The Poet Has To Make A Synthesis

Only One Hour In The Normal Day Is More Pleasurable Than The Hour Spent In Bed With A Book Before Going To Sleep, And That Is The Hour Spent In Bed With A Book After Being Called In The Morning.

Every Year, In The Deep Midwinter, There Descends Upon This World A Terrible Fortnight. ... Every Shop Is A Choked Mass Of Humanity ... Nerves Are Jangled And Frayed, Purses Emptied To No Purposes, All Amusements And All Occupations Suspended In Favor Of Frightful Businesses With Brown Paper, String, Letters, Cards, Stamps, And Crammed Post Offices. This Period Is Doubtless A Foretaste Of Whatever Purgatory Lies In Store For Human Creatures.

Words Move, Turning Over Like Tumbling Clowns; Like Certain Books And Like Fleas, They Possess Activity. All Men Equally Have The Right To Say, 'this Word Shall Bear This Meaning,' And See If They Can Get It Across. It Is A Sporting Game, Which All Can Play, Only All Cannot Win.

The Very Utterness Of The Crash And Ruin, The Desperation Of The Case, Might Be Its Hope. On Ruins One Can Begin To Build. Anyhow, Looking Out From Ruins One Clearly Sees; There Are No Obstructing Walls.

[religion Is A] Primitive Insurance Against Disaster. ... Originally Religion Was Merely A Function Of The Self-preservative Instinct. Offer Sacrifices To The Gods And Save Your Crops. And Even Christianity, After All, Insures Heavily Against The Flaws In This Life By Belief In Another.