The Growlery (May 2004),
Essays by
Michael Gilleland
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The Growlery (May 2004),
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Lucubrations
Aphorisms
E.B. White
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The Oxford English Dictionary defines lucubration as
The product of nocturnal study and meditation, hence a literary work showing signs of careful elaboration. Now somewhat derisive or playful, suggesting the notion of something pedantic or over-elaborate.The following miscellany coincides with this definition in a couple of ways. First, I'm afflicted with insomnia, and usually I scribble in the wee hours of the morning. Second, pedantry is my hallmark. But "careful elaboration" is not a characteristic of anything I write.
Saint Augustine described his reaction to liturgical music in these words:
| Confessions 9.6 | Translated by William Watts |
| Quantum flevi in hymnis et canticis tuis, suave sonantis ecclesiae tuae vocibus commotus acriter! Voces illae influebant auribus meis, et eliquebatur veritas in cor meum, et exaestuabat inde affectus pietatis, et currebant lacrimae, et bene mihi erat cum eis. | How abundantly did I weep to hear those hymns and canticles of thine, being touched to the very quick by the voices of thy sweet church song! Those voices flowed into mine ears, and thy truth pleasingly distilled into my heart, which caused the affections of my devotion to overflow, and my tears to run over, and happy did I find myself therein. |
Tears of a very different sort, alas, are likely to flow when we listen to most of what passes for liturgical music today -- tears of disgust and frustration.
So I was very surprised recently to hear a remarkably beautiful modern liturgical work, Thomas G. McFaul's masterpiece, his Mass in C minor. I have listened to it over and over, each time with increasing admiration and delight. It is what Thucydides called a "ktema es aei," a "possession for all time."
Biblical parodies aren't necessarily sacrilegious or blasphemous. Only an age confident and secure in its Christianity can make good-natured fun of Holy Writ. Such a time was the Middle Ages, from which arose this parody of the Lord's Prayer, part of a "Topers' Mass":
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Pater Bacche, qui est in schyphis, sanctificetur bonum vinum. Adveniat damnum tuum, fiat tempestas tua sicut in schypho sic etiam in taberna. Potum nostrum da nobis hodie. Et dimitte nobis pocula nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus compotatoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducat in ebrietatem, sed ne libera nos a vino. |
Father Bacchus, who art in the cups, hallowed be thy good wine. Thy ruin come, thy turmoil be done, in a cup as it is in the pub. Give us this day our daily drink. And forgive us our cups, as we forgive those who drink with us. And lead us not into drunkenness, but deliver us (not!) from wine. |
The Taoist version of the Lord's Prayer by Matthew Fox looks like a parody at first sight, but I'm afraid it's meant to be serious.
One the cleverest Biblical parodies is "The Latest Decalogue" by English poet Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861), a parody of the Ten Commandments:
Thou shalt have one God only; whoClough's parody is effective because it pokes gentle fun at religious hypocrites who pay lip service only to the Ten Commandments and manipulate them for wordly gain.
Would tax himself to worship two?
God's image nowhere shalt thou see,
Save haply in the currency:
Swear not at all; since for thy curse
Thine enemy is not the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will help to keep the world thy friend:
Honor thy parents; that is, all
From whom promotion may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Adultery it is not fit
Or safe, for women, to commit:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When 'tis so lucrative to cheat:
False witness not to bear be strict;
And cautious, ere you contradict.
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Sanctions the keenest competition.
On the other hand, "The Shrink's 23rd Psalm" might amuse professional psychologists familiar with its jargon, but it is a satire on pop psychology, not an engagement with Holy Scripture. What humor there is, is simply the result of combining some archaisms from the King James Bible with modern psychobabble:
The Lord is my external-internal integrative mechanism,
I shall not be deprived of gratification for my viscerogenic hungers or my need-dispositions.
He motivates me to orient myself toward a non-social object with affective significance.
He positions me in a non-decisional situation.
He maximizes my adjustment.
Although I entertain masochistic and self-destructive id impulses,
I will maintain contact with reality, for my superego is dominant.
His analysis and tranquilizers, they comfort me.
He assists in the resolution of my internal conflicts despite my Oedipal problem and psychopathic compulsions.
He promotes my group identification.
My personality is totally integrated.
