ULTIMA THULE - JOHN GALSWORTHY

Ultima Thule - John Galsworthy

John Galswothy, the narrator of the story recalls his old friend Ultima Thule and tells us about his story.

Ultima Thule, an old man always came in Kensington Gardens in the afternoons accompanied by a little girl. They moved about playfully. His dresses did not indicate any great share of prosperity but his face was quite interesting. It had a special sort of brightness with waves of silvery hair and the blue eyes. His cheeks were drawn in and his lips withered.

The narrator made his acquaintance with him. But one day the narrator saw him coming alone, looking sad. He sat down on the bench with the narrator and was talking himself in a sort of whisper. “God cannot be like us”. The narrator asked ‘Why?’ The old man said that the landlady’s seven years old girl was dead. When the narrator said that he had seen her looking at the flowers, trees and ducks. He was happy that the narrator had seen her. He said that she was a good companion to him and that they were good friends. He regretted saying ‘Things don’t last”.

Music, he said makes one feel like a bird. He imitated the note of a black bird and it was very perfect. “Birds and flowers are wonderful things”, he said. All the animals seemed to him marvelous things. He told the narrator that he was happy, as he had spoken to him. He added that he made friends of the creatures and flowers.

Next time, the narrator saw him standing by rails of an enclosure holding a cat. He disliked the boys dragging that cat with a string. The cat was badly hurt. He remarked that a cat is one of the most marvelous things in the world. He knew that the cat would die but he wanted to take it home. He thought that a little kindness might do a great deal for that. The narrator accompanied him for some distance. The old man’s face looked so like a mother’s when she is feeding her baby. He hoped that the cat would look quite differently the following day. He said that he would have to get in through without his landlady’s notice. He added that he had two or three stray creatures already at his place. The narrator wanted to accompany him to his room. He agreed.

As they drew nearer home, the old man took a newspaper from his pocket and wrapped that round the cat. “She is a funny woman”, he repeated about his landlady.

When he opened the door, the narrator saw in the hall a short, thin woman dressed in black with sharp and bumpy face. Her voice sounded brisk and resolute. She asked him what he had got with him… (Mr. Thompson?)

Thompson answered: “Newspaper, Mrs. March”. She told him that he could not take that cat upstairs. The old man spoke in a determined voice. The narrator asked her if Mr. Thompson lived there. In the mean while the old man ascended the stairs.

The landlady showing the man going up said that was Thompson. She expressed her dislike and remarked that he was unbearable. She said he was good but he has no sense of anything.  

Mr. Thompson himself was half-starving but he fed the stray animals. The landlady asked the narrator to advise him.

Thompson’s room was fairly large with a bare floor. The place smelt of soap and a little beasts and birds. Besides the new cat, there were three other cats and four birds they were all invalids. The birds in the cage had perched.

Thompson told the narrator that the birds would go after if they were mended. He spoke about them dearly. To him all those birds and cats seemed to be marvelous.

The landlady had stood still at the bottom of the stairs and asked the narrator if he had met Thompson she added that she didn’t know why she kept him of course he was kind to her little girl. The narrator saw tears in the landlady’s eyes.

The landlady had kept him as a tenant but his keeping the stray animals and birds with him in the room was unbearable to her. She knew that she sends him out, but he was nowhere to go, no relations and not a friend in the world. He was a peculiar, strange being, he himself starved but fed the stray animals that were disabled and sick.

The narrator did not see Thompson again in the garden for sometime and one day he went to meet him. At the entrance to his street, the narrator saw a lot of people collected round and watching a yellowish beast was making frantic movements in the cage. It was an amusement for the people.

A man in the audience asked the master of the animal to give him that animal. He bargained and got it paying three pence. Thompson joined that narrator and expressed that he wanted to have that poor bear.  He expressed his regret that even if he could buy the beast, his landlady would not have allowed that. He said that bear is really an extraordinary animal. “It’s a marvelous creation!” he said.

They were passing through the fish shop. Thompson said: “ A fish is a marvelous thing… look at the scales! Do you ever see such mechanism?”  The narrator bought for him five codfish. Thompson carried them in a bag. He was thinking of his cats.

Thompson always talked about his strays and music. The narrator served him food often. He had been out of a job more than ten years. When questioned he asked not to talk about that.

His landlady had a good conscience and had terrible grudges against Thompson and yet she tolerated him. He always collected the strays and discovered the marvels of creation among them. She allowed him to stay in her house. Their hands were joined by that died child.

