March 05, 2004
OLD GOLD
I couldn't fit this in today's Goodbye, Babylon piece. George Santayana was living in America during the first decade of the 20th century, just as the music on Gooodbye, Babylon was being performed, some of it straight to acetate. Character and Opinion In The United States, published in 1920, is based on his American experiences. This passage feels like it was written after atttending a Pentecostal church service: “It is obvious that speculation can be frank and happy only where orthodoxy has receded, abandoning a larger and larger field to unprejudiced inquiry; or else (as has happened among liberal Protestants) where the very heart of orthodoxy has melted, has absorbed the most alien substances, and is ready to bloom unto anything anybody finds attractive."
Posted by Sasha at March 5, 2004 11:23 PM | TrackBack