DLXXXV

[desperance]

...but damn. When I started work this morning, I had a couple of pages and another chapter to write.

I have written the couple of pages, and now I have two chapters to write.

It is true, you know. The struggle naught availeth; this book will never end.

Comments

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

'Salright - good books don't end. But maybe it could stop?

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Oh, lord. Poor Chaz. Novelist's event horizon. Forge on, good sir, and best of luck to you!

Say not the struggle naught availeth

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

SAY not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!

Arthur Hugh Clough. 1819–1861

Re: Say not the struggle naught availeth

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Roger. Don't think I'd ever read the full text before; only ever quoted - or indeed misquoted - the first line, as needed. I still say, sometimes, the struggle naught availeth. As witness Clough: dead at 42, poor guy. (Balliol man, though. That's got to be worth something, in the afterlife.)

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

We are twins separated at birth. I wrote that book, too. Once or twice. There would always come a time when I just wanted to - I don't know - beat it against the wall until it gave up tormenting me.