S. S. Curry

“ Nature everywhere seems at play, seems to invite men to come out into her unlimited playground, the playground of universal principles and fullness of life.
The poet, Schiller, explained all art as being derived from the play instinct. It has been said that play is the overflow of life. Life, love, joy, all noble ideals, must awaken spontaneity or they will not grow. All parts of man's nature must have expression and not be repressed. Play is given to stimulate and to express the spontaneous in us, to manifest emotion and imagination and a sense of freedom. ”

“ There is nobody on the house-tops, and only a few too old to go to the scaffold have crept to the windows. The great crowd is at the gate or at the scaffold’s foot. He goes in the rain, his hands tied behind him, his forehead bleeding from the stones that are hurled at him. The closing thought, so abruptly expressed, the most difficult one in the poem, is a mere hint of what might have happened had he triumphed in the world’s sense of the word. He might have fallen dead,—dead in a deeper sense than the loss of life; his soul might have become dead to truth, to noble ideals, and to aspiration. ”

“ It is easy to look at the light, easy to breathe, easy to stretch, to expand, easy to remember something joyous, easy to smile and easy to laugh.
If your body feels weak and sluggish, and you have great indifference to movement there is all the more reason for promptness. If you will joyously extend your arms, expand, breathe deeply and laugh, you welcome life and joy and give them a chance to take possession of your being and body and you will soon feel courageous instead of gloomy, strong instead of weak, rested instead of weary. ”

“ Think, when our one soul understands the great Word which makes all things new, when earth breaks up and heaven expands, how will the change strike me and you in the house not made with hands? Oh I must feel your brain prompt mine, your heart anticipate my heart, you must be just before, in fine, see and make me see, for your part, new depths of the divine! But who could have expected this when we two drew together first just for the obvious human bliss to satisfy life’s daily thirst with a thing men seldom miss? ”

“ Anyone who wishes for improvement in health, strength, grace, ease, or vitality, or, in fact, in anything, must realize especially the significance of the law of rhythm.
Rhythm is a law of the whole universe. The music of the spheres is no fable. Observe, too, the rhythm of the seasons. Everywhere there is a co-ordination of the finite and the infinite, the individual and the universal,—a unity of forces acting in a sequence of natural co-ordinations. ”

“ It is not merely the thought uttered that makes the impression. As a picture is something between a thought and a thing, not an idea on the one hand nor an object on the other, but a union of the two, so the monologue unites a truth or idea with the personality that utters it. An idea, a fact, may be valuable, but it becomes clear and impressive to some human consciousness only by being united with a human soul, and stated from one point of view and with the force of an individual life. ”

“ The indulgence of negative thoughts in the morning may become a habit. A great battle may have to be fought at first, but perseverance and promptness can correct such evil tendencies. It is at this time that the demon of regret and of disappointment is apt to lay hold of us; the blackest thought in our lives likely to meet us.
Observe that this was so of Pippa. Though she awoke with joy, and is held up as an ideal, as she goes on thinking the darkest shadow of her life comes to her. ”

“ As the play always implies dramatic action, as the mind must picture a real scene and the characters must move and speak as animated beings before there can be the least appreciation of its nature as a play, so the monologue also implies and suggests a real scene or moment of human life.
The monologue is an artistic whole, and must be understood as a whole. Each part must be felt to be like the limb of a tree, a part of an organism. As each leaf on the tree quivers with the life hidden in trunk and root, so each word of the monologue must vibrate with the thought and feeling of the whole. ”

“ My own best help is thanksgiving and praise. When I cannot give up the thoughts and conflicts of the day, I can bring my whole being into reposeful rhythm best by expressing thanks that I can be awake and that I have shared in the life of a day. I praise the Infinite Presence that I can know beauty when I see it, that I can understand truth and know that two times three are not seven and that I can participate in the goodness of the universe. ”

“ What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small,
Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundredth appal?
In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all?
Do I find love so full in my nature, God’s ultimate gift,
That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift?
Here, the creature surpass the Creator,—the end, what Began?...
Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou—so wilt thou!’”
This poem of Browning’s is conceived in the loftiest spirit of religious verse. ”

“ The sun that calls forth the leaves on all the trees does so by warming the roots in the tree and bringing the gentle south winds which fan the waving branches into activity and cause the unfolding buds to be filled with spontaneous life.
The whole world is full of joy and love. It is human ambition and jealousies that bring the hindrances.
The rhythmic alternation and the necessary relation of work and play to each other can be seen in the very constitution of man. Play alone may develop obedience to lower impulses ”

