1:13:02
"When, as a boy, William Blake saw
the prophet Ezekiel under a tree...
1:13:07
"...amid a summer field,
he was soundly trounced by his mother."
1:13:14
I'm with his mother.
1:13:15
I mean, the back of the Lord God,
the face of the Virgin Mary, all right.
1:13:21
But why the hell would anybody
want to see the prophet Ezekiel?
1:13:28
But the crucial word in all that
is "selected."
1:13:33
The Selected Prose of John Donne!
1:13:40
Here I was, in my armchair,
so at peace with the whole world...
1:13:45
...something old and serene on the radio.
1:13:47
Corelli or somebody,
and this thing on the table.
1:13:52
This Giant Modern Library thing.
1:13:57
So I thought:
1:13:59
"I will read one of the sermons aloud."
1:14:02
You have to read Donne aloud.
1:14:05
It's like a Bach fugue.
1:14:17
"All mankind is one volume.
1:14:21
"When one man dies,
one chapter is not torn out of the book...
1:14:26
"...but translated into a better language.
1:14:31
"And every chapter must be so translated.
1:14:36
"God employs several translators.
1:14:38
"Some pieces are translated by age,
some by sickness...
1:14:45
"...some by war...
1:14:50
"...some by justice.
1:14:52
"But God's hand shall bind up
all our scattered leaves again...
1:14:58
"...for that library...