This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
All men are possible heroes: every age, heroic in proportions, double-faced, looks backward and before, expects a morn and claims an epos. Ay, but every age appears to souls who live in it (ask Carlyle) most unheroic.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Deep violets, you liken to the kindest eyes that look on you, without a thought disloyal.
Looks |
There's a joke about a very funny Italian poor man who goes to church every day to pray before the statue of a great saint, begging, Dear saint, please, please, please ... Give me the grace of winning the lottery. This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue comes to life, looks at him and says with a wearily: My son, please, please, please ... buy a ticket. '
You know, it's a funny thing. The only Romance language Felipe doesn't happen to speak is Italian. But I go ahead and say it to him anyway, just as we're about to jump.
There's a power struggle going on across Europe these days. A few cities are competing against each other to see who shall emerge as the great 21st century European metropolis. Will it be London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn't compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this city, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady.
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
O brave poets, keep back nothing; nor mix falsehood with the whole! Look up Godward! speak the truth in worthy song from earnest soul! Hold, in high poetic duty, truest Truth the fairest Beauty.
Looks |
Elizabeth Browning, fully Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The cypress stood up like a church that night we felt our love would hold, and saintly moonlight seemed to search and wash the whole world clean as gold; the olives crystallized the vales' broad slopes until the hills grew strong: the fireflies and the nightingales throbbed each to either, flame and song. The nightingales, the nightingales.
How does Love speak? In the faint flush upon the telltale cheek, and in the pallor that succeeds it; by the quivering lid of an averted eye-- the smile that proves the parent to a sigh thus doth Love speak.
The misnamed "feminine" woman, so admired by her creator, man — the woman who is acquiescent in her inferiority and who has swallowed man's image of her as his ordained helpmate and no more — is in reality the "masculine" woman. The truly feminine woman "cannot help burning with that inner rage that comes from having to identify with her exploiter's negative image of her," and having to conform to her persecutor's idea of femininity and its man-decreed limitations.
Authority | Children | Father | Looks | Mother | Respect | Respect | Child |
All my life, I have lived with the feeling that I have been kept from my true place. If the expression "metaphysical exile" had no meaning, my existence alone would afford it one.
If I had a shiny gun I could have a world of fun speeding bullets through the brains of the folks that cause me pains.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
I never told my love vocally still.
Emily Brontë, fully Emily Jane Brontë, aka pseudonym Ellis Bell
Why did you betray your own heart Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. ... You loved me - then what right had you to leave me? Because ... nothing God or satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of you own will, did it. I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you - oh God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave? [...] I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer - but yours! How can I?
Doubt | Looks | Reputation | Shame |
Everything I do is a creation of my hands whether it is made in wood, plaster, or clay.