Henry Beston: A Year of life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod
The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach. I have heard them all, and of the three elemental voices, that of ocean is the most awesome, beautiful and varied.
W. D. Ehrhart: Paul Fussell — A Remembrance
While Fussell wrote on a wide variety of subjects over his long life—ranging from Augustan humanism, Samuel Johnson, and Kingsley Amis to the 2nd Amendment, the Indianapolis 500, and travel in between-the-wars Europe—war, the irony of war, the suffering and lunacy and permanent damage of war, the unfairness of war, lay at the heart of his writing and of his being.
Siegfried Sassoon: Grandeur of Ghosts
How can they use such names and be not humble?
I have sat silent; angry at what they uttered.
Matthew Hollis: Edward Thomas, Robert Frost and the road to war
When Thomas and Frost met in London in 1913, neither had yet made his name as a poet. They became close, and each was vital to the other’s success. But then Frost wrote ‘The Road Not Taken’, which brought Thomas to an irreversible decision.
Edward Thomas: Rain
Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Drummond Allison: Come, let us pity not the dead but Death
Come, let us pity not the dead but Death
For He can only come when we are leaving,
He cannot stay for tea or share our sherry.
John Samuel Tieman: Mary Borden’s The Forbidden Zone, a near-forgotten masterpiece
Recently, PBS aired a documentary marking the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I. Almost in passing, a memoir by Mary Borden who founded a hospital and served as … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: To mourn the man by name
Guillaume Apollinaire As we approach the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, it is easy to think of all that as distant. Distant and perhaps overwhelming with its … Continue reading
