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The Captive Mind

4.19 of 5 stars 4.19 · rating details · 799 ratings · 66 reviews

The Captive Mind begins with a discussion of the novel Insatiability by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz and its plot device of Murti-Bing pills, which are used as a metaphor for dialectical materialism, but also for the deadening of the intellect caused by consumerism in Western society. The second chapter considers the way in which the West was seen at the time by residents o...more

Paperback, 272 pages

Published August 11th 1990 by Vintage (first published 1953)

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Mar 25, 2012 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a book of acute psychological understanding, commiserative rumination, and towering moral fibre. Miłosz, a Lithuanian-Pole—a member of the untermenschen that Hitler deemed so pernicious to the rightful ascendancy of the Master Race—was raised imbibing enough of the West, whilst soaking in the East, to enable a judicious and sagacious appraisal of the Soviet Totalitarianism that overwhelmingly blanketed the entirety of Central and Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Third Reich's colla...more

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Feb 24, 2011 John David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-history, philosophy

“There are occasions when silence no longer suffices, when it may pass as an avowal. Then one must not hesitate. Not only must one deny one’s true opinion, but one is commanded to resort to all ruses to deceive one’s adversary. One makes all the protestations of faith that can please him, one performs all the rites one recognizes to be the most vain, one falsifies one’s own books, one exhausts all possible means of deceit.” – Arthur Gobineau, from ‘Religions and Philosophies of Central Asia’

“The...more “There are occasions when silence no longer suffices, when it may pass as an avowal. Then one must not hesitate. Not only must one deny one’s true opinion, but one is commanded to resort to all ruses to deceive one’s adversary. One makes all the protestations of faith that can please him, one performs all the rites one recognizes to be the most vain, one falsifies one’s own books, one exhausts all possible means of deceit.” – Arthur Gobineau, from ‘Religions and Philosophies of Central Asia’

“The Captive Mind,” written in the early 1950s immediately after Milosz was awarded political asylum in France, is one of the first attempts to articulate the appeal of Communism (or, more broadly, dialectical materialism) to the intellectuals all over Eastern Europe.

Central to the novel are four characters identified by Milosz only as Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Gamma (but who we know enough about to identify as the very real authors Jerzy Andrzejewski, Tadeusz Borowski, Jerzy Putrament, and Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński.) Each of the four has uniquely different relationships to writing, and thinks differently about the way dialectical materialism affects their writing. In Alpha’s youth, his far-right politics calls him into writing with the force of “moral authority.” He later eschews these politics and becomes a Catholic who speaks out against anti-Semitism. After World War II ends, Alpha’s writing ideologically aligns itself with the puppet governments that set themselves up on Eastern Europe, and he is later seen only seen as a literary prostitute by his former friends. Beta, a poet who spent two years in Auschwitz and Dachau only to later be released by American soldiers, later swallows the pill of Murti-Bing and writes hard-line ideological defenses of Leninism and Stalinism. The experiences of Delta and Gamma are equally typical accounts of when the mind of an intellectual bumps into an intractable ideological system which inevitably evolves into “ketman,” meaning an outward acceptance of an idea while still holding on to unspoken reservations. In fact, this word, originally from the Arabic, was imported into English by Arthur Gobineau himself (see the quotation above).

The first two chapters are incisive in evoking the spirit of the Communism-addled writer who struggles to balance his “priorities.” But the middle chapters on the writers seem as untrue – not false in the strict sense, but lacking the clarity of the moral-political-aesthetic themes with which he was trying to deal - as the ideology with which they are struggling. While they are presented as individuated, personal characters, the reader gets the feeling that Milosz is to turn them into archetypes while at other times working deliberately against this, which has an odd way of turning them into alienating abstractions for the reader.

Perhaps most of all, this book serves as a tocsin. By now, an entire generation of Europeans has had the ability to write, think, and speak publicly about whatever they wish, the very fact of which possibly renders Milosz’s book a peculiar curio from the doldrums of intellectual history. For many Americans, whose questions of freedom are restricted to whether or not one is allowed to burn their draft card or a Koran, or utter a prayer in school, reading “The Captive Mind” may very well have a stultifying effect. If that happens, the book runs the risk – we all run the risk – of it becoming still even more relevant than it is now.
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Nov 05, 2007 Chris Coffman rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

It has been an illuminating and deeply moving experience over the last several months to read or re-read books by Hungarian, Russian and Polish authors, from John Paul II to Anna Akhmatova.

