#G.M. Hopkins

[kirby-de-aragon]

OMG Jeremy's voice is... Ufff

Spring And Fall

by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

Read by Jeremy Northam

to a young child

Márgarét, áre you gríeving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leáves like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! ás the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you wíll weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.

[89rooms]

Bare throat made to bite, my love leaned over me at night, smooth-skinned and dark, hair smelling of the south, with hotter hands than fire, she was honey in my mouth.

G.M. Hopkins - reformatted

[intertexts]

kingfishers (g.m. hopkins, joanna newsom, mary oliver)

[leohtttbriar]

"My own heart let me more have pity on," G.M. Hopkins

My own heart let me more have pity on; let Me live to my sad self hereafter kind, Charitable; not live this tormented mind With this tormented mind tormenting yet. I cast for comfort I can no more get By groping round my comfortless, than blind Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find Thirst's all-in-all in all a world of wet.

Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile 's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather — as skies Betweenpie mountains — lights a lovely mile.

[septembersung]

[wild-bees-of-truth]

Glory be to God for dappled things—   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;   Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;       And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty”

[handeaux]

Cincinnati Once Believed Radium Could Cure Anything, If Only We Could Afford It

What are the most amazing things on Earth today? Way back in 1907, the Cincinnati Post reported the results of a poll to determine the “Seven Wonders of the Modern World” at that time. Topping the list was the aeroplane, followed by wireless telegraphy, radium, the Panama Canal, anesthesia, movies, and X-rays.

That radium got its own mention is unsurprising to anyone reading the newspapers around that time. Everybody was talking about radium, all the humorists had jokes about radium, all the quacks were claiming cures by radium, and all the scientists were scrambling to figure out just what this radium stuff could possibly do.

During the first decade of the Twentieth Century, radium was the most expensive substance known to man, costing – when it could be purchased at all – for $2.5 million per ounce. Dozens of newspaper gags were based on the same formula: Something (or someone) is described as worth its weight in gold but is met by the rejoinder, “Couldn’t it be worth its weight in radium?”

The hottest stage show in Cincinnati was a musical revue titled “The Runaways,” which featured a diversion billed as “The Radium Dance.” According to the Cincinnati Post [16 January 1905]:

“Cincinnatians seem to like the radium dance. It is performed while the stage is in pitch-black darkness and the dancers’ faces are masked in black. Their pajama-like costumes glow with a weird blue light, and the audience is puzzled to know how it is done.”

No matter whether a commercial product incorporated radium (unlikely) or not, manufacturers realized that anything with “radium” on the label flew off the shelves. One Cincinnati manufacturer sold “radium” razor strops in which the only connection to radium was the brand name. Likewise, a roach poison sold as Radium Roach Powder may have contained all sorts of toxic substances, but radium was certainly not one of them.

On the other hand, Cincinnati’s notorious quack doctors piled onto the radium bandwagon, offering cures that may or may not have induced radiation poisoning into their clients. A Hopkins Street man, hauled into court on fraud charges, probably didn’t harm anyone by selling “radium pads” that he claimed cured diseases. The radium Laboratories Company, though, advertising heavily in the Cincinnati Post, offered photographic proof that its “Co-Ray Tonic Tablets” were unabashedly radioactive, providing “interior sunlight” to those who ingested the pills. Co-Ray tablets were sold at all Dow Drug Stores in Cincinnati as well as independent pharmacies in Norwood, and in Kentucky at Dayton and Bellevue. The advertisements were frighteningly effusive:

“Radium is interior sunlight. Sunlight is the great antiseptic and germ destroyer of the world. Radium Emanation is the most marvelous tonic the world has ever known. By its use the system of man or woman can literally be bathed and cleansed in sunshine. Tired, pale, droopy, rundown people respond to this internal sunlight bath like flowers that have been drooping in the shade. They become energized to a marvelous extent. The power of Radium is so great that the mind of ordinary man cannot grasp it.”

Hot Springs, Arkansas, cashed in on the radium craze by organizing excursions from the larger northern cities, including Cincinnati. An advertisement in the Cincinnati Post [17 February 1911] was typical:

“Hot Springs is the scene of marvelous cures, to which words cannot do justice. The secret of the mysterious, health-renewing waters (until recently Nature’s secret) is attributed to their radioactive curative powers, resulting from radium gasses.”

