My favourite illustration in the whole book is the very first. It shows the White Rabbit looking at his pocket-watch, worrying that it’s late. I copied that White Rabbit hundreds of times in my sketchbooks, trying to capture the worried expression in his eye, the folds of his coat and the wonderful shading at his feet.
“Whatever you come across…you will be able to note down immediately… be it an anecdote or a fable or an illustrative example or a strange incident or a maxim or a witty remark or a remark notable for some other quality or a proverb or a metaphor or a simile.”
Erasmus of Rotterdam
From the commonplacing tradition comes Zibaldones.
Zibaldones are similar to commonplace books, but they incorporate pictures, physical memories. Ancient scrapbooks if you will, but with an educational and cataloguing bent.
It was a blessed thing indeed to open my eyes again upon the daylight, and to find myself in the society of men. The forecastle was a roomy place enough, set all about with berths, in which the men of the watch below were seated smoking, or lying down asleep. The day being calm and the wind fair, the scuttle was open, and not only the good daylight, but from time to time (as the ship rolled) a dusty beam of sunlight shone in, and dazzled and delighted me.
David Balfour
This scene is where Mr. Riach frees David Balfour from captivity aboard the Covenant. He’s finally free to go above deck after days in darkness.
David’s absorbing the daylight like Superman does the sun, and appreciating being among the “society” of men again.
What small things do we take for granted?
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Kidnapped. New York: Running Press, 1989. pp57
Yet I had not been many days shut up with them before I began to be ashamed of my first judgement, when I had drawn away from them at the Ferry pier, as though they had been unclean beasts. No class of man is altogether bad, but each has its own faults and virtues; and these shipmates of mine were no exception to the rule. Rough they were, sure enough; and bad, I suppose; but they had many virtues. They were kind when it occurred to them, simple even beyond the simplicity of a country lad like me, and had some glimmerings of honesty.
– David Balfour
First judgements can cloud truth.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Kidnapped. New York: Running Press, 1989. pp58
I tell people who want to write they should try to write every single day without exception. They don’t all like hearing that. Obviously, it’s not how every writer works, but it’s a good initial test to see whether you really want to be a writer.
– Tyler Cowen
This a good test of how badly one wants to write. Also, I’d take this as you don’t have to publish said writing.
You can keep it to yourself. Remember writing is a powerful method of thinking.
The trunk of an elephant might feel cool to the touch. Not what one expects, perhaps, from 200 pounds of writhing muscle, strong enough to uproot a tree, which tapers down to two “fingers,” giving it enough delicacy to detect the ripest berry on a shrub, and pluck it. Feeling an elephant’s trunk draws you to her other great feature: melancholic eyes that are veiled by long and dusty lashes. This combination of might with the suggestion of serene contemplation is surely the reason that elephants seem to embody a special state of grace.
I appreciate this description of an elephant’s trunk. It’s a surprising, captivating way to open a letter. Note the focus, the detail. Wang could have described the entire elephant, but instead he honed in on one appendage.
Good writing is specific.
Also, he recounts this admonition about learning he wrote in his 2017 letter.
“Knowledge can compound. I’d like for us to think more about how to accelerate the growth of learning. The traditional method of reading more books and trying to improve professionally are good starts, but it’s not enough to stop there. One can learn more by traveling to new places, being social in different ways, reading new types of books, changing jobs or professions, moving to a new place, by doing better and by doing more.”
– Dan Wang
Learning can compound.
Dan’s letters are beyond bookmarking. They are worth printing out and reading in hand.
Adams loved the speeches of Cicero, reading them aloud to himself at night. He wrote in his diary that
The Sweetness and Grandeur of his sounds, and the Harmony of his Numbers give Pleasure enough to reward the Reading of if one understood none of his meaning. Besides I find it, a noble Exercise. It exercises my Lungs, raises my Spirits, opens my Porr, quickens the Circulations, and so contributes much to Health.
Why in Adams’s diary did he capitalize seemingly random words?
What piece of literature, or reading, do you have that raises your spirits like Cicero’s speeches did Adams?
If none come to mind, find one.
Ricks, Thomas E.. First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country. United States, HarperCollins, 2020. pp50
Frost. I don’t know why I even bothered submitting anything, given how he writes. I mean he’s still using rhyme.
Yeah, so?
Rhyme is bullshit. Rhyme says that everything works out in the end. All harmony and order. When I see rhyme in a poem, I know I’m being lied to. Go ahead, laugh! It’s true–rhyme’s a completely bankrupt device. It’s just wishful thinking. Nostalgia.
Jeff Purcell
My suspicions were correct. Rhyme is considered “un-literary”. Still, reading Frost for his rhymes is a joy.
Wolff, Tobias. Old School. United States, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2004. pp44
Floodlights and Goalposts 