Dawkins God Delusion Epub 18 Desktop Diner Crusad

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Tommye Hope

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Jun 28, 2024, 12:39:56 PMJun 28
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I have never begun a novel with more misgiving. If I call it a novel itis only because I don't know what else to call it. I have little storyto tell and I end neither with a death nor a marriage. Death ends allthings and so is the comprehensive conclusion of a story, but marriagefinishes it very properly too and the sophisticated are ill-advised tosneer at what is by convention termed a happy ending. It is a soundinstinct of the common people which persuades them that with this allthat needs to be said is said. When male and female, after whatevervicissitudes you like, are at last brought together they have fulfilledtheir biological function and interest passes to the generation that isto come. But I leave my reader in the air. This book consists of myrecollections of a man with whom I was thrown into close contact only atlong intervals, and I have little knowledge of what happened to him inbetween. I suppose that by the exercise of invention I could fill thegaps plausibly enough and so make my narrative more coherent; but I haveno wish to do that. I only want to set down what I know of my ownknowledge.

Many years ago I wrote a novel called The Moon and Sixpence. In that Itook a famous painter, Paul Gauguin, and, using the novelist'sprivilege, devised a number of incidents to illustrate the character Ihad created on the suggestions afforded me by the scanty facts I knewabout the French artist. In the present book I have attempted to donothing of the kind. I have invented nothing. To save embarrassment topeople still living I have given to the persons who play a part in thisstory names of my own contriving, and I have in other ways taken painsto make sure that no one should recognize them. The man I am writingabout is not famous. It may be that he never will be. It may be thatwhen his life at last comes to an end he will leave no more trace of hissojourn on earth than a stone thrown into a river leaves on the surfaceof the water. Then my book, if it is read at all, will be read only forwhat intrinsic interest it may possess. But it may be that the way oflife that he has chosen for himself and the peculiar strength andsweetness of his character may have an ever-growing influence over hisfellow men so that, long after his death perhaps, it may be realizedthat there lived in this age a very remarkable creature. Then it will bequite clear of whom I write in this book and those who want to know atleast a little about his early life may find in it something to theirpurpose. I think my book, within its acknowledged limitations, will be auseful source of information to my friend's biographers.

Dawkins God Delusion Epub 18 desktop diner crusad


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I do not pretend that the conversations I have recorded can be regardedas verbatim reports. I never kept notes of what was said on this or theother occasion, but I have a good memory for what concerns me, andthough I have put these conversations in my own words they faithfullyrepresent, I believe, what was said. I remarked a little while back thatI have invented nothing; I want now to modify that statement. I havetaken the liberty that historians have taken from the time of Herodotusto put into the mouths of the persons of my narrative speeches that Idid not myself hear and could not possibly have heard. I have done thisfor the same reasons as the historians have, to give liveliness andverisimilitude to scenes that would have been ineffective if they hadbeen merely recounted. I want to be read and I think I am justified indoing what I can to make my book readable. The intelligent reader willeasily see for himself where I have used this artifice, and he is atperfect liberty to reject it.

Another reason that has caused me to embark upon this work withapprehension is that the persons I have chiefly to deal with areAmerican. It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one canever really know any but one's own countrymen. For men and women are notonly themselves; they are also the region in which they were born, thecity apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games theyplayed as children, the old wives' tales they overheard, the food theyate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets theyread, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that havemade them what they are and these are things that you can't come to knowby hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived them. You can onlyknow them if you are them. And because you cannot know persons of anation foreign to you except from observation, it is difficult to givethem credibility in the pages of a book. Even so subtle and careful anobserver as Henry James, though he lived in England for forty years,never managed to create an Englishman who was through and throughEnglish. For my part, except in a few short stories I have neverattempted to deal with any but my own countrymen, and if I have venturedto do otherwise in short stories it is because in them you can treatyour characters more summarily. You give the reader broad indicationsand leave him to fill in the details. It may be asked why, if I turnedPaul Gauguin into an Englishman, I could not do the same with thepersons of this book. The answer is simple: I couldn't. They would notthen have been the people they are. I do not pretend that they areAmerican as Americans see themselves; they are American seen through anEnglish eye. I have not attempted to reproduce the peculiarities oftheir speech. The mess English writers make when they try to do this isonly equalled by the mess American writers make when they try toreproduce English as spoken in England. Slang is the great pitfall.Henry James in his English stories made constant use of it, but neverquite as the English do, so that instead of getting the colloquialeffect he was after, it too often gives the English reader anuncomfortable jolt.

