Today, wars all around and other natural disasters, the « economy » in tatters, hunger, disease, plastic surgery rampant. And in my weekly agenda, dotted with quotes from artists through the ages, there is this:
« Il réalisait parmi les hommes cette figure parfaite que le cercle réalise parmi les lignes géométriques. C’était un zéro. »
Victor Hugo, note destinée aux Misérables.
(« He accomplished among men that perfect form that the circle accomplishes among geometric lines. He was a zero. »)
Well. My day will never be the same.
“… an amiable, elderly man who still wore Gladstone collars… He had never done anything –not even anything wrong. He was not fast; he was not even particularly rich. He was simply in the thing; and there was an end of it.”
G. K. Chesterton, “The Queer Feet” [Father Brown Stories]
I’ve read this some weeks ago. Chesterton is an author with whom I always feel uncomfortable. Human, visionary, humanist, reactionary, anarchist… Liberal and conservative at the same time. He’s the king of paradoxes, and may be himself a paradox (or just another fruitcake, who knows?). I never quite know how to deal with what he writes.