“The elegant thing is for a lover to wander aimlessly hither and yon, drenched with the frosts or dews of night, tormented by the fears of his parents’ reproaches and the censure of the world, the heart beset with uncertainties, yet for all that sleeping alone often, though always fitfully. On the other hand, heContinue reading “RKS Literature: How to be an Elegant Lover (Yoshida Kenkō)”
Tag Archives: RKS literature
RKS Literature: Murder: Aesthetics and Morality (Thomas De Quincey)
“Murder, for instance, may be laid hold of by its moral handle, (as it generally is in the pulpit, and at the Old Bailey) and that I confess, is its weak side; or it may also be treated aesthetically, as the Germans call it, that is in relation to good taste.” Thomas de Quincey, “OnContinue reading “RKS Literature: Murder: Aesthetics and Morality (Thomas De Quincey)”
RKS Literature: The Composition of the Fine Art of Murder (Thomas De Quincey)
“People begin to see that something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed-a knife-a purse-and a dark lane. Design, gentlemen, grouping, light and shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed indispensable to attempts of this nature.” Thomas de Quincey, “On Murder Considered as One of theContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Composition of the Fine Art of Murder (Thomas De Quincey)”
RKS Literature: The Wild Vindictiveness of Captain Ahab Against the Accursed Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
“…suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab’s leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, no hired Venetian or Malay could have smote him with more seeming malice. Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal encounter,Continue reading “RKS Literature: The Wild Vindictiveness of Captain Ahab Against the Accursed Moby Dick (Herman Melville)”
RKS Literature: The Burning Vengeance of Captain Ahab Against the Accursed Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
“Aye, aye!, it was that accursed white whale that brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye.” he shouted with a terrific, loud, animal sob like that of a heart-stricken moose. Aye, aye! It was that accursed white whale that razed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for everContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Burning Vengeance of Captain Ahab Against the Accursed Moby Dick (Herman Melville)”
RKS Literature: A Decaying Palazzo (Robert Louis Stevenson)
“All morning I went from one door to another. Some rudely shuttered. Some receiving their full charge of daylight. All empty and unhomely. It was a rich house. On which Time had breathed his tarnish and dust had scattered disillusion. The spider swung there; the bloated tarantula scampered on the cornices; ants had their crowdedContinue reading “RKS Literature: A Decaying Palazzo (Robert Louis Stevenson)”
RKS Literature: Aristocratic Body but Degenerate Intelligence (Robert Louis Stevenson)
“The family blood had been impoverished, perhaps by long interbreeding, which I knew to be a common error among the proud and exclusive. No decline, indeed, was to be traced in the body, which had been handed down unimpaired in shapeliness and strength; and the faces of today were struck as sharply from the mint,Continue reading “RKS Literature: Aristocratic Body but Degenerate Intelligence (Robert Louis Stevenson)”
Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom: MORE TALKING THAN WALKING TODAY!
MORE TALKING THAN WALKING TODAY! I enjoy a good long walk but I like it more when Bob meets another dog owner and talks. This gives me the opportunity to play with the talker’s dog. What could be better! Today there were seven talks on three walks and that must be a record. I playedContinue reading “Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom: MORE TALKING THAN WALKING TODAY!”
RKS Literature: The Train Ride from London to Clapham Common: Through the Suburban Stench (Henry Mayhew)
“ Now we get a whiff of the gutta-percha works; then comes a faint gust from some floor-cloth shed; next we dash through an odoriferous belt of bone-boiling atmosphere; and after that through a film of fetor rank with the fumes from the glazing of potteries; whereupon this is followed by bands of nauseous vapoursContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Train Ride from London to Clapham Common: Through the Suburban Stench (Henry Mayhew)”
RKS Literature: A Fearless Man May be the Most Dangerous Man (Herman Melville)
‘I will have no man in my boat’ said Starbuck, ‘who is not afraid of a whale.’ By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerousContinue reading “RKS Literature: A Fearless Man May be the Most Dangerous Man (Herman Melville)”
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 