Thomas Stearns Eliot (T. S.) (1888 – 1965)
American-born English poet, dramatist and literary critic.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime — Macavity's not there!
I should really like to think there's something wrong with me —
Because, if there isn't then there's something wrong,
Or at least, very different from what it seemed to be,
With the world itself — and that's much more frightening!
That would be terrible.
Every moment is a fresh beginning.
The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.
I feel it would be a kind of surrender —
No, not a surrender — more like a betrayal.
You see, I think I really had a vision or something
Though I don't know what it is. I don't want to forget it.
I want to live with it. I could do without everything
Put up with anything, if I might cherish it.
The man who returns will have to meet
The boy who left.
We praise thee, O God, for thy glory displayed
in all the creatures of the earth,
In the snow, in the rain, in the wind, in the storm,
in all of thy creatures, both the hunters and the hunted,
For all things exist as seen by thee,
only as known by thee, all things exist
Only in thy light, and thy glory is declared
even in that which denies thee;
the darkness declares the glory of light.
Those who deny thee could not deny, if thou didst not exist;
and their denial is never complete,
for if it were so, they would not exist.
They affirm thee in living; all things affirm thee in living;
the bird in the air, both the hawk and the finch;
the beast on the earth, both the wolf and the lamb.
Therefore we, whom thou hast made to be conscious of thee, must consciously praise thee, in thought and in word and in deed.
I am glad you have a Cat, but I do not believe it is So remarkable a cat as My Cat. My Cat is a Lilliecat Hubvously. What a lilliecat it is. There never was such a Lilliecat. Its Name is JELLYORUM and its one Idea is to be Usefull!!
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while If one, settling a
Pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all."
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:
At whatever time the deed took place-
Macavity wasn't there.
If we all were judged according to the consequences
Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention
And beyond our limited understanding
Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned.
It is only when they see nothing
That people can always show the suitable emotions —
And so far as they feel at all, their emotions are suitable.
They don't understand what it is to be awake,
To be living on several planes at once
Though one cannot speak with several voices at once.
Let me show you the work of the humble. Listen.
Accident is design
And design is accident
In a cloud of unknowing.
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
Yes the Rum Tum Tugger is a Curious Cat —
And there isn't any call for me to shout it:
For he will do
As he do do
And there's no doing anything about it!
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It's all a delusion,
Everything you feel — I don't mean what you think,
But what you feel. You attach yourself to loathing
As others do to loving; an infatuation
That's wrong, a good that is misdirected.
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all: —
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.