Archive I: 2023

Saturday, December 30, 2023
Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire,
1. "Many miracles that pass for authentic in the Greek church have been called into question by several Latin ones, just as some Latin miracles have been doubted in the Greek church."
2. "Is it not probable in the highest degree that this people, so new, wandering for so long, so recently known, established so late in Palestine, took over the Phoenician fables with the Phoenician language, and embroidered them still further, as do all crude imitators? So poor a people, so ignorant, so unaware of all the arts, could it do anything but copy its neighbors?"
3. "Confucius did not invent a system of morality as one constructs a system in natural philosophy. He found it in the hearts of all men."
4. "There is no morality in superstition, it is not in ceremonies, it has nothing in common with dogmas."
5. Necessaire: Necessary

6. Osmin: Aren't you saying that everything is necessary?
Selim: If everything weren't necessary it would follow that god had made useless things.
Osmin: Anyway I want to talk to you about another necessity.
Selim: Which? Of what is necessary to an upright man to live? Of the wretchedness to which one is reduced when one lacks necessities?
Selim: Yes. I have travelled with Paul Lucas, and wherever I went I saw that people repsected their fathers and mothers, felt it necessary to keep their promises, pitied the oppressed innocent, looked upon liberty of thought as a natural right, and the enemies of this liberty as the enemies of mankind.
7. Osmin: Are these necessary things necessary always and everywhere?
Selim: Yes, otherwise they wouldn't be necessary to mankind.
Osmin: So a new belief was not necessary to our species. Men could live very well in society and accomplish their duties to god before they believed that Mohammed had frequent conversations with the angel Gabriel... If Mohammedanism had been necessary for the world it would have existed everywhere. God, who gave us all eyes to see the sun, would have given us the intelligence to see the truth of the Moslem religion.
Selim: Yes, as he permits the world to be filled with nonsense, errors and calamities. This doesn't mean that men are all essentially made to be stupid and unhappy.
Osmin: I'd have reason to complain of a doctor who explained to me which plants are harmful, but never showed me a beneficial one.
Selim: I'm not a doctor and you're not ill, but it seems to me that I should be giving you a very good prescription if I said to you: 'Beware of all the inventions of charlatans, worship god, be upright, and believe that two and two make four.'
8. On popery: Dialogue, the papist and the treasurer
9. The Treasurer: What does it matter, so long as you are well fed, well clothed, well housed?
10. The Papist: But, sir, they don't believe in eternal punishment.
The Treasurer: Neither do I. Be damned for ever if you like; as for me I don't in the lest expect to be.

11. Patrie: Fatherland
12. "It is impossible to love tenderly too numerous a family which we hardly know."
13. "Every man wants to be sure of his fortune and his life."
14. "Eight republics without monarchs remain in our Europe: Venice, Holland, Switzerland, Genoa, Lucca, Ragusa, Geneva and San Marino. Poland, Sweden, England can be regarded as republics under a king; but Poland is the only one that takes the name.
Is it better today for one's country to be a monarchical or a republican state? This question has been debated for 4,000 years. Apply for a solution to the rich, they all prefer an aristocracy. Question the people, they want democracy. Only kings prefer a monarchy.
15. Refers to Fables, by Jean de la Fontaine. "Charming and elegant, Jean de La Fontaine's (1621-1695) animal fables depict sly foxes and scheming cats, vain birds and greedy wolves, all of which subtly express his penetrating insights into French society...."
16. "In a word, the Jews knew original sin no better than Chinese ceremonies, and although theologians find whatever they want in the scriptures, it can be asserted that no reasonable theologian will ever find this surprising mystery in it."



Thursday, December 28, 2023

Best Poems of Alexander Pushkin Lost in Translation?, translated by Yuri Menis
1. Translator’s Note
A sage once said that poetry was the only defense against the drudgery of life. Yes, it elevates and inspires. Yes, it is music to one’s ears and food to one’s mind. But is it translatable? Mozart cannot be translated into other kinds of music, can he? And if poetry is merely food for thought, why rhyme those rhythmic lines turning them into delectable tunes? In every attempt to translate poetry, where is the borderline, the balance between the heart and the mind? When does the beautiful yet torturous moment arrive for the translator to say: yes, now the music and meaning are in perfect harmony – I cannot do any better. But what if someone else might? What if someone else could still get closer to the original, having gained the most and lost the least? And those are the moment and the impetus that drive translation of poetry. That’s why the translator aspires to do better every time and catch a glimpse of perfection after so much strenuous work. Enigmatically, my inspiration to translate the poetry of Boris Pasternak and Alexander Pushkin has come out of frustration with other translators’ inadequacies and failures. And there has been a lot of them! All you need to do is compare with the original. But, of course, there is always the great desire to make magnificent Russian poets heard and appreciated by English speakers. There is no one more important in the Russian literature and poetry than Alexander Pushkin. There is no task more difficult and noble than translate him into other languages. That said, Pushkin’s poetry is an inseparable blend of delicious music and profound thought. Now we are back to beating our heads against the proverbial wall, which is really an elusive and obscure line for the translator to find and negotiate. Let’s see how it has worked out this time.

2-5. Omitted.

6. The Tree of Evil

The upas, like a fearsome guard In sands of dearth and deprivation, Stands firm on soil by swelter scarred - Alone it stands in all creation.  

The nature of the thirsty steppes Begot it on a day of mayhem And soaked its tangled roots in depth And dead green leaves with lethal venom.  

The poison oozes through its bark And melts at noon with sunlight blazing, Then hardens as the night grows dark Into translucent, thickened resin.  

No bird flies over to the tree, No tiger prowls, but just a vicious Black gust assails it on a spree And backs away, now turned pernicious.  

And if a random cloud should spray The torpid leaves before it passes, The rain, hence noxious, slips away Through fiery sands, off wicked branches.

A man, though, sent another man By powers he had rights to foist on To find the tree - the other ran And in the morning fetched its poison.  

He brought vile resin and a dead Lone branch with leaves innately morbid, And in profusion deathly sweat Streamed down the runner’s ashen forehead.  

He did bring poison! Sick indeed, He lay down drained beneath the rafter And died, poor servant, at the feet Of the unconquerable master.  

The tsar with poison then imbued His loyal arrows – on his orders A deadly carnage soon ensued At neighbors’, well beyond his borders.



American Notes for General Circulation, by Charles Dickens,
1. PREFACE TO THE FIRST CHEAP EDITION OF "AMERICAN NOTES"
2. Omitted.
3. Omitted.
4. CHAPTER I - GOING AWAY
5. I SHALL never forget the one-fourth serious and three-fourths comical astonishment, with which, on the morning of the third of January eighteen-hundred-and-forty-two, I opened the door of, and put my head into, a 'state-room' on board the Britannia steam- packet, twelve hundred tons burthen per register, bound for Halifax and Boston, and carrying Her Majesty's mails.

6. From Dickens, I am inspired to write, a man went to search for a hotel room. He reserved the biggest room he could find. Then he places a tiny mouse in the middle of the room who it was reserved for. Then we learn that this mouse was depressed, then this mouse meets a female mouse. Then we learn that this mouse is smart, very educated. Upon learning this, we learn that all the people including the mouse wanted to leave the room after less than two minutes. They remain in the room, however. Then we learn that this mouse is very holy and religious, and has quite an interesting history about him from a foreign land.
7. To be continued.



Various Notes
1. A close family friend years ago told me that he knew a group of people who lived with mattresses on the floor in their living room instead of a couch.
2. I plan to work on either David Copperfield, or Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens for my next project.




Wednesday, December 27, 2023

The Complete Poems, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
1. In Names, Coleridge picks up on the philosophical idea of the existence of the soul, and reminds us that we are often associated by our names. In the poem, through his examination of Roman and Grecian names from antiquity, he also reminds us that our names often have a story behind them.
2. Tba.


Various Notes
1. In Boris Godunov and Other Dramatic Works, by Alexander Pushkin, Pushkin describes "an old man from a wandering tribe who was happy to be warmed by the fire."
2. In Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire, Voltaire discusses "the wisdom of the old women of Egypt."
3. One of the philosophers I've read suggests that our sense of the days are based on man, not time. For example, it feels like it's New Year's Day because men make it feel that way, rather than it being connected inherently to the Earth's time.
4. "What is time, in the face of eternity?" -One of the authors I've read.




Tuesday, December 26, 2023

The Complete Poems, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
1. Hymn to the Earth, to summarize, is a poem where Coleridge says, "...Everything that goes on under the Earth, from tribes in Africa, to Gods in Greece, to the romance of every day men and women, remember that we are on Earth."
2. In another one of his poems, Coleridge discusses the moonshine, just like there is sunshine, there is moonshine, he suggests.


Various Notes:
1. Maybe some people just look like they don't belong in jail.
This is in reference to Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire, Items 7. & 8., Saturday, December 23, 2023.
2. Omitted.




Monday, December 25, 2023 -Merry Christmas!

Various Notes:
1. I stopped working on A History of the Yoruba People, by Stephen Adebanji Akintoye. It declined too much into areas about world history that I do not believe. I also omitted some of the questionable comments.
2. Now that Kool-Aid has been added to my diet, it is great, only I have to remember not to be wasteful of it!




Saturday, December 23, 2023

Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire,
1. "Though nobody knows when men started to make idols, we know that they are of the highest antiquity."
2. "But what precise notion did the ancient nations have of all these simulacra?"
3. "Neither the Chinese nor the Parsees nor the Indians were ever guilty of these abominations, but according to Porphyry men were immolated at Hieropolis, in Egypt."
4. "But that water once covered the entire globe at the same time is a chimera absurd in natural science, demonstrated impossible by the laws of gravitation, by the laws of fluids, by the insufficient quantity of water. I do not claim to undermine in any way the great truth of the universal flood reported in the Pentateuch. On the contrary, it was a miracle, therefore it must be believed; it was a miracle, therefore it was not performed by physical laws."
5. "Thus the story of the universal flood is like that of the tower of Babel...the fall of Jericho by the sound of trumpets, water changed into blood, the passage of the Red Sea...These are profundities beyond human comprehension."

6. Questions under what conditions people require miracles.
7. "He simply ordered the tiller to remain in the air until further notice, and ran to tell his prior how things stood. The prior gave him absolution of the sin he had committed in beginning a miracle without permission, and allowed him to finish it, provided that he stopped there and did not do it again."
In summary, here he is saying that despite one's sins, his or her honest, hard work should count in their defense.
8. Suggests that in some instances, Saints and other holy persons, can be cleared of murder if their past deeds were noble and worthy enough.




Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot,
1. Examines the influence of large families versus small families on children.
2. “You like nez retrousse then, and long narrow eyes?”
3. “What did you say was the name of that gentleman near the door?”
”Deronda—Mr. Deronda.”
”What a delightful name! Is he an Englishman?”
4. “But I shall never reproach you, my dear child; I would save you from all trouble if I could.”
5. "What was the use of going to bed?"

6. “Anything seemed more possible than that she should go on bearing miseries, great or small.”
7. “Gwendolyn felt the bitter tears of mortification rising and rolling down her cheeks.”
8. To be continued.




Friday, December 22, 2023

A History of the Yoruba People, by Stephen Adebanji Akintoye,
1. In the Ikale country, the Abodi’s kingdom of Ikoya seems to have emerged early as the most powerful kingdom. However, the nature of the Ikale country — thick forests broken up by lagoons, rivers and swamps — compelled each Ikale kingdom to remain fixed in its own forest patch. Much as among the Ekiti, the Ikale kings remained a family of equal brothers throughout their history, with hardly any traditions of conflicts among them.
2. In Ijebu, the Awujale early became the richest and most powerful king — acquiring a specially exalted status and influence among the Ijebu kings, as well as certain privileges which no other Ijebu king could claim. Among such privileges may be mentioned the exclusive ownership of odi (a special kind of court official) and apebi (a special priest who performs the crowning of the Awujale), and the right to have brought to him from all over Ijebuland the skins and some other parts of certain animals regarded by the Yoruba as royal property — such as elephants, bushcows (African buffalo), and leopards. The Awujale also occupied the very influential position of patron of the powerful Osugbo (the Ijebu version of Ogboni) council of Ijebu-Ode, to which all other Osugbo councils in the Ijebu country were subordinate. And he enjoyed the important ritual supremacy of holding certain great and colorful festivals annually, one of which culminated in the gathering in Ijebu-Ode once every year of the sixteen Agemo priests (earth fertility high priests), each accompanied by large numbers of followers, and each bringing a sacred load to bless and to honor the Awujale. In short, then, the Awujale was supreme among the Ijebu kings, and, by and large, he could, whenever there was need to, influence the affairs of all kingdoms in the Ijebu forests.
3. Considering the large expanse and the wealth of the country over which he was thus the most influential ruler, the Awujale would seem to have regularly been the most powerful king in the southern Yoruba forests, and, in the centuries of the greatness of the Alaafin, second only to the Alaafin in Yorubaland. This political picture in the Ijebu forests would seem to have been generated mostly by the magnitude of trade in the Ijebu country and the nodal position of Ijebu-Ode on the overall complex of trade routes in that part of Yorubaland.
4. In Igbomina, the Orangun of Ila was generally regarded as the most senior king from the earliest, because of his descent from a line clearly traced to Oduduwa. However, research by Funso Afolayan, to whom we are indebted for an impressive study of Igbomina history, shows that while the cultural antecedents and political seniority of the Orangun were generally acknowledged all over the Igbomina country, he does not appear to have exercised any form of serious political hegemony over the Igbomina kingdoms before the nineteenth century. A few of the Igbomina kings, most notably the Olomu of Omu Aran and the Olupo of Ajase Ipo, increasingly came to challenge and threaten whatever paramountcy might have originally been attributed to the Orangun. One important cause of this state of affairs was the constant Nupe aggression on the Igbomina country, a military pressure which became intensified in the eighteenth century and resulted in the destruction of Ila. The failure or inability of the Orangun to resist and contain the Nupe threat weakened his prestige and influence among the Igbomina kings. In this situation, when, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Oyo-Ile kingdom of the Alaafin became a great power in northern Yorubaland, some of the Igbomina kings (especially the Olomu of Omu Aran and the Olupo of Ajase Ipo) happily established military alliances and political association with the Alaafin, and thus considerably enhanced their power, prestige and influence vis-à-vis that of the Orangun.
5. Migrations and Other Folk Movements

Migrations of people in large or small groups, families and individuals, within Yorubaland, were a very important phenomenon in the history of the Yoruba kingdoms and of the Yoruba national society. The primary, kingdom-creating, migrations had resulted in the emergence of kingdoms and cities in Yorubaland, and the populations of the cities had been generally enhanced by migrations from their neighboring forests. After these, a second generation of migrations moved significant groups and elements from kingdom to kingdom and imparted what one might call a “national flavor” to every significant city and kingdom of the Yoruba people.

A substantial part of the second-generation migrations were protest migrations — of persons going away from a city where they felt that they had been unfairly denied a royal title or chieftaincy or other position. As earlier pointed out, most leaders of such migrations ended up as chiefs in other cities and kingdoms. Every Yoruba royal city had at least a few such chiefs, always heading quarters constituted by the followers who had come with them. Besides this, Yoruba people seem to have very commonly reacted to disasters (communal troubles, famines, epidemics, etc.) by migrating to other parts of their country — as individuals, lineages, or even whole settlements. And, moreover, the Yoruba elite in general appear to have been very prone to migrating. It was common that if a famous king ruled over a kingdom, persons of substance and fame came from far and near to live in his city, share in his glory, and contribute to his fame. Kingdoms or kings or other accomplished persons who prospered or became famous usually attracted distinguished persons. This represents a major theme in Yoruba folklore.

6. Finally, most really good musicians, dancers and other entertainers (male and female) usually traveled the country extensively to ply their trade. The best often spent most of their lives traveling and living away from home, sometimes as guests and clients of kings. Widespread traditions indicate quite strongly that alarinjo (traveling entertainment) groups were constant features of social life in all Yoruba cities. To the itinerant entertainers must be added masked entertainers (egungun), the best of whom usually traveled far from home. Some kingdoms were famous all over Yorubaland for their egungun. Egungun from parts of Ekiti are said to have been eagerly awaited annually (during the dry season) in even distant towns like Otta and others in the Awori and Egbado countries. Egungun from various towns in the Oyo country were usually the most numerous, most diversified in the types of their masks, offered the most varied entertainments, and were leaders in traversing the country from end to end. Igunu, the Nupe type of egungun, were also often drawn into Yoruba culture as regular entertainers in Yoruba towns, far from their own country on the banks of the Niger. Visual artists (especially sculptors) are treated as special national assets in Yoruba traditions. The best of them usually became widely famous, and usually lived their lives sojourning in town after town (as guests or under the patronage of kings, chiefs and priests), carving decorative posts, doors, and other pieces for palaces, shrines and famous lineage compounds. Some families of great sculptors remained nationally famous for generations.

All of the above was also generally true of some other types of artists and artisans — like the makers of beaded products (crowns and insignia), and the makers of bodily decorations (facial marks and body tattoos). In short, the Yoruba national community in the era of the kingdoms, cities and towns, commonly circulated its brightest and best. All these trends in the cultural, political and economic behavior of Yoruba people in the long era of the Yoruba kingdoms (eleventh to eighteenth century) were profoundly influential in molding the Yoruba nation into a strongly intermixed, and continually intermixing, people. They account for the fact that countless Yoruba towns and villages, as well as quarters, chieftaincies and significant lineages in practically every Yoruba town, are traceable to distant places of origin within the Yoruba homeland. And they played a great part in the molding of the remarkable homogeneity of Yoruba civilization, in the enrichment of Yoruba culture, and in the reinforcing and strengthening of Yoruba national consciousness.
7. Omitted.
8. Omitted.
9. 9 - The Kingdoms and the Economy: Part I
10. Omitted.

11. The Main Pillar: Peasant Farming

The civilization that ultimately produced the Yoruba kingdoms was developed over many hundreds of years by a farming people whose agricultural economy became progressively more efficient and more productive as a result of the growing sophistication of iron tools as well as increasing numbers of cultivated crops. Agriculture was the pillar of the economy before and after the creation of the Yoruba kingdoms. The emergence of the royal cities, as well as other major towns, as the kingdoms were springing up, widened opportunities in other occupations — like house building, government and military service, the arts, artisanship, entertainment, priestly occupations, health care and herbal occupations and, very importantly, commerce. But agriculture remained the employer of the vast majority of people in the Yoruba kingdoms.
12. The raising of livestock was not a significant feature of Yoruba farming. Unlike their northern neighbors (the Hausa and Fulani and others beyond the Niger), the typical Yoruba farmer did not rear herds of cattle or flocks of goats or sheep. In the extreme northwestern part of the Yoruba country, in the Oyo grassland, it was common for rich families to own some heads of cattle (and also goats and sheep), for the care of which they procured labor (as employees or slaves) from beyond the Niger. For the rest, the typical Yoruba livestock were goats and sheep — and birds like chickens, ducks, pigeons, and sometimes turkeys — all of which were raised free range around the home, and almost all of which were owned by the women. Most women owned one or two goats or sheep and a few birds, which they raised in their compound homes; some of the wealthier women had many, and frequently derived considerable income from sending a few to the marketplace for sale from time to time.
13. Urbanism

A active peasant-based urbanism evolved all over Yorubaland. Surrounding each city or town were farmlands spreading out for miles. Members of the predominantly peasant population of each urban center left home in the morning to work on their farms, and returned to their city or town in the late afternoon. On their farms they built the barns for preserving the harvest, and usually makeshift huts (called aba) where they cooked and sheltered from sun and rain while away on their farms. These were the daily farms called oko etile (neartown, or precinct, farms), which were normally not farther than five miles from the city. Of the farmers who owned precinct farms, a few would also have farms in the more distant forests near the ultimate boundaries of the land that belonged to their city. In such distant farm locations called oko egan (farms of the forests), there developed small outposts called abule consisting of small, fragile, family homes. Farmers could stay in the abule for many days; a few turned the abule into semi-permanent homes. Small towns or villages called ileto existed in every kingdom, but the pattern of life in them was the same as in the city — with family compounds, near-home farms and distant farms. Even in such villages, most residents would claim that their ultimate homes belonged in a lineage compound in the large local town or city. By and large, the ideal home for the Yoruba person came to be an apartment in a lineage compound in a city or town. Emotionally, and almost completely in fact, the Yoruba people, after the creation of their kingdoms and cities, became a nation of urban dwellers.
14. Krapf-Askari describes Yoruba towns and their farms as follows:

The classical plan of a Yoruba town resembles a wheel: the Oba’s palace being the hub, the town walls the rim, and the spokes a series of roads radiating out from the palace and linking the town to other centers. Beyond the walls lie the farmlands; first the oko etile or “farms of the outskirts”, then the oko egan or “bush farms”, merging imperceptibly with the oko egan of the next town.
15. Manufactures

The emergence and growth of many cities and towns in all parts of Yorubaland, and the consequent growing demands of an urbanizing people, stimulated manufacturing in general. In the process, regional specialization was also generated. Over time, the country looked to the towns of the Osun Valley for its best quality dyes,3 certain types of dyed cloth, and iron goods; to Ife, Ijebu, Ilesa and Ondo for iron products; to western Ekiti (especially Ogotun) and eastern Ijesa (especially Ipetu) for the best mats and raffia products; to the towns of the northern Oyo country for leather and the best quality leather goods; to certain Ekiti towns for different types of pots as well as certain types of cloth; to the Akure and Owo areas for the best cosmetic camwood and some types of cloth, to Ife for beads and beaded products.

16. Commerce

All the developments of the period added up to create enormous benefits for trade. The emergence of kingdoms, cities and towns opened up the country by developing and strengthening the channels of transportation and communication. Regional diversity in agricultural products, and the growth of regional specialization in manufactures, pushed up the volumes of internal trade. Generally increasing agricultural and industrial productivity generated increasing exports to places within and beyond Yorubaland. Increasing sophistication of economic demands consequent upon growing urbanization boosted the volume of imports from distant lands. The Yoruba became a great trading people, their women, especially, ranking among the best traders in Africa. Long-distance traders called alajapa began to rank among the elite. Every one of the Yoruba cities, with its king’s marketplace, became an emporium, generating, receiving, distributing and sending out merchandise on a large scale. In very distant parts of the West African region, Yoruba trading colonies emerged — as far north as the Hausa country beyond the River Niger and the Kanuri country on Lake Chad, and also far eastwards and westwards. Some Yoruba traditions even seem to suggest that Yoruba trading colonies might have existed as far west as the valley of the Senegal River and as far east as the lands of the Congo. Inside Yorubaland itself, Hausa and Nupe trading communities arose in most cities, and traders from even further north (especially Tuaregs from the Sahara) became frequent features of the trading population. So much regard was had for the Hausa and Nupe trading communities that Yoruba kings generally became their patrons, and many a king set aside space for them to live in or near his palace, close to the king’s marketplace. When increasing numbers of the Hausa traders came to be Muslims, Yoruba cities usually gave them land to build their mosques close to the marketplace — so they could observe their prayer breaks near their merchandise. In eastern and southern Yorubaland, Edo resident trading communities emerged in many towns.
17. - 19. Omitted.
20. The Yoruba marketplace, then, was typically a pleasant place, laid out in order so that merchandise of the same type was displayed side by side. Shade trees, planted in some order, provided both shelter and decoration. Traders built their own tents in accordance with specifications acceptable to the authorities (especially to the leaderships of the market associations), or used portable tents. Sellers and buyers alike paid careful attention to the preservation of law and order, even though their haggling usually generated a lot of noise. Commotion or disruption in a market place was, among all Yoruba, regarded as a terrible omen, and saying that a town’s marketplace broke down was equivalent to saying that the town itself broke down. Therefore, any breach of the peace in the marketplace was visited with very severe penalties and called for ritual sacrifices. The Yoruba marketplace was much more than a place of buying and selling; it was the heart of its community — a place which exercised powerful influence on the government, the place of some of society’s most powerful shrines and rituals, the place where young people found and courted their future spouses. Sellers of the same or similar merchandise formed a commodity association, with its own officers, rules, rituals and festivals. These market commodity associations were the richest, and among the most influential, associations in every Yoruba community. Between them, they established the site rules for the market place and bore most of the responsibility for maintaining law and order there. The president of each association, with the title of Iyalaje, was one of the most influential persons in society.

21. Rooted in a local market, but operating far and wide in order to serve it and other markets, there were two classes of big traders. The first, known as the alarobo, did business as gatherers of local produce from the producers, for wholesale distribution to retailers in local markets. The other, known as the alajapa, did business as long-distance traders all over the Yoruba homeland and beyond, taking the products of one part of the country to local retailers in other parts. Persons engaged in these levels of commerce were usually the richest in society, and commanded large trading establishments employing large numbers of porters. The alajapa usually became very knowledgeable about trading conditions in various parts of Yorubaland. Those of them who took trade beyond Yorubaland often became fluent in foreign languages.
22. The trade routes were paths trodden by humans (and, in some areas, horses) over many centuries. In accordance with ancient practices, each town cleared the sections of the paths that traversed its territory, the clearing being done on the days of certain festivals by the male population. According to Samuel Johnson, the paths in the Oyo area of northwestern Yorubaland were cleared twice a year — during the egungun and ayan (drum music) festivals. In the thick forests of the south (in the Ijebu, Egba, Ondo and Owo areas) clearing was done more often. Each kingdom was responsible for maintaining peace on the paths that went through its territory. Usually the paths were well maintained and protected. The authorities of kingdoms, towns and villages, had vested interests in ensuring good paths, since the best and safest paths attracted the most traders and trade. If there was some threat of danger on a road, the local authorities would usually send armed escorts to accompany the caravans. The English explorer, Clapperton, traveled on the road from Badagry on the coast to Oyo-Ile in 1825–6 and his general assessment was that the road was good and peaceful, and quite pleasant in some sections.12 Unfortunately, the transcriber of his notes had difficulty with the Yoruba place names, as a result of which some of the towns visited by him are now impossible to identify. Between a town named “Dagmoo” in his diary and the town of Ihumbo, Clapperton noted that the road surface was “rather uneven” and that the forest on either side of it was thick and impenetrable. Soon after, however, between “Atalaboloo” and Ilaro, the road lay “through fine plantations of yams” and was “nearly as level as a bowling green.” Between Ilaro and Ijanna, the road lay “through large plantations of corn and yams and fine avenues of trees” in some sections, and through “plantations of millet, yams, avalanches (sic), and Indian corn” in other sections. Between “Ega” and “Emado,” the road was “a long broad and beautiful avenue of the tallest trees.” Between “Washoo” and Saki, the road lay through a mountain pass that was “grand and imposing, sometimes rising almost perpendicularly, and then descending in the midst of rocks into dells, then winding beautifully round the side of a steep hill.” Of the towns that lay on Clapperton’s route, he noted of Eruwa that it was “large and very populous,” and of “Kooso” (Koso) that it was “a large walled town.” These western parts of Yorubaland had started to experience minor political troubles by the time of Clapperton’s 1825 visit. For instance, he wrote of one small town that it had suffered destruction and that its “gate and the ditch are now all that remain.” In spite of such political conditions, Clapperton met streams of traders on the road, all going about their business without trouble. He himself commented at a point that he had done sixty miles in eight days and changed carriers many times, and yet he had not had even the smallest thing stolen from him.
23. In 1855, A.C. Mann, a missionary based in Ijaye, traveled from Ijaye to Ilorin, passing through Ogbomoso and the ruins of the formerly great city of Ikoyi. In 1858, Hinderer traveled the road from Ibadan to Iwo, Ede, Osogbo, Ilesa, Ile-Ife and Apomu. And in the same year, the American Baptist missionary, T J. Bowen, and the English commercial traveler, Daniel May, traveled various roads that led to the Ijesa, Igbomina and Ekiti countries.14 It was during his travels in northern Ekiti that May met Esugbayibi building the town of Aiyede close to Isan. All of these travelers found that, in spite of wars in many places, the roads through Yorubaland were reasonably well maintained and safe, and carried a heavy traffic of traders.
24. - 28. Omitted.
29. To be continued.




Various Notes,
1. Added: Food Ideas, III. 12.
2. In A History of the Yoruba People, by Stephen Adebanji Akintoye, Akintoye suggests that going to the market is not only for buying things, but is also an opportunity for cultural exchange and socialization.
3. Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot, and Ferdydurke, by Witold Gombrowicz suggest that we think about ideas, simple or complex, and think of the beginning, middle, and end of the ideas, as well as people involved and key events.
4. "How to bake dog biscuits," is a great search term. So is the search term "homemade cat treats." I also searched for "Homemade dog food," and got good results.
A. I got the ideas for the first term after studying German vocabulary (Oxford Essential German Dictionary) and learning:
hund - dog
kuchen - cake
hundekuchen - dog biscuit




Thursday, December 21, 2023

A History of the Yoruba People, by Stephen Adebanji Akintoye,
1. 8 - The Politics of Kingdom Rule
2. The Yoruba kingdoms came into existence during the long period of about six or seven centuries starting in about the eleventh century. The present chapter will attempt to describe general trends and themes in their history, with the exception of the Oyo-Ile kingdom, in the period ending with 1800. From the sixteenth century, Oyo-Ile achieved such successes that set it above the general family of Yoruba kingdoms and made its history a significant chapter in the history of the Yoruba people. Consequently, a subsequent chapter will be devoted to the outstanding history of the Oyo-Ile kingdom.
3. The immediate, most visible, result of the creation of each kingdom was the emergence of the new king’s city, Ilualade, which we shall here call the royal city or royal town. In every kingdom, the royal city amalgamated the populations of the pre-existing settlements and the immigrant founders of the kingdom. The most important consequence of the amalgamation was the almost sudden rise of a town of considerable population. From about the eleventh century to about the eighteenth century, then, Yoruba people saw such significant centers of population springing up all over their homeland.
As soon as one of these cities arose, inhabitants of settlements in the neighboring forests tended to migrate into it and thereby quickly increase its population. Usually, most of these people came as single families or lineages; but sometimes whole settlements moved. The total effect of all this was that the Yoruba became increasingly an urban-dwelling people. Ultimately, they became the most urbanized people in the tropical African forests.
4. In most cases, it would seem, the creation of the royal city was effected by destroying the pre-existing settlements and massing all their population and that of the immigrants together in one area, just as had happened in the case of Ile-Ife. The founders of Ilesa destroyed many pre-existing settlements, and so did the founders of Owo through a long-drawn-out war. In Ijebu-Ode, however, Obanta and his followers simply took control of the place as they found it, and then began to build the structures of one common city — a palace, the king’s marketplace, and city walls. The founders of the Ado kingdom under Awamaro in Ekiti did much the same as Obanta. The old settlements here were stretched out around the foot of the Olota Rock. Awamaro left them where they were, and settled his immigrant followers as a continuation of the chain around the foot of the rock. Then he established a palace and the king’s market place, and began to build the city walls.
5. Thus, as would be remembered from an earlier chapter, the population of each royal city or town was made up of many distinct segments — many distinct old settlements each under its own ruler, and many distinct segments of the immigrant group, each under a sub-leader who accepted the leadership of the overall immigrant leader. In the new royal city or town, each of these segments settled as a quarter under its own leader as quarter chief, and they and their quarter chiefs acknowledged the over-all leader of the immigrant group as king.

6. Creating the Royal Government
7. From the above steps, there followed the formulation of the system of royal government in the royal cities — a process that was apparently made easy for most cities by the fact that the basic outlines of a Yoruba monarchical system had become generally familiar. The initial order of seniority among the quarter chiefs was based on various factors. In general, the leading chiefs of the largest quarters became, in principle, the most senior chiefs in the new kingdom. But in practice, almost in every kingdom, other factors influenced the order of seniority — such as how high the ancestry of the new quarter chief had been in the place from which the immigrant group came; whether the new quarter chief had been, in his own right, a famous person before joining the migration; and how personally close to the new king the new quarter chief was. If, subsequently, a migrant group arrived to join the king’s city, the King’s Council met to decide the appropriate slot in the whole system for the newly arriving immigrant leader. Over time, the King’s Council established lower chieftaincies for the streets of each quarter, to assist the quarter chief. A quarter chief could recommend to the king’s government the creation of such a lower chieftaincy, and also recommend the lineage to be vested with it.
8. The initial highest group of the quarter chiefs became the King’s Council (or Inner Council), and its membership usually numbered five (occasionally more, but hardly ever more than seven). In addition to providing leadership in their quarters, the members of the King’s Council met with the king daily in the palace (as the King-in-Council) to take all decisions affecting the kingdom.
9. The King-in-Council also served as the kingdom’s highest Court of Appeal. The king was prohibited from taking decisions of state outside this King-in-Council, but all its decisions were presented to the people as the king’s decisions.
10. The highest council of state bore different names in different kingdoms (Olori-Marun, Oyo Mesi, Ihare, etc.) but its composition and functions were roughly the same in all kingdoms. The composition of this council was deemed as perpetual; the chieftaincies included in it could not, usually, be removed, and the number of its members could not be increased or decreased without an exceptionally important decision of the council itself.
Below this highest level of government, there were other important councils on which the other quarter chiefs served. Each of these met in the palace also, not every day but each on its traditionally appointed day of the week. The “kings decisions” on any matter were reported first to these meetings as appropriate and, at this level, they would be discussed and the message could be sent up to the king to modify them.

11. When the “king’s decisions and orders” had been thus formulated and finally settled, they were communicated to the populace through well established channels. Usually, the simpler decisions and orders were announced to the people of the royal city through an official town crier who would go through the streets in the cool of the late evening, at short intervals strike a gong to attract attention, and then proclaim, “The king, the owner of the world, greets you all, and says so and so”. At the sound of the gong, the citizens would stop everything and listen, and when the announcement was completed, they would answer back from their homes, “May the king’s will be done.” Besides this occasional process, royal decisions and orders in general reached the citizenry through the detailed and powerful channels laid out in the system. Each quarter chief informed meetings of the lower chiefs and lineage heads of his quarter; each lower chief informed meetings of the people of his street; each lineage head informed the meeting of his lineage compound. The high chief who served as the official liaison between the royal government and the Baale (ruler or minor king) of a subordinate town or village informed the Baale, and the processes carried out in the royal city were then replicated in the subordinate town or village. All the chiefs and officials involved in these processes also bore the very important responsibility of seeing to the implementation of the king’s decisions and orders in their respective areas of authority.
12. In addition to serving on the various councils of state and as the executive in their various spheres of authority, most highly placed chiefs also bore some executive responsibility in the kingdom at large. The most senior member of the King’s Council served as Prime Minister and was regarded as second-in-command in the kingdom. Holders of other titles served in lower, but important positions — special friend of the king, liaison officer between the king and other organs of state, bearers of particular duties in the king’s installation ceremonies, overseer of the palace, overseer of the marketplace, officer in charge of particular city gates, keeper of the king’s regalia and crowns, officer in charge of the purse, etc. Of these various special functions, perhaps the most important was the selection of a new king. The monarchy was hereditary in the royal family, but, as earlier pointed out, all male members of that family (sons and grandsons of former kings) qualified to be selected as king. In general, the Yoruba people rejected the principle of primogeniture (automatic succession of a king by his oldest child) and even any succession of a king directly by his own biological son. In some kingdoms, this was carried so far that certain categories of a king’s offspring were totally excluded from selection as king. For instance, at different points in the history of the kingdoms, it came to be laid down in the Ado (Ekiti) kingdom that the Ewi’s first son (titled Abilagba) could never be selected as Ewi, and in the Oyo-Ile kingdom that the Alaafin’s first son (titled Aremo) could never be selected as Alaafin.
13. A small standing committee of the highest quarter chiefs served as the Council of Kingmakers. Selection by this body was always final, and any agitation after the selection was deemed an extremely high crime. While the Council of Kingmakers was still busy considering the candidates, however, its members could be lobbied by agents and supporters of the candidates and by other members of the public. But while the council was obliged to keep itself open to the currents of opinion in the public, it owed the very critical responsibility of not letting any citizen have any idea how its mind was working. Its members were forbidden, on oath, to divulge its information even to members of their own families. For this reason, its members would reject no candidate’s gifts — or, if the decision were to accept no gifts, would reject gifts from all candidates and their agents. The level of accountability and discipline expected of the Council of Kingmakers was very high. And once the selection was made, the chosen prince was handed immediately to the officials and priests responsible for the first steps in the process of installation. Usually, most members of the public might not even be aware a king had been chosen until the heavily ritualized installation process had gone some way.
14. Another small standing committee of high chiefs bore a responsibility that could occasionally be far from pleasant. the Yoruba system provided that a king could be removed if he habitually acted beyond the established controls on royal power, or if he made himself repulsive through greed, tyrannical tendencies or immorality. In such situations, a committee of the high chiefs existed to counsel, admonish or even rebuke the king in strict privacy. If the king would not mend his ways, the situation could develop to the point that this committee would bring the matter before the other councils of state as well as before the Ogboni (described in Chapter 4) — and the decision could be taken to remove the king. Once, however, a Yoruba man had been installed king, he could never revert to ordinary citizenship in his kingdom or in any other kingdom. Deposition or exile was therefore not an option. The small committee of chiefs would approach him respectfully and urge him to “go to sleep” because the duties of kingship had become too burdensome for him. In some kingdoms they would present him with a covered empty calabash, in others a parrot’s egg. All these symbols had only one meaning — the king was being asked to remove himself with dignity by committing suicide, and he would do so. Briefing the incoming king about all this (and instructing and equipping him for it) was part of the process of installation. Usually, the new king lived in a special compound outside the palace for a few months for such briefing as well as for important rituals, while the palace was being prepared to receive him.
15. All the chieftaincies touched upon above, from the very highest quarter chieftaincies to the lowest street chieftaincies, were, like the monarchy, hereditary in particular lineages. When the holder of any hereditary chieftaincy died, his lineage selected from among its members a suitable candidate for the king’s government to accept and install. Being suitable meant that the candidate enjoyed strong support of his lineage and was adjudged by the king and his council as deserving of the position and as an asset to the interests of the kingdom. The use of selection in the appointment of public officials (kings and chiefs) usually meant that each Yoruba kingdom or community was served by very capable persons. To earn selection as a chief, for instance, one had to be strongly acceptable to one’s lineage, be broadly respectable in the community, be a manifestly good manager of one’s own nuclear family, be a hard-working and achieving person. The selectors of kings looked for these same qualities in the princes, as well as for a modest yet princely bearing. In short, to be selected and inducted into the formal titled elite, the Yoruba person had to belong to an elite of character and personality.

16. Besides the hereditary titles, there were some titles that were not hereditary — like those of the war chiefs, commanders of the citizen armies in time of war. Usually, the king’s government appointed from the citizenry for these titles, men who had distinguished themselves in some way; an arrangement which usually produced very capable military commanders. Holders of military chieftaincies held their titles for life.
17. Over this whole system, the Yoruba king or Oba reigned in every kingdom of the Yoruba people, surrounded unceasingly by grandeur, pomp and ceremony. To his subjects, he was so high above all humans that it was prohibited to call him by his personal name; instead, he and the high chiefs chose an appropriate cognomen for him — some grand composition from the history or circumstance of their kingdom, or from their hopes for the new reign. In the various kingdoms and dialects, the Oba’s inexhaustible oriki included countless names — such as Ekeji Orisa (companion or lieutenant or likeness of the gods), Alaye (owner of the world), Alase (owner of all power or authority), Agbogbomojaekun (the all-powerful leopard that stalks the wicked and the lawless, and therefore the strength of the weak against the injustice of the strong), Iku (death — that kills, so that society, and order in society, may live), and Babayeye (father and mother — for every one of his subjects). He was too much like a god to visit any private home or to be seen ordinarily in the streets, and if his natural parents were alive, he must never set eyes on them. He must never step on any floor that had not been broom-swept that day, and he must drink or otherwise use only water that was freshly fetched from the springs that day. Those who fetched his water had to be unmarried young females, and they had to do so naked — and protected from meeting anybody on their way. Those who prepared his food did so under the strictest supervision. He must not be seen by anybody while he ate or drank. If he needed to drink when people were present, he must be screened off in the act. For his subjects, it was a great blessing to see their king on the few festivals when he ceremonially showed his person — adorned, on his throne, in gorgeous clothes, and wearing the beaded crown with the dangling beaded frills veiling his face. If he graciously spoke to the assembled crowd, no citizen would hear his voice; one of the high chiefs would echo his words. On a daily basis, even the highest chiefs greeted the Oba on their knees before the throne (even if he was not there), and any citizen passing by the gate of the palace paid respect on bended knees.
18. Universally, Yoruba people thought of the title of king as a title exclusively for men. In reality, however, many Yoruba kingdoms had women rulers in their history.
19. Most of what has been written in the above paragraphs concerns the commanding heights of the governmental system of the Yoruba kingdoms. However, it is important to note that, on the whole, governance involved the broad spectrum of the community — that is, that the system was considerably open and participatory. Thus, for instance, the political system featured, from the lowest to the highest levels, important, established, meetings. The primary level, or base, of the system, was the lineage in its compound. The lineage had many important corporate assets, interests and functions, for which general and special lineage meetings were held. There were all-member meetings to take decisions on the care, maintenance, improvement, or expansion of the lineage’s sprawling compound, the management of issues arising from members’ use of parts of the lineage farmland and the conditional admission of non-members thereto, the sharing of certain common goods (like the tolls paid by non-members for permission to use the lineage’s farmland), arrangements for weddings and funerals of members (and for participation in such events in other closely related lineages), arrangements for festivals and rituals, selection of the chief (if a chieftaincy title was domiciled in the lineage), reception and consideration of decisions and directives from higher levels of government. And then there were special leaders’ meetings for the settlement of disputes and quarrels, for trying cases of indiscipline and assigning punishment, for consultation of the oracles and carrying out of sacrifices for the welfare of the lineage, and for the disposal of a deceased member’s belongings. Beyond the lineage compound, the age-grade associations, of which all citizens were members, had appointed days for their all-member meetings — for the purpose of carrying out their duties to the community, and for mobilizing support for members during important events in their lives (and also for holding association feasts and festivals). Each chief of a street had appointed days for meetings with lineage heads in his street (and also held occasional meetings of all the people of his street) — mostly for the purpose of disseminating the decisions and directives of the king’s government, and for other matters affecting the street. For these types of purposes too, each quarter chief had appointed days of meetings with the street chiefs, and with the lineage heads, in his quarter. Over most important matters, it was established practice that the palace government consulted directly with leaders of lineages and age-grade associations, as well as with leaders of professional and trade associations — like the hunters’ association, market commodity associations, the diviners’ association, the herbalists’ association, the priestly leaders of all cults, etc. Very important also was the fact that, as would be remembered, every citizen was in a position to influence the selection of a prince as king, through contact with the Council of Kingmakers or its members. In every kingdom, there were days traditionally designated as days of town meetings, when citizens who cared to come would solemnly gather at the palace (always early in the morning) with the high chiefs (with the king in usually concealed attendance), hear their chiefs over important current issues, ask questions and express opinions. In every kingdom also, there were one or two special festival days in the year on which people paraded peacefully in crowds through the streets and openly voiced criticisms of their chiefs and king (and satirized them), usually in impromptu and crudely composed songs — without any intervention from the authorities and without any repercussions whatsoever. Also, in every Yoruba community, certain classes of persons (like musicians, singers, humorists, egungun masquerades, and certain categories of priests) enjoyed a near sacred freedom to voice their feelings or thoughts (whether serious or humorous) about kings, chiefs, prominent citizens, and everyone else.
20. On the whole, therefore, the typical system of government of a Yoruba kingdom had a considerably democratic character, and the Yoruba people in general were strongly established in the tradition of participation in the making of decisions that affected their lives in the community. At every level, (even on the occasions when ordinary citizens gathered for meetings with the chiefs in the palace), the system enshrined freedom of speech; in fact, at certain levels (such as in the lineage), it was regarded as a sacred duty of the leader to ensure that every component section of the lineage and every individual had a say before a decision was concluded — because every member was regarded as a chip of the ancestors. As for the women of the lineage (called obirin-ile — women married into the compound), no compound would take an important decision without involving and hearing its women. In fact, in certain matters (like weddings and some aspects of some festivals), leadership in the compound sometimes belonged more to the women than to the men. Lineages took meticulous care to involve their children in everything, and children’s celebrations were common in lineages. For their part, the age-grades operated in a tradition of very conscious respect for the opinions of members. In the affairs of age-grade associations, it was not uncommon for a well-attended meeting to decide to suspend decision on an issue if it was felt that absent members needed to be given a chance to voice their opinion. And if things were shared in a meeting, the association would go to great lengths to see that absent members received their shares, no matter how small the shares were. Participation in an age-grade’s community tasks was compulsory for all members, and members who were absent for reasons other than sickness had to make some payment to their association. The effect of all this on the individual was that he or she was usually confident to speak (and could be quite eloquent) as a member of the community, and was used to being respected by those who held positions of authority over him or her in the community. This, then, is the basic outline of the system of government under which Yoruba people lived in their many kingdoms until Europeans came and imposed foreign rule on Yorubaland. To complete the description, a number of facts need to be briefly noted. Although each kingdom gave its own unique institutional and functional interpretations to various details of the system, the governments of the kingdom’s were, in essence, remarkably similar. Chieftaincy titles, and the functions assigned to titles, might vary somewhat from kingdom to kingdom, but a Yoruba person traveling through, or relocating to, another part of the country knew broadly what to expect in terms of governance, the laws, and the functionaries of state. This served to a great extent to facilitate contacts, internal migrations and relocations, and broad intermixture and integration of Yoruba people throughout the Yoruba homeland.

21. The system was not without significant weaknesses, however. One of the most important weaknesses inhered in the system of selection of kings from members of the royal family. In spite of the Olympian solidity and responsibility presumed of the Council of Kingmakers, selection occasionally generated an open contest and dispute, with all that this implied. The laws made it a high crime to protest after the selection had been made, and that sometimes meant criminal trials and stiff punishments — including executions. But even though an aggrieved prince might not be able to protest (with his supporters) in the streets, he could cause other painful troubles for the state: he was free to emigrate, taking family, friends and sympathizers with him — usually a very sad event in the life of a royal town. The fear of provoking this painful outcome always weighed heavily with the Council of Kingmakers and made its members usually meticulously cautious and responsible; but sometimes, its very best performance proved insufficient to prevent this trouble. One cumulative consequence of all this was that interregnums or short-term disruptions were not unknown in the system. Similar problems also attended the selection of chiefs at lower levels of the system. Given the large number of chiefly positions in each kingdom, chieftaincy contests and disputes tended to be a rather frequent feature of the life of every city.
22. Another source of weakness was the provision for the removal of kings. Ordinarily, this provision was very infrequently invoked and, whenever invoked, usually passed quite quietly. But it was not unknown for kings who were urged to “go to sleep” (or who saw it coming) to slip out of the palace and flee into exile, and whenever that happened, it usually shut down the high functions of the monarchy — because then the royal funeral rites could not be performed, a new king could not be enthroned, and vacant chieftaincy titles could not be filled. In such a tight predicament, the high chiefs commonly fabricated legends (such as that the king turned into a great animal and went into the wild, or that he simply entered into the earth) — in order to calm the populace, and in order to manipulate the priests into agreeing to undertake alternative rituals. But the problem would usually not end with the installation of another king; the authorities of the kingdom would for long be engaged in efforts to ensure that the news of their self-exiled king would not seep back home. It could be a very destabilizing circumstance. And, therefore, it was quite common for self-exiled kings to be quietly invited back to their thrones.
23. Finally, the limited monarchy of the Yoruba presupposed a king who was well adjusted to, and respected, the systemic limitations placed on royal power, and the whole system was managed in ways that were designed to ensure this. For instance, it was for this reason that the Council of Kingmakers took care, ideally, not to select as king a prince who was powerful, rich or influential in his own right — for fear that their king might claim later that he had obtained the throne on his own strength. Consequently, the history of every kingdom is replete with stories of rich or influential princes who were passed over for their humbler brothers or cousins. Many details in the installation rituals, and the intensive briefing of the new king in a special compound for some months before being taken to the palace, were designed to communicate and inculcate the true nature of the kingship. So too were many seasonal and annual rituals, including the ritualized recounting of the kingdoms history during certain festivals. In spite of all this sophisticated structuring, however, and in spite of all the grandeur attending to kings, it sometimes happened that a kingdom would find itself with a king who exhibited inappropriate ambition or troublesome independence — a king who thereby brought stress upon the whole system by threatening the balances crucial to its stability. Also, though much more rarely, Yoruba traditions tell of chiefs below the level of king who became ambitious and aggressive, and sought to readjust the systemic balances in favor of their particular chieftaincies — thus setting off unhealthy rivalry or conflicts among chiefly lineages. Whenever any of these situations developed, the monarchical system experienced troubles and even instability.
24. Religion and the State
As had been the case in the small ancient settlements before Oduduwa’s time, the governance of every Yoruba kingdom was deeply rooted in religion. The king was, as earlier pointed out, a “companion of the gods.” Every act, function or affair of state was anchored on the gods of the nation. The annual calendar of every kingdom was marked with many days of public festivals, holidays and feasts for the gods, some such festivals occasioning mammoth public celebrations usually centered on the palace. Shrines, large or small, stood at significant locations in every town or village — at town gates, at many locations in the palace, at the market place, and in every quarter. Besides such public shrines, every lineage compound had a small shrine of its own, at which the leader and elders of the lineage performed rituals and offered sacrifices to the gods and the ancestors for the welfare of the lineage.
25. The Yoruba king was a sacred king. His selection, installation and daily life as king were all shrouded in religious mystery, rituals, observances and sacrifices. The installation of a newly selected king involved a round of rituals at many shrines (located not only in the royal city but also in some towns and villages in his kingdom), as well as initiation into various mysteries. When the process was completed, the king emerged from it a sacred being. Therefore, for any citizen to touch the person of a king (not to talk of striking him) was ultimate sacrilege. Typically, there were, in the year, only a very few days in which some sacrifices were not offered in the palace to one or more of the hundreds of gods worshipped by the Yoruba people. The king was the highest priest of the kingdom, and all the high priests of all the cults were, in principle, his assistants. Unlike all other persons, he was supposed to be a priest in the worship and rituals of all gods in his realm. The cult of Ogun (the god of all working men, of iron, and of war) was the special royal cult to which the king paid more attention than he did to other cults. In the Oyo-Ile kingdom, however, the cult of Sango (the god of thunder and lightning) early developed as another, and somewhat higher, royal cult. For the welfare of his kingdom, the king bore the important duty of regularly seeking counsel from Ifa, the god of divination, and of offering prescribed sacrifices to the other gods. The king’s highly ritualized burial and the location of his grave were perhaps the most closely guarded secrets of every kingdom.

