Brahms and a book...

...soothing for the soul.

A few friends and my counselor recommended that i read something happy, light-hearted and fun. Well, i was already entrenched in a novel...Dostoevsky, actually. Hmm. Perhaps not the most "uplifting" of novels. However, being already immersed in the throes of the deceit, insanity, murder and corruption of the Karamazov brothers, i endeavored to finish. Now, a mere 100 pages away from the ending (in which, i am assured by Katie S, that all the main characters will die...as they always do in Russian literature) i believe that i made a correct choice in continuing this novel. i find catharsis in yelling at the loose women, cursing the bastard brothers with their desire for the immoral, and crying over the destruction that a lack of values leaves in its wake. Thank you, Dostoevsky, for another heartbreaking masterpiece; and thank you Brahms for supplying the soundtrack.

i leave you with two fitting Emily Dickinson poems:

XCIX
"There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.

This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!"

LXXIV
"Unto my books so good to turn
Far ends of tired days;
IT half endears the abstinence,
And pain is missed in praise.

As flavors cheer retarded guests
With banquetings to be,
So spices stimulate the time
Till my small library.

It may be wilderness without,
Far feet of failing men,
But holiday excludes the night,
And it is bells within.

I think these kinsmen of the shelf;
Their countenances bland
Enamour in prospective,
And satisfy, obtained."