¶ Lord Chesterfield writes very pragmatically about religion and honesty.

Depend upon this truth, That every man is the worse looked upon, and the less trusted for being thought to have no religion; in spite of all the pompous and specious epithets he may assume, of esprit fort, freethinker, or moral philosopher; and a wise atheist (if such a thing there is) would, for his own interest and character in this world, pretend to some religion.

As for lying, Chesterfield distinguishes between the naked untruth that a diplomat might proffer and the self-puffing misrepresentations made by vain people. He is opposed to both. In between there is a rather murky, or at least underdeveloped, passage about Bacon’s distinction between simulation and dissimulation. Chesterfield seems to be marking this just for the sake of comprehensiveness, but also to be withholding any conclusions that his son might misuse, for want of a more worldly understanding.

It is most certain, that the reputation of chastity is not so necessary for a woman, as that of veracity is for a man.

¶ In Moby-Dick, a geeky chapter entitled “A Bower in the Arsacides.” At some point in the past (having nothing to do with the present tale), Ishmael took it upon himself to measure the skeleton of a whale that had been mounted, so to speak, as a pagan chapel.

The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tatooed; as in my wild wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving such valuable statistic. But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then composing — at least, what untatooed parts might remain — I did not trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed should inches at all enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale.

Make that, literary geek.

¶ In Don Quixote, the windmills of the first part give way to watermills — by which our hero and Sancho are almost pulverized, as Don Quixote drifts to the rescue of (imaginary) ladies and knights. There is a small business of lice that is not terribly nice, but Cervantes makes up for that with this droll scene:

And saying this, he put his hand on his sword and began to flourish it in the air against the millers, who, hearing but not understanding this nonsense, began to use their poles to stop the boat, which by now was entering the millrace rapids.

Sancho was on his knees, devoutly praying to heaven to save him from so clear a danger, which it did through the efforts and speed of the millers, who pushed against the boat with their poles and stopped it but could not keep it from capsizing and throwing Don Quixote and Sancho into the water; it was fortunate for Don Quixote that he knew how to swim like a goose, although the weight of his armor made him sink twice, and if it had not been for the millers, who jumped into the water and pulled them out, it would have been the end of them both.

¶ In Squillions, Noël Coward buys a house outside of Montreux, and decides to divide his time between Switzerland and Jamaica. A letter “to an unnamed friend” is quoted. 

When the public is no longer interested in what I have to write, then it will be brought home to me that I am out of touch; not before. Nowadays, though I find that I rather enjoy my downfalls; to me it’s acridly funny when something flops that has taken me months to write and compose.

Not bloody likely, I should think. This sounds like a draft that Coward sent to nobody, because nobody would believe it. 

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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