Sunday, December 6, 2020

1,001 Nights: 14

 

"The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen (story)

A story made of seven, not quite independent, stories. The first is about a wicked mirror that reflects the world as a horrible place. This mirror shivers into a billion pieces, falls to earth, lands on some people, some people also run across the shivers. If a piece gets in your eye or heart, you see the world as a dark place, or you feel it as such. The second story is about a boy and girl who communicate through the windows of two cramped tenement homes. The two families also share a garden, which they have laid between the windows. One day, the boy becomes mischievous and coldhearted, because he gets a piece of the wicked mirror in his eye. He goes to town and attaches his small sled to another horse and carriage. The boy intends a joyride, but the driver carries him out of town to an ice palace. He finds out the rider is the Snow Queen, who lives out here alone. Matters get more confusing from here. There are too many elements in this story. It's difficult to follow. It becomes unclear why anything is happened. Rest assured there's a happy ending and a reconciliation for the boy and girl.

Poem 290 by Emily Dickinson (poem)

The narrator vows to abstain from men and oxygen.

"Signs of the Times" by Thomas Carlyle (essay)

The only thing that will save the contemporary world, says Thomas Carlyle, is some movement that will touch us spiritually again. The world is too much taken up with machines and technology. We even assume our politics must work like a machine. But all that has ever worked and all that will is a revolution of the heart.

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