Thompson became very ill. The landlady shooed his trays out. He had been giving his food away to those animals. She explained how the birds and cats were dirtying her house and how Thompson led a miserable life. The doctor said that he had caught double pneumonia. The landlady nursed him.

He fell back, quiet at once. Presently one cat came stealing in and sat against the walls. The bullfinch bird came to his pillow. The sunlight played on his bed. He said that the sunlight is the most marvelous thing.

Mr. Jackson of the theatre came to see Mr. Thompson. The narrator described to him the situation and about the expectation of Mr. Thompson. Jackson told the narrator that Thompson worked at his theatre for thirty years and never missed a night. He complimented Thompson was the rare flute player. The owner wanted to send out one flute player. Thompson sent in his resignation. After that he could never get a place anywhere. He was kind hearted and never cared for himself. Mr. Jackson decided to take care of all his birds and cats. He handed over a card to the narrator – “ Mr. Cyril Porteous Jackson, Ultima Thule, Wimbledon”.  He spoke about Thompson with affection.

The landlady too had sat there she was gazing angrily at the cat. Mr. Jackson gave the narrator his diamond ring to take care of Mr. Thompson and went out.

The following morning Mr. Thompson died. The bright angel had gone to sleep. The bird had sat on his chest looking into his face.

He had not left money for his funeral. He never thought about himself. The landlady began to cry. A telegraphic message was sent to Jackson and on the day of the funeral the narrator went to his house Ultima Thule to see if he had carried out his promise. He had kept ready an outhouse. In it he placed cushions against the walls and a little trough of milk. He had hung a flit birdcage. The bullfinch was dead too. The cats refused to stay there.

Jackson had named his house Ultima Thule – First rate, the whole place was the last word in comfort. A man must have a warm corner to end his days in. But in Thompson’s ‘Ultima Thule’, the bullfinch had died on a heart that had never known success.

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Benares  - Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley was a modern writer who was born in the year 1894 and died in the year 1963. He is a well-known thinker and writer of modern times. He was a rationalist. He has how concern for the moral values and the dread of the top sided development of science.  The present essay ‘Benares’ shows his rationalistic approach in life.

The sun eclipse was about to take place on 14^th of January 1926. It was not to be seen by naked eyes. It was visible from Benares. So Aldous Huxley came to observe it.

On that particular day the city of Benares, a pilgrim place, was crowded with a big populace. Millions of people from all over the country come there to save the sun from being eaten up by a serpent. Huxley observed the orthodox Brahmins with their chants and deeds on the crowded banks of the Ganges, the sacred river of the dirty water. Men, women and children from all walks of life with utensils and new clothes to be touched after the holy dip were carried in on head loads. Huxley observed the ocean of ignorant mankind on the banks of the Ganga, the mother of civilization.

In the mid-noon six persons carried the princess in a palanquin.  A carpet was spread to the barge. The princess in mask went to the river and got into a boat, which was decorated like Noah’s ark.  The boat went into the middle of the stream. The curtains were opened and the princess was to bath away from her poor sisters clamouring on the banks in the crowd.

Later the author, Aldous Huxley, came to the ghats on which he observed three dead bodies were cremating on the pyres of wood. Their feet were stretched out of pyre like the poor man’s out of his little bed.  The body was seen like in the torn out blanket.

The time of climax came in at last. The eclipse was to take place. Suddenly the Brahmins started sitting in a line like cormorants chanting and singing. They were gazing tip of their nose to concentrate their  meditative sleep.  Huxley who was an unorthodox and a non-conformist western man clicked his camera.

Later the author felt extremely sorry for poor India when he came into the city of Benares packed with beggars. He saw a sacred bull eating away the rice from one of the sleepy beggar. He was of the opinion that animals are not intelligent and have no imagination but they are very happy. When the whole mankind was engaged to influence gods for their benefit the bull came with timely care and ate away the rice given to a beggar in charity.

Aldous Huxley regrets the religious ignorance of the Indians. He asks the Indians who were trying to save the sun. Who will save India? Much of their energy is wasted in imbecile superstitions. He says India will not be free unless they give up all their superstitions and try to realize their own state of life.

