#dontaskgrantaire

[dontaskgrantaire]

What is the mood for March?

March is an invader; the bastard offspring of Mars. I say I have not time for it.  Let March stroll rather than gallop - a more civilized progress.

I have a mind to retry January; February is already an unwelcome guest. Let March remain where it is welcome: in the future, as tomorrow’s problem.

[aporeticelenchus]

Commentary! I of course wonder about this: "Come down to the Café Voltaire and avenge me at billiards. I’ve been done in by a nuisance of a novelist. He looks like he could be cousin to a billiard ball - I suspect collusion."--did you have a novelist in mind?

Original post

That post was a long time ago, but I’m like 95% sure I meant to imply that Honoré de Balzac destroyed Grantaire at billiards.

[dontaskgrantaire]

do you have an opinion

Never.

[dontaskgrantaire]

Is Enjolras ever too busy with the revolution to bathe himself? Or rather, do YOU bathe yourself regularly? I hope you do; can't imagine that all the nights of absinthe would have a good effect on your hygiene.

I bathe in starlight and cast off the dust of the streets with the airs of the tavern. I purify my body with wine, and purge my soul with theater. The state of man is sin and filth; I embrace it and disclaim it in turns. I dance and fight and drink and wander, performing ablutions in sweat and blood and, if the prosaic pedants of the world must have their turn, in water.

As for Enjolras, you may ask him yourself. I have no desire to be a second Actaeon.

[dontaskgrantaire]

How can I speak without dying of embarrassment?

Step One: Don’t think about what you will say before youbegin. Art is the contrary of nature, prudence the bane of inspiration. Breathe in the world that you may breathe out whatever is at hand, without artifice or guile.

Step Two: Don’t think about what you are saying while you are speaking. Be but a vessel, pouring forth whatever divine fire is implanted within you. If you haven’t any divine fire, be content with its poor cousin, mortal gas. Let speech and thought be one! Your hearers will say you speak nonsense – ignore them, for they are right. It is better to speak an infinite amount of nonsense than a single atom of substance. Substance is being and being is a mistake; it is matter too heavy for the lightness of voice to carry. Speak truth if you can’t help it, speak lies if they please you, speak joy, speak sadness, speak dull if you lack wits, and witty if you lack brains. Speak the four humors in turn and see if they balance out. Shame Parmenides and speak a deal of nothing, speak of love if you find you must speak of something.

Step Three: Do not, under any circumstances, think about what you have said after.

[dontaskgrantaire]

What's Joly up to these days?

Joly, being made of clay, tends downwards – the direction of all earthen bodies. He declares he is in love and aspires to the stars, but I find no fire in his constitution; he remains earthbound with his quartet of wings. Not so phlegmatic as Combeferre nor so sanguine as Bossuet, he is but damp and lukewarm. A muddle of matter, a puzzle for Peripatetics. Joly has consulted Galen and defies him, and consequently he has a dreadful headache. That is the state of Joly – still a solid, but perhaps soon a liquid or gas.

[dontaskgrantaire]

Enjolras claimed that the nineteenth century would be great, but the twentieth century would be happy. (From my perspective in your future, I can admit to you that the twentieth century failed to live up to his grand plan.) What do you think? Will we ever have a happy century?

You begin with a questionable premise: I doubt even the being of a century. I banish it from my ontology; I declare it a great ruse practiced upon mankind. When anatomized, it vanishes into nothing.

What is a century but a collection of years, a year but an assembly of days, every day a handful of hours, each composed of minutes, themselves nothing more than seconds? Within each second, an infinity of moments, each ceasing to be real ere it can be noticed. What is this fleeting Atlas of existence, bearing all of time on vanishing shoulders? Teach me to believe in a moment, then speak to me of a century.

Yet, if a moment can be happy, why not a second, a minute, an hour? I have never encountered a happy century, but perhaps I have met with a happy day. And if I can believe in one, why not thirty-six thousand five hundred and twenty-five of them? It is no greater miracle. If you demand they all be together at once, that is no affair of mine.

[dontaskgrantaire]

What's Enjolras doing for Valentine's Day?

Something dull, no doubt. I have not given it a single thought.

On an unrelated note, you may have this letter to no one in particular and for general use. I have no need for it.