No Man is an Island by D. Betterton

Self-Glorification

18mccordr — 2015-10-22 13:42:22 UTC

AQOTWF: "I nod. We stick out our chests, shave in the open, shove our hands in our pockets, inspect the recruits and feel ourselves stone-age veterans." Page 18

M17: "I may think myself so much better than I am"

Connections Between People

18mccordr — 2015-10-23 12:57:49 UTC

AQOTWF: "We don't talk much, but I believe we have a more complete communion with one another than even lovers have." Page 94

M17: "No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."

Peaceful Death

18bettertond — 2015-10-27 01:27:40 UTC

AQOTWF: "I am very quiet. Let the months and years come, they can take nothing from me, they can take nothing more. I am so alone, and so without hope that I can confront them without fear. The life that has borne me through these years is still in my hands and my eyes. Whether I have subdued i t, I know not. But so long as it is there it will seek its own way out, heedless of the will that is within me." Page 295

M17: "... when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language ..."

Suffering and Achievment

18bettertond — 2015-10-27 01:42:03 UTC

AQOTWF: "While they taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger. But for all that we were no mutineers, no deserters, no cowards--they were very free with all these expressions. We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from true, we had suddenly learned to see." Page 13

M17: "Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it."

The Effects of Death

18bettertond — 2015-10-27 01:50:54 UTC

AQOTWF: "Do I walk? Have I feet still? I raise my eyes, I let them move round, and turn myself with them, one circle, one circle, and I stand in the midst. All is as usual. Only the Militiaman Stanislaus Katczinsky has died. Then I know nothing more." Page 291

M17: "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind."

Inevitability of Death

18bettertond — 2015-10-27 01:56:08 UTC

AQOTWF: "Under the skin the life no longer pulses, it has already pressed out to the boundaries of the body. Death is working through from within. It already has command in the eyes." Page 14

M17: "As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness."

Randomness of Death

18bettertond — 2015-10-27 02:02:47 UTC

AQOTWF: "... there are still feebler, still more spent, still more helpless ones there who, with staring eyes, look upon us as gods that escape death many times." Page 133

M17: "Perchance, he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him."

Dealing With Misery

18bettertond — 2015-10-27 02:08:45 UTC

AQOTWF: "It is true we have no right to this windfall. The Prussian is not so generous. We have only a miscalculation to thank for it. Fourteen days ago we had to go up and relieve the front line. It was fairly quiet on our sector, so the quartermaster who remained in the rear had requisitioned the usual quantity of rations and provided for the full company of one hundred and fifty men. But on the last day an astonishing number of English heavies opened up on us with high-explosive, drumming ceaselessly on our position, so that we suffered severely and came back only eighty strong.

M17: "Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours."

Earth

18bettertond — 2015-10-27 02:15:30 UTC

AQOTWF: " But on the last day an astonishing number of English heavies opened up on us with high-explosive, drumming ceaselessly on our position, so that we suffered severely and came back only eighty strong." Page 2.

M17: "No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less."

Everyone Dies

18bettertond — 2015-10-27 02:20:15 UTC

AQOTWF: "He was killed three months before he would have been called up in the ordinary way." Page 174

M17: "Who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?"

Instrumental Music

18bettertond — 2015-10-27 02:37:52 UTC

Leaving this Life

18mccordr — 2015-10-27 12:57:12 UTC

AQOTWF: "He says nothing; all that lies behind him; he is entirely alone now with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him. " Page 16

M17: "Who can remove it from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

Welcoming Death

18mccordr — 2015-10-28 12:09:37 UTC

AQOTWF: "Now he will hardly speak any more. Once he says he will shoot himself the first time he can get hold of his revolver again."

M17: "The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth..."