De Nederlandse dichter en schrijver Jan G. Elburg werd geboren op 30 november 1919 te Wemeldinge. Zie ook mijn blog van 30 november 2006 en ook mijn blog van 30 november 2007.
Uit: Geen Letterheren
“Lucebert vond dat hij niet aldoor op de gastvrijheid van Fried en Bert Schierbeek kon teren en trok al vroeg dat jaar – het ijs lag ’s morgens nog in de sloten – naar Zuid-Frankrijk, waar de schilderende tandarts Max Reneman, die een villa in Monte-Carlo had gehuurd, hem had uitgenodigd.
Hij reisde met zijn oude, nog altijd even berooide makker Martineau, overnachtend in berijpte greppels. In zuidelijker streken beliepen ze, met kapotte voeten, de lange stijgende weg over de Col du Grand Bois (reusachtige sparren als in sprookjes, rotsblokken en watervalletjes: ik ken de omgeving van scootertochten, een paar jaar nadien) om, afgedaald, opeens in de zoele briesjes tussen de bloeiende mimosa te staan. De romantische jonge dichter voor het eerst in de Provence. In Roquebrune ontmoette Lucebert de schrijfster Margje Toonder, vrouw van auteur Jan Gerhard Toonder die voor langere tijd afwezig bleek, en het klikte op slag tussen de vrijgevochten Margje en de zwervende poëet. Samen reisden zij naar Rome en dat werd, dank zij Margjes zakelijke talenten, geen voettocht: zij pretendeerde een boek te schrijven over restaurants en hotels, bestemd voor het betere publiek in Nederland. Dit leverde legio uitstekende maaltijden op en even zovele gerieflijke overnachtingen. Lucebert had heel wat smakelijke verhalen te vertellen na zijn terugkeer. Ik herinner mij er een met betrekking tot een grote verzilverde stolp waaronder het gebraad werd opgediend: de aanblik zou hem hebben doen uitroepen dat hij geen permanent hoefde, ondanks alle deftigheid, zó deed het stuk tafelgerief hem aan een nikkelen droogkap bij dameskappers denken.”
Jan G. Elburg (30 november 1919 – 13 augustus 1992)
De Britse staatsman en schrijver Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill werd geboren in Woodstock op 30 november 1874. Zie ook mijn blog van 30 november 2007.
Uit: Rupert Brooke’s Obituary in The Times (26 april 1915)
“Rupert Brooke is dead. A telegram from the Admiral at Lemnos tells us that this life has closed at the moment when it seemed to have reached its springtime. A voice had become audible, a note had been struck, more true, more thrilling, more able to do justice to the nobility of our youth in arms engaged in this present war, than any other more able to express their thoughts of self-surrender, and with a power to carry comfort to those who watch them so intently from afar. The voice has been swiftly stilled. Only the echoes and the memory remain; but they will linger.
During the last few months of his life, months of preparation in gallant comradeship and open air, the poet-soldier told with all the simple force of genius the sorrow of youth about to die, and the sure triumphant consolations of a sincere and valiant spirit. He expected to die: he was willing to die for the dear England whose beauty and majesty he knew: and he adva
nced towards the brink in perfect serenity, with absolute conviction of the rightness of his country’s cause and a heart devoid of hate for fellow-men.
The thoughts to which he gave expression in the very few incomparable war sonnets which he has left behind will be shared by many thousands of young men moving resolutely and blithely forward in this, the hardest, the cruelest, and the least-rewarded of all the wars that men have fought. They are a whole history and revelation of Rupert Brooke himself. Joyous, fearless, versatile, deeply instructed, with classic symmetry of mind and body, ruled by high undoubting purpose, he was all that one would wish England’s noblest sons to be in the days when no sacrifice but the most precious is acceptable, and the most precious is that which is most freely proffered.“
Winston Churchill (30 november 1874 – 24 januari 1965)
De Amerikaanse schrijver Mark Twain (pseudoniem van Samuel Langhorne Clemens) werd geboren op 30 november 1835 te Florida. Zie ook mijn blog van 30 november 2006.
Uit: OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI
„Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk. Before these events had transpired, the day was glorious with expectancy; after they had transpired, the day was a dead and empty thing. Not only the boys, but the whole village, felt this. After all these years I can picture that old time to myself now, just as it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer’s morning; the streets empty, or pretty nearly so; one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water Street stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against the wall, chins on breasts, hats slouched over their faces, asleep—with shingle-shavings enough around to show what broke them down; a sow and a litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business in water-melon rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little freight piles scattered about the “levee;” a pile of “skids” on the slope of the stone-paved wharf, and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow of them; two or three wood flats at the head of the wharf, but nobody to listen to the peaceful lapping of the wavelets against them; the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest away on the other side; the “point” above the town, and the “point” below, bounding the river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and withal a very still and brilliant and lonely one. Presently a film of dark smoke appears above one of those remote “points;” instantly a negro drayman, famous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry, “S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin!'” and the scene changes!“
Mark Twain (30 november 1835 – 21 april 1910)
De Canadese schrijfster Lucy Maud Montgomery werd geboren in Clifton op 30 november 1874.. Haar moeder overleed toen de kleine Lucy twee jaar was en haar vader stuurde haar toen naar haar grootouders. Haar leven op de boerderij van haar opa en oma beschrijft ze in haar eerste en meest bekende kinderboek, Anne of Green Gables (1908) dat in Nederland verscheen als Annie van het groene huis. Het boek is ook verfilmd. Montgomery begon jong met schrijven; haar eerste gedicht werd gepubliceerd toen ze 15 jaar was. Ze werkte als journaliste en lerares, maar stopte met werken om voor haar zieke grootmoeder te zorgen. In 1911 trouwde ze met dominee Ewan Macdonald en verhuisde ze naar Ontario, waar ze de rest van haar leven woonde. Ze ontving voor haar boeken diverse internationale bekroningen.