These Eastern and Central European authors have insights into the tragedy of Western civilisation that seem unknown, and are certainly still ignored, in Western Europe and the rest of the world that is under its influence.

This wonderful book by the great Lithuanian-Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, so exhilirating...more It has been an illuminating and deeply moving experience over the last several months to read or re-read books by Hungarian, Russian and Polish authors, from John Paul II to Anna Akhmatova.

These Eastern and Central European authors have insights into the tragedy of Western civilisation that seem unknown, and are certainly still ignored, in Western Europe and the rest of the world that is under its influence.

This wonderful book by the great Lithuanian-Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, so exhilirating because it is so authentically human, so sad because it is so true, is one of the best of these books--and it is short.

The following excerpt illustrates the way Milosz brings a poet's eye and sensibility to extreme experiences:

"The vision of the burning ghetto [of Warsaw] is too welded into all I have lived through in my adult years for me to speak of it quietly. But I should like to describe one incident. Often, as I am sitting on the terrace of a Paris cafe . . . I look at the women who pass, at their luxuriant hair, their proudly lifted chins, their slender throats whose lines awaken delight and desire--and then I see before my eyes always the same young Jewish girl. She was probably about twenty years old. Her body was full, splendid, exultant. She was running down the street, her hands raised, her chest thrust forward. She cried piercingly, "No! No! No!" The necessity to die was beyond her comprehension--a necessity that came from outside, having nothing in common with her unprepared body. The bullets of the SS guards' automatic pistols reached her in her cry.

"The moment when bullets pierce flesh is a moment of amazement for the body. Life and death mingle for a second, before a bloody rag falls to the pavement and is kicked aside by an SS boot." (Page 184)

Milosz clears away the fog of homicidal abstractions that clouded the world for a hundred years during the twentieth century. He delicately and truthfully explains the way the human consciousness turns away from truth and beauty and love and, to the astonishment and horror of all, ends up mired in hatred, cruelty, pitilessness, and lies.

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Aug 23, 2011 Caitlin rated it 5 of 5 stars

The context in which I read this book was exceptionally perfect. After traveling for several weeks and reading many works of historical fiction about wars, occupations, and eastern european dictatorships in the 20th century, this book was recommended to me by a surly, cell phone hating, beardy long-hair in Halifax. Ok great! The philosophical and academic tone of the book means that each page demands full attention, and much time for reflection... I happened to pick this book up on the way to th...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Fred LaPolla rated it 5 of 5 stars

Milosz provides a haunting portrayal of intellectual life within Soviet Poland, revealing with lucid language the overwhelming pressures to conform that the Polish intellectual and artist faced. This book struck me all the more for the author's refusal to condemn those who yielded to the Soviet state's influence, and Milosz's unwavering ability to avoid dehumanizing caricatures. Reading as an American who grew up in the post-Soviet era (having entered Kindergarten the year the wall fell) I might...more

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Oct 29, 2009 Patrick rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book is really a 2.5 stars for the intriguing ideas to the reason communism is the worst system in the world. Communism treats individuals as clogs in the machine that is the communist society. Ironically in trying to free the proletariat from the emptiness of being a "machine" in the capitalist factories, communism creates a society in which all men feel like machines. Milosz created this book because he sees beauty in individuals that makes up humanity.

Until this book, I failed to see how...more This book is really a 2.5 stars for the intriguing ideas to the reason communism is the worst system in the world. Communism treats individuals as clogs in the machine that is the communist society. Ironically in trying to free the proletariat from the emptiness of being a "machine" in the capitalist factories, communism creates a society in which all men feel like machines. Milosz created this book because he sees beauty in individuals that makes up humanity.

Until this book, I failed to see how Christianity and Democracy were similar. Their similarity lies in the fact they both champion the individual choice in deciding societies course whereas communism champions the group. Chritianity assumes that individual souls can choose to follow God or not and democracy assumes that the individual has a right to choose their government.

