tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31754089840697965422024-03-19T07:51:02.970-04:00Literary SnippetsGary Gauthier's Author BlogGary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comBlogger132125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-86871776558065420922018-12-12T12:43:00.000-05:002018-12-20T15:55:31.815-05:00The Progress of Science and Useful Arts<h2>—What others have thought and expressed ... modified, exalted, improved<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioXAIXMisMygS6HRav8B-q_m2AH133nXCNTy8kRfpzS9oWCa_SMjqXofdLHmsQ9Q0bTn6d8fpajE0YVsnw6Hg6yPvxdgvB4MlvOqLbG4tDdq1jyNxlrHFnyMCYpVDojHcUNkUZy9ei0pI/s1600/AllegoryoftheArtsDetail.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioXAIXMisMygS6HRav8B-q_m2AH133nXCNTy8kRfpzS9oWCa_SMjqXofdLHmsQ9Q0bTn6d8fpajE0YVsnw6Hg6yPvxdgvB4MlvOqLbG4tDdq1jyNxlrHFnyMCYpVDojHcUNkUZy9ei0pI/s400/AllegoryoftheArtsDetail.JPG" width="223" /></a>In truth, in literature, in science and in art, there are, and can be, few, if any, things, which in an abstract sense, are strictly new and original throughout. Every book in literature, science and art, borrows, and must necessarily borrow, and use much which was well known and used before.<br />
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No man creates a new language for himself, at least if he be a wise man, in writing a book. He contents himself with the use of language already known and used and understood by others. No man writes exclusively from his own thoughts, unaided and uninstructed by the thoughts of others. The thoughts of every man are, more or less, a combination of what other men have thought and expressed, although they may be modified, exalted, or improved by his own genius or reflection.<br />
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—Justice Joseph Story, <i>Emerson v. Davies</i><br />
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Painting: Pompeo Girolamo Batoni— Detail from <i>Allegory of the Arts</i>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-68275602873813728402017-07-02T08:43:00.003-04:002017-07-02T08:52:11.396-04:00I wished to get her home at once<br />
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— Fortune favored us</h2>
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When I bent over her I could see that she was still asleep. Her lips were parted, and she was breathing, not softly as usual with her, but in long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every breath. As I came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled the collar of her nightdress close around her, as though she felt the cold. I flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight around her neck, for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air, unclad as she was.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDju-bWoa83Z48ogRnjfJb9dzQwlOt2T2Bd2tcVor9dbdmFt717F8r3dqmwExPBifO6ISCeH698i2lX9jQBbGY3MeaeG2r70DaN0jxO3B1XOlE98zyhg-wI3PZkJD5iRrbj3Rtk0TP4Io/s1600/Modigliani.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="991" data-original-width="576" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDju-bWoa83Z48ogRnjfJb9dzQwlOt2T2Bd2tcVor9dbdmFt717F8r3dqmwExPBifO6ISCeH698i2lX9jQBbGY3MeaeG2r70DaN0jxO3B1XOlE98zyhg-wI3PZkJD5iRrbj3Rtk0TP4Io/s400/Modigliani.jpg" width="231" /></a></div>
I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to have my hands free to help her, I fastened the shawl at her throat with a big safety pin. But I must have been clumsy in my anxiety and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-and-by, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet, and then began very gently to wake her.<br />
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At first she did not respond, but gradually she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally. At last, as time was passing fast, and for many other reasons, I wished to get her home at once. I shook her forcibly, till finally she opened her eyes and awoke. She did not seem surprised to see me, as, of course, she did not realize all at once where she was.<br />
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Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking unclad in a churchyard at night, she did not lose her grace. She trembled a little, and clung to me. When I told her to come at once with me home, she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child. As we passed along, the gravel hurt my feet, and Lucy noticed me wince. She stopped and wanted to insist upon my taking my shoes, but I would not. However, when we got to the pathway outside the churchyard, where there was a puddle of water, remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet with mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went home, no one, in case we should meet any one, should notice my bare feet.<br />
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Fortune favored us, and we got home without meeting a soul.<br />
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—Bram Stoker, <i>Dracula</i><br />
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Painting: Amedeo Modigliani, <i>Portrait of Jeanne Hébuterne</i><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;"><i>Editor's Note: </i></span> Jeanne Hébuterne was a French artist. She was the frequent subject and common-law wife of Amedeo Modigliani.<br />
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<i> </i>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-27112400402900928142016-08-21T12:24:00.001-04:002016-08-21T12:24:51.744-04:00It was a cheerful, hopeful letter<h2>
— Very few letters were written in those hard times that were not touching. In this one little was said of the hardships endured . . . </h2>
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. . . a reminder that hard days need not be wasted.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxlrRN6p1ED55uy9jKj7HV4aSzHw0v5MeW-drTkB2NZFjdzPSeHdWihRs0EtayelhNpKvrZUIi2_oO-0WteHXwo54dtfXDUeDFgTklZf6_fkQAOdmbBVapE5Uo9yPVx8Md2e9GdbyynuA/s1600/IrvingRamsayWilesWomanReading.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxlrRN6p1ED55uy9jKj7HV4aSzHw0v5MeW-drTkB2NZFjdzPSeHdWihRs0EtayelhNpKvrZUIi2_oO-0WteHXwo54dtfXDUeDFgTklZf6_fkQAOdmbBVapE5Uo9yPVx8Md2e9GdbyynuA/s400/IrvingRamsayWilesWomanReading.jpeg" width="278" /></a></div>
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<span class="fl">T</span>hey all drew to the fire, Mother in the big chair with Beth at her feet, Meg and Amy perched on either arm of the chair, and Jo leaning on the back, where no one would see any sign of emotion if the letter should happen to be touching. Very few letters were written in those hard times that were not touching, especially those which fathers sent home. In this one little was said of the hardships endured, the dangers faced, or the homesickness conquered. It was a cheerful, hopeful letter, full of lively descriptions of camp life, marches, and military news, and only at the end did the writer's heart over-flow with fatherly love and longing for the little girls at home.</div>
