~*Revue_Blanche*~

*Story of Teo*

The holiday season has always been so difficult for me, primarily because I have rarely had anyone with whom to spend it. After many years of restaurant food and single plates on the table at home, having my Xmas Eve meal alone again was more than I could endure. The tears began nearly imperceptibly at first. I saw the first drop fall on my peas-pudding. My vision rapidly became blurry and my appetite disappeared like a shadow at night. I pushed the china plate away from me and sat back in my chair.
The air in the house was warm, but the ambiance still maintained a chill. Everything was silent except for the occasional car driving by and the soft Xmas music that was playing on my old radio. I picked up my plate and took it to the kitchen. I was so distracted by my own sadness that the plate accidentally slipped out of my hand and shattered into a thousand pieces in the pristinely white sink. Staring at the shards of porcelain laying on the bottom of the sink, glistening from the lights overhead, I felt my body slumping toward the floor against the cupboards in utter despair. My tears began in earnest and the droplet of blood that came from the tiny wound I received from trying to pick up the shattered plate, smeared across my cheek as I tried to brush away the salty moisture. My sobs echoed through the house, resounding on the hardwood floors. I could hear my own breathing bounce off the walls. There was no one coming to my door tonight to hug me and wish me a Merry Xmas. There would be no present under the tree from that special someone. No one would kiss me on New Years Eve. Finally giving into my deep sadness, I lay on the kitchen floor and curled into a ball. Soon, the sobs gave way to deep breathing and before I realized it, I fell asleep. What seemed like moments later, I sensed a presence near me. Intuitively, I knew it was a masculine presence. His scent was warm and comforting. Through my closed eyes I could feel a bright light coating my blackened vision with radiance. Slowly, I began opening my eyes, trying to adjust to the level of the light I knew would be in the room. Although the light was incredibly intense, the eminence did not hurt my eyes at all. In fact, it was beautiful and easy to view. As my eyes adjusted, I could see someone reaching down to me. A strong hand touched my fingers and allowed my whole hand to become enveloped by his. His hand was all I could focus on at that moment. I could certainly tell he was much larger than I am and that he was enormously muscled. As I rose, he put his hands on my shoulders and began bringing me into his arms. I was suddenly afraid of what this man wanted. The ethereal quality to the light and the fuzziness that this radiance created around him left me feeling vulnerable and small. Without a word being spoken I was immediately awash with a feeling of peace and safety. Before I knew what was happening, I was enveloped by his arms and something that felt like a down blanket. I was warm and safe and loved in that instant. He leaned down to kiss me on the lips. Although I am certain I did not hear the words spoken aloud, I knew that the intention or thought that was audible inside my head was:
"I love you. Remember that always. I have loved you for all eternity and I will love you for the rest of eternity. My love is infinite and unending."
Without knowing how I got there, I found myself in bed, encased in this man's strong arms. His body was heating my own body to a level heretofore unknown. His breathing was unchanging, strong, deep, sweet. It was then that I started feeling the penetration into my body of an ecstasy that was completely foreign to me. My body began sweating and every nerve ending on my skin was vividly alive. Even the tiniest movement of our bodies that caused the slightest friction felt climactic. Again, this man leaned toward me and kissed me on the lips. My body quaked under his passionate lovemaking. It was then that I realized that my body had still not been entered physically. How could this be? How could I be having this level of response when all he did was kiss me? The acceleration of my heartbeat and the throes of passion into which this entity ignited me was purely at a spiritual level. His presence was orgasmic yet intensely pure. Yes, I was responding in a way that I knew to be sexual, but it was not sexual at the same time. As his kiss became more intense, my body lost all reluctance and my mind was focused only on his love. My body began convulsing in dizzying orgasm. My rigid manhood started pumping out strand after strand of its liquid pearls. I moaned from the very bottom of my heart in pure joy and release. Repeatedly, my body throbbed with the intensity of a jackhammer as I released my fluid love. I clung to this amazing man for what seemed to be an eternity afterward. I placed my arm across his massive chest and shoulders. His body pressed against mine as though it was fitted to me like a fine suit. I was in complete and peaceful joy. As I was about to fall asleep, listening to this silent man breathe, I heard what I thought was his voice saying:
"I must leave you now. Although you will not be able to see me, I will always be with you. My love will stay with you for all of your lifetimes."
For the first time, I looked deeply into this man's face. He was so beautiful. His green eyes were the color of light jade. His lips were full and pink, seemingly always in the gentle smile of a loving king. His hair was a caramel brown, the shade of which one would find on a young fawn. Most remarkable was the light that emanated from his being. The light seemed to originate in the core of his body and radiate outward without recognizing the physical form in which it is housed.
"I love you with all the love the universe has to offer." He spoke, but his mouth did not move. Telepathically, he communicated with me from his spirit. As he spoke, his corporeal structure began to dissolve in the light. His eyes continued to pierce my heart and vision. Soon, they were just memories. At first, I thought I was going to cry at the thought that I had lost this amazing man, but immediately I recognized that he wasn't gone. He was still with me. He had only changed form. His warmth and smell and love remained. This knowledge was intrinsic and undeniable. I slid down into my sheets and pillows and soon was fast asleep.
When I woke up the next morning, I found myself still on the kitchen floor. I had dreamt this miraculous man. I was angry and hurt by my own imagination and neediness. My delusions had won over my sanity. I felt lonelier than I was the night before. Completely distraught by this point, I began cleaning the mess I had made in the kitchen. I was too depressed to cry. I had given up all hope. I looked through my kitchen window into the heavily clouded sky and screamed:
"Why would you do this to me, the Almighty? Why would you put him within my grasp and then rip him away from me? Why would you give me peace, only to slap me in the face with the fact that I am alone still? What kind of cruel god are you?"
I went into my bedroom and threw myself across the bed, shattered by my awakening. As I began to calm myself, regaining my composure, I involuntarily took in a deep breath. To my surprise I smelled the man from the night before. His scent lingered on the pillow on which I thought he had lain. Utterly befuddled, I reached for the pillow and quickly drew it to my face to smell it again. It was there. I knew it was there. As I touched the pillow to my face, a feather began tickling my nose. This couldn't be, I thought, since I don't have down pillows. I pulled the pillow away from my face, and there, stuck to the fabric was a white feather with the slightest golden hue to it. It was beautiful. It was thick, long and perfectly shaped.
"What was that blanket he wrapped me in last night?" I wondered aloud. I was so confused at this point that I had to stop thinking about it. Suddenly, I laughed out loud:
"Oh, I know, he was an angel and the feather is from his wings!" The silliness of my thought actually eased my sadness a bit and I began to arise from my bed.
It was then that I heard a knock at the door. Who could be at my door at this hour? It was only seven o'clock on an Xmas morning. As I opened the door, I saw a man standing there asking if I knew where the Gordons lived. He was very tall and muscular. His light brown hair shone in such a way as to remind me of a young deer in the forest. He looked at me with his luminescent green eyes and smiled a knowing smile that only those with a joyful sense of spirituality can have. The sunlight cast radiance on him that illuminated every cell on his face… but, wait. It was grey and overcast outside.
"Three doors down. The Gordons live three doors down." I couldn't take my eyes off of this man. He looked just like the man from my dream. But, it couldn't be. That was impossible.
"Thanks," he said. "You look really familiar to me. My name is Angelo."
"Teo," was all I could muster. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Angelo, but I can't imagine where we would have met. I would most assuredly remember you."
He blushed slightly and expressed his gratitude for the compliment. He chuckled softly and said:
"Maybe we met in a dream."
"Maybe we did," I answered.
He took my hand in his and placing his other hand over mine, shook hands with me. He explained:
"I'm looking at the Gordon’s house today. My realtor is supposed to meet me there. I lost the paper on which the address was written, but remembered the street name. I'm from out of town and this was the only day I could look at the house."
"Good luck, Angelo. I hope it's the house you want."
"I can already tell I would like the neighbors. Have a Merry Xmas, Teo, and a Happy New Year”.
I smiled at him, saying:
“Thank you, Angelo. I suspect I will”.

