Rosshalde

...well, then he wanted at least to savor his loneliness and sadness and feel really miserable. 
- - - - - - 
He understood that this had to be, that he must relinquish his dearest and best and purest possession, and see it die.

tail brushes

It's very simple. Dogs and cats and other talented animals have tails; their tails, with their thousands of flourishes, provide them with a wonderfully complete language of arabesques, not only for what they think and feel and suffer but for every mood and vibration of their being, for every infinitesimal variation in their feeling tone. We have no tails, and since the more lively among us need some such form of expression, we make ourselves paintbrushes and pianos and violins...

Herman Hesse, Rosshalde

birds

And sometimes there are birds that have come a long long way from strange islands; they are very tired, they sit down on the deck and they're very much surprised to see so many strange people riding around on the ocean. They would like to understand us too, adn ask us where we come from and what our names are, but they can't so we just look into each other's eyes and nod our heads, and when the bird has had a good rest, he shakes himself and flies off across the ocean.

Herman Hesse, Rosshalde

older

Once he muttered absently, "One might paint all that."
~
And when old people get older and older, they die in the end. I'd rather stay the way I am, and sometimes I'd like to be able to fly, and fly around the trees way up high, and in between the clouds. then I'd laugh at everybody.

~ ~ ~

I'd like to do entirely different things. I'd like to understand what the robins say to each other. And I'd like to see how the trees manage to drink water with their roots and get to be so big. I don't think anybody really knows that. The teacher knows a lot, but only boring things.

Herman Hesse, Rosshalde