11-12-07
224. Middlemarch - George Eliot
4@Agnès: thank you very much, my dear blogfriend.
@Grillon: "Does this question come from George Eliot's novel " Middlemarch " ?"
I don't know dear Grillon, but if I find the quote as my reading goes, I'll obviously tell you. (Yes, I'm currently reading it but not in English... there are 3 novels in this big "pavé").
This copy of Middlemarch -- that you can see on the picture -- is mine. I've received it around 1997-98 and I've never read it, neither any novels written by George Eliot but -- ten years after lol... -- I'm disintering it off my bookshelf. The book looks so fresh, new and clean: it has been untouched and well ranked among many other unread books.
Actually, I've a very interesting bookshelf full of wonderful books - read or not. I've began to build my books collection very young and they have always accompanied me in my life. Reading was each time a such exciting experience that I've built a motto ("croyez-moi si vous voulez, mais..." expression typiquement française): "I want to keep aside at least one book of my best authors for my old days, for when I will retire..."
I know why I was so parcimonious with the great novels: I had enjoyed so many great contents, with so much enthusiasm - and sometimes love - that I was merely worry not to find much later new sources of light... Odd, isn't it?
Grillon, you can click on the picture to admire a larger view of the painting.
10-12-07
223. Christmas time: waiting for Granny
Grillon challenged me to write a story from these words: bone china tableware hedgehog cowshed motto pond loss stubbornness hunt out dwell blurry. Thanks for this challenge and sorry for the belated text...
Move your mouse over the underlined words to read the translation into French
"Dear Mum,
Everything here is finally ready, however I have no time at all and I must confess sweet dear Mum that I'm compelled to write you in the train, since it's the sole place I'm allowed to sit down quietly. The works in the mansion are almost finished -- actually not really: there are so many things to repair and finally when we have coped with something, another problem requires our entire efforts. Nothing better for a pond loss than doing up a house on one's own.
Nonetheless, don't worry, everything will be OK after your arrival and I promise you'll just adore the comfort and the decor of your room! I didn't even forget your best white and blue bone china that I've hunted out in a cute small shop in Auxerre -- which is the major town in the area. I'm afraid I paid too much for this tableware. Bargaining is a "national sport" as they're used to say in France and I'm not enough French yet. As you know, the motto of my sweet Jean-François is: "never buy without bargaining". How right he is, but I was so ashamed to bargain with the owner of the secondhand goods dealer who seemed so poor and elder, Mummy, that I agreed the price. Please, never tell it to Jean-François! I told him that the bill would be 10€ higher if I didn't bargain... He scolded me because 10€ were so laughable to his mind. At least, he believes that I'm on the way to behave as a worthy French woman!
Though, I'm not the only one to have hunted out something: Pierre-James hunted out a hedgehog family dwelling in the empty cowshed. Mummy, wouldn't it be an overwhelming Christmas crib? Provided you remind to get your glasses, otherwise your blurry vision could prevent you from spotting the living figures of that touching crazy crib. Oh Mummy, please take it easy, I'm just kidding because I'm so happy we're going to see each other soon.
Pierre-James has been silly with stubborness all along the trip, I warned him I'll tell you. Except now, he's lovely and awaits for you as eagerly as me!
I'm looking forward to seeing you.
My love and best wishes from Alicia"
09-12-07
222. Victor Hugo
How sad to think that nature speaks and mankind does not listen. Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885, French poet and writer)
C'est une triste chose de songer que la nature parle et que le genre humain n'écoute pas.
08-12-07
221. George Eliot
"What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"
George Eliot (alias Mary Anne Evans, English novelist, 1819-1880)
I greet my lovely main readers, mostly Grillon and Agnès.
05-12-07
220. Stomach flu
Oh my god, I feel so bad. My head is like a drum, mostly when I glare at the computer's screen and I'm about to vomit... I'm never courageous when I'm sick phew. Happily this kind of illness is short.
04-12-07
219. My ongoing laziness
"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."
Albert Einstein (German born American Physicist who developed the special and general theories of relativity. Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921. 1879-1955)
03-12-07
218. Witty will
"The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't". Henry Ward Beecher
"La différence entre persévérance et obstination est que l'un vient d'une forte volonté et l'autre d'un non" Traduction du jeu de mots will/won't impossible en français du fait qu'on a affaire ici à plusieurs sens mais ma foi mon petit "non" est assez sympa, même s'il ne fait pas miroir à volonté.
02-12-07
217. Oscar Wilde
"I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works."
Oscar Wilde
01-12-07
216. Charles Baudelaire: fleursdumal.org
4 translations for a French poem (my favourite) and guess what happens... They're all different. FleursduMal.Org
Charles Baudelaire learnt English since his childhood and mainly translated Edgar Allan Poe's pieces.
Causerie
Vous êtes un beau ciel d'automne, clair et rose!
Mais la tristesse en moi monte comme la mer,
Et laisse, en refluant, sur ma lèvre morose
Le souvenir cuisant de son limon amer.
Charles Baudelaire
Conversation
You are a lovely autumn sky, clear and rosy!
But sadness rises in me like the sea,
And as it ebbs, leaves on my sullen lips
The burning memory of its bitter slime.
William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)
Conversation
You're like an autumn sky, rose, clear, and placid.
But sorrow whelms me, like the tide's assault,
And ebbing, leaves upon my lips the acid
And muddy-bitter memory of its salt.
Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)
Episode
You are a lovely, rosy, lucid autumn sky!
But sadness mounts upon me like a flooding sea,
And ebbs, and ebbing, leaves my lips morose and dry,
Smarting with salty ooze, bitter with memory.
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)
Conversation
You are the loveliness, the clearness, the red of autumn skies!
But sadness climbs like a sea in me,
Leaving, in reflux, upon my bitter lip
The sharp memory of its biting slime.
Geoffrey Wagner, Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire (NY: Grove Press, 1974)
30-11-07
215. Cooking
"When we no longer have good cooking in the world, we will have no literature, nor high and sharp intelligence, nor friendly gatherings, no social harmony." Marie-Antoine Carême "Chef of Kings, King of Chefs"
Not everybody is a gourmet, that's why gastronomes are required. We must judge gastronomes as we do for teachers and educationalists in general: that they are unbearable pedants nontheless they're useful P. de Pressac Historian, (Considérations sur la cuisine, 1931)