Propounding a dissenting view, well-known Cincinnati quack, Dr. G.M. “Cancer Cure” Curry opened a sanitarium at Lebanon, Ohio, at which he promised to demonstrate that “the surgeon’s knife, X-Ray, Radium and other present-day treatments, are absolutely ineffective and often cause death instead of saving life.”

Sadly, while real scientists and doctors were scrambling to find out the best ways to harness the power of radium, they were besieged by patients who, inspired by the popular press, demanded radium treatments immediately. The biggest problem is that none of the educated people knew exactly what radiation was or how it manifested, or whether it did anything at all.

The second problem is that there wasn’t a single atom of radium available to doctors in Cincinnati. Through the efforts of University of Cincinnati President Howard Ayers, a tiny particle of actual radium was shipped to the Queen City. This minute sample, housed in a glass tube inside a wooden box, was placed in the custody of UC’s physics department.

On special appeal to the university’s Board of Directors, UC’s minuscule allotment of radium was applied to the eyes of Judge Moses Wilson in 1903 in an unsuccessful attempt to restore his failing eyesight. Judge Wilson survived another 20 years, blind but succumbing to unrelated ailments in his 83rd year. George W. Mayer, a Cincinnati industrialist, had to go to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for radium treatments in 1914. The treatments was fatally ineffective, and Mr. Mayer returned to Cincinnati in a casket.

Other than the failed effort to save Judge Wilson’s eyesight, the UC physics department mostly used their entubed radium sample to irradiate hundreds of students through hands-on classroom demonstrations; through the creation of autoradiographs to prove that, yes, this stuff was, indeed, radioactive; and public lectures throughout the city featuring a suspenseful moment when all the auditorium lights were extinguished to manifest the sample’s faint blue glow.

Professor Louis Trenchard More, designated guardian of UC’s radium nugget, in one of his several public lectures, suggested that maybe this miraculous substance wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. According to the Post [14 November 1903]:

“He seemed to be rather skeptical that the much exploited stuff would ever become vastly popular, and didn’t think that, inasmuch as it takes about 11 tons of pitchblende to make a pound of radium, it would become particularly useful.”

The Cincinnati Post editorially rejoiced in 1910 when the price of radium declined to only $2.1 million an ounce:

“It is easy to foresee that should this decline in price continue, you may go down to the corner grocery any day and get a bit of radium.”

Or not.

[To explore the dark side of the radium craze, you will want to catch D.W. Gregory’s play, “Radium Girls,” as produced by The Drama Workshop from 30 September through 16 October. See https://thedramaworkshop.org/season/2022-2023-season/radium-girls for details.]

[apesoformythoughts]

“It is sad to think what disappointment must many times over have filled your heart for the darling children of your mind. Nevertheless fame whether won or lost is a thing which lies in the award of a random, reckless, incompetent, and unjust judge, the public, the multitude. The only just judge, the only just literary critic, is Christ, who prizes, is proud of, and admires, more than any man, more than the receiver himself can, the gifts of his own making.”

— G.M. Hopkins, letter to R.W. Dixon, June 1878

[simchafisher]

What's for supper? Vol. 213: Pied beauty

What’s for supper? Vol. 213: Pied beauty

Holy cow, that was a fast week. We worked hard and ate hard this week.

Wow, that does not sound right. 

Well, here’s what we had:

SATURDAY Meatloaf, cheezy weezies

Saturday was big dig day. Dig dig dig!

Why dig? Well, like everyone else, we don’t know what the summer is going to look like, so we went and bought a 20-foot above ground pool! To prepare the ground, you have to make it level, and…

[borderlinenuminous-blog]

I am soft sift

“The Wreck of the Deutschland,” G.M. Hopkins

[pittarchives]

Forbes Field through the Years

One of Pittsburgh’s most famous landmarks was Forbes Field, Oakland’s very own stadium and home of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers, the Pitt Panthers, and the Homestead Greys. Tomorrow would have been the 108th anniversary of the opening of the field, which was praised for its size and design. However, due to both age and Oakland’s development leading to a lack of parking spaces (we understand completely on that point), the last game was played there on June 28th, 1970, and the building was demolished a year later.

In honor of the anniversaries of both the opening and the closing of this magnificent Pittsburgh locale- and also because of the Pirates’ stretch of games at home this week- we wanted to share just a few of the great photos we have of this picturesque ballpark.

An early, pre-1930s snapshot taken by photographer John Gates.