Surely my prestige and status shall be enhanced as a direct function of time,
And I shall remain sociologically, psychologically and economically secure forever.
My favorite anecdote about English poet Christopher Smart (1722-1771) comes from Boswell's Life of Johnson (1763 aetat. 54). Talking about Smart's confinement in a mad-house, Johnson said: "I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I’d as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it."
Many cat lovers are probably familiar with the passage
from Kit Smart's Jubilate Agno which starts with
the line "For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry" and continues
for a hundred or so lines, each line starting with the word "For".
I just recently discovered it, so pardon
my delight and enthusiasm for this gem, equal parts praise
of Jeoffry and God. Some of my favorite lines:
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving Him.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incompleat without him.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what
it wants in musick.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
Read the whole thing.
Robert Wilensky said, "We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true." The truth of that statement struck me with special force recently when I encountered a quintessentially stupid web page.
On The Free Dictionary web site, there's a definition of the obscure English word gare, meaning "coarse wool on the legs of sheep," an unobjectionable definition copied from Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913).
What is absurd, however, are the quotations which the Free Dictionary provides to illustrate its definition:
In none of these quotations can you substitute "coarse wool on the legs of sheep" for "gare". In all three examples, obviously, we have to do with French. In the first two quotations, "gare" is the French word for a railway station, and in the third, "gare" is the French exclamation "Beware!" Beware indeed! Gare aux dictionnaires gratuits!
This is perhaps an extreme example, but a useful one, of the cardinal principle that you can't trust what you find on the Internet. A less blatant, but no less erroneous, example can be found on the Perseus web site. Among the many ancient texts on that site are the Odes of the Roman poet Horace, in the original Latin, with a hypertext link attached to each and every word. It's the ultimate crib. In my day, the struggling Latin student had to look up each unfamiliar word in a dictionary -- now all you have to do is click your mouse.
If you click on the word "levi" at Horace's Ode 1.20.3 on the Perseus web site, a little window pops up, with two possible definitions: levis = light, not heavy; levis = smooth, smoothed, not rough. The trouble is that "levi" in the line from Horace has nothing whatsoever to do with either of these Latin adjectives. It is first person singular perfect of the verb "lino" = "smear", and here it means "I smeared." This mistake came to my attention when someone, puzzled about the explanation on the Perseus web site, asked me for clarification via email. I applaud his doubt and refusal to place blind trust in a supposedly reputable and authoritative (but in this case incorrect) web site.
Doubtless there are those to whom this is mere pedantic quibbling. To them I can only reply with the pedant's ultimate defence, "He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much" (Luke 16:10).
Maybe one day the errors on these two web sites (The Free Dictionary and Perseus) will be corrected. I'm not holding my breath waiting, though.
I have no formal philosophical training, and it's as difficult for me to follow a sustained philosophical argument as it is for me to comprehend a complex mathematical proof. Philosophers and mathematicians dwell on intellectual mountain tops, and I quickly lose my breath when I try to scale those heights.
One genre of philosophical writing which I can follow more easily is the collection of aphorisms, and I'm grateful to those philosophers and thinkers who have cast their golden thoughts into this more accessible mold. What follows is a selection of quotations from some of my favorite aphorists.
Gracián was a Jesuit priest whose worldly
Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia
scandalized the superiors of his order.
His aphorisms were much admired
by the 19th century philosophers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.
Master your antipathies. We often allow ourselves to form dislikes of
people, even before we know anything about them. (46)
You may know a noble spirit by the elevation of
his taste. Only a great thing can satisfy a great mind. (65)
Chose a heroic ideal. Emulate rather than imitate. (75)
Get used to the failings of those around you. Just as you would to an ugly
face. (115)
Do not hold your views too firmly. Every fool is firmly convinced, and
everyone fully persuaded is a fool; the more erroneous his judgement the more
firmly he holds it. (183)
Know your chief fault. There is no one lives who has not in himself a
counterbalance to his most conspicuous merit, and if it is nourished by desire
it may grow to be a tyrant. (225)
The wise do at once what the fool does later. Both do the same thing - the
only difference lies in the time they do it: the one at the right time, the
other at the wrong. (268)
Always act as if others were watching. (297)
In his short life Pascal achieved distinction not only as a philosopher and theologian, but as a scientist and mathematician. Some scientists and mathematicians regret his absorption in philosophy and theology, while some theologians and philosophers lament the time he wasted on science and mathematics.
