From: Robert Newsom (rnewsom@BENFRANKLIN.HNET.UCI.EDU)
Date: Tue Feb 16 1999 - 08:12:23 PST
_Dombey and Son_, ch. 46, "Recognizant and Reflective." Mr. Carker is
closely watching his employer, Mr. Dombey, whom he means to cuckold.
Hardly a Zen sentiment, I should think.
"Yet these cares did not in the least interfere with Mr. Carker's watching
of his chief, or with his cleanness, neatness, sleekness, or any cat-like
quality he possessed. It was not so much that there was a change in him,
in reference to any of his habits, as that the whole man was intensified.
Everything that had been observable in him before, was observable now, but
with a greater amount of concentration. He did each single thing as if he
did nothing else - a pretty certain indication in a man of that range of
ability and purpose that he is doing something which sharpens and keeps
alive his keenest powers."
_____________________________________________________________________________
Professor Robert Newsom, Department of English and Comparative Literature
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-2650 U S A
Phone:(949) 824-6744 Internet: rnewsom@uci.edu
On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Julia Lalor wrote:
> Hi,
> Can anyone tell me what Dicken's work the quote, "He did each thing as if
> he did nothing else." I found it in a book of Zen sayings and it just
> said Charles Dickens so maybe it was said of him but I think it was
> probably a writing.
> Julia
>