A.A.Milne /Two People/
" Bees. Bees everywhere in the erigeron; well, you would expect them there. Bees in the eryngium - deceived by name, perhaps. Bees on the zinnias, unaware of so much beauty, aware, only, of so much honey. A bee's-eye view of a garden, how strange, how different! Bees in the lavender, looking for food.
Futile things - bees. What are we in the world for? The creation of beauty, the discovery of beauty, the realization of beauty. What else? Well, knowledge, says that gargoyle Professor Pumpernickel. Very well; write 'truth' for 'beauty', if you will, and you have summed up the whole business of man. Are the bees for beauty, for truth? No. Just existence, propagation, death, birth, propagation, death ... on and on through the centuries. Why this passion to reproduce oneself rather than fulfil oneself? Not bees only; men and women. We are lost! What shall we do without children, more children, still more children, bungalows, more bungalows, still more bungalows?
We are afraid of ourselves. Like in that game we play at the Hildershams' at Christmas - Up Jenkins. All our hands busy under the table passing the sixpence to each other, all of us trying to get the sixpence into somebody else's hand, so that when the command "Up Jenkins!" comes from across the table, it shall not be we who are responsible, not our hands which shall get away the secret. We had the sixpence for a moment, we have passed it successfully to little Tony Hildersham, we have done our part. If he is caught with it, that is his affair, if he has passed it on to the Coleby girl, that is her affair; our hands are clean. "
PS "So when we are asked "What did you do with life?" we can answer quickly, "Passed it on, Lord.""
Other Quotations.
What but the craving for beauty distinguished us from the animals?
Is God interested in the Theory of Relativity as some tupenny Professor of Physics?
How silly to write a made-up book!
I believe Hell is an entire invention of Man's for the storing of people he doesn't like. (!)
He was right about my waiting for something to happen. If you live in that set, and - and are different, you are bound to feel it.
A happy marriage is best founded on a spiritual appreciation of physical qualities.
That's love, being attracted forever.
Anyway, what is matter with this one? It has been in existence of million years, and we have just discovered wireless, which means that wireless has been waiting a million years for us to discover. Really it does seem as we had everything in the world, if only we looked properly. We! I haven't discovered much ... except the combination of Sylvia and me.
From the moment Shakespeare said impatiently to Burbage "Oh call it "Twelfth Night", or what you will" and Burbage called it "Twelfth Night or What You Will"; or, possibly, from that earlier moment when the argument between Burbage and his assistant manager as to the difference in cash-value between the alternative "Benedict and Beatris" and "Beatris and Benedict" was suddenly closed by Shakespeare's contemptuous acid: "Well, I call it much ado about nothing" - from some such moment authors began to develop an inferiority complex about their little comedies.
Those sheep we've put in that field so as to keep the grass short. Splendid idea, but what the sheep think about it? Well, of course they are there because I take interest in them. But I don't. Only in field. Supposing God only takes an interest in the World; not in us. Awful thought but it must be. After all, interest must end somewhere. (!?)
What is it makes a conversation with a woman so different from a conversation with a man?
- A pretty woman of course.
I suppose we all have one chance and miss it, and then have to put up second-best.
I think that's just how men and women are different. A man instinctively dislikes new people, and then finds to his surprise that half of them are quite charming. A woman likes meeting new people, and then finds to her disgust that half of them are detestable.
He has amused tolerance, which sometimes, to his surprise, degenerated into a sort of affectionate admiration.
Things aren't moral and immoral, they're beautiful and ugly. Ugliness which only thing to be censored. (??)
Well - that 's refinement. Telling people something with no gut in it.
Trouble is, life is vulgar. Being born vulgar, dying vulgar, and for living, well, three-quarters of it is stomach, and stomach are damn vulgar.
We are all terrified of being mistaken for what we've just missed being, so we pretend to be something which nobody could mistake us for.
Over the top of his head ...'s smile flashed across the room, leaving some note of its passing in his consciousness. He looked up at her, saw the smile still lingering there, and said, "Who?"
Writing is only one type of work, which doesn't take you away from your thoughts.
Then a monkey what was a monkey in 28,000 BC ought to be a Caveman today. If so, where? I can only suggest that Evolution, the Survival of the Fittest, and, as one says loosely, All That, is natural thing. Natural Selection. As soon as man appeared, Nature took second place, and nothing has happened naturally any more.
Often with his greedy relentless eyes he had made intimacy with a woman, so that she felt naked and ashamed (or naked and unashamed).
It demanded of them emotional response suggestive of children and this they could rarely give. They associated it with immaturity. (!)
Phrases | Quotations from Milne's Autobioghapry. | Winnie's Pics