11 November

Born in 1863 – Paul Signac, French painter.

Above: The Bonaventure Pine, 1893

Also, born in 1821 – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist.

All writers…who have sought to represent Absolute Beauty, were unequal to the task, for it is an infinitely difficult one. The beautiful is the ideal; but ideals, with us as in civilized Europe, have long been wavering. There is in the world only one figure of absolute beauty: Christ. That infinitely lovely figure is, as a matter of course, an infinite marvel.

—Dostoevsky, from a letter to his niece Sofia Alexandrovna in 1868.

And Alyosha speaking to the group of young boys mourning their departed friend in the 1880 novel, The Brothers Karamazov:

You must know that there is nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man stores up many such memories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life. And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve some day for our salvation.