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De Amerikaanse dichter Robert Lee Frost werd geboren op 26 maart 1874 in San Francisco. Zie ook mijn blog van 26 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 26 maart 2008.xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Good Hours
I had for my winter evening walk--
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.
And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.
I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.
Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o'clock of a winter eve
Spring Pools
These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods --
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.
Robert Frost (26 maart 1874 29 januari 1963)
Robert Frost in New Hampshire door James Chapin
De Engelse dichter Alfred Edward Housman werd geboren op 26 maart 1859 in Fockbury, Worcestershire. Zie ook mijn blog van 26 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 26 maart 2008.
ILLIC JACET
Oh hard is the bed they have made him,
And common the blanket and cheap;
But there he will lie as they laid him:
Where else could you trust him to sleep?
To sleep when the bugle is crying
And cravens have heard and are brave,
When mothers and sweethearts are sighing
And lads are in love with the grave.
Oh dark is the chamber and lonely,
And lights and companions depart;
But lief will he lose them and only
Behold the desire of his heart.
And low is the roof, but it covers
A sleeper content to repose;
And far from his friends and his lovers
He lies with the sweetheart he chose.
When I would muse in boyhood
When I would muse in boyhood
The wild green woods among,
And nurse resolves and fancies
Because the world was young,
It was not foes to conquer,
Nor sweethearts to be kind,
But it was friends to die for
That I would seek and find.
I sought them and I found them,
The sure, the straight, the brave,
The hearts I lost my own to,
The souls I could not save.
They braced their belts around them,
They crossed in ships the sea,
They sought and found six feet of ground,
And there they died for me.
A. E. Housman (26 maart 1859 30 april 1936)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Tennessee Williams (eigenlijk Thomas Lanier Williams) werd geboren in Columbus (Mississippi op 26 maart 1911. Zie ook mijn blog van 26 maart 2007 en ook mijn blog van 26 maart 2008.
Uit: A Streetcar Named Desire
MITCH. She wants me to be settled down before the -- [His voice is hoarse and he clears his throat twice, shuffling nervously around with his hands in and out of his pockets]
BLANCHE. You love her very much, don't you?
MITCH. Yes.
BLANCHE. I think you have a great capacity for devotion. You will be lonely when she passes on, won't you? [Mitch clears his throat and nods] I understand what that is.
MITCH. To be lonely?
BLANCHE. I loved someone, too, and the person I loved I lost.
MITCH. Dead? [She crosses to the window and sits on the sill, looking out. She pours herself another drink] A man?
BLANCHE. He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery -- love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky. Deluded. There was something different about the boy, a nervousness, a softness and tenderness which wasn't like a man's, although he wasn't the least bit effeminate looking -- still -- that thing was there ... He came to me for help. I didn't know that. I didn't find out anything till after our marriage when we'd run away and come back and all I knew was I'd failed him in some mysterious way and wasn't able to give the help he needed but couldn't speak of! He was in the quicksands and clutching at me -- but I wasn't holding him out, I was slipping in with him! I didn't know that. I didn't know anything except I loved him unendurably but without being able to help him or help myself. Then I found out. In the worst of all possible ways. By coming suddenly into a room that I thought was empty -- which wasn't empty, but had two people in it ... the boy I had married and an older man who had been his friend for years ...
[A locomotive is heard approaching outside. She claps her hands to her ears and crouches over. The headlight of the locomotive glares into the room as it thunders past. As the noise recedes she straightens slowly and continues speaking.]
Afterward we pretended that nothing had been discovered. Yes, the three of us drove out to Moon Lake Casino, very drunk and laughing all the way.
Tennessee Williams (26 maart 1911 25 februari 1983)
De Duitse schrijver en criticus Artur Hermann Landsberger werd geboren op 26 maart 1876 in Berlijn. Hij promoveerde weliswaar in de rechten, maar was vooral een succesvolle schrijver van romans. In de jaren twintig verscherpte hij zijn toon. In werken als Wie Satan starb (1919), Das Blut (1920), en vooral in zijn als reactie op Hugo Bettauers publicatie Stadt ohne Juden (1922) geschreven Berlin ohne Juden (1925) hield hij de maatschappij een bepaald niet vleiende spiegel voor. De laatse roman was eigenlijk bedoeld als satire op de antisemitische agitatie, maar kwam de latere realiteit op een griezelige wijze nabij. Als maatschappijcriticus werd Landsberger door de Nazis vervolgd. Om daaraan te ontkomen pleegde hij in 1933 zelfmoord.
Uit: Berlin ohne Juden
Die jüdische Bevölkerung entwickelte jetzt eine fieberhafte Tätigkeit. Verständlich, daß alles in Berlin zusammenströmte. Die Zeitungen mit Verkaufsinseraten aus dem ganzen Reich erschienen im Umfang von dreißig bis fünfzig Seiten. Man konnte alles, was schwer mitzunehmen war, vor allem also Häuser, Möbel, Gardinen, Teppiche, Kronen, Porzellane, Bilder, Bücher, Wagen, Geräte, Pferde, Haustiere, Weine, Konserven und anderes mehr zu lächerlichen Preisen kaufen. Die christliche Bevölkerung kaufte sich satt. Die Leute verkauften ihre Papiere und hoben von den städtischen Kassen ihre Ersparnisse ab. Die Billigkeit reizte und die Freude, den Juden, von denen sie sich sonst übervorteilt glaubten, nun ihrerseits für das, was sie ihnen abkauften, Preise vorzuschreiben, die bis zur Hälfte, oft bis zu einem Zehntel hinter dem wirklichen Wert zurückblieben. Natürlich, sie überkauften sich, und als die Juden raus waren, fehlte ihnen das Geld für das Nötigste. Meist wußten sie gar nichts mit dem Geramschten anzufangen. Was sollte man mit einer Villa vor den Toren Berlins anfangen, wenn man Mühe hatte, seine teuere Wohnung in der Stadt zu halten, was mit einem Auto, wenn man sich das Geld für Chauffeur und Benzin vom Munde absparte, was mit echten Persern in Größen von 6 x 5 und 5 x 4, wenn die Zimmer nur 4 x 3 und 3 x 2 groß waren, was mit Handfiletgardinen für 24 Fenster, wenn man nebbich - ach, man brauchte jetzt so gern die jüdischen Worte! - nur fünf Fenster Front hatte. Die Kronen paßten nicht zu den Möbeln, die Bilder nicht zu den Tapeten, und in den bei der Eile natürlich im ganzen gekauften Bibliotheken fand man statt der gesuchten Rudolfe (Herzog und Stratz) Juden, wie Wassermann, Hirschfeld und Georg Hermann, ja, manchmal stieß man sogar auf Bücher in hebräischer Sprache, vor denen man sich bekreuzigte, sofern man nicht in Krämpfe fiel.
Alles das aber bemerkte man leider erst, als der große Taumel sich legte und die Juden schon draußen waren. Sonst hätte man sie gewiß des Wuchers bezichtigt und sie gezwungen, die Geschäfte rückgängig zu machen.
Artur Landsberger ( 26 maart 1876 4 oktober 1933)
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