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ADJECTIVES AND THEIR COMPARATIVE MODELS

ADJECTIVES AND THEIR COMPARATIVE MODELS

Adjective	Positive degree	Comparative degree	Superlative degree
Good	as good as	better than	the best
Bad	as bad as	worse than	the worst
Clever	as clever as	cleverer than	the cleverest
Kind	as kind as	kinder than	the kindest
Cruel	as cruel as	crueler than	the cruelest
Attractive	as attractive as	more attractive than	the most attractive
Sharp	as sharp as	sharper than	the sharpest
Easy	as easy as	easier than	the easiest
Hard	as hard as	harder than	the hardest
Great	as great as	greater than	the greatest
Smooth	as smooth as	smoother than	the smoothest
Sweet	as sweet as	sweeter than	the sweetest
Long	as long as	longer than	the longest
High	as high as	higher than	the highest
Heavy	as heavy as	heavier than	the heaviest
Industrious	as industrious as	more industrious than	the most industrious
Young	as young as	younger than	the youngest
Humble	as humble as	humbler than	the humblest
Important	as important as	more important than	the most important
Difficult	as difficult as	more difficult than	the most difficult
Deep	as deep as	deeper than	the deepest
True	as true as	truer than	the truest
Dark	as dark as	darker than	the darkest
Light	as light as	lighter than	the lightest
Clean	as clean as	cleaner than	the cleanest
Short	as short as	shorter than	the shortest
Strong	as strong as	stronger than	the strongest
Bitter	as bitter as	bitterer than	the bitterest
Prudent	as prudent as	more prudent than	the most prudent
Decent	as decent as	more decent than	the most decent
Wild	as wild as	wilder than	the wildest
Wise	as wise as	wiser than	the wisest
Brave	as brave as	braver than	the bravest
Quick	as quick as	quicker than	the quickest
Free	as free as	freer than	the freest

SONG: TO CELIA - BEN JONSON

Song: To Celia – Ben Jonson (1573 – 1637)

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I’ll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,

Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,

I would not change for thine.

I sent thee late a rosy wreath,

Not so much honouring thee,

As giving it a hope that there

It could not withered be.

But thou thereon did’st only breathe,

And sent’st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,

Not of itself, but thee!

to pledge: to drink to the health of someone

Jove: Jupiter, chief of Roman Gods               

nectar: the drink of gods that make them immortal    

wreath: a garland                    

wither: become dry     

swear: say a promise (sth) very seriously of solemnly.

To Celia – Ben Johnson

“To Celia” is a typical love lyric begins abruptly with a bold line “drink to me”.  We have no imagine in which the lovers face each other in a moment of intimate passion. There is a passionate appeal inviting the beloved to enjoy the sweetness of love. At the same time, the lover observes the courtly / bold manners of complementing his lover.

The poet asks his beloved to drink abundant quantities of love from his eyes. He says he will ‘pledge’ with his love drinking ‘love from her eyes’. The poet Ben Johnson magnanimously asks his lover to leave a kiss in the cup and he will not look for. His soul wants to taste a divine drink and not ordinary wine. Even if he is offered Jove’s nectar he will refuge it though Jove’s heavenly nectar may assure him immortality. The poet prefers the cup of love offered by his beloved to the heavenly wine/nectar.

In the second stanza Ben Johnson says that he sent his beloved a garland of roses as a token of love. It is not sent with the intention of either honouring her or pleasing her. The beautiful roses wither away soon. He wants his beloved to kiss the roses and prolong their life for some more time. Celia’s kisses have such a rejuvenating effect from them. When she sends the roses back to him, it will and spread its fragrance of Celia’s kisses. This poem is considered as one of the best love poems in English Literature. This poem is the best gift to his dearest Love in which Ben Johnson shows his great love to his beloved. This is really a great loving tribute to his beloved through this poem.

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KING ARTHUR’S FAREWELL – LORD TENNYSON

KING ARTHUR’S FAREWELL – LORD TENNYSON

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere,

‘Ah! My Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?

Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?

For now I see the true times are dead,

When every morning brought a noble chance,

And every chance brought out a noble knight.

Such times have been not since the light that led

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.

But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved

Which was an image of the mighty world;

And I, the last, go forth companionless,

And the days darken round me, and the years,

Among new men, strange faces, other minds’.

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:

‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfills Himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done

May He within Himslef make pure! But thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

But now farewell.’

Arthur was the legendary king of England. In a fierce fight with the traitor Modred he was mortally wounded. The last scene of his life is beautifully depicted in the ‘Morte De Arthur’ from which this extract has been taken.

