Time out!

Resume Monday, 5/17/2010.

Essay: "The Fight." William Hazlett.

Review: England. Getting to, being there, and coming from the fight. A blow by blow account. A bloody account. “All traces of life, of natural expression were gone from him. His face was like a human skull, a death’s head, spouting blood. The eyes were filled with blood, the nose streamed with blood, the mouth gaped blood.”

A vivid account of a bare-knuckles fight.

The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. Ed. Phillip Lopate. New York: Anchor Books. A Division of Random House, Inc. 1995.

Essay: "On the Pleasure of Hating." William Hazlitt.

Review: A tribute to misanthropy. A litany of reasons for hating human nature. I have quoted only a few of the many  very quotable execrations against humanity that fill this essay. And it begins with not hating oneself enough.

“But so it is, that there is a secret affinity [with], a hankering after, evil in the human mind, and that it takes a perverse, but a fortunate delight in mischief, since it is a never-failing source of satisfaction.”

“Love turns, with a little indulgence, to indifference or disgust; hatred alone is immortal.”

“…a whole town runs to be present at a fire, and the spectator by no means exults to see it extinguished.”

“Men assemble in crowds with eager enthusiasm, to witness a tragedy.”

“Have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do. And chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.”

The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. Ed. Phillip Lopate. New York: Anchor Books. A Division of Random House, Inc. 1995.

Essay: "A Chapter on Ears." Charles Lamb.

Review: He has no ear for music. (So much of Lamb’s writing depends on digressions, sometimes in the form of—to me—archaic references and allusions that I find it difficult to follow his line of thought. In having to stop to try to recall the allusions, many of which I cannot, I forget his train of thought.) But the gist of this essay is that he has no ear for music.

“I even think that sentimentally I am disposed to harmony. But organically, I am incapable of a tune.”

“Scientifically, I could never be made to understand…what a note in music is or how one note should differ from another. Much less in voices can I distinguish a soprano from a tenor.”

“I am constitutionally susceptible to noises.”

“Above all, those insufferable concertos, and pieces of music, as they are called, do plague and embitter my apprehension….”

The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. Ed. Phillip Lopate. New York: Anchor Books. A Division of Random House, Inc. 1995.

Essay: "New Year's Eve." Charles Lamb.

Review: While many people look forward to the new year as a means of escaping the past, the author savors the past. He would stay in the present if he could, for in the future, we are headed toward death.

Quotes:

“I have heard some profess an indifference to life. Such hail the end of their existence as a port of refuge; and speak of the grave as some soft arms in which they may slumber as on a pillow.”

“Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes, and society and the cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fireside conversations, and innocent vanities and jests and irony itself—do these thing go out with life?”

“Some have wooed death—but out upon thee, I say, thou foul, ugly phantom! I detest, abhor, execrate…as in no instance to be excused or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper; to be branded, proscribed, and spoken evil of! In no way can I be brought to digest thee, thou thin, melancholy privation, or more frightful and confounding positive.”

The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. Ed. Phillip Lopate. New York: Anchor Books. A Division of Random House, Inc. 1995.

Essay: "The Noble Science of Self-justification." Maria Edgeworth (2).

Review: The war of the sexes—if they are married. How to torture your husband. How to destroy the enemy’s [your husband’s] logical, rational arguments—when you are a woman in the 16^th or 17^th centuries. Sounds very contemporary to me.

Quotes:

“Did not you say so? Don’t you remember? Only answer me that.”

“I know what you were going to say.”

“…like Queen Anne, you will only repeat the same thing over and over again, or be silent. Silence is the ornament of your sex; and in silence, if there is not wisdom, there is safety.”

“Nothing provokes and irascible man, interested in debate, and possessed of an opinion of his own eloquence, so much as to see the attention of his hearers go from him: you will then, when he flatters himself that he has just fixed your eye with his very best argument, suddenly grow absent—your house affairs must call you hence—or you have directions to give to your children—or the room is too hot, or too cold—the windows must be opened—or door shut—or the candle wants snuffing.”

“Remember, all such speech as these will lose above half their effect, if you cannot accompany them with the vacant stare, the insipid smile, the passive aspect of the humbly perverse.”

“Whilst I write, new precepts rush upon my recollection; but the subject is inexhaustible.”

The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present. Ed. Phillip Lopate. New York: Anchor Books. A Division of Random House, Inc. 1995.

Essay: "The Noble Science of Self-justification." Maria Edgeworth (1).

Review: The war of the sexes—if they are married. How to torture your husband. How to destroy the enemy’s [your husband’s] logical, rational arguments—when you are a woman in the 16^th or 17^th centuries. Sounds very contemporary to me.

Quotes:

“…let me teach you the art of defending the wrong.”

“Timid brides, you have, probably, hitherto been addressed as angels. Prepare for the time when you shall again become mortal.”

“Can superior with inferior power contend? No; the spirit of a lion is not to be roused by the teasing of an insect.”

“…he will yield to you in trifles, particularly in trifles which do not militate against his authority.”

“If the point in dispute be some opinion relative to your character or disposition, allow in general, that you are sure you have a great many faults; but to every specific charge reply, well, I am sure I don’t know, but I did not think that was one of my faults! Nobody ever accused me of that before.”

“Begin by preventing, if possible, the specific statement of any position, or, if reduced to it, use the most general terms, and take advantage of the ambiguity which all languages and which most philosophers allow.”

“…if he should grow absolutely angry, you will in the same proportion grow calm and wonder at his rage….”

To be continued.