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"Give them all of my dear love and a kiss. Tell them I think of them by day, pray for them by night, and find my best comfort in their affection at all times. A year seems very long to wait before I see them, but remind them that while we wait we may all work, so that these hard days need not be wasted. I know they will remember all I said to them, that they will be loving children to you, will do their duty faithfully, fight their bosom enemies bravely, and conquer themselves so beautifully that when I come back to them I may be fonder and prouder than ever of my little women."</div>
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—Louisa May Alcott, <i>Little Women</i><br />
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Painting: Irving Ramsay Wiles (1861-1948) <i>Woman Reading</i>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-425505934958197962016-06-20T10:21:00.003-04:002017-08-29T01:11:47.650-04:00Psychological Insights<h2 style="text-align: left;">
—The burden of guilt</h2>
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<span class="fl">I</span> would have to describe a great many unamorous experiences to explain why I left Hungary again, this time for good—and so soon after offering to die for her. It seems I loved my country as ardently as if she were a woman, and just as inconstantly. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYgsLTqvcYzwaXXHtawAD9PYQeCj1bv0T_B2Z5lrtSvQnD1ipP47WHBMV3eZrgxDaPTKkZu1C1FbNevrsNI2Ca572g2hYAI8hh291kfVmKndqpcCmmGAMXeshsj6wNpwgbu6oovjlKxWw/s1600/Amedeo_Modigliani.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYgsLTqvcYzwaXXHtawAD9PYQeCj1bv0T_B2Z5lrtSvQnD1ipP47WHBMV3eZrgxDaPTKkZu1C1FbNevrsNI2Ca572g2hYAI8hh291kfVmKndqpcCmmGAMXeshsj6wNpwgbu6oovjlKxWw/s320/Amedeo_Modigliani.jpg" width="246" /></a>As love is an emotional glimpse of eternity, one can't help half-believing that genuine love will last forever. When it would not, as in my case it never did, I couldn't escape a sense of guilt about my inability to feel true and lasting emotions. This shame was surpassed in intensity only by my doubts as to whether my lover had ever really loved me, when she was the one who ended the affair. In this I'm like most of my skeptical contemporaries: since we no longer reproach ourselves for failing to conform to absolute ethical precepts, we beat ourselves with the stick of psychological insight. When it comes to love, we reject the distinction between moral and immoral for the distinction between "genuine" and "superficial." </div>
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We're too understanding to condemn our actions; we condemn our motives instead. Having freed ourselves from a code of behavior, we submit to a code of motivation to achieve the sense of shame and anxiety that our elders acquired by less sophisticated means. We rejected their religious morality because it set man against his instincts, weighed him down with a burden of guilt for sins which were in fact the workings of natural laws. Yet we still atone for the creation: we think of ourselves as failures, rather than renounce our belief in the possibility of perfection. We hang onto the hope of eternal love by denying even its temporary validity. It's less painful to think "I'm shallow," "She's self-centered," "We couldn't communicate," "It was all just physical," than to accept the simple fact that love is a passing sensation, for reasons beyond our control and even beyond our personalities. But who can reassure himself with his own rationalizations? No argument can fill the void of a dead feeling—that reminder of the ultimate void, our final inconstancy. We're untrue even to life.</div>
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—Stephen Vizinczey, <i>In Praise of Older Women</i><br />
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Painting: Amedeo Modigliani, <i>Portrait of a Woman in a Black Tie </i><br />
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<h2>
Definition</h2>
Inconstant: adj.; not faithful and dependable; <span class="DEFINITION">someone who is inconstant is not loyal and cannot be trusted; </span><span class="_Yht" data-term-for-update="unreliable" data-ved="0ahUKEwjGvfCh-_nVAhVM0oMKHQq5B_sQ_SoISDAA" role="link" tabindex="0">unreliable</span>, <span class="_Yht" data-term-for-update="untrustworthy" data-ved="0ahUKEwjGvfCh-_nVAhVM0oMKHQq5B_sQ_SoISTAA" role="link" tabindex="0">untrustworthy</span>, fickle<i> </i><br />
<br />Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-87469812665929443632016-05-09T10:34:00.001-04:002016-05-09T10:34:31.708-04:00A Nation of Their Own<h2>
— There were quarrels over flags, disputes about authority and precedence. Grownups joined in, not so much to pacify as to render judgment and enunciate principles.</h2>
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. . . <span class="fl"> A</span>nd this twelve-year-old lad was prominent among the influences that, imperceptibly at first, combined to spoil our holiday and render it unwholesome. Somehow or other, there was a stiffness, a lack of innocent enjoyment. These people stood on their dignity—just why, and in what spirit, it was not easy at first to tell. They displayed much self-respectingness; towards each other and towards the foreigner their bearing was that of a person newly conscious of a sense of honour. And wherefore?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLA9Z_DZEEEHukUjgXiLsNqL7ESpi6N3W172H5VINvUoFiHgid1g2DUfaAQY6hcXBryWVSpyjeOHkmDSldpJetzdRkL_SM2NcBeYp8gCVxVwmwgh7S0sZdldQKzw1iy-cLQ5WZq_FvB48/s1600/EdwardHenryPotthast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLA9Z_DZEEEHukUjgXiLsNqL7ESpi6N3W172H5VINvUoFiHgid1g2DUfaAQY6hcXBryWVSpyjeOHkmDSldpJetzdRkL_SM2NcBeYp8gCVxVwmwgh7S0sZdldQKzw1iy-cLQ5WZq_FvB48/s400/EdwardHenryPotthast.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Gradually we realized the political implications and understood that we were in the presence of a national ideal. The beach, in fact, was alive with patriotic children—a phenomenon as unnatural as it was depressing. Children are a human species and a society apart, a nation of their own, so to speak. On the basis of their common form of life, they find each other out with the greatest ease, no matter how different their small vocabularies. Ours soon played with natives and foreigners alike. Yet they were plainly both puzzled and disappointed at times. There were wounded sensibilities, displays of assertiveness—or rather hardly assertiveness, for it was too self-conscious and too didactic to deserve the name. There were quarrels over flags, disputes about authority and precedence. Grownups joined in, not so much to pacify as to render judgment and enunciate principles. Phrases were dropped about the greatness and dignity of Italy, solemn phrases that spoilt the fun. We saw our two little ones retreat, puzzled and hurt, and were put to it to explain the situation. These people, we told them, were just passing through a certain stage, something rather like an illness, perhaps; not very pleasant, but probably unavoidable.<br />
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— Thomas Mann, <i>Mario and the Magician</i><br />
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Painting: Edward Henry Potthast, American Impressionist, <i>At the Seashore</i> Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-91988644432437275452016-03-18T16:18:00.002-04:002016-03-18T16:18:39.422-04:00On Our Vengeful Errand<br />
<h2>
