Anthony
Friday, June 02, 2006
Anthony
"...'I want to die,' she said, as if moulding each word carefully in her heart.
'Dot,' he whispered uncomfortably, 'you'll forget. Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know - because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot. And when i got it it turned to dust in my hands.'
'All right.'
Absorbed in himself, he continued:
'I've often thought that if i hadn't got what i wanted things might have been different with me. I might have found something in my mind and enjoyed putting it in circulation. I might have been content with the work of it, and had some sweet vanity out of the success. I suppose that at one time i could have had anything I wanted, within reason, but that was the only thing I ever wanted with any fervour. God! And that taught me you can't have anything, you can't have anything at all. Because desire just cheats you. It's like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it - but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you've got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone - '..."
--- Anthony Patch, The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"...'I want to die,' she said, as if moulding each word carefully in her heart.
'Dot,' he whispered uncomfortably, 'you'll forget. Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know - because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot. And when i got it it turned to dust in my hands.'
'All right.'
Absorbed in himself, he continued:
'I've often thought that if i hadn't got what i wanted things might have been different with me. I might have found something in my mind and enjoyed putting it in circulation. I might have been content with the work of it, and had some sweet vanity out of the success. I suppose that at one time i could have had anything I wanted, within reason, but that was the only thing I ever wanted with any fervour. God! And that taught me you can't have anything, you can't have anything at all. Because desire just cheats you. It's like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it - but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you've got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone - '..."
--- Anthony Patch, The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
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