Flaker of Flints

God uses the animals Behemoth and Leviathan to remind us that, like everything that exists, the enormous forces of chaos and disorder are subject to divine power, even if it does not annihilate them. From the opening words the emphasis is on the creatureliness of these mighty beasts: "Look at Behemoth, my creature, just as you are!" (Job 40:15). Job has a trait in common with these animals: all have come from God's hand. They are, as it were, holdovers from the chaos out of which the world, the cosmos, emerged. Because of his undeserved suffering, Job sees existence as a chaos, a continuation of the original disorder. God is trying to show Job that divine power controls these chaotic forces, although at the same time God says that they will not be destroyed. They represent the wicked of whom God has just been speaking (Job 40:11–13); they are forces existing in the world. The Lord does not forthwith put an end to these remnants of the original chaos (into which Job has

Where does the frontier lie? Where do we travel to in those dreams of beauty satisfied, laden with significance but without comprehensible meaning, etched far deeper on the mind than any witness of the eyes? Our memories of physical reality, where do they vanish to? While the images of this dream world never grow older. They live—like the memory of a memory. Now. When I have overcome my fears—of others, of myself, of the underlying darkness: at the frontier of the unheard-of. Here ends the known. But, from a source beyond it, something fills my being with its possibilities. Here desire is purified and made lucid: each action is a preparation for, each choice an assent to the unknown. Prevented by the duties of life on the surface from looking down into the depths, yet all the while being slowly trained and molded by them to take the plunge into the deep whence rises the fragrance of a forest star, bearing the promise of a new affection. At the frontier—

Many times when going to school have I grasped at a wall or a tree to recall myself from the abyss of idealism to reality. At that time I was afraid of such processes.

                                          ...see and hear the lovely shapes and sounds intelligible of that eternal language, which thy God utters, who from eternity doth teach himself in all, and all things in himself.

I am being driven forward into an unknown land. The pass grows steeper, the air colder and sharper. A wind from my unknown goal stirs the strings of expectation. Still the question: Shall I ever get there? There where life resounds, a clear pure note in the silence.

What is interesting here is that Coleridge looks to his son, Hartley, to read the "eternal language" in a way that he cannot (as has been made clear earlier in the poem). For the first time, the question of hermeneutics raises itself—the poet may interpret nature, but who will give authority to his interpretation? The Romantics' models as poet-prophets, the Hebrew writing prophets and John Milton, were confirmed in their role by long acceptance, but who was to give this confirmation to the Romantics themselves?

And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

[The angel answered], "Dream not of their fight as of a duel, nor [physical the] wounds of head or heel: [these do not] join the Son human to Godhead, with more strength to foil your enemy. Nor so is [Satan killed,] whose fall from Heaven, [deadlier a] bruise, disabled not to give you your death's wound, which [Christ], who comes your savior, shall [repair], not by destroying Satan, but, [in you and in your seed, destroying Satan's works.] .... [Triumphing] o'er his foes [will Christ] surprise the Serpent, Prince of Air, and drag in chains through all his realm, and there confounded leave. Then Christ will enter glory, and resume his seat at God's right hand, exalted high above all names in Heaven; then shall come when this world's dissolution shall be ripe.

"We have many professors in the philosophy department who study and admire Plato, but none of them actually believes in the theory of the Forms, or feels it, or lives by it."

Interviewer: What do you mean you’ll sometimes extend yourself … work the people up a bit? Morrison: Let’s just say I was testing the bounds of reality. I was curious to see what would happen. That’s all it was: just curiosity. Interviewer: What did you do to test the bounds? Morrison: Just push a situation as far it it’ll go. Interviewer: And yet you don’t feel at any time that things got out of control? Morrison: Never. Interviewer: There is a quote attributed to you. It appears in print a lot. It goes: “I’m interested in anything about revolt, disorder, chaos…” Morrison: “… especially activity that appears to have no meaning.”