26. The Yoruba were very sophisticated in the use of symbols and icons to express deep and powerful statements, and everything around the king conveyed profound messages. Thus, every significant detail of the palace building — the carvings of the wooden pillars and doors, the murals on the walls, etc. — all were iconographic statements relating to aspects of the origins of the kingdom, the Oduduwa source of its royal dynasty, the all-pervading oversight and care of the gods, the perpetual presence of the kings who had ruled in the palace, and the visible and invisible powers or authority of the king.
27. The crown therefore was no ordinary ceremonial head covering, but the object holding in itself the unification of the life forces (ase or power) of the progenitor of the Yoruba nation, and the royal ancestors of the reigning king. When, therefore, the crown was put on the king’s head, his life force was added to the powerful combination of life forces inherent in the crown — thus making it a sacred object with unimaginable visible and invisible powers, the visible totemic image of the invisible essence, power and authority of the kingdom. For this reason, the Yoruba regarded the king’s crown as an orisa or deity. The conical crown usually had a beaded figure of a bird on its top, and sometimes other smaller birds (usually numbering from four to sixteen) attached to the sides near the top. Pemberton and Afolayan (writing specifically about the crown of the Orangun of Ila) wrote as follows:
Henry and Margaret Drewal have shown in their studies of bird imagery in Yoruba iconography that birds are associated with the power ... of women or “our mothers” ... It is their hidden, procreative power, a power that can give birth but can also be used to deny others their creative power. It is woman’s power upon which the continuity of a husband’s patrilineage depends. And ... “without the mothers” (a king) “could not rule”. Furthermore, the large bird at the peak of the crown is attached to a peg the other end of which is bound to a packet of powerful ingredients ... placed in the top of the crown ... The packet touches the top of the Oba’s head ... which is thought to contain (his) life force ... It makes the Oba powerful over all kinds of spirits ...
28. If the Oba left the palace (only on festival or ritual processions), he was surrounded by his entourage (made up of his chiefs and priests and servants) and was barely visible to his other subjects. Nobody must walk to meet him and his entourage; all must stand by the roadside, and those who wished to join his entourage could only do so after he had passed them by. The king must not witness the birth of a child, and he must not see a baby who had not yet had its birth hair shaved — the hair on the head of a newborn baby came from the spirit realm, and this property of the spirit realm must not encounter the spirit of the king. Also, the Oba must not see or touch a dead body or see a grave dug for burial; a corpse was a threat to the king’s life-giving power.
29. The King’s Palace
Usually the first public facility constructed in every royal city was the palace. For this, an effort was usually made to find a distinctive location, normally a low hill around which the new city could evolve.
30. In every kingdom, therefore, the palace buildings tended to grow into a sprawling establishment with many, and ever increasing, halls and courtyards. In most palaces, the oldest buildings became, in a few centuries, no more than a museum or curiosity, visited only on certain festivals and rituals by persons in the innermost circles of government. Somewhere in some deep recesses of the palace grounds, the bodies of deceased kings were buried. However, the popular myth, propagated by the highest chiefs and priests, was that kings never died but turned to rocks or other objects or simply entered into the earth. Partly for this reason, partly to preserve the awe attaching to the king, cultivation of any part of the palace grounds was strictly forbidden in every kingdom — forbidden even to the king himself. In many kingdoms, the palace forest was known as igbo-orunkoja (“the forest through which even ants may not crawl”) or some other such fearsome name.

31. City Walls
The typical Yoruba city wall, calledyara or odi, was a combination of trench and earthworks. The deeper and wider the trench, the higher were the earthworks. Against the weapons employed in warfare in their times, the Yoruba city walls provided a reasonably formidable defense. The invader must first climb to the top of the outside earthworks, then drop to the bottom of the trench, and then attempt to climb up the perpendicular wall of the trench, with the inner earthworks still waiting for him to scale on the inner top of the trench. The trenches were usually some fifteen feet deep, the better ones being considerably deeper, and, in most cities, much more than twenty feet wide at the top, with the earthworks heaped on both sides, higher on the inside than on the outside. Nature usually helped to increase the efficacy of these walls. Good rainy seasons left considerable depths of water at the bottom of most trenches, making a descent into them very dangerous. A stretch of thick vegetation was usually planted, or allowed to grow, on the outside of the wall, to make an approach to the outside earthworks difficult. Gates, called bode, punctuated the wall system, each gate secured with a guard post under the command of a palace official with the title of Onibode, some of whose staff also collected the customs and tolls on merchandise. Some of the highest chiefs acted as superintendents over particular gates. Most walls enclosed considerable acreages of farmland with their cities, as a sort of reserve for times of prolonged emergencies.
32. Besides the Oyo-Ile walls (which will be described in another chapter), the greatest city walls in the country seem to have belonged to Ijebu-Ode, Owo, Ilesa and Owu-Ipole. The total destruction of Owu-Ipole in 1822 makes a description of that city and its walls impossible; but Yoruba traditions speak of that city and its defenses as truly magnificent. According to Owo traditions, Owo embarked, under Osogboye in the early seventeenth century, on the construction of very mighty city walls. The end product was widely regarded as one of the greatest in Yorubaland. Of the Ilesa city walls, we have some midnineteenth century descriptions by a literate visitor — William H. Clarke, who traveled extensively in Yorubaland in 1857–8 and spent three days in Ilesa. His assessment was that Ilesa surpassed Ilorin in size, population, and in the strength of its defenses. Of Ilesa’s defenses he wrote: “Four or five miles from the town, my attention was drawn to three separate ditches ten feet wide, cut through the woods and running, how far I could not tell.”9 The missionary David Hinderer visited Ilesa about the same time and described it as one of the larger towns of the country, in extent perhaps next to Ibadan.... The walls are at least fifteen feet high and no less than six feet thick, with a trench around it of about twenty feet in depth, whereas inside there are high trees close to it all at a distance of about ten yards one from the other, so that a scaffolding can be erected between their branches to defend the walls from it. Hundreds of human skulls are tempered into these walls; at the north gate I counted upwards of a hundred, all of which are of war captives.
33. Most other royal towns of Ekiti had similarly fortunate locations owing to the hilly nature of the Ekiti country. Ijero, Ikere, Ara and Ido perched partly on the slopes of hills, and Effon and Imesi-Igboodo (now Okemesi) on top of steep-sided hills. The Olosunta Hill and rock provided a near perfect defense for much of the city of Ikere. “The hills,” says an Ekiti proverb, “make the Alaaye (king of Effon) defy all invasions.” Even these, as well as most other Ekiti towns, had some wall systems. In the Ekiti, Akoko, Igbomina and other hilly areas of Yorubaland, some towns arranged large rocks to form balustrades and ramparts serving as walls.
34. The King’s Marketplace
The creation of a king’s marketplace or oja-oba was one of the most important developments in every new royal city. Trade was very important to the Yoruba people, and the kings took seriously the provision of facilities for its proper running. As soon as the building of the palace commenced, therefore, an area in its foreground, a short distance beyond the palace gate, was cleared and measured out for the king’s marketplace. A marketplace close to the palace, usually located just outside its front walls, became an unalterable attribute of the Yoruba royal city or town.
35. The king himself was the grand patron of the marketplace, although one of the chiefs would traditionally stand in for him as master in charge. Palace messengers laid out the marketplace to the satisfaction of the traders themselves, ensuring that vendors of each particular article of merchandise had one area (called iso) allocated to them. While the traders constructed their sheds and the facilities for spreading out their wares, palace messengers planted shade trees, needed to prevent excessive heat in the marketplace and also to provide some decoration. When the marketplace became functional, senior palace messengers did patrol duties in it as peace officers and also collected tolls authorized by the king’s government. The sellers of each article usually formed a market commodity association — of which the king was usually patron, even though each association would also appoint other citizens as additional patrons. In short, then, the influence of the king pervaded the marketplace. In fact, the creation of the king’s market place was a major item in his establishment of sovereignty over his new kingdom. The king’s marketplace was a special and symbolic banner of royal sovereignty; therefore, whenever it was time for the authorities to announce the death of a king, they would order the symbolic act of having the tops of the shade trees of the king’s marketplace trimmed.

36. Photo: Market scene, Ibadan. Photo:R. Mauny, 1949, IFAN.
37. Subordinate Towns and Villages
Many kingdoms never expanded their sovereignty beyond the royal city and its farmland. All of the Akoko and Ikale kingdoms, some of the Ekiti, Ijesa and Egbado kingdoms, and most of the far western Yoruba kingdoms stagnated in their royal cities.
Of the rest, some acquired only a few towns and villages, while others acquired quite considerable territory with many towns and villages in it. The Ekiti kingdoms were generally small territorially, the three largest ones being Ado, Akure, and Moba (with Otun as capital). During the first two or three centuries of the history of the Ado kingdom, it gradually expanded the territory under its control until it came to rule over twenty subordinate towns in a kingdom stretching from northwest to southeast for some sixty miles, the largest kingdom in Ekiti. The Owo kingdom was somewhat larger than that, consisting of forest territory more than seventy miles in length from north to south with more than twenty towns. The Ilesa kingdom quickly became the largest Ijesa kingdom, while the Olowu’s kingdom dwarfed the other kingdoms of the Owu. The Osemowe of Ondo ruled over a large forest kingdom extending all the way from the Oni River in the north to boundaries with the Ikale and Ilaje in the coastal lagoon country, and from the Owena River in the east to indefinite forest boundaries with the Ijebu in the west, certainly one of the largest kingdoms in Yorubaland.
38. Subordinate towns and villages were known as ereko — that is, settlements of the farmlands. Usually, a subordinate town or village retained the line of rulers it had had before coming under the authority of the city. In some cases, however the city authorities placed their own nominee over an ereko town or village, usually in instances where some vital interest (like an important road junction) required special control.
39. All this must be seen against the backdrop of a national culture in which reference to Ife’s name was a constant, unavoidable, factor in all worship, all rituals and all divination. Moreover, Yoruba and Benin traditions have it that whenever a Yoruba kingdom or the Benin kingdom enthroned a new king, envoys were sent to the palace of Ife to inform the Ooni that “a new sun had arisen” over their kingdom, and that the Ooni would then send gifts back to the new king as a token of his pleasure.
40. Among the many things which the King Dom Joao learnt from the ambassador of the King of Beni, and also Afonso de Aveiro, of what they had been told by the inhabitants of those regions, was that to the east of the King of Beni at twenty moons’ journey — which according to their account and the slow pace at which they travel, would be about two hundred and fifty of our leagues — there lived the most powerful monarch of those parts whom they called Ogane.

41. Among the pagan princes of the territories of Beni he was held in a great veneration, as are the Supreme Pontiffs with us. In accordance with a very ancient custom, the Kings of Beni, on ascending the throne, sent ambassadors to him with rich gifts to inform him that by the decease of their predecessor they had succeeded to the Kingdom of Beni, and to request him to confirm them in the same.
42. In short then, by the fifteenth century, Ife’s control of almost all the trade of Yorubaland was beginning to unravel, while Nupe incursions into Ijesa threatened the kingdom. All this compelled Ife to invest in large, prolonged, military ventures, a step which it had never had to take in all the centuries since the fight against Igbo-Igbo in the eleventh century. The military ventures appear to have been successful in the short run. Benin avoided a direct clash with Ife by shifting its operations largely eastwards where, to some extent in Akoko and on a large scale in Afenmai (called Kukuruku by the Nupe), Benin forces came into heavy clashes with the Nupe. The armies of Ilesa also repulsed the Nupe in Ijesa.
43. Brothers against Brothers
Another face of the relationships among Yoruba kingdoms, however, featured conflicts and wars. In spite of the undoubted acceptance by all Yoruba kings of the brotherhood of all of them, differences in success, prosperity and power led, in the end, to territorial and other ambitions that produced conflicts. Ultimately, the general picture came to be that a successful and ambitious kingdom tended to aspire to dominance over kingdoms in its own subgroup — that is, to unify the subgroup into just one kingdom. In a number of cases, indeed, very successful kingdoms aspired to even greater expansion than that, into Yoruba territories beyond their own subgroup territory.
44. The Ijesa kingdom of Ilesa, as would be remembered, embarked on a career of conquests even before it had fully established itself in the eleventh or twelfth century. It became, early in its history, a meeting point of very important trade routes, and grew to become one of the most powerful kingdoms in Yorubaland. Local wars feature strongly in the traditions of this kingdom, wars against the other kingdoms of the Ijesa country. These wars appear to have resulted in the splitting up of some Ijesa royal towns like Imesi and Otan. A section of Imesi migrated up the hills into the Ekiti country and founded the Ekiti kingdom of Imesi-Igboodo (now Okemesi), and a section of Otan moved northeastwards and founded Otan-Koto (now Otan Aiyegbaju). Igbajo was the most fortunate of these other Ijesa kingdoms. Secure on top of a hill, it was able to resist Ilesa. The power of the Ilesa kingdom reached its peak in the late seventeenth century in the reign of Atakunmosa, reputed to be the greatest warrior king of the later eras of Ilesa history. On the whole, although the Ilesa kingdom did not achieve its ambition of making its Owa the ruler of all the Ijesa, it did make the Owa the highly exalted senior brother among the Ijesa kings. The Ilesa kingdom also brought pressure to bear on kingdoms of western Ekiti, notably Ogotun and Effon, in the seventeenth century. Effon’s location on the hills made repeated aggressions against it futile; but Ogotun appears to have become tributary to Ilesa for some brief period.
45. In the Ondo forests, the kingdom of Epe, for reasons that remain unclear, remained small, poor and stagnant. The Idanre kingdom was largely isolated because of its hill location, but derived considerable wealth from the trade that flowed through the ancient paths in the valley below its hills. It is not known whether this kingdom ever developed territorial ambitions or some military power. The Osemowe’s kingdom of Ode-Ondo, therefore, controlled almost all the Ondo forests. It became a fairly rich trading and military power, taking advantage especially of trade with the Ikale and Ilaje on the coastal lagoons, and with the Ijebu to the west and southwest, the Owo to the east, and the Ife to the north.

46. To be continued.




Wednesday, December 20, 2023

A History of the Yoruba People, by Stephen Adebanji Akintoye,
1. Like all status ritualistic objects connected with the monarch, the brass sculptures were produced in secluded workshops and facilities. Each was produced during the lifetime of the Ooni whose head was being represented in brass or bronze, and it was most probably meant to be an exact portrait of him — accomplished through the lost-wax method of metal casting.
2. The production of these sculptures went on for about five centuries and then came to a more or less abrupt end in the fifteenth century. For five centuries, the sculptures had been a very important component of the symbolism of the Ooni’s royal majesty. What seems to have happened is that, as the economic foundations of Ife’s greatness eroded during the fifteenth century, much of the political greatness came to be lost, and economic and political realities brought some symbols of the Ooni’s power and pageantry, such as the naturalistic brass representations of royalty, to an end.
3. The above naturalistic sculptures in brass or bronze for royal purposes were only part of a very rich and vibrant artistic culture in the kingdom of Ife, and in Yorubaland in general, in the centuries beginning with Oduduwa’s time. The quality of wood scultures improved continually. Brass and bronze were also used in the making of accessories like bangles for ankles (ide ese), wrists (ide owo), and necks (egba orun), and for various ritual or decorative objects like stools, staffs, bells, vessels, and ceremonial or official rods. Silver also came into use - in accessories like bangles and rings, as well as in some decorative items for lineage compounds and palaces.
4. In addition to many impressive sculptural products in wood, clay, brass/ bronze, and iron, this period in Ife and Yoruba history also produced many important stone products — in stone carvings and stelae for shrines, and in human figures, many of which are naturalistic. Of all the stone works done in Ife, the most famous is the sculpture known as Opa Oranmiyan (Staff of Oranmiyan), which is located in a small shrine in the heart of Ile-Ife. Opa Oranmiyan is a shaft made of granite, standing over eighteen feet high (with an estimated one foot buried in the ground), and having iron nails studded in a curious pattern along its whole height. This stone sculpture was most probably produced to commemorate some important event in Ife’s history, while its pattern of nail studs must also have had some symbolic meaning; unfortunately, both meanings are unknown to us today.
5. Because these sculptures, as naturalistic art, stand far above and beyond any other found in tropical Africa, there has been much debate concerning them. Frobenius expressed the opinion that, since no indigenous African civilization could have produced this level of naturalistic art, it must be that “a race far superior to the Negro had settled here.” Such opinions persisted for decades, for quite understandable reasons. First, it seemed as if the tradition of brass or bronze casting was unknown in the modern city of Ile-Ife. Secondly, it seemed that similar art traditions did not exist in the region to which Ile-Ife belongs, including all the rest of Yorubaland. In short, then, the naturalistic sculptural art of ancient Ile-Ife seemed like an isolated occurrence in the history of the region, an isolation that thus raised legitimate doubts about its indigenous origins. However, in the course of the twentieth century, most of the supposed isolation disappeared. Some survivals of the brass/bronze sculptural tradition have been discovered in modern Ile-Ife; and evidence has come to light that the art tradition existed in many other places in Yorubaland (for instance in Owo, and in Obo-Aiyegunle in northern Ekiti, in Ijebu-Ode, etc). By the late twentieth century, therefore, there was no serious doubt left that the Yoruba people were in fact the creators of this naturalistic art tradition that ranks easily with the best in the history of the world.

6. Kings and Reigns
7. It is against the general background described above, then, that the reigns of Ife kings from the eleventh century to the fifteenth century must be viewed. By and large, it was a long period of economic growth and political stability, punctuated by comparatively minor political troubles and short periods of drought and famine. Historical interpretations that see apparent intrusions into the royal line as proof of violent political disturbances most probably exaggerate.
7. Finally, from looking at the names of the kings as well as some versions of the traditions, some historians have come to the conclusion that the pre-Oduduwa ruling families must have somehow made their way to the throne of Ile-Ife at certain times in the years after Oduduwa. Such an occurrence is not necessarily improbable. However, since we do not have definitive information to this effect, we need to look also at other possibilities. For instance, intermarriages among the leading families must have been common. Intermarriages would produce situations in which the pre-Oduduwa ruling families would have members born into the royal family. In the contest for the selection of king, an influential family would normally support the princely candidate close to itself by blood - and the victory of such a candidate could be couched in the traditions as the victory of the influential family that pushed his candidature. Also, intermarriages could have resulted in the interposition of typical family names - so that some royal princes could bear names drawn from their maternal ancestry. We do not know for sure whether either of these things happened at any point, but the possibility of either needs to be borne in mind.
8. Oduduwa was succeeded by a man identified in the traditions as his son. However, the picture at this point is not too clear. Whoever succeeded him was, of course, officially his son; but the traditions are so complicated that this successor may have been his biological son or grandson, a close relative of his, one of his most loyal followers, or even one of his closest adherents from among the leading families of the pre-Oduduwa settlements. Some traditions name this successor as Ogun, but the name by which he has come down most clearly is Obalufon Ogbogbodinrin (probably Obalufon, follower, or maker, of the straight path) Obalufon Ogbogbodinrin is said to have been a very impressive personality. His subjects said of him that he shone like a large sun in the sky; hence, his other cognomen Osangangan-Obamokin (roughly, “the great sunlight that illuminates the earth at the height of day”). All traditions agree that his reign was long, and that it was peaceful most of the way. Towards the end of his life, he seems to have done something (or some things) that caused trouble with some sections of the kingdom’s leadership. Whatever the problem was, it spilled into the reign of his son and successor, Obalufon Alayemore. By then, the dissidents had grown so strong that the king himself died fighting them. Alayemore’s son or younger brother, Obalufon Ejigimogun, who was crowned after him, plunged straight into the same trouble.
9. At this point, there appeared on the scene one of the greatest, one of the most enigmatic, characters in the early history of the Ife kingdom, Oranmiyan. One of the youngest grandsons of Oduduwa, Oranmiyan was probably the foremost warrior prince and adventurer that the Ife kingdom ever produced. According to many traditions, after prolonged adventures that took him to Benin in the southeast and to the Niger Valley in the northwest, he returned to Ile-Ife, welcomed back by all as Akinlogun (hero in battle). Finding the king, Obalufon Ejigimogun, confronted by strong opponents led by a personage named Orisateko, he intervened, crushed Orisateko and his followers, drove Ejigimogun into exile, and accepted the throne. His intervention brought the troubles to a complete end. His reign was peaceful and long, lasting seventy years according to some traditions.
10. The tradition, made popular by Samuel Johnson in his The History of the Yorubas, of a radical change of the royal line from Oduduwa’s descendants to some older Ife family, probably derives from the traditions relating to this period.

11. Some traditions indicate that a woman Ooni reigned during this time. The political picture of this period is so cloudy, however, that a clear statement of its happenings and developments is extremely difficult. On the whole, what we seem to have here is a period characterized by frequent and tortuous succession disputes. The chosen system of selection of a king was still in its infancy, and it was prone to pitfalls, interferences and dissonance. Stories of seizures of power and change in the line of succession fit temptingly easily into the picture, but none of them are easy to authenticate. In the final analysis, the clearest feature in the picture is that the kingdom of Ife, in these its apparently stormy early years, continued to move forward as one kingdom, continued to grow in economic and cultural prosperity at home, and continued to rise in luminance, adoration and influence in the rest of Yorubaland.
12. Meanwhile, the system of government of the Ife kingdom evolved slowly but surely. About the ultimate form of that government, more will be said in another chapter. In the kingdom of Ife, the final outlines of the monarchical government of the Yoruba people were developed in the first few centuries after Oduduwa.
13. The Ife kingdom gradually became the exalted leader of the world around, not by the use of arms, but by the influence of its commerce and the expansion of its enormous cultural heritage. As the other Yoruba kingdoms emerged, each of them acknowledged Ife as head, and looked up to Ife as source of life and light rather than as a rival.
14. 6 - Traditions of Kingdom Founders
15. It is known that in other parts of Yorubaland, the following are also mentioned among the earliest kingdoms founded by princes from Ife: the Ilesa kingdom founded by Ajibogun (also known as Obokun), the Ijebu-Ode kingdom founded by Obanta, the Owo kingdom founded by Ojugbelu (and his son Imade), the Ado kingdom in Ekiti founded by Awamaro, some other Ekiti kingdoms, the Ode-Ondo kingdom founded by the Osemowe, and others.
16. Causes of the Migrations
17. All this raises the question: Why did people go out on these kingdom-founding adventures? What factors or incentives were at work in Yoruba society that made so many prominent persons leave their homes to go and found kingdoms and that made many ordinary folks go with them into largely unknown forests?
The Ife palace traditions quoted above present the earliest kingdom founders as only loyally responding to the expressed desire of their great progenitor. However, some verses of Odu Ifa offer a purely economic explanation. According to those verses, the Ife kingdom, very early in its history, suffered a severe famine caused by a long drought. The famine was made the more devastating by the fact that the city was overpopulated. The rulers of the kingdom therefore sought counsel from the Ifa oracle and, through a priest named Agirilogbon (a resident of Ita Asin in Ile-Ife), the oracle counseled that some of the people of Ile-Ife should migrate to other parts of the country. The rulers accepted the counsel and embarked on encouraging the Ile-Ife citizens, led by their princes, to go out and found new kingdoms like the Ife kingdom.
18. This tradition would, therefore, make Ketu the oldest existing kingdom established in other parts of Yorubaland by persons from Ife.
19. Reminds me of the cultural and intellectual contributions that I have personally made to American society.
20. Concerning this, some historians have, rightly, counseled caution in our acceptance of the traditions of the origins of Yoruba ruling dynasties, pointing out that, in particular, probably many of the traditions of origin from Ife are open to question or even doubt. Yet there is a sense in which all Yoruba kingdoms can be said to originate in Oduduwa and Ife. Oduduwa and Ife gave the Yoruba people their first kingdom, elaborated the structure of their type of kingdom, and pointed all of the Yoruba people in the direction to this higher level of political existence.

21. No decline in the fortunes of the Ife kingdom itself seems to have been enough to shake this belief. For instance, at the time that Samuel Johnson made our first written collection of the traditions in the last decades of the nineteenth century, there was no incentive for any Yoruba kingdom to claim an Ife origin for its ruling dynasty. Ife was in ruins (for the second time in about three decades), its badly shrunken population was camped in a small farm village called Isoya, the site of the ancient city itself was covered by thick bush, and there was not even a king over Ife (the man selected as Ooni remained uncrowned in exile some forty miles to the south, in the village of Oke-Igbo in the Ondo country).
22. In spite of this situation, the strongest and proudest states of the Yoruba people of the time unhesitatingly, and with all gravity, recounted to Johnson and other writers the traditions of the coming of Yoruba dynasties from Ife. Obviously, the most that we can say about this subject is that our knowledge of this important development in Yoruba history — the processes of the emergence of the Yoruba kingdoms and the growth of the powerful belief in Ife and Oduduwa as the source and springhead of Yoruba kings — is still limited.
23. Ways and Means of the Kingdom Founders
24. The end result was always a new community, the beginning of an Ile-Ife type of city. At its beginning, the new community always comprised many clearly defined groups. First, there was each of the old settlements led by its own ruler. The immigrant group too consisted of segments. The overall immigrant leader had his own personal following (his family and relatives and other persons directly attached to him). Then there were prominent men who had agreed to come with him, each bringing a group comprising his own personal following (family, relatives and persons directly attached to them).
25. The Kingdoms of Yorubaland

26. The other considerable kingdom in the Ife forests was Ifewara, a short distance to the southeast. Ifewara was founded, as would be remembered, probably about one century after the foundation of Ife, by a prince, Olojo Agbele, who migrated from Ile-Ife after being rejected for the Ife throne. Olojo Agbele came with his large following to a group of old settlements, and these were glad to receive him as their king.
27. Not much is known about the pre-nineteenth century history of the Ilaje. The nature of their country made large centers of population impossible. But it does not seem to have made the concept of kingdom, of a group of settlements owing allegiance to a king, impossible. During the centuries marked by the creation of kingdoms in Yorubaland, the coastal spread of Ilaje settlements appears to have gradually come to recognize two kingdoms — an eastern kingdom with its royal center at the small old settlement of Ugbo ruled by the Olugbo, and a western kingdom with its royal center at another small settlement called Mahin ruled by the Omopetu. Roughly, the eastern Ilaje villages accepted the Olugbo as their king, and the western Ilaje villages acknowledged the Omopetu as their king.
28. The details of the process that resulted in the emergence of these two kingdoms are obscure. Like all the other peoples living in the lagoons, the Ilaje were principally a fishing people living in small, mostly remote, settlements. Their traditions, and even surviving practices, indicate that these settlements were shrouded in spiritual rituals based on the worship of various traditional Yoruba gods and water spirits. These deities and spirits mediated disputes on conflicting claims over fishing rights and enforced high standards of probity.
29. According to the Ondo palace traditions, a royal wife in Oduduwa’s palace in Ife had twins, one female and one male. Since having twins was regarded with horror or fear in those early days among the Yoruba, the woman was driven from the town with her twin babies.
30. The Extreme Northeastern Subgroups

31. The Northern Kingdoms
32. The country of the Ibolo, sandwiched between the Igbomina and Oyo countries, is small. The Ibolo and their much larger Igbomina neighbors were so closely related in their history that some Igbomina traditions regard the Ibolo as a branch of Igbomina. A number of kingdoms were founded in the Ibolo country — Offa, Ikirun, Okuku and others. Of these, the most prominent in history was Offa. Offa traditions trace the origin of the founder of the kingdom to the Oyo country. The Offa kingdom takes great pride in its peacock (or okin) symbol (for which reason Offa people are known as “omo-olokin”), and the Offa people are reputed among all Yoruba people for their passion for wrestling — hence the saying, “Ijakadi l’oro Offa” (“wrestling is Offa’s favorite festival”). According to Okuku traditions, the founder of the Okuku kingdom was a prince of the Ara kingdom in Ekiti who emigrated in protest after he was passed over in a selection to the Ara throne.
33. To be continued.
34. Omitted.




Various Notes,
1. Curry seasoning, added to Perdue Chicken Strips, with Minute Rice on the side, tastes great -- Curry Chicken!
Added to Food Ideas, III. 3.
2. Tba.




Tuesday, December 19, 2023

A History of the Yoruba People, by Stephen Adebanji Akintoye
1. Yoruba people also began, after the coming of iron, to produce individuals who practiced art as a profession. The earliest sculptures would seem to have been done in terra cotta (that is clay) — almost certainly a development from the profession of pottery. The earliest carvings, made possible by iron tools, were presumably in wood — most of it, probably, for the decoration of houses and shrines. By the later parts of the first century AD, sculpture in stone appears to have become well developed also — as well as sculpture in metals, especially cast or wrought iron. Most of the growing sculptural art was devoted to the worship of gods and spirits and the celebration of rulers, leaders and heroes. A fuller attention will be given to this subject of the development of early Yoruba art in the next chapter dealing with the early history of Ife.
2. The improvement of tools and skills enabled the Yoruba farmer to incorporate more and more crops into his farming. At some point in this long process, cotton became one of the crops he cultivated. It would seem from some folklore connected with the cloth industry that cotton and the weaving of cotton cloth first appeared in the broad belt comprising the Yoruba savannah and derived savannah countries of the Oyo, Igbomina, northern Ekiti, northern Ijesa, Akoko, and the Okun Yoruba. This broad area was the vegetation belt most suitable in Yorubaland for cotton cultivation, and was also the natural home of most of the shrubs from which the Yoruba people obtained their dyestuff; over time, some of these shrubs came to be regularly cultivated (such as indigo). Cotton cultivation spread only slowly into the deep forests of southern Yorubaland, mostly into areas where agricultural activity resulted in more open vegetation. Even in such places, the cotton crop was prone to diseases because of the higher humidity of the southern Yoruba forest country. From the beginning, therefore, cotton cloth weaving in southern parts of Yorubaland depended heavily on cotton wool and dyestuff from the middle belt and the northern territories. Some Ekiti proverbs seem to indicate that the Igbomina were probably the earliest leaders in cotton cloth production in Yorubaland. Like the practitioners of other trades, weavers evolved early into local associations or guilds, with rules and obligations and a guardian deity.
3. is not known what mode of exchange was employed in this earliest of Yoruba trade. Some traditions, reinforced by some surviving traces of practice, suggest some sort of barter of products for products. The use of cowry shells as currency almost certainly, as will be seen later, began in times before Oduduwa — that is, before the tenth century. In the context of this age of varied growth and development, political organization of society also began and developed.6 Each settlement had a rudimentary government from very early, under the leadership of a headman. The oldest living male member of the group, he was a sort of ruler and priest. His religious authority and ritual functions sprang naturally from his being the group’s “father” and the nearest person to the departed ancestors of the group as well as to the primordial sprits inhabiting the earth upon which the settlement stood. He was keeper of the totem and other “secrets” of the group. The group’s totem was an object treasured by the first father of the group (a charm, article of personal adornment, favorite tool or artifact, etc.) and believed to have been bequeathed by him to the group on his deathbed, to be kept as the symbol of the group’s unity and identity. Sometimes, copies of the totem were made and given to members to keep or to wear on their persons, but the original was kept by the group leader and passed on to his successor. The group leader also kept and tended the group shrine, made the daily, periodic and seasonal rituals, and offered the sacrifices. His authority in trying and punishing offences was conceived of as flowing naturally from his religious authority and ritual powers. In modern political language, then, he was ruler, priest, judge and enforcement authority.
4. From this point, Yoruba traditions generally paint an implausible picture of sudden transformation of each village or settlement into one that had a government with an exalted ruler, subordinate chiefs, rituals and orderly laws. Such phenomenal transformation is made to seem as if it all happened in one generation, such as from father to son; but we are certainly right to assume a development that lasted many centuries and many generations. What most probably happened is that each group, which later became a settlement, started off as one small family whose surviving members kept in close association for generations until they became a lineage — that is, a group of families bound together by belief in common descent from a known ancestor. As the group grew larger, it kept regarding itself as one family, even if other persons joined it from time to time. The original family values of mutual loyalty and support, and individual acceptance of family rules and authority, continued as the group norm. The authority exercised by the father in the foundational family became institutionalized in the leader of the group. The original family demands on interpersonal behavior, and of group duty, became institutionalized into group rules and law. Continued expansion of group size and needs slowly generated devolution in the performance of group duties, which then gradually produced institutionalized offices and officers (that is, chiefs and priests) below the level of the group leader, complete ultimately with titles and insignia. The leader’s own title had to proclaim that he was father, head, and embodiment of the spirit, of the settlement. Hence, in practically every settlement, the leader’s title came to include the name of his settlement — as in Elefene (of Efene), Obajio (of Ijio), Olowagbon (of Igbon), Aro (of Ilaro) and so on.
5. Fittingly too, in addition to these specific titles, the evolving national culture began to identify and address the rulers with general, exalted, titles that set them apart from the rest of humankind. The Elefene, Obajio or Aro belonged to a special level of humans known as Olu or Osin or Oba — king. It seems probable that which common title people used for ‘king’ depended on which region they lived in. In some regions people used Olu, in others Osin, and in yet others Oba. An Ekiti tradition has it that in most parts of Yorubaland people first used Olu or Osin as leader titles.

6. At some very late point in the evolution of these settlements, their leaders began to wear a distinctive skull cap. Since the crowns of Yoruba kings have continued till our times to be regarded as sacred objects, it seems very probable that crowns started off as part of religious and ritual attire. For reasons unknown to us today, the ruler seems to have begun to wear some special cap as part of his religious garb as he performed the rituals and sacrifices at the shrine. Over time, wearing such a cap became a generalized part of his clothing while performing any of his other functions, even though the ruler’s skull cap never ceased being regarded as a sacred, religious object. We have very clear descriptions of these earliest Yoruba “crowns” in the traditions. Moreover, some ancient recesses of some Yoruba palaces are believed to have samples of them. They were simple looking caps woven from pieces of certain types of raffia yarn at first, and much later from certain types of cotton cloth and yarn — not anything like the elevated dome-shaped or cone-shaped crowns of a later period of Yoruba history.
7. The important consequence of the emergence of many compounds in each settlement is that each compound slowly, over many centuries, took on some life of its own — a latter day lineage. Each settlement thus became a sort of super lineage comprising many small lineages. Particular leadership roles in the settlement became domiciled in particular compounds. When the bearer of any such title died, the inhabitants of the compound became responsible to the village for selecting his successor from within their compound. But since the title (and its duties) belonged to the whole settlement and not just the compound, the village must accept the appointee and install him. The system whereby the chiefs gathered in council around the ruler to manage the affairs of the settlement gradually evolved. In each compound, the oldest member was the compound head, vested by practice over time with judicial and other authority in the compound. As earlier indicated also, the farms pushed farther and farther away from the villages, even though the areas immediately outside each village remained the most intensively farmed. Moreover, from each village, paths radiated into the neighboring forests — to the sites of the palm oil mill or eku, the pottery, the iron smelter, the brooks and springs (sources of the village’s supply of water). From the earliest times, these special forest locations and the farmlands were conceived of as common property of the village. In this way, the Yoruba laid the foundation of the system of land ownership that later became a very significant feature of their culture.
8. Although the oral traditions speak almost entirely of the roles of men in the ancient Yoruba villages, there are nevertheless glimpses of women’s roles. The traditions are clear that, from the very beginning, women were the makers of pots — a very important service to their settlements. For reasons not entirely clear to us, women were also the traders from the beginning. It is probable that this was a consequence of an early division of labor whereby the men cleared and prepared the ground and raised the crops (with significant assistance and back-up services from the women), and the women harvested most of the crops and offered the surplus for exchange (or sale). When yarn making and cloth weaving came too, they became exclusive industries of the women. The typical Yoruba loom, from early times, was the vertical loom installed over a shallow pit in the house. The other type of loom which also became common in Yorubaland, the horizontal draw-loom, a specialty of the men, came much later — and it long remained exclusive to northwestern Yorubaland, that is to the Oyo country.
The women were, in early times, the greater actors in the spinning, weaving and dyeing processes which, over time, gave Yorubaland its very important cloth industry.
9. But early Yoruba women may have been more active in the political process than the oral traditions would admit. For instance, it is possible that some very early influential position for women is what we have in very many folktales about a woman with the title of Anosin, represented always as first wife of the Osin (king).
Within the palace of the Osin, the Anosin wielded authority second only to that of the Osin himself. This very influential female official always starts off in each folktale as a glowing embodiment of power and authority (and feminine beauty), and then she is shown as coming to a tragic end on account of her wicked use of her power over the other women of the palace. It is significant, however, that in none of these folktales is the legitimacy of her authority ever questioned; her tragic end is always caused by the manner of her use of her authority. This seems to imply either that having women in positions of authority was acceptable, and perhaps even common, in early Yoruba settlements, or that women did in fact occupy leadership positions but were, in a generally male-dominant culture, depicted as temperamentally incapable of using leadership positions well. The Anosin was probably commonly “mother” of the settlement while the Osin was “father” of it.
Admittedly, the Anosin folktales do not rank as direct information about influential roles for women in early Yoruba settlements. About such roles for women in the kingdoms of later periods of Yoruba history, the oral traditions are replete with direct information. Women did become crowned rulers of Yoruba kingdoms in these later periods — and it does seem improbable that such eminence would have had no root whatsoever in earlier periods of Yoruba history.
10. Yoruba traditions hold up the development of herbal medicine as one of the triumphs of early Yoruba history.7 Slowly, over many centuries, the Yoruba people in their villages accumulated solid knowledge of countless herbs and herbal preparations for various sicknesses, as well as considerable knowledge of the nature of many diseases. Professional herbalists called onisegun emerged, on whom the people of the village depended for the treatment of their sicknesses. Over time, indeed, specialization developed in this profession — so that there were those (called onisegun aremo) who specialized in the treatment of infertility in women, the management of pregnancy problems, the delivery of babies and the treatment of childhood diseases, those who specialized in the treatment of mental and nervous diseases, those who specialized in the fixing of bone fractures, and so on. From those early times, the profession gradually set up rules and procedures for the training of those to be admitted to it; fourteen years of apprenticeship becoming a sort of general standard. The profession also evolved meetings of members for the exchange of knowledge, and established strictly binding rules of professional assistance of member to member.

11. However, Yoruba herbal medicine, in spite of its ever growing knowledge of diseases and treatments, never freed itself from its origins — the belief that sicknesses were often caused by malevolent spirits. Therefore, even the soundest of herbalists continued to mix with his practice the appeasement of, or combat with, spirits, as well as divinations, sacrifices, rituals, incantations, protective amulets (around neck, waist and wrist), protective magical preparations (of powder or liquid) inserted into parts of the body through lacerations. All these started early and continued through later periods of Yoruba history as part of the herbalist’s art.
12. In the context of high rates of infant mortality, the belief early developed that some children (especially of mothers who lost many babies in succession) were not ordinary children but spirits who came to the world as babies only for the purpose of tormenting certain women. Called abiku (born to die), these special children became the subject of a whole complex of lore, rituals and magical practices, all aimed at either warding them off from the women who were their victims, or forcing them to convert to real, ordinary, children if they were already born.
13. In The History of the Yorubas, by Samuel Johnson, Johnson indicates that Yoruba speech often has a different goal than English speech.
14. In earliest times also, having twin babies was regarded as a bad omen or a visitation by malevolent spirits. Yoruba people never ceased regarding twin babies as beyond the ordinary, but the attitude to twins gradually softened — until, in much later times, twin babies came to be regarded as friendly spirits or bearers of good luck, to be related to with special rituals and celebrations.
15. Belief in witches and witchcraft also became an important feature of Yoruba life — a witch being, according to Yoruba belief and folklore, a man or woman (most often a woman) who consented to hosting in her own person a malignant spirit sworn to causing harm to humans. Sicknesses which could not be explained or healed were usually attributed to witchcraft or the hostility of some spirit or deity. This usually provoked a heavy investment in sacrifices and rituals, and, if witchcraft was suspected, efforts to find and punish or appease the witch or to neutralize her powers. Herbalists developed potions which were believed, when ingested by suspects, to be efficacious in detecting the witch among them. And the penalty for being so publicly identified as a witch was death, sometimes by public stoning.

16. The religion of the people of the early Yoruba settlements, started in their earliest days, grew and amplified. To the original earth spirits and protector spirits of the neighborhood hill or rock or stream were, over centuries, added more and more gods and goddesses and spirits. Settlements and lineages deified prominent departed members and set up shrines to them — as special friends and protectors in the spirit world.
17. As various occupations developed, patron gods and goddesses emerged for them — for farming and other working folks, for women traders in marketplaces, for weavers and dyers of cloth and yarns, for potters, for herbalists, etc. Certain natural phenomena (such as lightning and thunder, and the sea), certain diseases — all came to have gods or goddesses associated with them. Over time, some deities became generally accepted and worshipped throughout Yorubaland. The god later known as Ogun (originally patron god of all working people) seems to have been the first of such pan-Yoruba gods — hence his salutation as “Osinmole” (first, or king, among the earliest spirits or gods).
18. By the tenth century, or perhaps even considerably earlier, the main outlines of Yoruba cosmology and religion had evolved. The Yoruba conceived of all existence as located in two realms — a lower realm known as aye (the earth or the world, the abode of humans), and a higher realm known as orun (heaven, the home of the spiritual beings). The realm of the spirits was conceived as consisting of two spheres — a higher and a lower.
19. The higher was the place of the Supreme Olodumare who created all things and ruled over all of existence. This Supreme Being was first given the name Orisa — roughly meaning “the source from which all things emanated.” Later, to his name was added Olorun (king of heaven) and Oluwa (king over all). Though some Yoruba groups (especially the southern and eastern peoples like the Ijesa, Ondo, Ikale, Owo and Ekiti) continued to apply the name Orisa to the Supreme Being, that name generally came to be used for the highest heavenly beings who were said to have been with the Supreme Being at the time when the Supreme Being created all things, and whom the Supreme Being later sent to the lower spiritual sphere where they became the most senior gods.
20. The Supreme Being’s sphere was so far above the human’s world that humans could not worship or relate directly with him. Therefore, only in a very few places in Yorubaland did shrines emerge for his worship. Generally, Yoruba people believed that no human could know what sacrifices would be acceptable to Olorun or Oluwa. At some late time, Olorun or Oluwa also acquired the name Olodumare, a difficult name that has been variously translated or deciphered. The central word in this name is odu, which means “fullness”, or “totality.” For this reason, Olodumare has been translated by some as “the absolute fullness that encompasses all.” Olu Alana suggests that its best translation would be “the king — who holds the scepter, wields authority and has quality which is superlative in worth and ... permanent, unchanging and reliable.

21. The second heavenly sphere existed in very close proximity to the world of humans and was the home of all the other gods (collectively known as imole) and the spirits, all arranged in grades from the highest to the lowest. The highest category consisted of the orisas — namely, Orisanla (arch divinity), Ifa (god of wisdom and divination), Ogun (god of working people and of iron), Esu (messenger of the senior gods), and others. Of these, Orisanla came to be regarded as the most senior; he was believed to have assisted Olodumare in the act of creating man. A goddess named Odudu was regarded as wife of Orisanla and mother of the gods (Eye umole or Iya imole). In certain liturgies and localities, the name of this goddess later became confused with the name Oduduwa, the name of an important male personage in later Yoruba history. (Oduduwa was later deified, as a male god.) Odudu is still worshipped in some places in Yorubaland as Odudu, not Oduduwa; Odudu’s shrine and rituals still exist in Ado (in Ekiti), where she is worshipped as mother of all mothers and their little children.
22. The total number of the gods (imole) varied from region to region of Yorubaland — but 401 appears to have been the commonest count. By the tenth century, many of the gods were already pan-Yoruba in acceptance and worship. Such pan-Yoruba gods increased in number in later periods of Yoruba history. Each imole was concerned with a particular department or pursuit of human life and demanded a particular type of sacrifice and rituals. Below the level of the imole were countless spirits, each in its own way in frequent contact with human life.
23. It is clear in the traditions that there were many kinds of divinatory practices and traditions in early Yoruba history, but over a long time they almost all became consigned to the province of Ifa. Some Yoruba traditions indicate a Nupe contribution to the earliest rudiments of the Ifa system in Yorubaland, but the extent of such contribution is uncertain. According to traditions recorded in the late nineteenth century by Samuel Johnson, there lived in Ife in pre-Oduduwa times a man of Nupe extraction named Setilu or Agboniregun (the latter being probably the name given him by his Ife hosts). Agboniregun, practicing Ifa divination, lived in some places in eastern Yorubaland (including Ado in Ekiti, and Owo) before he came to settle in Ife, where he acquired considerable influence on account of his Ifa divination, and where he initiated many people into Ifa mysteries and divination.
24. Thereafter,Yoruba creativity elevated Ifa divination and mysteries and enriched them with a profound body of folklore, until the whole Ifa system became a sophisticated theme in Yoruba religion and culture, and Ifa became a very important Yoruba god — the god of divination and of hidden knowledge, the mouthpiece of the gods. In the long history of their development of Ifa and of Ifa mysteries, practices, divination and folklore, the Yoruba people gradually evolved a rarified body of lore, knowledge and wisdom known as Odu Ifa (roughly, the body or fullness of Ifa wisdom).
25. In its final form, Odu Ifa became the longest corpus of poetry in Yoruba folklore, a massive and ever-growing cultic body of wisdom encompassing historical and mythological accounts, exalted precepts, snippets of divine wisdom, life-related instructions, and the profoundest in Yoruba philosophy.

26. It developed, most certainly, from very many generations of the loftiest in Yoruba folk wisdom, and it was meant to be, and was, the special preserve of the select elite known as the babalawo (father of the secrets), the priests of Ifa. As the exalted profession of the babalawo developed, the initial “schooling” of a babalawo, consisting of intensive, unbroken, instruction in the practice of divination and in spiritual development, and unfaltering memorization of the entire Odu Ifa, was generally supposed to last for fourteen years, but in reality his education was a lifelong pursuit. The nature of the babalawo’s life and profession demanded that he should be in regular contact, sharing and collaboration with other babalawo. In every settlement and in every elu, an association or guild of babalawo early came into being.
27. Another very important development in Yoruba religion and cosmology was the belief in the afterlife. the Yoruba believed that the dead went on to live in another place of existence (some part of the heavenly realm), from where they could see, interact with, and help humans in this world. For that reason, articles of clothing and of personal adornment, articles of food and of domestic value, were buried with the dead — in order to help them settle in their new other-world homes. The newly dead was believed to be welcomed “home” by family members who had earlier died. The quality of life that one would have in the afterlife was believed to be determined by the good or evil life that one had lived in one’s earthly life — and, for this reason, Yoruba society thought of its aged members as typically honest and trustworthy, in preparation for the afterlife. But there were also ways in which the living could assist their dead into a place of status and honor in the afterlife. One such way was a big, expensive, and prestigious funeral — the objective of which was to put on show (to both the living in this world and the people of the afterlife) the wealth and high status of the deceased, as well as his or her success in having many prosperous children. Another way, especially for the great and influential, was that the deceased’s children would add a second burial ceremony far more expensive and more demonstrative than the first. For this second burial, the children of the deceased would commission a life-size naturalistic sculpture of their dead parent, which they would then dress in gorgeous clothes, put on show for a couple of days, and then bury. This is the second funeral ceremony known as Ako in Owo.11 For the deceased who had been a great hunter in his earthly life, another kind of help was also commonly given. This was made necessary by the belief that the spirits of the animals that the deceased had killed as a hunter could ambush and harass him on his journey to the afterlife and make his journey unpleasant. To prevent such, the hunter’s children would mount a standing, life-size, effigy of their deceased father, dressed in his clothes, on the way to his farm — and the belief was that the animals would fix their attention on the effigy as if it was the hunter himself, while the hunter made an undisturbed journey to the afterlife. This practice was known as epade or ipade.
28. The dead were also believed to reincarnate in their descendants, and to come occasionally to visit their communities. The belief in reincarnation led to the practice of giving personal names that identified some persons in every Yoruba family as reincarnations of departed parents, and the belief in the occasional visits of loved ones from the other world produced the egungun cult. The annual calendar of religious rituals and festivals in every Yoruba community included one or two celebrations when egungun — represented by masked persons believed to be loved ones from the afterlife — walked the streets and visited homes. The egungun came in various types of masks (in combinations of cloth, fronds, varieties of raffia, beautifully carved wooden pieces, decorations with beads, cowry shells, etc.), and for various purposes. Some were very serious, very portentous manifestations specializing in performing rituals beneficial to society. Others went from home to home praying for and blessing people. Yet others entertained people with dancing or with sayings loaded with deep folk wisdom or with tales from Yoruba folklore. Some of the lighter ones just roused their community by fighting mock fights with people in the streets or by bearing whips and playfully chasing young people from compound to compound. In most communities, some prominent lineages came to have unique masks and egungun of their own. The egungun cult in every community had a highly revered priesthood, made up usually of men (since women were not supposed to be exposed to egungun mysteries), but always including one or two highly placed priestesses.
29. From a complex interplay of Yoruba religion and ritual practices and mysteries, of Yoruba knowledge of herbs, the power of herbs and of herbal preparations, of the mysteries of Ifa and divination, and of witchcraft and the occult, there ultimately evolved a more or less distinct profession whose practitioners came to be known as adahunse. The adahunse concerned himself very little (if at all) with herbal medications for health delivery purposes, or with treatment of the sick, or with divination as such. While he would usually know and employ any or all of these skills, his real focus was on the occult employment of herbs and other materials from nature, as well as the use of incantations, curses, charms, and amulets, to enable his clients to accomplish stated social purposes — good purposes such as success and wealth, evil purposes such as hostile occult interference in the lives and affairs of other persons, or power purposes such as protection from certain weapons, or ability to de-materialize, or the ability to engage in out-of-body actions. Usually feared by all the people of his community, the adahunse, in the full maturity of his art, had as his clients mostly rulers (kings, chiefs, warriors), the powerful, the influential and the ambitious, the practitioners of hazardous occupations such as hunting, and other persons seeking success or wealth, or seeking protection from physical or spiritual harm.
30. There were, altogether, many types of associations, guilds and cults in the early Yoruba settlements. But the most visible associations, to which everyone belonged, were the age-grade associations — called egbe, otu or igbamo. Agegrade associations very probably evolved in the earliest days of Yoruba settlements, no doubt in response to the needs of the settlements — to provide an appropriate pool of labor for each of the various functions for which the ruler needed to mobilize people. Depending on age, one team could be called upon to keep the open places in the settlement clean, another to keep paths clear of in-growing bush, another to effect repairs on public houses and shrines, another to give back-up services during large rituals and festivals, etc. Over time, the originally informal teams became formalized and institutionalized into age-grade associations. The youngest association in a settlement was constituted about every third year, and was made up of youths about nine to twelve years of age. The inauguration of the youngest age-grade association became a festival featuring consultations of the Ifa oracle, the ruler’s giving of a name to the new association, and the association’s election of its officers. Persons so elected held the offices for life, and there were two lines of offices — male and female. Over time, age-grade associations developed meetings, rules and regulations, seasonal and annual festivals, etc. Outside one’s own family and lineage, the members of one’s age-grade association came to be one’s closest associates and support in all phases and happenings in one’s life. The public duty of an association depended on its age — from the youngest who kept public places clean, to able-bodied youths whose males could be called to military service, all the way up to the most senior citizens who were revered as the very essential pool of wisdom and guidance for their village.

