Monday, 13 April 2020

Death And Life

"'...you people bought for Earth a few more decades of freedom. They can't take that away from you.'
"I looked at her with a sudden resoect. It was true. Men died and civilizations died, but before they died they lived. No effort was altogether futile."
-"Cold Victory," p. 70.

Manse Everard of the Time Patrol surveys the Egyptian Harbor in Hiram's Tyre. Then:

"It would die at last, all of this, centuries hence, as everything must die; but first, how mightily would it have lived! How rich would be its heritage!"
-Poul Anderson, "Ivory, and Apes, and Peacocks" IN Anderson, Time Patrol (Riverdale, NY, 2010), pp. 229-331 AT p. 328.

Anderson's abiding message. He is the true Historian of Civilizations.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

And JRR Tolkien! I remember him saying similar things in THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

Ad astra! Sean