“ In many monologues the person about whom the speaker talks is of great importance. In “The Flight of the Duchess” we almost entirely lose sight of the speaker and of the hearer, and our thought successively centres upon the Duke, on his mother, on the old crone, and, above all, on the Duchess. These characters are made to live before us, and we see the impressions they produce upon a simple, loyal heart. The beauty of this wonderful monologue lies in the portrayal of the honest nature of the speaker and the revelation of the impressions made upon him by those who have played parts in his life. ”

“ May we not, accordingly, discover that from a psychological as well as a physiological point of view, for reasons of health and development, morning is the most significant and important time of the day!
No human being at the first moment of awakening is gloomy or angry. Everyone awakes in peace with all the world. It is a time of freedom. A moment later memory may bring to the mind some scene or picture that leads to good or bad thought, followed by emotion. This first moment of consciousness is the critical and golden moment of human life. ”

“ Neither action in itself nor passionate emotion in itself is dramatic. The function of dramatic art is not the representation of passion in itself, but of passion leading to action; it is not the representation of an event in itself, but of its reflections in the human soul. The representation of passionate emotion in itself, as such, is the function of the lyric; the depicting of interesting events, as such, is the business of the epic. ”

“ An exercise is an aspiration.
An exercise is a demonstration, it reveals a man's best to himself. It is a process of translating his dreams into reality. It is the only proof of himself, his intuitive language.
An exercise is not physical but mental.
Never regard your exercises as merely physical. The expression "physical training" is a misnomer. All training is the action of mind. It may manifest itself in a physical direction, but training itself,—the putting forth,—is mental. It is the emotion we feel more than the movement that accomplishes results. ”

“ Only by art are we brought near together, and chiefly in our art will be found our true advance in civilization. The monologue is a new method, a new avenue of approach from heart to heart.
Dramatic art must have many forms. When no longer truthfully presented by the play, as is often the case; when it has become corrupted into a spectacular show, into something for the eye rather than for the mind; when no longer concerned with the interpretation of character and truth, or when debased to mere money making, then the irrepressible dramatic spirit must evolve a new form. ”

“ The two simple rules of Cornaro deserve our attention: to eat only what he wanted, that is, what he actually needed for the sustenance of his body, and to eat only those things which really agreed with him, that is, those which were really helpful to the sustenance of his life. If we should consider eating merely as a means and not an end, Cornaro's idea that the normal age of a human being was one hundred and twenty years would not be such a wild dream. ”

“ Did not Kipling choose wisely his form of art in portraying the character of Tommy Atkins? Is there any more effective way of making known to the world the character and emotions peculiar to a man when soldier subordinates man?
After even a superficial study of modern poetry, who can fail to realize that the monologue is a distinct form of literature? How vast the range of subjects and emotions expressed, and yet underneath we find a form common to them all. This form has served to unfold the peculiar actions of Mrs. Caudle’s mind and also the sublime convictions of Rabbi Ben Ezra. ”

“ Work is natural. One who does not love to work is greatly to be pitied. Fortunately, such people are rare. When a man finds his work and becomes actively occupied with it he is happy. He, however, often overdoes it and the difficulty is not to work but to play.
Usually it is thought that there is antagonism between work and play. On the contrary, they are more alike than most people think.
According to William Morris, "Art is the spirit of play put into our work." The union of work and play is absolutely necessary to human nature. ”

“ But without the presence of this youth, who must have expressed pity for the loneliness and gloom of age, the old man would never have broken forth so suddenly and so forcibly in the portrayal of his noble philosophy of life. He expands with joy, love for his race, and reverence for Providence. “Grow old along with me!” “Trust God: see all, nor be afraid!” His enthusiasm, his exalted realization of life, are due to his own nobility of character. ”

“ Of all the illustrations of rhythm one of the most important is the alternation of day and night. Every plant awakes and rejoices with the sun and it recognizes the sunset and goes to sleep as the darkness comes. ”

“ It is impossible to do so without a conception of the voice. The smile and the actions of the body and natural modulations of the voice reveal the fulness of the impression and the life that is merely suggested by a word. The monologue, implying all these, makes men realize a truth more vividly by showing the feeling and attitude toward truth of a living, thinking man. ”

“ Of all languages, action is the least noticeable, the most in the background, but, on the other hand, of all languages it is the most continuous. From the cradle to the grave, sleeping or waking, pantomimic expression is never absent. Consciously or unconsciously, every step we take, every position we assume, reveals us, our character, emotions, experiences. Hence, any dramatic interpretation of human experiences or character, such as a monologue, demands thorough and conscientious study of this language, which reveals both the highest and the lowest conditions of the heart. ”