Shining Inheritance, #2

Under this title, I'm going to post continuing tributes to the great artists, intellectuals, and heroes of the past.

A young girl's thoughts at Christmas time:

Santa Claus has come once more,
Though not quite as he came before,
We can't celebrate his day
In last year's fine and pleasant way.
For then our hopes were high and bright,
All the optimists seemed right,
None supposing that this year
We would welcome Santa here.
Still, we'll make his spirit live,
And since we've nothing left to give,
We've thought of something else to do
Each please look inside his shoe.

As each owner took his shoe from the basket there was a resounding peal of laughter. A little paper package lay in each shoe with the address of the shoe's owner on it.

From The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank, an entry from December, 1943.

Shining Inheritance

There is a Korean drama called Shining Inheritance. I haven't seen it, but I like the title. It applies nicely to our intellectual and cultural inheritance from the Aristotle's and Michelangelo's of the past. One shining example, one of my favorite scenes from Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac:

Roxane:
And I - I have done
This to you! All my fault - mine!

Cyrano:
You? Why, no.
On the contrary! I had never known
Womanhood and its sweetness but for you.
My mother did not love to look at me--
I never had a sister-- Later on,
I feared the mistress with a mockery
Behind her smile. But you - because of you
I have had one friend not quite all a friend--
Across my life, one whispering silken gown!