The threshold to the seance parlour has not been crossed for many moons. The air is intoxicating, filled with the scent of a myriad of fainted roses, rich draperies staggered by the dust of time and the resinous memory of incense long gone. Reminding you of times that you could not possibly have known and, yet, awakening the feeling of home.
Another time, another place. But home.
Pulvis et umbra sumus (We are but dust and shadow)
– Horace – Book IV, ode VI, v. 16 –
Dearest, deeply loved Victoria,
According to your wish, and by the urging of my heart to talk to you and open my heart to you, I send these lines […] I need not tell you that since we left, all my thoughts have been with you at Windsor, and that your image fills my whole soul. Even in my dreams I never imagined that I should find so much love on earth. How that moment shines for me when I was close to you, but with your hand in mine! […]
With promises of unchanging love and devotion, your ever true Albert.
– Letter from Prince Albert to Queen Victoria (translated from German) – 15 November 1839 –
Circe, daughter of the Sun, recited curses and spoke magic words,
worshipping unknown gods, with unknown incantations,
by which she used to dim the face of the bright moon,
and veil her father’s orb, with moisture-loving cloud.
– Ovid (translation A.S. Kline) – Metamorphoses –
This Chopin is an angel. His goodness, his tenderness and his patience sometimes make me anxious; I feel that he is too fine, too exquisite, too perfect to live long in this crude and heavy earthly world. He wrote in Majorca, being sick to death, a music that smelled strongly of heaven but I am so used to see him in the sky that I don’t feel like his life or death would prove anything.
– George Sand – letter to Contessa Marliani –
J’irai, j’irai porter ma couronne effeuillée
Au jardin de mon père où revit toute fleur ;
J’y répandrai longtemps mon âme agenouillée :
Mon père a des secrets pour vaincre la douleur.
J’irai, j’irai lui dire, au moins avec mes larmes :
“Regardez, j’ai souffert … ” il me regardera,
Et sous mes jours changés,
Sous mes pâleurs sans charmes,
Parce qu’il est mon père il me reconnaîtra.
– Marceline Desbordes-Valmore – La couronne effeuillée –
J’irai, j’irai porter ma couronne effeuillée
Au jardin de mon père où revit toute fleur ;
J’y répandrai longtemps mon âme agenouillée :
Mon père a des secrets pour vaincre la douleur.
J’irai, j’irai lui dire, au moins avec mes larmes :
“Regardez, j’ai souffert … ” il me regardera,
Et sous mes jours changés,
Sous mes pâleurs sans charmes,
Parce qu’il est mon père il me reconnaîtra.
– Marceline Desbordes-Valmore – La couronne effeuillée –
The dust of the hour and the ash of the day
Fall down onto our hearts like a bitter rain,
As in the fleeting day and ephemeral hour
How much love and hope have they put into it!
The dust of the day and the ash of the hour
Contain our sighs, our wishes and our songs;
Every hour soaring, a little we perish,
And in front of this incessant death, I weep
The dust of the day and the ash of the hour …
– Albert Lozeau – The dust of the day –
I greet the sun!
Rising from the darkness,
Rising in the day.
From the Ginnungagap,
Of Yggdrasil ash,
In your light, the spire shall grow.
In your darkness, the spire shall die.
– Wardruna – Dagr –
“What business had I to think of one that never thought of me?”
– Anne Brontë – Agnes Grey –
