West, Rebecca -- “Pleasure Be Your Guide,” The Nation, “Living Philosophies” series #10 (25 Feb 1939)

Dave — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 15:29:15 +0000

Christ by his crucifixion demonstrated exactly what the assault of cruelty on the innocent means; and the subsequent services devised by the early church commemorated the beauty of the virtue that was slain and the beastliness shown by the slayer, and reiterated the warning that this was the kind of crime man was inherently likely to commit unless he watched himself. There could be no more proper medicine for the human disease. But the church has poured as much of the draft as possible down the drain by its attempts to account for the crucifixion of Christ as an atonement for the sins of man instead of a demonstration of them.

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British author, journalist, literary critic, travel writer [pseud. for Cicily Isabel Fairfield]
“Pleasure Be Your Guide,” The Nation, “Living Philosophies” series #10 (25 Feb 1939)

Adapted into Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (1952).

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth -- Kavanagh: A Tale, ch. 30 (1849)

Dave — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 12:05:56 +0000

The secret demerits of which we alone, perhaps, are conscious, are often more difficult to bear than those which have been publicly censured in us, and thus in some degree atoned for.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet
Kavanagh: A Tale, ch. 30 (1849)

WIST Quotations

West, Rebecca -- “Pleasure Be Your Guide,” The Nation, “Living Philosophies” series #10 (25 Feb 1939)

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth -- Kavanagh: A Tale, ch. 30 (1849)