![]() What was strange must be wrong what was unusual must be improper. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality - so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What made her sing so? They never sang so. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat - semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her - none of them spoke. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one. The words were set to a fine old air - in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force when well sung, they wanted nothing. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object love that disaster could not shake love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays We thus come again to the paradox that one can become whole only by the responsible acceptance of one's partiality. Where we live and who we live there with define the terms of our relationship to the world and to humanity. Similarly, one cannot live in the world that is, one cannot become, in the easy, generalizing sense with which the phrase is commonly used, a "world citizen." There can be no such think as a "global village." No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it. If one is to have the power and delight of one's sexuality, then the generality of instinct must be resolved in a responsible relationship to a particular person. One cannot enact or fulfill one's love for womankind or mankind, or even for all the women or men to whom one is attracted. To live in marriage is a responsible way to live in sexuality, as to live in a household is a responsible way to live in the world. To forsake all others does not mean - because it cannot mean - to ignore or neglect all others, to hide or be hidden from all others, or to desire or love no others. Quote by Jeffrey McDaniel: 'Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth, like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones.' at This quote is about love, fidelity, obsession, devotion, affection. But fidelity prepares us for the return of these moments, which give us the highest joy we can know that of union, communion, atonement (in the root sense of at-one-ment). ![]() ![]() No relationship can continue very long at its highest emotional pitch. Such a convergence obviously cannot be continuous. “What marriage offers - and what fidelity is meant to protect - is the possibility of moments when what we have chosen and what we desire are the same. ![]()
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