— They deemed our ship, a drifting, uninhabited craft, a thing appointed to desolation. </h2>
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<span class="fl">w</span>hen, after all this silence, his unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. "There she blows!" Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a most unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a lowering.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9QS_zsDtpIohUMUCcoUfyLRIimaKIZVk2Tuo2vAkUTCsTrnsLTsSN6xYi7iJ61a8VkoHXWw0aDMf3mui5N1ZNf9PKXGMm09aNtON5HG2AKCPtM2rb-aTIp9p9BnAm-Z1s2S1OqzCiqWk/s1600/Tonawanda_FrankViningSmith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9QS_zsDtpIohUMUCcoUfyLRIimaKIZVk2Tuo2vAkUTCsTrnsLTsSN6xYi7iJ61a8VkoHXWw0aDMf3mui5N1ZNf9PKXGMm09aNtON5HG2AKCPtM2rb-aTIp9p9BnAm-Z1s2S1OqzCiqWk/s320/Tonawanda_FrankViningSmith.jpg" width="320" /></a>While his one live leg made lively echoes along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. On life and death this old man walked. But though the ship so swiftly sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he saw it once, but not a second time. <br />
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This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it disappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously jetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be; disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and somehow seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on. <br />
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For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas.<br />
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These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm, as for days and days we voyaged along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely mild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed vacating itself of life before our urn-like prow.<br />
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But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas that are there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod (our ship) sharply bowed to the blast, and gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of silver chips, the foam-flakes flew over her bulwarks; then all this desolate vacuity of life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before.<br />
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Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and in spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing appointed to desolation, and therefore a fit roosting-place for their homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had bred.<br />
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— Herman Melville, <i>Moby Dick</i><br />
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Painting, Frank Vining Smith <i> </i> Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-48363926542881233682016-02-02T17:07:00.001-05:002016-02-02T17:07:28.045-05:00The disease was bubonic plague<small>No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. . . . </small><small>The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. . . . And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.<br />
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And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. . . . </small><br />
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<span class="fl">I</span>N OCTOBER 1347, two months after the fall of Calais, Genoese trading ships put into the harbor of Messina in Sicily with dead and dying men at the oars. The ships had come from the Black Sea port of Caffa in the Crimea, where the Genoese maintained a trading post. The diseased sailors showed strange black swellings about the size of an egg or an apple in the armpits and groin. The swellings oozed blood and pus and were followed by spreading boils and black blotches on the skin from internal bleeding. The sick suffered severe pain and died quickly within five days of the first symptoms. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXf9duh7is4U774xIYyYl8ZoExLRI05QX9yxWvuD7ZQFOTfD-tqjYYtMYM9ZbFtgaA6M-fd1x2Vpy40u4KGzRl_EM7aaPZZlERxeM79Y4D3StnFxuv5iNC3R3g8ilVJ6d-BXnt3g-30-A/s1600/Picasso.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXf9duh7is4U774xIYyYl8ZoExLRI05QX9yxWvuD7ZQFOTfD-tqjYYtMYM9ZbFtgaA6M-fd1x2Vpy40u4KGzRl_EM7aaPZZlERxeM79Y4D3StnFxuv5iNC3R3g8ilVJ6d-BXnt3g-30-A/s320/Picasso.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>As the disease spread, other symptoms of continuous fever and spitting of blood appeared instead of the swellings or buboes. These victims coughed and sweated heavily and died even more quickly, within three days or less, sometimes in 24 hours. In both types everything that issued from the body—breath, sweat, blood from the buboes and lungs, bloody urine, and blood-blackened excrement—smelled foul. Depression and despair accompanied the physical symptoms, and before the end "death is seen seated on the face." <br />
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The disease was bubonic plague, present in two forms: one that infected the bloodstream, causing the buboes and internal bleeding, and was spread by contact; and a second, more virulent pneumonic type that infected the lungs and was spread by respiratory infection. The presence of both at once caused the high mortality and speed of contagion. So lethal was the disease that cases were known of persons going to bed well and dying before they woke, of doctors catching the illness at a bedside and dying before the patient. So rapidly did it spread from one to another that to a French physician, Simon de Covino, it seemed as if one sick person "could infect the whole world." The malignity of the pestilence appeared more terrible because its victims knew no prevention and no remedy. <br />
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The physical suffering of the disease and its aspect of evil mystery were expressed in a strange Welsh lament which saw "death coming into our midst like black smoke, a plague which cuts off the young, a rootless phantom which has no mercy for fair countenance."<br />
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Woe is me . . . <br />
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<small>And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.</small><br />
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—Barbara W. Tuchman, <i>A Distant Mirror</i><br />
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Painting: Pablo Picasso,<i> Head of a Woman </i><br />
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Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-81310316570426475832015-09-03T18:22:00.000-04:002015-09-03T18:26:29.325-04:00Things you learn at school<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha21bwZROP9A8I3FyarX8O5w68Ti34I3bvPyxuuJolHQebNmXdVZQ-D1Ie6pPtQ3g_Lys1_p5qOSX8J97XLpXPapVqUv8HvWWPyAB6yvF6r2Vhyphenhyphen1WyYfw9SN5dOHV-Vm5NaiNreNx_idA/s1600/museOFpaintingPaoloVeronese.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha21bwZROP9A8I3FyarX8O5w68Ti34I3bvPyxuuJolHQebNmXdVZQ-D1Ie6pPtQ3g_Lys1_p5qOSX8J97XLpXPapVqUv8HvWWPyAB6yvF6r2Vhyphenhyphen1WyYfw9SN5dOHV-Vm5NaiNreNx_idA/s400/museOFpaintingPaoloVeronese.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: right;">
