THE SENTENCE: GOETHE

On the eve of a summer holiday ("vacation" to North American readers), I've dusted off an apropos little gift:

"Beginnings are always delightful; the threshold is the place to pause." ~ Goethe

The truth is I'm not sure when or where the German gloom-master wrote this (a line that seems far more applicable to the transience of love than to spontaneous trips to New Hampshire, at any rate). I came across the sentence in "Sleepless Nights", Elizabeth Hardwick's beautiful book about memory, time and loss. Punching well above its weight of 130 pages, it is filled with sentences so thoughtful that each demands close attention, like a candy that must touch every part of your tongue. Reading this book feels like chipping away at a stone, colonising it, learning from it, patiently. It is the kind of book that inspires lesser writers to use two different similes in two sequential sentences, for better or worse.

So here is a passage from her book, published to adoring reviews in 1979. It comes from the first pages, and it captures the strain of melancholy that runs throughout (perhaps an inevitability in any consideration of the past):

Husband-wife: not a new move to be discovered in that strong classical tradition. Arguments are like the grinding of rusty blades, the old motor and its troublesome knockings. The dog growls. He too knows his lines.