"Isn't it sad to revive centuries that no longer exist and force them to entertain us now? Aren't these costumes of the past, which represent vanished generations, a frightening lesson to make us recall the brevity of human life in the midst of all this drunken festivity (...) They have passed on without dreaming of the generations that preceded them or of the ones to follow, without dreaming that they themselves, who were covered with gold and perfume and who surrounded themselves with luxuries, were awaiting the cold of the shroud and the oblivion of the tomb."
Morbid truth. Depressing!
"Nature has nothing rare enough within the treasuring of its naive joys to appease the thirst for happiness within us. We must have heaven, and we don't have it!
That is why we seek heaven in a creature like ourselves, and we expand on this creature all that high energy we've been given to use more nobly. We refuse God the emotion of adoration, an emotion which was put in us to return to God alone. We transfer it to an incomplete, feeble human being who becomes the god of our idolatrous cult."
"My God, is love only to be found in a desirous heart, in a suffering imagination, in the dreams which lull us during lonely nights? Is love an impalpable breath? Is love a meteor that burns and dies. Is it a world? My God, what is love?"
"Reverie can evoke nothing, because in the creations of thought nothing is as beautiful as brute, savage nature. One must look and feel before nature: the greatest poet invents the least."
Nothing in our minds can compare to the spontaneity of nature... it is the ultimate continuously living and refreshing masterpiece- the poet just needs to learn how to describe nature- something that is impossible to do perfectly. For to describe is to analyze. To analyze is to take away from the real meaning. A poet needs to learn how to enjoy nature- and let that be expressed.
"But what use have these voyages been to me? Have I ever seen anything which resembled my fantasies? Oh, how poor nature seemed to me, the sky leaden and the sea narrow, in contrast to the lands, skies and oceans that I crossed in my immaterial flight! What beauty is left to charm us in real life, what strengths are left to enjoy and admire in the human soul when the imagination has spend everything in advance by an abuse of its powers?"
This spending in "advance" was an abuse to the imagination's powers because it has a limit, it only goes so far as our mind has learned. The imagination cannot imagine something that is not connected to something that already exists: it is forever dependent on reality. It would be like craving some spice in a far off land that no one has ever discovered. I suppose the "pleasures" of the imagination consists mostly in the element of disillusion- taking reality and blurring it. Then it goes beyond the reality, into something more, or less- an added ingredient that creates the perfect realm. We fancy whatever we would like to happen in the reality. In the end, it always comes back to reality.
"How grave and solemn are those cries of time, which sound like a death cry, breaking indifferently on the resonant walls of dwellings or on echoless tombs."
"You are right to say that poetry has led men astray. She has desolated the real world, cold, poor, and wretched as it is compared to the dreams she creates. Drunk with her promises, lulled by her sweet mockeries, I could never resign myself to reality. Poetry has created other sensitives in me that nothing on earth could satisfy (...)"
The disadvantages of the imagination: it creates a gap between reality and dreams. This gap provides such a contrast that the poet dreams while looking at his own reality. This shocking contrast can "lead men astray". Meaning: they obsess over something they could never achieve.
"Day by day this power of love increased, exciting my sensitivity and spreading itself unrestrainedly around me. I threw all my thoughts, all my strength into the void of an elusive universe which sent me back all my sensations blunted."
"There is a refuge from God: nothingness."
"Rein in the desire of your ardent soul. Prolong this blind hope and this childishness of the heart with all your strength. These qualities live only for a day and never return. Govern wisely, guard vigilantly, and spend frugally the treasure of your illusions."
There is a fine balance between sucking your imagination dry, and enjoying them cautiously while they last. That is the difference between Sténio- who worshiped the present: nature and all its beauty- and Lélia- who craved for more and more and enjoyed them too much. To a point where they ceased to be illusions but food to feed the soul. They become a form of sustenance and ceased to be concepts and ideals.
"In the silence of the fields, amid austere country life, it is always acknowledged as the voice of God."
No one who lives so close to nature can really treasure and have respect for it without involuntary belief in God- as if believing was the same thing as acknowledging the existence of nature. this shows the wisdom of the ones who are surrounded by nature: an instinctive wisdom.
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I really enjoyed this book. It brought me a more in depth perspective on living in illusions, and living in reality. Sténio lived in a romanticized reality, that worshiped the real in such an honest and youthful way. His romantic ideas found source in the nature he saw. Lélia is a very interesting example on the life in the unreal- when the real becomes dull and unexciting while the mind is constantly spent in fleeting thoughts, thoughts that only give momentary pleasure. I take this character to be as a warning, as Sténio warned the young girl- to be careful how one uses one's illusions, and not to make more of them- expect more of them- than one is meant to. Because then, they cease to be what they are.
It was curious how she found refuge in the silent and solitary and urged the blazing youth to do the same. To give up his youth, and really, become her. She, who had so much suffering. She shouldn't have killed his love for reality by pointing out the cold aspects that make it up= she should have left him in his youth, instead of trying to et him out. I think she was threatened by it, and saw it as a sort of disease- because of her personal experiences.
Magnes was an example of the restraining of one's nature, and how one can't escape one's nature through suppression. It is bound to come out and be worse than before. I wonder why Sand had Magnes kill Lélia. What significance does it show? The one who suppressed his desires killed the one who indulged too much in them. Something to think about.
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