Unknown Author

The books that I love:

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar
Beloved and God: The Story of Hadrian and Antinous by Royston Lambert.
Epigrams by Marcus Valerius Martial
The Satyricon by Petronius
De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde by Peter Ackroyd
Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann
La Canne de Jaspe by Henri de Regnier
The City and The Pillar by Gore Vidal
Cabbala by Thornton Wilder
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov
The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
The Ministry of Fear by Grahame Greene
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Possessed by Dostoevsky
The Gambler by Dostoevsky
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontё
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

And again many great and not so great writers: Chekhov, Nabokov, Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh, W. Somerset Maugham, Marlowe, Martial, Plato, Petronius, John Dickson Carr, Rex Stout.

What is your favorite book?

Support independent publishing: buy this on Lulu.

Literature. That’s what I want to talk about.
…Talking of modern day literature, lately I’ve finished reading the book “What a Carve Up!” by Jonathan Coe. The book is interesting, no-ordinary and all that, though I don’t understand an author who kills his main character. I read books by Stephen Fry when I can find them. My favorite English writers are Evelyn Waugh, W. Somerset Maugham and Agatha Christie. To all the detective stories lovers I highly recommend the good thriller “I Kill” by Giorgio Faletti that I read recently; the title of the book may be other in English translation.
V. Nabokov on writing:
“A work of art has no importance whatever to society. It is only important to the individual”.
“A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist”.
“To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute”.
“Style and Structure are the essence of a book; great ideas are hogwash”.
“Literature was not born the day when a boy crying wolf, wolf came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels: literature was born on the day when a boy came crying wolf, wolf and there was no wolf behind him. That the poor little fellow because he lied too often was finally eaten up by the real beast was quite incidental. But here is what is important. Between the wolf in the tall grass and the wolf in the tall story there is a shimmering go-between. That go-between, that prism, is the art of literature”. ("Good Readers and Good Writers")
"I take my hat off to the hero who dashes into a burning house and saves his neighbor's child; but I shake his hand if he has risked squandering a precious five seconds to find and save, together with the child, its favorite toy". ("The Art of Literature and Commonsense")
«…Thus, being a young boy, in the nature I found the complicated and “useless” which afterwards I looked for in another delightful dupery--art».

*Revue_Blanche presents*
Mr. Nabokov and his wife:

Introduction
“And such was his passion for Hierocles that he kissed him in a place which it is indecent even to mention…” (THE LIFE OF ANTONINUS HELIOGABALUS)

“But after all we are not children, not illiterate juvenile delinquents, not English public school boys who after a night of homosexual romps have to endure the paradox of reading the Ancients in expurgated versions”. (V. Nabokov, On a Book Entitled Lolita)

The short story The Needs of the Navy by Aleister Crowley is the only work by this author which I love. The story was published in the collected stories Snowdrops From A Curates Garden, Paris, 1904; as you know, the edition was destroyed by Britain censorship in 1926. Now you can take the opportunity to read the story:
http://www.geocities.com/larisabee/navy.doc
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100% bookworm says:

[***]

*You Should Be a Film Writer*
You don't just create compelling stories, you see them as clearly as a movie in your mind.
You have a knack for details and dialogue. You can really make a character come to life.
Chances are, you enjoy creating all types of stories. The joy is in the storytelling.
And nothing would please you more than millions of people seeing your story on the big screen!
What Type of Writer Should You Be?
http://www.blogthings.com/whattypeofwritershouldyoubequiz/
(Although I never thought of myself as a film writer but that’s wonderful anyway. I am glad.)

*You Are 52% Creative*
You are a quite creative person. You're always involved in at least on interesting project.
Keep it up and keep learning. Your creativity may bring you great things someday.
How Creative Are You?
http://www.blogthings.com/howcreativeareyouquiz/

*You Are Romanticism*
You are likely to see the world as it should be, not as it is.
You prefer to celebrate the great things people do... not the horrors they're capable of.
For you, there is nothing more inspiring than a great hero.
You believe that great art reflects the artist's imagination and true ideals.
What Art Movement Are You?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatartmovementareyouquiz/

*Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence*
You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.
An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.
You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.
A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.
You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.
What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?
http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofintelligencedoyouhavequiz/
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The Darling of Fortune. Love story of Baron Louis van Heeckeren and Georges Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès

*Author’s Preface*

One more essay in the wonderful, literature saturated world of blogging. One more result of a small research. One more delicious concoction.

Despite his later career as a senator under the Second French Empire, d’Anthès’s name is most famous because of the duel he fought with the poet Aleksandr Pushkin. D’Anthès is possibly the most cursed character in Russian literature. Pushkin was a Romantic author who is considered to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature, and also he was one of the not numerous writers who Vladimir Nabokov dearly loved. Although Pushkin was an author of amazing poems and wondrous prose--and he wrote plays, creating a style of storytelling, mixing drama, romance, and satire--and his rich vocabulary and highly sensitive style are the foundation for modern literary Russian, but I never liked him as a man. Both d’Anthès and Pushkin were equally worldly and even depraved persons, just Pushkin was a straight man, and d’Anthès was definitely bisexual, as I’ve learnt later, much later than I first studied the story of the fatal duel. Although d’Anthès was neither a great poet nor a writer, but I liked him, when I was a schoolgirl, for he was a tall handsome man, he had a curling blond hair, and was wearing the beautiful white and golden uniform of an officer of the Tsar's Horse Guard. From the facts I learnt, I have formed the opinion that his life was worthy to be described in a novel.

