"He was there alone with himself, collected, tranquil, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the serenity of the skies, moved in the darkness by the visible splendors of the constellations, and the invisible splendor of God, opening his soul to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. In such moments, offering up his heart at the hour when the flowers of night inhale their perfume, lighted like a lamp in the center of the starry night, expanding his soul in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of creation, he could not himself perhaps have told what was passing in his own mind; he felt something depart from him, and something descend upon him, mysterious interchanges of the depths of the soul with the depths of the universe."
---I'm not one to quote people.
However, I cannot for the life of me broach this sensation in any fashion superior than Victor Hugo's prose. The above passage is easily my favorite paragraph in any book I've read. It's not necessarily my number one piece of fiction, though this particular segment in Les Misérables radiates through every part of the physical/mental/spiritual/whateverthehellyouwannacallit make up within my body. Seriously. I feel as if everything I desire in my existence thus far can be traced between a few lines of pure nirvana: the above material.
*It's quite handy to have a pad of paper and a writing utensil when reading a piece of literature because finding brief passages with such an immense bearing is similar to filtering out little nuggets of gold during frontier times. Why frontier times? Because in elementary school, we got to go to Shakertown where they taught us to shave with old fashioned razors (not literally of course) and find GOLD and knead bread and use the cottin gin and so on so forth.
ANYWAY going to what I was originally stating, Les Mis wasn't my copy to keep and I wrote this extract on a wadded up piece of paper. I can honestly say (and I'm being
honest) that honestly I think about this paragraph, honestly, everyday of my honest life. But I had no idea where the hell I put that trifling little note with this scribbled mess on it. Today I found it. In the trenches of my bottomless desk drawer.
Everyday I'm realizing even more just how large my heart is. For certain things, of course.
I have a rash on my elbow pit. I keep scratching it. I NEED A FIX! Just kidding. But really, it's as if someone is shooting up heroine; it's super agitated.
Okay. Goodnight. It's three oh three in the morn.
When I read this,"Everyday I'm realizing even more just how large my heart is." The scene of The Grinch and his growing heart was showing in my head. I'd like to be a peanut.
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