Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Keats, John. The Poetry of John Keats. London: Arcturus Publishing Limited, 2018.
We rhapsodize about “New England Autumns,” and for good reason; but, really, Autumn anywhere in the deciduous forests of North America, especially in the East—from upper Canada to the deep South—is magnificent, and far outshines anything the Old World has to offer. In those years in which I have found myself in some corner of Europe during the Fall, I have never been able to suppress a certain feeling of disappointment at the limited palette nature employs there for what is surely my favorite of the seasons. This isn’t to say European Autumn is not lovely enough, with its muted light and drifting mists and pale flavescence. But the chromatic spectrum is narrow. For the most part, the trees pass from a darker to a more limpid green, and then to light gold, and then to ochre and brown, before their branches are stripped bare. There are occasional bright flashes of red and maroon amid the tawny pallor, though mostly from imported species of flora. But, to an eye accustomed to the endlessly varying hues of America’s Autumn, it can all seem a little insipid.
– David Bentley Hart
Always on the hunt for enlightened passages on Autumn. Of course David Bentley Hart delivers.
I’ve never considered the differences between a European Autumn and an American one. One would think Autumn is the same everywhere.
Obviously it isn’t. The biodiversity in different regions of the world make it so. But like a therapist telling you you’re not sleeping enough, it takes an attentive, neutral observer, to make you aware.
Maxi Gorynski makes the argument that the high literacy from earlier times encouraged ambition
John Donne was not known for his intolerable sexiness but for being such a hellcat meme-minter at the pulpit.
The above, may be the best “on-line” sentence I’ve read.
When Hugo wandered off into thick tangential considerations of niche subjects like Gothic architecture, the public didn’t scrunch its nose and go and read something simpler or more focused; instead, they took his lead and developed a passion for Gothic architecture themselves.
Interesting how the French didn’t want to simplify Hugo’s work, but instead further develop their understanding of Gothic architecture.
How was the passion for Gothic Architecture demonstrated at that time?
In summary, what a lack of ambient access to high literacy has to do with ambition: Provides people fewer tools for the processing and composition of complex thought, and fails to keep the mind adequately nourished with new impressions and syntheses that are conducive to high-ambition; and because works of high literacy are themselves conceived in ambition, the lack of opportunity to be regularly immersed in them deprives one of a sense of everyday communion with what is excellent.
I appreciate Maxi Gorynski‘s essay format. Each section presents a clear summary to solidify the point.
For the first time in his life he was throwing himself into something with genuine enthusiasm. And the progress he made was remarkable.
pp139
2.
Was it not possible that the process he had gone through in order to acquire yoga powers had completely changed his outlook on life?
Certainly it was possible.
pp154
3.
John Winston told me everything he knew. He showed me the original dark-blue notebook written by Dr. John Cartwright in Bombay in 1934 about Imhrat Khan, and I copied it out word for word.
“Henry always carried it with him,” John Winston said.
“In the end, he knew the whole thing by heart.“
pp168
It could be an early morning thought hallucination, but The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar suggests the idea that focusing on one thing, over an extended period of time, with sustained enthusiasm, can impact many lives.
What begins as Henry’s single focus then expands to other opportunities. First Henry aims to master concentrating only on the image of his face for five and a half minutes. He masters it. Then he moves to mastering visualizing the reverse side of a playing card within twenty seconds. This then develops to strategic gambling, establishing a non-profit, and leaving behind a clandestine legacy of generosity.
Ohtani makes me believe that many of the stories of the heroes of old, of Greek myth, or Mesopotamian myth, Arab or African myth, or whatever myth, that such men did walk the earth
– David Bentley Hart
Damn. Some men have it all. Ohtani is baseball’s George Clooney.
And lets admit it. It’s annoying. He’s tall. And handsome. And suave. And you know, its just, he makes the rest of us feel just slightly less human.
– David Bentley Hart
And Ohtani’s underrated, but awe inspiring skill:
The thing that amazes me most when I’m watching him is not necessarily the massively soaring home runs, or the one hundred and one mile per hour fastball on the corner. It’s actually watching him run the bases, because he does it like a gazelle. He’s moving as fast as some of the fastest runners in the game, but he looks like he’s just taking long, easy, loping strides when he does it. He’ll steal without a slide half the time, because he doesn’t have to slide. He’s an amazing specimen. And happily plays the only game in the world worthy of his skills.
– David Bentley Hart
I echo that last statement. Once, I watched Ohtani stretch out a double and his helmet flew off while he was running. I couldn’t help but smile. I thought “man this guy is having fun”.
This excerpt begins at 12:40. Watch the interview in full from the C.S. Lewis foundation below.
How a volume of the Oxford English Dictionary lit the path…
The first time I visited Oliver Sacks on Wards Island northeast of Manhattan, I had mislaid the house number but knew the name of the street. It was evening, wintertime; the slightly sloping street was icy. I parked and tiptoed along the icy pavement looking into every lit-up home. None of the windows had curtains. Through one window I saw a man sprawled on a sofa with one of the hefty volumes of the OED propped on his chest. I knew that had to be him, and so it was. Our first subject was the dictionary; for him as well, it was the books of books.
Lydia Davis on translating the late A.L. Snijders’ short stories:
I continued to work on it, still without a dictionary, “getting” a little more of it each time I read through through it. Simply reading a sentence carefully a second time yielded more understanding—I’m not sure exactly what happens in the brain between the first and the second readings.
we must bear acts of god with fortitude and acts of war with courage. This attitude used to be part of the ethos of this city; don’t let it come to an end in you.
– Pericles
Pericles Reminds the Athenians Who They Are
from The Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides
Did Thucydides craft the greatest hype speech of all time?
Some people, when they have taken too much and have been driven beyond the point of endurance, simply crumble and give up. There are others, though they are not many, who will for some reason always be unconquerable. You meet them in time of war and also in time of peace. They have an indomitable spirit and nothing, neither pain nor threat of death, will cause them to give up.
Little Peter Wilson was one of these.
Dahl Roald. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. New York: Viking, 1977.