Pascal's aphorisms are accidental -- what are called his Pensées are actually fragmentary notes for a defence of Christianity left incomplete at the time of his death.
The greater intellect one has, the more originality one finds in men.
Ordinary persons find no difference between men. (7)
Do you wish people to believe good of you? Don't speak. (44)
It is natural for the mind to believe, and for the will to love;
so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves
to false. (81)
If all men knew what each said of the other, there would
not be four friends in the world. (101)
A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us. (136)
All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they
cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. (139)
Men despise religion; they hate it, and fear it is true. (187)
Let us act as if we had only eight hours to live. (203)
The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him. (280)
It is not good to have too much liberty.
It is not good to have all one wants. (379)
Two errors: 1. To take everything literally. 2. To take
everything spiritually. (647)
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it
from religious conviction. (894)
Lichtenberg taught scientific subjects at the University of
Göttingen, but his reputation rests not on any scientific discoveries,
but on the aphorisms collected in his Sudelbücher ("waste
books").
The following quotations come from The Lichtenberg Reader,
translated and edited by Franz Mautner and
Henry Hatfield (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959).
People who have taken no intellectual food for ten years, except a few
tiny crumbs from the journals, are found even among the professors;
they aren't rare at all. (p. 74)
The scribble-book method is most warmly to be recommended.
To leave no idiom, no expression unwritten. We can acquire riches
by saving up the penny truths, too. (p. 80)
Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses
simply have their bright ideas closer together.
He who is in love with himself has at least this advantage -- he
won't encounter many rivals in his love. (p. 84)
When he philosophizes, he usually casts agreeable moonlight over
the objects treated. Generally it's pleasing, but it doesn't show
one single object distinctly. (p. 98)
I recommend the excellent essay on Lichtenberg by
Roger Kimball, who defines aphorisms as
"insights shorn of supporting ratiocination."
Lichtenberg died over two centuries ago, and most of his writings
are still awaiting translation into English.
Leopardi has some superficial resemblances with other aphorists represented here. He lived about as long as Pascal, and like Lichtenberg he was a hunchback. But the real resemblances are spiritual. The following selections are from his Pensieri, translated by W.S. Di Piero (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).
Death is not evil, for it frees man from all ills and takes away
his desires along with desire's rewards. Old age is the supreme
evil, for it deprives man of all pleasures while allowing his appetites
to remain, and it brings with it every possible sorrow. Yet
men fear death and desire old age. (VI)
We can be sure that most of the people we appoint to educate our
children have not been educated. Yet we assume that they can give
something they have not themselves received, and that this is the only
way one can get an education. (X)
I may be wrong, but it seems rare in our age to find a widely
praised person whose own mouth is not the source of that praise. (XXIV)
The human race, from the individual on up, and even in its smallest
units, is split into two camps: the bullies and the bullied. Neither
law nor force of any kind, nor advancements in civilization and philosophy,
can prevent men now or in the future from belonging to one of these two
camps. So, he who can choose, must choose. Although not everyone is able,
nor is the choice always available. (XXVIII)
Nietzsche started his adult life as professor of philology in the University of Basle. He ended it in an insane asylum.
The selections which follow are taken from Human, All Too Human, translated by R.J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
Shadows in the flame. - The flame is not so bright to itself
as it is to those it illumines: so too the sage. (p. 187)
Passion and rights. - No one talks more passionately about his
rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any. (p. 191)
Farce of many of the industrious. - Through an excess of
exertion they gain for themselves free time, and afterwards have no
idea what to do with it except to count the hours until it has expired. (p. 225)
Of the salt of speech. - No one has ever explained why the Greek
writers made so thrifty a use of the means of expression available
to them in such unheard-of strength and abundance that every book that
comes after them seems by comparison lurid, glaring and exaggerated. (p. 238)
To one who is praised. - So long as you are praised think only that
you are not yet on your own path but on that of another. (p. 290)
Artistic convention. - Three-quarters of Homer is convention; and the
same is true of all Greek artists, who had no reason to fall prey to the modern
rage for originality. They lacked all fear of convention; it was through this,
indeed, that they were united with their public. (p. 339)
Measure of wisdom. - Growth in wisdom can be measured
precisely by decline in bile. (p. 393)
Nicolás Gómez Dávila, 1930 |
The Colombian philosopher Nicolás Gómez Dávila is little known in the English-speaking world. He published three collections of aphorisms:
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Nicolás Gómez Dávila, 1990 |
At the time of his death, Gómez Dávila was studying Danish, in order
to read Kierkegaard in the original. I've recently started studying
Spanish, in order to read Gómez Dávila in the original.
