Sebastian Venable

"He wasn't a family snob or a money snob, but he was a snob alright.
He was a snob about loveliness and elegance in things -
about personal charm and physical grace in people."

-from Suddenly Last Summer
by Tennessee Williams

A Point of No Return

The Nature of Art

"Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest."

-Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
The Birth of Tragedy, ch. 24 (1872)

Look Yonder - Nature

"After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on;
you have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear
- what remains?

Nature remains."

Walt Whitman (1819-92)
Specimen Days and Collect,
"New Themes Entered Upon" (1882)

Disturb Us

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

-Sir Francis Drake (1577)