This 1914 G.M. Hopkins map shows a very different Oakland, with Forbes Fielf shown in the bottom left. The relatively undeveloped location outside of downtown led some to call the field Dreyfuss’ Folly, after Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss. Note the large central portion of undeveloped land belonging to Henry Clay Frick in the middle of the map plate- the future site of the Cathedral of Learning.

Taken from the Cathedral of Learning in 1936, this image shows not only the Field to the far right, but a few other recognizable icons, including the Carnegie Library (left) and the Mary Schenley Memorial Fountain (center). Schenley Park stretches out in the background.

A 1943 baseball game provided some much-needed levity during the wartime years. Note the Navy sailor along the far end of the field.

By 1950, Forbes Field had seating for a crowd of up to 35,000 people.

A view of Forbes Field in the early half of the 1960s. Note that Oakland has gotten considerably more crowded.

The scoreboard stands dwarfed by the (rather grime-encrusted) Cathedral of Learning in early 1972, during the ongoing demolition process.

- Ashley Taylor

[hurraying-com]

Hurraying 2

The word above "Hurraying" is the correct spelling for the word. It is very easy to misspell a word like Hurraying, therefore you can use TellSpell as a spell ...

Description. A simple utility skill for Hip Hip Hurraying. Let Alexa help finish your celebrations by contributing a hurray to your hip hip. Another disastrous Economist article about Turkey and the usual suspects (One disciple of Fethullah, one Turk-hater Greek and one Wiki-maniac) hurraying ...

unawares, In the kitchen down below were at their meals, And she stood upon her head, on her little truckle bed, And she then began hurraying with her heels. Verb hurray ( third-person singular simple present hurrays , present participle hurraying , simple past and past participle hurrayed ) ( transitive , intransitive ) To ... ... and saw to his amazement and delight that there must have been well over three thousand people following him, hurraying and laughing and waving flags. ... as trophies of war, and were set on high on broomsticks, whilst the victorious ' police' of the Liberator marched off shouting and hurraying with their prize.

They do a lot of talking and hurraying trying to get you to sell something. But the producers told me to be tough, so I was tough, 'cause I can be.”. Aug 18, 2018 - Weyerhaeuser company hurraying hat, frequents st up socialism, pregabalin erowid experiences sandbag, without reallot gold. Elevators, but ... All the words.

HURRAYING IN THE HARVEST BY G.M. HOPKINS – A GROUP Susanne: “The Secret Gate” by Fiona Macleod Marisha: Intermezzo grazioso in A-flat Major, No.

Jan 15, 2020 - hurray meaning: used to express excitement, pleasure, or approval: . Learn more.

(used as an exclamation of joy, exultation, appreciation, encouragement, or the like.) ... to shout “hurrah.”. ... roar, ovation, shout, cry, encouragement, cheer, yell, whoopee, yay, plaudits, approval, approbation, hurrah, acclamation, huzza, rah-rah, yippee, huzzah. Keep scrolling for more. More Definitions for hooray. hooray. interjection. hoo·​ray | \ hu̇-ˈrā \. variants: also hurrah \ hu̇-​ˈrȯ , -​ˈrä \ or hurray \ -​ˈrā \ ... Hurray is defined as an alternative spelling of hurrah, which is a cheer used to express happiness or joy. When you win the lottery, this is an example of a time when you might yell hurray! YourDictionary definition and usage example. How do you spell hurray? Learn the difference between hurray and hooray with definitions and sentence examples at Writing Explained. Spelling of hooray. Hurray definition: used to express joy , triumph , approval , etc.: a shout used as in cheering | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples. Define hurray (interjection) and get synonyms. What is hurray (interjection)? hurray (interjection) meaning, pronunciation and more by Macmillan Dictionary. The interjection expressing approval, exultation, or encouragement is variously spelled hurrah, hooray, and hurray. There are also some older forms—hurra, ... Define hurray. hurray synonyms, hurray pronunciation, hurray translation, English dictionary definition of hurray. or hur·rah or hur·ray interj. Used as an ... Synonyms for hurray at Thesaurus.com with free online thesaurus, antonyms, and definitions. Find descriptive alternatives for hurray. Used as an exclamation of pleasure, approval, elation, or victory.