All of the following
aphorisms come from his Escolios a un texto implicito
(Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano di Cultura, 1977), volume 1.
An "ideal society" would be the graveyard of human greatness. (p. 19)
The authenticity of the feeling depends on the clarity of the thought. (p. 24)
To refuse to wonder is the mark of the beast. (p. 25)
Genuine allegiance to an idea surpasses every psychological or social
motivation. (p. 28)
Vulgarity consists in pretending to be what we are not. (p. 37)
[Cf. Leopardi, Pensieri XCIX: "People are ridiculous only when they
try to seem or to be what they are not."]
The incoherent interlocutor is more irritating than the hostile one. (p. 39)
The genuine coherence of our ideas does not come from the reasoning
that ties them together, but from the spiritual impulse that gives
rise to them. (p. 40)
Confused ideas and muddy ponds appear deep. (p. 40)
A philosopher who adopts scientific notions predetermines
his conclusions. (p. 47)
To think like our contemporaries is a recipe for prosperity and stupidity. (p. 53)
All literature is contemporary to the reader who knows how to read. (p. 57)
A happy existence is as much of a model as a virtuous one. (p. 62)
To depend on God alone is our true autonomy. (p. 65)
Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization.
Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values
which created it. (p. 70)
[Cf. John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814:
"Remember, democracy never lasts long.
It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.
There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."]
Perfection is the point where what we can do and what we want to do
coincide with what we ought to do. (p. 113)
Modern man does not love, but seeks refuge in love;
does not hope, but seeks refuge in hope;
does not believe, but seeks refuge in a dogma. (p. 212)
Every marriage of an intellectual with the communist party ends in adultery.
(p. 237)
Modern man destroys more when he builds than when he destroys. (p. 251)
Contemporary literature, in each and every epoch,
is the worst enemy of culture. A reader's limited
time is wasted in reading a thousand books that blunt
his critical sense and damage his literary sensibility. (p. 258)
The Biblical prophet doesn't predict the future, but bears
witness to the presence of God in history. (p. 262)
Civilization is a poorly fortified encampment in the midst
of rebellious tribes. (p. 268)
In an age in which the media broadcast countless pieces of
foolishness, the educated man is defined not by what he knows,
but by what he doesn't know.
Contemporary political ideologies are false in what they affirm
and true in what they deny. (p. 275)
The supreme aristocrat is not the feudal lord in his castle
but the contemplative monk in his cell. (p. 306)
Philosophy is a literary genre. (p. 312)
The writer who loves or hates is less persuasive than
the one who loves and hates. (p. 315)
To have opinions is the best way to escape the obligation
of thinking. (p. 324)
[Cf. Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, p. 179:
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."]
I distrust every idea that doesn't seem obsolete and grotesque to
my contemporaries. (p. 353)
The Church used to absolve sinners; today it has the gall to
absolve sins. (p. 378)
There are not a few French historians who think that the
history of the world is an episode in the history of France. (p. 386)
Many love humanity only in order to forget God with a clear
conscience. (p. 388)
Nothing multiplies the number of fools so much as
the example of celebrities. (p. 393)
Civilization seems to be the invention of a species
now extinct. (p. 398)
In the Christian obsessed with "social justice" it isn't
easy to discern whether charity is flourishing or faith is expiring.
(p. 403)
Egalitarian ideas distort our perception of the present and,
in addition, mutilate our vision of the past. (p. 448)
Gómez Dávila died ten years ago. There may be many contemporary philosophers writing aphorisms, but the only one known to me is William Vallicella. Of the twenty manuscript volumes of his journal, only a small portion is available, and that only in cyberspace, as Aphorisms and Observations: From the Journal of a Philosopher. The following quotations come from volume 19.