In 1919 I happened to be in Chicago on my way to the Far East, and forreasons that have nothing to do with this narrative I was staying therefor two or three weeks. I had recently brought out a successful noveland being for the moment news I had no sooner arrived than I wasinterviewed. Next morning my telephone rang. I answered.

I had known Elliott Templeton for fifteen years. He was at this time inhis late fifties, a tall, elegant man with good features and thickwaving dark hair only sufficiently graying to add to the distinction ofhis appearance. He was always beautifully dressed. He got hishaberdashery at Charvet's, but his suits, his shoes and his hats inLondon. He had an apartment in Paris on the Rive Gauche in thefashionable Rue St. Guillaume. People who did not like him said he was adealer, but this was a charge that he resented with indignation. He hadtaste and knowledge, and he did not mind admitting that in bygone years,when he first settled in Paris, he had given rich collectors who wantedto buy pictures the benefit of his advice; and when through his socialconnections he heard that some impoverished nobleman, English or French,was disposed to sell a picture of first-rate quality he was glad to puthim in touch with the directors of American museums who, he happened toknow, were on the lookout for a fine example of such and such a master.There were many old families in France and some in England whosecircumstances compelled them to part with a signed piece of Buhl or awriting-table made by Chippendale himself if it could be done quietly,and they were glad to know a man of great culture and perfect mannerswho could arrange the matter with discretion. One would naturallysuppose that Elliott profited by the transactions, but one was toowell-bred to mention it. Unkind people asserted that everything in hisapartment was for sale and that after he had invited wealthy Americansto an excellent lunch, with vintage wines, one or two of his valuabledrawings would disappear or a marquetry commode would be replaced by onein lacquer. When he was asked why a particular piece had vanished hevery plausibly explained that he hadn't thought it quite up to his markand had exchanged it for one of much finer quality. He added that it wastiresome always to look at the same things.

Some of the American ladies in Paris, who claimed to know all about him,said that his family was quite poor and if he was able to live in theway he did it was only because he had been very clever. I do not knowhow much money he had, but his ducal landlord certainly made him pay alot for his apartment and it was furnished with objects of value. On thewalls were drawings by the great French masters, Watteau, Fragonard,Claude Lorrain and so on; Savonnerie and Aubusson rugs displayed theirbeauty on the parquet floors; and in the drawing-room there was a LouisQuinze suite in petit point of such elegance that it might well havebelonged, as he claimed, to Madame de Pompadour. Anyhow he had enough tolive in what he considered was the proper style for a gentleman withouttrying to earn money, and the method by which he had done so in the pastwas a matter which, unless you wished to lose his acquaintance, you werewise not to refer to. Thus relieved of material cares he gave himselfover to the ruling passion of his life, which was social relationships.His business connections with the impecunious great both in France andin England had secured the foothold he had obtained on his arrival inEurope as a young man with letters of introduction to persons ofconsequence. His origins recommended him to the American ladies of titleto whom he brought letters, for he was of an old Virginian family andthrough his mother traced his descent from one of the signatories of theDeclaration of Independence. He was well favoured, bright, a gooddancer, a fair shot and a fine tennis player. He was an asset at anyparty. He was lavish with flowers and expensive boxes of chocolate, andthough he entertained little, when he did it was with an originalitythat pleased. It amused these rich ladies to be taken to Bohemianrestaurants in Soho or bistros in the Latin Quarter. He was alwaysprepared to make himself useful and there was nothing, however tiresome,that you asked him to do for you that he would not do with pleasure. Hetook an immense amount of trouble to make himself agreeable to ageingwomen, and it was not long before he was the ami de la maison, thehousehold pet, in many an imposing mansion. His amiability was extreme;he never minded being asked at the last moment because someone hadthrown you over and you could put him next to a very boring old lady andcount on him to be as charming and amusing with her as he knew how.

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