Congreve's Cube from Mr. Magorium's Magic Emporium

I just finished watching Mr. Magorium's Magic Emporium because I love children's movies and I ain't afraid to admit it.

Weather is dreary in Paris and I desperately need inspiration. I've written a total of 140 words in the past two weeks. A book store crawl through 3 different quartiers of Paris was little help.

So I watched Mr. Magorium's Magic Emporium, and without ruining it for those who have yet to see it, thanks to IMDB and a little curiosity on my part, I found something rather interesting from the movie.

Mr. Magorium gives Mahoney a cube, a highly polished but normal looking block of wood that is magical, though she is unable to see it called the Congreve Cube. A user on IMDB theorized that:

William Congreve either suffered from Writer's Block, or was so put off by a review and changing tastes in plays that he wrote no more. He wrote 5 plays and stopped, but, perhaps a deeper meaning of the Congreve Cube can be found in the opening lines of his play "The Mourning Bride," in which the first character laments the death of her love:

"Music has charms to soothe the savage breast. To soften rock, or bend knotted oak. I've read, that inanimate things have moved and, as with living souls, have been informed by magic numbers and persuasive sound."

Congreve lived off the residuals of his earlier works, only occasionally writing a poem or translating a work by Moliere, having gone off the deep end after Jeremy Collier (and collier could be translated here as a necklace or yoke, if we wanted to, and I do), wrote that Congreve's plays were too sexual in nature.

I'm often criticized because in the writing group I occasionally pop into I'm rather harsh with my views on people's writings. Part of the reason why I don't pull any punches or expect anyone to pull any for my sake either is because as a writer you have to be able to take criticism and if you can't take it from a stranger who is actually trying to help you, than how will you deal with it when it's a professional?

So the moral of today's story is don't be like William Congreve. If you believe in your work, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. And never rest of your residuals.

Congreve's ego and unwillingness to defend his work might have deprived the world of more great writing because it was Congreve who wrote:

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,"

And we all know that line, don't we?