The present moment is not eternity, but it is closer to eternity
than the past or future.
Athens and Jerusalem. Must we choose between them? If I were a
colossus, I would stand astride them, with one foot in each.
[Vallicella is confronting Tertullian's famous dichotomy
between philosophy and religion in
De praescriptione haereticorum
7.9 -- "Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis?" (What then do Athens and
Jerusalem have in common?).]
On the word 'philosophy.' This noblest of noble words is too often
foolishly misused. To use 'philosophy' to refer to any old
policy -- 'Our philosophy is that the customer is always right' -- is a bit
like using a fine silk shirt to clean out a drainpipe. But this not
the worst of it. 'Philosophy' refers to an activity, discursive
reason's quest for the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters.
Thus it does not refer to any particular doctrine or proposition, to
any particular product of this activity.
The pathetic limitations of people. No inquiry, no development, no
openness. They are stuck in their pasts, condemned to repeat their
stale 'truths.' Dead at age 20, they are not buried until 80. They
do not learn; they do not want to learn. They are self-satisfied in
their ignorance. But they serve a purpose: they illustrate how not
to live. But their purpose would be just as well served if there
weren't so many of them.
Misanthropy. You say I am a misanthrope? I deny the charge. It is
a precisely because of my lofty view of human possibilities that I
look askance at the present state of humanity.
Can you get through the next hour? The present can always be
borne – if sliced thinly enough – and it is only the present that must be
borne.
On making wine. Press the grapes of experience for the wine of
wisdom. But then discard the grapes, especially the sour grapes and
the grapes of wrath.
Philosopher’s prayer. Grant me a mind clear enough to discern the
truth, a heart pure enough to embrace it without reservation, and a
will strong enough to implement it in my life.
It's interesting to compare the philosopher's prayer by Vallicella with the prayer of another philosopher, Thomas Aquinas:
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Concede mihi, misericors Deus, quae tibi sunt placita, ardenter concupiscere, prudenter investigare, veraciter agnoscere, et perfecte adimplere ad laudem et gloriam Nominis tui. |
Grant, O Merciful God, that I may ardently desire, prudently examine, truthfully acknowledge, and perfectly accomplish what is pleasing to Thee for the praise and glory of Thy name. |
I hope that Vallicella has appointed a literary executor. It would be a great loss if anything were to happen to the author before his aphorisms and observations achieve the unabridged publication they so richly deserve.
The "back to the land" movement has been a persistent undercurrent in American life, at least since the failed Brook Farm experiment. Two city-dwellers who went back to the land in Maine are Scott Nearing (1883-1983) and E.B. White (1899-1985). Both retreated to saltwater farms in Hancock County, Nearing to Harborside on Penobscot Bay in 1932, and White to North Brooklin on Blue Hill Bay in 1939. Nearing's uncompromising stands on vegetarianism, socialism, and pacifism made him a hero to many, a sort of Old Testament prophet, uttering jeremiads for the improvement of a sinful mankind. His Forest Farm is a shrine today, open to the public. White was a more tolerant and easy-going observer and recorder of life's foibles. Although they lived less than twenty miles apart, I don't know if the two ever met. In my youth I was an ardent admirer and avid reader of Scott Nearing, but the older I get, the saner and more sympathetic E.B. White appears to me. On my next trip to Maine, I'd like to go on a pilgrimage to North Brooklin, to see if I can locate his farm.
His name on the printed page was E.B. White, but his given name was Elwyn Brooks White. His friends called him Andy. He is perhaps best known these days for his children's books (Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and The Trumpet of the Swan), but I've recently been reading his One Man's Meat (1942) and Essays (1977). The very title One Man's Meat, from the proverb "One man's meat is another man's poison," illustrates E.B. White's fundamentally commonsense outlook on life. He doesn't presume to legislate for all of humanity, but merely describes what has and hasn't worked for him. As an essayist, he stands in the tradition of the tolerant Montaigne, rather than the opinionated Dr. Johnson.
If I had to pick out favorites among these essays, I might choose "The World of Tomorrow," on the 1939 World's Fair, and two essays on Thoreau -- "Walden," on a trip to the site of Thoreau's retreat and "A Slight Sound at Evening," on Thoreau's book Walden.
