There is a certain aesthetic and psychological intimacy that a book acquires through the excellence of its making, through the craftsmanship of its binding, the judicious choice of its paper, the beauty of its frontispiece, the character of its type, the harmony of its margins, and even the very measure of its size. By virtue of all these qualities, a book comes to resemble, in our eyes, some precious jewel, an object whose material presence is itself a source of delight even before its words are read.

To its spiritual significance is thus joined a sensuous pleasure, by which the book steals gently and almost imperceptibly into the soul. To pass one’s bare fingertips over its smooth and lustrous cover, to rest it against one’s cheek, to inhale the fragrance of its pages when first they are opened, these are no idle sensations nor frivolous delights. They are rather rites of preparation, disposing the mind to receive, awakening the intellect by gentle degrees, and fitting it for the words that are to follow. In such moments, the body itself becomes a companion to thought, lending its offices to the work of understanding.

If this be so, how shall one persuade the modern publishers that the soul itself has a palate for what it reads? That reading is not merely an encounter with meanings, but likewise with forms, textures, weights, fragrances, and harmonious proportions; that the soul approaches no book unattended, but comes in the company of all the senses.

مفهومٌ أسمى للشاعر — يمكن أن يُضاف إلى ما قاله هوراس وبول فاليري وغيرهم من مُنظريّ هذا الفن اعتبارٌ آخر، ولو إنّ هذا التصوّر ليبدو أمرًا غريبًا أشدَّ الغرابة في عصرٍ تهيمن عليه روحُ المنفعة حيث تُقاس الأشياء بقيمتها العملية العاجلة وحيث يجرؤ أيُّ امرئٍ على أن ينتحل اسم «الشاعر» على سبيل التسمية الخاوية لا الحقيقة. فالشعر ليس لقبًا يُدَّعى، ولكنه قدرٌ إمّا أن يُوهب لصاحبه أو يُمنع عنه، فالمرء إمّا أن يكون قد كُتب له أن يكون شاعرًا، وإمّا ألّا يكون. فأن تكون شاعرًا معناه أن تُكرّس حياتك لرياضةٍ صارمةٍ من الوجود الفنّي، وجودٍ يتلاقى فيه كلُّ إدراك حسّي، وكلُّ خبرةٍ من خبرات الحياة المتشعّبة، لا على مقتضى المنفعة أو العمل، وإنما على مقتضى الجمال. وكلُّ ما يكتسبه الشاعر من معرفة، وكلُّ لقاءٍ بالعالم، وكلُّ فرحٍ وكلُّ حزن، إنّما يُستوعَب بقدر ما يخدم نموَّ شعره وعمقه واتّساعه. حتى أهونُ الوقائع وأتفهُها تُعاد صياغتها في باطن الشاعر، فتُرفع وتُصفّى وتُعظَّم، إلى أن تكتسب بهاء الصورة وجلالها.

وعلى هذا النحو يجوز لنا أن نتصوّر الشاعر إنسانًا ينسحب شيئًا فشيئًا من شواغل الحياة اليومية وتفاهاتها، مرتفعًا فوقها، لكي يرتفع فنُّه فوقها كذلك. إنّ فرديّته بأسرها، ورهافة حسّه، ومزاجه، وطريقته الخاصة في إدراك العالم وفهمه، تصبح جميعها الوعاء الذي تتلقّى فيه الصور الشعرية العظمى، كما تصبح في الوقت نفسه القوة الحيّة التي تتحوّل بها تلك الصور إلى أعمالٍ خالدة، لا مجرد أعمال مكرورة بلا وعي منه وبلا تكوينٌ شعريٌّ لشخصه، أو إستيعاب لما سلفه من الأعمال الشعريّة.