*The Darling of Fortune*

Georges-Charles d’Anthès (February 5, 1812 - November 2, 1895) was born to a French royalist emigre family. First boy among six children, he was sent to Saint-Cyr, the prime French military academy. His father, Baron d’Anthès supported Charles X's party during the July Revolution, but in 1830 was forced to leave politics. Shortly soon after graduation from the military academy Georges got the letter of introduction from Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and set off for Russia in search of fortune.
On the way, in Germany he caught cold and took to his bed at an inn of a small German town. His money was nearly up; the illness proved to be lingering. By chance (because of breakage of a carriage) the string of carriages of the Dutch Ambassador Baron Heeckeren turned to the inn. At dinner the innkeeper told Heeckeren about the illness of the lonely French man; out of curiosity Heeckeren came to Georges’s room and was stricken with the young man’s beauty. He kept vigil over the sick young man till Georges got better, and then he offered the young man to join his train. As some evidential facts testify, the relationship between d’Anthès and Heeckeren was distinguished by uncommon care of each other and tenderness. In St. Petersburg Heeckeren engaged best teachers for Georges, and soon the young man succeeded in entering the Knights Guards of the Empress as cornet. Two years later, in 1836, he became lieutenant.
Jacob (a.k.a. Louis) Burchard van Heeckeren belonged to the ancient Dutch family; coming from an old noble Protestant family, he had begun his career in the Dutch navy, then had served under Napoleon I for many years; from that period, he had got a great attachment to France, a title of Empire baron and a conversion to Catholicism. On his return to Netherlands he became a diplomat, and in 1826--the Dutch Ambassador to St. Petersburg.
Heeckeren was a highly educated man, “…his apartment was full of antiques, and there was no a replica among the works of art. He was clever; of truth he had his own view; he took a broad view of things, but he did not let others get away with their sins. They at the diplomatic set were afraid of his tongue”, this most objective characteristic of his temper belongs to Baron Thornau--all the rest ones are malevolence tinted.
Meanwhile the relationship between d’Anthès and Heeckeren got stronger from day to day; Baron doted upon the young, blond, perfectly beautiful officer. No wonder. According to Memoirs of A. Zlotnitskie, d’Anthès was “a stately, very beautiful, well-educated, clever man of fashion, highly appreciated”. The comrades in the regiment loved, as Prince A. Trubetskoy wrote, “the stately, beautiful, more educated than we, witty French man”. After a lengthy correspondence and a journey to Alsace, Heeckeren proposed to d'Anthes's father to adopt his son as his heir. And he got the permission, which, in my view, tells about his outstanding capacity to convince, or about his wealth. D’Anthès’s father “renounced the rights to Georges-Charles d’Anthès” and permitted Baron to adopt the young man. After the agreement of the King of the Netherlands by letters patent dated May 5 1836, Georges-Charles d’Anthès took the name of Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d’Anthès. Thus, the “forbidden love” (which is truism at the present day) was registered and consecrated by the Law.
Here are several mentions of the homosexual love affair of Heeckeren and d’Anthès in the works by some authors who wrote about the life of Pushkin. In the book “The Duel and Death of Pushkin” P. Shchegolev claims: “…The ambassador was intimate to the young French man in a special way, by the perverse intimacy of a man to man”. More distinct mention of the friendship of Heeckeren and d’Anthès we can find in the booklet by Prince A. Trubetskoy: “…some pranks was usual to him [d’Anthès], however all the pranks were quite inoffensive and usual to the youths but one, of which we learnt much later. I don’t know what to say: whether he took Heeckeren or Heeckeren took him… Judging by all, … in the intercourse with Heeckeren he was a passive partner”. By P. Annenkov’s account, “Heeckeren was a homosexual, he was jealous of d’Anthès and he wanted to quarrel d’Anthès with the Pushkins”. In Letters A. Karamsin says: “Being a clever man and the most refined debauchee in the world Heeckeren possessed d’Anthès’s body as well as soul easily and entirely”. Pushkin in his dairies writes: “I was the first in society who has learnt that d’Anthès gives himself to Sodomite sin, and I gave publicity to the news with pleasure. I’ve learnt of that from the whores in the brothel, which he frequented. The girls said confidentially to me as their old friend, that d’Anthès paid them a lot of money so that they in turn licked his arse that was busted, and it bled like my whores’ after they were buggered mercilessly. As Heeckeren adopted him there’s no doubt about that”. This would be most interesting evidence, if we were entitled to believe in words of the man who was d’Anthes’s arch-enemy, who hated d’Anthès with all ardour of his African temper, and whose judgment may well be unfair, to put it mildly. However, there were several prostitutes as the witnesses who could confirm the bleeding alleged to be. But who did ask them? Pushkin again, that is the man who could pay money for inventing evidence like that. In reply, theoretically, d’Anthès could give publicity to the fact that Pushkin had venereal diseases more than once when he was a young student.
Heeckeren introduced d’Anthès to high society of St. Petersburg where Georges met Natalie Pushkin, a beautiful flirtatious young woman, who had many admirers--including the Tsar himself--and he fell in love with her. Needless to say, Heeckeren was against his foster-son’s passion for the woman; being jealous of Georges he sought to separate the lovers; after d’Anthès was deported he wrote in his letter from St. Petersburg: “…what a nice business you’ve left to me! It’s because you are lacking of trust to me. It upset me so much, my dear. I was unable to suppose that I’ve earned such a treatment”.
The way out for the first conflict between d’Anthès and Pushkin in autumn 1836 had become the marriage to Natalie Pushkin’s own sister, Ekaterina Goncharova, who loved him to distraction. D'Anthes's engagement and marriage to Natalie's sister was devised to contradict society gossip that he was in pursuit of Natalie. Baron Heeckeren had to agree to this marriage, because it saved his beloved from the duel. But this was not enough to soothe the conflict between the two new brothers-in-law, especially since an anonymous letter went round, nominating Pushkin Deputy Grand Master and Historiograph of the Order of Cuckolds. Pushkin’s furious jealousy made him write an insulting letter to d’Anthès' adoptive father. Pushkin having refused to withdraw these abuses, a duel became inevitable. On the evening of 8 February 1837, d’Anthès, as the offended, shot first, mortally wounding Pushkin in the stomach. Pushkin, who had fought several duels, managed to rise and shoot at d’Anthès, however, only lightly wounding him in the right arm.
After Pushkin's death, d’Anthès was imprisoned at Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. Dueling was illegal in Russia, and d’Anthès came to court, but he was pardoned by the Emperor, considering the gravity of the abuses written by Pushkin. Stripped of his rank, he was escorted back to the frontier. In Berlin, he was joined by his wife, who never doubted him. Both returned to France, in his father's region.
In France he began a successful political career: at first president of the local assembly, then member of the National Constituent Assembly from 1848 to 1852, and, at last, irremovable senator from 1852 to 1870. In 1852, he was assigned a secret mission by Napoleon III: he had to go to St. Petersburg and approach the Emperor of Russia to know his feeling in case Napoleon III proclaimed himself emperor. This mission was doubtless successful, because he was appointed senator on his return.
His wife died on October 15 1843, giving birth to their fourth child. He had daughter and son. His daughter went mad. While living in Paris, being raised without her mother she learnt Russian language unexpectedly quickly and to perfection, “she turned her room into a shrine. There was a large portrait of Pushkin in front of the altar; there were other Pushkin’s portraits on the walls. D’Anthès’s daughter said her prayers kneeling at the portraits of her uncle, with who she was in love. She had not mixed with her father after the family scene when she called him the murderer of Pushkin”.
After Goncharova’s death Heeckeren and d’Anthès conjoined again and never parted. Their male union was long-term and surprisingly constant. Both of them lived till venerable age.

