( irene allender on fb / via )

Apparition on the bars.

"unfortunately american universities are weirdly actually just private equity firms, landlords, and war profiteers that just kind of randomly offer classes for up to 70k a year" --@ftmensch via @danez_smif

i do think about this picture all the time.

"Because the Just have been thrown down
Because Crime snatched sceptre and crown
Because all rights have been betrayed
Because the fiercest now make moan
Because on every boundary stone
My land’s dishonour is displayed;

Republic of our fathers’ right,
Pantheon filled with noble light,
Gold dome in the free blue sky
Temple of immortal shadows
Because these men ascended ladders
To paste-up Empire on your side

Because the soul is fallible,
Because we grovel, can’t recall
Truth, Cleanness, Grandeur, Beauty’s bloom,
The indignant eyes of History,
Law, Honour, Righteousness, Glory,
And all of those now in the tomb;

I love exile! Sorrow, je t’aime!
Sadness, be my diadem!
I love you, haughty poverty!
I love this door the wind blows through.
I love Bereavement’s grave statue
Who’s come here to sit next to me.

I love that Evil works me over;
Because in shadow I recover
Things that make my spirit smile:
Dignity, Faith, Truth, though flown
You, proud Freedom, exiled-one,
And you, Devotion, though reviled.

I love this solitary island
Jersey, that freedom-loving England
Covers with her ancient flag,
Dark waters that by moments grow
The ship at sea, a wandering plough
Whose ocean-furrows turn and drag.

O deep-set sea, I love your gulls!
They shake your waves in glittering pearls
With their wide wild-coloured wings!
They plunge into the giant breakers
Shoot out from the curling gapers
As a soul flees sufferings.

I love this rock’s solemnity
Where I can hear eternity,
It's unrelenting, as remorse is;
Born again where shadows span,
Waves break on the sombre land,
Mothers on their children’s corpses."

--Victor Hugo via

"Always fun to remember that when Hawthorne writes about how his office job totally killed his creativity and will to live he was talking about a 3.5 hour work day."