31. The primary building block of the village was the agbo-ile, the lineage compound.11 Each constituting a home where many families lived together, all of them believing themselves to be one family, the agbo-ile was a wonderfully fertile ground for cultural development, growth and refinement. Almost all the adult male residents lived by farming, supported by their wives and children. A typical day in the agbo-ile, we may imagine, dawned with most residents, in their nuclear families, heading out to the farms, leaving behind the very old, the children, the nursing mothers, and those engaged in home-based occupations (like traders, weavers and dyers and, if there were any, herbalists, babalawo, blacksmiths, etc.). For much of the day, these home-bound folks kept the agbo-ile alive and busy with their various pursuits, while the children played various games in the dust in the open courtyards, under the eyes of the aged and the nursing mothers. The farming folks returned in the late afternoon, bringing head-loads of farm produce and firewood. In the rest of the evening, each family cooked for supper, the main meal of the day. The hours after supper were the great time for socializing in the compound — the men in groups around kegs of palm wine, and the women (still doing all sorts of light domestic chores, like spinning yarn on spindles) gathering the children, if there was no moonlight, to tell stories (usually folktales accompanied with songs and refrains). These night folktale sessions were beautiful experiences in education and artistic expression, and a major contributor to the famed Yoruba wealth in folklore. If the moon was up, the children, joined by those older children who had spent much of the day on the farms, played in the courtyards. Moonlit nights could be very lively, beautiful and noisy in the compound, as the children played running games, engaged in wrestling contests, or put up some drama from their perception of adult life — a wedding, a chieftaincy installation, a festival, a dance, an inter-group disagreement, or a group meeting. In this whole context, Yoruba people invented many types of one-to-one and team games. Lineage meetings were frequent in the compound — some for lineage business, others for the elders to settle quarrels or to try infringements of lineage rules of conduct.
32. Days of celebrations were many in the agbo-ile — village and lineage festivals and rituals, chieftaincy rites, domestic rituals, funerals of departed aged members, weddings. A wedding was a celebration of a new pact and relationship between two (usually unrelated) lineages (the bride’s and the bridegroom’s) and was always accompanied with colorful celebrations in both. In the full development of the Yoruba wedding over the centuries, the processes of the introduction of the contracting lineages to each other, the betrothal ceremony, and the ceremonial journey of the bride to her husband’s lineage compound, all became greatly beautified by Yoruba creativity with dramatized banter, the giving of gifts, and the sharing of feasts. When all these were completed, the two lineages became linked together (ideally in perpetuity) by a bond of love and honor. The birth of a baby was a joyful event in the lineage compound — and for weeks, the oldest women members would serve the baby and its mother as nurses and house-help. Days of mourning were also quite frequent, and every death pulled the whole agbo-ile powerfully together in sorrow. Probably more children died in infancy than survived it. The death of a young adult kept an agbo-ile in mourning for days.
33. The agbo-ile buried its dead in the soil of its own compound and regarded them as continuing to be part of the lineage and as continuing to participate in its affairs. Children — both those who were living and those yet to be born — were regarded as important members of the lineage; in fact, the universal Yoruba belief was that the adults of a lineage held all its things in trust for its living and yet unborn children. In lineage caucuses, respectful references were commonly made to “the ones who went before” and “the ones who will come”; and some of the latter were regarded as direct reincarnations of some of the former — a belief often expressed in the names given to new babies. The agbo-ile took great care to involve its children in its affairs and rituals.
34. Every lineage raised its young in its own image, and equipped them with a strong knowledge of its history — especially its importance in the history of its village. This was the primary root of societal decency, and of the general historical consciousness, of Yoruba people. Children also learned the professions and trades common in their agbo-ile, and this is why trades and professions tended to run in lineages.
35. The professions of the herbalists (onisegun) and the diviners (babalawo) seem to have early developed some built-in dynamic that impelled their practitioners to go further and further afield in order to learn more and more and make wider and wider contacts. It became ultimately a character of the two professions that the onisegun or babalawo who was known to have traveled widely, to have resided in many parts of the country, to have established bonds with many members of his profession in distant places, was regarded as belonging to the peak of his profession. Such persons constituted a specially respected elite that traversed the country regularly and knew it quite well.

36. There was an ancient trade in herbal preparations, mostly a preserve of the herbalists. According to Robin Horton, by the ninth century AD, the Ife zone in central Yorubaland was becoming an area of some importance on the southernmost reaches of the trans-Sahara trade routes from the Mediterranean coast, through the Sahara Desert and the grasslands south of it and across the River Niger. More will be said about this later. Suffice it to say now that this would mean that by the ninth century some goods from the Mediterranean and the Sahara Desert region were entering into the trade of Yorubaland. It would also mean that Yorubaland was by then on the verge of the development of rapidly increasing long-distance trade.
37. Some village markets, as earlier pointed out, became known as the best places to sell or buy particular products, so that people from every village increasingly went there for those products. Over time, it became the way of life in the elu that some village markets were open on certain days and others on other days. In this way, the four-day market cycle peculiar to Yoruba commercial life evolved — each village market being open only every fourth day.
38. The great surprise is that in the face of all these unifying realities, the rulers and people of the villages in the elu setting persisted in regarding each of their villages as separate from its neighbors and as self-contained.
39. The explanation, earlier stated, is that the religious or spiritual guarantees which sustained separateness as the norm were so powerful that no groups internal to an elu could challenge them. That, as far as everybody knew, was the way people lived, and nobody knew any person or group of persons who lived any other way. All of the linkages among the villages in the elu were looked upon, not as negating the separateness of each settlement, but as necessary support for it. The individual settlement was home; beyond that was the outside world. The rules of inheritance and succession fitted perfectly into, and reinforced, such a world view.
40. 3 - Before Oduduwa: Ife in the Ninth to Tenth Century

41. As pointed out in previous chapters, then, we have the suggestion that there were thirteen settlements in the elu in the “Ife bowl” by the ninth or tenth century: Omologun, Parakin, Okeoja, Iloran, Odin, Ideta, Iloromu, Iwinrin, Oke-Awo, Ijugbe, Iraye, Imojubi, and Ido. However, it is important to note that there have also come down to us a few other important names not included in this list of thirteen. These include Ita Yemoo, Ilara, Orun Oba Ado and Idio. Also, some of the bigger settlements among the thirteen had quarters that were quite substantial in their own right, whose names keep showing up as separate settlements — a fact which tends to introduce some confusion into our attempts to ascertain the list of settlements. Finally, once the revolution commenced, the events occasioned by it were violent, tumultuous and long drawn out, and they caused the destruction of many settlements and the temporary emergence of others. The fact that the names of these settlements tossed about in the whirlwind of events also keep occurring in the traditions tends to add much to our difficulties. The consequence of all this is that, in the present state of our knowledge, our list of the tenth century Ife settlements is no more than tentative.
42. According to his findings, Iloromu lay along a stretch of today’s Ife-Ilesa road; Ideta, remembered as the largest of the settlements, lay along today’s road to Mokuro; Odin lay along the modern road to Ifewara; Ijugbe, Okeoja and Iraye were situated a few kilometers west of modern Modakeke, with Iraye being the farthest southwestwards; Ilare and Esije occupied the sites of today’s Sabo and Eleyele, respectively; Iwinrin covered the area of today’s Koiwo and Oronna quarters; Omologun covered part of what is now the campus of Obafemi Awolowo University; Imojubi lay along the modern Ife—Ondo road on the outskirts of today’s city of Ile-Ife. The sites of Ido (which is said to have been a large settlement), Oke-Awo, Iloran and Parakin are difficult to ascertain.
43. If some physical difficulty (like a stream, a piece of marshy ground or a rock) had made it necessary to leave a sizeable gap between quarters, some quarters could look like selfcontained settlements in their own right. Thus, for instance, Ijugbe consisted of four contiguous “villages” — Eranyiba, Ita-Asin, Ipa and Igbogbe; and Ideta consisted of three — Ilale, Ilesun and Ilia. Each agbo-ile was a large sprawling building consisting of a number of courtyards.
44. All relations in this whole system of government of a settlement were deeply rooted in religion — religious and spiritual bonds, proprieties, obligations, rituals. It is very clear in the traditions that a ruler in any of those Ife settlements of the tenth century was, much of the time, more a priest than anything else. The king, or chief, and the shrine belonged together, and the shrine was the heart of the settlement. The power of religion, the reality of supernatural sanctions, upheld and preserved the whole system.
45. Some Ekiti traditions strongly indicate that one Ife marketplace acquired the stature of a central marketplace in the Ife area. According to Olomola (relying on some versions of these Ekiti and Ijesha traditions), such a central marketplace did exist under the name of Oja Igbomoko, and traders came to it from as far away as parts of Ekiti. In early times, the people of the Ife settlements were known collectively as the Igbo — and Igbomoko therefore probably meant “a place for the gathering of the Igbo” (for buying and selling).

46. The settlements in the elu at Ife were therefore very close, not only physically but in many other respects — in their day-to-day pursuits, in their commercial life, in their sharing of special services, etc. The exogamous nature of their marriages interconnected all the settlements in a giant cobweb of human relationships. Consequently, significant events in any settlement (a festival, a wedding or a funeral) drew relatives from all the other settlements. By the tenth century, each settlement had grown so old and so diversified that some marriages could be contracted between persons of the same settlement, but most persons were the offspring of mothers married from other settlements. Some farmlands happened to be more desirable than others — because they were known to receive more rains usually, because they drained better, or because particular crops were known to do especially well on them. Therefore, farms belonging to farmers from different settlements tended to get interlocked in some areas, even though rigid respect for the traditional boundaries remained the norm. Some settlements became known as the leading producers of certain farm products. For instance, Ijugbe became generally recognized as the leader in the production of yams, which means that Ijugbe regularly produced large quantities of yam surpluses for sale. The other settlements generally believed that Ijugbe’s success with yam cultivation was the result of a special favor from its protector god, but the cause, probably, was that Ijugbe’s part of the farmlands was more suitable for certain types of yams. All the settlements also accepted the god of Ijugbe as the special giver of rains, the god to make sacrifices to for better rains for the farms — hence, the saying, “If the rains fail, make sacrifices to the god of Ijugbe.” In consequence, Ijugbe acquired some special prestige among the settlements.
47. In an article first published in the Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria in 1979,2 Robin Horton looks at the agricultural, commercial, and industrial sectors of the economy of Ife by the ninth century, and concludes that by that date Ife’s economy generally was experiencing great expansion. As indicated in Paul Ozanne’s article earlier referred to, the Ife farmlands were mostly very fertile, received adequate rains in the rainy season, were mostly well drained, and were not prone to catastrophic erosion. These conditions provided the base for successful farming from the earliest history of the Ife settlements. That the settlements took good advantage of them and accorded agriculture the highest priority is shown in their traditions. Thus, we have the traditions relating to Orisateko, who is said to have been the hero (or god) who brought yam from heaven — a tradition which, most probably, suggests that some species of yams were domesticated in the Ife farmlands. Another version of the Orisateko traditions, however, has it that Orisateko was one of the most prominent people in the revolution that occurred in the tenth century, a strong man who resisted Oduduwa very successfully for some time. We can be sure that this means that big farmers were heroes in the settlements, and that farming was a very prestigious occupation there by the ninth century. This would seem to be confirmed by the traditions, earlier referred to, that Ijugbe enjoyed special prestige as a settlement because it produced rich surpluses of yams.
48. Also, the cultivation of the kolanut appears to belong to early times, and this crop seems to have become a very important one in the economy of the Ife area by the ninth century. The same appears to be true of the type of kola known as orogbo (Cola garcinia). By the ninth century, before Oduduwa, Ife was already a major producer of oil-palm products (palm oil, palm-kernel oil, palm wine, etc.) as well as of the raffia palm, Raffia vinifera — mostly palm wine. As will be related later in this chapter, Obatala (Oduduwa’s most important opponent) was much given to these wines.
49. The interaction of production surpluses and trade established the foundations of wealth. Ife thus began the journey into greatness - economic, cultural and political - much earlier than the rest of Yorubaland.
50. Perhaps the earliest export merchandise of Ife to the north was kolanut. The earliest scholars to study early kolanut trade in West Africa came to a conclusion that left out the Yoruba forests as a source of kolanut for the trade with the savannah. They postulated that the principal type of kolanut involved in the trade was the Cola nitida (gooro) which existed in the western parts of the West African forests (modern Ghana, etc.) but not in the Yoruba forests; and that the typical Yoruba type of kolanut - obi abata - was not a significant part of the trade. They also thought that the principal route of the kolanut trade started around Kumasi in modern Ghana and ran through the Niger bend to Hausaland, by-passing Yorubaland. In more recent times, however, these opinions have undergone some serious modifications. Babatunde Agiri has pointed out that Cola acuminata was also almost certainly a very significant item in the trade (as was perhaps also orogbo.4 This would make Ife a major player in the kolanut trade.

51. By the ninth century, then, Ife was a center of considerable agricultural and commercial prosperity. But Ife was also prospering as a center of industrial production and already experiencing increasing manufactures of iron, beads and various other products that were to make it by the twelfth century the greatest manufacturing and artistic center in the West African forests.
For the existence of a very strong iron industry in Ife by the ninth century, before Oduduwa, the evidence is unambiguous. Ife appears, indeed, to have already become the major center of iron production in much of West Africa by that date, as well as a supplier of raw iron and iron manufactures (tools, implements, artifacts) to much of Yorubaland. The shrine of Ogunladin (deified blacksmith of Oduduwa), in front of the Ooni’s palace, has a pear-shaped hundredweight of wrought iron which was made in Oduduwa’s time. This, clearly, is a work of very skilled blacksmiths - a level of skill which already existed before Oduduwa. Abundant evidence of a vibrant early iron industry has been found in other parts of Ife. For instance, excavations by P. Garlake at Obalara’s land and at Woye Asiri have revealed, among other things, large quantities of iron nails, some of which seem to have been used in some large wooden construction.
52. 4 - The Revolution in Ife: Tenth to Eleventh Century
53. That direction was initiated by the Reverend Samuel Johnson in his famous The History of the Yorubas which was written in the final years of the nineteenth century and first published in 1921. According to Samuel Johnson, Oduduwa was leader of a group which left Arabia in the Middle East as a result of clashes between Islam and the traditional polytheistic religion of the place, and which finally found its way to Yorubaland and established itself over Ife. Until deep into the twentieth century, some of the best minds available to us in historical scholarship took up Johnson’s lead and followed it, and therefore it is important that we briefly examine the roots of Johnson’s ideas concerning early Yoruba history.
54. A son of Yoruba emigrants (liberated slaves returning home) from Sierra Leone in the nineteenth century, Samuel Johnson was educated for the service of the church. After elementary education in the Church Missionary Society (CMS) mission school in Ibadan, he was sent, for secondary education, to the CMS Training Institution in Abeokuta, where he studied from the age of 16 until he graduated at 20 (in 1866). He then returned to teach in Ibadan until 1882, after which he repeatedly featured in the peace-making missions seeking to end the wars among various Yoruba states in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. The book The History of the Yorubas, which he started to write in these years, was completed in 1897. At the Training Institution in Abeokuta, he had schooled under a German teacher named G.F. Buhler who, while training his students as church workers, gave them a very solid grounding in ancient history - the history of Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Rome. From such beginnings, Johnson developed a strong interest in the history and mythology of the Middle East. Moreover, Johnson’s Yorubaland of the late nineteenth century was increasingly affected by the growth of Islam and Christianity, two world-shaping products of the Middle East.
55. Ultimately, a different direction in the study of Yoruba history developed (as part of a more scientific study of African history in general) which focused on the indigenous evidence, as well as other source material, for the reconstruction of early Yoruba history. Consequent upon these efforts, we now stand able to lay aside, with respect, the Johnsonian hypothesis about the origins of Oduduwa and of the Yoruba. All who study the history of Ife and of the Yoruba people are now generally agreed that the great political changes which began in Ife in about the tenth century were indigenous in their origin, in their unfolding and in their dramatis personae. It is on the soil of Yorubaland that Oduduwa was born and raised; it is only in that soil that his roots can be found.

56. Nevertheless, by carefully sifting through the infinite variety of traditions and versions, we can put together the basic traditional narrative that follows.2 Some small settlements had, for a long time, existed on hills beyond the immediate environs of the settlements in the Ife bowl. At some point in time, one of them moved down, staked claims to some land within the area and started to build a new settlement. Its leader was a man named Oduduwa. Before this group came, there was already an area that the old settlements generally regarded as land for strangers. It was into this area that the group now commonly represented in the traditions as the Oduduwa group moved. From the moment that this group arrived, it was unprepared to accept the claims of precedence by the older settlements; it was also not willing to have any dealings with the existing alliance of kings. All this led to the beginning of conflicts between the Oduduwa group and some of the older settlements, and these conflicts got worse over a long time.
57. Explains that Oduduwa was responsible for the expansion and economic development of the Yorubas.
58. 5 - The Primacy of Ife: Eleventh to Fifteenth Century
59. The period from Oduduwa to the fifteenth century was a period of growing economic and political prosperity and power in the history of Ife.
60. After Oduduwa’s departure from the scene, his aura continued to glow over everything and everybody. His subjects had, of course, seen kings before — indeed some of them had been kings themselves, many were descendants of kings, and most adults had lived in the small pre-Oduduwa kingdoms. But nobody had ever seen a king with the sort of stature and glory that Oduduwa had had as king of Ile-Ife. Not only did the chiefs and priests take steps to deify him, the collective imagination of the masses began to represent him as larger than life.

61. The ancient god of divination, Ifa, also came to bear the name Orunmila, the name of perhaps the greatest Ifa priest in about the time of Oduduwa. Of the other Yoruba kingdoms, only the kingdom of Oyo-Ile shared a little of such religious honor: the ancient god of lightning and thunder (very probably originally known as Jakuta) had his name changed to Sango, the name of an Oyo-Ile king. But even Sango was usually thought of as originating ultimately from Ife.
62. The emergence of other centers of urban population in other parts of Yorubaland (of which an account will be given later) most definitely improved the channels of trade. This meant that more and more trade flowed into and out of Ile-Ife. After some time, some of the newly arisen kingdoms became important secondary centers of trade. Of these, perhaps the earliest were Oyo-Ile in the north, Ijebu-Ode in the southwest, Ilesa in the east, Owo in the southeast and some of the Ekiti kingdoms. Meanwhile, the coastal east-west lagoon trade was producing a significant center of trade in the far southeast, namely Benin.
63. Continuing a trend initiated in Oduduwa’s time, certain aspects of Ife’s industrial production became special buttresses of the political system and, therefore, matters for close royal regulation. The most important of these was the bead industry. In the first place, increasingly from Oduduwa’s time, beads became the distinctive material component of royal grandeur - beads in the making of crowns, insignia, scepters, ceremonial royal fans and horse-tail fly-whisks, beads on the royal person as necklaces, bracelets and anklets, beads woven into the royal regalia and into the braided hair of royal females.
64. In The History of the Yorubas, by Samuel Johnson, Johnson indicates that early on, many of the Yorubas do not see the necessity in writing.
65. To be continued.




Various Notes,
1. After running since September 2021, I have achieved a comfortable and stable level of breathing/respiratory health. I also believe that additional quick gains are unlikely, and I think that it is wise to run just once a week or so to retain all previous gains.
2. Updated: Running Log.




Monday, December 18, 2023


The History of the Yorubas, by Samuel Johnson
1. Indicates that the speech of the “Yoruba belongs to the agglutinated order of speech, not the inflectional.” Perhaps one thing that this means is that Yoruba speech starts from a different place than English.
2. The Yoruba language has no article.
3. In the Yoruba language, the word Baba means father.
4. "The Yoruba language is very defective in distinctive terms…One word must do service for different terms in which there is a shade of difference of meaning."
5. The Yoruba have their own system of counting.
"In numbers that go by tens, five is the intermediate figure, five less than the next higher stage. In those by 20 , ten is used as the intermediate. In those by 209, 100 is used, and in those if 2,000 1,000 is used."

6. “The Yorubas are certainly not of the Arabian family, and could not have come from Mecca — that is to say, the Mecca universally known in history…”
7. Oduduwa, the God of the Yorubas, was a great warrior, whose legendary story represents early Yoruba history.
8. “The king of Benin inherited his money (which consisted of cowry shells), the Orangun of Ila his wives…the Olupopo the beads of the Oluwo, and the Alaketu the crowns, and nothing was left for Oranyan but the land.”
The above is an exerpt from Johnson's story about the early history of the Yorubas.
9. There are seven principal Yoruba tribes which sprang from the seven grandchildren of Oduduwa. Many travelled and became spread out over the land.
10. Several Yoruba tribes are known for taking human sacrifices.
11. Here, the book indicates that the Yorubas admit the existence of many Gods. Johnson writes that the Yorubas believe in the existence of one Almighty God, whom they term Olurun, i.e. Lord of Heaven.
12. According to Johnson, the British outlawed the Yoruba practice of human sacrifice, in the late 1800s.
13. A Yoruba proverb says that God created all men, black, white, and yellow, in one place, and they spread out over time across the globe.

A History of the Yoruba People, by Stephen Adebanji Akintoye
1. Akintoye indicates that some Yoruba were farmers, others hunters. Women who were skilled at hair braiding became hair braiders. He indicates that some men held positions in Yoruba government, and implies that others were teacher-scholars.
2. With a population variously estimated at between thirty and forty million, the Yoruba are perhaps the largest single ethnic group, or nationality, in Black Africa. Moreover, their history is one of the most researched and analyzed of any people in Africa. For this latter fact there are various reasons, of which one is the traditional structure (and the consequent historical consciousness) of Yoruba society, another is the high level of literacy among the Yoruba people today, and yet another is the growing importance of Yoruba Studies in the overall spectrum of African and Black Studies.
3. The Yoruba were the most urbanized people in the history of the tropical African forestlands, having largely lived in walled cities and towns since as early as the eleventh or twelfth century. In those towns and cities they evolved a sophisticated monarchical system of government, whose governing elites established detailed institutions and processes for preserving society’s history and passing it on — a circumstance that has both encouraged and facilitated the study of Yoruba history in our times.
4. Then, since the beginning of the twentieth century, the Yoruba have invested more in education than any other African people and, by the end of the twentieth century, were widely regarded as the most literate people in Africa. A significant consequence of this growing literacy has been that much indigenous effort has gone into the writing of Yoruba history. Venturing into written reconstruction of the past began as soon as there were some literate Yoruba in the nineteenth century; then it flowered vigorously in the course of the twentieth century; and it has been augmented by contributions from many professional historians, indigenous and foreign. Finally, to black people in general, and especially to the people of the Black African Diaspora in the Americas (in the United States, Brazil, Central America, Cuba, Haiti, Trinidad, and other parts of the West Indies), a knowledge of Yoruba history has been growing in importance. This is not merely because of the size of the Yoruba population, but also because of the high level of civilization attained by the Yoruba people in the past, the growing knowledge of Yoruba contributions to Black cultures in the New World, and the continued dynamism of Yoruba civilization in modern times — all of which have attracted increasing interest into Yoruba research.
5. The present book is an attempt by a student and teacher of Yoruba and African history to synthesize for popular education the data that has become available to us on Yoruba history at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is a product of my life-long participation in the development of Yoruba and African History Studies — in universities in Africa and the United States. I offer it in the humble hope that it will contribute something to the growing knowledge of Yoruba history in particular and the history of Africa and black people in general, that it will provoke further interest in Yoruba and African history, and, above all, that it will increase the Yoruba people’s love of, and romance with, their impressive and fascinating heritage.

6. Because most of the Yoruba people have lived in the modern country of Nigeria since the beginning of European imperialist rule over Africa in the early twentieth century, there now exists a tendency to write of the Yoruba as if they are entirely a Nigerian people — to the dismay of those who are now citizens of the Republics of Benin and Togo. The Yoruba people and country are split by two international boundaries, and while the largest portion is to be found in Nigeria, some substantial parts are to be found in Benin and Togo. This book presents a history of all Yoruba people.
7. All these stemmed from my belief that a study of the experience of Africans transplanted to the Americas in the era of the Atlantic slave trade needs to be seen by scholars and peoples of Africa as a part of the African experience in general. In recent years, happily, considerable advances have been made worldwide in the study of the African Diaspora in the Americas. Since the 1990s, that study has moved beyond the computing of the numbers of Africans transported to the Americas, and beyond the impact of American slavery on enslaved Africans; it has deepened to include studies of the contributions of transplanted African heritages to the evolution of African-American and American cultures. In the context of this deeper approach, much light has been thrown on the contribution of the Yoruba heritage in particular to the development of the cultures of the African Diaspora in the Americas. People of Yoruba descent, and the heritage of Yoruba civilization, constitute a very significant component of African-American cultures in most parts of the Americas.
8. Therefore, I have ventured to include a short chapter on the history of the Yoruba Diaspora in the Americas in this book to highlight the unavoidable continuity between the history of Africa and the history of the African Diaspora, in the hope that the Yoruba people in the West African homeland will become more actively interested in the history of their people across the Atlantic, and in the hope that black people in the Americas will become more proactive in searching and proudly interacting with their African roots and heritage.
9. The Yoruba had gradually evolved as a group of many small fragments; each of the fragments spoke some dialect of the evolving common Yoruba language. Thousands of years followed the initial emergence of the Yoruba as a group, and their many mutually intelligible dialects remained more or less clearly distinct, and ultimately came to define the internal differentiations that constituted the Yoruba subgroups that we have today — the Oyo, Ijebu, Ekiti, Ijesa, Ife, Ondo, Egba, Ibarapa, Egbado, Akoko, Owo, Ikale, Ilaje, Itsekiri, Awori, Ketu, Sabe, Ifonyin, Idasa, Popo, Ife (also known as the Ana, and found today in Togo Republic), Ahori, Itsha, Mahi, Igbomina, Ibolo, Owe, Oworo, Jumu, Bunu,Yagba, Gbede, Ikiri — some large and some small.
10. A small subgroup — the Ibolo — lived to the southwest of the Igbomina, sandwiched between the Igbomina and the Oyo. All the territory of these northern Yoruba subgroups was grassland.

11. The Yoruba spread out and occupied much of Nigeria, including: the south, the forest belt, the grasslands of the north, near the coast.
12. There was considerable closeness between the Yoruba and the Aja. Like the Yoruba language, Aja belonged to the Kwa subfamily within the larger Niger-Congo family of languages. It seems obvious that when the Yoruba stream encountered the Aja people in this area, it continued and flowed past them westwards, so that over time Yoruba subgroups existed to the east, west and north of the Aja. With the Aja thus almost enveloped by the Yoruba, profound cultural affinities further developed between the two, with the smaller (the Aja) greatly influenced by the larger (the Yoruba) — in language, religion, and social and political institutions. Ultimately, the Yoruba and Aja became more or less one cultural area, and the Yoruba language became a sort of lingua franca for the two peoples, which means that while the Aja spoke their own language (which was strongly influenced by the Yoruba language) most of the Aja also spoke Yoruba.
13. Being considerably isolated from other Yoruba subgroups, the Popo subgroup (and the kingdom which was founded among them at a later time) probably became absorbed over time into the cultures of non-Yoruba neighbors...
14. In general, the subgroups differed from one another in dialect. But this must not be understood as meaning that each subgroup was completely homogenous in dialect. There were shades of local differentiations within the dialect of every subgroup. The most profound of such local differentiation existed in the Akoko subgroup, among whom dialect varied from village to village.
15. About the earliest settlements of Yoruba farming people in the forests, there are bodies of traditions in most parts of Yorubaland. Such traditions are found in nearly every town with a long history of existence in its present location. According to these traditions, some settlers inhabited, in great antiquity, the location where each of these towns now stands.

16. In an article entitled “Before Oduduwa,” published in the 1950s, Beier identified many of these early settlements and the towns into which they later became absorbed.9 Since then, interest in these early settlements of the Yoruba forests has grown, with the result that what we now know about the subject is quite considerable.
17. The traditions concerning these early settlements are integral to the traditions of the founding of the Yoruba kingdoms. When, in a period from about the tenth or eleventh century AD (the period usually regarded as the Oduduwa period of Yoruba history), various groups went out (mostly from Ife) to establish kingdoms in the Yoruba forests, they came upon some pre-existing settlements everywhere, and it was among these settlers that they established kingdoms.
18. In most parts of ancient Yorubaland, especially in central and eastern Yorubaland, it would seem that each such group was known as an elu, and therefore, for simplicity, the name elu will be adopted in this book, and each settlement in the elu will be called simply a settlement or village.
Each elu evolved slowly over a very long time. First, one small settlement lived in an area; then, over a long time, other small settlements came one by one to take locations in the same area. Each settlement had evolved, according to the traditions, in the nearby forests and, under pressure of some difficulties there, had moved and relocated to what it saw as a better place. In this way, the elu came into being, surrounded by virtually unoccupied virgin forests on all sides.
19. However, it would seem that the people of the time gave purely supernatural explanations to their troubles. Thus, to appease the wild beasts, people began to worship the spirits that were believed to materialize through some of them, especially such large carnivores as the hyena and the leopard, and large reptiles like the crocodile and the boa constrictor, and set up shrines and rituals for the purpose. The mysterious sicknesses and deaths were attributed to the anger and malevolence of the spirits inhabiting the land over which people had come to establish their dwellings. The worship of primordial spirits of the earth (called ore or ere or erele) became the major cornerstone of their religious life. In time, each settlement that managed to survive “discovered” a protector spirit in a local physical entity like a body of water (a river, stream, lake or spring), a rock, a hill or a tree that was believed to have magical powers.
20. Settlements also tended to relocate, repeatedly in many cases, in order to flee their terrifying experiences. To this, the end result was that settlements tended to relocate close together in places which came to be regarded as suitable (having reliable water supply, good for the crops, etc.) and, above all, safe. The process seems to be that when a settlement survived for long in a place and seemed to prosper there, other settler groups, seeking to share in the advantages of the place, would come and establish their own settlement nearby — and a group of small settlements (or an elu) would gradually emerge.

21. In many communities in Yorubaland, it is still quite easy to identify the descendants of the earliest settlement in a place, because the rulers of earliest settlements usually held (and their descendants still hold) the priesthood of the local protector god or spirit. For instance, in the Ado kingdom in Ekiti, the Elesun, ruler of Ilesun (the oldest settlement in the place) is still much revered, even though the last holder of that title was defeated in battle and executed as far back as about the fourteenth century AD by the immigrant founders of the Ado kingdom.
22. 2 - The Development of Early Yoruba Society
23. The history of the beginning of the Iron Age in Africa south of the Sahara is, in general, markedly different from its history north of the Sahara, in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean world.
24. The coming of iron, and consequently the general improvement in tools and skills and in people’s management of their natural environment, also resulted over time in improvements in the dwellings in which they lived.
25. Architectural and aesthetic improvements to the agbo-ile made it gradually stronger, safer, more comfortable, and more beautiful. The preparation of the earthen plaster for walls, and the setting up of walls, became more skillful, thus increasing the intricacy, safety and durability of wall structures. The weaving of the roof thatch became an art in itself, making it possible for roofs to last many generations with only minor repairs every few years. Minor roof repairs were done often, but roof replacements were done at intervals of generations, and each such replacement job was usually taken as an opportunity to improve, and restructure if necessary, the whole agbo-ile. Decorations became a standard part of the construction of an agbo-ile, and grew more and more detailed. It became standard practice to carve (using iron tools) and paint (or stain) the wooden pillars that supported eaves, typically in stylized anthropomorphic or animal idioms, and to carve wooden doors in bas-relief, especially the large main door to the agbo-ile. Decorations also came to include murals (called iwope) on wall surfaces — some of them frescoed or engraved. All these features improved gradually in quality and beauty from generation to generation. Ultimately, with the broad and sweeping verandahs, carved and painted posts holding up the eaves, and the murals on the walls (many in elaborate geometric compositions), the courtyards of some agbo-ile could look quite imposing. And

26. Rivalries and competition between settlements and between compounds in settlements resulted in other forms of artistic expression also. One such was the oriki, a form of poetry in which each group glorified itself and preserved in cryptic language the high points of its history. Over time, as the oriki tradition grew, every unit of society (the settlement, the lineage, the leadership titles, and even the individual) came to have oriki, and every oriki tended to be amplified and grow richer in the course of history. Group pride also produced facial markings given to children at birth, to proclaim their ancestry; as well as exclusive group festivals, seasonal and annual, filled with special group songs and exhibitions of masks; and loud, elaborate, funerals for departed parents.
27. The Yoruba responded to this by evolving a rigidly patrilineal kinship system. By this system, every child belonged only to its father’s lineage, had to be raised in its lineage compound, and could only inherit title from it. As a corollary to this, when a woman married into another lineage, she became a member of her husband’s group; she could never revert to membership of her father’s group, and if she died her body had to be buried in the land of her husband’s group. Hence, the Yoruba saying that after parents give their daughter in marriage, the appropriate thing to do is to remove her favorite childhood seat from their home and burn it (B’ a ba m’omo f’oko, a njo oota re ni). This was most probably the root of the norm whereby Yoruba girls were given in marriage only when they were adjudged to be mature (usually about twenty years or older) and capable of being independent of their parents as well as of being able to fit quickly and maturely into their roles in their new homes. Yoruba folklore has many tales of very serious penalties for mothers who dared to cling to their newly married daughters.
28. The general improvement in tools and skills also accelerated the growth of division of labor, and the rise of distinct professions.4 We do not know whether the making of stone tools ever developed into a special profession; but in any case, the making of stone tools ultimately ceased as a result of the coming of iron. Pottery remained the oldest craft profession. For many centuries before the knowledge of iron, women potters had made pots at locations where suitable clay deposits could be found in the forests near their homes. Almost certainly, the potter’s possession of iron tools for her work (for instance for cutting the covering vegetation and digging up the clay) increased her production capacity, and may also have improved the quality of her pots. The association or guild of potters was probably the oldest professional guild or association in Yoruba history.
29. Hunting, too, developed into a distinct profession. Although all men continued to be involved in farming the land and doing some hunting, using the greatly improved tools (iron-bladed machetes, knives, arrows, spears, traps), over time some men came to be more employed in hunting than farming, and the group of professional hunters ultimately came into existence. From the folklore and rituals surrounding the profession of hunting, it would seem that hunters were highly regarded from the beginning. Not only did they contribute to the meat supply, they also served society in some other ways. People depended on them to help find in the forests good clay deposits for the potter and the iron smelter, as well as springs and brooks — sources of good water supply. But most importantly, according to the traditions, hunters provided security for their settlements. Closely allied to this, if a group or settlement needed to move and relocate, it usually depended on its hunters to find a good relocation site and the easiest path to it. The group of hunters in every settlement early became a highly regarded professional association or guild which developed its own unique folklore, its own chants, music and dance, and acquired a near-sacred public image — almost akin to that of the iron smelters or that of the blacksmiths.
30. What was true of hunting as a profession came also to be true of many other pursuits. Most women could plait women’s hair, but some became professional hair plaiters in their community. Most farmers could climb palm trees and harvest palm wine, but it became a profession for some.

31. To be continued.



The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper,
1. The dogs knew their master’s voice, and after swimming in a circle, as if reluctant to give over the chase, and yet afraid to persevere, they finally obeyed, and returned to the land, where they filled the air with their howlings and cries.
In the mean time the deer, urged by his fears, had swam over half the distance between the shore and the boats, before his terror permitted him to see the new danger.
2. As the buck swam by the fishermen, raising his nose high into the air, curling the water before his slim neck like the beak of a galley, throwing his legs forward, and gliding along with incredible velocity, the Leather-stocking began to sit very uneasy in his canoe.
3. "Hold!” exclaimed Edwards. “Remember the law, my old friends. You are in plain sight of the village, and I know that Judge Temple is determined to prosecute all, indiscriminately, who kill the deer out of season.”
4. The buck was now within fifty yards of his pursuers, cutting the water most gallantly, and snorting at each breath with his terror and his exertions, while the canoe seemed to dance over the waves, as it rose and fell with the undulations made by its own motion. Leather-stocking raised his rifle and freshened the priming, but stood in suspense whether to slay his victim or not.
5. "Shall I, John, or no?” he said. “It seems but a poor advantage to take of the dumb thing too. I won’t; it has taken to the water on its own nater, which is the reason that God has given to a deer, and I’ll give it the lake play; so, John, lay out your arm, and mind the turn of the buck; its easy to catch them, but they’ll turn like a snake.”
The Indian laughed at the conceit of his friend, but continued to send the canoe forward with a velocity that proceeded much more from his skill than his strength. Both of the old men now used the language of the Delawares when they spoke.
"Hooh!” exclaimed Mohegan; “the deer turns his head. Hawkeye, lift your spear.”

6. Natty never moved abroad without taking with him every implement that might, by possibility, be of service in his pursuits. From his rifle he never parted; and although intending to fish with the line, the canoe was invariably furnished with all of its utensils, even to its grate. This precaution grew out of the habits of the hunter, who was often led, by his necessities or his sports, far beyond the limits of his original destination. A few years earlier than the date of our tale, the Leather-stocking had left his hut on the shores of the Otsego, with his rifle and his hounds, for a few days’ hunting in the hills; but before he returned he had seen the waters of the Ontario. One, two, or even three hundred miles had once been nothing to his sinews, which were now a little stiffened by age. The hunter did as Mohegan advised, and prepared to strike a blow with the barbed weapon into the neck of the buck.
7. "Lay her more to the left, John,” he cried, “lay her more to the left; another stroke of the paddle, and I have him.”
8. While speaking, he raised the spear, and darted it from him like an arrow. At that instant the buck turned, the long pole glanced by him, the iron striking against his horn, and buried itself, harmlessly, in the lake.
9. "Back water,” cried Natty, as the canoe glided over the place where the spear had fallen, “hold water, John.”
The pole soon reappeared, shooting upward from the lake, and as the hunter seized it in his hand, the Indian whirled the light canoe round, where it lay, and renewed the chase. But this evolution gave the buck a great advantage; and it also allowed time for Edwards to approach the scene of action.

10. "Hold your hand, Natty,” cried the youth, “hold your hand; remember it is out of season.”
11. This remonstrance was made as the batteau arrived close to where the deer was struggling with the water, his back now rising to the surface, now sinking beneath it, as the waves curled from his neck, the animal sustaining itself nobly against the odds.
12. "Hurrah!” shouted Edwards, inflamed beyond prudence at the sight; “mind him as he doubles — mind him as he doubles; sheer more to the right, Mohegan, more to the right, and I’ll have him by the horns; I’ll throw the rope over his antlers.”
13. The dark eye of the old warrior was dancing in his head, with a wild animation, as bright and natural as the rays that shot from the glancing eyes of the terrified deer himself, and the sluggish repose in which his aged frame had been resting in the canoe, was now changed to all the rapid inflections of practised agility.
14. The canoe whirled with each cunning evolution of the chase, like a bubble floating in a whirlpool; and when the direction of the pursuit admitted, for a short distance, of a straight course, the little bark skimmed the lake with a velocity that urged the deer to seek its safety in some new and unexpected turn. It was the frequency of these circuitous movements, that, by confining the action to so small a compass, enabled the youth to keep near his companions. More than twenty times both the pursued and the pursuers glided by him, just without the reach of his oars, until he thought the best way to view the sport was to remain stationary, and, by watching a favourable opportunity, assist as much as he could in taking their intended victim.

15. He was not required to wait long, for no sooner had he adopted this resolution, and risen in the boat, than he saw the deer coming bravely towards him, with an apparent intention of pushing for a point of land at some distance from the hounds, who were still barking and howling on the shore.
16. Edwards caught the painter of his skiff, and, making a noose, cast it from him with all his force, and luckily succeeded in drawing its knot close around one of the antlers of the buck.
17. Natty kills the deer with his knife.
18. The Indian had long been drooping with his years, and perhaps under the calamities of his race, but this invigorating and exciting sport had caused a gleam of sunshine to cross his swarthy face that had long been absent from his features. It was evident that the old man enjoyed the chase more as a memorial of his youthful sports and deeds, than with any expectation of profiting by the success.
19. "I am afraid, Natty,” said Edwards, when the heat of the moment had passed, and his blood began to cool, “that we have all been equally transgressors of the law. But keep your own counsel, and there are none here to betray us. Yet, how came those dogs at large? I left them securely fastened, I know, for I felt the thongs, and examined the knots, when I was at the hut.”

20. "No, no — I didn’t say it had been cut, lad; but this is a mark that was never made by a jump or a bite.”
21. In the mean time, Mohegan had been examining, with an Indian’s sagacity, the place where the leather thong had been separated. After scrutinising it closely, he said, in Delaware —
22. "Your suspicions are just,” cried the youth, “Give me the canoe: I am young and strong, and will get down there yet, perhaps, in time to interrupt his plans. Heaven forbid, that we should be at the mercy of such a man!”
23. WHILE THE CHASE WAS OCCURRING ON THE LAKE, MISS TEMPLE AND her companion pursued their walk with the activity of youth.
24. "Say!” echoed Louisa, with a look of surprise; “why every thing that seemed to me to be satisfactory; and I have believed it to be true. He said that Natty Bumppo had lived most of his life in the woods, and among the Indians, by which means he had formed an acquaintance with old John, the Delaware chief.”

25. He then added, that the kings of England used to keep gentlemen as agents among the different tribes of Indians, and sometimes officers in the army, who frequently passed half their lives on the edge of the wilderness.”
"Told with a wonderful historical accuracy! And did he end there?”
26. “Often; but not on this subject. Mr. Richard Jones, you know, dear, has a theory for every thing; but has he one which will explain the reason why that hut is the only habitation within fifty miles of us, whose door is not open to every person that may choose to lift its latch?”
27. "It is sometimes dangerous to be rich, Miss Temple; but you cannot know how hard it is to be very, very poor.”
28. "There cannot be actual misery,” returned the other, in a low and humble tone, “where there is a dependence on our Maker; but there may be such suffering as will cause the heart to ache.” “But not you — not you,” said the impetuous Elizabeth — “not you, dear girl; you have never known the misery that is connected with poverty.” “Ah! Miss Temple, you little understand the troubles of this life, I believe. My father has spent many years as a missionary, in the new countries, where his people were poor, and frequently we have been without bread; unable to buy, and ashamed to beg, because we would not disgrace his sacred calling.
29. The day was becoming warm, and the girls plunged more deeply into the forest, as they found its invigorating coolness agreeably contrasted to the excessive heat they had experienced in their ascent. The conversation, as if by mutual consent, was entirely changed to the little incidents and scenes of their walk, and every tall pine, and every shrub or flower, called forth some simple expression of admiration.

30. Cooper suggests that the deer mentioned previously could have been someone's pet.
31. The reader need not be told the nature of the emotions which two youthful, ingenuous, and well-educated girls would experience at their escape from a death so horrid as the one which had impended over them, while they pursued their way in silence along the track on the side of the mountain; nor how deep were their mental thanks to that power which had given them their existence, and which had not deserted them in their extremity; neither how often they pressed each other’s arms, as the assurance of their present safety came, like a healing balm, athwart their troubled spirits, when their thoughts were recurring to the recent moments of horror.
32. "The law, Squire! I have shook hands with the law these forty year,” returned Natty; “for what has a man who lives in the wilderness to do with the ways of the law?”
33. "Well, let us go down to your hut, where you can take the oath, and I will write out the order. I s’pose you have a bible? all the law wants is the four Evangelists and the Lord’s prayer.”
34. "Look you here, Mr. Doolittle,” he said, striking the breech of his rifle violently on the ground; “what there is in the wigwam of a poor man like me, that one like you can crave, I don’t know; but this I tell you to your face, that you never shall put a foot under the roof of my cabin with my consent, and that if you harbour round the spot as you have done lately, you may meet with treatment that you won’t over and above relish.”

35. When the intruder was out of sight, Natty proceeded to the hut, where he found all quiet as the grave. He fastened his dogs, and tapping at the door, which was opened by Edwards, asked —
36. What more was uttered by the Leather-stocking, in his vexation, was rendered inaudible by the closing of the door of the cabin.
37. “There has always been one point of difference between us, Judge Temple, I may say, since our nativity; not that I would insinuate that you are at all answerable for the acts of nature; for a man is no more to be condemned for the misfortunes of his birth, than he is to be commended for the natural advantages he may possess; but on one point we may be said to have differed from our births, and they, you know, occurred within two days of each other.
38. “To do justice to any subject, sir, the narrator must be suffered to proceed in his own way,” continued the Sheriff. “You are of opinion, Judge Temple, that a man is to be qualified by nature and education to do only one thing well, whereas I know that genius will supply the place of learning, and that a certain sort of man can do any thing and every thing.”
39. "What, that dissatisfied, shiftless, lazy, speculating fellow! he who changes his county every three years, his farm every six months, and his occupation every season! an agriculturist yesterday, a shoemaker to-day, and a schoolmaster to-morrow! that epitome of all the unsteady and profitless propensities of the settlers without one of their good qualities to counterbalance the evil! Nay, Richard, this is too bad for even — but who is the third?”

40. But Marmaduke was too much in the habit of examining both sides of a subject, not to perceive the objections, and reasoned with himself aloud: —
41. "Well, well, thou art safe, and we will converse no more on the unpleasant subject. I did not think such an animal yet remained in our forests; but they will stray far from their haunts when pressed by hunger, and” —
42. I s’pose the law gives a bounty on the scalps,” continued Hiram, “in which case the Leather-stocking will make a good job on’t.”
"It shall be my care, sir, to see that he is rewarded,” returned the Judge.
43. To be continued.




Sunday, December 17, 2023


Various Notes,
1. In one Alexander Pushkin poem, the hero tugs his beard, and in one Alexander Dumas novel, one of the heroes strokes his beard.
Added to Item VI. 10., Favorite Notes 2.
2. Edited: Item V. 13., on Favorite Notes 2.
3. In one Charles Dickens novel, Dickens describes a mutual hatred that existed between two men.
4. In one book I’ve read, in the women’s literature genre, the author describes a child who was brought up so as to never harm anything, never do any wrong, and always behave well.
5. Voltaire also suggests that it can be rewarding to acquire an understanding of the different religions of the world.
Added to Item III. 5., on Favorite Notes.




Saturday, December 16, 2023

The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. But the youth explained to her the buoyant properties of the boat, and its perfect safety, when under proper management, adding, in such glowing terms, a description of the manner in which the fish were struck with the spear, that she changed suddenly, from an apprehension of the danger of the excursion, to a desire to participate in its pleasures.
2. But the motion of the canoe gave rise to new ideas, and fortunately afforded a good excuse to the young man to change the discourse.
3. It appeared to Elizabeth that they glided over the water by magic, so easy and graceful was the manner in which Mohegan guided his little bark.
4. It was at the shallow points, only, that the bass could be found, or the net cast with success. Elizabeth saw thousands of these fish swimming in shoals along the shallow and warm waters of the shore; for the flaring light of their torch exposed all the mysteries of the lake, laying them open to the eye, with a slight variation in colour, as plainly as if the limpid sheet of the Otsego was but another atmosphere.
5. Elizabeth then saw a fish of unusual size, floating above the small pieces of logs and sticks that were lying on the bottom. The animal was only distinguishable, at that distance, by a slight, but almost imperceptible motion of its fins and tail. The curiosity excited by this unusual exposure of the secrets of the lake seemed to be mutual between the heiress of the land and the lord of these waters, for the “salmon-trout” soon announced his interest by raising his head and body, for a few degrees above a horizontal line, and then dropping them again into the position of nature.

6. While they are in the canoe, Natty catches the big fish with his spear.
7. "Haul off, haul off, Master Bumppo,” cried Benjamin; “your top-light frightens the fish, who see the net and sheer off soundings. A fish knows as much as a horse, or, for that matter, more, seeing that it’s brought up on the water. Haul off, Master Bumppo, haul off, I say, and give a wide birth to the seine.”
8. A loud burst of merriment, to which the lungs of Kirby contributed no small part, broke out like a chorus of laughter, and rung along the eastern mountain, in echoes, until it died away in distant, mocking mirth, among the rocks and woods.
9. The arrival of the nostrils of Benjamin into their own atmosphere, was announced by a breathing that would have done credit to a full grown porpoise.