Muse

Nets cast into water glaze as
in dark lindens' vatic hush
pensively a maiden gazes
at the scales of magic fish.

Now in animalish rapture
scarlet tails they curl and swish,
Now, aquamarine, the capture
light, transparency their wish.

Ecstatic, she has misconstrued
the deep imprinted waters' fruit,
the head of Orpheus, supposed
to surface as a golden rose.

February, 1922.

"In the slanting gleam of mirrors... "

With toils cast out in mirrors' slanting glimmer,
I bent toward the sunset's greenish pool.
I trace the patterns of the barely rippling
Somnambulist of lakes becoming gold!
Like blood that seeps from under cotton wool
Upon a granite slab appears a stripling,
And by the languid dark in honeyed summer,
Gray-visaged, he's prophetically encowled.
"Live, Unmoving one!" -- eyelids will shiver,
I'll fall to touch his tender palms with greed,
Let my divine companion come to cool
The languor of an all but quenchless need.
I do not recollect, do not foresee, --
The flight of moments, light and loving, free,
You bring a halt to suddenly, forever,
By splendour of your cheeks becoming young.

April, 1922.

"Pure art is engendered and perfected in its own special closed circle, detached from the whole world, with its own particular demands, as the world of a sick madman (even if ideal and well-constructed, but in its detachment and abstraction mad)."--Mikhail Kuzmin

*two poems more*

While in search of the poem Crepuscule Du Soir Mystique (Mystical Evening Twilight) by Paul Verlaine in English I translated the poem by myself. Here is the new word for word translation:

Memory and Evening Twilight
redden and tremble at the glowing skyline
of expectations in flames that retire
and thus enlarge, of which partition
mysterious or repeated bloom
--dahlia, lily, tulip, banewort--
climb around the trellis, and circle
amidst the morbific exhalations
of warm and disturbing perfumes, which is poison
--dahlia, lily, tulip, banewort--
flooding my senses, my soul and my reason,
they mix, into immense languor,
Memory and Evening Twilight.

And this is my version of La Lune Blanche by Paul Verlaine:

The white moon
shines in the woods;
from each bough
comes a voice
under the branch…

Oh, beloved.

The pond reflects,
deep mirror,
the silhouette
of the black willow
where the wind cries…

Let us dream, now is the hour.

A vast and tender
appeasing
seems to descend
from the firmament
as an iridescent orb...

It is the exquisite hour.

There are Oscar Wilde’s quotations that I love:

“I don’t regret for a single moment having lived for pleasure. I did it to the full, as one should do everything that one does. There was no pleasure I did not experience. I threw the pearl of my soul into a cup of wine. I went down the primrose path to the sound of flutes. I lived on honeycomb.” (De Profundis”)

“…that while Metaphysics had but little real interest for me, and Morality absolutely none…” (De Profundis”)

“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation”. (De Profundis”)

“… and the love of children and flowers – for both of which, indeed, in classical art there was but little place, hardly enough for them to grow or play in, but which, from the twelfth century down to our own day, have been continually making their appearances in art, under various modes and at various times, coming fitfully and willfully, as children, as flowers, are apt to do: spring always seeming to one as if the flowers had been in hiding, and only came out into the sun because they were afraid that grown up people would grow tired of looking for them and give up the search; and the life of a child being no more than an April day on which there is both rain and sun for the narcissus”. (“De Profundis”)

“To get back one's youth one has merely to repeat one's follies”.

“The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history”. (“The Picture of Dorian Gray”)

“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself”.

“Either this paper goes or I do”.

“If the Socialism is Authoritarian; if there are Governments armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we are to have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first”. (“The Soul of Man under Socialism”)

“Education is a wonderful thing, provided you always remember that nothing worth knowing can ever be taught”.

“They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty”.

“There is no such thing as moral or immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all”.

"Yes, the objective form is the most subjective in manner. Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth". ("The Critic as Artist")

“…At any rate, wherever he lay---whether in the little vineyard at the gate of the Gothic town, or in some dim London churchyard amidst the roar and bustle of our great city---no gorgeous monument marked his resting-place. His true tomb, as Shakespeare saw, was the poet's verse, his true monument the permanence of the drama. So had it been with others whose beauty had given a new creative impulse to their age. The ivory body of the Bithynian slave rots in the green ooze of the Nile, and on the yellow hills of the Cerameicus is strewn the dust of the young Athenian; but Antinous lives in sculpture, and Charmides in philosophy”. (“The Portrait of Mr. W. H.”)

“…Many curious stories were related about him at this period. It was said that a stout Burgomaster, who had come to deliver a florid oratorical address on behalf of the citizens of the town, had caught sight of him kneeling in real adoration before a great picture that had just been brought from Venice, and that seemed to herald the worship of some new gods. On another occasion he had been missed for several hours, and after a lengthened search had been discovered in a little chamber in one of the northern turrets of the palace gazing, as one in a trance, at a Greek gem carved with the figure of Adonis. He had been seen, so the tale ran,
pressing his warm lips to the marble brow of an antique statue that had been discovered in the bed of the river on the occasion of the building of the stone bridge, and was inscribed with the name of the Bithynian slave of Hadrian. He had passed a whole night in noting the effect of the moonlight on a silver image of Endymion”. (“The Young King”)

Oscar Wilde Home Page

There is the nice poem entitled “To My Dog” by my favorite poet. In this lyric a man was sitting by the fireside, and his dog curled up at his feet (the dog is a husky in all appearance). In the first line he addressed to the dog:

“Dream, dream. More and more blear
are your golden eyes
watching the hoar window-pane,
the snow-clad courtyard,
the frosty, smoky poplar-trees.

