Saturday

Sep. 28, 2002

Terminus

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

SATURDAY, 28 SEPTEMBER 2002
Listen
(RealAudio) | How to listen

Poem: "Terminus," by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Terminus

It is time to be old,
To take in sail:--
The god of bounds,
Who sets to seas a shore,
Came to me in his fatal round,
And said: 'No more!
No farther spread
Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root.
Fancy departs: no more invent,
Contract thy firmament
To compass of a tent.
There's not enough for this and that,
Make thy option which of two;
Economize the failing river,
Not the less revere the Giver,
Leave the many and hold the few.

As the bird trims her to the gale,
I trim myself to the storm of time,
I man the rudder, reef the sail,
Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime:
'Lowly faithful, banish fear,
Right onward drive unharmed;
The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
And every wave is charmed.'


It's the day Confucius' birthday is celebrated in Taiwan. The holiday is called Teacher's Day. Confucius dominated the thought and traditions of the Chinese for centuries, but he was not a religious leader; a disciple of his said, "The Master never talked about spiritual beings, disorder, extraordinary things, or feats of strength." He lived simply, and never doubted that learning would lead to virtue. H said: "Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes," "It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop," and "Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart."

It's the birthday of Ellis Peters, born Edith Pargeter, in Shropshire (1913). She started out writing historical novels, but they didn't sell very well, and she switched to mysteries. She wrote a number of mysteries set in an abbey before her death in 1995. The monk-detective who was the hero of the mysteries, Brother Cadfael, was a former crusader who had dedicated his life to God, and solved puzzling crimes without the benefit of modern fingerprinting techniques.

It's the birthday of Al Capp, born Alfred Gerald Caplin, in New Haven, Connecticut (1909). He's the creator of L'il Abner, the comic strip about the strapping dimwit who made his living as a mattress tester.

It's the birthday of Kate Douglas Wiggin, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1856). She wrote Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1910) and a dozen or so other novels. She also started the first free kindergarten on the West Coast, in San Francisco.

It's the birthday of Edward Herbert Thompson, born in Worcester, Massachusetts (1856). He was an amateur archaeologist, and he managed to get himself appointed U.S. consul in Yucatan, Mexico, so he could live closer to the ruins at Chichen Itza, which he believed to be the remnants of Atlantean civilization. He became fascinated by the Sacred Well, a lime sinkhole next to the pyramids that was said to hold the victims of human sacrifice. The cloudy water made diving impossible, and Thompson sent to Boston for dredging equipment; it was the first time archaeology had ever been done under water. He found gold and jade jewelry, pottery, textiles, and the bones of many women and children, just as the legends had predicted. He sent the artifacts to the Peabody Museum at Harvard, enraging the Mexican government; the Peabody eventually returned most of them.


Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®

 

«

»

  • “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams
  • “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler
  • “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt
  • “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman
  • “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov
  • “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow
  • “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron
  • “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann
  • “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick
  • “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell
  • “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote
  • “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams
  • “Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch
  • “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer
  • “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao
  • “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell
  • “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham
Current Faves - Learn more about poets featured frequently on the show