Monday, March 21, 2005
Dostoevsky On Terri Schiavo
Today's lunch time reading meant starting "The Brothers Karamazov." The translator's forward in the edition I am reading included a lengthy quotation from a letter Fyodor wrote to his brother while imprisoned. It just seems appropriate to quote today -- I have added some emphasis:
Brother, I?m not depressed and haven?t lost spirit. Life everywhere is life, life is in ourselves and not in the external. There will be people near me, and to be a human being among human beings, and remain one forever, no matter what misfortunes befall not to become depressed, and not to falter? this is what life is, herein lies its task. I have come to recognize this. This idea has entered into my flesh and blood. Yes, it?s true! That head which created, lived by the highest life of art, which acknowledged and had come to know the highest demands of the spirit, that head has been cut from my shoulders. Memory remains, and the images I have created and still not molded in flesh. They will leave their harsh mark on me, it is true! But my heart is left me, and the same flesh and blood which Likewise can Love and suffer and desire and remember, and this is, after all, life. On voit le soleil! Well, good-bye, brother! Do not grieve for me. . . . Never until now have such rich and healthy stores of spiritual life throbbed in me."Healthy stores of spiritual life throb" in Terri as well.
