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These forums are being phased out. The new, improved Joseph Conrad Forum is at westerncanon.com/bookforums.
Ahoy fellow travelers and Great Books lovers!

The former post was deleted as it violated our user agreement, or it did not add to the "Great Books" conversation in a constructive manner.

The new Joseph Conrad Forum may be found at http://westerncanon.com/bookforums/forumdisplay.php?f=32 .

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We prefer deep reflections on Philosophy, Shakespearean Sonnets, and tender musings along the lines of:

XLIX

Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Call'd to that audit by advis'd respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
Against that time do I ensconce me here,
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this my hand, against my self uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part: 
  To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
  Since why to love I can allege no cause.
 	--William Shakespeare

After I wrote this sonnet there appeared to me a miraculous vision in which I saw things that made me resolve to say no more about this blessed one until I should be capable of writing about her in a nobler way. -Dante on his inspiration for The Divine Comedy, after falling short of Beatrice's splendor in the Vita Nuova

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XIII

O! that you were your self; but, love you are
No longer yours, than you your self here live:
Against this coming end you should prepare,
And your sweet semblance to some other give:
So should that beauty which you hold in lease
Find no determination; then you were
Yourself again, after yourself's decease,
When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear. 
Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,
Which husbandry in honour might uphold,
Against the stormy gusts of winter's day
And barren rage of death's eternal cold?
  O! none but unthrifts. Dear my love, you know,
  You had a father: let your son say so.
 	--William Shakespeare

All The Best,

William Einstein Shakespeare :)

CI

O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy'd?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix'd'?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for't lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be prais'd of ages yet to be.
  Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
  To make him seem long hence as he shows now.
 	--William Shakespeare