—Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death
A LIBRARY OF FOLDED CORNERS
Given these outstanding accomplishments, much now depends on the level of performance of the Grim Reaper. Can he be counted on to do the job? Mortuary management was gloomy on this score, noting that due to medical advances in the treatment of cancer and heart disease, the death rate was bound to decline. Not so the brokerage houses and investment analysts. The Goldman Sachs brokerage house, analyzing their prospects, predicts a rosy future: "Aggregate deaths have increased at roughly 1.1 percent on a compound basis since 1940. . . . Going forward, the continued aging of the baby-boomers, coupled with an increasing proportion of people over age 65, should keep aggregate deaths rising. . . . The aging of America should enable the death care industry to experience extremely stable demand in the future."
"Well, there won't be anything much to see for a while yet; most of it is still in the planning stage. Here's how the mausoleum is going to look. He pulled out a folder showing "Preconstruction Corridor" in pink and gray marble, and "Sunshine Garden—An Innovation in Out-of-doors Memorial Construction" in cream and blue. It was gratifying to note that the brochure advertised "Mausoleum staff to serve you every day of the year from sunrise to sunset," and particularly comforting (in view of the purpose of the property I was being offered) to learn that one's crypt would be "Judgement Proof."
—Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death
The patriotic theme comes through very strong, finding its most eloquent expression in the Batesville Casket Company's "Valley Forge," designed to reflect the tugged, strong, soldierlike qualities associated with that historic theme. "Its charm lies in the warm beauty of the natural grain and finish of the finest maple hardwoods. A casket designed indeed for a soldier—one that symbolizes the solid, dependable, courageous American ideals so bravely tested at Valley Forge." For all its soldierlike qualities, it looks most comfortable, with its nice beige pillow and sheets. On the wall behind it hangs a portrait of George Washington, who is looking, as usual, rather displeased.
—Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death
Suddenly, fifteen minutes after the prince left, Aglaya came running down to the terrace from upstairs, and in such a hurry that she did not even wipe her eyes, which were wet with tears. She came running down because Kolya arrived and brought a hedgehog. They all started looking at the hedgehog; to their questions, Kolya explained that the hedgehog was not his, and that he was now walking with his comrade, another schoolboy, Kostya Lebedev, who had stayed outside and was embarrassed to come in because he was carrying an axe; that they had bought both the hedgehog and the axe from a peasant they had met. The peasant was selling the hedgehog and took fifty kopecks for it, and then they persuaded him to sell the axe as well, because it was an opportunity, and also a very good axe. Here Aglaya suddenly began pestering Kolya terribly to sell her the hedgehog at once, turned inside out, even called Kolya "dear." Kolya would not agree for a long time, but finally gave in and called Kostya Lebedev, who indeed came in carrying the axe and feeling very embarrassed. But here it suddenly turned out that the hedgehog did not belong to them at all, but to t third boy, Petrov, who had given them money to buy Schlosser's History from some fourth boy, who, being in need of money, was selling it at a bargain price; that they set out to buy Schlosser's History, but could not help themselves and bought the hedgehog, and therefore both the hedgehog and the axe belonged to that third boy, to whom they were now taking them in place of Schlosser's History. But Aglaya pestered them so much that they finally decided to sell her the hedgehog. As soon as Aglaya got the hedgehog, she put it into a wicker basket with Kolya's help, covered it with a napkin, and started asking Kolya to go at once and, without stopping anywhere, take the hedgehog to the prince on her behalf, with the request that he accept it as "a token of her profoundest respect." Kolya gladly agreed and promised to deliver it, but immediately began to pester her: "What was the meaning of the hedgehog and of such a present?" Aglaya replied that that was none of his business. He replied that he was sure it contained some allegory. Aglaya became angry and snapped at him that he was a little brat and nothing more. Kolya at once retorted that if it were not for his respect for the woman in her, and for his own convictions on top of it, he would immediately prove to her that he knew how to respond to such insults. It ended, however, with Kolya delightedly going all the same to deliver the hedgehog, and Kostya Lebedev running after him; Aglaya could not help herself and , seeing Kolya swinging the basket too hard, shouted behind him from the terrace: "Please, Kolya dearest, don't drop it!"—as if she had not just quarreled with him; Kolya stopped and, also as if he had not just been quarreling, shouted with great readiness: "No, I won't drop it, Aglaya Ivanova. Be completely assured!" and ran on at breakneck speed. After that Aglaya laughed terribly and ran to her room extremely pleased, and then was very cheerful all day.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
"Oh, you may be sure that Columbus was happy not when he had discovered America, but when he was discovering it; you may be sure that the highest moment of his happiness was, perhaps, exactly three days before the discovery of the New World. Columbus died having seen very little of it and in fact not knowing what he had discovered. The point is in life, in life alone—in discovering it, constantly and eternally, and not at all in the discovery itself!"
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
"Not of railway communications, my young but passionate adolescent, but of that whole tendency, of which railways may serve as an image, so to speak, an artistic expression. Hurrying, clanging, banging, and speeding, they say, for the happiness of mankind! 'It's getting much too noisy and industrial in mankind, there is too little spiritual peace,' complains a secluded thinker. 'Yes, but the banging of carts delivering bread for hungry mankind may be better than spiritual peace,' triumphantly replies another, a widely traveled thinker, and walks off vaingloriously. I the vile Lebedev, do not believe in the carts that deliver bread to mankind! For carts that deliver bread to all mankind, without any moral foundations for their action, may quite cold-bloodedly exclude a considerable part of mankind from enjoying what they deliver, as has already happened."
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
It would reach the point where the most trifling things would anger Lizaveta Prokofyevna terribly and put her beside herself. Alexandra Ivanova liked, for instance, to sleep long hours and usually had many dreams; but her dreams were always distinguished by a sort of extraordinary emptiness and innocence—suitable for a seven-year-old child; and so even the innocence of her dreams began for some reason to annoy her mother. Once Alexandra Ivanova saw nine hens in a dream, and this caused a formal quarrel between her and her mother—why?—it is difficult to explain.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
"But I like looking at that painting," Rogozhin muttered after a silence, as if again forgetting his question.
"At that painting!" the prince suddenly cried out, under the impression of an unexpected thought. "At that painting! A man could even lose his faith from that painting!"
"Lose it he does," Rogozhin suddenly agreed unexpectedly.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
There is no doubt that her family sufferings were groundless, had negligible cause, and were ridiculously exaggerated; but if you have a wart on your nose or forehead, it seems to you that all anyone in the world does and has ever done is to look at your wart, laugh at it, and denounce you for it, though for all that you may have discovered America.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
"So what if it is an illness?" he finally decided. "Who cares that it's an abnormal strain, if the result itself, if the moment of the sensation, remembered and examined in a healthy state, turns out to be the highest degree of harmony, beauty, gives a hitherto unheard-of and unknown feeling of fullness, measure, reconciliation, and an ecstatic, prayerful merging with the highest synthesis of life?"
—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot
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