The Kiss

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  “Ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, curled himself up in bed, and tried to gather together the floating images in his mind and to combine them into one whole. But nothing came of it. He soon fell asleep, and his last thought was that someone had caressed him and made him happy—that something extraordinary, foolish, but joyful and delightful, had come into his life. The thought did not leave him even in his sleep. When he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck and the chill of peppermint about his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart just as the day before.” The Kiss By Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)

Seneca, Moral Letter 32, “On Siren Songs”

 

“. . . you need a denser stopple than that which they say Ulysses used for his comrades. . . the song, however, which you have to fear, echoes. . . from every quarter of the world.


What then is good? The knowledge of things. What is evil? The lack of knowledge of things. . . . 


And besides this, in order that virtue may be perfect, there should be an even temperament and a scheme of life that is consistent with itself throughout; and this result cannot be attained without knowledge of things, and without the art which enables us to understand things human and things divine. That is the greatest good. . . . . 


Your money, however, will not place you on a level with God; for God has no property. Your bordered robe will not do this; for God is not clad in raiment; nor will your reputation, nor a display of self, nor a knowledge of your name wide-spread throughout the world; for no one has knowledge of God . . . for this God of whom I speak, though the highest and most powerful of beings, carries all things on his own shoulders.” (Seneca, Moral Letter 31, “On Siren Songs”)

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