According to the book, communism arose as an intellectual thought of a few intelligentsia and created a "new faith" out of it. This faith destroys the concept of the individual and replaces it with the concept of society above all else and it is created by historical determinism not by a few individuals. Because the "new faith" is always correct it discourages introspection, anything new and innovative, and individual faith in religion.

According to the author, this causes the arts/writing to be sterile and little more than propaganda. The artist/writers/poets who participate in the socialist realism suffer the most because they cannot express what they truly think and feel but instead their published work is praised for its conformity. Even though they love the state material support and the popularity that they receive from producing such works that conform, the act of conformity itself is antithetical to the very soul of the creator and thus they suffer internally because of this dissonance in their life.

Ironically by enforcing this revolution onto people, the new faith destroys itself by being static, trapped in time.

In the end no wonder pure communism fails. It not only stifles the economy but also innovation but it also causes individual thought/ideas to be a crime. (less)

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Jun 27, 2009 hirtho rated it 3 of 5 stars

initial impressions (6/15)
This might be like that Social Construction of Reality book I tried to read last month, where I'm just too stupid to get it, but so far I'm enjoying whatever misunderstanding I'm taking away from this book. At first I thought it was a novel and he was making up this fake sci-fi novel where everyone goes anti-Atlas Shrugged and all the intelligensia take the blue pill (red pill?) and get taken over by dumbing-down-ing Totalitarianism, but then he makes this reference to...more initial impressions (6/15)
This might be like that Social Construction of Reality book I tried to read last month, where I'm just too stupid to get it, but so far I'm enjoying whatever misunderstanding I'm taking away from this book. At first I thought it was a novel and he was making up this fake sci-fi novel where everyone goes anti-Atlas Shrugged and all the intelligensia take the blue pill (red pill?) and get taken over by dumbing-down-ing Totalitarianism, but then he makes this reference to Rilke's poems and something else that seemed real-world-y and I noticed the "Nobel Prize"-winning decal on the cover art and the 1950 copyright date and I think this may in fact be a po-faced artifact from early contemporary-Soviet Eastern Europe which is completely fucking fascinating! It's critical of both America (or The West, including England apparently, which seems to have some sorta respect, whereas america is apparently awful yet envious :? ) and then there's all kindsa problems with Moscow and "People's democracies" and something called Ketman which is like some mob-mind PR-trick invented by some crafty "Moslem" [sic:] and then gets practiced in various forms in formerly-Catholic nations which apparently already suffered then from lots of stuff I read about (or misunderstood then?) from Derrida's Spectres of Marx :lol: It's bullshittingly engrossing and midfuckish and rad and fun (in a nerdy sense) and I wish it were just a long Wikipedia article that I could click on all the unheard-of reference points, but that might ruin the little mysteries and misunderstandings in my head and take away all the magic. Basically, it's less a book to read than a whole project to get lost in, and thus completely fucken rad!!! 8)

oh also, i dog-eared this page where he mentions Poland's history of theater which included some overblown opera-ish emotionally demonstrative type of theater, which may explain Zulawski!!!

finally finished (6/27)
it deflates its radness there in the middle with the four profiles of different writers before and after WW2/CCCP but it completely makes up for it in the end. I'd advise just skipping those 4 chapters but I'm not sure how of the scene is set for the last two chapters by getting through all that (and those might be much more fascinating to someone who is better-read than I?). Still, the beginning of the book absolutely blew my mind...(less)

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Apr 24, 2013 Lorenzo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-readings, aaa-my-library

I'm not an avid reader of essays - well, actually I have a tendency to keep them out from my bookshelves -, but 'The Captive Mind' is a different matter.

As some earlier Goodreads reviewer stated: 'This book has some power'.
Well, a Hell of a lot of power, indeed!

'The Captive Mind' is an extraordinary study on the different behaviors of human beings when they are engulfed by history.

