“Then suddenly the scene changes and some sort of ‘Festival of Life’ begins, in which even insects sing, a turtle appears with some sort of sacramental Latin words, and, if I remember, a mineral — that is, an altogether inanimate object — also gets to sing about something. Generally, everyone sings incessantly, and if they speak, they somehow squabble indefinitely, but again, with a tinge of higher meaning.”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons
Stephen Jarrett 