Friends and Memories

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

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text excerpt

We had been down to the Prater one afternoon where we had come across a band of gipsy musicians, and the desperate melancholy, the capricious gaiety, and utterly reckless joy of the music had gone to my head like strong wine. I felt I wanted to kick over the traces and do something to make the combined hair of the Universe stand straight on end ! Instead of doing that, I began to cry ! I don’t know what possessed me, but I suppose that, after the hours and hours that I had forced myself to work at counterpoint with its cut and dried rules, the lawless, devil-me-care vitality of that gipsy music woke up something in me that has never gone to sleep again, something that will live as long as I have breath, something that made me feel as if my heart and the heart of all humanity had been laid bare to me for a moment, so that I might understand, once and for all, the heights and depths of emotion at white heat, the heights and depths of joy, grief, love - fierce, passionate, demanding all, and giving all magnificently, counting no costs - hate, jealousy, the ecstasy of liberty, the sheer delight in tremendous spaces, vast horizons, the immediate response to the imperious impulse of the moment, whether for good or evil, so that I might understand, in a word, the human heart let loose like a horse on the wild Hungarian puszta, with no guiding light beyond the flaming torch of its own passions - the human heart to whom religion has never made its noble, its equally passionate, but superbly unselfish, appeal !

We had been down to the Prater one afternoon where we had come across a band of gipsy musicians, and the desperate melancholy, the capricious gaiety, and utterly reckless joy of the music had gone to my head like strong wine. I felt I wanted to kick over the traces and do something to make the combined hair of the Universe stand straight on end ! Instead of doing that, I began to cry ! I don’t know what possessed me, but I suppose that, after the hours and hours that I had forced myself to work at counterpoint with its cut and dried rules, the lawless, devil-me-care vitality of that gipsy music woke up something in me that has never gone to sleep again, something that will live as long as I have breath, something that made me feel as if my heart and the heart of all humanity had been laid bare to me for a moment, so that I might understand, once and for all, the heights and depths of emotion at white heat, the heights and depths of joy, grief, love - fierce, passionate, demanding all, and giving all magnificently, counting no costs - hate, jealousy, the ecstasy of liberty, the sheer delight in tremendous spaces, vast horizons, the immediate response to the imperious impulse of the moment, whether for good or evil, so that I might understand, in a word, the human heart let loose like a horse on the wild Hungarian puszta, with no guiding light beyond the flaming torch of its own passions - the human heart to whom religion has never made its noble, its equally passionate, but superbly unselfish, appeal !

We had been down to the Prater one afternoon where we had come across a band of gipsy musicians, and the desperate melancholy, the capricious gaiety, and utterly reckless joy of the music had gone to my head like strong wine. I felt I wanted to kick over the traces and do something to make the combined hair of the Universe stand straight on end ! Instead of doing that, I began to cry ! I don’t know what possessed me, but I suppose that, after the hours and hours that I had forced myself to work at counterpoint with its cut and dried rules, the lawless, devil-me-care vitality of that gipsy music woke up something in me that has never gone to sleep again, something that will live as long as I have breath, something that made me feel as if my heart and the heart of all humanity had been laid bare to me for a moment, so that I might understand, once and for all, the heights and depths of emotion at white heat, the heights and depths of joy, grief, love - fierce, passionate, demanding all, and giving all magnificently, counting no costs - hate, jealousy, the ecstasy of liberty, the sheer delight in tremendous spaces, vast horizons, the immediate response to the imperious impulse of the moment, whether for good or evil, so that I might understand, in a word, the human heart let loose like a horse on the wild Hungarian puszta, with no guiding light beyond the flaming torch of its own passions - the human heart to whom religion has never made its noble, its equally passionate, but superbly unselfish, appeal !

excerpt from 'Friends and Memories' pp. 268 (279 words)

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1452186640355