At first it was all but easy to get into the spirit of the book, but then the whole fruitful meditation took off fr...more

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Aug 20, 2012 Rav rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jest to ważna książka, którą warto przeczytać. Pomimo, że jest parabolą, rzuca światło na sytuację w powojennej Polsce. Mnie właśnie bardziej zaciekawił wątek lokalny, niż ponadczasowe przesłanie dzieła, które odczytuję jako przestrogę przed systemami totalitarnymi. Ciekawy jest też opis Europy przedwojennej. Antagonizmy, które wówczas dominowały na naszym kontynencie nieuchronnie prowadziły do wojny. Byłoby głupotą i ignorancją lekceważyć globalne zagrożenie, jakie stanowiły ówczesne Niemcy i Z...more

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Dec 19, 2011 Dirk rated it 3 of 5 stars

While the political analysis of the co-opted intellect was first-rate, the memoir sections--which were intended to provide examples of individuals who surrendered their personal philosophies to the collective will of Stalinism--came across as flat and distant, primarily because he referred the people he knew as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta. While the aliases likely protected both the author and his subjects from recriminations, it had the effect of reducing people to archetypes, which, ironical...more

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Apr 27, 2012 Abby rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, essays

What happens to an artist living in a totalitarian regime? Take your answer from Czeslaw Milosz, who knew better than almost anyone, living in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. This interesting and thoughtful series of essays and arguments is a compelling glimpse at the interaction between war and culture.

I really love his concluding paragraph, too:

"When, as my friend suggested, I stand before Zeus (whether I die naturally, or under sentence of History) I will repeat all this that I have written as my defe...more

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Jan 19, 2011 Madhuri rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nobel, communism

I started reading this book somewhere in April last year, then abandoned it due to travel schedules, and have been reading it amidst different books since last month. A long drawn read sometimes hampers a reading experience, but not when the book has been written with as much clarity as Czeslaw Milosz has accorded the Captive Mind.

Milosz, a Polish writer, lived through the Warsaw uprising of 1944 and the Russian rule in Poland, and initially lent his cooperation to the Communist government by be...more I started reading this book somewhere in April last year, then abandoned it due to travel schedules, and have been reading it amidst different books since last month. A long drawn read sometimes hampers a reading experience, but not when the book has been written with as much clarity as Czeslaw Milosz has accorded the Captive Mind.

Milosz, a Polish writer, lived through the Warsaw uprising of 1944 and the Russian rule in Poland, and initially lent his cooperation to the Communist government by becoming the Government's Literary attache to Paris. These were the initial times, when the Red Army was trying to win Intellectuals over by giving them some literary freedom, as long as they did not criticize Russia or its theories in their writing. Neutrality then, was acceptable. But soon, the noose tightened to swerve these intellectuals into praising the regime, and it was no longer possible to be a writer without contributing to the party's agenda. Milosz struggled with this acceptance for a while, until his ideas of literary freedom won and he seeked political asylum in Paris. Captive Mind was completed during this phase, even though the seed had begun during his years of cooperation.
This background is essential to a book in which Milosz explains his initial cooperation and the cooperation of several Polish intellectuals. He does this through a couple of concepts, followed by 4 biographies of such writers. The concepts are interesting. Take for example the pill of Murti Bing. In a fantasy written by Witkievicz, an Eastern Invader Murti Bing defeats Poland, and offers a pill of happiness to its exhausted people. People take it willingly, because everyone inherently wants to move to a harmonious state. Milosz likens the pill to Communism - which offers a harmonious existence to all men, dissolving divides. People exhausted from the Nazi rule willingly accept it.
What takes the center-stage in the book are the four biographies of Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. All of these are Polish writers, and for different reasons are drawn to the idea of Communism. Alpha is drawn to purity and monumental tragedy, which a war-torn country gives him aplenty. Beta is a disappointed lover, a nihilist who has witnessed first hand the society that builds up in a concentration camp, and is a brutal narrator of it. The realism of Marxist regime appealed to his love for brutal truth, as did its materialism.
Gamma, a slave of history was a non-entity in the literary world before the war, but was elevated to a position of prominence & power with his embrace of the socialist regime.Lastly Delta, the troubadour was a jocose storyteller, who liked the regime because it paid him for his popular writing.
These portraits are tremendous, and each presents a different logic for embrace of a tyrannical regime. These writers, including Milosz are making some compromises, but considering the alternative - of not being able to write, or of exile to a nation where no can read your writing, their compromise does not warrant a harsh judgment. I would really like to know who these authors are that Milosz represents, and if possible read something from them - at least from Beta, whose writing seems a harsh portrayal of human nature under duress.
Milosz' language is a little poetic, he is not a debater and he sometimes digresses from the argument into memory lanes, which makes the book a little charming,and melancholy despite the ideological theme.
Once the portraits have ended, the book has become a bit monotonous. Perhaps Milosz should have ended sooner.
An interesting term in the book: Ketman. Act of paying lip service to the authority while holding personal opposition. Wonder why it has not come up in my earlier Totalitarian reads.(less)

