Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" is a fascinating study of the search for eternal youth. Unlike some of the assigned readings in this course, this one is enjoyable. Read it!
Warning: This text WILL be on the Final Exam.
http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/bookid.196/sec./
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8 comments:
Poor butterfly ...
(good thing I keep a dictionary close by)
let me change the above to:
Poor butterflies!!!
Interesting story! I think I've heard something similar a long time ago and I'm not thinking of Dorian Grey.
I spent a long time getting where I am. I wouldn't mind little youth of body. The better to roam my mountains and other interesting places. But I'm doing better than a great many people so I'll pass on the waters of the Fountain of Youth. Quality over quantity!
What a great story!! I've never read it before...I love the choice of words, like rich plums. I have often wished to be able to go back in time, but only if I could take my experience with me, I would often wonder about the other paths I didn't explore.
Now I'm trying not to expend energy on regret or second guessing...at a certain point acceptance has to start settling in before you move forward in life. Or at least that's the conclusion I've arrived at.
In moments of wallowing in self~pity one thought was "if only I could have danced more when I was young"..I realized one day that I don't want to be on my death bed with that particular silly regret in my heart, so dance I do!! In the yard with the bullies romping at my feet, in the kitchen, driving down the road, wherever the music moves me...it's not where you dance that matters..but the dance itself.
Cheryl - the above is absolutely beautiful!
Strange, I miss dancing so much. I dance around the living room, out in the yard (under cover of darkness).
I always thought of it as a celebration of movement - I was so grateful that I wasn't born a tree, rooted to the ground. I couldn't fly like the birds but I could dance.
Hmmm. The Funny Old Folks Home is full of weird old people that have been caught dancing around late at night. Be careful that the guys with the butterfly nets don't grab you....
"When I was young" ... Cheryl, Your ARE STILL young, from my point of view. Forty-something is young! Don't think that all the good stuff is behind you. It's ahead of you, if you let it be.
Hawthorne's diction, your "rich plums", went out of style and a violent reaction to flowery writing set in (Hemingway's toughness and brevity, etc.), which is now considered normal prose. But it's fun to read the plums now and then, if only to laugh at them.
Youth of body is much overrated. On every hike I go on three quarters of the group are over 50. Age means nothing as long as one is fairly healthy.
Biddie, I'm grateful, also, that you were not born a tree.
What butterfly nets? The wallpaper has always looked like that.
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