Sighing you’ve curled up at my feet,
and you think… that too often
we torment ourselves yearning for other fields,
other wilderness--beyond the Permian mountains…”

The final stanza of the poem is:

“…And I always share musings with you:
I am a human. Like a god I’m doomed
to get through sadness of all peoples and all times”.

Me too; I had my little dumb companion too. It was my late kitty that used to be lying near by while I spent time at the computer at the morning hours when all the rest indwellers slept at home, and the pale fire of the screen was like the fireside.
She was 17. It was breast cancer. Since her death in 2006 I can’t think of getting hold of other cat; I just help the stray cats as well as dogs and other animals and birds. Now one tomcat, my good friend visits me. He comes, and I give him much milk and food, and then he goes to bed. I’d like him to spend the night home, but he doesn’t--after sleep he goes out for a night walk.

To know them is to love them.

The essay “The Last Caress of the Dead Cat” is an Obituary of my cat that died in 2006. For cat lovers. READ THE ESSAY:
http://www.geocities.com/larisabee/mykitty_eng2.doc"

Charles Baudelaire
*The Cat*
I
A fine strong gentle cat is prowling
As in his bedroom, in my brain;
So soft his voice, so smooth its strain,
That you can scarcely hear him miowling.
But should he venture to complain
Or scold, the voice is rich and deep:
And thus he manages to keep
The charm of his untroubled reign.
This voice, which seems to pearl and filter
Through my soul's inmost shady nook,
Fills me with poems, like a book,
And fortifies me, like a philtre.
His voice can cure the direst pain
And it contains the rarest raptures.
The deepest meanings, which it captures,
It needs no language to explain.
There is no bow that can so sweep
That perfect instrument, my heart:
Or make more sumptuous music start
From its most vibrant cord and deep,
Than can the voice of this strange elf,
This cat, bewitching and seraphic,
Subtly harmonious in his traffic
With all things else, and with himself.
II
So sweet a perfume seems to swim
Out of his fur both brown and bright,
I nearly was embalmed one night
From (only once) caressing him.
Familiar Lar of where I stay,
He rules, presides, inspires and teaches
All things to which his empire reaches.
Perhaps he is a god, or fay.
When to a cherished cat my gaze
Is magnet-drawn and then returns
Back to itself, it there discerns,
With strange excitement and amaze,
Deep down in my own self, the rays
Of living opals, torch-like gleams
And pallid fire of eyes, it seems,
That fixedly return my gaze.

Charles Baudelaire
*Cats*
Sages austere and fervent lovers both,
In their ripe season, cherish cats, the pride
Of hearths, strong, mild, and to themselves allied
In chilly stealth and sedentary sloth.
Friends both to lust and learning, they frequent
Silence, and love the horror darkness breeds.
Erebus would have chosen them for steeds
To hearses, could their pride to it have bent.
Dreaming, the noble postures they assume
Of sphinxes stretching out into the gloom
That seems to swoon into an endless trance.
Their fertile flanks are full of sparks that tingle,
And particles of gold, like grains of shingle,
Vaguely be-star their pupils as they glance.

*beauty*
I plucked a flower, and it withered.
I caught a moth, and it died on the palm of my hand.
And then I realized
that one needs touch beauty only with his heart.

*Monologue of the Tomcat, My Good Friend*
“It’s nice of you to feed me with the tasty fish! I am warm and satisfied; now I can lie down on the pillow. Though you’ve forgotten to caress my belly and my ears. I am about to croon a song for you. Don’t drive me away off the table! There are more interesting matters, of course. Look there! What a lady-cat walks outside the window! Well… Are you lonely again? Why are you engaged in the witchcraft at the luminous screen again? Let’s go up to the roof to watch the stars! And to sing songs all night long, till the morning light! You don’t want to? And you are pale… Meow-meow… Now then, smile, for you can do it! After all, say everything to him, and let him not sleep! You love yourself so little and you don’t pity yourself…”

*The Time has Come. . .*
The time has come, and the animals of the becoming extinct species go to register themselves in the Red Book without waiting till someone do it instead to them.
At the Registry Office of the Red Book.
Clerk: You name?
1st Animal: Gopher Crested.
Clerk: How many are you?
1st Animal: I am alone.
Clerk: What do you complain of?
1st Animal: I am alone.
Clerk: Your sex?
1st Animal: Male.
Now the Clerk is called to come to other study.
The Clerk: Would you be at the desk instead of me while I’m away?
1st Animal nodded. The Clerk left the study. 1st Animal sat at the desk. 2nd Animal came in.
1st Animal: Your Name?
2nd Animal: Gopher Crested.
Pause.
1st Animal: How many are you?
2nd Animal: I am alone.
1st Animal: Your sex?
2nd Animal opened his mouth to answer, but 1st Animal interrupted him taking his hand in his gently.
1st Animal: Don’t hasten to answer…

*A Vegetarian Themed Dialog*
The Tomcat and the Donkey are carrying on a fashionable conversation.
Tomcat: What do you have for dinner usually?
Donkey: Burs.
Tomcat: Burs?
Donkey: Yes, I prefer spicy food.
Tomcat: Do you eat meat?
Donkey: Meat? Meat is a load and not food. One puts it in my cart, you silly little thing!
Tomcat: Well… Do you drink milk?
Donkey: Milk! It’s when I was a baby. Warm, sweet, paradise!
Let’s be like the Donkey!

A new anecdote I heard (retelling is mine):
“In Moscow the first gay marriage was registered, but… But nobody knows in which way two mischievous persons contrived to obtain the keys of the Registry Office. The police inquiry tries to clarify this question now”.

I have a new work, but I can’t publish it at DeviantArt, because it is not my writing but a translation. I’ve made the translation of the nice secular essay and would like to bring it to the notice of those who are interested in history of literature.

*Introduction*

Zinaida Gippius (1869 - 1945) and her husband Dmitriy Merezhkovsky (1865 - 1941) were a happy childless couple of Russian writers from St. Petersburg, who lived in Berlin. The young Nabokov used to visit their salon. Look at Leon Bakst’s famous portrait in which the middle-aged Zinaida Gippius was wearing a costume a la Oscar Wilde (1906):

