Monday, November 16, 2009

Essay: "Tulips." Joseph Addison.

One-minute review: A walk in the country on a spring morning among the flowers and the birds and encounters an expert on tulips who is actually a “Tulippomaniac.” The narrator praises pretty tulips but does not recognize truly valuable tulips. The owner of the tulips lost a large sum of money when his cook mistook some of his best tulip bulbs for onions and turned them into a salad.


Ideas:

“…I look upon the whole country in springtime as a spacious garden, and make as many visits to a spot of daisies or a bank of violets….”


“There is not a bush and blossom within a mile of me, which I am not acquainted with, nor scarce a daffodil or cowslip that withers away in my neighborhood without my missing it.”


“…reflecting the bounty of Providence which has made the most pleasing and most plentiful objects the most ordinary and most common.”


Great Essays. Ed. Houston Peterson. New York: Washington Square Press, Inc. 1960.

What is an essay? “They are all prefaces. A preface is nothing but a talk with the reader; and they [essays] do nothing else.” Charles Lamb.

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