10. Mohegan saves Benjamin, the drowning man.
11. All this time Benjamin sat, with his muscles fixed, his mouth shut, and his hands clenching the rushes, which he had seized in the confusion of the moment, and which, as he held fast, like a true seaman, had been the means of preventing his body from rising again to the surface. His eyes, however, were open, and stared wildly on the group about the fire, while his lungs were playing like a blacksmith’s bellows, as if to compensate themselves for the minute of inaction to which they had been subjected. As he kept his lips compressed, with a most inveterate determination, the air was compelled to pass through his nostrils, and he rather snorted than breathed, and in such a manner, that nothing but the excessive agitation of the Sheriff could at all justify his precipitous orders.
12. The bottle [of rum], applied to the steward’s lips by Marmaduke, acted like a charm. His mouth opened instinctively; his hands dropped the rushes, and seized the black glass; his eyes raised from their horizontal stare, to the heavens; and the whole man was lost, for a moment, in a new sensation. Unhappily for the propensity of the steward, breath was as necessary after one of these draughts, as after his submersion, and the time at length arrived when he was compelled to let go of the bottle.
13. The wood-chopper was seen broiling his suppe-on the coals, as they lost sight of the fire; and when the boat approached the shore, the torch of Mohegan’s canoe was shining again under the gloom of the eastern mountain. Its motion ceased suddenly; a scattering of brands was exhibited in the air, and then all remained dark as the conjunction of night, forests, and mountains, could render the scene.
14. The thoughts of the heiress wandered from the youth, who was holding a canopy of shawls over herself and Louisa, to the hunter and the Indian warrior; and she felt an awakening curiosity to visit a hut, where men of such different habits and temperament were drawn together, as if by one common impulse.

15. Chapter XXV
16. MR. JONES AROSE, ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING, WITH THE SUN, AND ordering his own and Marmaduke’s steeds to be saddled, he proceeded, with a countenance that was big with some business of unusual moment, to the apartment of the Judge. The door was unfastened, and Richard entered, with the freedom that characterized not only the intercourse between the cousins but the ordinary manners of the Sheriff.
17. “Well, ’duke, to horse,” he cried, “and I will explain to you my meaning in the allusions I made last night. David says, in the Psalms — no, it was Solomon, but it was all in the family — Solomon said, there was a time for all things; and in my humble opinion, a fishing party is not the moment for discussing important subjects — Ha! why, what the devil ails you, Marmaduke? an’t you well? let me feel your pulse: my grandfather, you know”
18. “Read it,” said Marmaduke, waving his hand for silence, and pacing the floor in excessive agitation.
Richard, who commonly thought aloud, was unable to read a letter without suffering part of its contents to escape him in audible sounds.
19. "What will you do next, cousin Marmaduke?” “What can I do, Richard, but trust to time and the will of Heaven?"

20. "We have certainly heard bad news,” returned Elizabeth, “and it may be necessary that my father should leave his home for a short period; unless I can persuade him to trust my cousin Richard with the business, whose absence from the county, just at this time, too, might be inexpedient.”
21. "Surely, you know me, Miss Temple!” he added, with a warmth that he seldom exhibited, but which did sometimes escape him, in the moments of their frank communications — “Have I lived five months under your roof, and yet a stranger?”
22. Elizabeth was engaged with her needle also, and she bent her head to one side, affecting to arrange her muslin; but her hand shook, her colour heightened, and her eyes lost their moisture in an expression of ungovernable interest, as she said — “How much do we know of you, Mr. Edwards?”
23. “On reflection, I must acknowledge that my situation here is somewhat equivocal,” said Edwards, “though I may be said to have purchased it with my blood.”
“The blood, too, of one of the native lords of the soil!” cried Elizabeth, whose melancholy had vanished in the excitement of their dialogue.
24. The first person encountered by Mr. Edwards, as he rather rushed than walked from the house, was the little, square-built lawyer, with a large bundle of papers under his arm, a pair of green spectacles on his nose, with glasses at the sides, as if to multiply his power of detecting frauds, by additional organs of vision.

25. “I shall be always glad to see you, sir, at my office, (as in duty bound, (not that it is obligatory to receive any man within your dwelling, (unless so inclined,) which is a castle,) according to the forms of politeness,) or at any other place; but the papers are most strictly confidential, (and as such, cannot be read by any one,) unless so directed (by Judge Temple’s solemn injunctions) and are invisible to all eyes; excepting those whose duties (I mean assumed duties) require it of them.”
26. Chapter XXVI
27. IT WAS A MILD AND SOFT MORNING, WHEN MARMADUKE AND RICHARD mounted their horses, to proceed on the expedition that had so long been uppermost in the thoughts of the latter; and Elizabeth and Louisa appeared at the same instant in the hall, attired for an excursion on foot.
28. “Grand-children, you mean, cousin Bess,” said the Sheriff. “But on, Judge Temple; time and tide wait for no man; and if you take my counsel, sir, in twelve months from this day, you may make an umbrella for your daughter of her camel’s-hair shawl, and have its frame of solid silver."
29. "Here, Brave, — Brave — my noble Brave!” The huge mastiff that has been already mentioned, appeared from his kennel, gaping and stretching himself, with a pampered laziness; but as his mistress again called — “Come, dear Brave; once have you served your master well; let us see how you can do your duty by his daughter” — the dog wagged his tail, as if he understood her language, walked with a stately gait to her side, where he seated himself, and looked up at her face, with an intelligence but little inferior to that which beamed in her own lovely countenance.

30. There were several places in the Otsego that were celebrated as fishing-ground for the perch. One was nearly opposite to the cabin, and another, still more famous, was near a point, at the distance of a mile and a half above it, under the brow of the mountain, and on the same side of the lake with the hut.
31. “He craves dreadfully to come into the cabin, and has as good as asked me as much to my face; but I put him off with unsartain answers, so that he is no wiser than Solomon. This comes of having so many laws that such a man may be called on to intarpret them.”
32. trouble.” “If he harbours too much about the cabin, lad, I’ll shoot the creater,” said the Leather-stocking, quite coolly.
“No, no, Natty, you must remember the law,” said Edwards, “or we shall have you in trouble; and that, old man, would be an evil day, and sore tidings to us all.”
33. The old hunters yielded to his wish, which seemed to be their law.
34. "No, no, John,” said Natty, “I was no chief, seeing that I know’d nothing of scholarship, and had a white skin."

35. "Where! why up on the Cattskills. I used often to go up into the mountains after wolves’ skins, and bears; once they bought me to get them a stuffed painter; and so I often went. There’s a place in them hills that I used to climb to when I wanted to see the carryings on of the world, that would well pay any man for a barked shin or a torn moccasin. You know the Cattskills, lad, for you must have seen them on your left, as you followed the river up from York, looking as blue as a piece of clear sky, and holding the clouds on their tops, as the smoke curls over the head of an Indian chief at a council fire. Well, there’s the High-peak and the Round-top, which lay back, like a father and mother among their children, seeing they are far above all the other hills. But the place I mean is next to the river, where one of the ridges juts out a little from the rest, and where the rocks fall for the best part of a thousand feet, so much up and down, that a man standing on their edges is fool enough to think he can jump from top to bottom.” “What see you when you get there?” asked Edwards. “Creation!” said Natty, dropping the end of his rod into the water, and sweeping one hand around him in a circle — “all creation, lad. I
36. "Why, there’s a fall in the hills, where the water of two little ponds that lie near each other breaks out of their hounds, and runs over the rocks into the valley. The stream is, maybe, such a one as would turn a mill, if so useless a thing was wanted in the wilderness. But the hand that made that ‘Leap’ never made a mill! There the water comes crooking and winding among the rocks, first so slow that a trout could swim in it, and then starting and running just like any creater that wanted to make a far spring, till it gets to where the mountain divides, like the cleft hoof of a deer, leaving a deep hollow for the brook to tumble into. The first pitch is nigh two hundred feet, and the water looks like flakes of driven snow, afore it touches the bottom; and there the stream gathers itself together again for a new start, and maybe flutters over fifty feet of flat-rock, before it falls for another hundred, when it jumps about from shelf to shelf, first turning this-away and then turning that-away, striving to get out of the hollow, till it finally comes to the plain.” “I have never heard of this spot before!” exclaimed Edwards; “it is not mentioned in the books.” “I never read a book in my life,” said Leather-stocking; “and how should a man who has lived in towns and schools know any thing about the wonders of the woods!"
37. "No, no, lad; there has that little stream of water been playing among them hills, since He made the world, and not a dozen white men have ever laid eyes on it. The rock sweeps like mason-work, in a half-round, on both sides of the fall, and shelves over the bottom for fifty feet; so that when I’ve been sitting at the foot of the first pitch, and my hounds have run into the caverns behind the sheet of water, they’ve looked no bigger than so many rabbits."
38. "What becomes of the water? in which direction does it run? Is it a tributary of the Delaware?” “Anan!” said Natty. “Does the water run into the Delaware?” “No, no, it’s a drop for the old Hudson; and a merry time it has till it gets down off the mountain."
39. "It is a spot to make a man solemnize. You can see right down into the valley that lies to the east of the High-Peak, where, in the fall of the year, thousands of acres of woods are before your eyes, in the deep hollow, and along the side of the mountain, painted like ten thousand rainbows, by no hand of man, though without the ordering of God’s providence.”

40. Edwards started, as a full cry broke on his ear, changing from the distant sounds that were caused by some intervening hill, to the confused echoes that rung among the rocks that the dogs were passing, and then directly to a deep and hollow baying that pealed under the forest on the lake shore. These variations in the tones of the hounds passed with amazing rapidity, and while his eyes were glancing along the margin of the water, a tearing of the branches of the alder and dog-wood caught his attention, at a spot near them, and at the next moment a noble buck sprung on the shore, and buried himself in the lake.
41. To be continued.




Various Notes:
1. Added: Items XXI. 8, 9, & 10, on Favorite Notes 2.
2. Added: Items V. 13 & 14, on Favorite Notes 2, with notes from the above reading.
3. Voltaire, in Philosophical Dictionary, suggests that it can be rewarding to look at the art of different cultures.
Added to Item III. 4. on Favorite Notes.




Friday, December 15, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Do Sveedania ee Preevyet, on College Notes, my Russian poem, updated. Essentially, it’s a Russian poem that goes on and on, in a pattern.
2. A. William Wordsworth: A Life, by Stephen Gill: Gill indicates that often, you see the end result, but not the pains that it took to achieve it. In fact, he indicates that often, hours of painstaking labor, go unnoticed.
B. He also indicates that Wordsworth ‘tinkered’ a great deal with his poems, paying close attention to punctuation, words and phrases. Wordsworth was always 'tinkering' with his poems.
C. Much of the time that Wordsworth spent in England, reminded him of early rising and long days walking in France and Switzerland.



Thursday, December 14, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Added: Various Notes 2, Item V. 12.
2. Tba.




Wednesday, December 13, 2023

The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. AS THE SPRING GRADUALLY APPROACHED, THE IMMENSE PILES OF snow, that by alternate thaws and frosts, and repeated storms, had obtained a firmness that threatened a tiresome durability, began to yield to the influence of milder breezes and a warmer sun.
2. The gates of Heaven at times seemed to open, and a bland air diffused itself over the earth, when animate and inanimate nature would awaken, and for a few hours, the gayety of spring shone in every eye, and smiled on every field.
3. While the snow rendered the roads passable, they had partaken largely in the amusements of the winter, which included not only daily rides over the mountains, and through every valley within twenty miles of them, but divers ingenious and varied sources of pleasure, on the bosom of their frozen lake.
4. Richard led the way, on this, as on all other occasions, that did not require the exercise of unusual abilities; and as he moved along, he essayed to enliven the party with the sounds of his experienced voice.
5. “Now, sir, I assert that no experiment is fairly tried, until it be reduced to practical purposes. If, sir, I owned a hundred, or, for that matter, two hundred thousand acres of land, as you do, I would build a sugar-house in the village; I would invite learned men to an investigation of the subject, — and such are easily to be found, sir; yes, sir, they are not difficult to find, — men who unite theory with practice; and I would select a wood of young and thrifty trees; and instead of making loaves of the size of a lump of candy, dam’me, ’duke, but I’d have them as big as a haycock.”

6. “It is very true that we manufacture sugar, but the inquiry is quite useful to make, how much? and in what manner? I hope to live to see the day, when farms and plantations shall be devoted to this branch of business."
7. "This is next to hunting for coal! Poh! poh! my dear cousin, hear reason, and leave the management of the sugar-bush to me. Here is Mr. Le Quoi, he has been in the West Indies, and seen sugar made often. Let him give an account of how it is made there, and you will hear the philosophy of the thing. — Well, Monsieur, how is it that you make sugar in the West Indies; any thing in Judge Temple’s fashion?”
8. The gentleman to whom this query was put was mounted on a small horse, of no very fiery temperament, and was riding with his stirrups so short, as to bring his knees, while the animal rose a small ascent in the wood-path they were now travelling, into a somewhat hazardous vicinity to his chin. There was no room for gesticulation or grace in the delivery of his reply, for the mountain was steep and slippery; and although the Gaul had an eye of uncommon magnitude on either side of his face, they did not seem to be half competent to forewarn him of the impediments of bushes, twigs, and fallen trees, that were momentarily crossing his path.
9. With one hand employed in averting these dangers, and the other grasping his bridle, to check an untoward speed that his horse was assuming, the native of France responded as follows —
“Sucre! dey do make eet in Martinique: mais — mais eet is not from von tree; eet is from — ah — ah — vat you call — Je voudrois que ces chemins fussent au diable — vat you call — von steeck pour le promenade.”
10. A deep and careless incision had been made into each tree, near its root, into which little spouts, formed of the bark of the alder, or of the sumach, were fastened; and a trough, roughly dug out of the linden, or basswood, was lying at the root of each tree, to catch the sap that flowed from this extremely wasteful and inartificial arrangement.

11. The men begin singing:
The Eastern States be full of men,
The Western full of woods, Sir,
The hills be like a cattle pen,
The roads be full of goods, sir!
Then flow away, my sweety sap,
And I will make you boily;
Nor catch a woodman’s hasty nap,
For fear you should get roily.
‘The maple tree’s a precious one,
’Tis fuel, food, and timber;
And when your stiff day’s work is done,
Its juice will make you limber.
12. "Why, much as usual, Billy,” returned Richard. “But how is this! where are your four kettles, and your troughs, and your iron coolers? Do you make sugar in this slovenly way! I thought you were one of the best sugar-boilers in the county.”
13. "I’m all that, Squire Jones,” said Kirby, who continued his occupation; “I’ll turn my back to no man in the Otsego hills, for chopping and logging; for boiling down the maple sap; for tending brick-kiln; splitting out rails; making potash, and parling too; or hoeing corn. Though I keep myself, pretty much, to the first business, seeing that the axe comes most nateral to me.”
14. "You are not exempt from the censure yourself, Kirby, for you make dreadful wounds in these trees, where a small incision would effect the same object. I earnestly beg you will remember, that they are the growth of centuries, and when once gone, none living will see their loss remedied.”
15. "Why, I don’t know, Judge,” returned the man he addressed: “It seems to me, if there’s a plenty of any thing in this mountaynious country, it’s the trees. If there’s any sin in chopping them, I’ve a pretty heavy account to settle; for I’ve chopped over the best half of a thousand acres, with my own hands, counting both Varmount and York states; and I hope to live to finish the whull, before I lay up my axe. Chopping comes quite nateral to me, and I wish no other empl’yment..."

16. "Our notions on such subjects vary much, in different countries,” said Marmaduke; “but it is not as ornaments that I value the noble trees of this country; it is for their usefulness. We are stripping the forests, as if a single year would replace what we destroy. But the hour approaches, when the laws will take notice of not only the woods but the game they contain also.”
17. The wood-chopper was left alone, in the bosom of the forest, to pursue his labours. Elizabeth turned her head, when they reached the point where they were to descend the mountain, and thought that the slow fires, that were glimmering under his enormous kettles, his little brush shelter, covered with pieces of hemlock bark, his gigantic size, as he wielded his ladle with a steady and knowing air, aided by the back-ground of stately trees, with their spouts and troughs, formed, altogether, no unreal picture of human life in its first stages of civilization.
18. Kirby begins singing:
And when the proud forest is falling,
To my oxen cheerfully calling,
From morn until night I am bawling,
Woe, back there, and hoy and gee;
Till our labour is mutually ended,
By my strength and cattle befriended,
And against the musquitoes defended,
By the bark of the walnut-tree.
— “Away! then, you lads who would buy land,
Choose the oak that grows on the high land,
Or the silvery pine on the dry land,
It matters but little to me.”
19. End of chapter. To be continued.

20. THE ROADS OF OTSEGO, IF WE EXCEPT THE PRINCIPAL HIGHWAYS, were, at the early day of our tale, but little better than wood-paths of unusual width.
21. The nag of Richard, when it reached this barrier, laid its nose along the logs, and stepped across the difficult passage with the sagacity of a man; but the blooded filly which Miss Temple rode disdained so humble a movement. She made a step or two with an unusual caution, and then on reaching the broadest opening, obedient to the curb and whip of her fearless mistress, she bounded across the dangerous pass with the activity of a squirrel.
22. "Gently, gently, my child,” said Marmaduke, who was following in the manner of Richard — “this is not a country for equestrian feats. Much prudence is requisite to journey through our rough paths with safety. Thou mayst practise thy skill in horsemanship on the plains of New-Jersey with safety, but in the hills of Otsego they must be suspended for a time.”
23. “But thou dost not feel all the secret motives that can urge a man to endure privations in order to accumulate wealth."
24. "Even so, my child,” said her father. “Those who look around them now, and see the loads of produce that issue out of every wild path in these mountains, during the season of travelling, will hardly credit that no more than five years have elapsed, since the tenants of these woods were compelled to eat the scanty fruits of the forest to sustain life, and, with their unpractised skill, to hunt the beasts as food for their starving families.”
25. “Ay!” cried Richard, who happened to overhear the last of this speech, between the notes of the wood-chopper’s song, which he was endeavouring to breathe aloud; “that was the starving-time, cousin Bess."

26. "Remember, my child, it was in our very infancy; we had neither mills, nor grain, nor roads, nor often clearings; — we had nothing of increase, but the mouths that were to be fed; for, even at that inauspicious moment, the restless spirit of emigration was not idle; nay, the general scarcity, which extended to the east, tended to increase the number of adventurers.”
27. "The sufferings of their families, and the gloomy prospect before them, had paralysed the enterprise and efforts of my settlers; hunger drove them to the woods for food, but despair sent them, at night, enfeebled and wan, to a sleepless pillow. It was not a moment for inaction. I purchased cargoes of wheat from the granaries of Pennsylvania; they were landed at Albany, and brought up the Mohawk in boats; from thence it was transported on pack-horses into the wilderness, and distributed among my people."
28. "Seines were made, and the lakes and rivers were dragged for fish. Something like a miracle was wrought in our favour, for enormous shoals of herring were discovered to have wandered five hundred miles, through the windings of the impetuous Susquehanna, and the lake was alive with their numbers. These were at length caught, and dealt out to the people, with proper portions of salt; and from that moment we again began to prosper.”
29. "No, Bess,” cried the Judge, in a more cheerful tone, utterly disregarding the interruption of his cousin, “he who hears of the settlement of a country knows but little of the actual toil and suffering by which it is accomplished."
30. "He considered the introduction of the settlers as an innovation on his rights, I believe; for he expressed much dissatisfaction at the measure, though it was in his confused and ambiguous manner."

31. "The error of Mr. Le Quoi was not noticed by the Sheriff; and the rest of the party were yielding to the influence of the changeful season, that was already teaching the equestrians that a continuance of its mildness was not to be expected for any length of time. Silence and thoughtfulness succeeded the gayety and conversation that had prevailed during the commencement of their ride..."
32. All of the party were now busily engaged in making the best of their way to the village, though the badness of the roads frequently compelled them to check the impatience of their animals, which often carried them over places that would not admit of any gait faster than a walk.
33. Marmaduke followed his daughter, giving her frequent and tender warnings as to her safety and the management of her horse.
34. "Suddenly the voice of young Edwards was heard shouting, in those appalling tones that carry alarm to the very soul, and which curdle the blood of those that hear them —"
35. "The sudden falling of the trees,” said Marmaduke, “are the most dangerous of our accidents in the forest, for they are not to be foreseen, being impelled by no winds, nor any extraneous or visible cause, against which we can guard.”

36. "The reason of their falling, Judge Temple, is very obvious,” said the Sheriff. “The tree is old and decayed, and it is gradually weakened by the frosts, until a line drawn from the centre of gravity falls without its base, and then the tree comes of a certainty; and I should like to know, what greater compulsion there can be for any thing, than a mathematical certainty. I studied mathe — — ”
37. But how is one to guard against the danger? canst thou go through the forests, measuring the bases, and calculating the centres of the oaks? answer me that, friend Jones, and I will say thou wilt do the country a service.”
"Answer thee that, friend Temple!” returned Richard; “a well-educated man can answer thee any thing, sir.
38. "That would be excluding us entirely from the forests,” said Marmaduke. “But, happily, the winds usually force down most of these dangerous ruins, as their currents are admitted into the woods by the surrounding clearings, and such a fall as this has been is very rare.”
39. End of chapter. To be continued.

40. FROM THIS TIME TO THE CLOSE OF APRIL, THE WEATHER CONTINUED to be a succession of great and rapid changes.
41. The snow, however, finally disappeared, and the green wheat fields were seen in every direction, spotted with the dark and charred stumps that had, the preceding season, supported some of the proudest trees of the forest.
42. Large flocks of wild geese were seen passing over the country, which hovered, for a time, around the hidden sheet of water, apparently searching for an opening, where they might find a resting-place; and then, on finding themselves excluded by the chill covering, would soar away to the north, filling the air with their discordant screams, as if venting their complaints at the tardy operations of nature.
43. For a week, the dark covering of the Otsego was left to the undisturbed possession of two eagles, who alighted on the centre of its field, and sat proudly eyeing the extent of their undisputed territory. During the presence of these monarchs of the air, the flocks of migrating birds avoided crossing the plain of ice, by turning into the hills, apparently seeking the protection of the forests, while the white and bald heads of the tenants of the lake were turned upward, with a look of majestic contempt, as if penetrating to the very heavens with the acuteness of their vision. But the time had come, when even these kings of birds were to be dispossessed.
44. The gentlemen were impatiently waiting for their morning’s repast, each being equipt in the garb of a sportsman.

45. Well! the Lord won’t see the waste of his creaters for nothing, and right will be done to the pigeons, as well as others, by-and-by.
46. The fire from the distant part of the field had driven a single pigeon below the flock to which it had belonged, and frightened with the constant reports of the muskets, it was approaching the spot where the disputants stood, darting first from one side, and then to the other, cutting the air with the swiftness of lightning, and making a noise with its wings, not unlike the rushing of a bullet.
47. "Put an ind, Judge, to your clearings. An’t the woods his work as well as the pigeons? Use, but don’t waste. Wasn’t the woods made for the beasts and birds to harbour in? and when man wanted their flesh, their skins, or their feathers, there’s the place to seek them. But I’ll go to the hut with my own game, for I wouldn’t touch one of the harmless things that kiver the ground here, looking up with their eyes on me, as if they only wanted tongues to say their thoughts.”
48. Whatever impression the morality of Natty made on the Judge, it was utterly lost on Richard. He availed himself of the gathering of the sportsmen, to lay a plan for one “fell swoop” of destruction.
49. THE ADVANCE OF THE SEASON NOW BECAME AS RAPID AS ITS FIRST approach had been tedious and lingering. The days were uniformly mild, and genial to vegetation, while the nights, though cool, were no longer chilled by frosts.

50. The gay and fluttering blue-bird, the social robin, and the industrious little wren, were all to be seen enlivening the fields with their presence and their songs; while the soaring fish-hawk was already hovering over the waters of the Otsego, watching, with his native voracity, for the appearance of his prey.
51. The tenants of the lake were far-famed for both their quantities and their quality, and the ice had hardly disappeared, before numberless little boats were launched from the shores, and the lines of the fishermen were dropped into the inmost recesses of its deepest caverns, tempting the unwary animals with every variety of bait that the ingenuity or the art of man had invented.
52. But the slow, though certain adventures with a hook and line were ill-suited to the profusion and impatience of the settlers.
53. "And you shall be present, cousin Bess,” he added, when he announced this intention, “and Miss Grant, and Mr. Edwards; and I will show you what I call fishing — not nibble, nibble, nibble, as ’duke does when he goes after the salmon-trout. There he will sit for hours, in a broiling sun, or, perhaps, over a hole in the ice, in the coldest days in winter, under the lee of a few bushes, and not a fish will he catch, after all this mortification of the flesh. No, no — give me a good seine that’s fifty or sixty fathoms in length, with a jolly parcel of boatmen to crack their jokes the while, and with Benjamin to steer, and let us haul them in by thousands, and I shall call that fishing.”
54. The whole group were seated around the fire, on the ground, with the exception of Richard and Benjamin; the former of whom occupied the root of a decayed stump, that had been drawn to the spot as part of their fuel, and the latter was standing, with his arms a-kimbo, so near to the flame, that the smoke occasionally obscured his solemn visage, as it waved around the pile, in obedience to the light night-airs, that swept gently over the surface of the water.

55. "Why, look you, Squire,” said the Major-domo, “you may call a lake-fish that will weigh twenty or thirty pounds a serious matter; but to a man who has hauled in a shovel-nosed shirk, d’ye see, it’s but a poor kind of fishing after all.”
56. Softly, softly, Benjamin,” said the Sheriff, using a soothing manner, as if he wished to save the credit of his favourite; “why some of the pines will measure full two hundred feet, and even more.”
“Two hundred or two thousand, it’s all the same thing,” cried Benjamin, with an air which manifested that he was not easily to be bullied out of his opinion, on a subject like the present — “Haven’t I been there, and haven’t I seen? I have said that you fall in with whales as long as one of them there pines; and I’ll stand to what I have once said.”
57. "I’ve a notion,” said the wood-chopper, “that there’s water in this lake to swim the biggest whale that ever was invented; and, as to the pines, I think I ought to know so’thing consarning them; and I have chopped many a one that was sixty times the length of my helve, without counting the eyes; and I b’lieve, Benny, that if the old pine that stands in the hollow of the Vision Mountain, just over the village, and you may see the tree itself by looking up, for the moon is on its top yet; — well, now I b’lieve, that if that same tree was planted out in the deepest part of the lake, there would be water enough for the biggest ship that ever was built to float over it, without touching its upper branches, I do.”
58. “Where! why on the North River, and maybe on Champlain. There’s sloops on the river, boy, that would give a hard time on’t to the stoutest vessel King George owns. They carry masts of ninety feet in the clear, of good, solid pine, for I’ve been at the chopping of many a one in Varmount state. I wish I was captain of one of them, and you was in that Board-dish that you tell so much about; and we’d soon see what good Yankee stuff is made on, and whether a Varmounter’s hide an’t as thick as an Englishman’s.”
59. The echoes from the opposite hills, which were more than half a mile from the fishing point, sent back the discordant laugh that Benjamin gave forth at this challenge; and the woods that covered their sides, seemed, by the noise that issued from their shades, to be full of mocking demons.

60. Fishes of various sorts now were to be seen, entangled in the meshes of the net, as it was passed through the hands of the labourers; and the water, at a little distance from the shore, was alive with the agitated movements of the alarmed victims. Hundreds of white sides were glancing up to the surface of the water, and glistening in the fire-light, when frightened at the uproar and the change, the fish would again dart to the bottom, in fruitless efforts for freedom.
61. Inflamed beyond the bounds of discretion at the sight, and forgetful of the season, the wood-chopper rushed to his middle in the water, and began to drive the reluctant animals before him from their native element.
62. "This is a fearful expenditure of the choicest gifts of providence. These fish, Bess, which thou seest lying in such piles before thee, and which, by to-morrow evening, will be rejected food on the meanest table in Templeton, are of a quality and flavour that, in other countries, would make them esteemed a luxury on the tables of princes or epicures. The world has no better fish than the bass of Otsego: it unites the richness of the shad to the firmness of the salmon.”
63. "But this is always the way with you, Marmaduke; first it’s the trees, then it’s the deer, after that it’s the maple sugar, and so on to the end of the chapter. One day you talk of canals through a country where there’s a river or a lake every half-mile, just because the water won’t run the way you wish it to go; and the next, you say something about mines of coal, though any man who has good eyes like myself — I say with good eyes — can see more wood than would keep the city of London in fuel for fifty years; wouldn’t it, Benjamin?”
64. WHILE THE FISHERMEN WERE EMPLOYED IN MAKING THE PREPARATIONS for an equitable division of their spoils, Elizabeth and her friend strolled to a short distance from the group, along the shores of the lake.

65. "Did you ever hear the singular ways of this Natty spoken of, Miss Temple? They say that, in his youth, he was an Indian warrior, or, what is the same thing, a white man leagued with the savages; and it is thought he has been concerned in many of their inroads, in the old wars.”
66. A light appears on the river. "The Leather-stocking struck his spear lightly against the short staff which upheld, on a rude grating framed of old hoops of iron, the knots of pine that composed the fuel, and the light, which glared high, for an instant fell on the swarthy features, and dark, glancing eyes of Mohegan."
67. "If they had fur like a beaver, or you could tan their hides, like a buck, something might be said in favour of taking them by the thousands with your nets; but as God made them for man’s food, and for no other disarnable reason, I call it sinful and wasty to catch more than can be eat.”
68. "And you fish and hunt out of rule; but to me, the flesh is sweeter, where the creater has some chance for its life; for that reason, I always use a single ball, even if it be at a bird or a squirrel; besides, it saves lead, for, when a body knows how to shoot, one piece of lead is enough for all, except hard-lived animals.”
69. To be continued.



Various Notes:
1. Update: Favorite Notes, Item II. 7.
2. Addition: Favorite Notes 2, Item XIV. 6.




Tuesday, December 12, 2023

The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. “Wait a minute, cousin Bess,” cried Richard; “there is an uncertainty about the rules of this sport, that it is proper I should remove. If you will appoint a committee, gentlemen, to wait on me this morning, I will draw up in writing a set of regulations — — ”
2. “I do think, Judge Temple, that such dangerous amusements should be suppressed by law; nay, I doubt whether they are not already indictable at common law.”
3. "Your manner, notwithstanding appearances, is a sufficient proof of your education, nor will thy shoulder suffer thee to labour, for some time to come. My doors are open to thee, my young friend, for in this infant country we harbour no suspicions: little offering to tempt the cupidity of the evil disposed. Become my assistant, for at least a season, and receive such compensation as thy services will deserve.”
4. Suggests that the way you carry yourself is a reflection of your level of education.
5. "Listen to your Father,” he said, “for his words are old. Let the Young Eagle and the Great Land Chief eat together; let them sleep, without fear, near to each other. The children of Miquon love not blood; they are just, and will do right. The sun must rise and set often, before men can make one family; it is not the work of a day, but of many winters."

6. "Really, my dear sir, I think you did exercise the Christian virtue of patience to the utmost."
7. “Well, ’duke, I call this democracy, not republicanism; but I say nothing; only let him keep within the law, or I shall show him, that the freedom of even this country is under wholesome restraint.”
8. On the other hand, the foresters — for the three hunters, notwithstanding their great difference in character, well deserved this common name — pursued their course along the skirts of the village in silence.
9. "When the people were dispersing, the clouds, that had been gathering all the morning, were dense and dirty; and before half of the curious congregation had reached their different cabins, that, were placed in every glen and hollow of the mountains, or perched on the summits of the hills themselves, the rain was falling in torrents. The dark edges of the stumps began to exhibit themselves, as the snow settled rapidly..."
10. THE CLOSE OF CHRISTMAS DAY, AD. 1793, WAS TEMPESTUOUS, BUT comparatively warm.

11. With her arm locked in that of Miss Grant, the young mistress of the mansion walked slowly up and down the hall, musing on the scenes that were rapidly recurring to her memory, and possibly dwelling, at times, in the sanctuary of her thoughts, on the strange occurrences that had led to the introduction to her father’s family, of one, whose manners so singularly contradicted the inferences to be drawn from his situation.
12. Suggests that it is acceptable to think about past memories.
13. Much mirth, and that, at times, of a boisterous kind, proceeded from the mouth of Richard; but Major Hartmann was not yet excited to his pitch of merriment, and Marmaduke respected the presence of his clerical guest too much, to indulge in even the innocent humour, that formed no small ingredient in his character.
14. "How now, Master Pump!” roared the newly appointed Sheriff; “is there not warmth enough in ’duke’s best Madeira, to keep up the animal heat through this thaw?"
15. Elizabeth and her friend had not yet lost their senses in sleep, when the howlings of the north-west wind were heard around the buildings, and brought with them that exquisite sense of comfort, that is ever excited under such circumstances, in an apartment where the fire has not yet ceased to glimmer; and curtains, and shutters, and feathers, unite to preserve the desired temperature in the air.

16. “The enterprise of Judge Temple is taming the very forests!” exclaimed Elizabeth, proudly, throwing off the covering, and partly rising in the bed. “How rapidly is civilization treading on the foot-steps of nature!” she continued, as her eye glanced over, not only the comforts, but the luxuries of her apartment, and her ear again listened to the distant, but often repeated howls from the lake.
17. But it was the appearance of the boundless forests, that covered the hills, as they rose, in the distance, one over the other, that most attracted the gaze of Miss Temple. The huge branches of the pines and hemlocks, on the western mountains, bent with the weight of the ice they supported, while their summits rose above the swelling tops of the oaks, beeches, and maples, like spires of burnished silver issuing from domes of the same material.
18. Elizabeth turned in amazement, to hear such a skeptical sentiment from one educated like her companion; but was surprised to find that, instead of looking at the view, the mild, blue eyes of Miss Grant were dwelling on the form of a well-dressed young man, who was standing before the door of the building, in earnest conversation with her father.
19. "He is certainly a genteel savage,” returned the smiling Elizabeth. “But let us go down, and give the Sachem his tea; — for I suppose he is a descendant of King Philip, if not a grandson of Pocahontas.”
20. "Oh! I am not much troubled, sir, with that laudable thirst after knowledge, that is called curiosity. I shall believe him to be the child of Cornstalk, or Corn-planter, or some other renowned chieftain; possibly of the Big Snake himself; and shall treat him as such, until he sees fit to shave his good-looking head, borrow some half-dozen pair of my best earrings, shoulder his rifle again, and disappear as suddenly as he made his entrance."

21. The village was alive with business; the artisans increasing in wealth with the prosperity of the country, and each day witnessing some nearer approach to the manners and usages of an old-settled town.
22. The intercourse between the three hunters was maintained with a certain air of mystery, it is true, but with much zeal and apparent interest to all the parties.
23. Even Mohegan seldom came to the Mansion-house, and Natty, never; but Edwards sought every leisure moment to visit his former abode, from which he would often return in the gloomy hours of night, through the snow, or, if detained beyond the time at which the family retired to rest, with the morning sun.
24. End of chapter. To be continued.




Various Notes:
1. Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire, Chapter: Languages, on Project Gutenberg, has taught me a great deal. Please review it for yourself.
2. Tba.




Monday, December 11, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Updated: Food Ideas Item III. 6.
2. Tba.




Sunday, December 10, 2023

The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. THE ANCIENT AMUSEMENT OF SHOOTING THE CHRISTMAS TURKEY, IS one of the few sports that the settlers of a new country seldom or never neglect to observe.
2. The owner of the birds was a free black, who had been preparing for the occasion a collection of game, that was admirably qualified to inflame the appetite of an epicure, and was well adapted to the means and skill of the different competitors, who were of all ages.
3. He had offered to the younger and more humble marksmen divers birds of an inferior quality, and some shooting had already taken place, much to the pecuniary advantage of the sable owner of the game.
4. The order of the sports was extremely simple, and well understood. The bird was fastened by a string of tow, to the base of the stump of a large pine, the side of which, towards the point where the marksmen were placed, had been flattened with an axe, in order that it might serve the purpose of a target, by which the merit of each individual might be ascertained. The distance between the stump and this point was one hundred measured yards: a foot more or a foot less being thought an invasion of the right of one of the parties
5. The throng consisted of some twenty or thirty young men, most of whom had rifles, and a collection of all the boys in the village.

6. The heavy and brisk blows that he struck were soon succeeded by the thundering report of the tree, as it came, first cracking and threatening, with the separation of its own last ligaments, then thrashing and tearing with its branches the tops of its surrounding brethren, and finally meeting the ground with a shock but little inferior to an earthquake.
7. Between him and the Leather-stocking there had long existed a jealous rivalry, on the point of their respective skill in shooting. Notwithstanding the long practice of Natty, it was commonly supposed that the steady nerves and quick eye of the wood-chopper rendered him his equal.
8. The turkey was already fastened at the “mark,” but its body was entirely hid by the surrounding snow, nothing being visible but its red swelling head, and long proud neck. If the bird was injured by any bullet that struck below the snow, it was still to continue the property of its present owner, but if a feather was touched in a visible part, the animal became the prize of the successful adventurer.
9. "...you’ll get but one shot at the creater, for if the lad misses his aim, which wouldn’t be a wonder if he did, with his arm so stiff and sore, you’ll find a good piece and an old eye coming a’ter you. Maybe it’s true that I can’t shoot as I used to could, but a hundred yards is but a short distance for a long rifle."
10. While these indications of apprehension were exhibited in the sable owner of the turkey, the man who gave rise to this extraordinary emotion was as calm and collected, as if there was not to be a single spectator of his skill.

11. I was down in the Dutch settlements on the Scoharie,” said Natty, carefully removing the leather guard from the lock of his rifle, “jist before the breaking out of the last war, and there was a shooting-match among the boys; so I took a hand in it myself.
12. The shooter shoots, but misses the turkey on the first shot.
13. As this opinion came from such a high quarter, and was delivered with so much effect, it silenced all murmurs, — for the whole of the spectators had begun to take sides with great warmth, — except from the Leather-stocking himself.
14. "I think Miss Elizabeth’s thoughts should be taken,” said Natty. “I’ve known the squaws give very good counsel, when the Indians have been dumb foundered in their notions. If she says that I ought to lose, I agree to give it up.”
15. "Heigho! it seems to me, that just as the game grows scarce, and a body wants the best of ammunition, to get a livelihood, every thing that’s bad falls on him, like a judgment."

16. Elizabeth regarded his proud, but forced manner, and even thought that she could discern a tinge on his cheek, that spoke the shame of conscious poverty.
17. The boys rushed to the mark, and lifted the turkey on high, lifeless, and with nothing but the remnant of a head.
18. She even blushed a little as she turned to the young hunter, and, with the insinuating charm of a woman’s best manner, added — “But it was only to see an exhibition of the far-famed skill of Leather-stocking, that I tried my fortunes. Will you, sir, accept the bird, as a small peace-offering, for the hurt that prevented your own success?”
19. "I do think, Judge Temple, that such dangerous amusements should be suppressed by law; nay, I doubt whether they are not already indictable at common law.”
20. “Ah! ’duke, my dear cousin,” he said, “step a little on one side; I have something I would say to you.” Marmaduke complied, and the Sheriff led him to a little distance in the bushes, and continued — “First, ’duke, let me thank you for your friendly interest with the Council and the Governor, without which, I am confident, that the greatest merit would avail but little. But we are sisters’ children — we are sisters’ children; and you may use me like one of your horses; ride me or drive me, ’duke, I am wholly yours. But in my humble opinion, this young companion of Leather-stocking requires looking after. He has a very dangerous propensity for turkey.”
21. End of chapter. To be continued.



Various Notes:
1. Shaving Tip: with an inexpensive full length mirror, and the mirror on your bathroom wall, and an inexpensive electric clipper set, you can shave the sides and the back of your head. I learned this shaving tip growing up in Brooklyn, New York.
2. If you start by first eating the broth, and then eat the rest, Campbell’s Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup is great! This is in reference to the soup in the small, red and white can (25% low sodium). This is related to the statement, in a Jane Austen novel, that soup broth is good for you.
Added to Food Ideas Item III. 7.
3. My next shopping trip, I plan to buy Dinty Moore Beef Stew, and Hormel Compleats Meatloaf & Gravy with Mashed Potatoes. They should be great menu additions!




Saturday, December 9, 2023

The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. IT WAS FORTUNATE FOR MORE THAN ONE OF THE BACCHANALIANS, WHO left the “Bold Dragoon” late in the evening, that the severe cold of the season was becoming, rapidly, less dangerous, as they threaded the different mazes, through the snow-banks, that led to their respective dwellings.
2. The rising sun was obscured by denser and increasing columns of clouds, while the southerly wind, that rushed up the valley, brought the never failing-symptoms of a thaw.
3. It was quite late in the morning, before Elizabeth, observing the faint glow which appeared on the eastern mountain, long after the light of the sun had struck the opposite hills, ventured from the house, with a view to gratify her curiosity with a glance by daylight at the surrounding objects
4. "Merry Christmas, merry Christmas to you, cousin Bess. Ah, ha! an early riser, I see; but I knew I should steal a march on you."
5. I never was in a house yet, where I didn’t get the first Christmas greeting on every soul in it, man, woman, and child; great and small; black, white, and yellow.

6. “Oh! he got the plans of the new Dutch meeting-house for me, I suppose; but I care very little about it, for a man, of a certain kind of talent, is seldom aided by any such foreign suggestions: his own brain is the best architect.”
7. "Eh! what! it is, I declare, a commission, appointing Richard Jones, Esquire, Sheriff of the county. Well, this is kind in ’duke, positively. I must say ’duke has a warm heart, and never forgets his friends. Sheriff!"
8. "It shall be done, cousin Bess — it shall be done I say. — How this cursed south wind makes my eyes water.”
9. "...yes, Benjamin would do extremely well, in such an unfortunate dilemma, if he could be persuaded to attempt it."
10. "Surely you do not contemplate building houses, very soon, in that forest before us, and in those swamps."

11. "We must run our streets by the compass, coz, and disregard trees, hills, ponds, stumps, or, in fact, any thing but posterity."
12. "...in truth, the only mark of improvement that was to be seen, was a neglected clearing along the skirt of a dark forest of mighty pines, over which the bushes or sprouts of the same tree had sprung up, to a height that interspersed the fields of snow with little thickets of evergreen."
13. "Let us withdraw,” whispered Elizabeth; “we are intruders, and can have no right to listen to the secrets of these men.” “No right!” returned Richard, a little impatiently, in the same tone, and drawing her arm so forcibly through his own as to prevent her retreat; “you forget, cousin, that it is my duty to preserve the peace of the county, and see the laws executed.
14. Notwithstanding the lady’s reluctance, Richard, stimulated doubtless by his nice sense of duty, prevailed; and they were soon so near as distinctly to hear sounds.
15. "The bird must be had,” said Natty, “by fair means or foul. Heigho! I’ve known the time, lad, when the wild turkeys wasn’t over scarce in the country; though you must go into the Virginy gaps, if you want them for the feathers. To be sure, there is a different taste to a partridge, and a well-fattened turkey; though, to my eating, beaver’s tail and bear’s hams makes the best of food. But then every one has his own appetite.

16. John has a true eye for a single fire, and somehow, my hand shakes so, whenever I have to do any thing extrawnary, that I often lose my aim.
17. “When John was young, eyesight was not straighter than his bullet. The Mingo squaws cried out at the sound of his rifle. The Mingo warriors were made squaws. When did he ever shoot twice! The eagle went above the clouds, when he passed the wigwam of Chingachgook; his feathers were plenty with the women."
18. "I thought that lad had Indian blood in him,” whispered Richard, “by the awkward way he handled my horses last night. You see, coz, they never use harness. But the poor fellow shall have two shots at the turkey, if he wants it, for I’ll give him another shilling myself; though, perhaps, I had better offer to shoot for him. They have got up their Christmas sports, I find, in the bushes yonder, where you hear the laughter; — though if is a queer taste this chap has for turkey; not but what it is good eating too.”
19. "But I’ll give the lad a chance for his turkey, for that Billy Kirby is one of the best marksmen in the country; that is, if we except the — the gentleman.”
20. "I should think, Miss Temple,” he said, so soon as the others were out of hearing, “that if you really wished a turkey, you would not have taken a stranger for the office, and such a one as Leather-stocking. But I can hardly believe that you are serious, for I have fifty at this moment shut up in the coops, in every stage of fat, so that you might choose any quality you pleased."
21. End of chapter. To be continued.




Friday, December 8, 2023

The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. SOME LITTLE COMMOTION WAS PRODUCED BY THE APPEARANCE OF the new guests, during which the lawyer disappeared from the room.
2. “…but then, I s’pose that, as it was a written discourse, it is not so easily altered, as where a minister preaches without notes.”
3. “Well, well,” cried Marmaduke, waving his hand for silence, “there is enough said; as Mr. Grant told us, there are different sentiments on such subjects, and in my opinion he spoke most sensibly.
4. He was to give me ten dollars an acre for the clearin, and one dollar an acre over the first cost, on the wood-land; and we agreed to leave the buildins to men.
5. "And what do you mean to do with your time this winter? you must remember that time is money.”

6. If times doosn’t get wuss in the spring, I’ve some notion of going into trade, or maybe I may move off to the Genessee; they say they are carryin on a great stroke of business that-a-way.
7. "The legislature have been passing laws,” continued Marmaduke, “that the country much required. Among others, there is an act, prohibiting the drawing of seines, at any other than proper seasons, in certain of our streams and small lakes; and another, to prohibit the killing of deer in the teeming months. These are laws that were loudly called for, by judicious men; nor do I despair of getting an act, to make the unlawful felling of timber a criminal offence.”
8. "Armed with the dignity of the law, Mr. Bumppo,” returned the Judge, gravely, “a vigilant magistrate can prevent much of the evil that has hitherto prevailed, and which is already rendering the game scarce. I hope to live to see the day, when a man’s rights in his game shall be as much respected as his title to his farm.”
9. “Yes, sir,” returned Marmaduke, “the Jacobins of France seem rushing from one act of licentiousness to another."
10. "The province of La Vendée is laid waste by the troops of the republic, and hundreds of its inhabitants, who are royalists in their sentiments, are shot at a time. — La Vendée is a district in the south-west of France, that continues yet much attached to the family of the Bourbons; doubtless Monsieur Le Quoi is acquainted with it, and can describe it more faithfully.”

11. “The French are good soldiers,” said Captain Hollister; “they stood us in hand a good turn, down at York-town; nor do I think, although I am an ignorant man about the great movements of the army, that his Excellency would have been able to march against Cornwallis, without their reinforcements.”
12. “No, no, Major,” returned the hunter, with a melancholy shake of the head, “I have lived to see what I thought eyes could never behold in these hills, and I have no heart left for singing. If he, that has a right to be master and ruler here, is forced to squinch his thirst, when a-dry, with snow-water, it ill becomes them that have lived by his bounty to be making merry, as if there was nothing in the world but sunshine and summer.”
13. "Hear how old John turns his quavers. What damned dull music an Indian song is, after all, Major. I wonder if they ever sing by note.”
14. While Richard was singing and talking, Mohegan was uttering dull, monotonous tones, keeping time by a gentle motion of his head and body. He made use of but few words, and such as he did utter were in his native language and consequently only understood by himself and Natty. Without heeding Richard, he continued to sing a kind of wild, melancholy air, that rose, at times, in sudden and quite elevated notes, and then fell again into the low, quavering sounds, that seemed to compose the character of his music.
15. The attention of the company was now much divided, the men in the rear having formed themselves into little groups, where they were discussing various matters; among the principal of which were, the treatment of mangy hogs, and Parson Grant’s preaching; while Dr. Todd was endeavouring to explain to Marmaduke the nature of the hurt received by the young hunter.

16. His hand seemed to make a fruitless effort to release his tomahawk, which was confined by its handle to his belt, while his eyes gradually became again vacant.
17. End of chapter. To be continued.
18. The sea, Mistress Remarkable, is a great advantage to a man, in the way of knowledge, for he sees the fashions of nations, and the shape of a country.
19. “Afeard! who the devil do you think was to be frightened at a little salt water tumbling about his head?"
20. "I wonder now!” exclaimed Remarkable, to whom most of the terms used by Benjamin were perfectly unintelligible, but who had got a confused idea of a raging tempest.

21. "And a long time have you left your anchors down in the same place, mistress. I think you must find that the ship rides easy?”
22. "...a parrot; that will hold a dialogue, for what an honest man knows, in a dozen languages; mayhap in the Bay of State lingo; mayhap in Greek or High Dutch. But dost it know what it means itself? canst answer me that, good woman?"
23. “You talk of mustering yourself with a lady! you’re just fit to grumble and find fault. Where the devil should you larn behaviour and dictionary?"
24. End of chapter. To be continued.



Various Notes:
1. Edited: Item 8., Boris Godunov... Tuesday, December 5, 2023
2. I learned that in some places where people wear face masks, they are wearing them because they are “strongly recommended,” but not required. People are not required to wear them, the masks are only “strongly recommended.”
3. Updated: Item XXI. 5. - Favorite Notes 2.
4. Aristotle mentions that it is more difficult to feel some parts of the body than it is to feel other parts.



Boris Godunov and Other Dramatic Works, by Alexander Pushkin:
1. KURBSKY. (Galloping at their head.) There, there it is; there is the Russian frontier! Fatherland! Holy Russia! I am thine! With scorn from off my clothing now I shake The foreign soil, and greedily I drink New air; it is my native air.
2. PRETENDER. (Moves quietly with bowed head.) How happy Is he, how flushed with gladness and with glory His stainless soul! Brave knight, I envy thee! The son of Kurbsky, nurtured in exile...To shed thy blood, to give the fatherland Its lawful tsar. Righteous art thou; thy soul Should flame with joy.
3. KURBSKY. And dost not thou likewise Rejoice in spirit? There lies our Russia; she Is thine, tsarevich! There thy people's hearts Are waiting for thee, there thy Moscow waits, Thy Kremlin, thy dominion.
4. TSAR. Is it possible? An unfrocked monk against us Leads rascal troops, a truant friar dares write Threats to us! Then 'tis time to tame the madman!
5. TSAR. The Lord of Sweden hath by envoys tendered Alliance to me. But we have no need To lean on foreign aid; we have enough Of our own warlike people to repel Traitors and Poles. I have refused.—Shchelkalov!

