The view of Samuel Butler starts to take hold. Today I had a most enjoyable hour together with Salamon Ödön. He died in 1903 but is living his “true life” now, sometimes with me.
We met in a bookshop, where I picked up (for 390 FT) a slim volume called “Minden jóra fordul, de későn” (Everything turns out for the best, but belatedly),
A book of aphorisms, of course. Aphorisms very easily lead to satiety. Imagine a jar filled with magic peas. The magical thing: each of them can expand so as to fill the entire jar, if not burst it. Now imagine eating five or ten of these peas. You will be more than full.
I opened the book from time to time, took out a few magically expanding morsels and saw that they were good. Once I took out a morsel that was so good I almost threw up. The goodness about it was almost — lethal. Moving in the land of “Gloomy Sunday”, that supposedly suicidal song, — no, it doesn´t kill itself, but those who hear it, if you believe it, and I don´t; it is regularly played in the cafés of Budapest, and if it leads to suicide it is of the delayed kind that cannot be distinguished from ordinary death — I have come to believe in the lethal powers of, as I said, not songs but certain sentences.
One of them was contained in this slim volume.
It was not just an expanding pea but more like a fish-bone that gets stuck in your throat and wipes you out by cutting off your air supply. Clearly there was MUCH power in that small book!
Today I picked it out again and tried to find the dangerous aphorism. (I usually bend the top of pages that contain something special but there was no clue.) Finally I found it, but didn´t read it. I read many other aphorisms, though, too many for my digestion but I couldn´t resist them, they were so good. How good? So good that several times they brought a broad sunshine smile, beyond Duchenne, to my face. Now that´s a sign of being in good company.
I will not share the dangerous aphorism with you, but here are a few others. Before that I should say a few things about the author. I know little, and am content with little. I mean, when you have a really good time with someone, the first thing you do after parting is not looking him up on Google. That´s how I see it. But I know that he lived a relatively short life, 39 years. He spent some time in Paris and worked as a journalist. I think that is enough really.
Now for some expanding (exploding) peas.
Hátunk mögött semmi, előttünk minden: ez legyen minden nagyra törekvő jelszava.
Angyalok sem szoktak soha beleizzadni a munkába.
A mai versenyvilágban a szerénység halálos mérge a tehetségnek.
Meg akarod tudni a jövődet? Add össze múltadat a jelennel, vond le ebből a konzekvenciákat, és előtted áll a jövőd.
Már sok óvatos ember járt úgy, hogy a veszélyt mindig elkerülve, oly hosszu utat választott, amelyet kijárni nem tudott.
Néha, hogy életban maradhassunk, új életet is kell kezdenünk.
Az ember regénye ma a kiadás és bevétel közti külömbségből áll.
Tavasszal jobban hiszünk barátainkban.
Mennyi balsorson kell átesnünk, hogy a boldogságot megbecsüljük.
A művelt férfiak kesztyűben és frakkban teszik egymást tönkre.
Csodálatos sajátossága a pénznek, hogy éppen a zsenilális emberek zsebébe unatkozik legjobban.
Ugyan ki törődik azokal a patkányokkal, amelyek a süllyedő hajót nem hagyják el!
Gyermektelen szülők figyelmébe ajánlom azt a körülményt, hogy legtöbb kisgyermeket a tengerparti vidéken láttam.
