“Perhaps one reason for the falling-off of belief in a continuance
of conscious existence is to be found in the quality of life that
most of us lead. There is not much in it with which, in any
kind of reason, one can associate the idea of immortality. Selling
bonds, for instance, or promoting finance-companies, seems
not to assort with the idea of an existence which cannot be
imagined to take any account of money or credits. Certain
other of our present activities might be imagined as going on
indefinitely, such as poetry, music, pure mathematics, or philosophy.
One can easily imagine an immortal Homer or Beethoven;
one cannot possibly imagine an immortal Henry Ford or
John D. Rockefeller. Probably belief cannot transcend experience.
If we believe that death is the end of us, very likely it is because we have never had any experience of a kind of life
that in any sort of common sense we could think was worth being
immortal; and we know we have had no such experience.
As far as spiritual activity is concerned, most of us who represent
this present age are so dead while we live that it seems
the most natural thing in the world to assume that we shall
stay dead when we die.“
JOURNEYMAN, 86-7

Fernanda Young

p.s. percebi que resenhei um livro de Dostoievski por engano, o leitor certamente saberá fazer as substituições necessárias.

p.p.s. ao tradutor deve ser facultada a opção de melhorar o aportuguesamento de uma palavra, Lornhão, por exemplo, é impronunciável, é o Shibboleth do Shibboleth.

p.p.p.s. você, companheiro, que vai prestar vestibular este ano pode acompanhar o resumão do livro no youtube:

Os meses vêm quando vão,

entra-se o ano em desespero.

Ai dos mui alvos, quando estão

ao sol de janeiro.

Ajoelha e chora

Não, na verdade não:

” With regard to modern languages,we must make a discrimination that is perhaps seldom observed. A use, say, of Italian or French as a literary language, giving us full command of a great literature in addition to our own—this is one thing. A use which aims at conversation, or as Matthew Arnold said, enables us to fight the battle of life with the waiters in foreign hotels—this is quite another thing. It is the latter use which is in vogue in our institutions, because it is more easily taught and more easily appropriated. I was lately shown a dormitory in an undergraduate college, and was told that people spoke only French in that house, no other language being permitted. This did not interest me. I asked what they said when they spoke French, this being the only thing that counts, for one may chatter nonsense and inanities in French as well as in any other language, I suppose. I got no satisfaction on this point yet it is most important. The one use of French may be arrived at through the other, no question; yet a quite complete possession of the second use is no guarantee that the other will be attained… “

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