Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
                              But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

                                             ----T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartet


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They arrived at twilight and as we strolled out among the sparkling
hundreds Daisy's voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat.

"These things excite me so,"  she whispered. " If you want to kiss
me any time during the evening, Nick, just let me know and I'll be
glad to arrange it for you. Just mention my name. Or present a green
card. I'm giving out green-----"

"Look around," suggested Gatsby.

"I am looking around. I'm having a marvelous----"

"You must see  the faces of many people you've heard about."

                                                       ----- at Gatsby's party, The Great Gatsby

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...........the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down Jo me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.


                                                     ------- Episode 18, Penelope, Ulysses. James Joyce.

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