Essay: "That We Should Lie Down with the Lamb." Charles Lamb.

10-second review: The sun and moon are all right for doing things, but inspiration requires candle-light.

Ideas:

“Hail candle-light! without disparagement to sun or moon, the kindliest luminary of the three—if we may not rather style thee their radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon! We love to read, talk, sit silent, eat, drink, sleep by candle-light. They are everybody’s sun and moon.”

[What did the old folks do without candle-light?]

“There is absolutely no such thing as reading, but by a candle.”

“Can you tell pork from veal in the dark?”

“…daylight furnishes the images, the crude material [for poetry]…[but] must be content to hold their inspiration of the candle.”

“Milton’s Morning Hymn in Paradise, we would hold a good wager, was penned at midnight; and Taylor’s rich description of a sun rise smells decidedly of the taper.”

“Betty, bring the candles.”

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.

Essay: "The Superannuated Man." Charles Lamb.

10-second review: After years of the tedium of working as a clerk, he is retired at a pension of two-thirds of his salary for life and now he is free to do what he likes, and he is overwhelmed by the sense of freedom. An unforgettable expression of the sense of freedom in retirement.

Ideas:

“I had grown to my desk, as it were; and the wood had entered into my soul.”

“I was in the condition of a prisoner in the Old Bastille, suddenly let loose after a forty years’ confinement. I could scarce trust myself with myself.”

“It was like passing out of time into eternity—for it is a sort of eternity for a man to have his time all to himself.”

“I am in no hurry. Having all holidays, I am as though I had none.”

“If time were troublesome, I could read it away.”

“I walk, read or scribble (as now) just when the fit seizes me.”

“For that is the only true time, which a man can properly call his own, that which he has all to himself; the rest, though in some sense he may be said to live it, is other people’s time, not his.”

“I have done all that I came into this world to do…and have the rest of the day to myself.”

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.

Note: This blog will resume on Monday, November 30, 2009.

Essay: "Sanity of True Genius." Charles Lamb.

One-minute review: Genius is not allied with insanity. Genius lives by dreams that can be incoherent in sleep, but, when the genius awakes, are shaped by judgment and tested by reality. The genius creates—which implies shaping and consistency—his poetry out of these dreams. The poet turns life into a dream.

Comment: Interesting thought. RayS.

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.

Essay: "Dream Children, A Reverie." Charles Lamb.

Ten-second review: The narrator reminisces about the days of his youth at the huge house occupied by Grandmother Field, its caretaker, and her brother Uncle John. The reverie ends when we find that the narrator is a bachelor with no children, and his two dream children with whom he has been sharing his memories fade from reality as he awakes from a nap.

Quote:

“ ‘We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all…. We are nothing, less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name’—and immediately awaking I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor armchair, where I had fallen asleep….”

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.

Essay: "Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist." Charles Lamb.

Ten-second review: Mrs. Battle was a serious Whist player. She played for money. She would have nothing to do with the person who could win or lose with no concern for either. And she hated the language of Whist, so much so that she would not take up a trick because of the term she must use in taking it. The author wishes that he could play forever with his “sweet cousin,” the late Mrs. Battle.

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.

Essay: "The Man of One Book." Isaac Disraeli [Father of Benjamin].

10-second review: Every great person seems to have a favorite author.

Ideas:

“A predilection for some great author, among the vast number which must transiently occupy our attention, seems to be the happiest preservative for our taste; accustomed to that excellent author whom we have chosen for our favorite, we may in this intimacy possibly resemble him.” [Re-reading our favorite author preserves our taste and even makes our writing style resemble his.]

“It is remarkable that every great writer appears to have a predilection for some favorite author….”

[Here follow several pages of examples of famous persons who focus on their favorite writers and read them again and again.]

“…Sir William Jones’s invariable habit of reading his Cicero through every year…amidst the multiplicity of his authors, still continues in this way to be ‘the man of one book.’ ”

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.

Essay: "National Prejudices." Oliver Goldsmith.

10-second review: To say that every other country is inferior to our own is a false patriotism. We, like the ancient philosopher, are citizens of the world.

Ideas:

“…we took occasion to talk of the different characters of the several nations of Europe; when one of the gentlemen, cocking his hat, and assuming such an air of importance as if he had possessed all the merit of the English nation in his own person, declared that the Dutch were a parcel of avaricious wretches; the French a set of flattering sycophants; that the Germans were drunken sots, and beastly gluttons; and the Spaniards proud, haughty and surly tyrants; but that in bravery, generosity, clemency, and in every other virtue, the English excelled all the rest of the world.”

“…the patriotic gentleman observed with a contemptuous sneer, that he was greatly surprised how some people could have the conscience to live in a country which they did not love, and to enjoy the protection of a government, to which in their hearts they were inveterate enemies.” [Said whenever some one criticizes the government and nation where one lives.]

[One of the marks of a gentleman is a lack of prejudice of any kind.]

“And in fact, you will always find that those are most apt to boast of national merit, who have little or no merit of their own to depend on….”

“Is it not very possible that I may love my own country without hating the natives of other countries?”

“I should prefer the title of the ancient philosopher, viz. a citizen of the world, to that of an Englishman, a Frenchman, a European….”

Essays: 1765.

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.

Essay: "Of Bashfulness." Samuel Johnson.

Essay: “Of Bashfulness.” Samuel Johnson.

10-second review: Don’t worry about being bashful. Nobody notices you anyhow!

Ideas:

“To excite opposition and inflame malevolence, is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.”

“It is to suppose custom instantaneously controllable by reason and to endeavor to communicate, by precept, that which only time and habit can bestow.” [Habits cannot be changed by telling one to change them, only by time.]

