Meandering Through the Writings of Others as Lament Practice: Phantastes

“Gardens at Ceperley House” Phone Photo, DS

“One of the tasks of fiction is to offer models of human experience that are meaningful and that seem to be alive.” Arwa Haider, London Calling.

MacDonald, George. Phantastes. 1858.

935 words

*** Old fashion of Scottish Christianity . . . *** MacDonald illustrates, no the doubtful maxim that to know all is to forgive all, but the unshakeable truth that to forgive is to know. *** Aberdeenshire *** poverty *** sunny, playful man *** He had accompanied me all the way . . . *** poetry *** a faerie romance *** I awoke one morning with the usual perplexity of mind . . . *** Ah! That is always the way with you men, you believe nothing the first time . . . *** I looked deeper and deeper, till they spread around me like seas, and I sank in their waters. I fogot all the rest . . . *** I saw that a large green marble basin, in which I was wont to wash . . .  was overflowing like a spring, and that a stream of water was overflowing the carpet, all the length of the room . . . And, stranger still, where the carpet, which I myself designed  to imitate a field of daisies . . . seemed to wave in a tiny breeze that followed the water’s flow . . . *** After washing as well as I could in the clear stream, I rose and looked around me. *** No bird sang. *** I remembered what the lady had said about my grandmothers. *** Those you call fairies in your own country are chiefly the young children of the flower fairies. *** All for the good of the community! said one, and ran off with a great hollow leaf. *** By this time, my hostess was quite anxious that should I be gone. *** The immediately surrounding foliage was illuminated by the interwoven dances in the air of splendidly coloured fire-flies . . . *** I was too horrified for that. *** The face seemed very lovely, and solemn from its stillness, with the aspect of one who is quite content but waiting for something. *** I cannot put more of it into words. *** I felt as if I was wandering in childhood through sunny spring forests, over carpets of primroses, anemones, and little white starry things . . . Some of the creatures I never heard speak at all. *** I took my knife and removed the moss . . . *** a block of pure alabaster enclosing the form, apparently in marble, of a reposing woman . . . *** I had found myself, ere I was aware, rejoicing in a song . . . *** Great boughs crossed my path, great roots based the tree-columns, and mightily clasped the earth, strong to lift and strong to uphold. *** Come to my grotto. There is a light there. *** such a delicate shade of pink seemed to shadow what in itself must be a marbly whiteness of hue. *** I walked on the whole day . . . *** a self-destructive beauty *** Various garden-vegetables were growing beneath my window. *** folly *** delicate greens of the long grasses, and tiny forests of moss that covered the channel . . . *** I was so bewildered – stunned . . . *** We travelled for two days, and I began to love him. *** She carried a small globe, bright and clear as the purest crystal. *** Colour floated abroad with the scent . . . *** A pale moon looked up from the floor of the great blue cave that lay in abysmal silence beneath. *** At length I came to an open corridor . . . *** The sides of the basin were white marble . . . *** The waters lay so close to me they seemed to enter and revive my heart . . . I saw above me the blue spangled vault, and the red pillars around. *** The third day after my arrival I found the library of the palace . . . *** I read of a world no like ours. *** One evening in early summer, I stood with a group of men and women on a steep rock that overhung the sea. *** Though of a noble family, he was poor, and prided himself upon the independence that poverty gives . . . ***Cosmo began to comfort himself with the hope that she might return, perhaps the nest evening at the same hour. *** His engagements were neglected. He cared for nothing. *** Cosmo, if thou lovest me, set me free, even from thyself . . . *** One night he mingled with a crowd that filled the rooms of one of the most distinguished mansions in the city, for he accepted every invitation . . . *** At length I arrived, through a door that was closed behind me, in another vast hall of the palace. *** The pillars and arches were of dark red. But what absorbed my delighted gaze, was an innumerable assembly of white marble statues, of every form, and in multitudinous posture, filling the hall throughout. *** Instinctively, I struck the chords and sang. *** Ever as I sang, the veil uplifted, ever as I sang . . . *** I had no means of measuring time . . . *** A blessing like the kiss of a mother, seemed to alight on my soul, a calm, deeper than that which accompanies a hope deferred, bathed my spirit. *** Ere she had ceased signing, my courage had returned. *** I put my life in my hands. – The Book of Judges *** They were about twice our height, and armed to the teeth. ***

Meandering Through the Writings of Others as a Practice of Lament: Piranesi

“Heart of Flowers, Ambleside Pier” Artist unknown, photo by DS

Here are my explorations:

Clarke, Susanna. Piranesi. 2020.