Before looking at the portrait I deemed my manner of lounging on the chair is unique. She was red-haired, myopic, slim. Half myrrh-bearer, half garconne. In her poems she used masculine gender and pronoun ‘he’ speaking of herself. Her poems left me cool, because like her husband she was a religion and mystique-oriented writer: between 1894 and 1905 Merezhkovsky wrote a trilogy of historical novels entitled The Death of the Gods (1894, on Julian the Apostate), Leonardo da Vinci (1896) and Peter and Alexis (1902) about Peter the Great and Tsarevich Alexis. I read a part of Gippius’s St. Petersburg Diaries; the Diaries is a great historical nonfiction; her thoughts and theories concerning the current politics and everyday life of the beleaguered Petrograd are so close to my thoughts on the theme that it seemed to me that I read my own words. I hardly have anything in common with her but her firm politics and her manner of lounging on the chair. When recently I reread her Parisian gay themed essay “Disharmonie harmonieuse” I tried to find its English text on the Net, but in vain. There are not her works in English on the Net, which is a pity. Then I decided to translate the essay. The small essay is a bagatelle, if you like, but in my view, it is most interesting and worth rereading and remembering. You may take this incondite translation as purely cognitive text. I don’t share the author’s irony concerning harmony of the world, and I believe in harmony of the disharmonious. Now imagine: the 1920s, Paris by night…

*Disharmonie harmonieuse*

The small bright-lit café is white, cozy, douillette. Its windows and doors covered with reddish-rosy velvet. Its patron is a chic swarthy man wearing a dinner-jacket, white shirt and patent-leather shoes with white uppers. He wants nothing to be visible or heard outside, and every now and then, with his well cared-for hand adorned with glittering rings he straightens the close velvet of the windows.
It’s one at night. Theatre shows are over, and to Bar Auguste in the small suspicious lane in Montmartre the elegant smelly automobiles and cabs drive up. The door opens every minute. Gentlemen wearing tailcoats; ladies wearing evening dresses. Two mirrored walls vis-à-vis multiple reflections of everything and everybody between them.
Sounds of “matchiche” are heard from the corner where the musicians’ jackets show red. Snaking the middle-aged, clean-shaven Hautero dances with Bobete. Bobete turns his head to look at himself in a mirror every now and then. He loves himself. He is concerned in his accurate kinky hair: if only the hairstyle were not disordered. An odd hair, it looks like a wig of false astrakhan or like our soldiers’ hats. Hautero (he is… dressmaker) is draped with a large Spanish serape. The café is crowded, and the serape’s long fringe gets caught on the guests’ buttons. Hautero has a felt wide-awake on his head. A red rose is in his teeth. Clicking ivory castanets Hautero is fascinated by dancing. He enjoys the attention of the chic guests, who are numerous tonight in the bright-lit room; besides he loves Bobete and clings to the young man, snaking languorously.
Loud applause. The patron applauds looking askance at the door. “Bravo, Hautero!” the guests shout. And two ladies invite him at their table and ask to have a glass of champagne. One of the ladies has canotier and a coat on, a starched collar props her sharp chin; she has a cigarette in one hand, her other hand embraces her neighbor, a pale nice-looking girl, brightly lipsticked. The girl has rich flaxen-coloured hair; on her fingers she has such a great amount of rings that she seems to be metal gloved. A bebe style white frock.
“Lily!” Hautero worries her. “Sing for us!”
Mincing Lily goes to the middle of the room. Her friend never takes eyes off her.
But there is a small misunderstanding. Adolph, a lovely youth with dark languid eyes is tired of sitting at table with a German. The German treats Adolph to beer, the man hardly can speak French, in general, he seems to be rude, boring, uninteresting. Now a Pole wearing a tailcoat and top-hat throws a rose across the table to Adolph. The youth puts the rose in the buttonhole, comes to the Pole and kisses the man on lips. The German takes offence and begins to be insolent to the Pole. Who knows what would come of it but for the sophisticated patron; being confused not in the least he knows whose side he should take with: the Pole spends hundreds francs for champagne every night in the cafe. The patron speaks energetically about something to the German. The angry man turns red and goes out; everyone laughs and whistles after. Adolph laughs especially loud, however he is looking at the Pole no longer--now he looks occasionally at three clean-shaven Americans with thick cigars in teeth, who watch dully and imperturbably what’s going on. Lily has nearly taken alarm yet she calms down and begins to sing in a thin voice a sweet song, throwing her eyes up at her friend. Amidst the men the singer is not a success, but the chic ladies of demi-monde bend and begin to explain something to their tired elderly boyfriends, and then they applaud softly with their hands wearing long white gloves.
Bobete announces he wants to sing too. But it’s the same old story: being engaged in himself too much he demands everyone to keep silence while he is singing. As if on purpose talks arise amidst the listeners as soon as he begins to sing. He grows angry and becomes silent. To take offence affectedly, to make a little moue of plaint is profession of the kinky lamb Bobete. One of the guests, a young artist crosses out his funny well-meant caricature.
Like Lily Bobete has liking for sweet sentimental songs. Pressing his hands on his bosom he sings of unshared love, of men’s heartlessness. But Lucien is quite another matter; the young man dislikes the sloppy endearments. His baritone is not bad at all. Opening his eyes wide, looking seriously he shoots out the free-spoken things that in virtue of their specific character hardly can be comprehensible at times. Most spicy bits he underlines with gestures. The listeners enjoy.
The Pole laughs especially loud. He has forgotten of Adolph and invites the vigorous Lucien at table. However there are two Luciens. The second one is a modest, non-singing boy about eighteen or may be younger. The young Russian artist, the enigmatic habitué (“enigmatic” because nobody, including Hautero, knows his name here, though everyone here has got used to him and loves him) calls the second Lucien to sit at our table. Hautero, who is tired of dancing, sat at our table too.
The artist presents little bouquets of violets to Hautero and Lucien. Lucien is so stupid that he doesn’t know what he should do with his bouquet. Lucien is stupid to utter perfection--not only to innocence, but even worse, to ultimate virtue. He hardly can speak. He just smiles with his fresh children’s lips. His eyes are either an infant’s or a deer’s, very beautiful. Being slightly confused, an elderly Russian writer admires the eyes; yet the man doesn’t look for a wit, being content with his own, as for adolescence, Lucien has it to your heart’s content. Really, what for a wit, if there are freshness, beauty and virtue?
“Gha-a…” Lucien smiles. “J’aime tout le monde…”
And Hautero is not stupid at all. He doesn’t mind philosophizing, pretending to be une cocotte chic as usual, as usual repeating female feline grimaces. His face is whitened as a mask. The nostrils of his flattish nose swell, he puts the violets and round green leaves in his ears. He has tousled the little bouquet to parts.
“Life is good, isn’t it, bon camarade?” I ask.
He makes a small bow on one side:
“Good, because there is always hope”.
“Hope of what?”
“I don’t know. Is that of importance? O, speranza, speranza!”
“You lie”, I think. “You know the old age is coming; you know that at your art of “dressmaker” you need adolescence as nobody else; even une cocotte chic, even she keeps her fortune longer than you…”
Some movement. A new face. A boy, well-dressed, remarkably beautiful, seems to be a Spaniard. His eye is confused, alarmed and somewhat badgered. He looks round. Hautero jumps up pushing Lucien neglectfully. The Spaniard is encircled. Another moment he is jammed. What has become of him?--presently--I don’t know.
The musicians have nearly begun to play a gipsy romance, but they are interrupted with everyone’s demand of “matchiche”. Snaking someone goes to dance again… Lifted arms sway in the dove-coloured air…
Well, what comes next? We seemed to do all tonight--both sang and danced--and all was good, in friendly way … But there is a new guest: a little old woman in black with a little reticule in hands. She looks like a usual parishioner of a church. A woman like she stands at a chapel and moves her lips telling her beads. But there is not a chapel here, and the old woman has a pack of cards in hands instead of beads. She is a fortune-teller.
The well-dressed ladies are glad. At their table the fortune-teller shuffles the worn, greasy cards. The elderly tailcoat-clad boyfriends put monocles in eyes and pretend to be interested in the fortune telling. The ladies laugh loudly.
But someone of the guests is off. The Pole went away along with the little Adolph, because he preferred Adolph to Lucien after all; Lucien followed them with envious eye. Hautero rushes about tables, arranging affairs: “About twenty! Take my word for it! He overcharges!” The patron glances at his watch. Chasseur calls automobiles, cabs. The musicians make their round with a plate in hand; the waiters give the fantastic bills.
“C’est curieux, c’est tres curieux”, say the elderly tailcoat-clad boyfriends, who have become thin and hollow-cheeked at once, and throw the unbelievable fur-mantles on their ladies’ shoulders.
The boulevards are silent. The high Windmill is lit with red and blue irritating lights no longer. It is waiting for the next night, waiting for the warm wind of the human… no, Parisian lust. The roundabouts turn no longer. The rosy boars, which the happy screaming people rode the night long, now are covered and keeping silence.
The gaunt, sallow-faced conductor of the last metro takes tickets of the not numerous passengers. The carts full of vegetables move slowly along the desert streets. There is the soft-green cart full of cresses; and over there is the orange one, full of carrots. A Parisian doesn’t look at the carts. It’s for tomorrow. And tonight it’s time to go to bed. All in good time; and days must be harmonious--a sleep after a spree. The harmony of the world is a great thing!
That’s true. So what? Nothing special. I don’t draw a conclusion. I just take a photograph.

