Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Anthony Powell Gets Me Going

Consider this quote as the Prolog to a Blog, perhaps also as a mea culpa. It is from the long, long novel A Dance to the Music of Time, by Anthony Powell:

"He too should have harnessed his gift, in early life, to an ever renewing art from which there was no retiring age. To exhibit themselves, perform before a crowd, is the keenest pleasure many people know, yet self-presentation without a basis in art is liable to crumble into dust and ashes. Professional commitment to his own representations might have kept at bay the melancholy.... Sometimes, after a day’s racing, for example, he might return to the old accustomed form. Even then a few misplaced bets would bring the conviction that luck was gone for good, his life over."

(Of character Dicky Umfraville, p 2, Temporary Kings)

Now, if that isn't a good reason to exhibit one self, on stage or on line, I'd like to hear why not.

Tomorrow, the story begins.

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