R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 23

Graham Greene: A Burnt-Out Case

The Superior said, ‘We all analyse motives too much. I said that once to Father Thomas. You remember what Pascal said, that a man who starts looking for God has already found him. The same may be true of love—when we look for it, perhaps we’ve already found it.’

Graham Greene: A Burnt-Out Case

Nobody cared that a small dissident group who had nothing to do with the local tribe sang their own hymns apart. Only the doctor, who had once worked in the Lower Congo, recognized them for what they were, trouble-makers from the coast more than a thousand kilometres away. It was unlikely that any of the lepers could understand them, so he let them be. The only sign of their long journey by path and water and road was an unfamiliar stack of bicycles up a side-path into the bush which he had happened to take that morning. ‘E ku Kinshasa ka bazeyi ko: E ku Luozi ka bazeyi ko….’ ‘In Kinshasa they know nothing: In Luozi they know nothing.’ The proud song of superiority went on: superiority to their own people, to the white man, to the Christian god, to everyone beyond their own circle of six, all of them wearing the peaked caps that advertised Polo beer. ‘In the Upper Congo they know nothing: In heaven they know nothing: Those who revile the Spirit know nothing: The Chiefs know nothing. The whites know nothing.’

California Gnatcatcher @ Palos Verdes

Graham Greene: A Burnt-Out Case

Parkinson leaned forward on the bed and then swayed back like a Chinese wobbling toy made in the likeness of the fat God of Prosperity. He said, ‘Do you consider that the love of God or the love of humanity is your principal driving force, Querry? What in your opinion is the future of Christianity? Has the Sermon on the Mount influenced your decision to give your life to the lepers? Who is your favourite saint? Do you believe in the efficacy of prayer?’ He began to laugh, the great belly rolling like a dolphin. ‘Do miracles still occur? Have you yet visited Fatima?’

Graham Greene: A Burnt-Out Case

‘There are enough problems without sex I can assure you. St Paul wrote, didn’t he, that it was better to marry than burn. Marie will stay young long enough to save me from the furnace.’ He added quickly, ‘Of course I’m only joking. We have to joke, don’t we, about serious things. At the bottom of my heart I believe very profoundly in love.’ He made the claim as some men might claim to believe in fairies.

Rock Wrens in Palos Verdes

A Family of Rock Wrens @ The Beach in Palos Verdes. I went one way, then the other: finally they came out (at least three) and gave me a wonderful performance. Happy 4th and "rock" safely.;)❤️🎈🎇

#rlswihart13 #palosverdes #socal #rockwrens #rockwrensofinstagram #nature #beauty #poetry #july4th #readmorepoetry2024❤️🎈🪶

Graham Greene: The Third Man

‘Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving –for ever? If I said you can have twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stops, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money –without hesitation? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax.’

Graham Greene: The Third Man

Martins sat on a hard chair just inside the stage door of the Josefstadt Theatre. He had sent up his card to Anna Schmidt after the matinée, marking it ‘a friend of Harry’s’. An arcade of little windows, with lace curtains and the lights going out one after another, showed where the artists were packing up for home, for the cup of coffee without sugar, the roll without butter to sustain them for the evening performance. It was like a little street built indoors for a film set, but even indoors it was cold, even cold to a man in a heavy overcoat, so that Martins rose and walked up and down underneath the little windows. He felt, he said, rather like a Romeo who wasn’t sure of Juliet’s balcony.

Graham Greene: Heart

‘What is terrible?’ ‘A child like that.’ ‘Yes. Both parents were lost. But it is all right. She will die.’ Scobie watched the bearers go slowly up the hill, their bare feet very gently flapping the ground. He thought: It would need all Father Brûle’s ingenuity to explain that. Not that the child would die—that needed no explanation. Even the pagans realized that the love of God might mean an early death, though the reason they ascribed was different, but that the child should have been allowed to survive the forty days and nights in the open boat—that was the mystery, to reconcile that with the love of God. And yet he could believe in no God who was not human enough to love what he had created. ‘How on earth did she survive till now?’ he wondered aloud.

Graham Greene: The Heart

‘I’ve known it for years. You don’t love me.’ She spoke with calm. He knew that calm—it meant they had reached the quiet centre of the storm: always in this region at about this time they began to speak the truth at each other. The truth, he thought, has never been of any real value to any human being—it is a symbol for mathematicians and philosophers to pursue. In human relations kindness and ties are worth a thousand truths. He involved himself in what he always knew was a vain struggle to retain the lies. ‘Don’t be absurd, darling. Who do you think I love if I don’t love you?’ ‘You don’t love anybody.’ ‘Is that why I treat you so badly?’ He tried to hit a light note, and it sounded hollowly back at him. ‘That’s your conscience,’ she said, ‘your sense of duty. You’ve never loved anyone since Catherine died.’ ‘Except myself, of course. You always say I love myself.’ ‘No, I don’t think you do.’ He defended himself by evasions. In this cyclonic centre he was powerless to give the comforting lie, ‘I try all the time to keep you happy. I work hard for that.’ ‘Ticki, you won’t even say you love me. Go on. Say it once.’ He eyed her bitterly over the pink gin, the visible sign of his failure: the skin a little yellow with atabrine, the eyes bloodshot with tears. No man could guarantee love for ever, but he had sworn fourteen years ago, at Ealing, silently, during the horrible little elegant ceremony among the lace and candles, that he would at least always see to it that she was happy. ‘Ticki, I’ve got nothing except you, and you’ve got—nearly everything.’ The lizard flicked across the wall and came to rest again, the wings of a moth in his small crocodile jaws. The ants struck tiny muffled blows at the electric globe. ‘And yet you want to go away from me,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I know you aren’t happy either. Without me you’ll have peace.’