The soppy mush of feeling

He wanted to teach us to despise the soppy mush of feeling, the false generosity that for an instant, and in all good faith, promises the sun, moon and stars, convinced of its own generous impulse, but that for all sorts of sound, valid reasons draws back when it comes to the point.

-- Claudio Magris (trans. by Patrick Creagh), Danube (New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989), pgs. 228-29.

I am reminded of something I did about six years ago that I will continue to remember often and continue to feel every bit as sad about every time.