Uit: Anne Of Green Gables
“With this Mrs. Rachel stepped out of the lane into the backyard of Green Gables. Very green and neat and precise was that yard, set about on one side with great patriarchal willows and the other with prim Lombardies. Not a stray stick nor stone was to be seen, for Mrs. Rachel would have seen it if there had been. Privately she was of the opinion that Marilla Cuthbert swept that yard over as often as she swept her house. One could have eaten a meal off the ground without overbrimming the proverbial peck of dirt.
Mrs. Rachel rapped smartly at the kitchen door and stepped in when bidden to do so. The kitchen at Green Gables was a cheerful apartment–or would have been cheerful if it had not been so painfully clean as to give it something of the appearance of an unused parlor. Its windows looked east and west; through the west one, looking out on the back yard, came a flood of mellow June sunlight; but the east one, whence you got a glimpse of the bloom white cherry-trees in the left orchard and nodding, slender birches down in the hollow by the brook, was greened over by a tangle of vines. Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously; and here she sat now, knitting, and the table behind her was laid for supper.”
Lucy Maud Montgomery (30 november 1874 – 24 april 1942)
De Engelse schrijver Jonathan Swift werd op 30 november 1667 in Dublin geboren uit Engelse ouders. Zie ook mijn blog van 30 november 2006.
Uit: Gulliver’s Travels
„MY FATHER had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons. He sent me to Emanuel-College in Cambridge, at Fourteen Years old, where I resided three Years, and applyed my self close to my Studies: But the Charge of maintaining me (although I had a very scanty Allowance) being too great for a narrow Fortune; I was bound Apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent Surgeon in London, with whom I continued four Years; and my Father now and then sending me small Sums of Money, I laid them out in learning Navigation, and other parts of the Mathematicks, useful to those who intend to travel, as I always believed it would be some time or other my Fortune to do. When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my Father; where, by the Assistance of him and my Uncle John, and some other Relations, I got Forty Pounds, and a Promise of Thirty Pounds a Year to maintain me at Leyden: There I studied Physick two Years and seven Months, knowing it would be useful in long Voyages.“
Jonathan Swift (30 november 1667 – 19 oktober 1745)
Portret door Charles Jervas, 1710
De Engelse schrijver Sir Philip Sidney werd geboren op 30 november 1554 in het kasteel van Penshurst in het graafschap Kent. Zie ook mijn blog van 30 november 2006.
Astrophel and Stella: LXIV
No more, my dear, no more these counsels try;
Oh, give my passions leave to run their race;
Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace;
Let folk o’ercharg’d with brain against me cry;
Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye;
Let me no steps but of lost labour trace;
Let all the earth with scorn recount my case,
But do not will me from my love to fly.
I do not envy Aristotle’s wit,
Nor do aspire to Caesar’s bleeding fame;
Nor aught do care though some above me sit;
Nor hope nor wish another course to frame,
But that which once may win thy cruel heart:
Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art.
Sir Philip Sidney (30 november 1554 – 17 oktober 1586)
A spirit without spot’. Standbeeld in Zutphen
De Engelse dichter en schrijver John Bunyan werd geboren op 30 november 1628 in Harrowden bij Bedford. Zie ook mijn blog van 30 november 2006.
The Necessity Of A New Heart
Now wouldst thou have a heart that tender is,
A heart that forward is to close with bliss;
A heart that will impressions freely take
Of the new covenant, and that will make
The best improvement of the word of grace,
And that to wickedness will not give place;
All this is in the promise, and it may
Obtained be of them that humbly pray.
Wouldst thou enjoy that spirit that is free,
And looseth those that in their spirits be
Oppressed with guilt, or filth, or unbelief;
That spirit that will, where it dwells, be chief;
Which breaketh Samson’s cord as rotten thread,
And raiseth up the spirit that is dead;
That sets the will at liberty to choose
Those things that God hath promis’d to infuse
Into the humble heart? All this, I say,
The promise holdeth out to them that pray.
John Bunyan (30 november 1628 – 31 augustus 1688)
De Duitse dichter en schrijver Rudolf Lavant (eig. Richard Cramer) werd geboren op 30 november 1844 in Leipzig. Hij werkte als koopman en procuratiehouder en leidde daarnaast een leven als dichter en schrijver voor het proletariaat. Ook werkte hij als leraar en lector voor de Leipziger Arbeiterverein.
In Reih und Glied
1890
Als ihr in eurem finstern Hasse
Das drohende Gesetz erdacht,
Das uns zu Deutschen zweiter Klasse
Mit einem Federstrich gemacht,
Da ward gefühlt und eingesehen
Von allen ohne Unterschied:
„Wir können hier nur widerstehen
In Reih und Glied.”
Wir ließen schweigend uns verdammen,
Verstoßen uns vom Vaterland,
Und schweigend rückten wir zusammen,
Bis Schulter man an Schulter stand.
An Spree und Belt, am Rhein, in Sachsen
Erklang der Gegner Unkenlied;
Wir fühlten allem uns gewachsen
In Reih und Glied.
(…)
Rudolf Lavant (30 november 1844 – 6 december 1915)