<h4>
<span style="color: #274e13;">—Arts and Habits</span></h4>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="fl">A</span>t school you are engaged not so much in acquiring knowledge as in making mental efforts under criticism. A certain amount of knowledge you can indeed with average faculties acquire so as to retain; nor need you regret the hours you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least protects you from many illusions. But you go to school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment's notice a new intellectual position, for the art of entering quickly into another person's thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation, for the art of indicating assent or dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for the art of working out what is possible in a given time, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage, and for mental soberness. Above all, you go to school for self-knowledge.</div>
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—William Johnson Cory<br />
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Painting: Paolo Veronese, <i>The Muse of Painting</i> <br />
<br />Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-54603013156566884452015-05-24T11:24:00.004-04:002015-05-25T14:06:09.168-04:00Don't cut my throat, sir<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ7ypmPIZhrVF1TI4_fZWfQugZfZKnZSaPv3KC2hGUQ2V-RgjaRXhq41Lp6F0EwftRZx23qKs8Pg_-ql_7BIjDss9Ec-8VapBOitdh-fTH8Zh8OdYqAQxFbtKlSYs0ND__ouUEqSNr-_4/s1600/Jozef_quisthoudt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ7ypmPIZhrVF1TI4_fZWfQugZfZKnZSaPv3KC2hGUQ2V-RgjaRXhq41Lp6F0EwftRZx23qKs8Pg_-ql_7BIjDss9Ec-8VapBOitdh-fTH8Zh8OdYqAQxFbtKlSYs0ND__ouUEqSNr-_4/s320/Jozef_quisthoudt.jpg" width="320" /></a><span class="fl"> </span><br />
<span class="fl">H</span>old your noise! cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!"<br />
<br />
A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.<br />
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"Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. <br />
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—Charles Dickens, <i>Great Expectations</i><br />
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Painting: Jozef Quisthoudt, Belgian (1883-1953); <i>St. Peter's Church in Ypres; </i> Naïve style <br />
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<br />
Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique; and the artist appears to have little or no formal training. Above, the middle paragraph is loaded with images but lacks a complete sentence.Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-77870522177343878832015-05-19T17:12:00.001-04:002015-11-20T13:27:40.234-05:00How a natural law is contained<h2 style="text-align: right;">
—the will and convenience of <i>s</i>ociety</h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL0jl0dUg_ymICW2l-FQ2HO5YZUfk4hLwrxSpbcafN2Q1uExdYOgvnnMJcM0zEli3T-GuwOZZufes1RZav4Ka2iB56CtXsuaE_DRL3ZOywdA-j7vBzXEoxxpN3DzbN44TBuJY3Guanl3M/s1600/DaVinciSketch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL0jl0dUg_ymICW2l-FQ2HO5YZUfk4hLwrxSpbcafN2Q1uExdYOgvnnMJcM0zEli3T-GuwOZZufes1RZav4Ka2iB56CtXsuaE_DRL3ZOywdA-j7vBzXEoxxpN3DzbN44TBuJY3Guanl3M/s320/DaVinciSketch.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<span class="fl">I</span>f nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. <br />
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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. <br />
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Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. <br />
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—Thomas Jefferson, <a href="http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html" target="_blank"><i>Writings</i></a><i> </i><br />
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Sketch: Leonardo da Vinci<i><br />
</i>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-88718249169661244092015-01-09T11:02:00.001-05:002015-01-09T19:30:08.355-05:00The Symbol of Our Labor<h2>Hidden wisdom and mysterious revelations.</h2><br />
<span class="fl">T</span>he peril of our new way of life was not lest we should fail in becoming real-life farmers, but that we should probably cease to be anything else. While our enterprise lay all in theory, we had pleased ourselves with delectable visions of the spiritualization of labor. It was to be our form of prayer and ceremonial of worship. <br />
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Each stroke of the hoe was to uncover some aromatic root of wisdom, heretofore hidden from the sun. Pausing in the field, to let the wind exhale the moisture from our foreheads, we were to look upward, and catch glimpses into the far-off soul of truth. In this point of view, matters did not turn out quite so well as we anticipated.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpnmXQIseu5gXtSWJAHRn1qIUn_bSe8oHcjXaA83qx1wDI2iwaoJ3sskMh14ew7xSFit-NYgtQTlUgJNEI4ONlDGzYXIyc1U_IiUidwMKKX11iCJYgsvF4ywK4pegkTGk9to5UUBHQCgQ/s1600/VanGogh_the_sower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpnmXQIseu5gXtSWJAHRn1qIUn_bSe8oHcjXaA83qx1wDI2iwaoJ3sskMh14ew7xSFit-NYgtQTlUgJNEI4ONlDGzYXIyc1U_IiUidwMKKX11iCJYgsvF4ywK4pegkTGk9to5UUBHQCgQ/s1600/VanGogh_the_sower.jpg" height="320" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<b>It is very true</b> that, sometimes, gazing casually around me, out of the midst of my toil, I used to discern a richer picturesqueness in the visible scene of earth and sky. There was, at such moments, a novelty, an unwonted aspect, on the face of Nature, as if she had been taken by surprise and seen at unawares, with no opportunity to put off her real look, and assume the mask with which she mysteriously hides herself from mortals. But this was all. <br />
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The clods of earth, which we so constantly belabored and turned over and over, were never etherealized into thought. Our thoughts, on the contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. Our labor symbolized nothing, and left us mentally sluggish in the dusk of the evening.<br />
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—Nathaniel Hawthorne, <i>The Blithedale Romance</i> <br />
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Painting; Van Gogh, <i>The Sower</i>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-13933395164833908862015-01-02T13:15:00.001-05:002018-10-14T15:38:04.896-04:00Pascal's Wager<h2>When is a game worth the candle?</h2><span class="fl">F</span>ermat and Pascal founded the essential rules that govern all games of chance. T[he rules] can be used by gamblers to define perfect playing and betting strategies. Furthermore, these laws of probability have found applications in a whole series of situations, ranging from speculating in the stock market to estimating the probability of a nuclear accident.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj28DeFCb0i423wI6vtpRQzoFMooIEGhcNQ5lJRBPq_55kvU8gy4PEfzthh0izg6zrucS7qlu8x8sJJuwrDIigQrJeCHULtKOQSojvAfKIIqqVdHPtocDt5pTAn2Uu3FBoHuevNjnu1rlU/s1600/CaravaggioCards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj28DeFCb0i423wI6vtpRQzoFMooIEGhcNQ5lJRBPq_55kvU8gy4PEfzthh0izg6zrucS7qlu8x8sJJuwrDIigQrJeCHULtKOQSojvAfKIIqqVdHPtocDt5pTAn2Uu3FBoHuevNjnu1rlU/s1600/CaravaggioCards.jpg" height="227" width="320"></a></div><br />
