Restarting sort of sub-Milton-i-cally ...

Restarting sort of sub-Miltonically ...
[Ref txt Samson Agonistes]
A little onwards lend your guiding hand to those still hesitent near-
blind steps of mine though the darkness. And a little further on
still. But is it merely for more mirey endurance? Or is it possible
to have real hopes of getting out of the dark mire and into a better
place that has some chance of birghtness in and around it?  There I
might find a truer home, or if not that at least a place to rest more
properly - were some rearrangment to relieve me from my present
senseless seeming toiling task.  Too servile I have become to those
who do not respectfully use the power that they have over me.  Daily,
in my isolated share of this common prison, in chains designed by
self and others, I scarecely freely draw enough breath and real
sustenance to last another day of unwholesome unhomesomeness ...
Not really eyeless in Gaza am I. Downfallen, dumbeddown, dupedamned,
dogended, devalued, demeaned, drudged.  Why aye!  Legless in Gazza-
land I lie.
The fates have not been as kindly as they might have been.  And even
if, surely enough, others suffer more than me, that is no relief
really, and is really part of my own suffering.
Mustn't grumble though ...

...
Re realistic role re-modelling ...
In Sentimental Education, Flaubert [northern provincial reclusive
eccentric bachelor of arts ...]
set out to wrtie the 'moral history' of his generation.  It is a work
based on personal experiences but not strictly autobiographical. It
stretches the literal truth, but remains fact-based and within the
bounds of general probability.  Great care is taken to authenticate
actual historical detail.  The authorial 'voice' is 'detached' and
ironic. It is 'about' love and passion in changing times. 
The 'actions' represented are strangely and ambiguously passive. A
sort of hope flows through the work, but it seems to represent the
defeat of idealism.  Democrats are not flatteringly represented, but
autocrats get a hammering.  It mocks human ignorance and stupidity
generally and particularly.  It celebrates quirky individuality and
small acts of love and kindness and fellow-feeling.  Flaubert was
pessimistic about the possibility of 'progress'.  He
thought 'progress' would only be possible when/ if more perople
learned how to live more honestly and open-mindedly, without
absolutist dogmatic beliefs - which most people appeared reluctant to
do.
Flaubert: 'You're always having deal with arseholes, being lied to,
deceived, slandered and ridiculed, but that is to be expected, and
you thank heaven when you meet exceptions.  That's why I never forget
the tiniest scrap of happiness that comes my way from friendly
gestures, or even a smile.'
Clearly, Flaubert's 'sentimental' education is not a sloppy/soppy
study.
As for its underlying philosophy: 'I don't know what the two
words 'mind' and 'matter' mean. Nobody has any direct experience of
either.  Maybe they're two abstractions created by 'intelligence'? 
In brief, I consider 'materialism' and 'spiritualism' both equally
absurd assumptions.' [Spinoza was his favourite philosopher, by the
way.]
He was a 'realist', in a word.