Letters

[1]

(12) 1885년 10월 13일/ Spiridion Kliszczewski [조국을 잃어버린 상황에 대한 이야기]

 

for, whatever may be the changes in the fortunes of living nations, for the dead there is no hope and no salvation! We have passed t[h]rough the gates where "lasciate ogni speranza"[Abandon all hope] is written in letters of blood and fire, and now the gate is shut on the light of hope and nothing remains for us but the darkness of oblivion. In the presence of such national misfortune, personal happiness is impossilble in its absolute form of general contentment and peace of heart.)

 

(16) 1885년 12월 19일 - 영국 총선 결과. 사회주의의 확산에 대한 두려움.

 the International Socialist Association are triumphan, and every diereputable ragamuffin in Europe feels that the day of universal brotherhood, despoliation and disorder is coming apace, and nurses day-dreams of well-plenished pockets amongst the ruin of all that is respectable, venerable and holy.

-  England was the only barrier to the pressure of infernal doctrines born in continental back-slums.

(16) Socialism must inevitably end in Caesarism.

(17) The whole herd of idiotic humanity are moving in that direction at the bidding of unscrupulous rascals and a few sincere, but dangerous lunatics.

[사회주의에 대한 혐오]

(294) [96. 7. 22] Fisher Unwin [Outpost of Progress]

All the bitterness of those days, all my puzzled wonder as to the meaning of all I saw - all my indignation at masquerading philanthropy have been with me again, while I wrote.

--It is a story of the Congo. There is no love interest in it and no woman-only incidentally. The exact locality is not mentioned. All the bitterness of those days, all my puzzled wonder as to the meaning of all I saw--all my indignation at masquerading philanthropy have been with me again, while I wrote. The story is simple-- there is hardly any description. The most common incidents are related--the life in a lonely station on the Kassai. I have divested myself of everything but pity--and some scorn--while puttind down the insignificant events that bring on the catastrophe.

(370) It is impossible to know anything

tho' it is possible to believe a thing or two.

(390) 971002 - 어릴 적 친구에게 보낸 편지

I haven't the taste for democracy - and democracy hasnpt the taste for me.

[일반 대중들이 자신의 작품을 좋아하지는 않는다는 이야기를 하면서 빗대어 하는 말]

(424) You are a most hopeless idealist - your aspirations are irrealisable. [Graham. 97]

(425) 자연주의적 비관적 우주관

“There is a – let us say – a machine. It evolved itself (I am severely scientific) out of a chaos of scraps of iron and behold! – it knits. I am horrified at the horrible work and stand appalled. I feel it ought to embroider – but it goes on knitting. You come and say: “this is all right; it’s only a question of the right kind of oil. Let us use this – for instance – celestial oil and the machine shall embroider a most beautiful design in purple and gold”. Will it? Alas no. You cannot by any special lubrication make embroidery with a knitting machine. And the most withering thought is that the infamous thing has made itself; made itself without thought, without conscience, without foresight, without eyes, without heart. It is a tragic accident – and it has happened. You can’t interfere with it. The last drop of bitterness is in the suspicion that you can’t even smash it. In virtue of that truth one and immortal which lurks in the force that made it spring into existence it is what it is – and it is indestructible!

It knits us in and it knits us out. It has knitted time space, pain, death, corruption, despair and all the illusions – and nothing matters. I’ll admit however that to look at the remorseless process is sometimes amusing.”  [Graham. 97. 12. 20]

[2]

(16) The machine is thinner than air and as evanescent as a flash of lightning. The attitude of cold unconcern is the only reasonable one. Of course reason is hateful - but why? Because it demonstrates to those who have the courage that we, living, are out of life - utterly out of it.

