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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 3/7/2009
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Location: Inside Farlex computers
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 In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time. W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Location: Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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I used to work in a power plant located in a very isolated place. A friend from the city visited me and when we were taking a walk in the evening, he looked up and exclaimed in surprise, "Why are there so many stars?"
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Rank: Newbie
Joined: 6/28/2014
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Location: Volcano, Hawaii, United States
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This "monstrous vulture" obscures the stars... our guiding lights... our yearning dreams... "hovers, biding its time" a shadowy impediment to our reach for the stars.
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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I disagree! I think the city is beautiful at night. The colorful lights smiling out from the darkness, the lack of vehicular traffic, the calm serenity of the darkness... these cast an inviting magical spell over the city--welcoming all who travel her happily colored streets!
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Location: Bogotá, Bogota D.C., Colombia
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From Maugham "The Writer's Notebook" Page 48 The Writers Notebook is a terrific treasure that takes you into the rich and ever-curious mind of Maugham who considered everything he saw as material for his writings. His invention, imagination and sense of narrative drama did the rest! The Writer's Notebook is a collection of his thoughts, observations, ideas that he gathered along his prolific writing career that lasted over 50 years. The author kept a notebook and would scribble away anything that caught his fancy as he travelled far and wide and met a great deal of characters (one calls them 'characters' and not 'people' because Maugham always saw them as such and was otherwise quite a loner in real life.) It's a practise he started when he was all of 19, and kept updating it till he was well over 70 years. http://books.google.com.br/books?ihttp://sandyi.blogspot.com.br/2010/12/somerset-maugham-writers-notebook.html
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 5/23/2014
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Location: Ulyanovsk, Uljanovsk, Russia
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I like darkness. I call it dark when you can barely see your outstretched hands. I usually take dark back-alleys when I go alone.
I am a strong fellow with perfect senses and I feel safe in the darkness. Crowds and daylight give you a feeling of safety, but it's often deceptive.
It's easier to see if you are alone and defenceless, and other people won't intervene anyway. When in the darkness, your being alone becomes an advantage.
You make less noise, you hear others before they hear you so you can hide or take preventive actions. It's difficult to be violent and agressive in the darkness
because, however strong you are, you can't be sure that you don't stand against someone yet stronger and haven't become quary yourself.
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 11/8/2009
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Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
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We like living in the city, but we've also enjoyed our times in the country. The city lights at night are beautiful, and walking by starlight in the country is mystical. One is not better than the other in my book. Just different.
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Location: Lilyfield, New South Wales, Australia
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I was born & bred in the country & I couldn't wait to get out to the big city!
I love the city nights most - the lights, colour, the throb of the city's pulse. Pure exhilaration!
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Rank: Advanced Member
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The truth is I would have to travel several hundred miles to find darkness and silence. On the occasions I do I find the unfamiliar sounds of nature strangely hostile. I do appreciate the stars though. Noise and light pollution have changed our landscape.
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Location: Minsk, Minskaya Voblasts', Belarus
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Daemon wrote:In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time. W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) The country does have its advantages but where has been the civilization without city as a notion? City increases and concentrates human efforts... That's all.
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 7/23/2014
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Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
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he is not accustomed to city yet. These days many city dwellers will never know how great countryside can be.
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Rank: Advanced Member
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Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
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The Moon and Sixpence is more like a classical to me. It is mysterious and exciting. Of Human Bondage is a little too realistic and depressing to me.
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 7/23/2014
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Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
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The Moon and Sixpence is more like a classical to me. It is mysterious and exciting. Of Human Bondage is a little too realistic and depressing to me.
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Rank: Advanced Member
Joined: 1/6/2014
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Location: Uccle, Brussels Capital Region, Belgium
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progpen wrote:We like living in the city, but we've also enjoyed our times in the country. The city lights at night are beautiful, and walking by starlight in the country is mystical. One is not better than the other in my book. Just different. Me too, I know both ways of living: city and country, plus inbetween suburbs, in fact. I can appreciate city lights at night, were it not that many streetlights still spread a yellowish light that accentuates the unnatural aspect of illuminating some place or something. Luckily, the city of Brussels extincts the lights in certain streets, during some intervals of time. You know what? It gives me a relaxed feeling. Although I'm not that naive to think this "state of the street" will solve problems or so.
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pedro wrote:The truth is I would have to travel several hundred miles to find darkness and silence. On the occasions I do I find the unfamiliar sounds of nature strangely hostile. I do appreciate the stars though. Noise and light pollution have changed our landscape. This put me in mind of a visit from some friends from the city a few years ago. After the first night or two of their visit, they commented that is was, "...too dark and quiet out here! It's spooky!"
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Location: Apóstoles, Misiones, Argentina
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Maugham was right!
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Location: Auburn, Washington, United States
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Which is one good reason to live in the country, thank you very much.
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Joined: 10/3/2012
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Daemon wrote:In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time. W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) In a city the darkness of night comes with the shades and shadows conjured by the blaze of artificial light, playing tricks with all that we can see within its range, and, if that were not enough, inviting the imagination to make up for what the senses have missed; but in the country the darkness is evenhanded and predictable: what you see is what you get.
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Location: Sylva, North Carolina, United States
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I agree to this wholeheartedly
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Location: Aracaju, Sergipe, Brazil
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The truth still continues find out lies. To continue at side of truth is a hard sacrifice, because the world is sitting over truth. That is all.
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Rank: Advanced Member
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The nightmare, on the other hand, never open your eyes to look a nightmare in the face.
"In the dark of the night I was tossing and turning
And the nightmare I had was as bad as can be --
It scared me out of my wits --
A corpse falling to bits!
Then I opened my eyes
And the nightmare was...me!!" From Anastasia Lyrics
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