Morning Read: Every excellency
¶ Chesterfield’s letter to his son of 22 February 1748 is so full of good advice for bloggers and other Internauts that I have dug up a link to it at Google Books.
Some learned men, proud of their knowledge, only speak to decide, and give judgment without appeal; the consequence of which is, that mankind, provoked by the insult, and injured by the oppression, revolt; and in order to shake off the tyranny, even call the lawful authority in question. The more you know, the modester you should be: and (by-the-bye) that modesty is the surest way of gratifying your vanity. Even where you are sure, seem rather doubtful; represent, but do not pronounce, and if you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.
Advice that I’m afraid I must give myself every day, like a tonic.
¶ In Moby-Dick, a few chapters of Shakespeare. It works only if you forget that Melville is writing about a whaling ship in the Nineteenth Century.
Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan; and ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooners, stand there with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some sort revive a noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. O men, you will yet see that — Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner. Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, wert thou not St Vitus’ imp — away, thou gone!
Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me…
On second thought, it sounds more like a bad translation of Lohengrin. The little play that we’re treated to in “Midnight, Forecastle” should have closed in New Haven.
¶ Cervantes’s shade breathes over my shoulder: What’s all this about padding?. The tale told by Dorotea and Cardenio may not yet have been stitched up to the history of our “caballero andante,” but the tellers have been brought into league with the priest and the barber, who only want to take the madman home. Pretending to be the Princess Micomicona, Dorotea implores Quixote to slay a giant who has somehow distressed her. Once Quixote has accepted this mission, the priest launches a sidelong attack on whomever it may have been who freed the galley slaves, now pillaging the countryside. Quixote “changed color at each word and did not dare say that he had been the liberator of those good people.” A modified “oops”?
¶ Coward to Dietrich (who is still crying over Yul Brynner.)
It is difficult for me to wag my finger at you from so very far away, particularly as my heart aches for you but really, darling, you must pack up this nonsensical situation once and for all. It is really beneath your dignity, not your dignity as a famous artist and a glamorous star, but your dignity as a human, only too human being. Curly is attractive, beguiling, tender and fascinating, but he is not the only man in the world who merits those delightful adjectives … do please try to work out for yourself a little personal philosophy and DO NOT, repeat DO NOT be so bloody vulnerable. To hell with God damned “L’Amour.” It always causes far more trouble than it is worth. Don’t run after it. Don’t court it. Keep it waiting off stage until you’re good and ready for it and even then treat it with the suspicious disdain that it deserves … I am sick to death of you waiting about in empty houses and apartments with your ears strained for the telephone to ring. Snap out of it, girl! A very brilliant writer once said (Could it have been me?) “Life is for the living.” Well, that is all it is for, and living DOES NOT consist of staring in at other people’s windows and waiting for crumbs to be thrown to you. You’ve carried on this hole in corner, overcharged, romantic, unrealistic nonsese long enough.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Other people need you…
In case you were wondering, Barry Day tells us that Brynner was named after his Swiss grandfather, Jules.
¶ For some reason, I read two chapters of After the Victorians, both about bombs. The first contains a brief catalogue of Churchill’s many blunders as War Leader, concluding that he was nonetheless good for morale. The second winds up much the same way on the topic of “strategic bombing.”
And Joe Horn, once a concentration camp prisoner, later a businessman in New Jersey, recalled: “The first time I saw bombers in the sky, I was a kid in Buchenwald, dressed in a striped suit and completely demoralized. The bombers gave us hope and led to the realization that this unrelenting nightmare could end sometime.”