<h2>A mathematical formula leads to infinity.</h2>Pascal was even convinced that he could use his theories to justify a belief in God. He stated that "the excitement that a gambler feels when making a bet is equal to the amount he might win times the probability of winning it." He then argued that the possible prize of eternal happiness has an infinite value and that the probability of entering heaven by leading a virtuous life, no matter how small is certainly finite. Therefore, according to Pascal's definition, religion was a game of infinite excitement and one worth playing, because multiplying and infinite prize by a finite probability results in infinity.<br />
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— Simon Singh, <i>Fermat's Enigma</i><br />
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Painting: Caravaggio: <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/caravaggio-cardsharps-1595-942660.html" target="_blank"><i>The Cardsharps</i></a> <i><br />
</i>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-89872960645747993932014-08-26T15:30:00.000-04:002014-08-26T16:00:28.125-04:00Literary License<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1yFLRt7Lr64WmI3DpyRM0709-1n2XPjXZgNECrZmmZMWQn7zh7m6N87U7guakBUeiNnbdWMCbIhSTf7w9TKjVTlGkzWcAyLVVlXvZngmLdX0Tr0FKuam99HlbjZOy3a0IeOa7rvMheII/s1600/Mir-Sayyid-Ali-Mughal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1yFLRt7Lr64WmI3DpyRM0709-1n2XPjXZgNECrZmmZMWQn7zh7m6N87U7guakBUeiNnbdWMCbIhSTf7w9TKjVTlGkzWcAyLVVlXvZngmLdX0Tr0FKuam99HlbjZOy3a0IeOa7rvMheII/s1600/Mir-Sayyid-Ali-Mughal.jpg" height="400" width="222" /></a><span class="fl">F</span>or centuries a small number of writers were confronted by many thousands of readers. This changed toward the end of the last century. With the increasing extension of the press, which kept placing new political, religious, scientific, professional, and local organs before the readers, an increasing number of readers became writers—at first, occasional ones.</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">It began with the daily press opening to its readers space for “letters to the editor.” And today there is hardly a gainfully employed [individual] who could not, in principle, find an opportunity to publish somewhere or other comments on his work, grievances, documentary reports, or that sort of thing. Thus, the distinction between author and public is about to lose its basic character. The difference becomes merely functional; it may vary from case to case. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">At any moment the reader is ready to turn into a writer. As expert, which he had to become willy-nilly in an extremely specialized work process, even if only in some minor respect, the reader gains access to authorship. In [many instances] work itself is given a voice. To present it verbally is part of a man’s ability to perform the work. Literary license is now founded on polytechnic rather than specialized training and thus becomes common property.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">All this can easily be applied to the film, where transitions that in literature took centuries have come about in a decade. . . .</div><br />
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— Walter Benjamin, <i>The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction</i> (1936)<br />
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Painting: Mir Sayyid Ali, Mughal, <i>A Young Scribe,</i> c. 1550, watercolor and gold on paperGary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-20054829435997907902014-04-30T08:43:00.000-04:002014-04-30T08:43:11.868-04:00The Spell of the Spoken Word<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipHXSYvk1I5cpszvQkQzHtToqq5gRaeMyt_hsceHGrKTpgzaWPGfJM5HtRuvua6PK8B4tjwfcSTu1dUA1cXpp5fncz9fgLgM2z2oi9MTctEFr5_McDOsv1SAnpigWlz3FVSgcNFUpYdo8/s1600/CasparFriedrich-preserve.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipHXSYvk1I5cpszvQkQzHtToqq5gRaeMyt_hsceHGrKTpgzaWPGfJM5HtRuvua6PK8B4tjwfcSTu1dUA1cXpp5fncz9fgLgM2z2oi9MTctEFr5_McDOsv1SAnpigWlz3FVSgcNFUpYdo8/s1600/CasparFriedrich-preserve.jpg" height="224" width="320" /></a><span class="fl">N</span>othing is more unaccountable than the spell that often lurks in a spoken word. A thought may be present to the mind so distinctly that no utterance could make it more so; and two minds may be conscious of the same thought, in which one or both take the most profound interest; but as long as it remains unspoken, their familiar talk flows quietly over the hidden idea, as a rivulet may sparkle and dimple over something sunken in its bed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">But speak the word, and it is like bringing up a drowned body out of the deepest pool of the rivulet, which has been aware of the horrible secret all along, in spite of its smiling surface.<br />
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—Nathaniel Hawthorne, <i>The Marble Faun</i><br />
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Painting: Caspar David Friedrich, ca. 1832 <br />
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</div>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-75648702801257576742014-03-19T14:03:00.000-04:002014-03-20T11:36:03.004-04:00I knew I had a fever<b>Phases of the Disease:</b> <i>a brick in a giddy place; a steel beam in a whirling engine; my own person</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5xdnBu8dE77_x-GXmEHCMXnRGFeym1ufVgRVzrZHZnkL85y5aGBlizzEx8yMKpDIE6cVQz7eGngoQgKbXFrJ-GJl3KSKA4SJM0ck_byssXcnmjorxA3tT64g94BXMAXpD8RgCN-N4R5w/s1600/Amedeo-Modigliani-Little-Girl-in-Blue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5xdnBu8dE77_x-GXmEHCMXnRGFeym1ufVgRVzrZHZnkL85y5aGBlizzEx8yMKpDIE6cVQz7eGngoQgKbXFrJ-GJl3KSKA4SJM0ck_byssXcnmjorxA3tT64g94BXMAXpD8RgCN-N4R5w/s1600/Amedeo-Modigliani-Little-Girl-in-Blue.jpg" height="320" width="188" /></a></div>
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<span class="fl">T</span>hat I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that I often lost my reason, that the time seemed interminable, that I confounded impossible existences with my own identity; that I was a brick in the house-wall, and yet entreating to be released from the giddy place where the builders had set me; that I was a steel beam of a vast engine, clashing and whirling over a gulf, and yet that I implored in my own person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered off; that I passed through these phases of disease, I know of my own remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time.</div>
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—Charles Dickens, <i>Great Expectations</i><br />
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Painting: Amedeo Modigliani, <i>Little Girl in Blue</i> (1918)<br />
<br />Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-40886129971113636732014-02-10T21:08:00.001-05:002014-04-23T08:40:26.669-04:00A Glimpse of the Master's Genius<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<h2 style="text-align: right;">
