WEBVTT

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This one is called "My
Dream by Henry James."

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I really had a dream
that was by Henry James.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And this was it.

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There is a quotation
in the poem.

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This is the only thing.

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James said that in his notebooks
that living in the work--

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this is the only thing.

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Which I happen not
to agree with at all.

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Though there is too much truth
in it for it to be dismissed.

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There is also--

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Concerti is, of course,
the plural of concerto

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and ephemerae is the
plural of ephemera,

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a short lived phenomenon.

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And it's pronounced ephemerae.

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"My Dream by Henry James."

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"In my dream by Henry
James, there is a sentence--

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stay and comfort your sea
companion for a while.

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Spoken by an aging man
to a young one as they

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dawdle on the terrace
of a beachfront hotel.

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The young man doesn't
know how to feel,

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which is often the
problem in James, which

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may have been the
problem with James,

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living as he said
in the work, this

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is the only thing,
shaping his late concerti

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of almost inaudible ephemerae
on the emotional scale.

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By 1980, when this
dream came to me,

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the line spoken takes
on sexual overtones.

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Especially as the
aging man says it,

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he earnestly presses
the young man's forearm.

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And in James, no exchange
between people is simple.

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But the young man
turns without answering

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to gaze over the
balustrade at the ocean,

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over the pastel textures
of beach umbrellas

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and scalloped dresses
whose hems brushed

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the sand, without
guessing the aging man's

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loneliness and desire for him.

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He sees only monotony as
he watches waves coming in.

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And this odd old man who shared
his parents' table on the ship

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seems the merest
disturbance of the air

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as by a mayfly at such distance
he does not quite hear.

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Why should I talk to anyone--

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glides over his
mind like a cloud

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above a pond that
mirrors what passes over

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and does not remember.

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But I remember
the cloud and pond

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from a midweek
picnic with my mother

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when I was still too
little for school.

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And we were alone
together near the pond,

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darkened by shadows of pines.

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When suddenly, with
both hands, she

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turned my face toward the
cloud captured in the water.

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And everything I felt in
the world was love for her."

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