6. Thou wilt wait quietly, until delusion Shall pass away; for pass away it will, And truth's eternal sun will dawn on all.
7. This is my counsel; to the Kremlin send The sacred relics, place them in the Cathedral Of the Archangel; clearly will the people See then the godless villain's fraud; the might Of the fiends will vanish as a cloud of dust.
8. POLES. Victory! Victory! Glory to the tsar Dimitry!
DIMITRY. (On horseback.) Cease fighting. We have conquered. Enough! Spare Russian blood. Cease fighting.
9. PRETENDER. An enviable life for the tsar's people! Well, how about the army?
PRISONER. What of them? Clothed and full-fed they are content with all.
10. A POLE. Tomorrow, battle! They are fifty thousand, And we scarce fifteen thousand. He is mad!
ANOTHER. That's nothing, friend. A single Pole can challenge Five hundred Muscovites.

11. The Pole looks at him haughtily and departs in silence. All laugh.
12. PRETENDER. Ah, my poor horse! How gallantly he charged Today in the last battle, and when wounded, How swiftly bore me. My poor horse!
13. PRETENDER. (Goes to his horse.) My poor horse!—what to do? Take off the bridle, And loose the girth. Let him at least die free.
14. TSAR. No, I am ill content with them; thyself I shall despatch to take command of them; I give authority not to birth, but brains. Their pride of precedence, let it be wounded!
15. Again his scattered forces, and anew Threatens us from the ramparts of Putivl. Meanwhile what are our heroes doing?

16. BASMANOV. A great thought Within his mind has taken birth; it must not Be suffered to grow cold.
17. TSAR. Let all depart—alone Leave the tsarevich with me. (All withdraw.) I am dying; Let us embrace. Farewell, my son; this hour Thou wilt begin to reign.—O God, my God! This hour I shall appear before Thy presence— And have no time to purge my soul with shrift. But yet, my son, I feel thou art dearer to me Than is my soul's salvation—be it so!
18. The royal voice must never lose itself Upon the air in emptiness, but like A sacred bell must sound but to announce Some great disaster or great festival.
19. Dear son, thou art approaching to those years When woman's beauty agitates our blood. Preserve, preserve the sacred purity Of innocence and proud shamefacedness; He, who through passion has been wont to wallow In vicious pleasures in his youthful days...
20. FEODOR. (On his knees.) No, no; live on, my father, and reign long; Without thee both the folk and we will perish.

21. Our army is mere trash, the Cossacks only Rob villages, the Poles but brag and drink; The Russians—what shall I say?—with you I'll not Dissemble; but, Basmanov, dost thou know Wherein our strength lies? Not in the army, no. Nor Polish aid, but in opinion—yes, In popular opinion.
22. Dost remember The triumph of Dimitry, dost remember His peaceful conquests, when, without a blow The docile towns surrendered, and the mob Bound the recalcitrant leaders? Thou thyself Saw'st it; was it of their free-will our troops Fought with him? And when did they so? Boris Was then supreme. But would they now?—Nay, nay,
23. Dishonour to deserve from age to age! The trust of my young sovereign to requite With horrible betrayal! 'Tis a light thing For a disgraced exile to meditate Sedition and conspiracy; but I? Is it for me, the favourite of my lord?— But death—but power—the people's miseries...
24. MOSALSKY. People! Maria Godunov and her son Feodor have poisoned themselves. We have seen their dead bodies. (The People are silent with horror.) Why are ye silent? Cry, Long live the tsar Dimitry Ivanovich! (The People are speechless.) THE END




Thursday, December 7, 2023

The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. His countenance expressed extraordinary uneasiness, and the occasional unquiet glances, that he had thrown around him during the service, plainly indicated some unusual causes for unhappiness. His continuing seated was, however, from respect to the Indian chief, to whom he paid the utmost deference, on all occasions, although it was mingled with the rough manner of a hunter.
2. “Father, I thank you. The words that have been said, since the rising moon, have gone upward, and the Great Spirit is glad. What you have told your children, they will remember, and be good.” He paused a moment, and then, elevating himself to all the grandeur of an Indian chief, he added — “if Chingachgook lives to travel towards the setting sun, after his tribe, and the Great Spirit carries him over the lakes and mountains, with the breath in his body, he will tell his people the good talk he has heard; and they will believe him: for who can say that Mohegan has ever lied?”
3. "Let him place his dependence on the goodness of Divine mercy,” said Mr. Grant, to whom the proud consciousness of the Indian sounded a little heterodox, “and it never will desert him. When the heart is filled with love to God, there is no room left for sin."
4. "But, young man, to you I owe not only an obligation, in common with those you saved this evening, on the mountain, but my thanks, for your respectful and pious manner, in assisting in the service, at a most embarrassing moment. I should be happy to see you sometimes, at my dwelling, when, perhaps, my conversation may strengthen you in the path which you appear to have chosen. It is so unusual to find one of your age and appearance, in these woods, at all acquainted with our holy liturgy, that it lessens at once the distance between us, and I feel that we are no longer strangers. You seem quite at home in the service: I did not perceive that you had even a book, although good Mr. Jones had laid several in different parts of the room.”
5. “I doubt not, my friend, that you have been both a valiant soldier and skilful hunter, in your day,” said the divine; “but more is wanting, to prepare you for that end which approaches. You may have heard the maxim, that ‘young men may die, but that old men must.’”

6. “I’m sure I never was so great a fool as to expect to live for ever,” said Natty, giving one of his silent laughs: “no man need do that, who trails the savages through the woods, as I have done, and lives, for the hot months, on the lake streams. I’ve a strong constitution, I must say that for myself, as is plain to be seen; for I’ve drunk the Onondaga water a hundred times, while I’ve been watching the deer-licks, when the fever-an-agy seeds was to be seen in it, as plain and as plenty as you can see the rattle-snakes on old Crumhorn. But then, I never expected to hold out for ever; though there’s them living, who have seen the Garman Flats a wilderness; ay! and them that’s larned, and acquainted with religion too; though you might look a week now, and not find even the stump of a pine on them; and that’s a wood that lasts in the ground the better part of a hundred years.”
7. “This is but time, my good friend,” returned Mr. Grant, who began to take an interest in the welfare of his new acquaintance, “but it is for eternity that I would have you prepare."
8. “It must be a young hand in the woods,” interrupted Natty, with another laugh, “that didn’t know how to dress a rod out of an ash sapling, or find a fire-stone in the mountains. No, no, I never expected to live for ever; but I see, times be altering in these mountains from what they was thirty years ago, or, for that matter, ten years. But might makes right, and the law is stronger than an old man, whether he is one that has much larning, or only one like me, that is better now at standing at the passes than in following the hounds, as I once used to could."
9. Next to him moved the Indian, with his hair falling about his face, his head uncovered, and the rest of his form concealed beneath his blanket. As his swarthy visage, with its muscles fixed in rigid composure, was seen under the light of the moon which struck his face obliquely, he seemed a picture of resigned old age, on whom the storms of winter had beaten in vain, for the greater part of a century; but when in turning his head, the rays fell directly on his dark, fiery eyes, they told a tale of passions unrestrained, and of thoughts free as the air he breathed.
10. Mr. Grant was surprised by the interruption of the Indian, and, stopping, faced the speaker. His mild features were confronted to the fierce and determined looks of the [Delaware] chief, and expressed all the horror that he felt at hearing such sentiments from one who professed the religion of his Saviour.

11. “John, John! is this the religion that you have learned from the Moravians? But no — I will not be so uncharitable as to suppose it. They are a pious, a gentle, and a mild people, and could never tolerate these passions."
12. "‘But I say unto you, love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.’ — This is the command of God, John, and without striving to cultivate such feelings, no man can see him."
13. On the tomb were the names, with the dates of the births and deaths, of several individuals, all of whom bore the name of Grant.
14. Mohegan turned solemnly to the speaker, and, with the peculiarly significant gestures of an Indian, he spoke: —
"Father, you are not yet past the summer of life; your limbs are young. Go to the highest hill and look around you. All that you see, from the rising to the setting sun, from the head waters of the great spring, to where the ‘crooked river’ is hid by the hills, is his. He has Delaware blood and his right is strong. But the brother of Miquon is just: he will cut the country in two parts, as the river cuts the lowlands, and will say to the ‘Young Eagle,’ Child of the Delawares! take it — Keep it — and be a chief in the land of your fathers.”
15. "Never!” exclaimed the young hunter, with a vehemence that destroyed the rapt attention, with which the divine and his daughter were listening to the earnest manner of the Indian. “The wolf of the forest is not more rapacious for his prey, than that man is greedy for gold; and yet his glidings into wealth are as subtle as the movements of a serpent.”

16. "Forbear, forbear, my son, forbear,” interrupted Mr. Grant. “These angry passions must be subdued. The accidental injury you have received from Judge Temple has heightened the sense of your hereditary wrongs. But remember that the one was unintentional, and that the other is the effect of political changes, which have, in their course, greatly lowered the pride of kings, and swept mighty nations from the face of the earth. Where now are the Philistines, who so often held the children of Israel in bondage! or that city of Babylon, which rioted in luxury and vice, and who styled herself the Queen of Nations, in the drunkenness of her pride? Remember the prayer of our holy litany, where we implore the Divine Power — “that it may please thee to forgive our enemies, persecutors, and slanderers, and to turn their hearts.” The sin of the wrongs which have been done to the natives is shared by Judge Temple only in common with a whole people, and your arm will speedily be restored to its strength.”
17. “It is the hereditary violence of a native’s passion, my child,” said Mr. Grant, in a low tone, to his affrighted daughter, who was clinging in terror to his arm. “He is mixed with the blood of the Indians, you have heard; and neither the refinements of education, nor the advantages of our excellent liturgy, have been able entirely to eradicate the evil. But care and time will do much for him yet.”
18. Although the divine spoke in a low tone, yet what he uttered was heard by the youth, who raised his head, with a smile of indefinite expression, and spoke more calmly.
19. There is no saying where this desultory conversation would have led the worthy couple, had not the men, who were stamping the snow off their feet, on the little platform before the door, suddenly ceased their occupation, and entered the bar-room.
20. "It would so, sir,” returned the attorney. — “The law, gentlemen, is no respecter of persons, in a free country. It is one of the great blessings that has been handed down to us from our ancestors, that all men are equal in the eye of the law-as they are by nater. Though some may get property, no one knows how, yet they are not privileged to transgress the laws, any more than the poorest citizen in the state. This is my notion, gentlemen; and I think that if a man had a mind to bring this matter up, something might be made out of it, that would help pay for the salve — ha! Doctor?"

21. "...but little did I ever expect to see him enlisted in the cause of Christianity, and civilized like old John.”
22. To be continued.



Various Notes:
1. Updated: Item I. D. - Food Ideas.
2. Updated: Item XXII. 1. - Favorite Notes 2.



The Bible:
1. 1 Samuel 3 explains that the Lord called Samuel several times. This is much like the story my parents tell me about how parents call children. It is a simple, yet powerful concept about interaction between people.
2. Tba.




Wednesday, December 6, 2023:

The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. "How often have I forbidden the use of the sugar-maple for fires, in my dwelling…Fuel in these hills, cousin ’duke!” exclaimed Richard in derision — “fuel for our fires! why, you might as well predict, that the fish will die, for the want of water in the lake.”
2. "But I must, and will, the instant that the snow is off the earth, send out a party into the mountains to explore for coal.”
”Coal!” echoed Richard; “who the devil do you think will dig for coal, when in hunting for a bushel, he would have to rip up more roots of trees, than would keep him in fuel for a twelvemonth? Poh! poh! Marmaduke, you should leave the management of these things to me, who have a natural turn that way.
3. "To be sure I do,” cried Richard; “here is a turkey to carve; and I flatter myself that I understand carving a turkey, or, for that matter, a goose, as well as any man alive..."
4. "Take a thing from the fire, this cold weather, and it will freeze in five minutes. Mr. Grant! we want you to say grace. ‘For what we are about to receive, the Lord make us thankful. ’ Come, sit down, sit down. Do you eat wing or breast, cousin Bess.”
5. The table-linen was of the most beautiful damask, and the plates and dishes of real china, an article of great luxury at this early period in American commerce.

6. The host seemed to think some apology necessary for the warmth he had betrayed on the subject of the firewood, and when the party were comfortably seated, and engaged with their knives and forks, he observed —
7. Why, I can hardly tell which way the wind blows, when I’m out in the clearings, they are so thick, and so tall; — I couldn’t at all, if it was’nt for the clouds, and I happen to know all the points of the compass, as it were, by heart.
8. "It is well, Benjamin,” interrupted Marmaduke, observing his daughter, who manifested evident displeasure at the major-domo’s familiarity; “but you forget there is a lady in company, and the women love to do most of the talking themselves.”
9. "The boy is not a miracle,” exclaimed Richard; “I’ve known children that were sent to school early, talk much better, before they were twelve years old. There was Zareed Coe, old Nehemiah’s son, who first settled on the meadow, he could write almost as good a hand as myself, when he was fourteen; though it’s true, I helped to teach him a little, in the long evenings.
10. He is the most awkward fellow about a horse I ever met with. I dare say, he never drove any thing but oxen in his life.

11. "Ay! I have seen the boy before,” said Benjamin, who wanted no other encouragement to speak: “he has been backing and filling in the wake of Natty Bumppo, through the mountains, after deer..."
12. The Leather-stocking said, in my hearing, before Betty Hollister’s bar-room fire, no later than the Tuesday night, that the younker was certain death to the wild beasts. If-so-be he can kill the wild-cat, that has been heard moaning on the lake side, since the hard frosts and deep snows have driven the deer to her, he will be doing the thing that is good. Your wild-cat is a bad ship-mate, and should be made to cruise out of the track of all Christian men.
13. You are not to credit all the idle tales, sir, that you hear of Natty,” said the Judge: “he has a kind of natural right to gain a livelihood in these mountains; and if the idlers in the village take it into their heads to annoy him, as they sometimes do reputed rogues, they shall find him protected by the strong arm of the law.
14. “I am glad to see you, Mrs. Hollister,” returned the voice of Elizabeth. “I have been trying to find a face that I knew, since we left the door of the Mansion-house, but none have I seen except your own."
15. The readiness with which he mentioned the names of even the children, showed how very familiarly acquainted he was with their circumstances; and the nature of the answers he received, proved that he was a general favourite.

16. At length one of the pedestrians from the village stopped also, and fixed an earnest gaze at a new brick edifice, that was throwing a long shadow across the fields of snow, as it rose, with a beautiful gradation of light and shade, under the rays of a full moon.
17. It had been built under the strong conviction of the necessity of a more seemly place of worship than “the long room of the academy,” and under an implied agreement, that, after its completion, the question should be fairly put to the people, that they might decide to what denomination it should belong.
18. The task of erecting the building had been unanimously transferred to Mr. Jones and Hiram Doolittle. Together they had built the mansion-house, the academy, and the jail; and they alone knew how to plan and rear such a structure as was now required.
19. Availing himself of this advantage, Richard silently determined that the windows should have the Roman arch, as the first positive step he would take in effecting his wishes. As the building was made of bricks, he was enabled to conceal his design, until the moment arrived for placing the frames: then, indeed, it became necessary to act. He communicated his wishes to Hiram with great caution; and without in the least adverting to the spiritual part of his project, he pressed the point a little warmly, on the score of architectural beauty.
20. At first, there was a scarcity in the right kind of material necessary to form the frames; but this objection was instantly silenced, by Richard running his pencil through two feet of their length at one stroke. Then the expense was mentioned; but Richard reminded Hiram that his cousin paid, and that he was his treasurer. This last intimation had great weight, and after a silent and protracted, but fruitless opposition, the work was suffered to proceed on the original plan.

21. "No — no — no,” returned Richard, speaking quickly, but making a significant pause between each negative — “it requires reflection."
22. "It ees ver apropos to saircumstonce,” said the Frenchman — “ver judgement — but it is in de catholique country dat dey build de — vat you call — ah a ah-ha — la grande cathedrale — de big church."
23. To be continued.
24. He well understood the character of his listeners, who were mostly a primitive people in their habits; and who, being a good deal addicted to subtleties and nice distinctions in their religious opinions, viewed the introduction into their spiritual worship of any such temporal assistance as form, not only with jealousy, but frequently with disgust.
25. When we consider the great diversity of the human character, influenced as it is by education, by opportunity, and by the physical and moral conditions of the creature, my dear hearers,” he earnestly concluded, “it can excite no surprise, that creeds, so very different in their tendencies, should grow out of a religion, revealed, it is true, but whose revelations are obscured by the lapse of ages, and whose doctrines were, after the fashion of the countries in which they were first promulgated, frequently delivered in parables, and in a language abounding in metaphors, and loaded with figures.
26. On points where the learned have, in purity of heart, been compelled to differ, the unlettered will necessarily be at variance. But, happily for us, my brethren, the fountain of divine love flows from a source too pure to admit of pollution in its course; it extends, to those who drink of its vivifying waters, the peace of the righteous, and life everlasting; it endures through all time, and it pervades creation. If there be mystery in its workings, it is the mystery of a Divinity.
27. If we are required to believe in doctrines that seem not in conformity with the deductions of human wisdom, let us never forget, that such is the mandate of a wisdom that is infinite.
28. It teaches us a lesson of humility, by impressing us with the imperfection of human powers, and by warning us of the many weak points, where we are open to the attacks of the great enemy of our race; it proves to us, that we are in danger of being weak, when our vanity would fain sooth us into the belief that we are most strong; it forcibly points out to us the vainglory of intellect, and shows us the vast difference between a saving faith, and the corollaries of a philosophical theology; and it teaches us to reduce our self-examination to the test of good works.




Tuesday, December 5, 2023:

The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. An old shirt was procured by Benjamin, and placed in the hands of the other, who tore divers bandages from it, with an exactitude, that marked both his own skill, and the importance of the operation.
2. "Here, Squire Jones, you are well acquainted with these things; will you please to scrape the lint? It should be fine, and soft, you know, my dear sir; and be cautious that no cotton gets in, or it may p’ison the wownd. The shirt has been made with cotton thread, but you can easily pick it out.”
3. These were arranged, in due order, by the side of the murderous saws, knives, and scissors, when Elnathan stretched his long body to its utmost elevation, placing his hand on the small of his back, as if for support, and looked about him to discover what effect this display of his professional skill was likely to produce on the spectators.
4. The intense cold of the evening had stopped the bleeding, and Dr. Todd, casting a furtive glance at the wound, thought it by no means so formidable an affair as he had anticipated. Thus encouraged, he approaches his patient, and made some indication of an intention to trace the route that had been taken by the lead.
5. "Such things run in families,” observed Richard, rising with alacrity to render the desired assistance. “My father, and my grandfather before him, were both celebrated for their knowledge of surgery..."

6. "A twelve-pounder!” echoed Benjamin staring around him, with much confidence; “a twelve-pounder! ay! a twenty-four pound shot can easily be taken from a man’s body, if-so-be a doctor only knows how."
7. "Certainly, more important operations than that have been performed,” observed Richard; “the Encyclopædia mentions much more incredible circumstances than that, as, I dare say, you know Doctor Todd.”
8. They consisted of the tribes, or, as their allies were fond of asserting, in order to raise their consequence, of the several nations of the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas; who ranked, in the confederation, in the order with which they are named.
9. Of the Lenni Lenape, or as they were called by the whites, from the circumstance of their holding their great council-fire on the banks of that river, the Delaware nation, the principal tribes, besides that which bore the generic name, were, the Mahicanni, Mohicans or Mohegans, and the Nanticokes, or Nentigoes.
10. Of these, the latter held the country along the waters of the Chesapeake and the seashore; while the Mohegans occupied the district between the Hudson and the ocean, including most of New-England. Of course, these two tribes were the first who were dispossessed of their lands by the Europeans.

11. As the natives gradually disappeared from the country of the Mohegans, some scattering families sought a refuge around the council-fire of the mother tribe, or the Delawares.
This people had been induced to suffer themselves to be called women, by their old enemies, the Mingoes, or Iroquois, after the latter, having in vain tried the effects of hostility, had recourse to artifice, in order to circumvent their rivals. According to this declaration, the Delawares were to cultivate the arts of peace, and to intrust their defence entirely to the men, or warlike tribes of the Six nations.
12. The Delawares were also known as the Lenin Lenape.
13. Several fierce and renowned warriors of the Mohegans, finding the conflict with the whites to be in vain, sought a refuge with their Grandfather, and brought with them the feelings and principles that had so long distinguished them in their own tribe.
14. It was fortunate that the ball was extracted before this Indian came in; but any old woman can dress the wound now. The young man, I hear, lives with John and Natty Bumppo, and it’s always best to humour a patient...
15. But Richard had, at the bottom, a great deal of veneration for the knowledge of Mohegan, especially in external wounds; and retaining all his desire for a participation in glory, he advanced nigh to the Indian, and said —
“Sago, sago, Mohegan! sago, my good fellow! I am right glad you have come; give me a regular physician, like Dr. Todd, to cut into flesh, and a native to heal the wound.

16. Do you remember, John, the time when I and you set the bone of Natty Bumppo’s little finger, after he broke it by falling from the rock, when he was trying to get the partridge down, that fell on the cliffs. I never could tell yet, whether it was I or Natty, who killed that bird: he fired first, and the bird stooped, but then it was rising again, just as I pulled trigger.
17. Indeed, the Indian gave him but little opportunity for the exercise of a forbearing temper, as he had come prepared for the occasion. His dressings were soon applied, and consisted only of some pounded bark, moistened with a fluid that he had expressed from some of the simples of the woods.
18. "I will just take this bark home, and analyze it; for, though it can’t be worth sixpence to the young man’s shoulder, it may be good for the toothach, or rheumatis, or some of them complaints. A man should never be above learning, even if it be from an Indian.”
19. It was fortunate for Dr. Todd, that his principles were so liberal, as, coupled with his practice, they were the means by which he acquired all his knowledge, and by which he was gradually qualifying himself for the duties of his profession.
20. Some ten years after this event, when civilization and its refinements had crept, or rather rushed, into the settlements among these wild hills, an affair of honour occurred, and Elnathan was seen to apply a salve to the wound that was received by one of the parties, which had the flavour that was peculiar to the tree, or root, that Mohegan had used. Ten years later still, when England and the United States were again engaged in war, and the hordes of the western parts of the state of New York were rushing to the field, Elnathan-presuming on the reputation obtained by these two operations, followed in the rear of a brigade of militia, as its surgeon!

21. You will soon be well again; though the jerk you gave my leaders must have a tendency to inflame the shoulder, yet, you will do, you will do.
22. “Well, ’duke, you are your own master, but I would have tried law for the saddle, before I would have given it to the fellow. Do you not own the mountains, as well as the valleys? are not the woods your own? what right has this chap, or the Leather-stocking, to shoot in your woods, without your permission? Now, I have known a farmer, in Pennsylvania, order a sportsman off his farm, with as little ceremony as I would order Benjamin to put a log in the stove."
23. Now, if a man has a right to do this on a farm of a hundred acres, what power must a landlord have, who owns sixty thousand — ay! for the matter of that, including the late purchases, a hundred thousand? There is Mohegan, to be sure, he may have some right, being a native; but it’s little the poor fellow can do now with his rifle. How is this managed in France, Monsieur Le Quoi? do you let every body run over your land, in that country, helter-skelter, as they do here, shooting the game, so that a gentleman has but little or no chance with his gun?
24. But if I were in ’duke’s place, I would stick up advertisements to-morrow morning, forbiding all persons to shoot, or trespass, in any manner, on my woods.
25. Heaven knows no difference in colour; nor must earth witness a separation of the church.

26. "The Great Spirit overlooks none of his children; and the man of the woods is as much an object of his care, as he who dwells in a palace. I wish you a good night, and pray God to bless you."
27. It was a long, narrow house, of wood, painted white, and more than half windows; and when the observer stood at the western side of the building, the edifice offered but a small obstacle to a full view of the rising sun.
28. The “steeple” was a little cupola, reared on the very centre of the roof, on four tall pillars of pine, that were fluted with a gouge, and loaded with mouldings. On the tops of the columns was reared a dome, or cupola, resembling in shape an inverted tea-cup without its bottom, from the centre of which projected a spire, or shaft of wood, transfixed with two iron rods, that bore on their ends the letters N. S. E. and W., in the same metal.
29. The whole was surmounted by an imitation of one of the finny tribe, carved in wood, by the hands of Richard, and painted, what he called, a “scale-colour.” This animal Mr. Jones affirmed to be an admirable resemblance of a great favourite of the epicures in that country, which bore the title of “lake-fish;” and doubtless the assertion was true; for, although intended to answer the purposes of a weathercock, the fish was observed invariably to look, with a longing eye, in the direction of the beautiful sheet of water that lay imbedded in the mountains of Templeton.
30. For a short time after the charter of the regents was received, the trustees of this institution employed a graduate of one of the eastern colleges, to instruct such youth as aspired to knowledge, within the walls of the edifice which we have described. The upper part of the building was in one apartment, and was intended for gala-days and exhibitions; and the lower contained two, that were intended for the great divisions of education, viz. the Latin and the English scholars.

31. Time, patience, and zeal, however, removed every impediment; and the venerable men, who had been set apart by the American churches, at length returned to their expecting diocesses, endowed with the most elevated functions of their earthly church.



The Bible:
1. 1 Samuel 2 is a great chapter.
Samuel 2:1 - “My heart rejoiceth in the Lord; mine horn is exalted in the Lord.”
In this passage, The Bible is expressing joy, or happiness in the blessings of God.
Samuel 2:2 - “There is none holy as the Lord; for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God.”
In this passage, The Bible is expressing the goodness of strong ideas and stability.
Samuel 2:17 - “Wherefore the sin of young men was very great before the Lord; for men abhorred the offering of the Lord.”
In this passage, The Bible is drawing the distinction between young men who sin, and old men who sin.



Various Notes:
1. Updated: Item XXIII., 14., on Favorite Notes 2.
2. Updated: Item II., 11, on Food Ideas.



Boris Godunov and Other Dramatic Works, by Alexander Pushkin:
1. Scene I is set in The Palace of the Kremlin.
2. “Men have become tradesmen and publicans; they think only of their worldly riches and not of the salvation of their souls.”
3. “I’ll tell you why: a certain wicked heretic, one Grishka Otrepev by name, has escaped from Moscow.”
4. “All that you say, my friend, bewilders me,
Compels my head to spin with dizzy thoughts."
5. “And in due course, this fate awaits us too,
This wretched life! Our very homes besieged…”

6. “Why, even the reign of dread Ivan, Such evils never were.”
7. "Nurse: Come now, Tsarevina, hush! A maiden’s tears are like the falling dew, when the sun comes up, the dewdrops dry."
8. "Here's Novgorod…And here’s Siberia, The Volga."
9. It becomes clear that they are studying a map of Russia.
10. “From Poland, Tsar, comes troubling news.”

11. “No matter, prince: I need all sorts of tales,
To weigh them in my mind; for otherwise—
We’ll never learn the truth."
12. “Have barricades put up, that not a soul May pass, that not a raven or a hare Dare cross from Poland into Russia. Go!"
13. “No majesty, there is no doubt: Dimitri Speeps in his grave.”
14. The Pretender says, “let’s go to Cracow, to your palace, known for its hospitality, and the lustrous splendor of its halls, where the young and charming mistress Marina will greet us there.”
15. “A brilliant mind. In war and counsel both.
But since those days when he, a dark avenger…”

16. Of Kurbsky’s father writes, “For easement he immersed himself in study.”
17. A scene follows which includes Marina, then Pushkin writes, “Don’t let Dimitri get away…He’s caught within her web.”




Monday, December 4, 2023:

Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire:
1. "They considered the gods to be present at men's actions as witnesses and judges."
2. "But, since here we must always contrast the custom of a true religion with those of a false religion, have we not had for several centuries more devotion at certain altars than at others?"
3. "We do not know who invented clothes and footwear, and we want to know who first invented idols."
4. Indicates that Christianity includes a mixture of Greek and Roman ideas.
5. "Though nobody knows when men started to make idols, we know that they are of the highest antiquity."
6. To be continued.




The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. The sleigh was whirled from its dangerous position, and upset with its runners outwards. The German and the divine were thrown rather unceremoniously into the highway, but without danger to their bones. Richard appeared in the air, for a moment, describing the segment of a circle, of which the reins were the radii, and was landed at the distance of some fifteen feet, in that snow-bank which the horses had dreaded, right end uppermost. Here, as he instinctively grasped the reins, as drowning men seize at straws, he admirably served the purpose of an anchor, to check the further career of his steeds.
2. Here, Dickon, are a few articles of Bess’s trumpery, that you can throw into your sleigh when ready, and there is also a deer of my taking, that I will thank you to bring — Aggy! remember there will be a visit from Santaclaus to your stocking to-night, if you are smart and careful about the buck, and get in in season.”
3. “It is a buck indeed! I am amazed! Yes, here are two holes in him; he has fired both barrels, and hit him each time... There will be no such thing as living with him — they are both bad shots though, mere chance — mere chance; — now, I never fired twice at a cloven hoof in my life; — it is hit or miss with me — dead or runaway: — had it been a bear, or a wildcat, a man might have wanted both barrels. Here! you Aggy! how far off was the Judge when this buck was shot?”
4. "Ten rod!” echoed the other; “why, Aggy, the deer I killed last winter was at twenty — yes! if and thing it was nearer thirty than twenty. I wouldn’t shoot at a deer at ten rod: besides, you may remember, Aggy, I only fired once.”
5. Owing to the religious scruples of the Judge, Aggy was the servant of Richard, who had his services for a time, and who, of course, commanded a legal claim to the respect of the young negro.

6. But when any dispute between his lawful master and his real benefactor occurred, the black felt too much deference for both to express any opinion. In the mean while, Richard continued watching the negro as he fastened buckle after buckle, until, stealing a look of consciousness toward the other, he continued, “Now, if that young man, who was in your sleigh, is a real Connecticut settler, he will be telling every body how he saved my horses, when, if he had just let them alone for one half a minute longer, I would have brought them in much better, without upsetting, with the whip and rein — it spoils a horse to give him his head.
7. "How was it, Aggy? the lad shot the buck, and the Judge bought it, ha! and is taking him down to get the pay?”
8. Old Natty too, that is the best of it — Well, well — ’duke will say no more about my deer — and the Judge fired both barrels, and hit nothing but a poor lad, who was behind a pine-tree. I must help that quack to take out the buck shot for the poor fellow.
9. "In this manner Richard descended the mountain; the bells ringing, and his tongue going, until they entered the village..."
10. To them, the road, that made the most rapid approaches to the condition of the old, or, as they expressed it, the down countries, was the most pleasant; and surely nothing could look more like civilization than a city, even if it lay in a wilderness!

11. On either side of the highway were piled before the houses huge heaps of logs, that were daily increasing rather than diminishing in size, notwithstanding the enormous fires that might be seen lighting every window through the dusk of the evening.
12. Even the heartless, but bright rays of a December sun were missed, as they glided into the cold gloom of the valley.
13. It was lucky for the whole fabric, that the carpenter, who did the manual part of the labour, had fastened the canopy of this classic entrance so firmly to the side of the house, that, when the base deserted the superstructure in the manner we have described, and the pillars, for the want of a foundation, were no longer of service to support the roof, the roof was able to uphold the pillars.
14. "By the lord, Squire,” commenced Benjamin in reply, first giving his mouth a wipe with the back of his hand, “if this here thing had been ordered sum’at earlier in the day, it might have been got up, d’ye see, to your liking. I had mustered all hands, and was exercising candles, when you hove in sight; but when the women heard your bells, they started an end, as if they were riding the boatswain’s colt; and, if-so-be there is that man in the house, who can bring up a parcel of women when they have got headway on them, until they’ve run out the end of their rope, his name is not Benjamin Pump.
15. The instant that Remarkable Pettibone had executed her portion of the labour in illuminating, she returned to a position near Elizabeth, with the apparent motive of receiving the clothes that the other threw aside, but in reality to examine, with an air of mingled curiosity and jealousy, the appearance of the lady who was to supplant her in the administration of their domestic economy.

16. Although there was much incongruity in the furniture and appearance of the hall, there was nothing mean. The floor was carpeted, even in its remotest corners. The brass candlesticks, the gilt lustres, and the glass chandeliers, whatever might be their keeping as to propriety and taste, were admirably kept as to all the purposes of use and comfort. They were all clean, and each glittering, in the strong light of the apartment, with its peculiar lustre.
17. Her eye had not time to detect in detail the little errors, which, in truth, existed, but was glancing around her in delight, when an object arrested her view, that was strongly contrasted to the smiling faces and neatly attired personages who had thus assembled to do honour to the heiress of Templeton.
18. Uses the idiom of “turning a blind eye.”
19. "Now I own that you have beat me, I never did such a thing in all my life.”
20. "You know that my grandfather was a doctor, but you haven’t got a drop of medical blood in your veins; these kind of things run in families. All my family by the father’s side had a knack at physic. There was my uncle that was killed at Brandy-wine, he died twice as easy as any other man in the regiment, only from knowing how to do the thing as it ought to be done.”
“I doubt not, Dickon,” returned the Judge playfully, after meeting the bright smile, which, in spite of himself, stole over the stranger’s features, “that thy family understood the art of letting a life slip through their fingers with great facility.”

21. You may affect to smile, Judge Temple, at hereditary virtues, if you please; but there is not a man on your Patent who don’t know better. Here, even this young man, who has never seen any thing but bears, and deers, and wood-chucks, knows better than not to believe in virtues being transmitted down in families.
22. Richard paused, and looked earnestly at the speaker, a little astonished at the language, and a good deal appalled at the refusal. He instantly construed the latter into an act of hostility, and placing his hands in the pockets again, he walked up to Mr. Grant...
23. DOCTOR ELNATHAN TODD, FOR SUCH WAS THE UNWORTHY NAME OF the man of physic, was commonly thought to be, among the settlers, a gentleman of great mental endowments; and he was assuredly of rare personal proportions.
24. Elnathan was indebted for this exemption from labour, in some measure to his extraordinary growth, which, leaving him pale, inanimate, and listless, induced his tender mother to pronounce him “a sickly boy, and one that was not equal to work, but who might earn a living, comfortably enough, by taking to pleading law, or turning minister, or doctoring, or some sitch-like easy calling.”
25. Still there was a great uncertainty which of these vocations the youth was best endowed to fill with credit and profit; but, having no other employment, the stripling was constantly lounging about the “homestead,” munching green apples, and hunting for sorrel; when the same sagacious eye, that had brought to light his latent talents, seized upon this circumstance, as a clue to direct his future path through the turmoils of the world.

26. Omitted.
27. To be continued.



Various Notes:
1. James Fenimore Cooper suggests that it is unlawful to cut down a tree without a permit or license.
2. Omitted.
3. Until further notice, I will update my Running Log on a floating basis, that is, when I feel that it is appropriate.




Sunday, December 3, 2023:

Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire:
1. "The centurion or military tribune who looked on war simply as a trade in which a little fortune could be made, went calmly into battle like a thatcher climbing a roof."
2. "How can reason govern enthusiasm? This is because a poet first sketches the structure of his canvas: the reason then holds the brush. But when he proceeds to animate his personages and to endow them with passions, then the imagination kindles, enthusiasm takes over: it is a race horse carried away headlong, but its course has been properly laid out."
3. "I am talking about all the other men who, at a supper or in their studies, display their systems of governments, reforming the armies, the church, the law, and the economy."
4. I imagine that a great French landowner would not object to being born in Germany: he would be master instead of being subject.
5. Omitted.

6. “It is well enough known nowadays that ancient practices must not be judged by modern ones.”
7. “We must get rid of all our prejudices when we read ancient authors and travel in distant nations.”
8. Fables: “Are not the most ancient fables obviously allegorical? According to our method of reckoning the eras is not the oldest fable we know that reported in the ninth chapter of the book of Judges.”
9. “Most other fables are either the corruption of ancient tales or caprices of the imagination.”
10. “The ancient fables are like our modern stories: there are moral ones, which are charming; others are insipid.”

11. End, final causes - “One would really have to be insane to deny that the purpose of stomachs is to digest, of eyes to see, of ears to hear.”
12. Here, the discussion gets complicated. “…it can never be said that man was created by god to be killed in war.”
13. Fanaticism - “Fanatics are usually guided by rascals, who put the dagger into their hands.”
14. Faith - “Vishnu incarnated himself 500 times; this is very astonishing, but after all it is not physically impossible, for if Vishnu has a soul, he can have put his soul in 500 bodies for fun.”
15. Faith - "'My son,' answers the bonze, 'give twenty rupees, and god will give you the grace to believe everything you don't believe.'"
16. Madness - "If the doctors still have a little sense they would reply: 'We don't know.' They will never understand why a brain has incoherent ideas; they will understand no better why another brain has regulated and consistent ideas. They will believe themselves to be wise, and they will be as mad as the lunatic."

17. Fraud - "We must imitate the supreme being, who does not show us things as they are. He makes the sun appear to us as if it has a diameter of two or three feet, although this star is a million times bigger than the earth...In short, he surrounds us with errors appropriate to our nature."
"We really perceive, and we can only perceive, the sun that is painted on our retina at a fixed angle."
18. "...you must admit that doctors always deceive children for their good: they tell them that they are giving them sugar, and really give them rhubarb."
19. "Wang: I admit that all men should not be equally educated, but there are things that all must be. It's necessary for everybody to be just, and the surest way to instill justice in all men is to instil them with relgion without superstition."
"Bambabef: That's a fine project, but it's impracticable."
"Wang: That's where you're wrong. You imagine that men will shake off an idea that is honest, convincing, useful to everybody, an idea that is in harmony with human reason, because they reject things that are dishonest, abusrd, useless, dangerous, that make good sense shudder. The people ar equite disposed to believe their magistrates: when their magistrates offer them only a reasonable belief, they willingly embrace it...This idea is too natural to be opposed...I assure you that I've seen entire cities which had practically no other dogmas, and they were those in which I saw the most virtue."

20. Idea - “'What is an idea?'
'It’s an image that paints itself in my brain.'”
21. “I don’t know what makes my heart beat, and my blood run in my veins; I don’t know the cause of all my movements; and you want me to tell you how I feel and how I think! That’s not fair."
22. To be continued.




Saturday, December 2, 2023:

notes about Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire:
1. In his chapter David, indicates that David was at the head of 600 brigands, and killed old men, women, and children, under the excuse that these people would “carry the news to king Achish,” and harm David and his army indirectly.
2. These bandits got angry with him, and wanted to stone him. What did this Jewish Mandrin do? He consulted the Lord, and the Lord replied that he must set out to attack the Amelekites, that the bandits would win great spoil there and get rich.
3. After David made war with Ishbosheth, father of Saul, “David seized the whole kingdom.”
4. After these expeditions, there was a three years famine in the land.

5. In his chapter Fate, he writes, “Of all the Western books that have come down to us Homer is the oldest. It is there that we find the customs of profane antiquity, gross heroes, gross gods made in the image of man. But it is also there that we find the seeds of philosophy, and above all the notion of fate, which is the master of the gods as the gods are the masters of the world."
6. “The Pharisees, among the little Jewish people, did not adopt fate until several centuries later; for these Pharisees, who were the first literate Jews, were themselves quite new.”
7. “In Alexandria they mixed part of the dogmas of the Stoics with ancient Jewish ideas.”
8. "If you could alter the fate of a fly there would be nothing to prevent you from creating the fate of all the other flies, all the other animals, all men, all nature." Here, you are more powerful than God.
9. “Other idiots, who affect to know better, say: The prudent man makes his own fate.”
10. “But the prudent man, far from making his own fate, often succumbs to it.”

11. Criticism
12. Describes “an illustrious chain,” like a chain of explanations, for example.
13. "Such is human nature."
14. "But success made their glory; and if the seal of victory had not consecrated these half-gods Alexander would have been no more than a dare-devil and Caesar a rebel in the eyes of the vulgar."
15. "This author, he said, was a wise man who more than once lent to philosophy the charm of poetry."
16. "He persecutes him everywhere. Everywhere he reproaches him with coldness and lack of harmony."
17. "The boring beauty of his discourses."

18. "The goodness that shines in her, the sweetness of her charms, is an image of the goodness she sees shine in you. And, enriched by you alone, her courtesy, freed from the slightest obscurities, is the reflected light of your sublime effulgence."
19. "They have seen the fears of their people, disturbed by terror, happily mastered by your good faith..."
20. To be continued.

21. Voltaire indicates that the fox’s organs are different from those of a crane and a lark.
22. Suggests that in many instances, to help someone, instead of professional treatment, just let nature take its course.
23. Questions whether drugs actually cure you.
24. Suggests that the world should be logically arranged.
25. Reminds us of our freedoms, and of liberty.




The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
1. “The black drew up, with a cheerful grin upon his chilled features, and began thrashing his arms together, in order to restore the circulation to his fingers, while the speaker stood erect, and, throwing aside his outer covering, stept from the sleigh upon a bank of snow…”
2. Cooper, suggests that living in the country is like living in the wilderness, in nature.
3. A storm of sleet had fallen and frozen upon the surface a few days before, and but a slight snow had occurred since to purify, without weakening its covering.
4. Cooper suggests that from an aerial view of New York, there are lots of trees.
5. In the scene previously mentioned with the deer, "The whole scene had passed with a rapidity that confused the female, who was unconsciously rejoicing in the escape of the buck..."

6. As the speaker concluded, he drew his bare hand across the bottom of his nose, and again opened his enormous mouth with a kind of inward laugh.
7. “The gun scatters well, Natty, and has killed a deer before now,” said the traveller, smiling good humouredly. “One barrel was charged with buck shot; but the other was loaded for birds only."
8. "...I can live without the venison, but I don’t love to give up my lawful dues in a free country."
9. "...yet he thought it prudent to utter the close of the sentence in such an undertone, as to leave nothing audible but the grumbling sounds of his voice."
10. “...see where the wolves bit his throat, the night I druve them from the venison I was smoking on the chimbly top — that dog is more to be trusted nor many a Christian man; for he never forgets a friend, and loves the hand that gives him bread.”

11. One of the characters, with warm footwear, and warm clothing, was appropriately dressed for the cold weather.
12. “It’s far easier to call names, than to shoot a buck on the spring; but the cretur come by his end from a younger hand than ’ither your’n or mine, as I said before.”
13. Here are two to one, indeed,” replied the Judge, with a smile; “I am outvoted — overruled, as we say on the bench. There is Aggy, he can’t vote, being a slave; and Bess is a minor — so I must even make the best of it.
14. "The meat is none of mine to sell,” said Leather-stocking, adopting a little of his companion’s hauteur; “for my part, I have known animals travel days with shots in the neck, and I’m none of them who’ll rob a man of his rightful dues.”
15. "You are tenacious of your rights, this cold evening, Natty,” returned the Judge, with unconquerable good nature..."

16. “...but what say you, young man, will three dollars pay you for the buck?”
17. "First let us determine the question of right to the satisfaction of us both,” said the youth, firmly but respectfully, and with a pronunciation and language vastly superior to his appearance; “with how many shot did you load your gun?”
18. "With five, sir,” said the Judge, gravely, a little struck with the other’s manner; “are they not enough to slay a buck like this?”
19. One would do it; but,” moving to the tree from behind which he had appeared, “you know, sir, you fired in this direction — here are four of the bullets in the tree.”
The Judge examined the fresh marks in the rough bark of the pine, and shaking his head, said with a laugh...
20. “Here,” said the youth, throwing aside the rough over-coat that he wore, and exhibiting a hole in his under garment, through which large drops of blood were oozing.

21. “Good God!” exclaimed the Judge, with horror; “have I been trifling here about an empty distinction, and a fellow-creature suffering from my hands without a murmur? But hasten — quick — get into my sleigh — it is but a mile to the village, where surgical aid can be obtained; — all shall be done at my expense, and thou shalt live with me until thy wound is healed — ay, and for ever afterwards, too.”
22. “I thank you, sir, for your good intention, but must decline your offer. I have a friend who would be uneasy were he to hear that I am hurt and away from him. The injury is but slight, and the bullet has missed the bones; but I believe, sir, you will now admit my title to the venison.”
23. "Admit it!” repeated the agitated Judge; “I here give thee a right to shoot deer, or bears, or any thing thou pleasest in my woods, for ever."
24. Here, Cooper also raises the question, whether it's legal to discharge (shoot) your firearm outside, in public.
25. There’s them living who say, that Nathaniel Bumppo’s right to shoot in these hills, is of older date than Marmaduke Temple’s right to forbid him. But if there’s a law about it at all, though who ever heard tell of a law that a man should’nt kill deer where he pleased! — but if there is a law at all, it should be to keep people from the use of them smooth-bores.

26. Excuse me, sir, I have need of the venison.”
“But this will buy you many deer,” said the Judge; “take it, I entreat you,” and lowering his voice to nearly a whisper, he added — “it is for a hundred dollars.”
27. For an instant only, the youth seemed to hesitate, and then, blushing even through the high colour that the cold had given to his cheeks, as if with inward shame at his own weakness, he again proudly declined the offer.
28. “I had lost my bullet mould in crossing the Oneida outlet, and so had to make shift with the buck shot; but the rifle was true, and did’nt scatter like your two-legged thing there, Judge, which don’t do, I find, to hunt in company with.”
29. Natty’s apology to the delicacy of the young lady was unnecessary, for, while he was speaking, she was too much employed in helping her father to remove certain articles of their baggage to hear him.
30. “Trust old Leather-stocking,” returned the hunter, significantly; “he has’nt lived forty years in the wilderness, and not larnt from the savages how to hold his tongue — trust to me, lad; and remember old Indian John.”

31. The old man gave another of his remarkable laughs, which partook so largely of exultation, mirth, and irony, and shaking his head, he turned, with his rifle at a trail, and moved into the forest with short and quick steps, that were between a walk and a trot.
32. At each movement that he made his body lowered several inches, his knees yielding with an inclination inward; but as the sleigh turned at a bend in the road, the youth cast his eyes in quest of his old companion, and he saw that he was already nearly concealed by the trunks of the trees, while his dogs were following quietly in his footsteps, occasionally scenting the deer track, that they seemed to know instinctively was now of no further use to them.
33. CHAPTER II
34. AN ANCESTOR OF MARMADUKE TEMPLE HAD, ABOUT ONE HUNDRED and twenty years before the commencement of our tale, come to the colony of Pennsylvania, a friend and co-religionist of its great patron. Old Marmaduke, for this formidable prenomen was a kind of appellative to the race, brought with him, to that asylum of the persecuted, an abundance of the good things of this life. He became the master of many thousands of acres of uninhabited territory, and the supporter of many a score of dependants. He lived greatly respected for his piety, and not a little distinguished as a sectary: was intrusted by his associates with many important political stations; and died just in time to escape the knowledge of his own poverty. It was his lot to share the fortune of most of those who brought wealth with them into the new settlements of the middle colonies.
35. "...and it was their “religious duty,” so the Major always expressed it: “it was their religious duty to have supported him.”

36. "At no time was the old soldier an admirer of the peaceful disciples of Fox. Their disciplined habits, both of mind and body, had endowed them with great physical perfection; and the eye of the veteran was apt to scan the fair proportions and athletic frames of the colonists..."
37. In this chapter, Cooper continues to discusses at length, the history and character of Marmaduke and Mr. Effingham.
38. CHAPTER III
39. "All that thou see’st, is nature’s handy-work..."
40. "More able to do either, my dear father,” said a playful voice from under the ample enclosures of the hood, “than to kill deer with a smooth-bore.”

41. On the road, one of the travellers says, "See, Bess, there is thy resting-place for life! And thine too, young man, if thou wilt consent to dwell with us.”
42. "...which, in that early day, wound along the precipices. The negro reined in his impatient steeds, and time was given to Elizabeth to dwell on a scene which was so rapidly altering under the hands of man, that it only resembled, in its outlines, the picture she had so often studied, with delight, in her childhood."
43. "...that it was not difficult for the imagination of Elizabeth to conceive they were enlarging under her eye, while she was gazing, in mute wonder, at the alterations that a few short years had made in the aspect of the country."
44. Before the doors of these pretending dwellings, were placed a few saplings, either without branches, or possessing only the feeble shoots of one or two summer’s growth, that looked not unlike tall grenadiers on post, near the threshold of princes.
45. These, which in the language of the country are termed stubs, abounded in the open fields adjacent to the village, and were accompanied, occasionally, by the ruin of a pine or a hemlock that had been stripped of its bark, and which waved in melancholy grandeur its naked limbs to the blast, a skeleton of its former glory.

46. Five years had here wrought greater changes than a century would produce in older countries, where time and labour have given permanency to the works of man.
47. The cheerful sound of sleigh-bells, however-soon attracted the attention of the whole party, as they came jingling up the sides of the mountain, at a rate that announced both a powerful team and a hard driver. The bushes which lined the highway interrupted the view, and they were close upon this vehicle before they discovered who were its occupants.
48. CHAPTER IV
49. He was the charioteer, and he guided the mettled animals that he drove along the prece pice, with a fearless eye, and a steady hand. Immediately behind him, with his face toward the other two, was a tall figure, to whose appearance not even the duplicate over-coats which he wore, aided by the corner of a horse-blanket, could give the appearance of strength.
50. A fair, jolly wig furnished a neat and rounded outline to his visage, and he, as well as the other two, wore martin-skin caps as outward coverings for their heads.

