Wednesday, June 08, 2005

The Perfect Man

"It is, therefore, a source of great virtue for the practised mind to learn, bit by bit, first to change about invisible and transitory things, so that afterwards it may be able to leave them behind altogether. The man who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign land. The tender soul has fixed his love on one spot in the world; the strong man has extended his love to all places; the perfect man has extinguished his."

-- Hugo of St. Victor

2 Comments:

Blogger fred burgess! said...

Edward Said quoted this passage in his essay, "Reflections on Exile."

For more on Edward Said, there's a poem written to his memory somewhere in the archives of this blog.

I'd like to imagine that somebody, somewhere will actually take me up on that and will go back and search for it. That person is the winner of my imagination.

9:27 PM  
Blogger fred burgess! said...

Alright, I just found it. I'll make it easier: it's from the week of March 27th. If you're interested.

9:31 PM  

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