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Nov 05, 2012 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: factional, autobiography-memoir, culture-studies, period-piece

While I wish there had been more context given for the material (maybe when the book was written dialectical materialism and the time frame of Poland's involvement in WWII were self evident, but it's been a while since I learned about them--that is, since high school), it was enlightening to read this account of culture and allegiance cast in the frame of the possible historical inevitability, and to have it brought home just how fragile the systems of civilization within which we function reall...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Sunny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: easteuropean-literature

quite an interesting book about communism essentially but also touches on capitalism = focus is on the polish russian, luthuanian, latvian areas and the communism there. were not that many wow moments in the book but as its short its certainly worth a read. there are a couple really horrifying concentration camp scenes (jews getting off the train and a mother trying to deny a 3 year old is her baby even though the baby is calling her mama mama amidst tears) - shit did this sort of stuff really h...more

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Jun 05, 2011 Cassandra Silva rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: politics

I just could not stand the authors writing. It was especially disappointing as I think the author had a lot of interesting and relevant things to say about a number of issues from Totalitarianism and Communism to the the effects of war on the mind. It just did not pull together for me. I thought the last four chapters which were supposed to be the "pinnacle" of this work felt really detached and were terribly delivered. Making the people unrealatable by omitting names, focusing on famous writers...more

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Jun 09, 2009 James rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, study-group, psychology, philosophy, mitteleuropa

The Captive Mind has been described as one of the finest studies of the behavior of intellectuals under a repressive regime. In the preface Miłosz observed that "I lived through five years of Nazi occupation . . . I do not regret those years in Warsaw". But it is his analysis of Poland and her intellectuals under the heel of Soviet Communism that is the primary content of this book. Through the examples of four intellectuals Milosz is able to capture the psychological impact on the lives of his...more

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Dec 07, 2008 Diane rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was written by a Polish author in the 1950s, when Poland was under Communist rule. The author takes a philosophical approach, with a series of essays on various intellectuals who fell prey to totalitarian temptations. The author examines each case, and discusses why he believes the individual in question reacted as he did. The book examines what totalitarianism does to the mind of the average person.

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Jul 22, 2012 Val rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: world-tour, world-tour-2013

When Poland was liberated from Nazi rule many people, including Czeslaw Milosz, saw socialism or communism as the best or only way forward. It was only later, as 'socialist realism' began to stifle independent thought, that Milosz exiled himself from his country and its government. This book is his intellectual journey. He shares with Orwell and Camus the distinction of being criticised for his anti-totalitarian polemic against Stalinist communism and for 'being a communist'. Anyone who can't se...more

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Jul 14, 2011 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars

An excellent read and justifiably a classic. It's certainly a dated piece, as political works usually are, and yet Milosz's instance on confining his commentary to his own experience and epoch (i.e., Nazi and Soviet occupation) makes it a timeless work of intellectual history. Particularly salient are his observations about the function and psychology of the artist in society. Just read it.

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Jan 23, 2013 Elalma rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: totalitarisimi_shoah

Quando la Storia si è sostituita a Dio, ovvero quando non solo era impedito scrivere ciò che si sentiva ma anche pensare dopo aver vissuto totalitarismi, guerre e rischiato di perdere identità nella tempesta della prima metà del secolo scorso. Eppure non è un saggio, ma un narrare fluido e poetico che entra dentro.

