The nearest beach to us on the other side, whither we looked, due east, was on the coast of Galicia, in Spain, whose capital is Sa...ntiago, though by old poets' reckoning it should have been Atlantis or the Hesperides; but heaven is found to be farther west now.... A little south of east was Palos, where Columbus weighed anchor, and farther yet the pillars which Hercules set up; concerning which when we inquired at the top of our voices what was written on them,--for we had the morning sun in our faces, and could not see distinctly,--the inhabitants shouted Ne plus ultra (no more beyond), but the wind bore to us the truth only, plus ultra (more beyond), and over the Bay westward was echoed ultra (beyond). We spoke to them through the surf about the Far West, the true Hesperia, heos peras or end of the day, the This Side Sundown, where the sun was extinguished in the Pacific, and we advised them to pull up stakes and plant those pillars of theirs on the shore of California, whither all our folks were gone,--the only ne plus ultra now. Whereat they looked crestfallen on their cliffs, for we had taken the wind out of all their sails.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If modernism had tried to anchor in consciousness a centre which could no longer hold--the conscience of the heroic, socially alie...nated artist--postmodernism had shown us an even darker side of modernity and the aporias of the aesthetic. It had shown that there is nothing for consciousness to be anchored to: no universal ground of truth, justice, or reason, so that consciousness itself is thus "decentred," no longer origin, author, location of intentional agency but a function through which impersonal forces pass and intersect--Dover Beach displaced by an international airport lounge.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let me live in my house by the side of the road-- It's here the race of men go by.... They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong Wise, foolish--so am I;LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine. A beach not only permits ...such inertia but enforces it, thus neatly eliminating all problems of guilt. It is now the only place in our overly active world that does.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This side of the truth, You may not see, my son,... King of your blue eyes In the blinding country of youth, That all is undone, Under the unminding skies....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
From the beach the child holding the hand of her father, Those burial clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,... Watching, silently weeps.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
On the beach at night, Stands a child with her father,... Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness, While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading, Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »