From my Highlighter: A Twisted Man, but Smart (Part III)

See Part I and Part 2

D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature. My version: Penguin, 1977.

“There is such a thing as evil belief: a belief that one cannot do wrong.” p. 109.

Which is, of course, the ailment of most politicians. They acknowledge verbally that they can do wrong, then plow ahead like they can’t.

“[Melville] was a modern Viking. There is something curious about real blue-eyed people. They are never quite human, in the good classic sense, human as brown-eyed people are human: the human of the living humus. About a real blue-eyed person there is usually something abstract...”. p. 139.

Startling observation. I’m not sure what to make of it, except to note that I have blue eyes...and that I think I should move on quickly.

“The harder a man works, at brute labour, the thinner becomes his idealism, the darker his mind. And the harder a man works, at mental labour, at idealism, at transcendental occupations, the thinner becomes his blood, and the more brittle his nerves.” p. 113.

“It seems absurd to class people according to their implements. And yet there is something in it. The heart of the Pacific is still the Stone Age; in spite of the steamers.” p. 141

Marshall McLuhan wouldn’t think it absurd. Implements (media) shape our pursuits, our ideas, our attitudes. To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. That cliche has a lot of truth in it.

“I am a moral animal. And I’m going to remain such. I’m not going to be turned into a virtuous little automaton as Benjamin would have me. . . I am a moral animal. But I am not a moral machine.” p. 22

Right on. Lawrence wrote these words about Ben Franklin’s Autobiography. Franklin, of course, would’ve done better to be an animal than a machine, since his moral machine was broken.

“[T]he most idealist nations invent most machines. America simply teems with mechanical inventions, because nobody in America ever wants to do anything. They are idealists. Let a machine do the doing.” p. 38.

De Tocqueville, I think, would’ve concurred.

“The desire to extirpate the Indian. And the contradictory desire to glorify him. Both are rampant still, today...The minority of whites intellectualize the Red Man and laud him to the skies. But this minority of whites is mostly a high-brow minority with a big grouch against its own whiteness. “ p. 41.

“I should think the American admiration of five-minute [tours] has done more to kill the sacredness of old European beauty and aspiration that multitudes of bombs would have done.” p. 45

“[E]very American citizen is free to force his presence upon you, no matter how unwilling you may be.” p. 45.

I sometimes long for the "good ole days" that our grandparents reminisce upon (to absurd lengths oftentimes)--in some minor respects. For instance, can you imagine how nice it would be to go into a doctor's office, or wait at the mechanic shop, and actually have the pleasure to talk to someone. To my own delight, I often go to Lockerly Arboretum and have shared many a wonderful conversation with one of the members of the lawn crew during his breaks.

The way our conversation all came about was when he offered me a drink of water from the well-pump available under the patio near the pond--this was over last year's summer. I was reading something that escapes me now, but I put my book down and we talked for 45 minutes.

The same pleasure could be ours elsewhere if blaring TVs didn't occupy every corner of American space where a person might have to sit for more than ten minutes. A world without TVs in this context would give a person a choice: be saintly and lend your ear or tell the person to shut the hell up. But alas, there is no choice. If you turn off the TV in, say, a hospital waiting room, someone is going to react like you just urinated on his leg and then turn you over to the hospital police.

A harbinger of Kerouac:
“The Open Road. The great home of the Soul is the open road. Not heaven, not paradise. Not ‘above’. Not even ‘within’. The soul is neither ‘above’ nor ‘within’. It is a wayfarer down the open road. . . . Not through charity. Not through sacrifice. Not even through love. Not through good works. Not through these does the soul accomplish herself. Only through the journey down the open road.” p. 181.

Finally, perhaps my favorite passage in the book:

“Whitman’s mistake. The mistake of his interpretation of his watchword: Sympathy. The mystery of SYMPATHY. He still confounded it with Jesus’ LOVE, and with Paul’s CHARITY. Whitman, like all the rest of us, was at the end of the great emotional highway of Love. And because he couldn’t help himself, he carried on his Open Road as a prolongation of the emotional highway of Love, beyond Calvary. The highway of Love ends at the Cross. There is no beyond.” p. 182