Crowns to be Won

What is there do do? what is left to be done?
Is there no enduring crown to be won?

—T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral.

Cycles

We do not know very much of the future except that from generation to generation the same things happen again and again. Men learn little from others' experiences. But in the life of one man never does the same time return.

—T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral.

A Prologue to Love

It is not possible for us to know each other except as we manifest ourselves in distorted shadows to the eyes of others. We do not even know ourselves; therefore, how can we judge a neighbor? Who knows what pain is behind virtue and what fear behind vice? No one, in short, knows what makes a man, and only God knows his thoughts, his joys, his bitternesses, his agony; the injustices committed against him and the injustices he commits.... God is too inscrutable for our little understanding. After sad meditation it comes to me that all our life, whether good or ill, mournful or joyous, obscure or illustrious, painful or happy, is only a prologue to love beyond the grave, where all is understood and all forgiven.

—Attributed to Seneca the Younger by Taylor Caldwell in A Prologue to Love.

Remembering

You'll soon be a father. I hope you'll love your son or daughter very much. I won't ask you to try to make the child happy, for happiness is something that doesn't really exist, except for a flash of it occasionally. But if you love your child he will remember it all his life, and life won't ever be too hard to endure when he remembers.

—Taylor Caldwell, A Prologue to Love, p553.

A Lying Coward

"No, no, it doesn't matter. Nothing ever matters, not truly. Except if someone loves you. No one ever did." She coughed deeply, rackingly, but held to her tighter than before, and the palms of her hands were cold and wet.

"I'm sorry I came. Forgive me. I've upset you."

"No, it was waiting for me, all of it. It isn't your fault. No, it was my fault, lying to myself ever since I can remember. Lying. A lying coward."

—Taylor Caldwell, A Prologue to Love, p487.

Cannibals

I don't know why it is, but every one of us tries to eat others alive, in more ways than one. The human race is very terrible.

—Taylor Caldwell, A Prologue to Love, p489.