An online commonplace book
Secrets had an immense attraction for him, because he never could keep one, and he enjoyed the sort of unhallowed thrill he experienced when he went and told another animal, after faithfully promised not to.
Have we all felt this?
Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. United Kingdom, Welbeck Editions, 2021. p 200-201
The Rat pushed the paper away from him wearily, but the discreet Mole took occasion to leave the room, and when he peeped in again some time later, the Rat was absorbed and deaf to the world; alternately scribbling and sucking the top of his pencil. It is true that he sucked a good deal more than he scribbled; but it was joy to the Mole to know that the cure had at least begun.
We all need a friend like Mole.
Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. United Kingdom, Welbeck Editions, 2021. p165
By degrees the Rat began to sit up and to join in. His dull eye brightened, and he lost some of his listening air.
Presently the tactful Mole slipped away and returned with a pencil and a few half-sheets of paper, which he placed on the table at his friend’s elbow. “It’s quite a long time since you did any poetry,” he remarked. “You might have a try at it this evening, instead of – well, brooding over things so much. I’ve an idea that you’ll feel a lot better when you’ve got something jotted down – if it’s only just rhymes.”
At Mole’s behest Ratty returns to poetry. What feeding of the soul do you need to return to?
Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. United Kingdom, Welbeck Editions, 2021. p165
There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger’s origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.
Water Rat and Sea Rat sit down for a poetic lunch. Kenneth Grahame’s prose is a counter argument against “simple” prose.
Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. United Kingdom, Welbeck Editions, 2021. p116
I undertook with pleasure what others might have thought a hardship
Upon reading this, I immediately thought of Paul Graham’s quote:
Turner, Pamela S.. Comet Chaser: The True Cinderella Story of Caroline Herschel, the First Professional Woman Astronomer. United States, Chronicle Books LLC, 2024.
People called it a thinking machine, but Ada knew better. The intelligence was not in the machine itself, but in the genius of its designer.
– Diane Stanley
Ada Lovelace understood where the genius of the Difference Engine came from – Charles Babbage.
Does this quote still apply today? Is the genius now in the machine?
Again, picture books, children’s books, are underrated.
Stanley, Diane. Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science: The First Computer Programmer. United States, Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books, 2016.
When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.
– Jacques-Yves Costeau
More of us are leading extraordinary lives than we realize…
Yaccarino, Dan. The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau. United States, Random House Children’s Books, 2012.
A man with a large family . . . stands a broader mark for sorrow. But then, he stands a broader mark for pleasure too!
Benjamin Franklin, letter to Bishop Shipley, 1788
A quote to remember as we approach Christmas.
Another for the children’s books are underrated files…
Fleming, Candace. Ben Franklin’s Almanac: Being a True Account of the Good Gentleman’s Life. United Kingdom, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2014. pp14
Floodlights and Goalposts 