“Far from seeking to justify, as does the Church, the necessity of torments and afflictions, he cried, in his outraged pity: 'If a God has made this world, I should not wish to be that God. The world's wretchedness would rend my heart.” IfsWorldShouldHeartDoeMadeWishChurchThis WorldMy HeartSeekingPityJustifyCriedAfflictionTormentOutragedWretchedness Book:Against the Grain Source: Against the Grain
“His contempt for humanity grew fiercer, and at last he came to realize that the world is made up mostly of fools and scoundrels. It became perfectly clear to him that he could entertain no hope of finding in someone else the same aspirations and antipathies; no hope of linking up with a mind which, like his own, took pleasure in a life of studious decrepitude; no hope of associating an intelligence as sharp and wayward as his own with any author or scholar.” WorldMindMadeLastsHumanityRealizingPleasureClearGrewFoolFindingsAspirationContemptScholarNo HopeScoundrelsAntipathyStudious Book:Against nature: a new translation of À rebours Source: Against nature: a new translation of À rebours
“No longer was she merely the dancing-girl who extorts a cry of lust and concupiscence from an old man by the lascivious contortions of her body; who breaks the will, masters the mind of a King by the spectacle of her quivering bosoms, heaving belly and tossing thighs; she was now revealed in a sense as the symbolic incarnation of world-old Vice, the goddess of immortal Hysteria, the Curse of Beauty supreme above all other beauties by the cataleptic spasm that stirs her flesh and steels her muscles, - a monstrous Beast of the Apocalypse, indifferent, irresponsible, insensible, poisoning.” MenWorldMindBodyGirlBreakCryMastersKingsDancingVicesFleshSupremeLustCurseBeastMusclesImmortalOld ManGoddessIndifferentSteelApocalypseBellySymbolicBosomsIncarnationIrresponsibleMonstrousThighsHysteriaPoisoningInsensible Book:Against the Grain: (À rebours) Source: Against the Grain: (À rebours)
