Skip to main content

Quotations from Father and Son: Biographical Recollections by Edmund Gosse (chapter 1)

I cant help but compare my adolescence to such a one as this:


"The peculiarities of a family life, founded upon such principles, are, in relation to a little child, obvious; but I may be permitted to recapitulate them. Here was perfect purity, perfect intrepidity, perfect abnegation [denial of self]; yet there was also narrowness, isolation, an absence of humanity."


He follows:

"So confident were they of the reality of their intercourse with God, that they asked for no other guide. They recognized no spiritual authority among me, they subjected themselves to no priest or minister, they troubled their consciences about no current manifestation of 'religious opinion.' They lived in an intellectual cell, bounded at its sides by the walls of their own house, but open above to the very heart of the uttermost heavens.

This, then, was the scene in which the soul of a little child was planted, not as in an ordinary open flower-border or carefully tended social parterre [an ornamental flower garden having the beds and paths arranged to form a pattern], but as on a ledge, split in the granite of some mountain. The ledge was hung between night and the snows on one hand, and the dizzy depths of the world upon the other; was furnished with just soil enough for a gentian to struggle skywards and open its stiff azure stars; and offered no lodgement, no hope of salvation, to any rootlet which should stray beyond its inexorable [unyielding or unalterable] limits."



I want so much to understand the world in which I grew up; a showing of intense 'godliness' (or a form thereof) and spiritual gain, yet an absence of freedom to be human. What was my heritage seeking if their spirituality did not coalesce with true human experience?

Popular posts from this blog

I don't have all the answers, but I do have two cents.

My friend and fellow recovering ex-fundamentalist , I greet you joyously knowing the freedom you have found in leaving fundamentalism, however I am saddened by your departure as a whole from our Lord. I indeed understand the hardship which you have faced is cause for questioning God’s existence, faithfulness, and love to his creation. I would like to respond to you because I feel like I understand your socio-religious background. Let me first tell you my goal is not to re-convert you, but rather to give you a second thought from one who grew up in similar roots, whose posture of faith remains bent toward the gospel. I also grew up in ultra-conservative fundamentalism. If names like Peter Ruckman, Jack Hyles, Arlin Horton, etc, mean anything to you than you will understand. I graduated from PCC. OMG. I cannot believe it, but it’s true. What a crazy place. Fear, guilt, shame, legalism were the name of the game! As long as you “caught the spirit” all of life would be good and God would b...
Read more

A response to my beloved mother: part 2

READ THIS POST FIRST MY MOTHER : "I'm a registered Conservative, but my vote counted since they endorsed McCain, so I guess it all depends on who the Libertarian's endorse, and even if it were someone difference, at least you would have had a part in voting for the "most" righteous candidate, and McCain was the one even though he's still not the Christian ideal! Remember, Bill Clinton was a "pro-choice" candidate as well as one who furthered the homosexual agenda, so it wasn't surprising to me that 9/11 happened after his term was up and it's not surprising that the economy is faltering so badly now, and it won't surprise me if Obama continues the downward spiral, even if it is into socialistic policies since that's how Europe has gone since they left off looking to God. It doesn't matter what the rest of the world is doing since the majority have been anti-God for so long and their nations have paid for that for centuries (Dark...
Read more
These are lines from Goethe's Faust : (A young moldable student approached Dr. Faust to learn to speak well) Wagner: Forgive me, But I thought you were declaiming. Been reciting some Greek tragedy, no doubt; I wish to improve myself in this same art; 'Tis a most useful one. I've heard it said, An actor might give lessons to a priest. Faust: Yes! when your priest's an actor, as may happen. Wagner: Oh! if a man shuts himself up forever in his dull study; if one sees the world never, unless on some chance holyday, looks at it from a distance, through a telescope, how can we learn to sway the minds of men by eloquence? to rule them, or persuade? Faust: If feeling does not prompt, in vain you strive, If from the soul the language does not come, but its own impulse, to impel the hearts of hearers, with communicated power, in vain you strive -- in vain you study earnestly. Toil on forever; piece together fragments; Cook up your broken scraps of sentences, and blow, with ...
Read more