An idea that might vanish in the twinkling of an eye is captured on an old scrap of paper</h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXSKMCY9U5XkVrHK0wE7e_jcpK0VtWmSQtjXWuWD7A4IzGE-P0UHVzvxonnAjIllRHH5bh-owY6VCI4epTMzuKaHS8VBjO4S_MdyrPL4S8opKCfjvTD8_7Y5y31HA-psGfG07vUlGHpU/s1600/rembrandt_sketch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSXSKMCY9U5XkVrHK0wE7e_jcpK0VtWmSQtjXWuWD7A4IzGE-P0UHVzvxonnAjIllRHH5bh-owY6VCI4epTMzuKaHS8VBjO4S_MdyrPL4S8opKCfjvTD8_7Y5y31HA-psGfG07vUlGHpU/s1600/rembrandt_sketch.jpg" height="320" width="245" /></a><span class="fl">T</span>here were curious little treasures of art and bits of antiquity strewn about. Among them were gems, small figures of bronze, medieval carvings in ivory and even a sample of the soil of Rome.</div>
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As interesting as any of these relics was a large portfolio of old drawings, some of which, in the opinion of their possessor, bore evidence on their faces of the touch of master-hands. Very ragged and ill conditioned they mostly were, yellow with time, and tattered with rough usage; and, in their best estate, the designs had been scratched rudely with pen and ink, on coarse paper, or, if drawn with charcoal or a pencil, were now half rubbed out.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
You would not anywhere see rougher and homelier things than these. But this hasty rudeness made the sketches only the more valuable; because the artist seemed to have bestirred himself at the pinch of the moment, snatching up whatever material was nearest, so as to seize the first glimpse of an idea that might vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Thus, by the spell of a creased, soiled, and discolored scrap of paper, you were enabled to steal close to an old master, and watch him in the very effervescence of his genius. </div>
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—Nathaniel Hawthorne, <i>The Marble Faun</i><br />
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Drawing: Rembrandt<i>, Self-portrait;</i> pen, brush and ink on paper, c. 1628Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-3320378436604620472014-02-03T21:06:00.002-05:002014-02-03T21:36:58.018-05:00A Novel Idea<h2>
How the diverse, contemporary and vulgar ended up becoming useful</h2>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFT9RQsm-oEKW1DPh-7SUjN-Q8t8hNehGEoJgdel33QqreOqGB8m_PCfvI_tN_HVLRkGdWN7_Tn_mWwTmsNUc9qZOmDG-k37jw9OELndwPzRUOoXFiCE0cUK-oMKPGWY4ozA8v8SD8PNI/s1600/Laureano_BarrauWomanReading.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFT9RQsm-oEKW1DPh-7SUjN-Q8t8hNehGEoJgdel33QqreOqGB8m_PCfvI_tN_HVLRkGdWN7_Tn_mWwTmsNUc9qZOmDG-k37jw9OELndwPzRUOoXFiCE0cUK-oMKPGWY4ozA8v8SD8PNI/s320/Laureano_BarrauWomanReading.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b><span class="fl">I</span>n the thirteenth century</b> Saint Bonaventure, a Franciscan monk, described four ways a person could make books: copy a work whole, copy from several works at once, copy an existing work with his own additions, or write out some of his own work with additions from elsewhere. Each of these categories had its own name, like scribe or author, but Bonaventure does not seem to have considered—and certainly didn’t describe—the possibility of anyone creating a wholly original work. In this period, very few books were in existence and a good number of them were copies of the Bible, so the idea of bookmaking was centered on re-creating and recombining existing works far more than on producing novel ones.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b>Movable type</b> removed that bottleneck, and the first thing the growing cadre of European printers did was to print more Bibles—lots more Bibles. Printers began publishing Bibles translated into vulgar languages—contemporary languages other than Latin—because priests wanted them, not just as a convenience but as a matter of doctrine.<br />
<br />
<b>Then</b> they began putting out new editions of works by Aristotle, Galen, Virgil, and others that had survived from antiquity. And still the presses could produce more.<br />
<br />
<b>The next move</b> by the printers was at once simple and astonishing: print lots of new stuff. Prior to movable type, much of the literature available in Europe had been in Latin and was at least a millennium old. And then in a historical eyeblink, books started appearing in local languages, books whose text was months rather than centuries old, books that were, in aggregate, diverse, contemporary, and vulgar. Indeed, the word <i>novel</i> comes from this period, when newness of content was itself new.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
—Clay Shirky, <i>Cognitive Surplus</i></div>
<br />
Painting: Laureano Barrau (1863–1957) Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-61254639697232351592013-10-21T20:40:00.001-04:002024-01-24T13:55:57.665-05:00A Simple Algorithm <h2>
All of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjnysELxHw2uQ8pZ_F7pW-WWaJl10lcnaeTfiTw5k70HGcN7UWoK5tZD5wVEQkXia9JIcYrgQTgE5EldRqDK8SglvxtJW-d2VB3g2S1wFjTulGVLkvEVj7EeWxgAxzAApvumc_UyWAHiA/s1600/Henri-Martin-Young-girl.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjnysELxHw2uQ8pZ_F7pW-WWaJl10lcnaeTfiTw5k70HGcN7UWoK5tZD5wVEQkXia9JIcYrgQTgE5EldRqDK8SglvxtJW-d2VB3g2S1wFjTulGVLkvEVj7EeWxgAxzAApvumc_UyWAHiA/s320/Henri-Martin-Young-girl.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="fl">I</span> was once in New York, and I listened to a talk about the building of private prisons—a huge growth industry in America. The prison industry needs to plan its future growth—how many cells are they going to need? How many prisoners are there going to be, 15 years from now? And they found they could predict it very easily, using a pretty simple algorithm, based on asking what percentage of 10 and 11-year-olds couldn't read. And certainly couldn't read for pleasure.<br /><br />
It's not one to one: you can't say that a literate society has no criminality. But there are very real correlations. And I think some of those correlations, the simplest, come from something very simple. Literate people read fiction.<br /><br />
Fiction has two uses. First, it's a gateway drug to reading. The drive to know what happens next, to want to turn the page, the need to keep going, even if it's hard, because someone's in trouble and you have to know how it's all going to end . . . that's a very real drive. <br /><br />
And it forces you to learn new words, to think new thoughts, to keep going. To discover that reading per se is pleasurable. Once you learn that, you're on the road to reading everything. And reading is key. <br /></div>
<div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="fl">W</span>ords are more important than they ever were: we navigate the world with words, and as the world slips onto the web, we need to follow, to communicate and to comprehend what we are reading. . . .<br />
<br />
The simplest way to make sure that we raise literate children is to teach them to read, and to show them that reading is a pleasurable activity. And that means, at its simplest, finding books that <i>they</i> enjoy, giving them access to those books, and letting them read.<br /></div><div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
