Post a random quote from a book you're reading

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"You wouldn't hit me if I was a man!"
"Of course I wouldn't hit you if you were a man!"

In all we do and hear, and see,
Is restless Toil and Vanity,
While yet the rolling earth abides,
Men come and go like ocean tides;
And ere one generation dies,
Another in its place shall rise,
That, sinking soon into the grave,
Others succeed, like wave on wave.

Vanitas Vanitatum, Omnia Vanitas
Anne Brontë

Rebecca [...] was pressed into a variety of workshops and classes, as part of our Developmental and Cognitive Drive. [...]

It didn't work with Rebecca, it didn't work with most of them. It was not, I came to think, the right thing to do, because what we did was to drive them full-tilt upon their limitations, as had already been done, futilely, and often to the point of cruelty, throughout their lives.

We paid far too much attention to the defects of our patients, as Rebecca was the first to tell me, and far too little into what was intact and preserved. To use another piece of jargon, we were too concerned with 'defectology' [...]

Oliver Sacks - The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - 1985

^^ Some of his prose has some pretty cringeworthy language from its time, and by his own admission both neurology and his own ideas progressed since the writing of the book, but I've never read any other "expert" on neurological conditions who has such compassion for his patient's well-being as experienced by them insofar as he can imagine it, and he's always conscious of the limitations of that imagining. When I first discovered him, I was astounded that case histories could be so poignant and moving.

An addendum to a '01 Mar 2019, 11:23 am' entry made on this thread

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/852 ... human-race

Emily could be paralysed by timidity when in the company of people she did not know. It has been said that sometimes when people spoke to her she would stand in complete silence, unable to speak or move.

From In Search of Anne Brontë, Nick Holland, 2016

^

^

Story of my life.

I'd hazard to say she, Charlotte and Patrick were on the spectrum although I know we aren't allowed to speculate!

When we are harassed by sorrows or anxieties, or long oppressed by any powerful feelings which we must keep to ourselves, for which we can obtain and seek no sympathy from any living creature, and which yet we cannot, or will not wholly crush, we often seek relief in poetry - and often find it, too ... Now I fly to it again, with greater avidity than ever, because I seem to need it more.

Agnes Grey, Anne Brontë (1847)

And they say psychological insights started with Freud.....

Selina lived in the world of her mind. Facebook and mobile phones were not for her. Her universe had been shaped by the literature and art of the past, and her fascination with the Brontës extended to the Victorian period in general. Superficial conventions meant little in her life. She had an air of self-sufficiency, and the aura of a person living in the world of her imagination, benevolent yet somewhat detached from the one around her.

I later visited her exquisite little house. Apart from a few concessions it was a 19th Century bubble, furnished with antiques, the walls hung with posters and paintings by Millais and Waterhouse. She summarised what the Brontës meant to her with imagery involving fabric, colour and texture: "It's as if they are a highly-coloured thread woven into my life that will never be broken, through which I have met all of the people I love most."

( I'm blushing! )

Down the Belliard Steps: Discovering the Brontës in Brussels, Helen MacEwan (2012)

"Cependant qu’à trois pieds dessous, moi papa, ruisselant d’asticots et bien plus infect qu’un kilo d’étrons de 14 juillet pourrira fantastiquement de toute sa viande déçue... En-graisser les sillons du laboureur anonyme c’est le véritable avenir du véritable soldat ! Ah ! camarade ! Ce monde n’est je vous l’assure qu’une immense entreprise à se foutre du monde ! Vous êtes jeune. Que ces minutes sagaces vous comptent pour des années ! Écoutez-moi bien, camarade, et ne le laissez plus passer sans bien vous pénétrer de son importance, ce signe capital dont resplendissent toutes les hypocrisies meurtrières de notre Société : “L’attendrissement sur le sort, sur la condition du miteux...”

"Je vous le dis, petits bonshommes, couillons de la vie, battus, rançonnés, transpirants de toujours, je vous préviens, quand les grands de ce monde se mettent à vous aimer, c’est qu’ils vont vous tourner en saucissons de bataille... " Les philosophes, ce sont eux, notez-le encore pendant que nous y sommes, qui ont com-mencé par raconter des histoires au bon peuple... Lui qui ne connaissait que le catéchisme ! Ils se sont mis, proclamèrent-ils, à l’éduquer... Ah ! ils en avaient des vérités à lui révéler ! et des belles ! Et des pas fatiguées ! Qui brillaient ! Qu’on en restait tout ébloui ! C’est ça ! qu’il a commencé par dire, le bon peuple, c’est bien ça ! C’est tout à fait ça ! Mourons tous pour ça ! Il ne demande jamais qu’à mourir le peuple ! Il est ainsi. “Vive Diderot !” qu’ils ont gueulé et puis “Bravo Voltaire !” En voilà au moins des philosophes ! Et vive aussi Carnot qui organise si bien les victoires ! Et vive tout le monde ! Voilà au moins des gars qui ne le laissent pas crever dans l’ignorance et le fétichisme le bon peuple ! Ils lui montrent eux les routes de la Liberté ! Ils l’émancipent ! Ça n’a pas traîné ! Que tout le monde d’abord sache lire les journaux ! C’est le salut ! Nom de Dieu ! Et en vitesse ! Plus d’illettrés ! Il en faut plus ! Rien que des soldats citoyens ! Qui votent ! Qui lisent ! Et qui se battent ! Et qui marchent ! Et qui envoient des baisers ! À ce régime-là, bientôt il fut fin mûr le bon peuple. Alors n’est-ce pas l’enthousiasme d’être libéré il faut bien que ça serve à quelque chose ? Danton n’était pas éloquent pour les prunes. Par quelques coups de gueule si bien sentis, qu’on les entend encore, il vous l’a mobilisé en un tour de main le bon peuple ! Et ce fut le premier départ des premiers bataillons d’émancipés frénétiques ! Des premiers couillons voteurs et drapeautiques qu’emmena le Dumouriez se faire trouer dans les Flandres !"

tl,dr:
"I tell you, little fellows, fools of life, beaten, ransomed, sweaty forever, I warn you, when the great of this world begin to love you, it is that they will turn you into sausages of battle ..."

The two Jenkins sons became chaplains in Brussels like their father. In later years, they would entertain residents of the city with tales of those excruciating Brontë sisters. They had no small talk. Emily never bothered to converse with people who did not interest her; she never opened her mouth. Charlotte was slightly more sociable but painfully shy. She had a habit of wheeling gradually round on her chair, away from the person speaking, until her face was entirely hidden from their view.

The Brontës in Brussels, Helen MacEwan, 2018

(((Team Brontë)))