“No cause more frequently produces bashfulness than too high an opinion of our own importance.” [We are made bashful because we think people notice our importance and they don’t.]

“He considers that what he shall say or do will never be forgotten….”

“But the truth is, that no man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom, perhaps, not one appears to deserve our notice, or excite our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng….and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is, to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and to be forgotten.”

The Rambler. No. 139. September 24, 1751.

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.

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.

Essay: "A Day's Ramble in London." Richard Steele.

The spectator, No. 454, August 11, 1712.

One-minute review: In the mood to be observant, unconcerned, not a significant actor in the city streets. From morning to night the types of people he observes change: gardeners; chimney sweepers; Covent Garden where I strolled from one fruit shop to another; flirtatious ladies; the signals from one coachman to another; “silk worms,” who go from shop to shop and never buy anything, but talk about laces and ribbons to their friends who do come and buy; a man who would die if he were not given money for a drink; the center of trade, the Exchange; and finishes the day at Will’s where men talked on the subjects of cards, dice, love, learning and politics.

Comment: Dickens gives a much more entertaining view of life in London in his first book, Sketches by Boz (pronounced to rhyme with “nose”). RayS.

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.

Essay: "The Art of Political Lying." Jonathan Swift.

One-minute review: Lying to fit the circumstances of the moment.

Ideas:

“But although the devil be the father of lies, he seems, like other great inventors, to have lost much of his reputation to continuous improvements that have been made upon him.”

“There is one essential point wherein a political liar differs from others of the faculty, that he ought to have but a short memory, which is necessary according to the various occasions he meets with every hour of differing from himself and swearing to both sides of a contradiction.”

“He never yet considered whether any proposition were true or false, but whether it were convenient for the present minute or company to affirm or deny it….”

“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived it is too late…like a man who has thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed or the company parted; or like a physician who has found out an infallible medicine after the patient is dead.”

“Considering that natural disposition in many men to lie, and in multitudes to believe, I have been perplexed what to do with that maxim so frequent in everybody’s mouth, that truth will at last prevail.”

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.

Essay: "Epistle to the Reader on 'An Essay Concerning Human Understanding.' " John Locke.

One-minute review: On the origin of his treatise, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” emphasizing that his search for truth led to observations that he did not expect which led to the present length of the treatise: “New discoveries led me still on, and so it grew insensibly to the bulk it now appears in.”

Ideas:

“…thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading as I had in writing it.”

“Its searches after truth…wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the pleasure.”

“This, reader, is the entertainment of those who let loose their own thoughts and follow them in writing….”

“If it seems too much to thee, thou must blame the subject; for when I put pen to paper, I thought all I should have to say on this matter would have been contained in one sheet of paper….”

“Vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language, have so long passed for mysteries of science; and hard or misapplied words with little or no meaning, have by prescription, such a right to be mistaken for deep learning and height of speculation; that it will not be easy to persuade either those who speak or those who hear them, that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hindrance of true knowledge.”

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.

Essay: "Hydriotaphia: Urne Burial." Sir Thomas Browne.

One-minute review: Monuments do not lead to immortality. We are all forgotten. The only immortality is in God, not among men.

Ideas:

“Time…hath an art to make dust of all things….”

“…we begin to die when we live….”

“We live with death and die not in a moment.”

“But the long habit of living indisposeth us for dying….”

“But to subsist in bones, and be but pyramidally extant is a fallacy in duration.”

“Vain ashes, which in the oblivion of names, persons, times and sexes, have found unto themselves a fruitless continuation and only arise into late posterity as emblems of moral vanities.”

“There is no antidote against the opium of time….”

“…buried in our survivors.”

“Who can but pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the Temple of Diana, he is almost lost that built it….”

“Who knows whether the best of men be known or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known account of time?”

“The greater part must be content to be as though they had not been, to be found in the register of God, not in the record of man.”

“In vain do individuals hope for immortality or any patent from oblivion, in preservations below the moon.”

“There is nothing strictly immortal, but immortality….”

“ ‘Tis all one to lie in St. Innocents Church yard, as in the sands of Egypt…and as content with six foot as the moles of Adrianus.”

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.

Essay: "Of Adverstiy." Francis Bacon.

10-second review: Prosperity vs. adversity.

Quotes:

“That the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished; but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.”

“The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude.”

“Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity is the blessing of the New….”

“…the Holy Ghost hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon.”

“…for prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.”

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.

Essay: "Of Gardens." Francis Bacon.

One-minute review: “God almighty first planted a garden… the purest of human pleasures… the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man….. There ought to be gardens for all the months of the year.”

“For fountains, they are a great beauty and refreshment, but pools mar all, and make the garden unwholesome and full of flies and frogs.”

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.

Essay: "Of Friendship." Francis Bacon.

One-minute review: One can open oneself to a friend in a way that he can’t open himself to wife, son, or nephew. One can try ideas out on a friend, shape them, see how they look when he turns them into words. And what a man can’t do, his friend can. That is why we need friends.

Quotes:

“For a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.”

“A principal fruit of friendship is the ease and discharge of the fullness and swellings of the heart, which passions of all kind do cause and induce.”

“…but a true friend, to whom you may impart griefs, joys, fears, hopes, suspicions, counsels and whatsoever lieth upon the heart to oppress it, in a kind of…confession.”

“[Kings and princes]…raise some persons to be as it were companions and almost equal to themselves.”

“…those that want friends to open themselves unto are cannibals of their own hearts.”

“…that this communicating of a man’s self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joys and cutteth griefs in half.”

“…his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and discussing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily; he marshalleth them more orderly; he seeth how they look when they are turned into words.”

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.