Arthur was the legendary king of England. He was mortally wounded in the course of his fight with Modred the traitor. At his request Sir Bedivere, the last of the Round Table Knights, carried him to the boat which was moored in the nearby lake.

After putting him in the boat Sir Bedivere says that he is feeling lonely, as all his companions have already departed from this world. They really had a good time together, when every morning brought them a chance for some adventure or other. By undertaking adventures every one of them proved to be noble knight. Never in the history of Christendom there lived so many brave men at the same time. The Round Table which has hither to been an embodiment of the mighty world is now dissolved. Hereafter he has to live alone among men whose attitude to life is entirely different. As he thinks of this, future seems dark and dreary.

In reply to this, King Arthur says that the old order is changing giving way to new. It is perhaps God’s will that there should be changes, because otherwise the world is likely to be corrupted by one custom. So he wants Sir Bedivere to console himself and try to adjust with changing world. There is no use of expecting any consolation from a dying man like him. He has lived his life in a way he thought the best. If there is

Anything wrong in what he has done, let God purify it. When he is dead and gone the best thing Sir Bedivere can do is to pray for him. Prayer is very powerful. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dream of. Knowing this we should pray to God for one another and that is the best way to distinguish ourselves from beasts.

From Sir Bedivere’s speech we are able to learn something about his character, namely his love of adventure and loyalty to his master.

The speech of King Arthur reveals that he is a God fearing man. He makes God the judge of all that he has done. Equally edifying is his attitude to prayer.

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THE BROKEN TOWER - HART CRANE

The Broken Tower - Hart Crane

The bell-rope that gathers God at dawn

Displaces me as though I dropped down the knell

Of a spent day – to wander the cathedral lawn

From pit to crucifix, feet chill on steps from hell.

knell: death knell

Have you not heard, have you not seen that corps

Of shadows in the tower, whose shoulders sway

Antiphonal carillons launched before

The stars are caught and hived in the sun’s ray?

carillons: a tune played on bells

The bells, I say, the bells break down their tower;

And swing I know not where. Their tongues engrave

Membrane through marrow, my long-scattered score

Of broken intervals… and I, their sexton slave!

sexton: a person whose job is to take care of a church and its surroundings and ring the church bells

Oval encyclicals in canyons heaping

The impasse high with choir. Banked voices slain!

Pagodas, campaniles with reveilles out leaping—

O terraced echoes prostrate on the plain! …

encyclicals: an official letter written by the Pope and sent to all Roman Catholic Bishops

canyons: a deep valley with steep sides of rock

impasse: dead lock. Does not come to an agreement

pagodas: a temple (a religious building)

campaniles: a tower that contain a bell

reveilles: a tune that is played to wake soldiers in the morning

And so it was I entered the broken world

To trace the visionary company of love, its voice

An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled)

But not for long to hold each desperate choice.

My word I poured. But was it cognate, scored

Of that tribunal monarch of the air

Whose thigh embronzes earth, strikes crystal Word

In wounds pledged once to hope—cleft to despair?

The steep encroachments of my blood left me

No answer (could blood hold such a lofty tower

As flings the question true?) – or is it she

Whose sweet mortality stirs latent power?—

And through whose pulse I hear, counting the strokes

My veins recall and add, revived and sure

The angelus of wars my chest evokes:

What I hold healed, original now, and pure …

angelus: (in the Roman Catholic Church) prayers said in the morning, at midday and in the evening; a bell rung when it is time for these prayers.

And builds, within, a tower that is not stone

(Not stone can jacket heaven)—but slip

Of pebbles—visible wings of silence sown

In azure circles, widening as they dip

The matrix if the heart, lift down the eye

That shrines the quiet lake and swells a tower…

The commodious, tall decorum of the sky

Unseals her earth, and lifts love in its shower.

matrix: prevailing conditions/ surrounding substance/ atmosphere/environment

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THE GUIDE - R K NARAYAN

THE GUIDE - R.K. Narayan

The setting of R.K.Narayan’s novel, as in most of his novels, is Malgudi, a fictional town in southern India. The novel is told through a series of flashbacks.

Raju, the central character, grows up near a railway station, and becomes a shopkeeper, and then a resourceful guide. He meets Rosie, a beautiful dancer, and her husband, whom Raju nicknames Marco, because the man dresses in a thick jacket and helmet as if undertaking and expedition like Marco Polo. Marco is a scholar and anthropologist, who is more interested in his research than his young and beautiful wife Rosie.