51. A very considerable excavation had been made into the side of the hill, at the point where Richard had succeeded in stopping the sleighs, from which the stones used for building in the village were ordinarily quarried, and in which he now attempted to turn his team.
52. Thus appealed to, it was not in the nature of the Frenchman to disappoint expectations that were so confidently formed; although he sat looking down the precipice which fronted him, as Richard turned his leaders into the quarry, with a pair of eyes that stood at least half an inch from his visage. The German’s muscles were unmoved, but his quick sight scanned each movement with an understanding expression, that blended amusement at Richard’s dilemma with anxiety at their situation. Mr. Grant placed his hands on the side of the sleigh, in preparation for a spring, but moral timidity deterred him from taking the leap that bodily apprehension strongly urged him to attempt.
53. On the contrary, finding that the cries and blows of their driver were redoubled at this juncture, the leaders backed upon the pole-horses, who, in their turn, backed the sleigh. Only a single log lay above the pile which upheld the road, on the side toward the valley, which was now buried in the snow.
54. To be continued.



Various Notes:
1. Please review Items 23, & 24, in today's Cooper reading.
2. Added: Items 22 & 23 from today's Volataire reading, to Notes about Psychiatry.




Friday, December 1, 2023:

Various Notes:
1. Cultural Psychology was a college course that I was enrolled in that taught me that sometimes, the media, or the press in their coverage of a case, often favors the prosecution.
2. Tba.




Thursday, November 30, 2023:

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. Omitted.
3. Updated: Items IV. 9, V. 7-11, VI. 8 & 9, X., XXII. 8, & XXIII. 13, on Favorite Notes 2.
4. Book Reviews: Various, including a piece on "Hip Hop," and "Modern Marvels: Fireworks," added.




Wednesday, November 29, 2023:


The Pioneers, by James Fenimore Cooper:
Introduction
1. "The face of the country, the climate as it was found by the whites, and the manners of the settlers, are described with a minuteness for which the author has no other apology than the force of his own recollections."
2. "Otsego is said to be a word compounded of Ot, a place of meeting, and Sego, or Sago, the ordinary term of salutation, used by the Indians of this region."
3. “The war drove off the agent in common with the other officers of the crown, and his rude dwelling was soon abandoned.”
4. Cooper freely admitted that some of the places in The Pioneers, including the Lake and its surrounding forested hills, were based on his memories. So were some of the buildings in the story, including “the Academy,” the jail and courthouse, and the Bold Dragoon tavern.
4B. Similarly, in populating his imagined village, Cooper drew on memories of a few real people: the German “Fritz Hartmann” of the story resembles Hendrick Frey of the Mohawk Valley — a Cooper family friend — and “Monsieur Le Quoi” even bears the name of a French refugee who was for a time a Cooperstown shopkeeper
5. THE PIONEERS, OR THE SOURCES OF THE SUSQUEHANNA; A DESCRIPTIVE TALE (1823) is both a novel in the romantic tradition — a tale of love, hidden identity, and forest adventure — and a vivid description of life in a newly settled village on the American frontier, where people of varied ethnic and racial backgrounds have come together to build a new community.

6. His woodland skills, his love of nature, and his honesty and bravery, as well as his cross-cultural friendship with American Indians have for almost two centuries made Natty Bumppo a favorite for readers around the world. Cooper would make him the central character of four more very popular “Leatherstocking Tales,” and he would become the inspiration for much of the American “Western” tradition down to The Lone Ranger and Tonto.
7. It was a very modest success, and Cooper was astonished when his second attempt, The Spy (1821), based on the Revolution in Westchester County, proved to be a runaway best seller. In it American readers found their first real opportunity to read an exciting story based on their own history. His third novel, published in 1823, was The Pioneers. Over the next thirty years, until his death in 1851, Cooper would write thirty-two novels as well as a dozen other works including the first major history of the United States Navy.
8. The Pioneers tells a fictional story set in the picturesque surroundings of Cooper’s childhood, on what was then New York’s frontier with the wilderness. It tells a basic American story of how pioneers pushing westward (it was the first novel to use the word “pioneers” in this American sense) established the new communities that would grow into the cities, towns, and villages of today, and was immediately recognized for its accuracy.
9. The creation of flourishing towns and cultivated fields, where but a few years before . . . forests stood, are events now so familiar to us, that they scarcely excite surprise.
10. The “Templeton” of The Pioneers thus includes not only settlers from New England and the Middle Colonies, and the Dutch who were New York’s original colonists, but newer immigrants from England, Ireland, Germany, and France, as well as African Americans (both slave and free). In Natty Bumppo’s Indian friend Chingachgook there is even a reminder of New York’s original Native American inhabitants. Moreover, as Cooper noted, people of different social classes and backgrounds mingled more freely on the frontier than in older towns and cities.

11. Like most of Cooper’s thirty-two novels, The Pioneers has a standardized “romantic novel” plot of the sort made popular by Sir Walter Scott, and expected by novel readers of his time.
14.The romantic formula is based on a love story between an eligible young man and woman of respectable backgrounds, with whom most readers can identify, who are kept apart by events or misunderstandings, but come together in the last chapter to marry and live happily ever after. On the way, they undergo adventures in what is to the average reader an exotic setting, and encounter unusual sorts of people that average readers might never meet.
15. For today’s readers, The Pioneers is memorable less for this romance formula, which it shares with hundreds of long-forgotten novels, than for its vivid portrait of life in a frontier community, and for its discussion of cultural and environmental issues that still confront Americans. Cooper is a pioneer both in criticizing the “wasty ways” of the tree-chopping settlers destroying everything around them, and in the person of Natty Bumppo reminding his readers of nature’s ethical and esthetic values that mankind destroys at his peril. And, in describing frontier life, he includes an inevitable conflict between law and ethics, questioning when strict enforcement of the law violate commonsense morality, so that ethical people must break it.

16. But what has made The Pioneers most memorable to readers at home and abroad is its introduction of the character of Natty Bumppo. Though portrayed as an old man, Natty Bumppo is still unequalled in the wilderness skills of shooting and tracking, while at the same time he is sternly honest with himself, generous toward men, and protective and chivalrous toward women. As a loner, living on the outskirts of the community but never a real part of it, Natty appreciates nature and the wilderness as the destructive settlers do not. His closest companion is the Indian Chingachgook, known to the settlers as John Mohegan.
17. The deep friendship between Natty and Chingachgook, men of different races, pioneers a new element in American literature, one that Cooper would expand upon in the later Leatherstocking novels, and that would powerfully influence American literature from Herman Melville and Mark Twain down to the present.
18. And though The Pioneers gives it less attention, Cooper also shows how a community that is in many ways egalitarian, where rich and poor come together, nevertheless excludes African Americans, both free and enslaved.
19. Natty Bumppo appears in the opening chapter of The Pioneers, and one suspects that Cooper originally considered him just one of the varied frontier characters who enliven the novel. But his role in the story keeps growing; he becomes so involved in both the twists of the plot and in adventures in the woods as to almost dominate the story.
20. See item 4B.

21. Indicates that one of the main characters, Natry Bumppo, was known for his honesty and bravery.
22. Natty Bumppo is often said to have been modeled on a squatter and former wilderness scout named David Shipman, living near Cooperstown, whom Cooper once called “the Leatherstocking of the region.” Others writers have sought to link him with Daniel Boone. But Natty’s importance, both in The Pioneers and in the four other Leatherstocking Tales, is as a unique character in whom Cooper sought to portray a virtuous man untainted by the corruptions of “civilization.”
23. "In reading Cooper for pleasure, it is important to remember that, like other writers of his time, he writes at a leisurely pace, in which the opening chapters slowly introduce the setting and characters, before the novel speeds up to a more exciting and event-filled conclusion. In a world before photography, Cooper spends much time in using words to describe scenery and scenes, an art in which he is an acknowledged champion. His ability to make the village, and the lake and forested hills that surround it, come alive to readers was a major inspiration for the so-called Hudson River School of landscape painting that dominated American art for much of the nineteenth century. Moreover, Cooper’s language is often almost musical, with carefully orchestrated phrases that are intended to be listened to, and not scanned rapidly with the eye. Read slowly and enjoy the sound and the view."
24. A second difference from most modern novels is the role of the author in the story. Today we expect a novel to immerse itself in the story, so that the reader forgets the author. But Cooper, following the tradition of his times, remains very much in the story, often letting us watch the characters through his eyes, rather than our own. Moreover, he is descriptive, telling us what the characters say and do, but rarely entering into their minds to tell us what they are thinking, except as it can be interpreted from their actions.
25. James Fenimore Cooper would go on to write thirty-one more novels, located in time over many centuries, and in space all over the globe. His novels of the sea created a whole new genre of novels about sailors and the ocean, just as his Leatherstocking Tales created one about the wilderness. But in many ways, The Pioneers, written with all the personal intensity of Cooper’s nostalgia for his childhood on the American frontier, can give the modern reader both enjoyment as a story and a better understanding of what it means to be an American.

26. INTRODUCTION [1832]
27. AS THIS WORK PROFESSES, IN ITS TITLE PAGE, TO BE A DESCRIPTIVE tale, they who will take the trouble to read it, may be glad to know how much of its contents is literal fact, and how much is intended to represent a general picture.
28. Gen. James Clinton, the brother of George Clinton, then Governor of New York, and the father of De Witt Clinton, who died Governor of the same state in 1827, commanded the brigade employed on this duty.
29. Soon after the close of the war, Washington, accompanied by many distinguished men, visited the scene of this tale, it is said with a view to examine the facilities for opening a communication by water, with other points of the Country. He staid but a few hours.

30. In order to prevent mistake, it may be well to say that the incidents of this tale are purely a fiction. The literal facts are chiefly connected with the natural and artificial objects, and the customs of the inhabitants.
31. There is also some liberty taken with the truth in the description of the principal dwelling: the real building had no “firstly” and “lastly.” It was of bricks and not of stones, and its roof exhibited none of the peculiar beauties of the “composite order.” It was erected in an age too primitive for that ambitious school of architecture. But the author indulged his recollections freely, when he had fairly entered the door.

32. CHAPTER I
33. NEAR THE CENTRE OF THE GREAT STATE OF NEW YORK LIES AN extensive district of country, whose surface is a succession of hills and dales, or, to speak with greater deference to geographical definitions, of mountains and valleys.
34. Beautiful and thriving villages are found interspersed along the margins of the small lakes, or situated at those points of the streams which are favourable to manufacturing; and neat and comfortable farms, with every indication of wealth about them, are scattered profusely through the vales, and even to the mountain tops. Roads diverge in every direction, from the even and graceful bottoms of the valleys, to the most rugged and intricate passes of the hills
35. "In short, the whole district is hourly exhibiting how much can be done, in even a rugged country, and with a severe climate..."
36. Only forty years have passed since this whole territory was a wilderness.
37. Very soon after the establishment of the independence of the States by the peace of 1783, the enterprise of their citizens was directed to a developement of the natural advantages of their widely extended dominions.
38. A narrow belt of country, extending for a short distance on either side of the Hudson, with a similar occupation of fifty miles on the banks of the Mohawk, together with the islands of Nassau and Staten, and a few insulated settlements on chosen land along the margins of streams, composed the country that was then inhabited by less than two hundred thousand souls. Within the short period we have mentioned, her population has spread itself over five degrees of latitude and seven of longitude, and has swelled to the powerful number of nearly a million and a half, who are maintained in abundance, and can look forward to ages before the evil day must arrive, when their possessions will become unequal to their wants.
39. "In the vale, which lay at a distance of several hundred feet beneath them, there was what in the language of the country was called a clearing, and all the usual improvements of a new settlement; these even extended up the hill to the point where the road turned short and ran across the level land, which lay on the summit of the mountain; but the summit itself yet remained a forest," a wilderness.

40. There was a glittering in the atmosphere, as if it were filled with innumerable shining particles, and the noble bay horses that drew the sleigh were covered, in many parts, with a coat of frost.
41. Huge saddles, studded with nails of the same material, and fitted with cloth that admirably served as blankets to the shoulders of the animals, supported four high, square-topped turrets, through which the stout reins led from the mouths of the horses to the hands of the driver, who was a negro, of apparently twenty years of age.
42. His face, which nature had coloured with a glistening black, was now mottled with the cold, and his large shining eyes were moistened with a liquid that flowed from the same cause; still there was a smiling expression of good humour in his happy countenance, that was created by the thoughts of his home, and a Christmas fire-side, with its Christmas frolics.
43. The sleigh was one of those large, comfortable, old-fashioned conveyances, which would admit a whole family within its bosom, but which now contained only two passengers besides the driver. Its outside was a modest green, and its inside of a fiery red, that was intended to convey the idea of heat in that cold climate. Large buffalo skins, trimmed around the edges with red cloth, cut into festoons, covered the back of the sleigh, and were spread over its bottom, and drawn up around the feet of the travellers...
44. The mountain on which they were journeying was covered with pines, that rose without a branch seventy or eighty feet, and which frequently towered to an additional height, that more than equalled that elevation. Through the innumerable vistas that opened beneath the lofty trees the eye could penetrate, until it was met by a distant inequality in the ground, or was stopped by a view of the summit of the mountain which lay on the opposite side of the valley to which they were hastening. The dark trunks of the trees rose from the pure white of the snow, in regularly formed shafts, until, at a great height, their branches shot forth their horizontal limbs, that were covered with the meager foliage of an evergreen, affording a melancholy contrast to the torpor of nature below.

45. A storm of sleet had fallen and frozen upon the surface a few days before, and but a slight snow had occurred since to purify, without weakening its covering.
46. In a few moments the speaker succeeded in extricating a double-barrelled fowling-piece from among a multitude of trunks and bandboxes.
47. After throwing aside the thick mittens which had encased his hands, that now appeared in a pair of leather gloves tipped with fur, he examined his priming, and was about to move forward, when the light bounding noise of an animal plunging through the woods was heard, and directly a fine buck darted into the path, a short distance ahead of him.
48. As it came first into view he raised the fowling-piece to his shoulder, and, with a practised eye and steady hand, drew a trigger; but the deer dashed forward undaunted, and apparently unhurt.
49. To be continued.




Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. Updated: the last paragraph of the article "Why I Don't Believe The Story About The Slave Trade, And Why..."




Tuesday, November 28, 2023:


Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire:
1. "It is not enough to do no evil, you will do good."
2. "I know enough medicine to explain simple remedies to [my parishioners] when they're ill."
3. "The Japanese: After men have disputed for a very long time, and it has been realized that all these quarrels teach men only to harm one another, they finally decide that mutual toleration is unquestionably best."
4. "The father of Flavius Josephus must nevertheless have been one of the witnesses of all Jesus' miracles. Josephus was of the priestly caste, related to queen Mariamne, Herod's wife."
5. "Be this as it may, it was about the year 60 of our era that the Christians began to separate themselves from the Jewish community."
6. The Heaven of the ancients
7. "The ancient Greeks, seeing that the rulers of towns lived in citadels at the tops of mountains, judged that the gods should also have a citadel, and placed it in Thessaly, on mount Olympus, whose summit is sometimes hidden in the clouds, so that their palace was on the same level as their heaven."
8. "The stars and the planets, which seem to be attached to the blue vault of our atmosphere, afterwards became the homes of the gods...The general council of the gods was held in a great hall which was reached by the milky way, for it was clearly necessary for the gods to have a hall in the air since men had town halls on earth."
9. "At the opera, and in more serious writings, the gods are made to descend in the midst of winds, clouds and thunder, that is, god is dragged through the vapors of our little globe."
10. "The ancients believed that to go to heaven was to ascend..."

11. Indicates that it is not unlikely that an entire race of people, at some time, became extinct.
12. Circoncision: Circumcision
13. Suggests that circumcision originated with the Egyptians, and writes, "It is evident from Herodotus that several peoples (the Phoenicians and the peoples of Palestine for example,) had taken circumcision from Egypt."
14. "Genesis says that Abraham had been circumcised earlier. But Abraham had travelled in Egypt, which had long been a flourishing kingdom, governed by a powerful king."
15. "Now before Joshua the Israelites, by their own admission, took many customs from the Egyptians. They imitated them in several sacrifices, in several ceremonies, as in the fasts which they observed on the eve of the festivals of Isis, in the ablutions, in the custom of shaving the priest's head. The incense, the candelabra, the sacrifice of the red cow, the putrification with hyssop, the abstention from pork, the horror of strangers' kitchen utensils, all attest that the little Hebrew people, despite an aversion for the great Egyptian nation, had kept an infinit number of its former masters' customs."
16. "The Arabs too have always been faithful to it. But the Egyptians, who circumcised boys and girls in the earliest times, eventually stopped performing this operation on girls, and finally restricted it to priests, astrologers and prophets."
17. "It is this Arabian circumcision that has passed to the Ethiopians, who still circumcise boys and girls."

18. Confession
19. The abbots began by demanding that their monks come to them twice a year to confess all their faults. After their confession, the abbotts usually absolved the monks as much as they could.
20. Body
21. Suggests that sensations are powerful forces.
22. Credo
23. Discusses saint Augustine's sermon 115, in writing, "I believe in god the all-powerful father, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ his only son, our lord."
24. Discusses Saint-Pierre's book on the purity of religion, in writing:
I believe in one god only, and I love him. I believe that he illuminates every soul that comes into the world, as saint John says...
I believe in one god only, because there can be only one soul of the great all, only one vivifying being, a unique creator.
I believe that it is our duty to regard all men as our brothers since god is our common father.
25. To be continued.



Various Notes:
1. I believe that my blog presents a fresh new perspective on many subjects, and new ideas, in a literary, rather than a journalistic method.
2. Omitted.




Sunday, November 26, 2023:

Various Notes:
1. “Life involves patience, patience, and patience.” -Jane Austen
2. Updated: Item XXI, on Favorite Notes 2.




Saturday, November 25, 2023:




Various Notes:
1. Sleep, by Toren Spencer-Gray
"It's like when I was a kid,
The feeling that I used to get when I would sleep for eight whole hours,
But it's just a feeling that I get now, nothing more..."
2. My Sky, by Mirra Lokhvitskaya (1896-1905), is a great poem, because in it, the poet suggests that the night sky is hers.
3. 7A., and 8A., and 19A., added to an update to today's reading.
4. Trivial Pursuit taught me that clinical death is the medical term for cessation of blood circulation and breathing, the two criteria necessary to sustain the lives of human beings and of many other organisms.
5. Cultural Psychology, was a college course that I was enrolled in. I learned that people have similarities and differences. I also learned that certain cultures are better at certain things. For example, blacks are better at singing soul music, and Asians are better at martial arts.
Added to Favorite Notes 2.

6. In one scene of Boris Godunov, by Alexander Pushkin, where there is a large crowd, the author writes that if you die as a people, you die as a people. Here, he is suggesting that there is something noble in dying together.
7. "Beginning crocheting stitches," may be a good way to learn how to begin crocheting stitches.
Added to Favorite Notes 2.




Friday, November 24, 2023:


Various Notes:
1. I made an update to the last paragraph of the article entitled Why I Don't Believe The Story About The Slave Trade….
2. Tba.




Thursday, November 23, 2023:
Happy Thanksgiving!🍂


Various Notes:
1. Leaving the windows open in your house is like camping outside.
2. According to the Oxford Essential German Dictionary: squirrel - Eichhornchen.
Added to Favorite Notes 2.
3. Friedrich Schiller suggests that the will of man, or the will to survive, is a powerful force.
Added to Favorite Notes 2.




Wednesday, November 22, 2023:


Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire:
1. Does it really matter if one is on on medication? Does the medication actually change one's behavior in any noticeable way or another?
2. Omitted.
3. 1., Added to Notes about Psychiatry.
4. Omitted.
5. Bornes de l'esprit humain: Limits of the human mind.
6. Suggests that there is a mystery of God, as well as a mystery of death.
7. If God is omniscient, then he would know all the thoughts, emotions, and memories of all mankind.
8. Why was this soul given to this body? Why was I born to this time period? This location on Earth?
9. Hope to the future, "hope to live."
10. Briefly discusses the philosophers Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus.

11. "You promise God to do all the good in your power."
12. Do everything in the name of God.
13. "You want everybody to do the work for you. You have to do the work yourself."
A quote I formulated during this reading.

14. Chain of events
15. "...it is hardly a discovery that there is no effect without a cause, and that the smallest cause often produces the greatest effects."
16. "Lord Bolingbroke admitted that the petty quarrels of the duchess of Marlborough and lady Masham gave him the opportunity to make the special treaty betweeen queen Anne and Louis XIV. This treaty led to the peace of Utrecht. This peace of Utrecht confirmed Philip V on the throne of Spain."
17. In a previous chapter mentions that one editor scrutinized the punctuation, spelling, and grammar of an author.
18. Suggests that many recipes for foods have existed since antiquity.
19. Suggests that one should only take medication for mortal illnesses.




Tuesday, November 21, 2023:

an Introduction to Astronomy:
1. The sky is vast and distances between objects can be very large.
2. The nearest star to our solar system is 4 light years away, which is 20 trillion miles.
3. The stars may all look the same distance away, as if they were pasted on the wall of a giant dome. But that's an illusion too. Some stars are tens of thousands of light years farther away from Earth than others.
4. How can we tell how far away a star is? One clue is its brightness. Distant stars look dimmer than they would if we were close to them. But that clue isn’t very reliable, because stars vary a lot in their brightness. Some stars that stand out in the sky aren’t actually very far away compared to other stars—they’re just incredibly big and bright. And some nearby stars are dim. In fact, our Sun’s closest star neighbor, Proximus Centuri, is so faint and tiny that we need a telescope to see it!
5. So astronomers rely on measurements of something called parallax to figure out the distances of stars.

6. Everything in space is moving all the time.
7. You might feel like you’re sitting still, but you’re actually flying through space incredibly fast! That’s because Earth is carrying you like a spaceship. 
8. Earth is spinning. If you were standing on the equator, you and the spot under your feet would be rotating at a speed of about a thousand miles per hour. But Earth is also orbiting around the Sun, moving even faster: 67,000 miles per hour. And the Sun itself is moving around the center of our galaxy, carrying everything in the solar system with it, at a rate of 490,000 miles per hour. And that’s not all. Our galaxy, the Milky Way , is moving too—at a rate of 872,405 miles per hour. Our cluster of galaxies is moving too. And so is everything else in the universe.
9. Gravity holds everything together.
10. Source: AMNH.



Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire:
1. Skeptics, Skepticism:
There is no God, the sun is not controlled by any greater force, there are no mysteries of life.
2. Briefly discusses the Yalkut, a rabbinically annotated text of the Old Testament.




Sunday, November 19, 2023:


William Wordsworth: A Life, by Stephen Gill:
1. For some years Wordsworth had been moving towards a more explicit declaration of faith in Man's immortal destiny and apparently tiny bibliographical detail speaks loudly now.
2. “At this moment in Wordsworth’s life, though, the question shaping itself…must have been, ‘What next?’ Wordsworth was in his late forties…"
3. “What he told his brother Christopher was, ‘I write chiefly for posterity.’”
4. “…and the painter became uproarious over Homer, Shakespeare, Milton, Voltaire, and Newton."



Philosophical Dictionary, by Voltaire:
1. “The Jews boasted that they were descended from him [Abraham].”
2. “For the rest, this name Bram, Abram, was famous in India and Persia…Others say that he was Brahma of the Indians, but this has not been proved.
3. Suggests that it was the destiny of the Greeks to teach other peoples.
4. “They say that it was hard to see how Adam, who was ruddy and hairy, could have been the father of the Negroes, who are as black as ink, and have black wool on their heads.”
5. “His book was burned because it was said to ridicule the Bible; but I can certify that he did not realize what he was doing.”

6. Omitted.
7. Soul
8. Reminds is that we cannot see our soul.
9. "The first philosophers said, 'There must be something in us that produces our thoughts; this something must be very subtle; it's a breath... 'It is atoms in us that think...'"
10. It is the nature of the soul to think.

11. Discusses digestion and walking, then writes, “The Greeks saw clearly that thought often had nothing to do with the play of our organs; they attributed an animal soul to these organs, and to thought, a finer, subtler soul."
12. "But this soul of thought frequently has the ascendancy over the animal soul."
13. This animal soul "is nothing but the movement of your organs."
14. There is the eternal object of the disputes of mankind; I say eternal object; for not having any first notion from which we can descend in this examination, we can only rest for ever in a labyrinth of doubt and feeble conjecture.
Suggests that certain things are the objects of eternal disputes of mankind, while certain things mankind agrees on.
15. How should we have? we should have had to see life and thought enter a body. Does a father know how he has produced his son? does a mother how she conceived him? Has anyone ever been able to divine how he acts, how he wakes, how he sleeps? Does anyone know how his limbs obey his will? has anyone discovered by what art ideas are marked out in his brain and issue from it at his command?

16. Quotes one philosopher who suggests that right and wrong are a feeling.
17. Suggests that the soul wants to think in a certain way.
18. Gives evidence suggesting that the soul is immortal, and exists beyond the limits of the body.
19. Gives evidence of dreams and visions, of aspects of the nature of the soul.
20. Let us leave to each man the liberty and consolation of seeking himself, and of losing himself in his ideas.

21. Amitie: Friendship
22. Suggests that we examine what friendship is, in this chapter
23. In his chapter Love, suggests that love involves attraction.
24. Writes, "what has misled us, is this word love."
25. To be continued.




Friday, November 17, 2023:


William Wordsworth: A Life, by Stephen Gill:
1. Many of Wordsworth’s poems are meditations on natural phenomenon, and “an intense exercise of the imagination to disclose meaning in an experience.”
2. “Wordsworth’s return to his lyric formulae, however, is a highly self conscious one, which exploits, even indulges, a retrospective, autumnal tone. As always with this poet, retrospection involves private allusion, a gathering together of past and present visible only to his intimates.”
3. In one of Wordsworth’s poems, “the poet celebrates the beauty of the sunset…”
4. Though accomplished, the poems of 1817 suggest in their tone a poet aware that a movement in his imaginative life is coming to a close. The ebullience of earlier lyrics is missing the energy that suggested the limitless possibilities for poetry in the play of the imagination upon the everyday.



Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen:
1. The parents exchange stories about their children's triumphs, in one scene.
2. "Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love."



Various Notes:
1. Eugene Onegin, an Opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, is also a book that I’ve read.
2. Many of the books that I have read on the Book Reviews VI: Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pushkin page, are also adapted to film or music, on YouTube. In fact, many of the books that I've reviewed are available in some format or another, on YouTube.




Thursday, November 16, 2023:


William Wordsworth: A Life, by Stephen Gill:
1. “Wordsworth’s response to these social portents was complex.”
2. Discusses the importance of sensibility in social matters.
3. “Thanksgiving Ode ‘is, in effect, Wordsworth’s primary act of reconciliation with the Church of England.”
4. Suggests that sometimes we can be emotional instead of rational.
5. "Education for the ignorant masses would have to be a priority, but something more would be needed for the advance of the whole nation.”

6. “A new course of education, a higher tone of moral feeling, more of the grandeur of the imaginative faculties, and less of the petty processes and purblind understanding, that would manage the concerns of nations in the same calculating spirit with which it would set about building a new house.”
7. The Statesman's Manual: or, The Bible the Best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight: a Lay Sermon, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is an essay that is discussed.
8. “...Hazlitt vilified its author as a windbag apostate and after publication he repeated the attack not once but three times, once in the Edinburgh Review and twice in the Examiner."
9. At one point, Wordsworth and Coleridge had a disagreement about publishing a poem that one poet thought would be injurious to both men’s careers.
10. To be continued.




Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. "As much as you may hate him now, you'll miss him when he's gone," is what one of the sisters said in one of the stories in Dubliners, by James Joyce.
3. In the pictures, where are the cities? Where are the rest of the houses? Where are the stores? Where are the bridges, roads and tunnels? Where were the police? There are just too many inaccuracies, so I don't believe the story about the slave trade and other events in U.S. history. Slaves from forts in Africa? How'd they get food? How'd they get fresh water? Where was the formal declaration of war? This method of questioning is a quick explanation why I don't believe the story about the slave trade and many other events in U.S. history.
Added to my paper.




Wednesday, November 15, 2023:


Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. Cherelle Parker, a Lincoln University alum (my old college), is now the Mayor of Philadelphia: good news!
3. To encourage learning, library e-book applications should be accessible to people in underdeveloped countries where there are few actual libraries available.




Tuesday, November 14, 2023:


Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo:
1. “Who knows the ways of Providence?”
2. Suggests that you can search for “How to begin crocheting.”
3. Suggests that to entertain people, you simply offer them food and drinks.
4. Between you and me, and in order to empty my sack, and make confession to my pastor, as it behooves me to do, I will admit to you that I have good sense.
5. Immortality, Bishop, is a chance, a waiting for dead men’s shoes. Ah! what a charming promise! trust to it, if you like! What a fine lot Adam has! We are souls, and we shall be angels, with blue wings on our shoulder-blades. Do come to my assistance: is it not Tertullian who says that the blessed shall travel from star to star? Very well. We shall be the grasshoppers of the stars. And then, besides, we shall see God. Ta, ta, ta! What twaddle all these paradises are!

6. In order to furnish an idea of the private establishment of the Bishop of D_____, and of the manner in which those two sainted women subordinated their actions, their thoughts, their feminine instincts even, which are easily alarmed, to the habits and purposes of the Bishop, without his even taking the trouble of speaking in order to explain them...
7. Suggests that you can decorate your home with decorative paper.
8. At certain moments, without his having occasion to mention it, when he was not even conscious of it himself in all probability, so perfect was his simplicity, they vaguely felt that he was acting as a bishop; then they were nothing more than two shadows in the house.
9. Thus, even when believing him to be in peril, they understood, I will not say his thought, but his nature, to such a degree that they no longer watched over him. They confided him to God.
10. ...I should have liked to last until the dawn, but I know that I shall hardly live three hours. It will be night then. What does it matter, after all? Dying is a simple affair. One has no need of the light for that. So be it. I shall die by starlight.

11. In his clear glance, in his firm tone, in the robust movement of his shoulders, there was something calculated to disconcert death. Azrael, the Mohammedan angel of the sepulchre, would have turned back, and thought that he had mistaken the door.
12. Bear this well in mind sir: the French Revolution had its reasons for existence; its wrath will be absolved by the future; its result is the world made better. From its most terrible blows there comes forth a caress for the human race.
13. To be continued.




🇺🇸🎖️ Saturday, November 11, 2023: Happy Veterans Day!


Veterans Day Notes:
1. The Poetry Foundation has a great collection of Veterans Day poems. I read all of the poems listed including:
Veterans of the Seventies, by Marvin Bell, which describes a military hero,
Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, which explores the experience of blacks in the military, as well as the war against communism,
The City's Oldest Known Survivor of the Great War by James Doyle, which describes an old man who is a veteran,
Debridement, by Michael S. Harper, which causes readers to examine the true meaning of a "black man,"
A Veteran by Reginald Gibbons, which exploress the heroic "military man" personification,
Pacemaker, by W. D. Snodgrass, which examines the physical rigors of military life,
The Grand Army of the Republic, by John Spaulding, which examines the various (other) rigors of military life,
Soldier from the wars returning, by A.E. Housman., which examines the image of the "soldier from the wars returning," and
Elegy for Daniel, by Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, the last poem listed, which explores the impact that casualties of war have on their loved ones, and reminds us of the sanctity of life.





Various Notes:
1. Ablade Glover is a talented African artist!
Added to Favorite Notes.
2. I’m actually trying to limit the amount of time that I watch tv, and trying for 24hours without television, as well as watching tv only in an emergency. This makes me enjoy life more, appreciate patience more, and slows the world down around me in a more pleasant way.





William Wordsworth: A Life, by Stephen Gill:
1. “He said he would not pollute his fingers by touching Jeffrey’s book.”
2. “Nevertheless, Wordsworth struck back once more—it was another tactical mistake.”
3. In a preamble to the review of one of his students, John Wilson’s poems, “Wordsworth confessed to being in awe of true poets.”
4. Of one of the characters actions writes, she feared that it would do more harm than good.
5. “Coleridge’s speculation had already been quoted, but it was not for Wordsworth’s eyes.”

6. “Coleridge wrote that what he learned from Lady Beaumont had perplexed rather than enlightened him."
7. Discusses a theoretical misunderstanding which existed between Wordsworth and Coleridge.
8. Briefly discusses the meaning of one’s true religion.
9. “To the consideration of Mr. Wordsworth’s sublimities, we are entering upon holy ground.”
10. “‘Human nature’ he wrote, ‘demands to be vindicated from the slur that has been cast upon her…and hardening her heart against all native affections & heavenly impulses.’”

11. “All modern poetry is nothing but the old genuine poetry, new vamped, and delivered to us at second, or twentieth hand.”
12. “Haydon, too, heard the story, and was convinced that the merest gesture from Wordsworth would have stopped the breach from widening.”





Friday, November 10, 2023:


Various Notes:
1. One book that I’ve read, about car engines for children, also suggests that the human body operates much like an automobile, and should be treated as such.
2. In one Chinua Achebe novel, he suggests that the atmosphere changes at night.
Added to Favorite Notes 2.




Thursday, November 9, 2023:


Various Notes:
1. In Duty Surviving Self-Love, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Coleridge suggests that self-love is "the only sure friend of declining life," that is, he reminds us of the importance of self-love.
Added to Favorite Notes 2.
2. Tba.




Wednesday, November 8, 2023:


Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo:
1. In 1804, M. Myriel was the Curé of B_____ (Brignolles). He was already advanced in years, and lived in a very retired manner.
2. There are thirty-six of you, in five or six small rooms. There are three of us here, and we have room for sixty.
3. This holy woman regarded Monseigneur of D_____ as at one and the same time her brother and her bishop, her friend according to the flesh and her superior according to the Church.
4. It was like water on dry soil; no matter how much money he received, he never had any.
5. The diocese of D_____ is a fatiguing one. There are very few plains and a great many mountains; hardly any roads, as we have just seen; thirty-two curacies, forty-one vicarships, and two hundred and eighty-five auxiliary chapels. To visit all these is quite a task.

6. One day he arrived at Senez, which is an ancient episcopal city. He was mounted on an ass…. "You think it very arrogant in a poor priest to ride an animal which was used by Jesus Christ. I have done so from necessity, I assure you, and not from vanity."
7. In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talked rather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments and his examples.
8. "For a whole century, there has not been a single murderer among them.”
9. Look at the mountaineers of Devolny, a country so wild that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty years.
10. ...“Mon Dieu, cousin! What are you thinking about?” “I am thinking,” replied the Bishop, “of a singular remark, which is to be found, I believe, in St. Augustine,—‘Place your hopes in the man from whom you do not inherit.’”

11. At another time, on receiving a notification of the decease of a gentleman of the country-side, wherein not only the dignities of the dead man, but also the feudal and noble qualifications of all his relatives, spread over an entire page: “What a stout back Death has!” he exclaimed.
12. When it was a question of charity, he was not to be rebuffed even by a refusal, and on such occasions he gave utterance to remarks which induced reflection.
13. Suggests that the whole population of France was poor.
14. My brethren, have pity! behold the suffering on all sides of you!
15. He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the mountains.

16. Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, check it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is venial; it is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in prayer.
“To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err, fall, sin if you will, but be upright.
"The least possible sin is the law of man. No sin at all is the dream of the angel. All which is terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a gravitation.”
17. He was indulgent towards women and poor people, on whom the burden of human society rest. He said, “The faults of women, of children, of the feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise.
18. He said, moreover, “Teach those who are ignorant as many things as possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction gratis; it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul is full of shadow; sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the shadow.”
19. They sent for the curé. It seems that he refused to come, saying, “That is no affair of mine. I have nothing to do with that unpleasant task, and with that mountebank: I, too, am ill; and besides, it is not my place.” This reply was reported to the Bishop, who said, “Monsieur le Curé is right: it is not his place; it is mine.”
20. On his return to the humble dwelling, which he designated, with a smile, as his palace, he said to his sister, “I have just officiated pontifically.”

21. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a degree as not to perceive human law.
22. His mass said, he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milk of his own cows. Then he set to work.
23. A Bishop is a very busy man: he must every day receive the secretary of the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day his vicars-general. He has congregations to reprove, privileges to grant, a whole ecclesiastical library to examine,—prayer-books, diocesan catechisms, books of hours, etc.,—charges to write, sermons to authorize, curés and mayors to reconcile, a clerical correspondence, an administrative correspondence; on one side the State, on the other the Holy See; and a thousand matters of business.
24. Omitted.
25. If, however, the Bishop had one of his curés to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity to serve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or with some fine game from the mountains. Every curé furnished the pretext for a good meal: the Bishop did not interfere. With that exception, his ordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in water, and oil soup.

26. He was a man of letters and rather learned. He left behind him five or six very curious manuscripts; among others, a dissertation on this verse in Genesis, In the beginning, the spirit of God floated upon the waters. With this verse he compares three texts: the Arabic verse which says, The winds of God blew; Flavius Josephus who says, A wind from above was precipitated upon the earth; and finally, the Chaldaic paraphrase of Onkelos, which renders it, A wind coming from God blew upon the face of the waters. In another dissertation, he examines the theological works of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemaïs, great-grand-uncle to the writer of this book, and establishes the fact, that to this bishop must be attributed the divers little works published during the last century, under the pseudonym of Barleycourt.
27. Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man calls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most beautiful of all your names.
28. It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of the dwelling of the Bishop of Digne.
29. And since we are now painting the Bishop of Digne as he was in reality, we must add that he had said more than once, “I find it difficult to renounce eating from silver dishes.”
30. Madame Magloire had once remarked, with a sort of gentle malice: “Monseigneur, you who turn everything to account, have, nevertheless, one useless plot. It would be better to grow salads there than bouquets.” “Madame Magloire,” retorted the Bishop, “you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the useful.” He added after a pause, “More so, perhaps.”

31. "Read books about medical terminology."
32. How Are Collective Expert Judgments Made in Medicine?





Various Notes:
1. 🏃‍ …Jogging is a great way to reverse the negative, "slowing" effects of cigarette smoking and other similar choices in life.
Updated to Favorite Notes.
2. The Lucy Show, with Lucille Ball, suggests that when you’re home, act like you’re home: eat food, listen to music, lounge around, etc.
3. Many of the characters and symbols in the literature that I've read, as well as in the art that I admire, and in the music that I've listened to, represent universal themes that are common to all world peoples.
Added to Favorite Notes 2.
4. James Fenimore Cooper, in one of his novels, indicates that many Indians didn't fear death, that is, they faced death bravely. For the American Indian, you see, life was simply blood and nerves, so why fear death?
Added to Favorite Notes 2.
5. Victor Hugo suggests that you should only trust the judgment of experts.




Tuesday, November 7, 2023:


Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen:
1. Of Catherine Morland, writes,
"...and her mind about as ignorant and uninformed as the female mind at seventeen usually is."
2. Reminds us that women have a maternal instinct, that, at times, may be more or less severe. Then, reminds us that violence, in any respect, is wrong.
3. It appears that Austen was advocating for a gentle, kind woman.



Various Notes:
1. Campbell's Chunky Old Bay Seasoned, Manhattan (or New England) Clam Chowder mixed with an extra can (or two, or three,) of chopped clams tastes great!
Added to Food Ideas.
2. In Bleak House, Charles Dickens reminds us that houses are often worn, having had two or more previous owners.
3. I plan to make home made lemonade at least once weekly, for physical fitness, as well as to drink more fresh juice.
4. This blog can also be viewed as a journal. I learned this reading Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen.

5. ...During this time, Chief Albert Luthuli was the new African National Congress president. "He was a man of patience and fortitude, who spoke slowly and clearly as though every word was of equal importance."
6. Nelson Mandela believed that there was something magical in every sunrise.
7. Nelson Mandela was an important figure in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. He spent 27 years in jail and was released when he was 72 years old.
8. One of the things that Nelson Mandela did when he was released, was visit the grave site of, and pay his respects to his mother who passed away while he was in prison.
9. On May 10, 1994, Nelson Mandela, at the age of 77, was inaugurated as South Africa's first black president.
10. In the end of his autobiography, Nelson Mandela writes, "I have completed my journey, now I pass the torch on to the next person, the next individual." - Added to Favorite Notes 2

11. "Ah, Balducci, if life were as simple as you conceive it." - The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone.
12. Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa is the current president of South Africa. He may be from the Xhosa tribe, the same tribe as Nelson Mandela. He was born November 17, 1952, 27 years after I was born, on the same birth date.




Sunday, November 5, 2023

Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen:
1. Of Catherine Morland, writes, “She never could learn or understand any thing before she was taught; and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive..."
2. Tba.




Saturday, November 4, 2023

Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo:
1. Introduction
2. “Les Miserables is a vast novel built to the measure of Victor Hugo’s humanity and vision.”
3. “Undoubtedly readers come to the book for the deeply engrossing characters and stay on, as the author himself predicted, for the wider social and historic panorama.”
4. Victor Hugo was also active in the political scene of Paris throughout his life, and his novels represent his efforts as a champion of democracy and social reform.
5. Hugo wrote amidst the same literary atmosphere as Francois-Renes de Chateaubriand, Alphonse de Lamartine, George Sand, and Honore de Balzac, as well as Gustave Flaubert and Charles Baudelaire.

6. In Les Miserables, many of the characters show traces of Hugo’s own personal experience, and the book’s philosophical stance mirrors the concerns of his political existence. “His first published story, of a black slave in Santo Domingo betrayed by an influential white friend, shows the same concern for outcasts that pervades the novel and that later led Hugo to plead for the life of American abolitionist John Brown.”
7. The principal action opens in 1815, while France was ruled by Napoleon.
8. “Very early, Hugo conceived of the book as the story of a saint, a man, a woman, and a little girl…demonstrates Hugo’s deliberate method of alternating dramatic action and passages of historic background, a process that produces an account of astonishing depth and clarity.”




Friday, November 3, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Manhattan (or New England) Clam Chowder mixed with an extra can (or two, or three,) of chopped clams tastes great!
Added to Food Tips.
2. Omitted.
3. Since cats and dogs can drink milk and water, maybe you can leave a bowl of another drink (juice) out for them next to their water bowl, to drink (if they want) also; kind of like an experiment to see if they like other drinks, and if they enjoy the other juices, then it is successful.



Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Night is a long period of darkness, followed by a short period when it gets light, instead of gradual light over several hours. -Honore de Balzac
2. Several people recommend leaving your lamp or night light on all night.
3. My memory is not that accurate in these events, but I did my best to accurately describe what happened. In one episode of The Lucy Show, Lucille Ball is in her bedroom, where there are bunk bed a for her and her roommate. Lucy is wiping the dirt off her feet to get in bed, in a funny way, then that tickles her, and she falls into the bottom bunk.
Then she’s laughing so hard that she bumps her head on the top bunk and frightens her roommate who wakes up, and the audience laughs.
In another episode, Lucy is playing on a baseball team. There were only uniforms too large available, so Lucy gets a uniform that is too big. She’s up at bat, and testing three bats at a time, and when she flings two of the bats away, she flies back herself a few feet. Then, when she finally hits the ball, she runs in a very funny way to first base, which makes us laugh. Then, she has trouble playing in the outfield, because of her oversized uniform. All this while her teammate is the perfect woman baseball player on the team. Very funny.
In another episode, her house is falling apart. When the respectable businessman comes to visit her, he sits down in the sofa and sinks in one of the cushions. Then, Lucy and her roommate try to pull him out, one girl on each arm, they all fly back and fall down, and the business man falls back into the sofa. Another funny scene.



The Queen of Spades and other Stories, by Alexander Pushkin:
1. “I did not deem it necessary to act based on his actions.”
2. “You’re spending too much time on reflections, try to get some sleep.”
3. “What does this mean?’ I asked frantically? ‘Has he lost his senses?’”
4. To be continued.
7:30pm 5. "Throughout the journey I pondered over the interrogation awaiting me…thinking this to be the simplest as well as most reliable way of proceeding."




🎃 Tuesday, October 31, 2023 Happy Halloween! 🎃

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. Various comments on Eve and the first and the last sin might be made on that; but don’t be uneasy, you are here as our guest.
2. “The power and influence of journalism is still in its dawn,” said Finot. ‘The newspaper is now a babe, but it will grow. Ten years hence everything will be subjected to publicity. Thought will illumine everything and — ”
3. "...blast everything,” said Blondet, interrupting him.
4. "Consequently,” said Blondet, “if the press did not exist, it ought never to be invented; but here it is, — we live by it.”
5. "The government,” said Blondet; “I am tired of shouting that. Intellect is the ruling power in France, and journalism has not only all the intelligence of the best minds, but it has the hypocrisy of Tartufe as well.”

6. Reminds us that many biblical figures were guilty of sins.
7. "Blondet is right,” said Claude Vignon. ‘Journalism, instead of being, as it ought to be, a priesthood, has become an engine of parties; being an engine, it is now an article of commerce, and, like all other forms of commerce, it regards neither law nor gospel.'
8. A newspaper is no longer written to enlighten public opinion, but to cajole it. Within a given time all papers will end by being base, hypocritical liars, — murderers if you please; for they will kill ideas, theories, men, and live by that alone. And they’ll have every apparent reason on their side; the evil will be done and no one will be guilty. I, Vignon, you, Lousteau, Blondet, Finot, will be Platos, Aristides, Catos, Plutarch’s men, — all of us innocent, and able to wash our hands of infamy.
9. "The authorities will make repressive laws,” said Du Bruel. “They are preparing them already.”
10. "Ideas can only be neutralized by ideas,” continued Vignon. “Terror, despotism alone can stifle French genius; and even so, our language is well-fitted for allusion and double-meaning."

11. If the paper invents an infamous calumny, it has been told it by others.
12. To gain subscribers, a newspaper will do anything, — serve up its own father raw with the salt of its atticisms rather than not amuse and interest the public.
13. Napoleon was right enough in wishing to muzzle the press!
14. The more concessions are made to newspapers, the more exacting those papers will become. Successful journalists will be constantly succeeded by poor and hungry journalists. The evil is incurable; it is getting more and more malignant, more and more dangerous; and the greater the evil, the more it will be tolerated, until the day when confusion shall overtake journalism as it did Babylon.
15. This sally made everybody laugh; but Coralie liked it. The three tradesmen were eating and drinking as they listened.

16. "In what nation can you find such a mixture of so much good and so much evil?” said the minister to the Duc de Rhétoré. “Ah, gentlemen! You are prodigals who somehow don’t ruin yourselves.”
17. Lousteau himself had tried to warn him from the gulf, for a selfish reason, by revealing journalism and literature in their practical aspects.
18. These remarkable men, in the polished armor of their vice and the shining helmets of their analyses, he thought far superior to the grave and sober members of the brotherhood. Besides, he was tasting the first delights of wealth; he was under the spell of luxury, the influence of choice food; his volatile instincts were all awakened; he drank for the first time the rarest wine; he made acquaintance with the delicacies of Parisian cookery; he saw a diplomatist, with a duke and his mistress, mingling with journalists and admiring their dangerous power; he felt a horrible craving to rule this society of kings, and he felt within him the power of mastering it.
19. "Does monsieur dine with madame?” asked Bérénice.
"No, my mouth is parched.”
20. The poet was intoxicated with delight; Coralie, made beautiful by happiness, wore an elegant toilet in charming taste. The Paris of the Champ Élysées admired these lovers.

21. 14. A LAST VISIT TO THE BROTHERHOOD
22. "But there are agents — ” began dʼArthèz.
“Yes,” said Bianchon, “he is now only cataleptic; we might make him imbecile.”
23. 15. THE ARCANA OF JOURNALISM
24. That highly moral critic is considerate of no one, not even his own children.
25. She began to dance her Spanish fandango with a vim which showed the ardor of her passion.
26. To be continued.




Various Notes:
1. This is the pefect season for warm tea or hot chocolate. I learned this watching old tv westerns. Westerns also suggest that life involves a lot of up-and-go, up-and-go, instead of long periods of inactivity.
2. Westerns also suggest that eating snacks like potato chips are good.
3. To Autumn, by John Keats is a popular Fall poem.
A Chilly Night, by Christina Rossetti is a popular Halloween poem.
Song of the Witches: “Double, double toil and trouble”, by William Shakespeare is another popular Halloween poem.
4. Old tv westerns also suggest that you set aside a small portion of your day for intellectual pursuits.




Sunday, October 29, 2023

Various Notes:
1. The Lucy Show, with Lucille Ball, was a great sitcom from the 1960s. I also enjoy watching old tv westerns, which are like reading a James Fenimore Cooper novel.
2. Tba.



Saturday, October 28, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Homemade lemonade and Kool-Aid are easy to make, with the following items:
a measuring cup for the sugar, a pitcher that can hold a gallon of water, and a wooden spoon for stirring.
The above note was added to Food Tips (below).
2. Tba.




Monday, October 23, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I reduced the frequency (days) that I run 🏃‍♂️, because I stopped making significant gains , and leveled out at a comfortable health (breathing) level.
2. Tba.



Sunday, October 22, 2023

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. In three days, provided we succeed, you will be able with thirty sarcasms, printed at the rate of three a day, to make a man curse his life and wish he was never born; you can get mortgages of pleasure on all the actresses of the four theatres; you can break down a good play and send all Paris to applaud a bad one.
2. When you are in a like position you will be able to judge of Finot, and not till then; a man can’t be judged except by his equals in condition.
3. When you have a vengeance of your own against any one all you have to do is to say to me, ‘Lousteau, I want that man smashed,’ and we can put into our own little paper any day and every day something that will kill your enemy.
4. "That’s another piece of nonsense. One would suppose we were robbing him,” cried Lousteau.
5. 12. HOW JOURNALISM IS DONE

6. "More events have happened to me, my dear Lousteau, within the last two months than in all the previous years of my life put together.”
7. That baron is an old beau of the Empire who has made himself a ministerialist; I know all about him, he’ll suit us to a T. I have often seen your great lady, too, in Madame d’Espard’s box at the Opera; the baron is usually there, making love to your ex-mistress, who is as dry as a cuttlefish.
8. That slang typographical word, “copy,” means the manuscript from which the type is set up; perhaps because authors are supposed to send only a copy of their writing; or it may be an ironical use of the Latin word copia (abundance), for copy is always lacking.
9. "As your promise does not commit me to anything, go, and save your piece,” said Lucien, with the air of a sultan.
10. “Florine and Coralie!” cried a number of voices. The curtain rose and Bouffé appeared leading the two actresses, to whom Matifat and Camusot flung wreaths. Coralie picked up hers and held it out to Lucien.

