Essay: "Of Charity or the Love of God." Jeremy Taylor.

“Love is the greatest thing that God can give us; for himself is love: and it is the greatest thing we can give to God; for it will also give ourselves, and carry with it all that is ours.” “It is a grace that loves God for himself and our neighbors for God.”

God is “an infinite nature, immensity or vastness without extension or limit, immutability, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, holiness, … providence, bounty, mercy, justice, perfection in himself, and the end to which all things and all actions must be directed, and will at last arrive.”

In contrast to God, there is human nature. Smallness and limited nature, our inconstancy, our weakness and ignorance, our inconsideration, our harsh nature, our universal iniquity, our dependence. We are obnoxious and most contemptible.

“For in the scrutinies for righteousness and judgment, when it is inquired whether such a person be a good man or no, the meaning is not What does he believe? Or What does he hope? But what he loves.” 1610.

The Oxford Book of Essays. Ed. John Gross. Oxford and new York: Oxford University Press. 1991.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After this sampling of essays through the years, I have decided to end this blog. RayS.

Essay: "A Degenerate Noble...." Samuel Butler.

Essay: “A Degenerate Noble: Or One That Is P:roud of His Birth.” Samuel Butler.

He glories in the antiquity of his family. He believes that the honor that was left him is sufficient to support his quality without troubling himself to add to the family’s honor and prosperity. “The living honor of his ancestors is long ago departed, dead and gone, and his is but the ghost and shadow of it….” He will never rise again to the height of his ancestors by his means. He has no business but to spend. He consumes and wastes. He is like a word that has lost its meaning and assumed the meaning of its opposite. “He values himself only upon his title….” 1668.

The Oxford Book of Essays. Ed. John Gross. Oxford and new York: Oxford University Press. 1991.

Essay: "Of Anger." Thomas Fuller.

. “Be not angry without cause.”

. “Be not mortally angry with any for a venial fault.”

. “Let not the anger be so hot…. Fright not people from thy presence with the terror of thy intolerable impatience.”

. “Take heed of doing irrevocable acts in thy passion…. Do not in an instant what an age cannot recompense.”

. “Anger kept till the next morning…doth putrefy and corrupt…. And as the English, by command from William the Conqueror, always raked up their fire and put out their candles, when the curfew bell was rung, let us then also quench all sparks of anger and heat of passion.”

. “He that keeps anger long in his bosom, giveth place to the devil.”

Fuller concludes with: “Had Narcissus himself seen his own face when he had been angry, he would never have fallen in love with himself.” 1642.

Comment: An early course in anger management. RayS.

The Oxford Book of Essays. Ed. John Gross. Oxford and new York: Oxford University Press. 1991.

Essay: "On Dreams." Sir Thomas Browne.

Dreams are the brothers of death. “The day supplieth us with truths; the night with fictions and falsehoods.” Dreams are the demons in our lives. Dreams are the actions of the day acted over and echoed in the night. Men act in dreams in conformity to their senses when awake. There is an art to make dreams as well as their interpretation. Types of food before retiring can make dreams turbulent or quiet. Dionysius kills a man because Dionysius dreamed the man killed him. Lamia sued a man because she dreamed that he had taken her virtue in her dreams. Never to have dreamed is as improbable as never to have laughed.

Comment: These essays are more like lists.

I never forgot a comment about dreams that Tolstoy once made: Dreams are not real, but the emotions that accompany them are. RayS.

The Oxford Book of Essays. Ed. John Gross. Oxford and new York: Oxford University Press. 1991.

Essay: How the Distermpers of These Times.... Owen Felltham

The distempers of these times (1620) are pretty bad, [but probably like all times.] They make a wise man both merry and mad. Beggary, baseness and contempt. People suppose that the wealthiest are the best. Buy offices. Tumbled up and down, like the spoke of a wheel “from beggary to worship, from worship to honor, from honor to baseness again. Glossed over with the varnish of a smooth tongue. Thunders in a tavern, appoints a duel, goes away and gives money to have the quarrel taken care of. Machiavel’s tenets are oracles. Justice bought and sold. Money stronger than truth. Flattery gains favor with greatness. Plain dealing is thought the enemy of state and honor. But worst of all is to know all this not know how to help it.

Comment: How’s that for a description of today’s (2010) world? RayS.

The Oxford Book of Essays. Ed. John Gross. Oxford and new York: Oxford University Press. 1991.

"A Good Old Man." John Earle.

He has learned as many lessons as his days, including the vanity of life. He sees his past life as danger well past and would not begin again if he could. He expects death calmly as a natural part of life. He fears more a return to childishness. He shares his experience with youth without reproof for the foibles of youth. His counsel is good company. Tells his old stories and makes them better in the telling. He does not trouble people with telling the same story over and over again. He goes away having heard of other people’s sorrows and not telling his own.

The Oxford Book of Essays. Ed. John Gross. Oxford and new York: Oxford University Press. 1991.

Essay: "An Antiquary." John Earle. 1678.

Enamored of everything old age. He will go forty miles to see a saint’s well or a ruined abbey. His estate consists in Roman coins and pictures of Caesar. He considers printed books as a novelty but pores over old manuscripts. His attire is out of fashion. He is not afraid of graves because he is used to sepulchers and he welcomes death because it gathers him to his fathers.

The Oxford Book of Essays. Ed. John Gross. Oxford and new York: Oxford University Press. 1991.