wmihail
over and over again...
VERY deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?
Bottomless indeed, if - and perhaps only if - the past we mean is the past merely of the life of mankind, that riddling essence of which our own normally unsatisfied and quite abnormally wretched existences form a part; whose mystery, of course, includes our own and is the alpha and omega of all our questions, lending burning immediacy to all we say, and significance to all our striving. For the deeper we sound, the further down into the lower world of the past we probe and press, the more do we find that the earliest foundations of humanity, its history and culture, reveal themselves unfathomable. No matter to what hazardous lengths we let out our line they still withdraw again, and further, into the depths. Again and further are the right words, for the unresearchable plays a kind of mocking game with our researching ardours; it offers apparent holds and goals, behind which, when we have gained them, new reaches of the past still open out - as happens to the coastwise voyager, who finds no end to his journey, for behind eachheadland of clayey dune he conquers, fresh headlands and new distances lure him on.
Thomas Mann: Joseph and his brothers (first paragraph)
over and over again...
VERY deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?
Bottomless indeed, if - and perhaps only if - the past we mean is the past merely of the life of mankind, that riddling essence of which our own normally unsatisfied and quite abnormally wretched existences form a part; whose mystery, of course, includes our own and is the alpha and omega of all our questions, lending burning immediacy to all we say, and significance to all our striving. For the deeper we sound, the further down into the lower world of the past we probe and press, the more do we find that the earliest foundations of humanity, its history and culture, reveal themselves unfathomable. No matter to what hazardous lengths we let out our line they still withdraw again, and further, into the depths. Again and further are the right words, for the unresearchable plays a kind of mocking game with our researching ardours; it offers apparent holds and goals, behind which, when we have gained them, new reaches of the past still open out - as happens to the coastwise voyager, who finds no end to his journey, for behind eachheadland of clayey dune he conquers, fresh headlands and new distances lure him on.
Thomas Mann: Joseph and his brothers (first paragraph)