أن يكتب المرء الشعر بينما يبقى ذهنه مشغولًا بأمورٍ خارجةٍ عنه، أو أن ينصرف عنه ثم يعود فورًا إلى شؤون الحياة الاعتيادية، فذلك في ذاته إفساد للحياة الشعريّة. إنّه يكشف عن روحٍ لا ترى الشعر إلا شغلًا عارضًا لا المبدأ الذي تنتظم به حياته كلّها، وقد يمتلك مثل هذا الإنسان مهارةً فنيةً غير قليلة في قول الشعر، إلا أنّه يظلّ هاويًا بأسمى معاني الكلمة، ويظلّ، من الوجهة الروحية، رجلًا عامّيّ الذوق، غليظ الحسّ. فالشاعر الحقّ لا يقتصر على نظم القصائد، لكنه يحيا حياةً شعرية. يحمل في داخله شعلةً لا تنطفئ، حتى ليخالجه شيءٌ من التردّد، بل من الندم الخفيف، كلّما انصرف ساعةً من عمره إلى أمرٍ لا يمتّ إلى شعره بصلة، كأنّه قد زاغ، ولو لحظة، عن قدره الذي خُلق له. فالشعر ليس لهوًا، ولا حرفةً بين الحِرف يختارها المرء متى شاء، بل هو المبدأ الأعلى الذي تنتظم به حياته، والمركز الذي تعود إليه كلُّ فكرة، وكلُّ إدراك، وكلُّ عاطفة، وكلُّ فعلٍ من أفعال المعرفة، وإن كان للشعراء العظام شاغلٌ إلى جانب الشعر، فإن ذلك الشاغل لم يكن إلا امتدادًا لجوهرهم الشعري ذاته؛ إذ كانوا يتناولونه بفهمٍ شعري، سواء أكان رسمًا أم عمارةً، بل حتى حين انصرفوا إلى العلوم الطبيعية.

Some are made entirely of their outward appearance. Were they to turn inward, they might well go nowhere.

The highest privilege is to seem to others what one truly is, and to be to oneself what one appears to others.

you might want to vide this.

Mystery is not a property of the object alone; it belongs to the relation between subject and object. It arises from the subject’s willingness to linger with the object, together with the recognition that no object can be grasped in a single instant of time. Every genuine object demands duration, revealing itself only through the course of its unfolding. What first appears opaque gradually becomes intelligible, and each disclosure opens the way to further depths, without any final completion, for in every becoming there lies a renewed possibility of knowledge. Rather than seeking to banish mystery through hasty impatience, we ought to dwell with the object long enough for it to draw near of its own accord, until it speaks freely and reveals itself according to the rhythm of its own unfolding. Knowledge, therefore, does not dissolve mystery; it inhabits it. Mystery is the temporal horizon within which every act of understanding unfolds, the inexhaustible condition that makes genuine knowledge possible.

An unending and arcane nostalgia awakens within me for pre-modern architecture, precisely because it bears within itself the traces of nature, in its style, its materials, and its forms. Contemporary architecture, by contrast, has become so thoroughly technologized that it has largely severed this bond, sacrificing the organic presence that once allowed buildings to appear as continuations of the natural world rather than as abstractions imposed upon it, preserving that primordial harmony of the eye that sees between nature and what surrounds it.

Properly constructed edifices are like spiders’ webs: tight, concentric, transparent, well-spun and firm. They draw into themselves all the creatures of the air and land. interior creatures flitting hastily through them become their nourishing prey. Subject matter comes winging towards them. The soundness of a building can be judged by whether it causes one building to summon another, or what is most immediate to it from nature, in an uninterrupted harmonious continuum. Where the building has opened up one cell of reality, it should, without violence by the subject, penetrate the next. It proves its relation to other objects as soon as other objects crystallize around it. In the light it casts on its chosen substance, others begin to glow.

Wisdom at the End — It is indeed disheartening that wisdom so often arrives only at sunset, whether at the close of a single life or at the end of an historical epoch, yet this is merely the wisdom of reflection: a wisdom that does not anticipate the event but waits in stillness until it has already unfolded, deriving its insight only from what has become. It is a retrospective wisdom, forever condemned to understand too late, reflecting only upon what has already entered the domain of thought.

In contrast, there is another wisdom that stands alongside it: the wisdom of anticipation. Rather than lingering over what has become, it ventures beyond the given, discerning within the present the latent form of what is yet to come. It generalizes from the light of past experience but not remaining solely constricted to it, extending tendencies beyond their immediate manifestations and venturing upon possibilities before they have acquired the certainty of fact. Such a wisdom is necessarily fallible; it must accept the risk of error, for anticipation cannot enjoy the luxury of hindsight, nevertheless, without this speculative courage, there could be no genuine foresight, or creation, or historical initiative, even in one's life for that matter. If reflective wisdom belongs to sunset, anticipatory wisdom belongs to dawn: it sees less distinctly, yet it alone possesses the privilege of beholding the horizon before the day has fully broken.

Drowned in the Sea, c.1830 by German painter.