It is a moral code that is equally applicable in adversity as in triumph. The insertion of “grace” as the critical value gives an altogether broader significance to the phrase, bringing the moral sense and righteousness into the mix. On the face of it, the ex pression seems like a straightforward call for bravery and fortitude in difficult times but there is a much wider, more nuanced world of meaning compressed within that simple formulation. It was actually an off-hand remark that Hemingway made in a 1929 interview with Dorothy Parker, and this gem might possibly have disappeared in the oceanic deluge of phraseology but for John F Kennedy retrieving and citing that beguiling phrase in the preface to his (?) best-seller of doubtful provenance, “Profiles in Courage.”
But my choice is Hemingway’s lesser-known but much more meaningful line: “Courage is grace under pressure.” With the caveat that the range and volume of quotations accessed are limited by my own fragmentary knowledge, my personal preference is a quote from that consummate master of minimalist prose, Ernst Hemingway, the man who understood the power of brevity and gave us that immortal one-liner: “A man can be destroyed but not defeated”, an exaltation of the undying spirit of human beings even in the face of life-threatening horrors. The other evening was spent trying to figure out the most evocative one-liner in the English language that would define the worthiest attribute that every human being should aspire for. At a personal level, the forced incarceration brought on by the pandemic coupled with the inexorable isolation of the geriatric, and to top it all, the sense of desolate hopelessness engendered by the recent election results that are a resounding endorsement of a majoritarian tyranny have combined to provide the perfectly arid setting to act on Marquez’s prescription.Ĭlearly, solitude is another mother of invention as manifest in the number of unexacting cognitive games that I have devised to fill the void. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s counsel for negotiating the burden of old age is simply to have an honourable pact with solitude.
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