De Britse schrijfster Rachel Billington werd geboren op 11 mei 1942 in Londen. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 mei 2009.
Uit: Emma & Knightley
“Emma Knightley, handsome, clever and rich, with a husband whose affection for her was only equalled by her affection for him, had passed upward of a year of marriage in what may be described as perfect happiness; certainly this is how she described it to herself as she sat at her writing desk from which she had an excellent view of her father, Mr Woodhouse, taking a turn round the shrubbery on the arm of her beloved Mr Knightley.
Emma smiled as she watched them, smiled and repressed a sigh as she saw the tender way in which Mr Knightley – she would never bring herself to call him George – put his upright, manly self between the cool autumnal breeze and the frail figure of her father. Since she, herself, usually performed this daily office for her father – Mr Knightley often being occu¬pied in the mornings when her father felt the air most conducive to good health – seldom did she have the opportunity of seeing her parent as he appeared at a distance to the objective eye.
His walking was tentative, it could not be denied, but then he had never been quick, or never since she could remember him. It was possible – Emma considered the idea from the heights of her still new stature as a wife – that his sense of himself as an invalid had stemmed from the early death of Mrs Woodhouse, causing him to distrust health. If that were the cause – and, by his affectionate accounts of his wife, she had possessed all the vivacity, intellectual vigour and good health that any woman could wish for – then it was understandable that her adoring husband’s tempera¬ment should receive a severe shock at her unexpected death; that he would never be the same, but always fearful, not just for himself, but for his daughters (Emma had an elder sister, Isabella), their husbands, Isabella’s five children (soon to be six), his friends, acquaintances and, in short, the whole world, small as it was, that he inhabited.”
Rachel Billington (Londen, 11 mei 1942)
De Oostenrijks-Roemeens-joods-Amerikaanse dichteres Rose Ausländer werd geboren in Czernowitz op 11 mei 1901. Zie ook alle tags voor Rose Ausländer op dit blog.
Nichts bleibt
Tage kommen und gehen
alles bleibt wie es ist
Nichts bleibt wie es ist
es zerbricht wie Porzellan
Du bemühst dich
die Scherben zu kleben
zu einem Gefäß
und weinst
weil es nicht glückt
Glück II
Der Traum vom Glück
wehrt sich gegen mich
seit ich ihn träumen will
Ich habe viel geträumt
von dunklen Dingen
Manchmal stand ein Stern
am Himmel meines Traums
nur einen Augenblick
dann stürzte er
und fiel
weiß auf mein Haar.
Rose Ausländer (11 mei 1901 – 3 januari 1988)
De Duitse dichter en schrijver Carl Ferdinand Max Hauptmann werd geboren op 11 mei 1858 in Obersalzbrunn. Zie ook alle tags voor Carl Hauptmann op dit blog.
Erdgeboren
Über mir in wolkigen Lüften
Wogen Lerchen traumverloren.
Tiefi m Heidekraute lieg ich,
Fühle mich so erdgeboren;
Ganz, als ob ich aus der Scholle
Wildentwachsen wär, wie Bäume,
Leicht vom Heidewind geschaukelt,
Erde halb – und halb auch Träume.
Ganz, als ob ich aus der Scholle
Aufgeflogen wär mit Schwingen,
Hoch im Sommerwind aufsteigend,
Erde halb – und halb doch Klingen.
Carl Hauptmann (11 mei 1858 – 4 februari 1921)
De Engelse schrijfster, vertaalster en componiste Ethel Lilian Voynich werd geboren op 11 mei 1864 in County Cork, Ierland. Zie ook alle tags voor Ethel Lilian Voynich op dit blog.
Uit: The Gadfly
“He broke off and sat tearing the foxglove bells to pieces. The silence was so long and deep that he looked up, wondering why the Padre did not speak. It was growing dark under the branches of the magnolia, and everything seemed dim and indistinct; but there was light enough to show the ghastly paleness of Montanelli’s face. He was bending his head down, his right hand tightly clenched upon the edge of the bench. Arthur looked away with a sense of awe-struck wonder. It was as though he had stepped unwittingly on to holy ground.
“My God!” he thought; “how small and selfish I am beside him! If my trouble were his own he couldn’t feel it more.”
Presently Montanelli raised his head and looked round. “I won’t press you to go back there; at all events, just now,” he said in his most caressing tone; “but you must promise me to take a thorough rest when your vacation begins this summer. I think you had better get a holiday right away from the neighborhood of Leghorn. I can’t have you breaking down in health.”
“Where shall you go when the seminary closes, Padre?”
“I shall have to take the pupils into the hills, as usual, and see them settled there. But by the middle of August the subdirector will be back from his holiday. I shall try to get up into the Alps for a little change. Will you come with me? I could take you for some long mountain rambles, and you would like to study the Alpine mosses and lichens. But perhaps it would be rather dull for you alone with me?”
“Padre!” Arthur clasped his hands in what Julia called his “demonstrative foreign way.” “I would give anything on earth to go away with you. Only – I am not sure –” He stopped.
“You don’t think Mr. Burton would allow it?”
“He wouldn’t like it, of course, but he could hardly interfere. I am eighteen now and can do what I choose. After all, he’s only my step-brother; I don’t see that I owe him obedience. He was always unkind to mother.”
Ethel Lilian Voynich (11 mei 1864 – 28 juli 1960)
Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 11 mei 2007.
De Spaanse dichter Leopoldo de Luis werd geboren op 11 mei 1918 in Córdoba.
Zie voor onderstaande schrijver ook mijn blog van 11 mei 2012.
De Afghaanse dichter, schrijver en criticus Latif Nazemi werd geboren op 11 mei 1947 in Herat. Zie ook mijn blog van 11 mei 2009 en ook mijn blog van 11 mei 2010.