If, as I maintain, a prime reason why we should read is to strengthen the self, then both Whitman and Dickinson are essential poets.
-Harold Bloom
Category: literature
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A stream of visitors continued through the seasons and among them was young Ralph Waldo Emerson, who a few years earlier had graduated from Harvard as class poet. He found Adams upstairs in his library seated in a large overstuffed armchair, dressed in a blue coat, a cotton cap covering his bald head. Recounting the interview, Emerson wrote, “He talks very distinctly for so old a man–enters bravely into long sentences which are interrupted by want of breath but carries them invariably to a conclusion without ever correcting a word.”
You know, you can just go visit your heroes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson for John. John for Sir William Herschel.
Posted while watching Iron Man. The first one.
McCullough, David. John Adams. Simon & Schuster, 2001. pg 640
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But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude. – Gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough, to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much pride, excited not only astonishment but gratitude–for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not be exactly defined.
A long passage I know. But I wanted to capture the context. Here Elizabeth realizes her hate for Mr. Darcy vanished long ago, and has been replaced with love. But not the fluffy lovey we think of when reading romance.
Instead of describing the loving feeling, Jane depicts Elizabeth’s affections through the feeling of gratitude.
I never thought of love through the path of gratitude. It seems obvious, things you love are things you’re grateful for, but then, we often take the things we love for granted.
Deep tracks Ms. Austen. Deep tracks.
Austen, Jane. Pride and prejudice. New York, Penguin Publishing Group, 2003. pg 253
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I would like people to go away having not just been entertained or gotten some useful information, but be better people, in however slight a sense. To have an aspiration that web pages could be better, that the Internet could be better: “You too could go out and read stuff! You too could have your thoughts and compile your thoughts into essays, too! You could do all this!”
Gwern and the role he wants to fill. As heard on The Dwarkesh Podcast.
The AI avatar is creepy. For me, audio listen only. Brilliant interview – insightful and inspiring.
Too many adjectives on this post?
Patel, Dwarkesh. “Gwern Branwen – How an Anonymous Researcher Predicted AI’s Trajectory.” Dwarkesh Podcast (blog), November 13, 2024. https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/gwern-branwen.
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“Take whatever you like, and get away.“
– Mr. Bennet
Pride and Prejudice is a fatherhood novel.
Yes there’s romance, but the large gap between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s first encounter, their hating each other and eventually marrying at the end is filled with Mr. Bennet trying to raise his daughters.
Austen, Jane. Pride and prejudice. New York, Penguin Publishing Group, 2003. pg 289
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The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune.
How did Jane Austen know?
Frank Sinatra too.
One week you’re the luckiest, two weeks later the black cat has it’s tail wrapped around your leg.
Concentrate. Keep going.
Austen, Jane. Pride and prejudice. India, Penguin Publishing Group, 2003. pg 331
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"Now first we fence the garden through,
With this for me and that for you,"
Said Oliver. - "Divine!" said Oakes,
"And I, while I raise artichokes,
Will do what I was born to do."As read from Edwin Arlington’s poem Two Gardens in Linndale.
The great quest of life…find what you were born to do.
Robinson, Edwin Arlington. Robinson: Poems: Edited by Scott Donaldson. United Kingdom: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2007. pg 106
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“There is endless room for rebellion against ourselves.”
– George MacDonald
From the tidy and often forgotten C.S. Lewis book: George MacDonald.
It’s Lewis’s tribute to the writer who influenced him most.
It’s great to carry around like a smartphone and scroll through.
Lewis, C. S.. George MacDonald. United Kingdom, HarperCollins Publishers Limited, 2016. pg 53.
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Sometimes he set out for the dining hall and turned around, forgetting to eat. He scratched things in the dirt of the pathways, and the scholars just stepped over them. No one seemed to pay much attention to the eccentric, solitary mathematics professor and his strange night fires, his endless scribbling.
And that’s how the rest of Isaac’s life might have gone — if not for one person.
As read from Isaac The Alchemist, chapter 17.
We often believe these behemoths of discovery and progress had it all figured out.
No.
Issac Newton was a professor scratching the dirt. Until Edmond Halley came along.
Losure, Mary. Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal’d. United States: Candlewick Press, 2017. pg 115
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Malcolm and William Macmillian were both working on the new Irvine Academy building as carpenters when an accident happened which broke Malcom’s arm so badly that he was never able to work in manual labour again. This must have seemed further disaster to the family, but in fact it forced a change of career, into schoolmastering, which was to have a significant impact on the lives of both his younger brothers Daniel and Alexander. Somewhere along the way, Malcolm had gained sufficient grasp of the elements of a good education, including Latin, Greek, Hebrew and English, to find work as a teacher and then rise to head of house.
One accident didn’t pummel Malcom’s professional viability. He pivots, and changes his and his family’s destiny.
Harkness, Sarah. Literature for the People: How The Pioneering Macmillan Brothers Built a Publishing Powerhouse. United Kingdom, Pan Macmillan, 2024. pg219
Floodlights and Goalposts 