[pangeanews]

“La poesia è chiassosamente praticata da troppi, pur essendo cosa per pochi”: dialogo con Nanni Cagnone (a partire dal suo Parmenide)

Il confronto che Nanni Cagnone – tra i rari ispirati, oggi, maestro d’ombre e di pietre, si direbbe, uno che andrebbe osannato nei luoghi pubblici per farci esplodere alla conversione, alla conversazione coi fondamentali – opera con Parmenide – che, scrive, “nell’avarizia e desolazione odierne, lo si fingerebbe fastidioso e astruso” – non è accademico, non è neppure filosofico, biecamente contemplativo. Cagnone sta nell’insidia del linguaggio, entra nelle parole delle origini – già è stato in Eschilo, ad esempio – trapiantando il proprio detto, ampliando verso il domani, verso ciò che non è circoscritto né è carcerato o ascrivibile alla didattica, quel parlare. Per questo, Parmenides Remastered (La Finestra Editrice, 2019), la traduzione di ciò che ci resta del libro Sulla natura ma soprattutto un’opera a parte, di Cagnone, d’indicativa altezza (“Si pensa assiduamente a durata ed estensione – spazio e tempo sono la trama del nostro inconcludente romanzo, del quale alfine non resterà che la prima, impubblicabile stesura”), di maestria indecente, cioè senza decoro, nell’abbaglio del primo, senza abbigliamento (“Come chiunque senza fissa dimora, dovrai cercare quel che inutilmente hai veduto, prima che ogni cosa ricada perdendo sua radice, prima che l’amuleto di tuo padre ceda alla sovranità della polvere, si affretti nella ruggine. Un estraneo s’è portato via quasi tutto”). Per lo più, mi siedo, mastico qualche parola (“Ogni degna lettura è un’estenuante trattativa”), ascolto questo maestro che sta sul chiodo di ogni cosa, nell’apice che ferisce. (d.b.)

Tornare a Elea, cioè alla questione dell’Essere. Che senso ha (o è questo il solo senso plausibile)?

Non pensavo a Parmenide dai tempi dell’università. Frequentavo Eschilo, Plotino, Empedocle. Poi, in un giorno d’autunno, mi ricordai d’una frase che avevo scritto un anno prima: “Sia pur esistendo, noi siamo”. Frase involontaria, non meditata. A quel punto, tolsi dalla biblioteca le edizioni di Parmenide e presi a tradurlo, cosa di cui avrei fatto volentieri a meno, se le traduzioni disponibili non fossero penose. Dopo aver affrontato Parmenide, posso dire di non condividerlo. Ho voluto un rapporto con lui perché il suo pensiero è ancora un ostacolo, un fondamentale assillo.

René Char entra in Eraclito, tu aderisci (o disubbidisci?) a Parmenide. Vorrei, però, farti parlare sui rapporti (interrotti o ininterrotti) tra poesia e filosofia.

Di recente, avendo letto il mio Parmenides Remastered, qualcuno ha osservato che non si capisce se si tratti di poesia o di filosofia – asserzione legittima, dato che la poesia è da molto tempo priva di pensiero, il che sembra autorizzare la distinzione. Ma: come si può distinguere quando si leggono Lucrezio, John Donne o G.M. Hopkins? Pensare non consiste nel mettere in versi pensieri precedenti, come fece Eliot nei Four Quartets: si deve trovare un pensiero ‘in poesia’. Naturalmente, un pensiero asistematico, intuitivo, che renda possibile evitare la metafora euforica, quello pseudoimprovviso di cui per sua fortuna si tacciono i legami, l’estrosa figura senza fondamento che fa ritorno all’esuberante, ibrido ornato della grottesca (avrai compreso che non sono un ammiratore di Celan e Char, benché ne riconosca il valore). In poesia, il senso appena avvenuto deve raggiungere la superficie, ossia dev’essere, piú che inteso, percepito. E l’attività percettiva è piú felice se non c’è nudità ma sensualità di senso, se l’esplicito cede all’implicito e il pensiero ombrosamente s’avventura fino a raggiungere uno strato inevidente della superficie, un suo commosso nascondiglio. Sia lucente, la superficie, e implicito il pensiero, recondita la sua complessità. Sotto quel ch’è nitido, linearità nessuna – non c’è pensiero adeguato che non sia sinuoso.

Entri in Parmenide ma non dici di Heidegger se non sfottendolo, “autore e mallevadore d’un tortuoso egocentrismo filosofico”: perché?