The End

The young Zinaida Gippius:

STORIA, SALVE!
The god Thoth-Hermes as a god of written language and magic is a most important deity of Pantheon of Great Gods to me. The ancients reckoned written language to be a magic in a way. I agree with them: writing and reading are a kind of magic for me. La magie blanche.
My beloved Emperor is Hadrian, and not the Emperor Elagabalus, but after I read the book The Life of Antoninus Heliogabalus by Aelius Lampridius (that proved to be unexpectedly simple read, and that I liked, though I’d argue with the author of the book) I’ve written the poem with a working title of “Heliogabalus and others”. It would be interesting to know your opinion about the poem (word for word translation):

The quill paused.
Everyone expected a sequel.
Take courage, beloved Emperor!
They shouted: “Let’s kill him again!”
His silhouette deepened.
The candle-end of consciousness decreased.
“There he is! He who acts”.
Cassocks dance in a ring again.
The footmen change portraits.
“That’s the very one who’s helped us!”
Now we mint his silhouettes.
Laurels, triumphs, victory robes.
New syllables of insight.
Those who were in raptures
changed the object of adoration.
For the former fell into disuse.
The diadem doesn’t fit.
We’ll adapt the head.
A moment of grandeur is evanescent.
Eternity is humans’ oblivion.
And the lowest of the dead know
the awakening in the land of the living.
Everyone expected a sequel,
but the quill paused.

Talking of history, my favorite Roman Emperor in Suetonius’s The Lives of the Twelve Caesars is the Emperor Vitellius; I like the completeness of Vitellius’s nature, and there was the interesting story of his lover Asiaticus; the story may be a wonderful plot of an entertaining novel. In Suetonius’s book there is one emperor I dislike and even hate; it’s Tiberius. The old man was said to kill the children who gave him pleasure. It’s mean.

Talking of literature, while reading ancient authors ( Plato, Martial, Suetonius, Petronius ) I realized that I understand the manner of their writing so much, it is so close to me, to the frame of my mind, to my apprehension. Or perhaps that was a matter of the good translation of their works? May be. And sometimes I feel like arguing with the ancient authors as though they are my contemporaries. Reading as transcendence. While I was reading The Life of Heliogabalus by Aelius Lampridius, it occurred to me: a new book has to be written. An American writer has to write a book of comments to Lampridius’s book, the comments written by the Emperor Elagabalus himself or more truly by his luminous immortal spirit. Imagine: the Emperor Elagabalus’s spirit read Lampridius's book and he disliked it; he had patience for a long while silently, and now he couldn't stand that any loner and he came to a decision to write a refutation, a dementi as it were; may be he was about to do it with the help of a modern day mortal writer, who would do it, taking a dry historical fact and fleshing it out with colour and drama. He comments and we learn what is truth, what are exaggerations, and what are outrageous lies in the book we know. The reader will have much to think about. For, as I think, here and there Lampridius’s book seems to be exactly what’s needed in the current politics conjecture of his time, a kind of blackening reputation of a person who could not reply. Notice: the ‘bloodthirsty beast of antiquity’, young Elagabalus seems to be quite tolerant to ideological opponents of paganism. As Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848–1907) says in his book A Rebours, Tertullian "lived in stormy times, at a period of fearful stress and strain, under Caracalla, under Macrinus, under that amazing personage, the High-Priest of Emessa, Elagabalus; and he had gone on calmly and quietly writing his sermons, composing his dogmatic treatises, preparing his apologies and homilies, while the Roman Empire was tottering to its foundations, while the frantic follies of Asia and the foul vices of Paganism were at their worst; he was preaching with an air of perfect self-possession carnal abstinence, frugality of diet, sobriety of dress at the very moment when, treading on powder of silver and sand of gold, his head crowned with a tiara, his robes studded with precious stones, Elagabalus was at work, among his eunuchs, at women s tasks, calling himself by the title of Empress and every night lying with a new Emperor, selecting him for choice from the ranks of the Court barbers and scullions, or the charioteers from the Circus." The later followers, sympathizers and Christian brothers of Tertullian hardly ever could show a tolerance like that of the High-Priest of Emessa. No doubt, as a hotheaded, effusive crown-bearing boy the Emperor Elagabalus was capable of committing some effusive acts, but there were the ridiculously numerous follies, which Lampridius and others clumsily imputed him, which make me shrug shoulders. Personally I can explain in a positive way at least two of the follies, and an American writer can do it hundredfold better than me. There has to be much humor, irony, self-irony and even bed scenes in the future narration. A delicious concoction. The luminous immortal spirit of the Emperor Elagabalus along with his modern day author has to hold Lampridius and others up to ridicule. The best example (or a paragon?) of a novel as a book of comments is Nabokov’s greatest novel Pale Fire. A new Pale Fire has to be written by an American or a British writer. A British writer is better because the British authors’ irony is killing sometimes.

