21 September 2009

on beginnings


"But if I hadn't done, on solicitation, this particular thing I shouldn't have begun ever at all; and if I hadn't begun I shouldn't have the set purpose to show, henceforth, what flower of perfection I presume to think I can pick from the dusty brambles--ah meagre vegetation!--of the dramatic form."

To Robert Louis Stevenson. 34 De Vere Gardens W. Oct. 30th, 1891.

The letter begins, "My dear Louis. My silences are hideous, but somehow I feel as if you were inaccessible to sound."













English National Opera production of The Turn of the Screw, December 2007

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