Rex’s Reviews > Eugene Onegin An immortal novel in verse in a brilliant new translation by Walter Arndt > Status Update

"…Love's a bore."

"Where Love is, Satan likes to play."

"Spent dreams, spent years there is no reliving."

"The less we love her, the more surely
We stand to gain a woman's heart
And ruin her the more securely
Ensnared by the seducer's art."

”Because she loved and was not artful,
Gave in to impulse, with her heart full,
Her nature too confiding-swift,
Endowed by heaven with the gift
A thousand fancies to engender,
With wits and will above her kind,
Originality of mind,
A heart inflammable and tender?
Would you not hesitate to scourge
The recklessness of passion’s urge?”

"But minds are all unhinged at present,
True worth is boring to this age;
outside of novels, vice seems pleasant,
And in them, it is all the rage."

"The seed of every generation
Strikes hurried root, and fruits, and fails,
And new seed rises in its trails…
Thus our own giddy wave goes rolling,
Swells high, and tosses foam, and raves,
And sweeps us to our forebears' graves.
Our own bell, friends, is tolling, tolling,
Our children's seed will come of age
And swiftly crowd us off the stage."

Habit is Heaven's own redress;
it takes the place of happiness.