Subject: (urth) Who Wants to be a Torturer? (was Quotehunt)

From: William Ansley <wansley at warwick.net>
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 23:43:56 +0000

Is that your final answer? Sorry. Ooooh, you were so close!

The correct answer is:

"In the final reckoning there is only love, only that divinity. That 
we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable 
sin."

But you still get some lovely parting gifts. <g>

William Ansley

At 2:06 PM -0400 7/5/00, Robert King wrote:
>I think it's at the very end of Claw, in the scene where Jolenta dies.
>
>As I recall, it goes something like: "In the end there is only love, only
>that divinity. That we are capable of being only what we are remains our
>unforgivable sin."
>
>Believe it or not, I used the line when I had to give my speech as the
>valedictorian in high school. I figured Severian was a cooler reference
>than Polonius ("to thine own self be true," yadda yadda yadda). Damned if
>I can remember what context I placed it in, though.
>
>-- Bob
>
>
>
>
>On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Alex David Groce wrote:
>
>>  Ok, I'm trying to find where in New Sun Severian says something roughly
>>  like "Our one unforgivable sin is that we remain capable only of being
>  > what we are."  I can't find it anywhere, and I'm not sure I have the
>>  phrasing correct.  Anyone remember this?

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Alex David Groce <alex_groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2000 13:55:25 +0000

Thanks, Robert and William!

A side note:  I "stole" (with attributions I'm sure no one paid any 
attention to) much of my high school graduation speech from LITTLE, BIG
and Eliot's "Little Gidding."

--
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

---

From: Charles Dye <raster at highfiber.com>
Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2000 10:31:51 +0000

>we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable

Oddly enough, that second sentence appears twice in _Claw_:  near the
end of the first chapter, and near the end of the last.  Vodalus and Jolenta --
what's the connection?

raster at highfiber.com