“Some people have within themselves a room so small that only a minuscule amount of the thing we call the spirit can find a home in them. Others have so much that what the world calls their characters explodes from the pressure. I think of it as a force. I have recognized–and I am no mystic–an immense amount of this spiritual force in people whose characters, judged by the things they do, are bad. In others who are blameless I have found hardly any. Probably I will never be able to know what its real nature is; all I do know is that I know it is there. Call it the Life-Force if you prefer the modern term; call it anything you like. But whatever it is, this thing refuses to be bounded, circumscribed or even judged. It creates, it destroys, it re-creates. Without it there can be no life; with much of it no easy life. It seems to me the sole force which equals the merciless fate which binds a human being to his mortality.”
Hugh MacLennan, The Watch That Ends the Night
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
An ArtsJournal Blog