“Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn’t permanent.”
— Mignon McLaughlin
The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960
via The American Scholar (Summer, 2008)
The line (which has also been attributed to Jean Kerr) makes it easier to grasp why Emily Dickinson [pictured left] ends with “despair” when “hope” is expected at the end of her poem “It was not Death, because I stood up.” Implicit is the image is of a shipwreck:
But most, like Chaos – Stopless – cool –
Without a Chance, or spar –
Or even a Report of Land –
To justify – Despair.
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Author: The Best American Poetry
