SEE THAT LITTLE STREAM?

See that little stream? See that little stream? We could walk it in two minutes. It took the British a month to walk it, a whole empire walking very slowly, dying in front, and pushing forward behind. And another empire walked very slowly backward, a few inches a day, leaving the dead like a million bloody rugs. No Europeans will ever do that again in this generation. 
This kind of battle, the Somme, was invented by Lewis Carroll, and Jules Verne, and whoever wrote Undine, and country deacons bowling and marraines in Marseille, and girls seduced in the back lanes of Württemberg and Westphalia. Why, this was a love battle. There was a century of love spent here. This was the last love battle. You want to hand this battle, this story to D. H. Lawrence. All the beautiful, lovely, safe world blew itself up here with a great gust of high explosive love.

11th of Nov - Remembrance Day

REMEMBER THE SOMME.

2016 IS NOT ONLY A YEAR OF LITERATURE.

 Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
   mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
   the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
   the ceremony of innocence is drowned;
   the best lack all conviction, while the worst
   are full of passionate intensity.

KRONPRINZ FRIEDRICH IN KÜSTRIN

Kronprinz Friedrich in Küstrin

Von Franz Lüdtke.

Er schritt durch die Zelle, die Zelle war eng.
er trug nicht Sporen, nicht Waffengehäng;
durch vergitterte Fenster das Grauen blickt,
kein Schlafrock hüllte ihn, seidengestickt.
Ein hölzerner Schemel sein ganzes Fauteuil,
die Bibel vor ihm – kein Voltaire, kein Corneille.
Aus Wänden und Decken der Schatten fiel,
Rattenrascheln statt Flötenspiel.

Aus Schatten aber löst sich's und hallt,
es wächst zum Schemen, es wird Gestalt,
es rührt ihm die Schulter, es rüttelt ihn:
ein blasser Leutnant vom Hof in Küstrin.

Der blasse Leutnant blickt ihn an,
er flüstert, er bittet, er schreit: »Werde Mann!«

Mann ... Die Wände hallen es nach,
Mann ... es zittert um Turm und Dach,
Mann ... es schwingt übers breite Land,
Mann ... es hält den Prinzen gebannt,
packt seine Seele, schüttelt ihn:
das Wort des Leutnants vom Hof in Küstrin.

Da schaut er sein Ich, und sein Ich ist tief,
da fühlt er Kraft, die im Dunkeln schlief,
er spürt Erwachen aus wirrem Traum,
er greift ins Leben, will Atem, Raum –
da – wird er Mann! Wird König! Genie!
Da drängen sich Leuthen und Sanssouci
ahnend in einer Stunde Schlag.
Die Schatten weichen, es flutet der Tag!
Und zum letztenmal salutiert am Kamin
der blasse Leutnant vom Hof in Küstrin.

A DAY TO CELEBRATE

Once upon a time, there was an ugly duckling, shunned by farm and woodland animals alike, and even by humans. All of them said he was ugly because he didn't look like the other ducklings: he was larger than life, gray with a black beak and black feet, and he even honked instead of quacking.
In those days, "different" was a dangerous word. So he was referred to as "ugly", which sounds even more offensive. But the duckling didn't lose confidence, and he carried on in spite of all the privations that the thorny path of life could endure.
There was once a crippled soldier who fell in love with a lovely ballerina. He was a military man, and she was a performer, star-crossed lovers as different as day and night. Yet Cupid is blindfolded. And though she was betrothed to another, and her fiancé employed all tricks he could, both young lovers were finally reunited and consumed by the flames of the same passion.
There was an unusually clever princess (in fact, she had read all the newspapers in the world), who couldn't become queen without a betrothal. She wanted her king to be young and dashing, but neither shallow nor greedy. Suitors from far and near frequented her court, but they were so impressed by her wealth and/or her beauty that they became tongue-tied in the throne room, and thus, they were sent away to where they came from. Until, on the third evening, a modest youth in knee-length boots, with a knapsack on his back, marched dauntlessly into the royal palace, saluting the guards and winking at the valets. He hadn't come for her love or for her wealth, but for her wit alone... and he was as pleased with her as she was with him.
There was also a pretty maiden born within a flower, who was wooed by a frog in spring, a beetle in summer, and a mole during the cold seasons, until she found a bridegroom and sanctuary in a southern garden, with her own fairy kin.
And there was a historian who travelled back in time to the Dark Ages, and an alchemist's daughter who boarded a ship in the guise of a boy, and a ruby-eyed artificial nightingale which could only play the same waltz again and again.
And all of them were the children of the ugly duckling, who never had children of the flesh, but sired countless of them in spirit.
Today, 2014, is World Children's Literature Day, commemorating the birthday of that Northern swan than never forgot he had been an ugly duckling: Hans Christian Andersen!