946 words

*** The Ninth Vestibule is remarkable for the three great Staircases I contains. Its walls are lined with marble Statues, hundreds and hundreds of them, Tier upon Tier, rising into the distant heights. *** [I] felt the walls vibrating with the force of what was about to happen. *** First came the Tides from the Far Eastern Halls. *** Its waters were no more than ankle deep. *** I realized I had made a mistake in calculating the volumes . . . *** Then just as suddenly as it began, it was over. *** The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite. *** I am determined to explore as much of the World as I can in my lifetime. *** I have explored the Drowned Halls where the Dark Waters are carpeted with white water lilies. I have seen the Derelict Halls of the East where Ceiling, Floors – sometimes even Walls! – have collapsed and the dimness is split by shafts of grey Light. *** I have never seen any indication that the World is coming to an end . . . *** I have begun a Catalogue in which I intend to record the Position, Size and Subject of each Statue, and any other points of interest. *** The Windows of the House look out upon Great Courtyards; barren, empty places paved with stone. *** Outside the House there are only the Celestial Objects: Sun, Moon, and Stars. *** The Upper Halls are . . . the domain of the Clouds . . . *** The Lower Halls provide nourishment in the form of fish, crustaceans and sea vegetation. *** The Upper Halls have fresh water , which is shed in the Vestibules in the form of Rain and flows in Streams down Walls and Staircases. *** Between these two (largely uninhabitable) Levels are the Middle Halls, which are the Domain of birds and of men. *** The Beautiful Orderliness of the House is what gives us Life. *** On the other side of the Courtyard I saw the Other looking out of the Window. *** I waved to him. *** Of the fifteen people whose existence is verifiable, only Myself and the Other are now living. *** I am between thirty and thirty-five years of age . . . the Other’s age . . . between fifty and sixty. *** He is a scientist like me . . . I value his friendship highly. *** The Other believes there is a Great and Secret Knowledge hidden somewhere in the World that will grant enormous powers once we have discovered it . . . *** I write down what I observe in my notebooks. *** One of my notebooks is my Table of Tides. *** There are some Statues that I love more than the rest. The Woman carrying a Beehive is one of them. *** I have noticed something. I have used two systems to number the years. How could I not have noticed this before? *** I am guilty of bad practice. *** Is it disrespectful to the House to love some Statues more than others? *** It is my belief that the House itself loves and blesses equally everything that it has created. *** It is the nature of men to prefer one thing to another . . . *** Do trees exist . . . Many things are unknown . . . a leaf, very beautiful, with two sides curving to a point at each end . . . its surface repelled Water, like something meant to live in Air. *** You need to find out if I am telling the truth. *** “That is exactly what I am doing.” We both laughed. ***  There is no danger. *** I went to the Eighth Vestibule to fish. *** The Other suspended his work on the Great and Secret Knowledge and cancelled our meetings because he said it was too cold to stand about talking. *** I saw a vision! In the dim Air above the grey Waves hung a white, shining cross. *** I returned to my work of gathering seaweed. The albatross walked about the Hall. His greyish pinkish feet made loud slapping sounds on the Pavement. *** Perhaps the wisdom of birds resides not in the individual, but in the flock, the congregation. *** If we perform the Ritual at night, you can address the Invocation to a Star. A star is a source of power and energy. *** About a year ago. My shoes fell apart. *** A list of things the Other has given me *** The Other explains that he has said all this before *** The Other warns me about 16 *** I consider the words of the Prophet *** More people to kill *** Violet had been the dominant note, with hints of cloves, blackcurrent and rose. *** No one has ever written to me before. *** The Ancients have a different way of relating to the world, that they experienced it as something that interacted with them. *** The lights of the cars were pixilated by rain; the pavements collaged with wet black leaves. *** I explained that I was chiefly interested in transgressive ideas, in the people who formulate them, and how they are received by the various disciplines – religion, art, literature, science, mathematics and so forth. *** He began to laugh. *** I could see now that he was apprehensive in case one day I remembered. *** This is where I lost Myself. *** These imaginings left me ravaged. *** She tapped her shining little device. *** What is the Other World like? *** It’s such an astonishing place. ***

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