11. As for Lucien, the two hours spent in the theatre were like a dream. The work of fascination had begun behind the scenes, odious as those surroundings were.
12. Among those dirty passages, choked with machinery and hung with smoking lamps, lurks a pestilence which kills the soul. Life cannot continue real or saintly there. Serious things are laughed at, impossible things seem true.
13. The whole scene acted like a narcotic on Lucien, and Coralie completed its effect by plunging him into a species of joyous intoxication.
14. "Will you do me the honor to give me your arm,” said Coralie, trembling. “Willingly,” said Lucien, who now felt the girl’s heart beating beside him like that of a bird when caught in the hand. The actress, pressing against him, was like a cat rubbing against her master’s leg with soft satisfaction.
15. "Do leave him his independence,” cried the actress, “he shall write what he chooses. Papa Camusot, buy me carriages, but not flattery.”

16. "And I one,” said Lousteau.
“Well, then, Nathan, Vernou, Du Bruel, fill up the rest with witticisms.
17. "A German always drinks well and listens well. We’ll tell him a lot of queer stories and he’ll write them to his court!” cried Blondet.
18. "The common-sense of that boy actually frightens me,” remarked Finot.
19. When Lucien, trembling with fear, had finished reading, the salon rang with applause, the actresses kissed him, the tradesmen in their delight almost squeezed the breath out of him; Du Bruel seized his hand with a tear in his eye, and the manager asked him to dinner.
20. "Such a fine young man!” exclaimed the minister.

21. 13. THE SUPPER
22. THE supper, served on new plate and Sèvres china and double damask, exhaled an atmosphere of substantial magnificence.
23. "I would love you ill and ugly!” she said in his ear as they sat down to table.
24. Blondet counteracted any effect of the jealousy Lousteau was beginning to feel by telling Finot he must make terms with a talent as good as that.
25. This advice influenced Lousteau’s conduct; he resolved to remain Lucien’s friend, and arrange with Finot to secure the services of the dangerous new-comer by keeping him dependent and needy.

26. "I thank God that there are no newspapers in my country,” continued the minister after a pause. “I have not yet recovered from my fright at that little printer’s devil who was here just now in his paper-cap, and the abnormal common-sense of his ten years. I fancy I am now to sup with lions and panthers, who will do me the favor to cushion their claws.”
27. To be continued.



Saturday, October 21, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I updated the Notes about Psychiatry page.
"Maybe it is wrong for doctors to say that people are mentally ill (schizophrenic or bipolar), because they have problems that are normal problems for human beings to have."
2. Tba.



Friday, October 20, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Aristotle suggests that a goal for mankind is simply to roam the Earth.
2. "Unlike the Roman barons, they did not wage war against him, they just prayed fervently." - The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone.
3. I made some edits to Favorite Notes II.
4. "So what it's raining? A little water won't kill you." An idea I acquired reading a James Fenimore Cooper novel.
5. Italian Folktales, by Italo Calvino, included several stories that I read:
Dauntless Little John, The Man Wreathed in Seaweed, The Count’s Beard, Silver Nose, and several others.
A. Dauntless Little John, and another story that I read were great, after a friend explained to me what they meant, because they included Italian symbols which represented universal themes that I admire.
B. The Man Wreathed in Seaweed was good because in the end, the underdog won.
C. The Count’s Beard was a great story about a wise count with a beard.
D. Silver Nose was a great story because one of the sisters outsmarts the devil, has him doing her laundry, and is victorious in the end.
E. I liked one of the stories I read, I forget the title, where, after the younger sister unfairly exploited their work, the two older sisters get their revenge.

6. Peaceful surrender, may be a viable option for Hamas, in the event of an invasion by Israel.



Thursday, October 19, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.



Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. Believe me, my friend, work is not the secret of success in literature; that secret is, mark my words, to live by the work of others. The owners of newspapers are contractors, we are masons and journeymen. The more commonplace or second-rate a man may be, the sooner he will advance himself; he can swallow toads, he can resign himself to anything, and gratify the low and petty passions of the literary sultans…
2. Your conscience, pure today, will yield to the will of others when you see your success or failure in their power, — the power of men who with a word could give you life, and will not say it!
3. Yes, you’ll write rather than act; you’ll sing instead of fighting; you will love and hate and live in your books; and when you have spent all your riches on your style, all your gold and purple on your characters, when you are walking the streets of Paris in rags, happy in the production of personages called Adolphe, Corinne, René or Manon, when you have ruined your own life and your stomach in giving life to your creation, you will see it vilified, betrayed, thrust into oblivion by journalists, buried by your best friends.
4. This harsh tirade, delivered in the diverse tones of the various passions it expressed, fell like an avalanche of snow upon Lucien’s heart and turned it cold as ice.

5. “I shall never forget this day,” said Lucien.
6. His lively mind saw a weapon to his hand in journalism; he felt himself able to handle it, and he resolved to take it. Dazzled by the proposals of his new friend, whose hand grasped his with easy cordiality, how could he know that in the great Press army every man needs friends, as generals need soldiers?
7. 9. A THIRD VARIETY OF PUBLISHER
8. In short, it was a literary bivouac, supplied with little or nothing, of a bareness the mind can scarcely imagine.
9. On the night-table, piled with books read during the morning, shone the scarlet roll of “Fumade;”...

10. Besides that, here are two copies of ‘A Voyage in Egypt,’ which they say is fine; it swarms with engravings, and is sure to sell. Finot has been paid for two articles which I am going to write about it. Next, the last two novels of Victor Ducange, illustrious in the Marais; also, two copies of the second work of a rising young man, Paul de Kock, who writes in the same style; also, two copies of ‘Yseult de Dole,’ a very pretty provincial tale, — one hundred francs retail price for the books, call it fifty. Therefore, my little Barbet, pay me one hundred francs.
11. ...that other book on the chimney-piece, ‘Observations on Symbolism,’ — I’ll throw that in; mystical things are such a bore, I’ll give it away sooner than see the mites run out of it.
12. No, Barbet, he isn’t; he’s a poet, — a great poet, who will put Canalis, and Delavigne, and Béranger into the shade. He is bound to make his way, unless he flings himself into the Seine, — and even then, he’ll go to Saint-Cloud.
13. His round face, enlivened with two eager eyes, was not without a certain good-humor; but his glance had the vague uneasiness of a man accustomed to be asked for money, and who has it.
14. He liked small enterprises, useful books, the copyright of which did not cost him more than a thousand francs, and which he could put on the market in his own way; such, for instance, as the “History of France adapted for Children,” “Book-keeping in twenty lessons,” “Botany for Young Ladies.”
15. To be continued.

16. "Forty francs!” exclaimed the publisher, with the screech of a frightened hen. “Twenty at the utmost! And I may lose those,” added Barbet.
"Let me see the twenty francs,” said Lousteau.
“Faith! I don’t know if I’ve got them,” said Barbet, rummaging his pockets. “There they are. You are robbing me; you get the better of me -”
17. As for the ‘Voyage in Egypt,’ I did open the book and read here and there without cutting the leaves; I found eleven mistakes in grammar; I can make a column out of that by saying that though the author may have learned the hieroglyphic language of those Egyptian milestones called obelisks, he doesn’t know his own, and I’ll give the blunders, for I wrote them down.
18. ...and yet delicate and refined persons were no more kept away by these horrible things than princes in fairytales recoil from dragons and other obstacles interposed by evil genii between them and the princesses.
19. The construction of these wooden buildings, which had sprung up heaven knows how, made them singularly resonant. Bursts of laughter echoed through them; not a quarrel could take place at one end that the other end did not know what it was about.

20. Up to the time when this strange colony disappeared under the wand of Fontaine the architect, the booths in the centre were entirely open, supported by pillars, like booths at a country fair, and the eye could look across and through them to the gallery on the other side.
21. The shops of the milliners were full of wonderful bonnets, which seemed to be there less for sale than for show, hanging by hundreds on iron trees and enlivening the galleries with a thousand colors.
22. Saleswomen, for the most part ugly, but brisk, hooked the female sex adroitly in the style and language of marketwomen. One grisette, whose tongue was as free as her eyes were active, stood on a stool and attacked the passers: “Buy a pretty bonnet, madame!” “Let me sell you something, monsieur.” Their rich and picturesque vocabulary was varied by inflections of the voice, and interspersed with knowing looks and criticisms on those who passed them.
23. There, gentlemen, you see that which throughout all eternity God can never see; namely, your like, - God has no like.
24. Omitted.
25. They drew such crowds to the Galeries de Bois that every one was compelled to walk at a snail’s pace as they do in the procession at a masked ball. But this slowness, which annoyed no one, enabled persons to examine each other.

26. All this picturesque infamy is now done away with. The license of solicitation and answer, that public cynicism so in keeping with the place itself, is no longer to be seen, either there or at masked balls, nor in the celebrated public balls which are given in the present day.
27. 10. A FOURTH VARIETY OF PUBLISHER
28. In those days this was rare; a newspaper was a privilege as much run after as a theatre. One of the influential stockholders of the “Constitutionnel” happened to form one of this group.
29. Money! Yes, money was the key to the whole enigma. Lucien felt himself alone, helpless, clinging only by the weak thread of an uncertain friendship to success and fortune.

10:00pm 30. No one is admitted here unless his reputation is made. If you are celebrated you shall have floods of gold, not otherwise...There’s Nathan, who wants six thousand francs for the second edition of his book, which has cost me three thousand francs in reviews, and hasn’t yet brought me in a thousand.
31. For the last two years poets have swarmed like cockchafers; I lost twenty thousand francs on them last year! — ask Gabusson.
32. What is this anyhow?” he said tapping the manuscript.
“A collection of sonnets that would make Petrarch ashamed,” replied Lousteau.
33. 11. BEHIND THE SCENES
34. A good, old-fashioned melodrama, called “Bertram,” was just ending, — a play adapted from a tragedy by Maturin, greatly admired by Nodier, Lord Byron, and Walter Scott, but wholly without success on the French stage.

35. And you, little one,” said Finot to a pretty peasant-girl who was listening to them, “where did you get those diamond earrings ? Have you captured an Indian rajah?”
36. A general laugh followed this inquiry of the worthy druggist. “What does that matter to you if I don’t say it to you, old stupid ?” said the actress.




Various Notes:
1. The two families gathered regularly to have feasts, or dinners where they ate together, in one Chinua Achebe novel.
2. I realized that this blog can be used as a tool to teach others useful information.
3. Strawberries and Cool Whip (cream) tastes great! - Honore de Balzac.



Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. EXTERNALS OF JOURNALISM
2. Satisfied that he was fully the equal of the cleverest of their writers, he practised their gymnastics of thought in secret until, at last, he set out one fine morning with the full determination of taking service under some colonel of what we may call the Light Brigade of the Press.
3. Under its financial aspect, broum! broum!” said the old officer, disposing of the phlegm that was in his throat.
4. 8. THE SONNETS
5. Do not your gold and silver symbolize
The treasures that we strive so hard to gain?
6. Don’t think, either, that the political world is a bit better than the literary world; it is all corruption in both; every man is either corrupted or corrupting.
7. Poor beggars, they glean, glean, facts for biographical articles, or items for the columns of a newspaper, or they write books for prudent publishers who would rather have trash written in a fortnight than masterpieces which take time to place and sell.



Monday, October 16, 2023

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. FIRST FRUITS OF PARIS
2. Lucien, who had never travelled post in his life, was aghast at seeing nearly the whole sum on which he counted for a year’s support scattered along the road between Angoulême and Paris.
3. The travellers stopped before daybreak at the hotel du Gaillard-Bois, rue de l‘Echelle. They were both so fatigued that Louise went to bed immediately, but not until she had ordered Lucien to take a room on the floor above her.
4. I don’t wish to do injustice to the man you love, but you must permit me to consider your interests before his and say to you: ’Study him! Know the full bearings of what you do.’

5. ...the world does not know why; but the Navarreins, the Blamont-Chauvrys, the Lenoncourts, all stand by her the most straight-laced women visit her and treat her with the utmost respect; in short, the Marquis d‘Espard is entirely in the wrong.
6. "Dear Lucien,” she said, “do you not think that if we have committed a folly which will injure us both it would be wise to undo it?"
7. "Dear child...that I foresaw the result, and prayed you at the start to master the world by obeying its laws.”
8. "Louise,” he answered, clasping her, “it frightens me to see you so wise. Remember that I am but a child in the world’s ways, and that I have already given myself up to your dear will in everything."
9. "It is fortunate for you,” he went on, “that you have Gentil to go about with you and Albertine to dress you, for Parisian servants are ruinous; and with such an introduction into society as you have, you will seldom eat a meal at home.”

10. ...she felt the need of friendly goodwill at the start, and saw the necessity of not missing any element to success.
11. During Lucien’s first rambling walk along the boulevards and through the rue de la Paix, he was, like all new-comers, far more interested by things than by persons. The first things that strike a mind new to Paris are the great masses, the luxury of the shops, the height of the houses, the multitude of carriages, the violent contradiction between extreme luxury and extreme poverty.
12. ...he found with her the Baron du Châtelet, who carried them both to dine with him at the Rocher de Cancale.
13. The baron had put his journey to the score of his ambition; he hoped, he said, to be appointed secretary-general of one of the ministries, and to enter the Council of State as master of petitions; and he had come to Paris to remind the government of the promises made to him, — a man of his pretensions could not remain a director of taxes; he would rather be nothing, or become a deputy, or return to diplomacy.
14. Du Châtelet smiled at the hesitations, amazements, questions, all the little mistakes into which want of knowledge cast his rival, like the old seadogs who laugh at greenhorns before they get what are called their sea-legs.

15. "What will they say about me?” he was thinking as he went up the stairs to his dismal chamber.
16. "It is always so with those who have a world of thought in their heart and brain,” said Madame de Bargeton.
17. "I grant you that,” said the baron, “but we live with persons, and not with books
18. In two hours’ time he spent four francs, which gave him much to think of as to the financial demands of Parisian life.
19. What a contrast that terrace presented to the Promenade of Angoulême! The birds of this magnificent aviary were very different from those of Beaulieu! Here was a wealth of all the colors of the ornithological families of India and America compared to the gray tones of the birds of Europe.

20. Those apparently trifling things have made the misery of many a brilliant existence. These petty matters are, moreover, of enormous importance to those who wish to appear to have what they have not; often they are their only means of possessing such things later.
21. A voice cried in Lucien’s soul: “Intellect is the lever with which to move the world;” but another voice cried as loudly, that the fulcrum of intellect was money.
22. THE GREAT MAN’S ENTRANCE INTO THE GREAT WORLD
23. The first was Monsieur de Marsay, a man famous for the passions he had inspired, and personally remarkable for a species of girlish beauty, a soft, effeminate beauty, counteracted however by a fixed, calm, clear, and rigid glance like that of a tiger; he was loved, but he terrified those who loved him...whereas de Marsay had a vigor of mind, a consciousness of pleasing, a style of dress appropriate to his character which crushed all rivals who approached him.
24. Though de Marsay was less than six feet from him, he took up his eyeglass to look him over, then his glances went from Lucien to Madame de Bargeton, and from Madame de Bargeton back to Lucien, uniting them in one sarcastic look which mortified them cruelly; he examined them as though they were curious animals, then he smiled. That smile was like the thrust of a dagger to the great man of the provinces. Félix de Vandenesse seemed more charitable, and Armand de Montriveau gave Lucien a look which sounded him to the core.

25. Omitted.
26. Omitted.
27. Lucien was amazed to the last degree at this abrupt desertion; but he did not think long about it, for the reason that it was utterly inexplicable.
28. Those absurdly fine clothes he is wearing prove that he is neither rich nor a gentleman; his face is handsome, but he strikes me as very dull; he does not know how to carry himself, nor how to talk; in short, he has never had any social education. How came you ever to take him up?”
29. ...Lucien returned to his box and sat in a corner of it, where he stayed during the rest of the opera, absorbed partly by the splendid spectacle of the ballet in the fifth act, partly by the aspect of the boxes along which his eyes ranged, and partly by his own reflections in presence of this great world of Parisian society.

30. ONE LOST ILLUSION
31. There is an indefinable way in which a man must wear a hat; too far back and it gives him a bold look; too far forward and you think him suspicious; over to one side and his air is cavalier; but a well-bred woman may put on her bonnet precisely as she fancies, and she always looks well.
32. The angry poet went towards the calèche, walking slowly, and when he was within full view of the two women he bowed to them.
33. TWO VARIETIES OF PUBLISHER
34. The waiters came and went without lingering; all were busy; all were needed. The viands were not various; the potato was perpetual. Ireland might not possess a potato; the root might be lacking everywhere else, but at Flicoteaux’s never. For the last thirty years it has flourished there, of that beautiful golden color loved of Titian...

35. But my book is serious; its object is to depict in a true light the struggle of the Catholics who stood for absolute government against the Protestants who wanted a republic.
36. THE FIRST FRIEND
37. "What is Art, monsieur? It is Nature concentrated.”
38. This little circumstance shows the delicacy of his senses, — a sure indication of an exquisite sensibility.
39. But each authentic reign, from Charlemagne down, demands at least one work, — sometimes four or five; especially those of Louis XIV, Henri IV, and François I.

40. THE BROTHERHOOD OF HEARTS AND MINDS
41. Equals in nobility of heart, equals in strength of feeling, they could think all and say all to each other on the common ground of science and of intellect; hence the candor of their intercourse, the gayety of their speech. Certain of understanding each other, their minds could ramble as they pleased; they kept nothing back, neither their hopes and fears, nor their griefs and joys; they thought and suffered with open hearts. The precious delicacy which makes the well-known fable of the “Two Friends” a treasure to fine souls, was habitual with them.
42. When, in 1832, Michel Chrestien fell, Horace Bianchon, Daniel d’Arthèz, Léon Giraud, Joseph Bridau, and Fulgence Ridal went, in spite of the danger of such a step, and recovered his body at Saint-Merri, to pay it their last honor in the face of burning Politics. They took the dear remains to Père-Lachaise by night. Horace Bianchon faced all difficulties and yielded to none; he implored the sanction of the ministers, telling them of his long friendship for the dead Federalist.
43. Once admitted to the friendship of these choice souls and accepted as an equal, Lucien stood among them for poesy and beauty. He read them his sonnets, and they admired them. They would ask him for a sonnet as he would ask Michel Chrestien to sing a song. In the desert of Paris Lucien found an oasis in the rue des Quatre-Vents.
44. To fully understand Lucien’s feelings in the midst of this living encyclopedia of young minds, all of diverse originality and all equally generous...

45. My wife has taken charge of the printing-office, and does her task with a devotion, a patience, a business activity which make me bless heaven daily for having given me such an angel.
46. I would rather suffer a hundred evils than have you fall into any of those Parisian mud-holes I have known of. Have the courage to avoid, as you have already done, bad places and bad friends, also heedless minds and a certain class of literary men whom I learned to estimate at their true value during my stay in Paris.
47. Read Goethe’s Tasso, — the finest work of his fine genius; there you will see how the poet loved brilliant stuffs and festivals, and triumphs, and all that dazzled him.



Various Notes:
1. Ferdydurke, by Witold Gombrowicz, suggests that life is comprised of many ideas, some simple, and some complex.
2. One thing that the cod liver oil soft gel pills has done is coat my throat with a thin, almost undetectable layer of protective liquid that has made my breathing more comfortable. It has also lubricated my brain, and made my head feel better.




Sunday, October 15, 2023

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. …Astolphe, who had committed to memory the description given in a newspaper of a novel kind of plough, was describing it to the baron. Lucien, poor poet, was not aware that none of these minds, except that of Madame de Bargeton, could understand poetry.
2. The words “beauty,” “glory,” “poesy,” have a witchcraft about them which fascinates the commonest mind.
3. To render poetry by the voice and seize it by the ear, exacts an almost sacred attention.
4. Now, in circumstances which develop their faculties, persons of intellect have the circumferential sight of snails, the nose of dogs, the ear of moles; they see scent, and hear everything about them.
5. Don’t you think that the French language is very unsuitable for poetry?” said Astolphe to Sixte du Châtelet. “For my part, I think Cicero’s prose far more poetic.”
“The true French poetry is lyric,” replied du Châtelet, “songs — ”
"Ah, yes, songs prove how musical our language is,” said Adrien.

6. "You have been a diplomat,” said Amélie, addressing du Châtelet. “Can’t you manage it for us?”
7. The former secretary of her Imperial Highness being used to such little manoeuvres, went to find the bishop, and persuaded him to come forward.
8. This ode, complacently cherished and beautified with all the love his heart contained, seemed to him the only one of his poems that was fit to compete with those of Chénier.
9. “Can you make anything out of that?” said Amélie to Monsieur du Châtelet, with a coquettish glance.
“They are verses such as we all make when we leave college,” replied the baron with a bored air, carrying out his rôle of critic who must naught admire.

10. "After all, they are only phrases,” said Zéphirine to Francis; “love is poetry in action.”
11. He imitated the example of du Châtelet when it was a question of making Lucien recite his own poetry; he went to the bishop, pretending to share his enthusiasm for the ode; then he told him that Lucien’s mother was a most superior woman, of extreme modesty, who inspired her son with all his compositions.
12. Yes, poesy is a holy thing. To speak of poesy is to speak of suffering. How many wakeful nights were the cost of those stanzas you have just admired! Let us bow in love before a poet who leads, I may say, always, a troubled life, but for whom God has reserved a place in heaven among his prophets. This young man is a poet,” he added, laying his hand on Lucien’s head; “can you not see his fate upon that noble brow?”
13. Our pains are ignored; no one comprehends our labor. The miner, extracting gold from the bowels of the earth, does not toil as we do, to tear our images from the most refractory of languages. If the end of poesy be to bring ideas to the precise point where all the world can see them and can feel them, the poet must incessantly run the gamut of all human intellects, so that he may meet and satisfy them all; he must cover with glowing colors both sentiment and logic, — two powers antagonistic to each other; he must inclose a world of thoughts in a line, sum up philosophies in a picture; his poems are seeds which must fructify in hearts, finding their soil in personal experience.
14. There is no glory to be had without cost,” said Madame de Bargeton, taking his hand and pressing it. “Suffer, yes, you must suffer, my friend, to be great, and sufferings will be the price of your immortality. Would that I too had a struggle to endure! God keep you from an enervated, sterile life without contests, where the wings of the eagle find no space to spread. I envy your trials, for at least you live! You exercise your strength! You aspire to victory! Your struggle will end in fame. When you reach the imperial sphere where great minds sit enthroned, remember those poor souls whom fate has disinherited, whose intellect is annihilated, suffocated, by moral nitrogen; who have to die knowing what life is, but never having lived it; whose eyes are keen, and yet see nothing; whose sense of smell is delicate, and knows no fragrance but that of poisoned flowers.

15. Lucien, however, excused himself from repeating the poem on the ground of want of memory. When he re-entered the salon no one showed the slightest interest in him. The company were talking or playing cards.
16. AN EVENING BY THE RIVERSIDE
17. I thought you so beautiful I could find no words,” said David, naively.
“Am I less beautiful now?” she asked.
"No; but I am so happy in being allowed to walk alone with you that -”
18. How can he maintain himself in the great world for which you have encouraged his tastes? I know him; his is a nature that loves the harvests without the toil.
19. You have taught him to think himself a great man, but before society admits any man’s greatness he must attain to some marked success. Now literary success cannot be won except in solitude and by arduous toil.

20. "Dear Eve, I receive more than I give. I shall always love you more than you love me, for I shall have more reason to love you, — you are an angel, I am a man.”
21. The three young people hastened to tell their astonished mother of their charming plans, giving free rein to one of those gay family talks in which young hearts delight in gathering every seed, and in tasting, by anticipation, every joy.
22. You will read me the whole of Chénier, will you not? He is the poet of lovers.
23. "Have I any other interest in the world than my Lucien? Become great; win fame; that is your business — and mine.”
24. But there are others whom society combines to treat with extraordinary severity; they are required to do right in everything; never to be mistaken, never to fail, never to commit the smallest folly; one might liken them to those admired statues which are taken from their pedestals and put away in winter lest the frost should crack a finger or chip a nose; they are not allowed to be human; they are expected to be perpetually perfect and divine.

25. CATASTROPHES OF PROVINCIAL LOVE
26. ...he now saw every prospect that the historical romance at which he had been working for two years (“he Archer of Charles IX”) and a volume of poetry entitled “aisies” would spread his name through the literary world and bring him sufficient money to pay back his indebtedness to his mother and sister and David.
27. The obstacles that are met with at the beginning of a passion alarm inexperienced persons; and those that our present lovers encountered were very like the threads with which the Lilliputians shackled Gulliver.
28. All was virtuous to the last degree. Monsieur de Bargeton roamed about the rooms like a beetle, without the least idea that his wife would prefer to be alone with Lucien.
29. The next day Lucien happened to be in one of those moods when young men tear their hair and swear to themselves that they will not continue any longer in the mortifying position of a supplicant.

30. She took her seat, as in the middle-ages, under the dais of a literary tournament, and Lucien was only to win her after multiplied victories; he was to emulate and excel “l’enfant sublime,” Lamartine, Walter Scott, Byron.
31. I will send Gentil on horseback to l’Escarbas and summon my father, who must be your second.
32. Ah, my friend,” said his wife, much moved, “you are what men should be, what I love in a man, — you are a gentleman.”
33. I will pick you up between Mansle and Ruffec, and we shall soon be in Paris. There, dear Lucien, is the only true life for superior minds. We shall feel at ease among our equals; here we can only suffer. Paris, the capital of the intellectual world, will be the theatre of your success.
34. When you personally attain a high position, your works will acquire enormous value. For all artists, the great secret to solve is how to get into the public eye.

35. Therefore choose the wise path and come with me to Paris, where all men of genius gather.
36. Paris and its splendors — Paris, which is to provincial imaginations an Eldorado — stood before him with her robe of gold, a circlet of royal jewels in her hair, her arms wide open to embrace all talent.
37. Moreover, the thought came into his mind that after such a journey, when circumstances seemed to marry them, Madame de Bargeton would certainly be his and they would live together.
38. You have only had one new pair of nankeen trousers this year; those of last year have shrunk.
39. "To give a thousand francs to your brother is to give away our own bread and risk our peace and comfort. If I were alone I know what I should do, but we are now two; you must decide.”

40. PART II. A GREAT MAN FROM THE PROVINCES IN PARIS




Saturday, October 14, 2023

Various Notes:
1. An October Garden, by Christina Rossetti.
"To Autumn’s languid sun and rain
When all the world is on the wane!"
A Christmas Carol, by Christina Rossetti.
"Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart."
A Chilly Night, by Christina Rossetti is a great Halloween poem.
2. In The Agony and the Ecstasy, by Irivng Stone, there is a man whose last name is Balducci. Balducci's is a well-known grocery store in New York City.
3. Attempting to understand the mysteries of life, is a theme that I learned reading classic literature.



Thursday, October 12, 2023

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. Not to succeed is a crime of sociallèse-majesté.
2. He did love, but he wished to raise himself; a double desire natural to young men who have a heart to satisfy and indigence to escape. Society, which in these days bids all her children to the same table, awakens all ambitions in the dawn of life. It deprives youth of its graces, it vitiates generous sentiments, mingling selfish calculation with all things.
3. But reading with David those poems of Chénier, his secret passed from his heart to his lips, stung by a reproach which he felt as a patient feels the finger a surgeon lays upon his wound.
4. AN EVENING IN SOCIETY

5. The manners of good society, when they are not a gift of birth... or transmitted in the blood, are the result of education, which accident often seconds by native elegance of form, distinction of feature, or tones of the voice.
6. Born a gentleman through his mother, he had the signs of breeding, even to the arched instep of a Frank; whereas David Séchard was flat-footed as a Gaul, and clumsy as his father the pressman.
7. Thus, after an hour of poetry and devotion, after reading André Chénier and beholding with his friend new fields of literary possibilities lighted by a new sun, Lucien dropped back into social policy and calculation.
8. As he walked back to l’Houmeau he repented his letter and wished he could recover it; the pitiless laws of society came in a flash before his mind. Remembering how acquired fortune would promote even a poet’s ambition, he could not endure to take his foot from the first rung of the ladder by which he was to mount to greatness. But soon the recollections of a simple, tranquil life, made beautiful with the flowers of feeling; of David, that soul of genius, who had nobly succored him and would, if need be, give him his very life...
9. The odor of camomile, peppermint, and other distilled herbs filled the courtyard and penetrated to the modest apartment above the shop, which was reached by one of those straight, narrow stairways called millers’ stairs, without other balusters than a couple of ropes.

10. Your sister is mighty pretty! You are not bad-looking yourself; your father did things well.
11. Eve was a tall, dark girl, with black hair and blue eyes. Although she showed several signs of a virile character she was personally gentle, tender, and devoted. Her frankness, her naivete, her tranquil resignation to a hard-working life, the propriety of her conduct, which no gossip ever slandered, had won the heart of David Séchard.
12. Lucien did not answer. Eve brought a little plate daintily arranged with vine-leaves and placed it on the table with a jug of cream.
“See, Lucien, I have got you some strawberries."
13. Then she removed his empty plate and the earthenware tureen, and put before him the dish she had cooked for his dinner.
14. When their emotion had passed off, David remarked to Lucien that his poem of “Saint John at Patmos” was rather too Biblical to be read before a company who probably knew little of apocalyptic poetry.

15. David advised him to take the volume of André Chénier with him and change a doubtful pleasure into a certain one; Lucien read admirably; he could not help delighting an audience, and his modesty in choosing another poet would be put to his credit.
16. Like most young men he believed in the intelligence and virtue of persons of rank. If youth which has never sinned is without mercy for the known sins of others it also attributes to others its own magnificent faiths. We must experience life before we recognize that, as Raffaelle finely said, comprehension alone makes us equal to it.
17. The poor lover dared not say a word which might seem to ask for thanks; all words appeared to him compromising, and therefore he kept silence with the air of a criminal.
18. David had a momentary idea of prostrating himself before that enchanting girl, who had put into her voice certain tones of hope rewarded. By the tenderness of those tones she meant to solve the difficulties of the situation.
19. Generally he escaped this difficulty by having recourse to the naive ways of his childhood ; he thought aloud; he revealed every detail of his life, and expressed all his wants and sensations, which, to him, took the place of ideas.

20. “To please Madame de Bargeton,” he would say, “I ate veal this morning for breakfast ; she likes it, but my stomach aches in consequence. I knew how it would be, I am always taken so; can you explain it?” Or he would remark, “I shall ring for a glass of eau sucree, will you have one?”
21. When the party was gay and he saw every one well employed, he would stand mutely, planted on his two long legs like a stork, apparently listening to a political conversation (of which he heard not a word), or studying the cards of a player without understanding the game (for he knew none), or else he walked about snuffing tobacco, and trying to work off his indigestion.
22. Anais was the one happiness of his life; she gave him infinite enjoyment. When she played her part as mistress of the house he lay back in his easy chair and admired her — she was talking for him. He took pleasure in searching out the meaning of her sentences, and as it frequently came to him long after they were uttered, his smiles would often explode unexpectedly, like torpedoes that have been buried in the ground. His respect for his wife amounted to adoration; and, we may ask, is not adoration, of whatever kind it be, sufficient to make the happiness of a life? Anaïs, who was generous and intelligent, had not abused her power, recognizing in her husband the facile nature of a child, which asks nothing better than to be governed.
23. She pitied him, and never did she complain of him; so that some persons, misunderstanding her proud silence, supposed Monsieur de Bargeton to be possessed of hidden merits.
24. The baron took up his eyeglass and surveyed Lucien’s nankeen trousers, waistcoat, boots, and blue coat, made in Angoulême, - in short, the whole of his rival from top to toe.

25. Monsieur de Bargeton, having nothing to say, was in consternation at the silence maintained by the rivals, who were eyeing each other; but when he found himself in a crisis of this kind, he had one question which he reserved, like a pear for a thirsty moment, and he now thought the time had come to launch it with a businesslike air.
26. The invited guests began to arrive. The first to enter were the bishop and his grand-vicar, two solemn and dignified figures, forming, however, a violent contrast to each other. Monseigneur was tall and thin; his acolyte was fat and short. Both had brilliant eyes, but the bishop was pale, while the vicar was crimson with abounding health. In each — and here there was no difference between them — gesture and movement were extremely rare. Both seemed prudence itself; their reserve and their silence intimidated others, and they passed for being very intellectual.
27. The husband of Amélie (the woman who was posing as Madame de Bargeton’s antagonist), Monsieur de Chandour, called Stanislas, was a would-be young man, still slender at forty-five years of age, with a face like a sieve.
28. He read the papers slowly, carved corks with his penknife, drew fantastic figures in his blotting-book, turned over Cicero in search of a sentence or passage applicable to some event of the day, so that he might lead the conversation in the evening to a topic which enabled him to say: “There is a passage in Cicero which seems actually to have been written for these days.”
29. The art of music became to him a monomania; he never brightened unless the subject were talked of; he was miserable the whole evening until asked to sing. But as soon as he had bellowed a tune, life began for him; his chest swelled, he rose from his heels to receive compliments; he pretended modesty though he went from group to group to gather flattery; then, when there was no more to be had, he would open a discussion on the piece he had just sung and praise the composer.
30. To be continued.



Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. The king’s court was less pretentious than this society of blockheads.
2. ...for among the intimates of this clan, as among the Spanish grandees and the cream of Viennese society, men and women are known by their Christian names, — a device invented to procure exclusiveness, and the practice of which gave distinction to the inner circles of the Angoulême aristocracy.
3. Naïs was loved as all young men love the first woman who flatters them; and she did this by prophesying a great future and vast fame for his talents. Madame de Bargeton put all her natural cleverness to use in giving her young poet a foothold in her house. Not only did she place him intellectually very high, but she represented him as a youth without fortune whose future she desired to secure. She made him her reader and secretary, but she loved him more than she had thought herself capable of loving after the great catastrophe of her life.
4. She arraigned herself mentally; declaring in her own mind that it was folly to love a boy of twenty, whose social position was far beneath her.
5. The poet, thus emboldened, called the great lady “Naïs.” Hearing this, she was angry, with the anger so bewitching to youth; she reproached him for employing a name which all the world used, and she offered her handsome genius the name by which no one called her; to him she would be Louise, — Louise de Nègrepelisse. Lucien was in the third heaven.

6. One evening he entered the room unexpectedly while Louise was gazing at a portrait, which she hastily put away. He asked to see it. To calm this first attack of jealousy, Louise showed him the portrait of young Cante-Croix, and told him, not without tears, the mournful history of her love, so pure and so cruelly extinguished...Their discussions on duty, on conventions, on religion, are redoubts which they like their lovers to take by assault. But the innocent Lucien did not need such coquetries; he would have fought the battle of love quite naturally.
7. ...he had promised for the first page of her album, and tried to make a quarrel of his delay in writing them, declaring that it proved she was incapable of inspiring him.
8. Lucien was a great man, whom it was her mission to train; she would teach him German and Italian, and improve his manners.
9. She took up her music to reveal a world of harmony to her poet, whom she ravished with Beethoven.
Suggests that it is good to listen to the classical music of all the great composers.

10. Happy in his delight she said one day, hypocritically, seeing him as it were transported, “Is not this happiness enough for us?” To which the poor poet had the stupidity to answer, “Yes.”
11. ...Angoulême is saying?” she cried. “That little rhymester is the son of Madame Charlotte who took care of my sister-in-law in her last confinement.”
12. ...she said that if noblemen were unable to become Molières, Racines, Rousseaus, Voltaires, Massillons, or Diderots, the least they could do was to welcome among them the sons of tradesmen after they had proved themselves great men. She declared that genius was nobility.
13. In short, she talked a great deal of nonsense which might have enlightened a set of people who were not ninnies; her friends, however, set them all down to the score of her great originality.
14. When Lucien, on her invitation, first entered the faded old salon where the company were playing whist at four tables, she welcomed him graciously, and presented him to her friends, like a queen who expects to be obeyed.

15. But Madame de Bargeton’s salon was open every evening, and the guests who frequented it were such creatures of routine, so used to looking at the same carpets, playing with the same chequers, seeing the same servants, the same torches, putting on their cloaks, overshoes, and hats in the same antechamber, that they loved the very steps of the stairway as much as they did the mistress of the house.
16. "Before the Revolution,” he said, “the highest personages received Duclos, Grimm, Crébillon, all men of no consequence like this little poet of the suburbs; but they never admitted a tax-collector, and that, after all, is what Châtelet is.”
17. Du Châtelet was made the scape-goat for Chardon; every one gave him the cold shoulder. Finding himself thus attacked, du Châtelet, who, from the day Madame de Bargeton called him Châtelet, had vowed to bring her under his thumb, acquiesced in all the views of the mistress of the house. He openly declared himself a friend of the young poet.
18. Baron Sixte du Chatelet flattered himself that the little rhymester would sooner or later wilt in this hot-house of praise, or else, intoxicated with the idea of coming fame, he would be guilty of some impertinence which would send him back to his original obscurity.
19. She announced throughout the department a soiree with ices, cakes, and tea, — an immense innovation in a town where tea was sold at the apothecaries’ as a drug for indigestion.

20. Louise concealed her conquered difficulties from her poet; but she gave him a few hints as to the cabal formed against him by society; for, she said, she did not wish him to be ignorant of the dangers which beset the career of all men of genius, and the obstacles which are insurmountable to inferior minds.
21. She showed him, one after the other, the successive strata of the social world, and made her poet count how many steps of the ladder he would mount at once through this brilliant determination.



Various Notes:
1. I updated Favorite Notes II (below).
2. In Pere Goriot, by Honore de Balzac, Balzac suggests that if you have the talent, etc., you can bargain with businesses or the administration to get what you want.
3. Honore de Balzac had a love for learning, he encouraged learning in all forms; many of the classical authors also possessed this quality.
4. Honore de Balzac suggests that it is good to listen to the classical music of all the great composers.
🆕 5. Repost: My library's e-book application that I downloaded is great, it allows me to easily copy text from the open window, and paste it into my web editor for publishing!



Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. But philosophers have recorded that the habits of youth are wont to return with added strength in old age. Séchard was an example of this moral law; the older he grew, the more he loved drink. This passion left upon his ursine countenance certain marks which gave it originality; his nose had taken the form and development of a capital A; his veiny cheeks, like vine-leaves covered with purple gibbosities and streaked with various colors, gave to his head the appearance of a monstrous truffle clasped by the shoots of autumn. Hiding behind thick eyebrows, which resembled bushes covered with snow, his small gray eyes, glittering with the avarice which had killed every other emotion within him, even that of paternity, kept their intelligence when he himself was drunk.
2. He was short and corpulent like the old-fashioned church lamps which consume more oil than wick; for excess in anything forces the body in the direction of its own tendencies; drunkenness, like study, makes a fat man fatter and a thin man thinner.
3. His waistcoat and trousers were of greenish velveteen, and he wore an old brown coat, blue and white cotton stockings, and shoes with silver buckles.
4. This costume, in which the workman and the tradesman were combined, was so well suited to his habits, it expressed his being so admirably, that he seemed to have been born ready dressed; you could no more imagine him without his clothes than you could see an onion without its layers of skin.
5. Old-fashioned, indeed! Yes, old fashions, which will give you porridge; old fashions, which your father has handled these twenty years, and which served him to make you what you are now.
Suggests that in school, memorization of facts, and understanding of principles of grammar, are old-fashioned skills that are necessary for success today.

6. I’m not a learned man like you, but just remember this that I tell you; the life of stanhopes is the death of type. These three presses will do you good service, the work will be properly done, and what more do you want?
7. David asked himself whether or not the matter were feasible.
8. Seeing that his son was silent after hearing the amount demanded, old Séchard became uneasy; for he much preferred a violent discussion to a silent acceptance. In such dealings as these a discussion is the test of a business man who is able to hold his own. “He who demurs to everything,” old Séchard was wont to say, “pays nothing.”
9. Remember this, my lad, the provinces are the provinces, and Paris is Paris.

10. Generous souls are defective in business faculty.
11. All passions are essentially jesuitical.
The Jesuits, members of the Catholic religious order the Society of Jesus, were credited with always finding a justification for any sin.
12. This old man, who considered education useless, endeavored to believe in the influence of education.
13. "...David was indifferent to the religious reaction which the Restoration produced in the government of the country, and he was also indifferent to liberalism; consequently, he maintained a neutrality most injurious to his interests in all matters political or religious."
14. He wished to cure all kinds of gout. Gout is a malady of the rich, and the rich will pay dear for health when they lose it; for which reason the chemist had chosen this problem from among the many his meditations had led him to consider. Forced to choose between science and quackery, the late Chardon had seen plainly that science only would make his fortune. He therefore studied the malady and based his remedy on a certain regime regulated to each patient’s temperament. He died in Paris while soliciting the approval of the Academy of Sciences, and the fruit of his toil was lost. He not only left his family in poverty, but he had, unfortunately, brought them up to expect a brilliant future, which ended with his life.

15. The mainspring of his ambition was his passionate love for his wife, a last scion of the noble family of de Rubempré, whom he had, almost miraculously, saved from the scaffold in 1793.
16. Their children, like all the children of true love, inherited the marvellous beauty of their mother, a gift that is often fatal when poverty accompanies it.
17. Stimulated by his father, who had a passion for the natural sciences, Lucien was one of the most brilliant scholars in the college at Angoulême, where he happened to be in the third class during the last year of David Séchard’s course.
18. This injustice in their destiny was a powerful bond.
19. Active and industrious men would have bought new type, and changed their wooden presses for iron ones; but master and foreman, lost in absorbing mental occupations, contented themselves with printing the work their few remaining customers brought to them.

20. 2. MADAME DE BARGETON
21. The sunlight, which was dancing among the vine-shoots, played on their heads and circled them as it were with a halo.
22. David had the frame that Nature gives to those who are destined for great struggles, whether secret or illustrious. His stalwart chest was flanked with strong shoulders in keeping with the amplitude of his whole figure.
23. ...the undying fire of a single love, the sagacity of a thinker, the ardent melancholy of a soul which could see both extremities of the horizon and penetrate all labyrinths, — a soul that soon palled of ideal enjoyments, bringing the lights of analysis to bear upon them.
24. His face had the clear-cut lines of antique beauty; the forehead and nose were Greek, the skin of a dewy whiteness like a woman’s; his eyes were so deep a blue that they seemed black, — eyes full of love, the balls of which were pure and fresh as those of childhood.

25. These beautiful eyes were surmounted by brows that were surely traced by a Chinese pencil and fringed with lashes that were long and dark.
26. The smile of a saddened angel flickered on his coral lips and showed the contrast of his beautiful teeth. He had the hands of a man of birth, — elegant hands, which men obey and women love to kiss.
27. One of the trials to which great intellects are subjected is to be forced to know all things, evil as well as good, vice as well as virtue.
28. Whereas Lucien, gifted with an enterprising, restless spirit, had an audacity which was out of keeping with his soft, almost feeble physique and tender feminine graces. Lucien’s nature was in the highest degree gascon, — bold, brave, and adventurous; a nature which magnifies good and glosses evil; which recoils from no wrong-doing if there is profit in it, and laughs at vice while making it a stepping-stone.
29. Such ambitious tendencies were at the present time repressed in Lucien by the beautiful illusions of youth, by the ardent impulses which led him to noble means, such as all ambitious men amorous of fame, seek first. He was, as yet, only grappling with his desires, and not with the difficulties of life; with his own forces, not with the baseness of other men — which sets a fatal example to impulsive spirits.

30. David, keenly fascinated by the brilliancy of Lucien’s mind, admired him, and at the same time corrected some of the errors into which the furie française flung him.
31. The physical beauty of his friend carried with it to his mind a superiority which he accepted, recognizing his own personality to be heavy and common.
32. "Farming for the patient ox, a life of airy freedom for the bird,” thought he. “I will be the ox, Lucien shall be the eagle.”
33. For the last three years these friends had mingled their existence. They read the great works which had appeared on the literary and scientific horizon since the Peace, — the works of Schiller, Goethe, Byron, Walter Scott, Jean-Paul, Berzelius, Davy, Cuvier, etc. They heated themselves at those great fires, attempting works, which they pursued, abandoned, and again took up with equal ardor. They worked continually without fatiguing the inexhaustible powers of youth. Equally poor, yet passionately in love with art and science, they forgot their present misery in laying the foundations for their future fame.
34. Balzac mixes here the names of well-known Romantic writers with those of eminent scientists and chemists in order to show that a poet is not only someone who writes verses but above all else is an exceptional individual. Both Lucien and David are “poets” in the etymological sense of the word. In ancient Greek, the verb poiein meant “to make,” “to fashion,” and by extension “to invent.”

35. And David read, as only poets read, the idyl of André Chénier, entitled “Néère;” next “Le Jeune Malade,” and then the elegy on suicide, and the last two iambics.
36. The golden dream was their life; the treasures of earth were at their feet.
37. They saw the glittering spot on the horizon to which Hope points, as her siren voice says to those whose life is troublous, “Fly thither! you shall escape your misery through that little space of gold, of silver, or of azure."
38. The will of lovers can triumph over everything,” said Lucien, dropping his eyes.
39. In spite of my love, and all the divers interests which urge me to become of consequence in her house, I have told her that I cannot return there if...

40. "Heart of gold!” cried David, following Lucien with his eye as he crossed the press-room.
41. None other than Lamartine and Victor Hugo, Casimir Delavigne and Jouy, Béranger and Chateaubriand, Villemain and M. Aignan, Soumet and Tissot, Etienne and Davrigny, Benjamin Constant and Lamennais, Cousin and Michaud; in short, all the old as well as the new glories of literature, — liberals and royalists both.
42. Circumstances that were somewhat rare in the depths of the provinces had inspired Madame de Bargeton with a taste for music and literature.
43. Not only was the abbé a musician, but he possessed a wide knowledge of literature and also knew Italian and German. He taught those languages and counterpoint to Mademoiselle de Nègrepelisse; explained the great lit erary works of France, Italy, and Germany, and practised with her the music of the chief composers. Besides this, he taught her Greek and Latin, as a resource against the weary inoccupation of solitude to which political events condemned him, and he gave her a fair inkling of natural science.
44. The Abbé Niollant, with a poetic soul full of enthusiasm, was remarkable for the sort of mind peculiar to artists, which, while possessing many other precious qualities, rises above the bourgeois and philistine ideas by the breadth of its perceptions and its freedom of judgment.

45. The lack of companionship is one of the greatest drawbacks to country life. For want of practising the little sacrifices of dress and behavior due to others, we lose the habit of constraining ourselves in their service. Habits and thoughts become vitiated.
46. The boldness of the young girl’s thoughts gradually passed into her manners and into her eyes; she acquired the cavalier air which seems at first sight original, but which really belongs only to women of loose lives.
47. It was repugnant to her to submit her mind and her person to the men of small worth and no personal dignity with whom she was acquainted. She wished to rule, and marriage would force her to obey.
48. This disparity was the more unpleasant because Monsieur de Bargeton seemed at least seventy, whereas his wife could very well pass as a girl, dress in pink, and wear her hair down her back.
49. Men born to greatness, and women who might be charming if trained to a better life by superior minds, perish in this way.

50. A sunset is certainly a grand poem, but a woman who depicts it in grand words to material minds is absurd. There are delights which can be really felt only when two souls meet, poet to poet, heart to heart. She made the mistake of using long sentences larded with magniloquent words, and was prodigal of superlatives, which overweighted her conversation so that trifling things assumed gigantic proportions.
51. She adored Lord Byron, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and other poetic and dramatic beings.
52. ...in short, a love without a lover. This was, indeed, the truth.
53. The works of distinguished foreigners, till then untranslated and unknown, which were published from 1815 to 1821, the great essays of Monsieur de Bonald and Monsieur de Maistre, those eagles of thought, and the lighter works of French literature which were beginning to put forth vigorously, occupied and embellished her solitude.
54. Monsieur du Châtelet possessed all the incapacities required for that position. Well-made, handsome, a good dancer, clever billiard-player, an adept at all bodily exercises, a rather poor amateur actor, a singer of ballads, applauder of other people’s witticisms, ready for anything, wily and envious, he knew and was ignorant of most things.

55. He claimed to be clever in diplomacy, the science of those who have no other, and whose depth seems the greater because they are empty, — a science extremely convenient because, while professing to be discreet, it allows an ignorant man to say nothing, to confine himself to mysterious becks and nods; in fact the ablest man in the science of diplomacy is he who swims with his head well up above the current of events which he thus appears to lead, — a question of specific levity. Here, as in the arts, we find a thousand commonplace talents for one man of genius.
56. After studying the manners and customs of that provincial high life, Monsieur le Baron Sixte du Châtelet conducted himself accordingly.
57. As for the women, the greater part of them were awkward, silly, and ill-dressed; all had some defect which detracted from their merit; nothing was complete or perfect about them; neither their dress nor their conversation, their flesh nor their spirit.
58. ... of Parisian grandeur; and at times a true attachment to the Bourbons quand meme †showed itself. This society can be compared (if we may use the simile) to a silver service of antique form, tarnished, but solid and weighty. The immovableness of its political opinions had a character of fidelity.
59. Du Châtelet began his siege of Madame de Bargeton by lending her all the new books, and reading to her the poems of the day. Together they went into ecstacies over the new school of poets, she in good faith, he with inward weariness, though patiently enduring the romanticists, who, as a man of the Empire, he was wholly unable to comprehend.

60. Saddened at the thought that she should only know genius from afar, she longed for Paris, the centre of great minds.
61. She foresaw little ignorant absurdities; for instance, Lucien had a habit of leaning on his elbows whenever he sat down; he would even draw a table to his side for that purpose.
62. When he reached the house in the rue de Minage, Lucien found nothing astonishing in its exterior.
63. Madame de Bargeton wore, as the fashion then was, a head-dress of black velvet which suggested recollections of the middle-ages, and to Lucien’s eyes gave a certain stateliness to her head. From beneath it fell a wealth of hair of a reddish auburn, gold in the sunshine, ruddy in the curve of its waves.
64. The three hours passed beside her were to him one of those dreams which we would fain make eternal.

