English Interlude

For the next 30 days or so I'm going to be doing a little bit of reading every day from the Norton Anthology of English Literature (20th Century). There are 30 slips of paper in my old Milwaukee Brewers hat, each one with a name of a writer. I pick; I read. And I thought I'd chronicle that reading here in the form of snippets of text, perhaps related to my own blogposts, perhaps not.

Nov. 14th reading:

Joseph Conrad's "The Task of the Artist"

"All art [. . .] appeals primarily to the senses, and the artistic aim when expressing itself in written words must also make its appeal through the senses, if its high desire is to reach the secret spring of responsive emotions. It must strenuously aspire to the plasticity of sculpture, to the colour of painting, and to the magic suggestiveness of music--which is the art of arts."