Epitaph:
“He knew how death hunts at distance; dug his own grave with both hands and heart scornful of mortal childishness. May the Sun of such wisdom shine long beneath the Sun”.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

*On the Prototypes of Evelyn Waugh’s Anthony Blanche*
The Gay Encyclopedia about Harold Acton:
Among the "Bright Young Things" of British society during the 1920s, few shone quite as brightly as Harold Acton. Known for his flamboyant dandyism and his extraordinary demeanor, he was the object of frequent mention in gossip columns and the inspiration for the notorious Anthony Blanche, the outré homosexual undergraduate character in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited (1945).
Although he was at various points in his long life a poet, novelist, historian, university lecturer, Royal Air Force officer, and philanthropist, Acton's true vocation was that of an aesthete with a mission, in his own words, to "excite rage in the hearts of the Philistines."
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton was born at Villa la Pietra, his family's estate near Florence, Italy, on July 5, 1904. His father was the descendant of an aristocratic English Catholic family who had resided in Italy since the eighteenth century, and his mother was the daughter of a wealthy American family.
Given his background, Acton was inevitably an exotic outsider as a student at Eton and subsequently Christ Church, Oxford. With his penchant for shocking narrow minds, he strove to emphasize rather than repress his eccentricities and seeming decadence and based his values on fashion, art, fantasy, and extravagant decorum, all of which flew in the face of traditional Victorian mores and masculine ideals.
While still an undergraduate, Acton published two volumes of poetry, Aquarium (1923) and An Indian Ass (1925). He was editor of the journal Oxford Poetry for one year (1924), in which he declared himself an advocate of "post-Eliot" verse.
One of the best-known anecdotes of Acton's undergraduate years involved his reciting Eliot's poem The Waste Land through a megaphone at a garden party at Worcester College, an action replicated by Waugh's fictional character. Acton became acquainted with Waugh, who engaged in homosexual affairs at Oxford, while both were undergraduates. Waugh was obviously fascinated with Acton, as the latter served as a model not only for Blanche but also, in part, for the outrageously queeny Ambrose Silk in Put Out More Flags (1942).
Acton returned to Italy after receiving a baccalaureate degree in 1926, and published a historical work, The Last Medici (1932). Distressed with the expansion of fascism in his native country, he departed for China, and resided there from 1932 until the beginning of World War II. While there, he taught English literature at Peking National University, translated and published an edition of Chinese poetry, and cultivated a predilection for Chinese art and drama. With the outbreak of war, he returned to England and joined the Royal Air Force. He saw duty in India and Ceylon, and, by his own account, was "humbled yet exhilarated" in the company of heroic men.
In 1945, Acton resumed his residence in Italy and set about writing his autobiographical Memoirs of an Aesthete (1948), the work for which he is primarily remembered. In this volume and its sequel, More Memoirs of an Aesthete (1970), Acton is, for the period in which he wrote, uncommonly open about his sexuality.
His most exacting effort, however, is a two-part study and vindication of the monarchy his paternal ancestors had long served, The Bourbons of Naples (1957) and The Last Bourbons of Naples (1961).
Acton was awarded the distinction of Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1974. Having no immediate heirs, he bequeathed his $500,000,000 estate, including his Italian Renaissance villa and extensive art collections, to New York University. He died at Villa la Pietra on February 27, 1994.
Waugh himself wrote, "The characters in my novels often wrongly identified with Harold Acton were to a great extent drawn from Brian Howard”.
Brian Christian de Claiborne Howard (13 March 1905 - 15 January 1958) was an English poet, whose work belied a spectacularly precocious start in life; in the end he became more of a journalist, writing for the New Statesman.
He was born to American parents in Hascombe, Surrey, and brought up in London; his father Francis Gassaway Howard was an associate of James Whistler. He was educated at Eton College, where he was one of the Eton Arts Society group including Harold Acton, Oliver Messel, Anthony Powell and Henry Yorke. He entered Christ Church, Oxford in 1923, not without difficulty. He was prominent in the group later known as the Oxford Wits. He was one of the Hypocrites group that included Harold Acton, Lord David Cecil, L. P. Hartley and Evelyn Waugh.
At this time he had already been published as a poet, in A. R. Orage's The New Age, and the final Sitwell Wheels anthology. He used the pseudonyms Jasper Proude and Charles Orange. His verse also was in Oxford Poetry 1924.
Subsequently he led a very active social life, tried to come to terms with his homosexuality, and published only one substantial poetry collection God Save the King (1930, Hours Press). He was active as a poet during the Spanish Civil War, but did not ultimately invest in his work with seriousness. He drank heavily and used drugs.
During World War II he worked for MI5 and then had a low-level post in the Royal Air Force. He suffered from bad health in the 1950s, and committed suicide after the accidental death of a lover.

Quotations:
“Conversation, as I know it, is like juggling; up go the balls and the balloons and the plates, up and over, in and out, spinning and leaping, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them”. (Anthony Blanche)
“Why drink? If you want to be intoxicated there are so many much more delicious things”. (Anthony Blanche)
“Oh, la fatigue du Nord!” (Anthony Blanche)
I don’t believe anyone could play Anthony Blanche better than Nickolas Grace (1981).
Nickolas Grace’s other brilliant work is the performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the British T.V. series about Robin Hood:

I love the Sheriff!
In spring of 2003 I saw the T.V. series BRIDESHEAD REVISITED (“An engaging, brilliantly written and superbly directed film that's evocative, funny, suspenseful and ultimately moving”). I liked the movie just partly, but it had become a discovery for me. In the movie there were the kingly Jeremy Irons as Charles Ryder, the princely Anthony Andrews as Sebastian Flyte, but Nickolas Grace as Anthony Blanche eclipsed both of them, in my view. He was divine! I bought the book BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh to read the story, and I fell in love with Anthony Blanche yet more. Now, lately on the Net I learnt that Nickolas Grace appeared as the Sheriff of Nottingham in the movie about Robin Hood. Looking at his photos I recalled that in the past, when I was so young, so young, and watched TV much oftener, I saw the English T.V. series about Robin Hood, and that I was in love with the Sheriff in those days. Thus, the man who was my love at my young age proved to be the man who is my love at my mature age. May be it sounds oddly enough but formerly I didn’t know the name of the amazing actor of the name of Nickolas Grace. The exquisite, fatally gorgeous, amazing, nice actor! Dear Nickolas, thank you for your magic eye; your art is awesome; it is la magie blanche!

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED WEBSITE

My Brideshead Revisited

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