Inhibition Must Be Wrong, Since Inevitably In The End It Causes Neurosis And Insanity.

Yea, Paris Is A Festive Ton -- A Festive Ton For All! Skate O'er On Joy -- Thin Crust Of Gilded, Polished Joy! What Matters It If Hell's Beneath?

You'll Never Succeed In Idealizing Hard Work. Before You Can Dig Mother Earth You've Got To Take Off Your Ideal Jacket. The Harder A Man Works, At Brute Labor, The Thinner Becomes His Idealism, The Darker His Mind.

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Lewis H. Lapham

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