Of course, in a novel, people’s hearts break, and they die, and that is the end of it; and in a story this is very convenient. But in real life we do not die when all that makes life bright dies to us. There is a most busy and important round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking, visiting, buying, selling, talking, reading, and all that makes up what is commonly called living, yet to be gone through…
It had become usual to give Napoleon the Credit for every Successful achievement and every stroke of good fortune. You would often hear one hen remark to another, Under the guidance of our leader, Comrade Napoleon, I have laid five eggs in six days or two cows, enjoying a drink at the pool, would exclaim,thanks to the leadership of Comrade Napoleon, how excellent this water tastes!...
Now from his breast into the eyes the acheof longing mounted, and he wept at last,his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms, longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmerspent in rough water where his ship went downunder Poseidon's blows, gale winds and tons of sea.Few men can keep alive through a big serfto crawl, clotted with brine, on kindly beachesin joy, in joy, knowing the abyss behind:and so she too rejoiced, her gaze upon her husband, her white arms round him pressed as though forever.
I have observed this in my experience of slavery, - that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man.
Did he then love the rhythmic rise and fall of words better than their associations of legend and colour? Or was it that, being as weak of sight as he was shy of mind, he drew less pleasure from the reflection of the glowing sensible world through the prism of a language manycoloured and richly storied than from the contemplation of an inner world of individual emotions mirrored perfectly in a lucid supple periodic prose?