Sunset, Wednesday, 16 December 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Painted at Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

I had a choice from among innumerable stages of a clear winter twilight. I did one that reminded me of the sky over the slate roofs of the dorms at Hopkins, after I’d come outside from washing dishes.

I ran across this line in the second book of In Search of Lost Time (James Grieve translation). I’ve gone back to look at it a dozen times.

Our furthest-reaching resolutions are always made in a short-lived state of mind.

Proust isn’t saying these resolutions are made lightly or at all superficially – that’s one of the things I found so interesting. What mainly has kept me thinking about the line is how uncannily true it seems. A text for any biography.

I was amazed not to find the quote in Bartlett’s, whether in bound book or online, or anywhere in Bartleby.com, although it would be easy enough to miss, in that mess.