Ho letto quasi tutto Heidegger, ma invano. Anche il corso friburghese dedicato a Parmenide non m’è servito a nulla. Ha ragione Jean Bollack: “il faut de-heideggeriser Parménide”. Negli anni Ottanta, pubblicai Dialogo intorno a Eraclito, di Heidegger e Fink, ma ero maggiormente interessato a quel che diceva Fink. Heidegger costringe ad accettare la circolarità del suo lessico (o giochi a modo suo o devi sottrarti). Quel che osserva Rorty a proposito di Derrida, vale anche per lui: fa un uso argomentativo dell’enigma. Inoltre, è il capostipite della puerile propensione etimologica di non pochi filosofi contemporanei. I reduci dell’ontologischer Krieg prediligono estendere gli esiti dell’indagine etimologica, legittimando con la biografia dell’infanzia d’una parola le attuali pretese del pensiero. Il presunto senso iniziale lascia quello strato profondo del tempo, in cui agiva, per rivendicare il suo valore adesso. È il ritorno vittorioso dell’antefatto, l’imporsi della mitologia filosofica alla filosofia. In coloro che nell’ètimo cercano ‘il vero della parola’, si può intravedere una degenerazione stoica, una fallace obbedienza postuma o quella pretesa dell’intimità ch’è l’autentico. Da parte mia, non condivido neppure l’interpretazione heideggeriana di alétheia. D’altronde, i filologi dicono incerta persino l’etimologia di eteós, da cui étymos. La cosa che piú m’innervosisce? Heidegger induce Parmenide a testimoniare a suo favore, facendone un propizio antenato che dà il suo assenso da lontano: al leggerlo, preferisce il rileggersi. Ad ogni modo, non si tratta mai d’aver ragione, infatti non ho questa pretesa: ognuno deve trovare i pensieri di cui ha bisogno, ossia la propria necessità.

Nanni Cagnone secondo Eric Toccaceli

Cito alcune tue frasi (mai ‘interpretazioni’, forse suggestioni, torce sulla via) e ti chiedo di esplicitarle. Intanto: “La via negativa, la sola a noi familiare ma da non seguire, non solo è vuota d’essere: toglie esistenza”. Insomma, all’Essere abbiamo preferito il ‘non’, il ‘non siamo e non vogliamo’?

In quel caso, stavo soltanto ribadendo gli effetti della via negativa tratteggiata da Parmenide. Ciò che per lui è negativo, non è tale per me, che amo la superficie, l’apparenza e la molteplicità. Se fossi un credente, sarei beatamente politeista. Come ho scritto, “L’esistenza non è esilio, separazione, smorfia dell’Essere, il quale non è che l’inevitabile – e anche troppo accolta – allusività dell’esistere”.

“Dovrò allontanarmi dalle parole — se non ci sono più dèi, è perché siamo uomini dalla lingua lunga”. Si può parlare, allontanandosi, verificando gli dèi al sole del silenzio?

La nostra lingua è profana, se n’è perduta la sacralità. Dunque converrebbe tacere, o almeno far del silenzio il soggetto del dire. Quanto a me, sono scarsamente contemporaneo: la mia lingua è diacronica, il mio atteggiamento è metastorico. In poesia non ci sono arcaismi, neologismi, parole usuali o desuete. La sua lingua non appartiene del tutto al presente d’una lingua. In poesia, ogni lingua particolare non è che un pratico sogno. Ed è, in certo modo, lingua morta.

Questa didattica estetica è ammaliante: “Per render degna la propria poesia, si deve trovare in sé un altro poeta”. Spiegaci questa spoliazione che forse l’intrepido Rimbaud diceva “Io è un Altro”.

L’affinità con Rimbaud mi sembra incerta. Dicendo, nelle lettere a Georges Izambard e a Paul Demeny, “Je est un autre”, Rimbaud si oppone anzitutto al repertorio pronominale, intimistico, del suo tempo. Non credo intuisca la crisi dell’identità e l’irruzione dell’alterità, poi teorizzate da Nietzsche, Sartre, Lacan, Lévinas… Diversamente, non vagheggerebbe “d’arriver à l’inconnu par le dérèglement de tous les sens”. La mia asserzione completa è: “Nel Canone Pali, la piú ardua richiesta: distruggere la teoria di sé stessi. Dunque, per render degna la propria poesia, si deve trovare in sé un altro poeta”. Non ho mai fatto pellegrinaggi in India, ma le culture orientali si possono in certo modo ‘praticare’, mentre la differenza ontologica o lo schematismo trascendentale in pratica non servono a niente. L’altro poeta di cui dicevo – poeta possibile, poeta avvenire –, non è un dono dell’acido lisergico o dell’inconscio, ma l’esito d’una rigenerazione interiore. La persona del poeta deve sempre attendere una decisione sulla propria sorte, se non vuole la povertà d’assumere uno stile – la maschera d’uno stile.