65. Her defects, which her manners exaggerated, pleased him; for young men begin by liking exaggeration, — the falsehood of fine souls.
66. To be continued.



Various Notes:
1. Soup broth is good for you, and knowing this, I enjoy eating Campbell's Condensed Chicken Noodle Soup (red and white, 25% less sodium) more often!
Added to Food Tips.
2. The Classical or Light-Classical music channels are great to watch at night!
Added to Favorite Notes II.
3. Honore de Balzac suggests that in school, memorization of facts, and understanding of principles of grammar, are old-fashioned skills that contribute to success after graduation.



Monday, October 9, 2023

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. For example, David’s father, Jérôme-Nicolas Séchard, lives in a world of his own. This miser can turn anything into gold... He resents every penny he has spent toward the education of his son, and throughout Parts I and III, he remains determined not to help his son in any way. At first he does not even approve of David’s marriage to Eve, though toward the end he will warm up to his daughter-in-law. In many ways Old Séchard is one of the most pathetic characters in the novel: selfish, heartless, and manipulative.
2. Petit-Claud is not an ordinary man. Balzac, who was well versed in physiognomy (the “science” of perceiving character through outward appearance), describes the provincial lawyer as follows: “Despised by his schoolmates, Pierre Petit-Claud seemed to have had a certain amount of gall infused into his blood. His face had the dirty, muddy tints which indicate former illnesses, privations, nights of anxiety, and, nearly always, evil feelings”
3. In the end, Petit-Claud becomes one of the king’s attorneys, and Boniface Cointet is elevated to the rank of peer of France. Pierre Petit-Claud and Boniface Cointet have become great men of the province.
4. This strategy is part of a narrative process through which Balzac focuses on the philosophical import of his exploration of the socio-cultural substratum of the provinces and Paris.

5. In Part I, Balzac lays the groundwork for an exploration of Romanticism that he continues in Part II when Lucien immerses himself into the literary, journalistic, and intellectual milieu of Paris. In “The Two Poets,” Lucien is called the “Chateaubriand of L’Houmeau” and “another Chatterton.” Lucien owes his invitation to the salon of Madame de Bargeton to his ability to write verses in the manner of Chatterton (see endnote 25 to Part I). The Baron Sixte du Châtelet comments : “Poor and modest, the lad was another Chatterton, but without... the ferocious hatred against social grandeur which drove the Englishman into writing pamphlets to insult his benefactors” (p. 43). Chateaubriand and Vigny were about the same age, and as mentioned earlier, the two men were members of the same social circle. Balzac was not a poet but a sharp observer of society who longed to become a profound philosopher, yet he understood and appreciated lyric poetry. Few passages are as moving as the one where David and Lucien read to one another poems by André Chénier, the true precursor of French Romantic poetry:
6. Lucien read aloud the epic fragment of the “Aveugle” and several elegies. When he chanced upon the line — “If they have no joy, is there joy upon earth?” he laid down the book, and they both wept, for each loved to idolatry.
7. Paris offers a sharp contrast to this idyllic and idealistic view of poetry. Aesthetic values do matter, but so do sales. Thus the publisher Dauriat deals a severe blow to the “Chateaubriand of L’Houmeau” when he declares: “For the last two years poets have swarmed like cockchafers; I lost twenty thousand francs on them last year!” and adds: “There are but four poets: Béranger, Casimir Delavigne, Lamartine and Victor Hugo”
8. In those days, newspapers regularly ran articles about the fate of young persons from the provinces who had come to Paris in search of literary fame. Most of them were duped and disappointed; they starved, became ill, and sometimes committed suicide. The satirical newspaper Vert-Vert went as far as to suggest that suicide had become a contagious disease among young writers. In Angoulême, Lucien had written a novel, L Archer de Charles IX ( The Archer of Charles IX) , and a volume of poetry, Daisies. Lucien dreamed of fame; he fancied his name displayed in the windows of Parisian bookstores. Yet he could not find a publisher for his work; he was starving. Could he ever earn money with his pen? Circumstances worked in his favor. Lucien often ate in a cheap restaurant called Flicoteaux. There he befriended Etienne Lousteau, who would introduce him to the world of journalism.
9. Newspapers proliferated, and journalists were in demand. Their reviews of literary works, plays, and concerts influenced the public and helped drive the sales of books and tickets to the opera and the theater. As a group, journalists, like actors and actresses, are capable of thriving on rivalry, greed, and insincerity.

10. Lost Illusions is certainly not an autobiographical novel. Yet, as one would expect, in it Balzac incorporated many aspects of his views on the role of the writer in society.
11. The narrator’s description of d’Arthèz is worth quoting because it represents Balzac’s own ambitions, which were philosophical in nature:
[D’Arthèz] believed in no great, incomparable talent without a deep, a profound metaphysical knowledge. At the present moment he was culling the philosophic riches of ancient and modern times to assimilate them. He wished, like Molière, to be a deep philosopher before making comedies. He studied the written world and the living world; the thought and the fact (p. 200).
12. In that novella, the painter Frenhofer is obsessed with painting a woman in an absolutely perfect way.
13. PART I. THE TWO POETS
A PRINTING-HOUSE IN THE PROVINCES
14. Séchard was formerly a journeyman printer, of the kind which the workmen whose duty it was to collect the letters called, in typographic slang, a “bear.” The incessant coming and going and turning, very like that of a bear in his cage, with which the pressmen moved from the ink to the press, and from the press to the ink, was no doubt the origin of the nickname. In return, the bears called the compositors “monkeys,” on account of the agility with which those gentry were obliged to catch up the letters from the hundred and fifty little cases which contained them.
15. The solitary bear could not be transformed into a monkey for the reason that, in his capacity as a pressman, he had not known how to read or write.
16. Avarice begins where poverty ends.



Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. In the recent Gaza−Israel conflict, many reports are making Hamas out to be the aggressor, when what actually happened was Israel attacked Hamas first, and then Hamas retaliated in self-defense. This kind of false news is not good.
3. There should be peace between both sides in the recent Gaza-Israel conflict.
4. It would be positive to see more educational films or documentaries about black history, and blacks in sports and the arts, on tv.
5. Many people know advanced concepts, but not the basic concepts on which the advanced concepts were based.

6. One of the characters imitates the sound of music with his voice, in Pere Goriot, by Honore de Balzac.
7. Omitted.
8. In Pere Goriot, we learn that often, ideas have the capacity of being expanded, and made into other ideas.
9. Omitted.
10. Money can give you happiness. -Pere Goriot, by Honore de Balzac.



Sunday, October 8, 2023

Lost Illusions, by Honore de Balzac:
1. “But,” said Lucien, “if you don’t read the books, how will you write your articles?”
If you don't cook, you won't eat.
2. I must reappear to the eyes of the prefect’s wife, and recover my influence over her at any price. Isn’t it frightful to think that David Séchard’s future depends on a handsome pair of boots, gray silk stockings (mind you don’t forget them), and a new hat?
3. I hope to read novels by Balzac, Flaubert, Hugo, and Zola.
4. Introduction

5. With the wit of a seasoned Parisian, Rastignac asks his friends to look at “the mummy whom Madame d’Espard called her cousin, and the precaution that lady took to have an apothecary in her train”...
6. In Part III, “An Inventor’s Tribulations,” as Lucien is contemplating suicide a Spanish prelate and diplomat named Carlos Herrera comes to his rescue.
7. The intellectual gap between father and son, if shocking, results from the many social upheavals that took place in the wake of the Revolution.
8. Illustrates the contrast between the aristocracy and the working-class.
9. On another occasion [Madame de Bargeton] opts for the Oriental look — also in vogue among the Romantics: “She wore a turban fastened with an oriental buckle. A gauze scarf, beneath which could be seen a cameo necklace, was gracefully twined about her throat. The short sleeves of her painted muslin gown enabled her to wear several tiers of bracelets on her beautiful white arms”. In other words, Madame de Bargeton’s outfits reflect her literary taste and her ambitions.
10. She played with an elegant vinaigrette [a small bottle of smelling salts] fastened to one of the fingers of her right hand by a little chain, exhibiting thus her slender and well-gloved hand without apparently intending it.



Saturday, October 7, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
3. Maybe American sports like baseball and basketball are prejudicial toward Native Americans, Asian Americans, and other groups because they do not represent enough of them in their games.
4. Affirmative action has helped blacks and other groups in many ways, according to a book I've read.
5. People have many dimensions, and society also has many dimensions, according to Honore de Balzac.



Friday, October 6, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I added notes #8 and #52 from today's Balzac reading, to Favorite Notes II.
2. Maybe people need to learn more about U.S. history, because U.S. history impacts our lives today. Maybe people also need to learn more about the U.S. Constitution, because the constitution also impacts our lives today.



Thursday, October 5, 2023

Various Notes:
1. People have different dimensions. That is, they are defined by several different elements. I learned this reading Honore de Balzac.
Addd to Favorite Notes.
2. "Some people can understand ideas, but not grammatical concepts." -Pere Goriot, Honore de Balzac.
Added to Favorite Notes II



Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Various Notes:
1. "Maybe we should look at the reasons for committing the act, instead of the act itself.” - A book I’ve read.
Added to Favorite Notes II
2. "He expects you to go straight at full speed, in which case, you should go left or right."
-Pere Goriot, Honore de Balzac.
Added to Favorite Notes II



Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. Please refer to Favorite Notes II - #1, on William Wordsworth, for an update to the post.
3. According to the Oxford Essential German Dictionary: backward - zuruckgeblieben. There is an old saying, "Don't do a thing backwards."
4. In the current reading by Balzac, please see today's note #46.



Monday, October 2, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I learned reading Balzac that some people have a mania or an obsession with their job.
2. Omitted.
3. 🎄 I enjoy singing Christmas carols! These songs include: Silent Night, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland, O Tannenbaum, I Saw Three Ships, Jingle Bell Rock, The First Noel, and Caroling, Caroling (Christmas Bells are Ringing). The Christmas Song, by Nat King Cole, is a favorite holiday album.
Added to Favorite Notes II.



Sunday, October 1, 2023

Various Notes:
1. “I did all I could do; I couldn’t do any more.” -A character in a James Joyce novel.
2. In the current book I'm reading, one of the characters feeds her pet cat milk, on a saucer, after boiling it. Moloko dlya koshka!
Balzac also suggests that pets enjoy eating scraps.
3. We learn that Honore de Balzac presents complex novels. The protagonists are round, dynamic characters rather than flat characters. There are also several different protagonists.
4. "I have to wait just a few hours, it should be easy." -One of the books I'm reading.
5. Calypso, in Greek mythology, the daughter of the Titan Atlas (or Oceanus or Nereus), a nymph of the mythical island of Ogygia. The current reading on Balzac discusses this myth.
6. Please see today's notes #9, #19, #26, #34 ,#60, #79, #116 on the present Honore de Balzac novel.
7. In the Honore de Balzac reading, there is a character who has daughters who he is very fond of. When his daughters treat him well, he gives them gifts.
8. #109, "Suggests that money can enliven people, and make them happy."
9. “If you think that you’re doing good now, and enjoying yourself, why go backwards? Keep up these victory days!"



Saturday, September 30, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Maybe mental health classes are flawed because after attending them for months, or even years, students are not healed. The classes do not give students grades, although students are expected to do college-level work, and maybe the classes do not teach students marketable skills.
Added to Notes about Psychiatry
2. The Triumph of Life, by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a noble, inspiring poem.
In the poem, Shelley praises the power of life. In addition to this, classic authors also praise the power of romance. In the poem, Shelley suggests that we draw inspiration from notable figures of antiquity. He also suggests that you look not at the dull and dreary, but at the flowers and fruit, the sun and Heaven.
3. I completed Bleak House, and added the review to Book Reviews VII. I also removed past reviews from this page, and added them to Book Reviews IX.
4. Manhattan or New England clam chowder mixed with an extra can of chopped clams tastes great!
Added to Favorite Notes II
5. Instead of typing, I copy and paste the text that I like from the online book application on my phone then to the website editor then publish it online.



Sunday, September 24, 2023

Various Notes:
1. A saying in religious circles is that the people in the church are like a flock of sheep, and the pastor, or reverend is the shepherd.
2. The Pathfinder, and other James Fenimore Cooper novels are a lot like Clint Eastwood movies and other westerns!
3. Maybe tv game shows are biased because some people have different physical abilities than others.
4. They play cards a lot in the old westerns. Maybe this is to encourage others to do the same.
5. Since I enjoy watching old westerns, I also enjoy watching old sitcoms.

6. Drawing on the concepts mentioned in #2 and #5, now I enjoy watching cable tv more!
7. Many people froze to death during harsh winters in Russia, according to one book I've reviewed.



Friday, September 22, 2023

Various Notes:
1. The expression every cloud has a silver lining, according to Wikipedia, "is a metaphor for optimism which means that a negative occurrence may have a positive aspect to it.”
2. Tba.



Thursday, September 21, 2023




Saturday, September 16, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. Omitted.
3. One character in “Bleak House,” by Charles Dickens, always kept his rooms "fresh and airy."
4. Omitted.
5. Omitted.

7. I learned about "Philosophical Transactions," a scientific journal, reading "Bleak House," by Charles Dickens.
8.



Friday, September 15, 2023

Various Notes:
Thursday, September 14, 2023

Various Notes:
1. In Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, Dickens suggests that it can be entertaining to look at the lives of other people.
2. Tba.



Wednesday, September 13. 2023

Various Notes:
1. Reading John Donnes poetry, one of the characters had a glaze over their eyes. His poem An Anatomy of the World suggest that you can view the world anatomically, like the human body, with the water in the oceans representing blood and the rocks and mountains representing bone.
2. Tba.



Tuesday, September 12. 2023

Various Notes:
1. I find it useful to think that people are okay if you chip away and analyze their actions…if you have time to do all that.
2. Omitted.
3. Here are some things I learned that running 🏃‍♂️ does to your body:
A. Strengthen your heart and lungs.
B. Develop fatigue-resistant muscles.
C. Build healthy joints.
D. Improve memory and mood.
E. Accelerate your metabolism.
Source: Abbott - 5 Benefits of Running
4. I came to the following conclusion, reading The Clever Cat, an African fairy tale: if you are with a friend and the two of you do not want to speak, you can just listen, listen to the world around you.
5. Since I like living in the country, and since I am of African descent, perhaps it’s best to look at life as though I was in a small African village, like Nelson Mandela’s.



Monday, September 11, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. Evidence suggests that there is a limited amount of knowledge available (in the form of literature) to research. This means that when all the knowledge has been researched, other means of time-occupation will have to be explored.



Friday, September 8, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Here on NotD, I added some main points from my book review on the autobiography of Louis Armstrong.
2. I think that I will only run 🏃‍ once or twice a week from now on, to remain healthy and decrease the chance of injury.



Thursday, September 7, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Charles Dickens suggests that it is okay to write down your opinions.
2. Omitted.



Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Various Notes:
1. In one of the books I’ve read, the narrator suggests that many times, slight problems resolve themselves in a matter of seconds or minutes.
2. Tba.



Monday, September 4, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. In one scene of Wuthering Heights , of one character, the narrator writes, “She took a book and pretended to read it."



The Complete Poems, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
1. I enjoyed reading Coleridge's
The Faded Flower,
Sonnet To William Godwin, Author of 'Political Justice,', which praise political theorists for shaping society, and
On Donne's Poetry
2. I also enjoyed reading Coleridge's The Hour When We Shall Meet Again, which suggests that when he awakens is when he shall meet his friend again.
3. I also enjoyed reading Coleridge's The Destiny of Nations, which suggests that men should all peacefully inhabit the world.
4. One line in Frost at Midnight soothes our concerns, and reminds us that outdoor wildlife has, for centuries survived harsh winters.



Sunday, September 3, 2023

Various Notes:
1. There is a character in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel who, along with his cousins, eats the baked goods his family makes. There is another scene in a Marquez novel where one of the character's eats crackers and guava jelly.
2. "...another of the character's has a jewelry box filled with different kinds of jewelry."
3. I learned that sometimes, people "double up," or "triple up," on acid tabs.
4. I added the previous three notes to Favorite Notes II.
5. I learned that one thing that writing with the left hand, in script does, is make me more inventive and creative, that is, it allows me to better invent new ideas. Writing with the right hand, in script also contributes to this.



Saturday, September 2, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I like Coleridge’s On Imitation.
”All are not born to soar — and ah! how few…"
2. I learned some Russian proverbs today, one of my favorites is:
Хлеб всему́ голова́.   Bread is the staff of life. / Bread - whole head!
Literal: Bread is head of everything.
3. Earlier I learned that bread is a good carbohydrate, and apparently, bread is very popular in Russian culture.
4. Did you know that I have a wooden yoga block that I often use to sit on at home? I also have led strip lights for effect.
5. In one of the books I've read, the narrator suggests that it is okay to be simple and plain, and not entertaining.



Friday, September 1, 2023

Various Notes:
1. There is a character in Jane Austen’s Persuasion, who only read poetry, and only read the first-rate poets.
2. The Nose, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge was written in 1789, and The Nose, by Nikolai Gogol was written in 1835. Perhaps Gogol was inspired by Coleridge.
3. One poem that I like by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is Genevieve.
4. Coleridge’s poem entitled Honour suggests that you invent your own code of honor.
5. I like Coleridge’s Absence: A Farewell Ode on Quitting School for Jesus College, Cambridge. In it he describes fond memories of a school that he left.



Tuesday, August 29, 2023

Various Notes:
1. "The forces of good are always one step ahead of the forces of evil."
- The Agony and the Ecstasy, by Irving Stone.
2. Omitted.



Monday, August 28, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. "...then retiring to his room to hammer down on paper the lines, forms, interrelation of feature and expression that makes every human being different from another."
- The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone
3. I decided to slow down and not work on any books for a while, although I'll still post if I get any other good ideas.



Sunday, August 27, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I completed A Tale of Two Cities, and added the review to Book Reviews VII.
2. I learned that it can be rewarding to have books in different languages. In Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, there is a character who has several books in Latin and Greek. This character also has several books in different subjects.
3. The Greek word for "eye," suggests that the eyes are just small slits through which we can see.
4. Of one of the characters in Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert writes, “We saw him working conscientiously, looking up every word in the dictionary, and taking the greatest pains.”
5. One of the characters in Wuthering Heights read over the books in his library “like twenty times each.”
6. Omitted.
7. 10:45pm - I learned that many of the ancients studied Greek and Latin.





Various Notes:
1. It is great that my local library has a way for me to read books online. This makes blogging a lot easier!!
2.Omitted.
3. Charles Dickens and Gabriel Garcia Marquez suggest that many medications are like poison.
-Added to the Notes about Psychiatry page.



Friday, August 25, 2023

Various Notes:
1. 10:15pm - I revised the article, "Why I Don't Believe The Story About The Slave Trade...," kindly review it.
2. I did some research on Google about LSD. I learned that Lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD, or acid, is a drug that affects the nervous system. Apparently, LSD can cause an “acid trip,” or “bad trips.” Google has a lot of information about it.
3. Omitted.



Monday, August 21, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. Omitted.



Sunday, August 20, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Project Gutenberg has a free version of "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Volume 2," by John Locke. Kindly review it.
2. “CHAPTER VIII.
Some Propositions bring no Increase to our Knowledge.”
- Essay #2, John Locke
2. Tba.



Saturday, August 19, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I plan to study the French philosophers. One interesting thing that I learned is that Auguste Comte, who was very influential in the field of sociology, argued that social systems should keep up with the progress of humanity.
2. I learned that many of the French philosophers attempted to make contributions to political thought and influence the way that government was shaped.
Added to the Notes about Psychiatry page.



Friday, August 18, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Jane Austen, in Persuasion, suggests that it is rewarding to read “summer poems.” I like Sonnet 18, by William Shakespeare, "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?"
I also enjoy poems about summer's ending by famous poets.
2. Tba.



Monday, August 14, 2023

Here are some Various Notes:
1. Blacks might have benefited from slavery, but Regents studies suggest that the disadvantages of slavery far outweighed the advantages, and it is important to note that slavery represented a very ugly time in U.S. history. And how could the tools that blacks gained through slavery be used to help them in today’s fast-paced world? That approach represents a narrow-minded way of thinking.
2. I learned that I do not have to search as much for words. When speaking or thinking, just let the words come to me. This is related to recent philosophical concepts that I've learned, such as the mind's unexplained but proven ability to retain and retrieve information.


Thursday, August 10, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Maybe a pillowcase that fits two pillows (vertically), would make stacking easier. Or maybe those of us who are a bit talented, can sew two pillowcases together to make one pillowcase that fits two pillows.
2. My idea to sew two pillowcases together worked, stacking is now easier!!
3. I learned reading the Introduction to Mrs Warren’s Profession, by George Bernard Shaw, that sometimes, it is acceptable to deal with adult subjects.
4. Omitted.



Tuesday, August 8, 2023

Various Notes:
1. One character in Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen, paid little attention to the observation of nature, inanimate nature.
2. James Fenimore Cooper suggests that there are moments when the line of justice between black and white is clear, and there are moments when the line of justice is not so clear, and questions how this factors in to the law.
3. I added the two preceding Various Notes to Favorite Notes II (below).



Sunday, August 6, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I learned that my approach towards learning is friendly, but effective. Due to the number of friendships in the academic world, and my love of learning, I aspire to be an intellectual in some field. I mention this not to arouse any feelings of malign or scorn, but rather because I am greatly inspired to learn and encourage others to do the same. Consequently, just as Theseus did in Parallel Lives by Plutarch, I will get my metaphorical boots and sword, or patience and literature, and begin my journey.
2. Tba.



Friday, July 28, 2023

Various Notes:
1. "Eat, because when you eat, it will make you feel better." - A George Eliot novel.
2. I read an article on Wikipedia on the Biafran Civil War, or the Nigerian Civil War. Apparently, this was a war in Nigeria which involved the Fulani, Hausa, and Igbo peoples about food shortages, or starvation, as well as colonial rule. I also learned that the Biafran Civil War occurred concurrent to the Vietnam War. Additionally, I learned that bia means food in Irish.



Thursday, July 27, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I was thinking that birds could help humans if they said in a chirp, “Shrooms make you shout! Poisonous mushrooms, shrooms make you shout.”
It’s bird to human language. I learned that birds can learn to say just about anything that humans say.
2. Omitted.



Monday, July 24, 2023

Various Notes:
1. In one scene of The Deerslayer, by James Fenimore Cooper, Cooper speaks highly of the chameleon, for its ability to blend in with its environment.
2. Omitted.



Sunday, July 23, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I like the YouTube app for smart tv's!
2. Perhaps Father McKenzie from Eleanor Rigby, by The Beatles was a personage drawn from James Joyce's Dubliners.



Saturday, July 22, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Perhaps it would be good to see an American Indian playing baseball, or even several American Indians playing baseball.
I got this idea reading The Deerslayer, by James Fenimore Cooper.
2. In one scene of The Deerslayer, by James Fenimore Cooper, the narrator writes that verses in the Bible are often read and then a year later the reader gets an idea from the verse, and draws the analogy to how God planted seeds in the earth, which in time, grew into trees.



Friday, July 21, 2023

Various Notes:
1. ...There are also the benefits that me running causes to the environment, the atmosphere. It benefits the atmosphere more when I run than when I don’t run. Makes the wintertime seem warmer, and more pleasant, and increases the amount of flowers that bloom in the summer, for example. How exactly me running does this, I don’t know.

2. Omitted.



Friday, July 7, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. In one of the books I’ve read, the author reminds us of the importance of being polite and respectful.
3. I saw in the retail store sturdy memory foam pillows. These would be great for stacking!
4. In one of the books that I've read, Adam Bede by George Eliot I believe, one of the male characters calls his female companion a "silly." He says sometimes, "You're a silly."
5. In one scene of Adam Bede, one of the female characters says, “If he’d date an ugly girl, just imagine how he'd treat a pretty girl.”



Thursday, July 6, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Stack up pillows to help you sit up in bed.
2. Maybe they should make “stackable pillows.” Pillows designed exclusively for stacking. These pillows would have to be sturdy and durable enough to be stacked over and over again.
3. Maybe the "stackable pillow," should be a set, with a durable sleeve and a plush insert.
4. In another scene of Adam Bede, one character describes another male character as looking "young and soft."



Monday, July 3, 2023

The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas:
1. "Did you not tell me that this abduction was entirely political?"
2. "I have, at least, two of the three qualifications which you require."
3. "No, he has too superficial an intellect."
4. "It is nothing less, than that the honor--and perhaps the life--of the queen is at stake."



Saturday, July 1, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Dogs overheat easily in the summer, be careful! This is because they have fewer sweat glands that are only confined to the nose and foot pads. I learned this reading Dog Trivia.
2. In a George Eliot novel, she uses the formal definition of the verb "moon" skillfully. Moon - to behave or move in a listless and aimless manner. "Lying in bed eating candy, mooning around." - Merriam-Webster
3. For me, the German language is very comforting, meditative, and relaxing. I own a German-English dictionary and learn from it.



Thursday, June 29, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. I learned that many languages aren't spoken with 100% accuracy.



The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas:
1. “All these operations were performed nearly mechanically, as far as he was concerned.”
2. “The officer took the papers indicated, gave them to him who asked for them, bowed to the very ground, and left the room.”
3. ”Then you do not know what became of your wife, since her escape?”
”Not positively, my lord; but she has probably returned to the Louvre.”
4. “In that case, my lord, do you believe that the cardinal will tell me what has become of my wife?”
5. “Why did she not tell you sooner?”

6. “Nevertheless, she arose, and in an agitated voice, said…”
7. “There was no certainty about the matter.”
8. “It was just what I was about to say, if your eminence had permitted me to finish the sentence."
9. “Now, do you know where the Duchess and the Duke concealed themselves?”
10. Highlights the importance of staying positive.

11. “May repair the errors of my agent. Is that what you mean?"
12. “Would your eminence wish me to arrest them both?”
13. "When shall we meet again?"
"It shall be often, for I have found your conversation quite charming.”
14. “…which proved what consequence he attached to the intelligence he expected from the count.”
15. “Athos, then, said nothing for fear that” he might jeopardize the situation.

16. Discusses the prejudices of the king against the queen.
17. Suggests that you leave some things to the imagination. “…addressing the cardinal, M. de Cahusac is entirely recovered, is he not.”
18. “Do you not suspect this young man of having led Athos astray?”
19. "Your majesty has a good memory.”
20. “But his majesty has judges—let them decide upon the affair.”

21. “…and regarding the cardinal with a supplicating air, said…”
22. “Great harmony exists between the officers and the soldiers of the musketeers. It is beneficial to the service."
23. “I believe, and I repeat it to your majesty, that the queen plots against the king.”
24. To be continued.



Monday, June 26, 2023

Various Notes:
1. In one of the books I've read, the author indicates that it is okay to be a plain and simple person, not showy or extravagant.
2. Tba.


The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas:
1. "Come, sir, let us be bored together."
2. Suggests that a moral dilemna exists where you want to tell your psychiatrist everything, but you know that if you do, they can prosecute you, so you do not tell the truth.
3. Suggests that in psychiatry the problems lie not in the person, but in the problems of society as a whole.

4. "Moreover, the man wore the uniform of the musketeers."
5. "Yet though thus deserted, as it were, the duke, it must be confessed, did not feel the slightest fear."
6. "He began by asking M. Bonancieux his christian name and surname, his age, profession, and place of abode."
7. "...and exhorted him to reflect upon the seriousness of the situation."
8. "Bonancieux recognised each street by its corners, its lamps, and its signs."



Various Notes:
1. In The Agony and the Ecstasy, by Irving Stone, Stone writes that one of the characters is ugly until he begins to speak, and then his words make him beautiful. Perhaps this is true for many people today, to a degree.
2. Of one modern book, Virgina Woolf suggests that one must read it as if it were the last volume in a fairly long series. "For books continue each other, in spite of our habit of judging them separately."
3. I completed A Room of One's Own, and added the paper to Book Reviews VIII.



Friday, June 23, 2023

Various Notes:
1. According to the Collins Irish Dictionary:
bia - food; meal
2. According to the Oxford Essential German Dictionary:
bad - adj schlect; (serious) schwer, schlimm
3. I added my paper on Adam Bede, by George Eliot to Book Critiques VIII.
4. I updated Various Notes from Past Days (located directly above Favorite Notes) with a few notes.
5. Some songs in the classical genre that I like include: Bizet's Habanera, Strauss' The Blue Danube Waltz, and Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers. In the jazz genre, I like Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.


The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas:
1. "'Sire,' said M. de Treville, with the utmost composure, 'I have, on the contrary, come to demand justice.'"
2. "...seeing it merely a nest of Huguenots, but which, nevertheless, in time of peace, is a bad example."
3. "...who manages everything within and without the realm; in Europe, as well as in France?"
"'Your majesty no doubt means God, said M. de Treville, 'for I know no other being who can be so far above your majesty.'
4. "But in coming too early in the morning, I fear I may wake your majesty!"
"Wake me! Do I sleep? I never sleep now, sir! So come as early as you like..."
5. Dumas employs a skillful use of the word venery, which meant, in an archaic definition, to hunt.

6. "Does your majesty require anything else? You have but to speak and you shall be obeyed!"
7. "M. de Treville, his majesty sent for me; to inquire into the affair that happened. I have told him the truth..."
8. "The cardinal was in reality as furious as his master had anticipated... But this did not prevent the king from putting on the most charming face, and asking, every time he met him..."
9. Discuss a pleasant occasion on the bridge of Latournelle, in Paris.
10. "His words were brief and expressive; saying what he wished them to express, but no more."

11. Although Athos was scarcely thirty, he was very experienced and wise.
12. In one scene, Dumas writes that the musketeers were brave because they would not draw their swords unless in a war.
13. "Porthos, as easy to see, had a character diametrically opposed to that of Athos: he not only spoke a great deal, but in a loud voice... he talked for the mere pleasure of speaking, or of hearing himself talk..."
14. "He had not such an aristocratic air as Athos, and the sense of his inferiority on that point had, made him often unjust towards that gentleman, whom he endeavored to surpass by the splendor of his dress."
15. One character is Mousqueton. "Mousqueton was a Norman, whose pacific name was Boniface..."

16. Athos lived in a two bedroom apartment that needed work. Porthos lived in a stately mansion, and was rich, but never let anyone enter, so no one knew how luxurious the estate was inside. Aramis lived in a one bedroom apartment, but it was very nicely furnished and comfortable, and he enjoyed living in it.
17. The forty pistoles of Louis XIII had also an end; and after the end, our four companions fell into difficulties.
18. “He conceived that this coalition of four brave, enterprising, and active young men, ought to have some nobler aim than idle walks, fencing lessons, and more or less amusing jests.”
19. “His meditations were disturbed by a gentle knock at the door.”
20. One of the musketeers says, "…I shall at one blow perform two acts of revenge.”

21. “You return to your hesitation; but permit me to observe, that you have now advanced too far to recede.”
22. “…and as for the three months that you have been in my house, you have forgotten to pay me my rent, and as, likewise, I have not once asked you for payment…”
23. “Reckoning, moreover, that as long as you will do me the honor of remaining in my house, I should make no reference to rent.”
24. Suggests that you behave like a good citizen.
25. Athos says, “I have always said that D’Artagnan has the best head of the four,” as displayed by his bravery and courage.

26. “Woman was created for our destruction; and from her all our miseries arise.”
27. Suggests that it is impossible to avoid joking.
28. Four guards force their way into one of the apartments.
29. “‘And now, gentlemen,’ said d’Artagnan, ‘All for one—one for all!’ this is our motto, is it not?”
30. Porthos says, “All for one; and one for all!”

31. “Then D’Artagnan entered into a long story about the queen..."
32. “A white and fine stocking, a silken dress, a lace kerchief, a pretty little shoe, do not make an ugly woman pretty, but they make a pretty woman irresistible.”
33. Describes Saint Denis and St Germaine, communes in France.
34. “Love is the most selfish of all our passions.”
35. Reminds us that doctors should use proper judgment when dealing with patients.
36. To be continued.



Thursday, June 22, 2023

The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas:
1. There are several musketeers, including Athos, Porthos, Aramis and d'Artagnan.
2. Discourages people from being rude.
3. Omitted.
4. "Athos would have died rather than call for assistance."
5. "Athos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan, therefore, surrounded Biscarrat, and summoned him to surrender."
6. "M de Treville strongly censured his musketeers in public; but privately they heard only his congratulations."
7. "No, bring the other three. I wish to thank them all as the same time. Men so brave are rare, Treville, and such devotion ought to be rewarded."
8. Encourages people to be polite.
9. "It may be readily imagined, therefore, that the conversation turned upon the two defeats which the cardinal's guards had sustained," although one of the musketeers had saved the day.
10. King Louis XIII says to one of his courtiers, "Come, sir, let us be bored together."


Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Various Notes:
1. According to the Oxford Essential German Dictionary: backward - zuruckgeblieben.
2. Tba.


The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas:
1. "Upon a signal from Monsieur de Treville, every one now retired except d'Artagnan..."
2. "D'Artagnan drew himself up with a proud air, which seemed to say, 'I ask charity of none.'"
3. "D'Artagnan, quite furious, had reached the staircase, which he was about to descend by four steps at a time..."
4. "'Not entirely so, sir,' answered d'Artagnan..."
5. Highlights the value of friendship.
6. "...no one is received among the musketeers who has not passed the ordeal of some campaigns, performed certain brilliant actions, or served for two years in some less favored regiment than our own."
7. One of the characters says, “You speak for yourself in saying that D’Artagnan was wrong.”



Tuesday, June 20, 2023

The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas:
Chapter I - Three Presents of M. D'Artagnan.
2. Perhaps The Three Musketeers (1844) influenced the short story The Three Hermits, by Leo Tolstoy (1886): the title of the first chapter in the former sounds strikingly similar to the title of the latter.
3. "The cooking demanded some salt, oil, and rosemary."
4."His was one of those rare organizations with the intelligence and obedience of the mastiff, and a blind courage, and a ready hand..."



Monday, June 19, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Stack up pillows to help you sit up in bed.
2. “‘Yes,’ said Mr Poyser, secretly proud of his wife’s superior power of putting two and two together.” - Adam Bede



Various Notes:
1. I learned that Irish, Italian, and German fairytales emphasize traditional values, whereas Russian folktales are more centered on modern themes.
2. I say “you can speak to the dead if you can find them, if you can find their souls."
3. Nightlights, desk lamps are good to help you read at night. It’s best to invest in a good one because I bought one and it smelled like smoke, but I have two others that work well.
4. Repost: Renes Descartes suggests that the soul is not always thinking.
5. Here's a good idea: text friends at night the ideas you learn reading, then at a later date, make a digest of the texts for publication. A rewarding way to occupy your time, works during the day too! It's like a book club, or a way to earn some college credits!!



Thursday, June 8, 2023


Various Notes:
1. Alexander Pushkin had Abyssinian blood. Today, Abyssinia is known as Ethiopia.
2. Here are numbers 1-5, in French: 1. un, 2. deux, 3. trois, 4. quatre, 5. cinq.






Monday, May 29, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I learned a lot when I did a web search for “basketball tips,” including what a crossover is.
2. Tba.



Friday, May 26, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Perhaps English is a command language, like Russian, suitable for instruction, and commands.
2. Tba.



Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I did a web search for "dog trivia," to learn more about our animal friends.
2. Completed: Plays, by Anton Chekhov.



Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. I decided to suspend studies on Emma for the time being, and begin studies on a popular classic, "A Tale of Two Cities," by Charles Dickens.
3. In one book by William Wordsworth, Wordsworth describes "the unchanging landscape."



Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I learned that many New York State county seals contain elements of symbols present on the old flag of the Soviet Union.
2. One of the books that I’ve read discusses sleeping under the stars, sleeping outdoors during the day or night.
3. I added the concept of "the mystery of death," to Various Notes from Past Days, above Favorite Notes (below).
4. It is clear that many of the chapters in "Emma," by Jane Austen, discuss dances, balls, and similar social gatherings.
5. In "Three Sisters," by Anton Chekhov, Chekhov suggests that it is good to acquire "superfluous knowledge."



Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Various Notes:
1. “Dauntless Little John,” by Italo Calvino, is the first short story that I read in Italian Folktales. I also read “The Count’s Beard,” “The Man Who Came Out Only At Night,” and “Money Can Do Everything.” Many of these stories are available online.
2. Perhaps Alexander Pushkin had been alluding the peasant woman in "Money Can Do Everything," when he wrote "The Queen of Spades."



Monday, May 1, 2023

Various Notes:
1. In Italian Folktales, by Italo Calvino, I read the story "Money Can Do Everything." In the story, a prince meets an old woman who saves him and allows him to marry the king's daughter. Perhaps Alexander Pushkin had been alluding the peasant woman in this story, when he wrote The Queen of Spades. -Added to "The Queen of Spades" paper on Book Critiques VI.
2. I have come to view death as a universal puzzle.
3. One of the author’s who I’m reading suggests that every day is a new adventure.



Monday, April 10, 2023

Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. Because of a multitude of reasons, perhaps one should adopt a moral objection to medication. -Added to Notes about Psychiatry.
3. After visiting the homepage of RuVerses, I read several Russian poems. I enjoyed Pushkin’s “The Rose,” and many others.
4. In one poem, “The Peasant and Death,” the poet Ivan Krylov explains that for the peasant, death is never far away.
5. I learned a running tip, that you can tone your arms by focusing on moving them when you run.


Various Notes:
1. "With nearly 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines."
2. In the History of the Conquest of Mexico, by William H Prescott, Prescott examines how the Spaniards, under the command of Hernando Cortes, conquered Mexico, which was ruled by Montezuma II, emperor of the Aztecs.
3. In The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, one character attempts to deceive the detective with the fact that she was trained as an actress.



Thursday, April 6, 2023

The Ecologues by Virgil:
1. “His gift it is that, as your eyes may see,
My kind may roam at large, and I myself
Play on my shepherd's pipe what songs I will.”

2. “Trust not too much to colour, beauteous boy.” Here, I believe he is saying that a person’s color doesn’t mean anything.


Various Notes:
1. I combined the notes on Jane Eyre from previous days, and added them to Book Critiques VI.
2. There is a character in Anna Karenina who read: Plato, Spinoza, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer -- "those philosophers who explained life otherwise than materialistically."
3. Other books or authors that are discussed in the novels that I'm reading include: St. Thomas Aquinas, Thackeray, Ruskin, George Sand, Hazlitt, Robert Southey, Tobias Smolett, Flavius Publius (History of Israel books), Herodotus, and Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe.)



Various Notes:
1. Do not judge. In Luke 6:37-38, The Bible says "Judge not and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned." I believe that it is saying here that if you judge me, then you too can be judged. We must also remember that the bible often discusses that man will not be punished, as well as the theme of forgiveness of one's sins."
2. Tba.



Friday, March 31, 2023


The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, by Walter Pater:
1. Pater points out that French writers are fond of connecting the creations of Italian Renaissance genius to a French origin.
2. Discusses imagination and feeling, as opposed to intellect and reason when judging works of art.
3. For many, the Renaissance simply represents new subjects of poetry, and new forms of art.
4. Tells the story about how one night God sent his angel Raphael to a man.



Various Notes:
1. I made an addition to "Various Notes #3," on Monday, March 27, 2023.
2. I learned that The Iliad and The Odyssey contain elements of philosophical wit as well as elements of adventure.
3. The author of one of the books that I’ve read suggests that Mourning Doves are birds who are mourning the death of famous ancient people.
4. Cod liver oil pills are good for your health. - Charles Dickens
Maybe it would also be good to experiment and try different kinds of vitamins and/or supplements.



Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Various Notes:
1. In Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy, one character says, "Time is money.”
2. I learned about Klopstock’s Messiah reading Middlemarch by George Eliot.


various notes:
1. Did you know that bestie means beast in German?
2. In one of the books I've read, one of the characters says, “pretend, pretend, pretend, that’s how you remember pretence."
3. Omitted.
4. In one of the books I've read, one of the characters describes the city as a madhouse.



Saturday, March 18, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I learned reading the Oxford Essential German Dictionary the following:
Omitted.
cathedral - Dom
cookie - Keks
lettuce - salat
water - wasser



Saturday, March 11, 2023

Various Notes:
1. I read the first story of Dubliners, by James Joyce, "The Sisters." It is a short story about the death of The Rev. James Flynn, aged sixty-five years. Flynn was a nice man to all, in fact, the narrator's aunt said, "it's when it's all over that you'll miss him." However we learn that in the end of the story, his mind became affected, and when he died, many of his actions "made them think that something was gone wrong with him..."
2. Did you Know? Many of the short stories in Dubliners by James Joyce are available online. In addition to "The Sisters," I also enjoyed his "After the Race."
3. I received several more books in the mail: Plays by Anton Chekhov, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot, Dubliners by James Joyce, and Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. I'll be posting what I learn from them as I read them.



Today's Notes Friday, March 3, 2023

Here are some Various Notes:
1. According to Merriam-Webster's Italian-English Dictionary and The Oxford New Greek Dictionary:
1. cookie - biscotto; μπισκότο - mpiscoto
2. planet - planeta
3. Omitted.
5. soup - minestra, ...
6. water - acqua
2. Tba.



Today's Notes Friday, February 17, 2023

Various Notes:
1. In one novel I've read, the characters discuss miracles, and say that when electricity was first discovered it was considered a miracle, but it can be viewed as an ordinary phenomenon.
2. Tba.



Today's Notes Sunday, February 12, 2023

Various Notes:
1. In The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth, Wordsworth describes: the huge rocks, the winter sky, the grassy field, all imagery relevant to where I am staying in New York.
2. Tba.



Today's Notes Saturday, January 28, 2023

quotes, etc. from The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth:
1. Omitted.


quotes, etc. from Middlemarch by George Eliot
1. Omitted.
2. “We must have thought; else we shall be landed back in the dark ages.”




Various Notes:
1. I learned reading Letters from a Stoic by Seneca, of the existence of biblical commentaries.
2. Tba.



Today's Notes Saturday, January 21, 2023


Various Notes:
1. Omitted.
2. The History of British India by James Mill, John Stuart Mill’s father, is a book I learned about reading Autobiography by John Stuart Mill.
3. Omitted.



Today's Notes Thursday, January 19, 2023

Various Notes:
1. In Autobiography by John Stuart Mill, Mill writes that his early education consisted of a great deal of literature which included: the Greek philosophers, The Fairie Queen by Edmund Spenser, Shakespeare, political science, historical texts, etc.
2. American Women - Fifteen Hundred Biographies, by Frances Willard and Mary Livermore, is a two-volume collection that includes photographs and biographical sketches of approximately 1,500 women in America during the Nineteenth Century.
3. I learned reading Autobiography by John Stuart Mill that his father was stern, yet loving. One of the things his father taught him when reading was to pay close attention to the tone of the speaker. Mill's father also taught him in speech to regularly add a profound word, for eloquence.



Thursday, January 12, 2023

I. 1.Studies in the History of the Renaissance by Walter Pater:
2. The art of the Renaissance transports you to the Middle Ages.
3. You can also imagine the kind of music that individuals in the Renaissance listened to.
4. In Autobiography by John Stuart Mill the author indicates that Mill's father's belief in the divine authority of Christianity was established reading Butler's Analogy.
5. In Ray Charles: Man and Music, by Michael Lydon, Lydon suggests that blacks helped invent rock and roll. He indicates that Ray Charles helped the Beatles create music, and the Beatles helped Ray Charles create music, and they would work together in the recording studio to create music. Additionally, he notes that Eleanor Rigby, written by the Beatles, was a Lennon-McCartney song that intrigued Ray.
6. In Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye by David Ritz, Ritz indicates that Marvin Gaye was from the Baltimore-D.C. area. The author also indicates that Marvin Gaye was fond of listening to music. He would listen to The Orioles and "it was like a lighting bolt had struck him, tears would be streaming from his eyes." The author also indicates that Marvin Gaye admired control as an artist, that is, how other artists could control themselves while performing.
7. Cultural Psychology, was a college course that I was enrolled in. I learned that people have similarities and differences. I also learned that certain cultures are better at certain things. For example, blacks are better at singing soul music, and Asians are better at martial arts. The course also included a lesson suggesting that some intellectual concepts are like math, you have to know addition and subtraction before you can understand multiplication and algebra, for example, you have to know how to spell, and then how to compose a persuasive essay before you can write a newspaper article.


II. 1. The History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times... by Samuel Johnson is popular book. Johnson indicates that Oduduwa is a god of the Yoruba people. He also indicates that different patterns of tribal markings denote different family or tribal membership.
2. L'Homme du Soudan en costume algérien, by Charles Cordier, is a popular sculpture in the Musee d'Orsay, in Paris. It was created to illustrate the beauty of black people.



Wednesday, January 11, 2023




Hip Hop: A Positive Black Tradition

1. "Like other contemporary (or mostly black) traditions of music in America, hip hop music is a hybrid form traceable to speech and songs of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at least, and perhaps to traditions that are much older. Traditions of eloquence in black America.”
2. In African American literature, the vernacular refers to church songs, blues, ballads, sermons, stories, and, in our own era, hip hop songs that are part of the oral, nor primarily the literate (or written-down) tradition of black expression.
3. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century observers, black and white, recorded their fascination with black oral forms. Thomas Jefferson, for example, observed that musically the slaves "are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time." Nearly fifty years later, a Mississippi planter used conventionally racialized language to inform Frederick Law Olmstead that "niggers is allers good singers nat'rally. I reckon they got better lungs than white folks, they hev such powerful voices."

4. Hip hop music also comes from the stylized talk between verses that is characteristic of blues and rhythm and blues (and, some observers say, of all black American) song forms... It derives from playground, pool hall, barber shop, and beauty salon narration and argumentation and from the highly competitive boasts and toasts and from the dozens.
5. More immediately, hip hop sprang from the streets of uptown New York City in the late 1970s. According to historian Nelson George, it arrived 'via block parties and jams in public parks, sparked by the innovative moves of a handful of pioneering men.'
6. It was not long before the highly cadenced and highly competitive extended verbal play brought a new level of word artistry to the hip hop experience... hip hop music elicited a national excitement that soon spun through the Americas to Europe, Africa, and Asia.

7. Once "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugar Hill Gang--released on vinyl in twelve-inch sleeves and sold in store as Birdel's in the Bronx--unleashed a hurricane of enthusiasm among buyers, hip hop music elicited a national excitement that soon spun through the Americas to Europe, Africa, and Asia. The title of this first hit fastened the name rappers onto the performers, but old-school artists and new ones alike seem to prefer hip hop, and in the case of the oldest old schoolers, the performer's correct title was not rapper but M.C.
8. …But, as Nelson George and others have argued, if the themes of hip hop lyrics are often intense, do they not also echo such themes in U.S. culture at large?...by detailing in rivetingly raw terms life in the no-exit realm of the black urban poor. At times there is a political critique embedded in the lyrics...raises issues that our nation is still struggling to address.
9. In one section, indicates that sometimes blacks, like many other races, can be an insular people, that is, they can be unwilling to accept other people.

10. Other hip hop artists are explicitly progressive in their critiques of the socio-political systems that surround them. They even tap into the black prophetic tradition by urging listeners to awaken to new levels of political and spiritual consciousnesses, to read, and to prepare to take forthright action in a far-downfallen world.
11. It is vital to note that hip hop music began and to some degree still thrives not as an isolated phenomenon but as part of a larger hip hop culture. Like its parents, rhythm and blues and jazz, hip hop is at once an in-group ritual music, a performance music, and a dance music designed to make listeners move together. Hip hop culture includes social dances associated with its incredibly athletic spins, turns, robotic movements, and even possession-like trances. Hip hop culture embraces graffiti artists. Hip hop affects styles of dress, haircut, and self-decoration. Hip hop language influences everyday spoken language as well as formal writing: journalism, poetry, fiction, drama.
12. Usually eclipsed in discussions of hip hop's sociologiccal implications is this styles value as music and poetry. In the work of some, the alliteration is as startlingly inventive as the rhyme schemes, which depend on end rhymes and complex interlocking internal rhymes. This is an art of what one performer calls "verbal fire and ice," performed with and against a background of sounds pulled from any and every previously recorded music. Such sampling has given the music a self-conscious postmodern mix.

13. Omitted.
14. At times there is a political critique embedded in the lyrics: for all its vulgarity and violence, N.W.A.'s "Fuck da Police" raises issues of racial profiling and other forms of harassment that our nation is still struggling to address.
15. When hip hop is at its best, its lines vary in length without seeming forced or distended. The sense of humor--the impulse to parody and to signify--drives the work at least as much as its impulses to detail the lives of the urban underclass.

16. Hip hop is a music that makes room for young black performers to address black audiences concerning serious matters of disempowerment and the urgent need for fundamental change. Some of the most intriguing questions about this music involve its quest for authenticity; its relation to postmodernism; its geography beyond the confines of New York City and the urban northeastern United States; its international appeal; and its attractiveness to middle- and upper-class white Americans. To what degree is hip hop a youth culture as it is a black culture? How are these lines drawn? And again, how do we measure the art of musicians who play no instruments (in the conventional sense), vocal artists who generally do not sing, and poets whose rhymes are not written to be read on a page and that, alas, are generally too profane for anthologies such as this one."
17. Some artists/albums discussed in the Hip Hop section of this anthology include:
A. Gil Scott-Heron: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
B. Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: The Message
C. Public Enemy: Don't Believe the Hype
D. Queen Latifah: The Evil That Men Do
E. Eric B. & Rakim: I Ain't No Joke
F. Biggie Smalls (The Notorious B.I.G.): Things Done Changed
G. Nas: N.Y. State of Mind
H. N.W.A.: Straight Outta Compton

Source: The Norton Anthology of African American Literature, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay.




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