<br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="fl">I</span> was in China in 2007, at the first party-approved science fiction and fantasy convention in Chinese history. And at one point I took a top official aside and asked him—<i>Why?</i> Science fiction had been disapproved of for a long time. What had changed?<br />
<br />
It's simple, he told me. The Chinese were brilliant at making things if other people brought them the plans. But they did not innovate and they did not invent. They did not imagine. So they sent a delegation to the US, to Apple, to Microsoft, to Google, and they asked the people there who were inventing the future about themselves. And they found that all of them had read science fiction when they were boys or girls.<br /></div><div>
<br />
—Neil Gaiman <br />
<br />
Painting: Henri-Jean Guillaume Martin (1860 - 1943) French impressionist painter</div>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-72638852113519836642013-09-29T09:47:00.001-04:002013-09-29T10:39:02.820-04:00Heavy framework rests on shaky foundation<h2 style="text-align: center;">Musings on the exterior presentment of counterfeit rights</h2><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA0X5WBRrjCHjlhE-Za6y2s5bFMI-sax6cQmE3UFypw3VEB96rfJWsyn1056HBKb1DgzBSIgRAwuczSNQDGG_n2Gm5uau1rEYAkdOK4u4GgvxyT1E8FY0s0JIwBXwCU_Y3H6_m8FP-wsI/s1600/LaurenHarrisRedHouse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA0X5WBRrjCHjlhE-Za6y2s5bFMI-sax6cQmE3UFypw3VEB96rfJWsyn1056HBKb1DgzBSIgRAwuczSNQDGG_n2Gm5uau1rEYAkdOK4u4GgvxyT1E8FY0s0JIwBXwCU_Y3H6_m8FP-wsI/s320/LaurenHarrisRedHouse.jpg" width="228" /></a></div><span class="fl">M</span>atthew Maule, the wizard, had been foully wronged out of his homestead, if not out of his life.<br />
<br />
As for Matthew Maule's posterity, it was supposed now to be extinct. For a very long period after the witchcraft delusion, however, the Maules had continued to inhabit the town where their progenitor had suffered so unjust a death.<br />
<br />
To all appearance, they were a quiet, honest, well-meaning race of people, cherishing no malice against individuals or the public for the wrong which had been done them; or if, at their own fireside, they transmitted from father to child any hostile recollection of the wizard's fate and their lost patrimony, it was never acted upon, nor openly expressed. Nor would it have been singular had they ceased to remember that the House of the Seven Gables was resting its heavy framework on a foundation that was rightfully their own. <br />
<br />
There is something so massive, stable, and almost irresistibly imposing in the exterior presentment of established rank and great possessions, that their very existence seems to give them a right to exist; at least, so excellent a counterfeit of right, that few poor and humble men have moral force enough to question it, even in their secret minds. <br />
<br />
Such is the case now, after so many ancient prejudices have been overthrown; and it was far more so in ante-Revolutionary days, when the aristocracy could venture to be proud, and the low were content to be abased. <br />
<br />
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, <i>The House of the Seven Gables</i><br />
<br />
Painting: Lawren Harris (1885 - 1970), <i>Pine Tree and Red House</i>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-58170740633347148632013-09-24T14:50:00.000-04:002013-09-24T15:11:13.452-04:00In the Beginning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVr4Hn0wgF6eaQoyH8UP0Fs_cl2Dw8wpIEshN8xqCNxEke-S5_TOojg-lGMnVx3jl9BPt7eK-PWtgqW-IHUo5Nxh2HpZLze_Kx3v7RbytX_N87vGv8-pwJZ6J6d1NDi69tjvhj0UvjTyw/s1600/JungRedBookno64.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVr4Hn0wgF6eaQoyH8UP0Fs_cl2Dw8wpIEshN8xqCNxEke-S5_TOojg-lGMnVx3jl9BPt7eK-PWtgqW-IHUo5Nxh2HpZLze_Kx3v7RbytX_N87vGv8-pwJZ6J6d1NDi69tjvhj0UvjTyw/s320/JungRedBookno64.jpg" width="232" /></a></div><span class="fl">T</span><small>HE YEARS OF WHICH I HAVE SPOKEN TO YOU</small>, when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. <br />
<br />
It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life.<br />
<br />
Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then.<br />
<br />
—Carl Jung, 1957<br />
<br />
Illustration: Carl Jung, <i>The Red Book </i>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-22633195269698453382013-09-13T08:31:00.000-04:002013-11-24T07:09:30.726-05:00A Troublesome Consequence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWPWKcpOSUdBJySvUeWTNF3b1zynBqLrTsVMrYUJvRjhekxkeRrulu2RupPL4gBLhOBBaZfeNCOP4LXf0LdkhmdypJNSRZrk8Yug3T0mF2ObTdh736HiJsFhtb9F350YTjQMVWGiJh99M/s1600/James-Ensor-the-Just-Judge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWPWKcpOSUdBJySvUeWTNF3b1zynBqLrTsVMrYUJvRjhekxkeRrulu2RupPL4gBLhOBBaZfeNCOP4LXf0LdkhmdypJNSRZrk8Yug3T0mF2ObTdh736HiJsFhtb9F350YTjQMVWGiJh99M/s320/James-Ensor-the-Just-Judge.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="fl">T</span>hey hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had not obtained one infamous notoriety that has since attached to it. But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced his own doom as certainly as the prisoner's, and even died before him. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly inn-yard, from which pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on a violent passage into the other world: traversing some two miles and a half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning.<br />
<br />
It was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also, for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action; also, for extensive transactions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed under Heaven. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of the precept, that "Whatever is is right;" an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong. </div>
<br />
<br />
— Charles Dickens, <i>A Tale of Two Cities</i><br />
<br />
Painting: James Ensor, <i>The Just Judge</i> (1892)Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-88785250701561038982013-08-30T13:12:00.000-04:002013-09-02T17:16:53.166-04:00A Matter of Great Regret<h2>Letter to a publisher in response to the rejection of a manuscript</h2><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjekVKK3-2eIMBvFhn_UwPn87PPhUWh14DO-Yo7RC9XkTYJzQTClmZ5tK7ZTkHhF51YyF3iPTeX2CfTGqgwYHEnP-wYNCJK6u_fYS_CnaH49NZpMuymW-nPWVJQDzJd8bPaSQRW-z5_7sA/s1600/GerardterBorch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjekVKK3-2eIMBvFhn_UwPn87PPhUWh14DO-Yo7RC9XkTYJzQTClmZ5tK7ZTkHhF51YyF3iPTeX2CfTGqgwYHEnP-wYNCJK6u_fYS_CnaH49NZpMuymW-nPWVJQDzJd8bPaSQRW-z5_7sA/s320/GerardterBorch.jpg" width="229" /></a></div><span class="fl">T</span>o John Murray, <br />
<br />
29 July 1824<br />
<br />
My Dear Sir,<br />
<br />
Until I received your note this morning I had flattered myself that my indiscretion had been forgotten.<br />
<br />
It is to me a matter of great regret that, as appears by your letter, any more trouble should be given respecting this unfortunate MS., which will, most probably, be considered too crude a production for the public, and which, if it is even imagined to possess any interest, is certainly too late for this Season, and will be obsolete in the next. <br />
<br />
I think, therefore, that the sooner it be put behind the fire the better, and as you have some small experience in burning MSS., you will perhaps be so kind as to consign it to the flames.<br />
