Sublime

The greatest good for the greatest number of people made Harley a justifiable casualty in the struggle against melting ice caps and rising sea levels wrought by climate change; against faraway despots bolstered by energy supplies; against a slump in American industry that left millions out of work, including her father.

En 1961, elle écrivit une sorte de manifeste, « Contre la sécheresse », où elle pressait les auteurs d’abandonner les « petits mythes, jouets et cristaux944 » de la belle écriture, autrefois à la mode, pour renouer avec la tâche du véritable écrivain qui est d’explorer comment on peut être libre et bien se conduire dans un monde compliqué, dans la

Ce lyrisme exalté, qui utilise les ressources de la prédication pour louer la Nature, c’est la peinture qui peut en donner l’idée. L’émerveillement peut encore exister en notre siècle sceptique, mais il ne s’exprime plus comme ça. Muir est nourri de psaumes et de poésie, en un temps où les sciences de la nature consistaient surtout à observer, à re

For quite a long time, a century or two, this “prosperity for all” goal had been the line taken; that although there was inequality now, if everyone just stuck to the program and did not rock the boat, the rising tide would eventually float even the most high-and-dry among them. But early in the twenty-first century it became clear that the planet

Entre las pocas cosas que Fritz Haber tenía consigo al morir hallaron una carta escrita a su mujer. En ella, Haber le confiesa que siente una culpa insoportable; pero no por el rol que jugó en la muerte de tantos seres humanos, directa o indirectamente, sino porque su método para extraer nitrógeno del aire había alterado de tal forma el equilibrio

Nothing now in the weeds and litter to interest her, and her whole life consisting of her own disappointment: helpless against the arrival of her bad temper, she kicked a crushed Red Stripe can at her feet.

The liberals would cheer her death. They would light marijuana cigarettes and drive to their sushi restaurants and eat fresh food that had traveled eight thousand miles. They would spend all of supper complaining about people like her, and when they got home their houses would be cold and they’d press a button on a wall to get warm. The whole time

Millay chose to light her candle at both ends, and lived an incandescent life. When her candle ran out, she died sick, addicted, and much too young. But each day of her life she could decide, “Am I going to be brilliant today?”