Sedulia's Quotations

Lewis Lapham on his CIA interview in 1957

At 71, [Lewis Lapham is] about to step down after 28 years as the editor of Harper's magazine, but he's not talking about that right now.

Instead, he's telling the story of his aborted job interview at the CIA back in 1957, when Lapham, after matriculating at Hotchkiss and Yale and Cambridge, hoped for a career as a Cold Warrior.

"The CIA was in temporary buildings, Quonset huts down by the Lincoln Memorial," he says. "The interview was at a wooden table with four guys, all from Yale. They were of a time that I had come to ridicule at Yale-- the George W. Bush type."

What type is that?

"Eastern, rich, privileged, arrogant, perennial cheerleader," he says....

"The first question was: "If you were standing at the 13th tee at the National Golf Links in Southampton, which club would you use?  [Photo at right: the 15th hole]

"Now, it so happened that I'd played that golf course and knew the hole. It's a short hole, so if you said 'driver,' you'd be wrong....I said 7-iron, and I got it right.

"The second question was: You're coming in on the final tack at the Hay Harbor on Fishers Island in the late afternoon-- what tack do you take? I don't remember what the answer was, but I got it right because I had sailed at Fishers Island. [Photo left: the Fisher's Island Yacht Club]

"The third question was: They mentioned the name of a girl who was known on the Ivy League circuit for being a ravenous nymphomaniac. And the question was: Does she wear a slip?

"I didn't know, because I'd never had carnal knowledge of the young lady. I explained that I'd heard rumors of French silk and Belgian lace but I couldn't vouch for my sources."

At that point he walked out of the interview, he says, disgusted with the know-it-all smugness of his CIA interrogators. "I said, 'Gentlemen, I'm sorry I've wasted your time. Goodbye and good luck.'"

Then he went home to San Francisco, where his grandfather had once served as mayor, and he began his journalism career....

Wow! What a story! It explains so much. Not only does it hint at why the CIA has screwed up so often, from the Bay of Pigs to 9/11, it also suggests why Lapham-- the blue-blooded great-grandson of a founder of Texaco-- has been lobbing elegantly crafted literary grenades at America's ruling class for decades.

It's a great story, so great that it sounds...just a tad too good to be true.

       --Peter Carlson, in the Washington Post, Tuesday, 21 March, 2006

David Hume: Among well-bred people, a mutual deference is affected

Among well-bred people, a mutual deference is affected; contempt of others disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained, without vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness for victory, and without any airs of superiority. These attentions and regards are immediately agreeable to others, abstracted from any consideration of utility or beneficial tendencies: they conciliate affection, promote esteem, and extremely enhance the merit of the person who regulates his behaviour by them.

        --From An Enquiry into the Principles of Morals, by David Hume ( 1711-1776)

Spyri: Heidi in Frankfurt is homesick for the Alps

But in her heart the burden became ever heavier; she could not eat any more, and every day she became a little paler. In the evening she often could not fall asleep for a long, long time, for as soon as she was alone and all around her was still, everything came before her eyes, so alive, the Alm and the sunshine on it and the flowers; and when she finally fell asleep, she saw in her dreams the sharp red cliffs of Falknis and the fiery snowfield of Schesaplana, and then Heidi would wake up in the morning and want to run out of the hut full of joy-- suddenly there she was in her big bed in Frankfurt, so far, far away, and could not go home any more. Then Heidi would often press her head into the pillow and cry for a long time, very softly, so that no one would hear her.

        --From Heidi (1880), by Johanna Spyri (1827-1901)

The mountains are real. You can see them below: Falknis, Schesaplana, and an Alm-hut; and Frankfurt.

Aber in seinem Herzen wurde das Last, die darinnen lag, immer schwerer; es konnte nicht mehr essen, und jeden Tag wurde es ein wenig bleicher. Am Abend konnte es oft lange, lange nicht einschlafen, denn sobald es allein war und alles still ringsumher, kam ihm alles so lebendig vor die Augen, die Alm und der Sonnenschein darauf und die Blumen; und schlief es endlich doch ein, so sah es im Traum die roten Felsenspitzen am Falknis und das feurige Schneefeld an der Schesaplana, und erwachte dann Heidi am Morgen und wollte voller Freude hinausspringen aus der Hütte-- da war es auf einmal in seinem grossen Bett in Frankfurt, so weit, weit weg, und konnte nicht mehr heim. Dann drückte Heidi oft seinen Kopf in das Kissen und weinte lang, ganz leise, dass niemand es höre.

        --From Heidi, by Johanna Spyri

Stephen Vincent Benét: I have fallen in love with American names

I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

Seine and Piave are silver spoons,
But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn,
There are English counties like hunting-tunes
Played on the keys of a postboy's horn,
But I will remember where I was born.

I will remember Carquinez Straits,
Little French Lick and Lundy's Lane,
the Yankee ships and the Yankee dates
and the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane.
I will remember Skunktown Plain.

I will fall in love with a Salem tree
and a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz,
I will get me a bottle of Boston sea
and a blue-gum nigger to sing me blues.
I am tired of loving a foreign muse.

Rue des Martyrs and Bleeding-Heart-Yard,
Senlis, Pisa, and Blindman's Oast,
it is a magic ghost you guard
but I am sick for a newer ghost,
Harrisburg, Spartanburg, Painted Post.

Henry and John were never so
and Henry and John were always right?
Granted, but when it was time to go
and the tea and the laurels had stood all night,
did they never watch for Nantucket Light?

I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
you may bury my tongue at Champmédy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.

        --Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943)