President Bush's doctrine of preemption has come in for a lot of criticism lately. E.B. White had the same idea in his essay on "Compost" (June 1940):
Let us suppose we had adopted my principles of warfare a couple of years ago at the time of Germany's torture of the Jews. The President would have cabled the Nazi government the following message: CUT OUT TORMENTING MINORITIES -- ROOSEVELT. He would then have dispatched a destroyer carrying a party of Marines, landed them at a German port, rescued two or three dozen Jewish families from the campaign of hate, and shot up a few military police in a surprise movement.That probably would have shocked E.B. White's neighbor Scott Nearing, but White's belligerence seems more humane to me than Nearing's doctrinaire pacifism.
A wave of nostalgia sweeps over me as I read some of these essays. "Riposte" (Essays, pp. 60-61) is all about brown eggs. I don't think I ever saw, much less tasted, a white egg until I had reached man's estate. I can still picture our egg man, Mr. Gray, at the front door, puffing on a stogie, peddling the brown eggs which he had just gathered from his farm. In a 1962 postscript to "The Railroad" (Essays, pp. 208-221), White writes:
In those last days of the rails in Maine, I remember most clearly the remark of a Bangor citizen, which I read in the paper. This fellow was downtown on the day after the razing of the depot; he stared in surprise at the new vista. "Hey!" he said. "You can see Brewer from Exchange Street!" (Brewer is Bangor's twin, a few hundred yards distant across the river.)I recall dropping my father off at that very train depot, when he made a business trip to Portland, and picking him up there afterwards. Walking down Exchange Street, on my way to the Bijou movie theater or the public library, was always an adventure -- I often had to step over the drunks passed out on the sidewalk. I walked the "few hundred yards" separating Brewer from Bangor several times a week, across the "old bridge" which spanned the Penobscot River. Even the old bridge is gone now. My brother managed to get hold of a piece of it after it was torn down, as a keepsake.
But back to E.B. White. His tender "Afternoon of an American Boy" (Essays, pp. 157-161) will strike a chord in the heart of any shy boy or man who has struggled for weeks before summoning up the courage to ask a girl out on a date. It reminded me of a beautifully written essay I read recently, Paul Z. Myer's bittersweet Teenage Confessions.
For twenty years or so, I faithfully kept a "commonplace book," in which I jotted down quotations from my reading. I have half a dozen notebooks full. Unfortunately I let the habit lapse. If I had kept it up, here are some quotations from E.B. White which would find a place in the pages of my commonplace book:
People who favor progress and improvements are apt to be people who have had a tough enough time without any extra inconvenience. Reactionaries who pout at innovations are apt to be well-heeled sentimentalists who had the breaks. Yet for all that, there is always a subtle danger in life's improvements, a dim degeneracy in progress. ("Progress and Change," December 1938)
I believe in freedom with the same burning delight, the same faith, the same intense abandon which attended its birth on this continent more than a century and a half ago. ("Freedom," July 1940)
"It is a sin against Nature," she says, "to resist change." But I think I shall go on resisting any change I disapprove of, for I do not think change, per se, is anything much, nor that change is necessarily good. ("The Wave of the Future," December 1940, a review of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's book of that title)
In the kitchen cabinet is a bag of oranges for morning juice. Each orange is stamped "Color Added." The dyeing of an orange, to make it orange, is Man's most impudent gesture to date. It is really an appalling piece of effrontery, carrying the clear implication that Nature doesn't know what she is up to. I think an orange, dyed orange, is as repulsive as a pine cone painted green. I think it is about as ugly a thing as I have ever seen, and it seems hard to believe that here, within ten miles, probably, of the trees which bore the fruit, I can't buy an orange which somebody hasn't smeared with paint. But I doubt that there are many who feel that way about it, because fraudulence has become a national virtue and is well thought of in many circles. ("On a Florida Key," February 1941)
I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or nonpolitical, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright. The beauty of the American free press is that the slants and the twists and the distortions come from so many directions, and the special interests are so numerous, the reader must sift and sort and check and countercheck in order to find out what the score is. This he does. It is only when a press gets a twist from a single source, as in the case of government-controlled press systems, that the reader is licked. ("Bedfellows," February 1956)
Security declines as security machinery expands. ("Bedfellows," February 1956)
Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man. ("Some Remarks on Humor," 1941)