Thursday, May 13, 2010

a visionary melancholy (1)

'He was indeed always cheerful, though I thought I could see in his eyes . . . a melancholy which was wellnigh a portion of their joy; the visionary melancholy of purely instinctive natures and of all animals'.

W. B Yeats, 'A Teller of Tales', from The Celtic Twilight (1893), in Mythologies (London: Macmillan, 1982), p. 5.


How I'm hopelessly drawn to such rare natures in whom sadness and joy, mystery and disclosure, distance and proximity, light and shadow, are part of the same continuum - no categories, no hard and fast distinctions.

At those precious moments when you come upon one such nature, it leaves an indelible imprint on your soul, like a soft, warm paw.

A recognition, not just an encounter.

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