(16) The mysteries of a universe made of drops of fire and clods of mud do not concern us in the least. The fate of a humanity condemned ultimately to perish from cold is not worth troubling about. If you take it to heart it becomes an unendurable tragedy. If you believe in improvement you must weep, for the attained perfection must end in cold, darkness and silence. [당시에 유행하던 기계론적 세계관. entropy. Time-Machine을 보면 노쇠한 태양이 나옴. 아나톨 프랑스의 에세이와 유사함. 주를 볼 것] In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, for knowledge, and even for beauty is a vain sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of one's clothes in a community of blind men.

(17) Life knows us not and we do not know life - we don't know even our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore, thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow - only the string of my platitudes seems to have no end.' Yet he didn't string platitudes he skewered them.

(Language is evasive, its referents ephemeral, its claims to transcendental power false. Such meanings as it has are arbitrary, subject to individual prejudice and whim.  Selected Letters. Davies xxxii)

(159)  'Fraternity means nothing unless the Cain-Abel business.' (Cunningham)

(160) Man is a vicious animal. His viciousness must be organised. Crime is a necessary condition of organised existence. Society is fundamentally criminal -- or it would not exist. Selfishness preserves everything -- absolutely everything -- everything we hate and everything we love. And everything holds together. That is why I respect the extreme anarchists. [원문 프랑스 어] 

(211) 991026 E. L. Sanderson

보어 전쟁에 대한 의견 표명

(229) 991225 Aniela Zagorska

That they[The Boers] are struggling in good faith for their independence cannot be doubted; but it is also a fact that they have no idea of liberty, which can only be found under the English flag all over the world. C'est un peuple essentiellement despotique(본질적으로 독재적인 사람들이다), like by the way all the Dutch.  

(246) all made sacrifices of fortune, liberty and life for the cause in which they believed; and very few had any illusions as to its success. [가닛. 1900. 가족과 친척들이 독립 운동을 하다가 죽어간 것에 대한 이야기.]

(468) It's strange how I always, from the age of fourteen, disliked ths Christian religion, its doctrines, ceremonies and festivals. Presentiment that some day it will work my undoing, I suppose. (Garnett)

[3]

(94)

(94) 03. 12. 16. Kazimierz Waliszewski - 파리에 사는 폴란드 역사가. 콘래드에 대한 논문을 씀

 As to the 'inferiority of the races', I mean to protest -- although, if I gave you the wrong idea of my purpose, the fault is obviously mine. It's the difference between the races that I wanted to point out.

[[어둠의 심연]의 인종주의에 대한 비판에 대해서 아마도 변명하는 듯]

- 프랑스 군대가 함포를 쏘는 것(Dahomey와 전쟁)

- [진보]의 두 인물에 대한 설명.

Kazimierz Waliszewski (031216) 원문 불어

As to the 'inferiority of the races', I mean to protest--although, if I gave you the wrong idea of my purpose, the fault is obviously minde. It's the difference between the races I wanted to point out. [어둠]에 드러난 인종차별 혹은 인종주의에 대한 편명.

As to my two fine fellows who chase each othe with revolvers in the 'OP', I rebel. Kayerts is not ea French name. Carlier perhaps, but as soon as I name him, I hasten to say that he is a former cavalry n.c.o.  of an army protected from all danger by several European powers. I took the trouble to make a soldier out of that animal deliberately. They are gallant Belgians--God bless them; and they were recognized as such here and in Brussels when the tale appeared in 1898 in Cosmoplis, a now-defunct review.

(276) For myself I don't know what my philosophy is. I was not even aware I had it. Am sorry to think I must have since you say so. Shall I die of it do you think? [Garnett. 0507]

(401) English is still for me a foreign language whose handling demands a fearful effort (3, 401)

[4]

(137) Yet a man who puts forth the secret of his imagination to the world accomplishes as it were a religious rite. [08. Lucas]

[6]

(210) a work of art is very seldom limited to one exclusive meaning and not necessarily tending to a definite conclusion. And this for the reason that the nearer it approaches art the more it acquires a symbolic character.  ... All the great creation of literatue have been symbolic, and in that way have gained in complexity, in power, in depth and in beauty.