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Sep 09, 2011 Ellen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Interesting to read about the totalitarian mindset from a psychological perspective. Thought his approach of writing portraits of those he knew when he was young and how they changed once they began to see History and Progress as twin gods was extremely effective. The last chapter about the Baltics, specifically the last page, brought tears to my eyes, really the perfect culmination, very artful and moving. What I found myself thinking of most of all were parallels with today in terms of mindset...more

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Feb 16, 2008 James rated it 5 of 5 stars

In the wake of WW II many French intellectuals were enamored of Communism. Milosz, then the cultural attachee of the Polish embassy in Paris, knew better, having survived the "liberation" of Lithuania by the Russians, under which sixty percent of the intelligentsia disappeared in the direction of Siberian labor camps.

However, Milosz's main fascination is not with those of his colleagues who simply vanished, but with his fellow writers and artists cunning enough to have gained state support. Thi...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Lauren Albert rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays, politics, psychology

I was very disappointed having had high expectations from what I knew of the reputation of the book. The first two chapters were "4 stars" while the rest merited only 2. I particularly disliked Milosz' chapters on "representative" writers (that's how I interpreted them): "Alpha," "Beta," "Gamma" and "Delta." They were vague and Milosz would have better served (what I saw as) his goals by doing straight forward readings of their lives and works while making it clear that they were, while individu...more

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May 23, 2008 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: cold war historians, those interested in philosophy or psychology

Shelves: the-continent, history, 20th-century-postwar-to-late

This book was absolutely fascinating. The arguments he made to explain the capitulation of writers and artists under communism were things I would have never thought of before. It's a good read to help blow away any bits of American propaganda about Soviets that are being taught in school still, and help you see the other side of the issue. Mind, this book was written by a man who left as well, so it isn't as if he agrees with the Soviets, he was actually forced out. It explains so much about ho...more

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Apr 08, 2008 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

A critique on Communist and Western civilizations. Written by Nobel Prize Winner Czeslaw Milosz. Rather complicated, but thought-provoking. Described/discussed the materialism of the West and compared/contrasted it to the East. Also, I really liked his explanation of the almost schizophrenic nature many people in the East after WWII. Just going through everything, having no hope in mankind, being assaulted by Communism, pretending to believe in the New Faith, committing atrocities just to stay a...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Ricky Huard rated it 5 of 5 stars

He hits it out of the park in the first chapter, which is worth reading on its own. After that, some of the chapters are a little too inside (Polish political) baseball.

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Dec 17, 2012 Kunto Buku rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Yang minat sama buku ini silahkan ke Facebook Gerai Buku Kunto
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Feb 13, 2013 psm rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

a brilliant analysis of socialism, in theory & practice. also an intimation of the likely destination of the european union. as good as primo levi.

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Jan 09, 2013 Impetuousxsquirrel rated it 5 of 5 stars

how fascism affects different types of writers differently
with some heart-wrenching polish history
it's not really fiction but almost everyone dies

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Jul 25, 2012 Michael Greening rated it 5 of 5 stars

Compelling and lyrical, Milosz writes (sometimes murkily) as the voice of Central Europe from WWII to his death. A strikingly good, unique book.

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About Czesław Miłosz

Czesław Miłosz memorialised his Lithuanian childhood in a 1955 novel, The Issa Valley , and in the 1959 memoir Native Realm . After graduating from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Vilnius, he studied law at Stefan Batory University and in 1931 he travelled to Paris, where he was influenced by his distant cousin Oscar Milosz, a French poet of Lithuanian descent and a Swedenborgian. His first volume...more

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Quotes from The Captive Mind

“When, as my friend suggested, I stand before Zeus (whether I die naturally, or under sentence of History)I will repeat all this that I have written as my defense.Many people spend their entire lives collecting stamps or old coins, or growing tulips. I am sure that Zius will be merciful toward people who have given themselves entirely to these hobbies, even though they are only amusing and pointless diversions. I shall say to him : "It is not my fault that you made me a poet, and that you gave me the gift of seeing simultaneously what was happening in Omaha and Prague, in the Baltic states and on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.I felt that if I did not use that gift my poetry would be tasteless to me and fame detestable. Forgive me." And perhaps Zeus, who does not call stamp-collectors and tulip-growers silly, will forgive.” — 3 people liked it

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