<br />
Once more apologising for all the trouble I have given you, I remain ever, my dear Sir,<br />
<br />
Yours very faithfully,<br />
<br />
B. Disraeli<br />
<br />
—<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Disraeli">Benjamin Disraeli</a>; Letter to John Murray; <i>The Oxford Book of Letters</i><br />
<br />
Painting: Gerard ter Borch, Dutch Master (1617 – 1681) Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-42176038228262061442013-08-12T13:12:00.002-04:002013-08-18T16:50:52.307-04:00Dancing to the same tune<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGUf0xZd0E0eu6FiS2ubHehPvP7BtuXwLUafCvzJYFafbi_OHqlC8W_JBjPSdY6KI6sw5E2vRrOi45dTWpkVyni3mqudnsX1vZdwWC0TF2QeTdG8Lch_QMp7LEYgbxlR29p__NlP-VhnI/s1600/DegasDancersinPink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGUf0xZd0E0eu6FiS2ubHehPvP7BtuXwLUafCvzJYFafbi_OHqlC8W_JBjPSdY6KI6sw5E2vRrOi45dTWpkVyni3mqudnsX1vZdwWC0TF2QeTdG8Lch_QMp7LEYgbxlR29p__NlP-VhnI/s320/DegasDancersinPink.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: right;">
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.</h2>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="fl">T</span>he music box began to scatter its melodies abroad. To complete the sum of splendid attractions wherewith it presented itself to the public, there was a company of little figures, whose sphere and habitation was inside the music box, and whose principle of life was the music which the contraption made it its business to grind out.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In all their variety of occupation—the cobbler, the blacksmith, the soldier, the lady with her fan, the toper with his bottle, the milk-maid sitting by her cow—this fortunate little society might truly be said to enjoy a harmonious existence, and to make life literally a dance. You turned a crank; and, behold! every one of these small individuals started into the most curious vivacity.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The cobbler wrought upon a shoe; the blacksmith hammered his iron, the soldier waved his glittering blade; the lady raised a tiny breeze with her fan; the jolly toper swigged lustily at his bottle; a scholar opened his book with eager thirst for knowledge, and turned his head to and fro along the page; the milkmaid energetically drained her cow; and a miser counted gold into his strong-box—all at the same turning of a crank. Yes; and, moved by the self-same impulse, a lover saluted his mistress on her lips! </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Possibly some cynic, at once merry and bitter, had desired to signify, in this pantomimic scene, that we mortals, whatever our business or amusement—however serious, however trifling—all dance to one identical tune, and, in spite of our ridiculous activity, bring nothing finally to pass. For the most remarkable aspect of the affair was, that, at the cessation of the music, everybody was petrified at once, from the most extravagant life into a dead torpor. Neither was the cobbler's shoe finished, nor the blacksmith's iron shaped out; nor was there a drop less of brandy in the toper's bottle, nor a drop more of milk in the milkmaid's pail, nor one additional coin in the miser's strong-box, nor was the scholar a page deeper in his book. All were precisely in the same condition as before they made themselves so ridiculous by their haste to toil, to enjoy, to accumulate gold, and to become wise. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Saddest of all, moreover, the lover was none the happier for the maiden's granted kiss! But, rather than swallow this last too acrid ingredient, we reject the whole moral of the show.</div>
<br />
—Adapted from Nathaniel Hawthorne, <i><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77">House of the Seven Gables</a></i><br />
<br />
Painting: Edgar Degas, <i>Dancers in Pink</i>Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-43894089190490592842013-08-01T07:48:00.000-04:002014-04-04T14:07:41.143-04:00The magic and myth of creation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgULlkm1S9CnLlo0pgs2Cb_9QnExhwDp5cwaTKmj3Us3JQepE2V0MFjiQGw6f2kQZuSIt-8xtWJ25KtCb0hbkfdrM3ZmPy0Wkc1QPE6AaoL8XaokY1jkNGYk0MYbd-v_BTOcQW32lFMDnY/s1600/Dali-Butterfly-Sails.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgULlkm1S9CnLlo0pgs2Cb_9QnExhwDp5cwaTKmj3Us3JQepE2V0MFjiQGw6f2kQZuSIt-8xtWJ25KtCb0hbkfdrM3ZmPy0Wkc1QPE6AaoL8XaokY1jkNGYk0MYbd-v_BTOcQW32lFMDnY/s320/Dali-Butterfly-Sails.jpg" height="320" width="227" /></a></div>
<span class="fl">T</span>ime is the raw material of creation. Wipe away the magic and myth of creating and all that remains is work: the work of becoming expert through study and practice, the work of finding solutions to problems and problems with those solutions, the work of trial and error, the work of thinking and perfecting, the work of creating. <br />
<br />
Creating consumes. It is all day, every day. It knows neither weekends nor vacations. It is not when we feel like it. It is habit, compulsion, obsession, vocation. The common thread that links creators is how they spend their time. No matter what you read, no matter what they claim, nearly all creators spend nearly all their time on the work of creation. There are few overnight successes . . .<br />
<br />
— Kevin Ashton, <i><a href="https://medium.com/thoughts-on-creativity/bad7c34842a2" target="_blank">Why and How Creative People Need to say "No"</a></i><br />
<br />
Painting: Salvador Dali Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3175408984069796542.post-72127027025543683252013-07-30T10:54:00.000-04:002013-07-30T10:54:51.484-04:00This above all<h2 style="text-align: right;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVCm1F8fjQ4qoyGQvPeJkYlS4Wb0oZW0PYY2ng1czHTMRq45IxDuZDz3pSXQfplnCRLXF1GwlNWSvbG1gSD7x8mkWxZ-Vb80-7Jfdxumok04JdAjyIuvmUinTfoj_t3iGcVRWQtBxElg/s1600/thepreeningpeacockGeorgesVibert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVCm1F8fjQ4qoyGQvPeJkYlS4Wb0oZW0PYY2ng1czHTMRq45IxDuZDz3pSXQfplnCRLXF1GwlNWSvbG1gSD7x8mkWxZ-Vb80-7Jfdxumok04JdAjyIuvmUinTfoj_t3iGcVRWQtBxElg/s320/thepreeningpeacockGeorgesVibert.jpg" width="212" /></a>The Advice of Polonius</h2>
<span class="fl">G</span>uard your thoughts and be measured in your actions.<br />
<br />
Hang on to true friends with all your might and be wary of unproven companions.<br />
<br />
Avoid quarrels and hold firm to what is rightfully yours.<br />
<br />
Listen much, speak less. Accept criticism and reserve judgment.<br />
<br />
Live within your means and err on the side of modesty. Avoid the fancy, rich and gaudy. Look to the example of others.<br />
<br />
Neither a borrower nor a lender be; a loan will often lose both itself and the friend. Borrowing makes one less thrifty.<br />
<br />
This above all: to thine own self be true; and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst then be false to anyone. <br />
<br />
Farewell: I give you my blessing!<br />
<br />
—William Shakespeare; <i>Hamlet</i>; Act I, Scene III; Polonius gives advice to his son Laertes before the son leaves for his trip to France.<br />
<br />
Painting: Jehan Georges Vibert (1840 - 1902), <i>The Preening Peacock</i><br />
<br />Gary Gauthierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01939746775173387425noreply@blogger.com3