John Fish B.Sc.
Publishers of Tenby in Wales (UK)(Founded 1998)
presents
Spirit of Pembrokeshire
Explore the Inspirational Qualities of Pembrokeshireto the Author and Poet
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going the other way,
-in short,
the period was so far like the present period,
that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on it being received,
for good or for evil,
in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Those words form the opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. What Dicken's was doing was comparing the time he lived in with that of the French Revolution. The key to understanding being his use of the words:
In the superlative degree of comparison only
And, obviously, at the time of the French Revolution politics had descended into the bloody chaos of civil war followed by a pan-European war.
But Dicken's words still ring true today, if we apply them to our modern world.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
On the one hand we have electricity in our homes and workplaces, motor cars, our people have never been so well fed, clothed, housed, educated, and the list goes on and on. But on the other hand we have pollution, we have global warming.
It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness
On the one hand Europe has never been, since time immemorial, so at peace with itself. On the other hand we have the Millennium Dome.
Obviously, we always have to bear in mind the words
In the superlative degree of comparison only
But Dicken's has got his finger on the pulse of human society, of the human condition, of the paradox of the rational and the irrational existing side by side just as night and day, although different, are part of the sameness of our experience of reality.
At the time of the French Revolution, William Wordsworth was a young man. He was, to use a modern expression, a left-winger. He admired the revolution and spent some time in France during it. Obviously, his infatuation was not to ascend into true love and later in life he wrote a poem. Probably, the poem for which he is best known and it's called The Daffodils:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host, of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margins of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee :
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company !
I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought :
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude ;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
So Wordsworth has written a poem about Nature. Wordsworth has written a poem about his personal interaction with Nature. Dickens has asked questions about the causes of our malaise to not being at peace with ourselves: Wordsworth points at a cure: Nature. Or am I being too simplistic?
After all, it's an acceptable idea that, even in our modern age, that our relationship with Nature is at the heart of our well-being. In fact, it could be said that there is a sea-change occurring in people's minds throughout the industrialised world: that the unbridled materialism of the last twenty years is leading us on a course which will wreck our ship of life that is Planet Earth.
But then why do people leave cities to come on holiday to places like Pembrokeshire? Did we know the answers before we asked the questions? If we were bastardise Wordsworth's words we could translate them to Pembrokeshire with something like this:
I wandered lonely as a seagull
That floats on high o'er vales and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host, of summer tourists
Beside the sea, beneath the cliffs,
Sunning their naked bodies in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margins of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Building sandcastles on golden sands.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee :
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company !
I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought :
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude ;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And paddles with the summer tourists.
So here we are in Pembrokeshire. We're in a twilight zone between the Atlantic Ocean and Europe. We live where it all happens: where our human existence and Nature interact. What happens in London, Cardiff or Brussels is quite irrelevant really. Compared to us they might have more money, bigger cars, more holidays abroad, holiday homes. But all they are really doing is causing more pollution than they need to cause to lead meaningful lives, where they would be at peace with themselves and with Nature.
So here we are in Pembrokeshire. We're in a twilight zone between the Atlantic Ocean and Europe. In a twilight zone with what we call the Star of Pembrokeshire:
The air so clear and clean
The sky so blue
The grass so green
The cliffs so grey
The sea, as ever, so complex
We live in a world where at the heart of our existence is Pembrokeshire against a backcloth of Wales, Britain, Europe and the World. Now Thomas Hardy wrote a series of books about Wessex. A series of books centred on a fictionalised Dorset. So the idea came to publish a series of books about Pembrokeshire. So the idea came to publish:
Star of Pembrokeshire Series Paperbacks
But where to begin? ...
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John Fish B.Sc. Publishers of Tenby in Wales
e-mail:
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