La poesia, ora, che cos’è?

Sociologicamente, una malattia che resiste alle terapie d’urto dei mass media e dei social networks. Una delicata attività asintotica, che richiederebbe solitudine, e invece è chiassosamente praticata da troppi, pur essendo cosa per pochi. Sarò un reazionario, insensibile al mito della democrazia, ma condivido quel che si dice negl’Inni orfici: “Il numero degli eletti è chiuso”.

*In copertina: Nanni Cagnone secondo Dino Ignani

L'articolo “La poesia è chiassosamente praticata da troppi, pur essendo cosa per pochi”: dialogo con Nanni Cagnone (a partire dal suo Parmenide) proviene da Pangea.

from pangea.news http://bit.ly/2VodJS5

[zerozeroisland]

Whew. The 7-song EP is done and off to DistroKid. Soon on iTunes, Spotify, etc. title courtesy G.M. Hopkins: “ I have desired to go Where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail And a few lilies blow. And I have asked to be Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea. (at Zero Zero Island Studios)

[la-princesse-de-cleves]

Par les neiges il fonce, loin derrière rejetant le port, le Deutschland, ce dimanche; et tel reste le ciel,  car hostile est l’air infini et la mer éclat de silex, dos-noir dans la franche tourmente, le vent soufflant de l’est-nord-est, ce rhumb maudit;  la roide neige blanc argent qui tourne-tourbillonne au vent gire aux abîmes faiseurs de veuves, preneurs de pères, preneurs d’enfants G.M. Hopkins Le naufrage du Deutschland, I, 13 

Si la vie humaine n’a pas de prix, nous agissons toujours comme si quelque chose dépassait, en valeur, la vie humaine. Vol de nuit Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Lorsque l’avion s’élança sur la piste, elle fut envahie par une joie délirante. Et ils décollèrent, virant sur l’aile au-dessus de la ville en direction du nord, montant de plus en plus haut et, bientôt, les Blue Mountains se déployaient sous l’avion dans l’air scintillant. Tout ce qui avait pu se produire dans sa vie jusqu’ici devenait insignifiant. La sensation de vitesse et de puissance l’enivrait. Tout ce qui lui avait paru si terne et laid cessa d’exister. Elle cria tout haut son exaltation de voler, le visage illuminé de plaisir. L’avion piqua vers les montagnes, les eucalyptus bleus inondés de lumière coruscante argentée, et elle entrevit le sol du monde à travers leurs branches feuillues, avant que l’appareil ne vire et ne s’élève à nouveau dans l’air comme s’il chevauchait la crête d’un nuage. “c’est ça, cria Jean au dessus du vrombissement. C’est ça qu’il faut que je fasse.”

[...] Jean apprit aussi tous les tours et les manœuvres dont était capable le Gipsy Moth - vol sur le dos, boucles et loopings, tonneaux lents. Libérée de l’oeil vigilant de Herbert Travers, elle se mit à expérimenter, chahuter l’avion, lui faire faire des nœuds inversés, le lancer à l’assaut des ciels radieux d’automne. Par temps variable, elle volait jusqu’à ce que les rideaux de pluie réduisent à presque rien la visibilité, n’atterrissant qu’au tout dernier moment avant de voir disparaître ses repères au sol. Quand elle était aux commandes, les gens se rassemblaient sur le terrain pour la regarder et l’applaudir.

[...] En son for intérieur, elle espérait briser le record de vitesse féminin du vol Australie-Angleterre.

[...] Piloter était toute ma vie, et maintenant c’est fini. C’est tout, tout est parti.

Fille de l’air, Fiona Kidman

[apesoformythoughts]

“What is my wretched life? Five wasted years almost have passed in Ireland. I am ashamed of the little I have done, of my waste of time, although my helplessness and weakness is such that I could scarcely do otherwise. And yet the Wise Man warns us against excusing ourselves in that fashion. I cannot then be excused; but what is life without aim, without spur, without help? All my undertakings miscarry: I am like a straining eunuch. I wish then for death: yet if I died now I should die imperfect, no master of myself, and that is the worst failure of all. O my God, look down on me.”

— G.M. Hopkins