The Theater Is The Only

Leisure Was The Sine Qua Non Of The Full Renaissance. The Feudal Nobility, Having Lost Its Martial Function, Sought Diversion All Over Europe In Cultivated Pastimes: Sonneteering, The Lute, Games And Acrostics, Travel, Gentlemanly Studies And Sports, Hunting And Hawking, Treated As Arts.

The Strongest Argument For The Un-materialistic Character Of American Life Is The Fact That We Tolerate Conditions That Are, From A Materialistic Point Of View, Intolerable. ... No Nation With Any Sense Of Material Well-being Would Endure The Food We Eat, The Cramped Apartments We Live In, The Noise, The Traffic, The Crowded Subways And Buses. American Life, In Large Cities, At Any Rate, Is A Perpetual Assault On The Senses And The Nerves.

Proscription, Martial Law, The Billeting Of The Rude Troops, The Tax Collector, The Unjust Judge, Anything At All, Is Sweeter Than Responsibility.

The Perennial Wonder Of Venice Is To Peer At Herself In Her Canals And Find That She Exists-incredible As It Seems. It Is The Same Reassurance That A Looking-glass Offers Us: The Guarantee That We Are Real.

The Strongest Argument For The Un-materialistic Character Of American Life Is That We Tolerate Conditions That Are, From A Materialistic Point Of View, Intolerable.