Rosie and Marco engage Raju’s services as a tourist guide, and he takes them sightseeing. She wants to see a king cobra dancing: Marco wants to study cave paintings. Rosie and Marco quarrel constantly, and Marco remains cold and aloof toward Rosie. While Marco is away studying cave paintings, Raju falls in love with Rosie. When Marco discovers that Raju and Rosie have become lovers, Marco abandons her and returns to Madras.

Raju becomes infatuated with Rosie. He is so obsessed with Rosie that he forgets his business, falls into debts, and loses his shop at the railway station. He also loses his mother’s respect because he is living with a married woman. Raju’s mother moves out of their house is claimed to off his debts.

Raju encourages Rosie to resume her career as a dancer, and becomes her manager, launching her on a successful career as an interpreter of Bharat Natya, the classical dance of India. But he spends money extravagantly, and is tricked by Marco into forging Rosie’s signature for a package of her jewels, a mistake that earns him a two-year prison sentence.

On his release from prison, Raju stops to rest near an abandoned temple, where a villager named Velan mistakes him for a holy man. Raju does not want to return in disgrace to his friends in Malgudi, and reluctantly decides to play the part of holy man. E is happy to accept the daily offering of food, which the villagers bring him. Gradually he accepts the role, which has been thrust upon him, and he acts as spiritual advisor to the community.

Raju is content with the arrangement, until a drought occurs, and, to save face, he has to take up a 12-day fast. As a great crowd gathers to watch him during his ordeal, he begins to believe in the role he has created. He has taken on an unselfish task, not for love or money, for the first time in his life. Despite grave danger to his health, he continues to fast until he collapses. His legs sag down as he feels that the rain in falling in the hills. The ending of the novel leaves unanswered the question of whether he dies, or whether the drought has really ended.

A central theme of the novel is the transformation of Raju from his role as a tour guide to that of a spiritual guide. The title of the novel, The Guide, has double meaning, and Raju is in a sense a double character.  AS a tour guide and lover, he is impulsive, unprincipled, and self-indulgent. After his imprisonment, and after his transformation as a holy man, he is careful, thoughtful, and self-disciplined.

The novel also tells two stories, that of Raju’s relationship with Rosie, and that of Raju’s relationship with the villagers as holy man. The novel begins with Raju sitting beside the temple and meeting the villager named Velan, who mistakes him for a holy man. The novel then alternates between an account of Raju’s career as a holy man, which is told in the third-person, and Raju’s account to Velan of his privies career as a tour guide and lover, which is told in the first-person, this dualism reflects the dualism in Raju’s character. He is transformed from a sinner to a saint, though he is never truly a sinner, and never truly a saint. Because of his capacity for empathy, Raju is sympathetic character throughout the novel.

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MONEY - PHILIP LARKIN

Money - Philip Larkin

PHILIP LARKIN was the best-loved poet of his generation in England, and the winner of many academic and literary awards. His collected Poems appeared posthumously in 1988.

Larkin’s ‘Money’ treats a familiar subject in a charmingly candid and personal way. He urges us to question the wisdom of frugal spending in youth. It is hard, says the poet, to resist the temptation of money, harder to control our desire for creature-comforts.

I yield to the temptation of money. Metaphorically, the poet imagines that he listens to a siren’s song in the tinkle of coins, and the rustle of paper money. The rising inflation always devalues money. And therefore reduces one’s capacity for buying goods and services. If you are going to buy all unnecessary things one-day you cannot buy the necessary things. 

“By now they’ve a second house and car and wife:

Clearly money has something to do with life”

House and car are some ‘goods and services’ others have in excess when the thrifty person does not even fulfill his basic physical needs or enjoy social prestige and respect.

‘You can’t put off being young until you retire,’

There are certain things you can afford to put off (delay) until you retire. But your body and mind does not hear you in youth. Further, it makes no sense to have a lot of money when it hardly tempts you as in youth.

When the poet listens to ‘money singing’, he is reminded of scenes rich in visual details: the provincial town, the slums, the canal, the churches. Each has its place in answering to man’s desire; each exists to prompt man’s desire.

These scenic details prompt both desire and guilt, the first followed by the second. This quit sad like having money. Money in hand, one finds one’s longing inevitable as much as guilt that goes with it.

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