Friday, January 14, 2011

When Harold Nicolson was a writer, not a figure of gossip

for Anonymous


He had this to say, about Sainte-Beuve: Male ugliness, when fortified by a virile manner, is rarely not-iceable.


On a Friday evening, such kind considerations can be relevant, as our gentry venture forth upon the fog, headlamps damped to slip be-neath the veil. Well met are figures given to projection of some confid-ence, despite the doubtful aspect of their glare. Confidance, we supply, in pourings of some wit upon their crusted doubt, distrusting our own words. We visit Friday night, and would not be Laurent if we did not.




Harold Nicolson
Sainte-Beuve
Doubleday, 1956©
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 14, 2011 at 11:25 PM

    You know how to touch the strings...

    Thanks to your blog, no winter day can cause you "the weary torpor of confinement" that Baudelaire described to Sainte-Beuve - can it?

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  2. LaurentJanuary 15, 2011 at 12:44 AM

    Extremely exact: I should not have chosen the critic for this conception, if he were not sometimes the poet's fondest prod; but no one thanks himself for that. He thanks his reader.

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  3. DMJanuary 15, 2011 at 4:31 PM

    Love this, Laurent.

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  4. LaurentJanuary 15, 2011 at 6:44 PM

    Thanks, D-H, although I'm sorry you had to read it without the "n" in beneath, which only your comment drew me to discover. I'm skipping letters a fair amount lately, the keyboard plainly needs a blast of compressed air, but tomorrow is entirely set aside for a grooming for Whit, instead. Nice of you to drop by, excuse the mess.

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