Despite decades of warnings from all corners not to become too dependent on Russian gas and to maintain and expand their nuclear infrastructure, European leaders from the 1990s on have turned away from dependable nuclear power, towards renewables (which feel virtuous but are not reliable) and are now hoisted on the long predicted petard. Russia is shutting off the gas and Europe has no energy supplies to make up the deficit.
Crash programs are coming in to focus during the summer in anticipation of fall and winter and it sounds like the solutions are largely along the lines of "get wool clothing, its going to be cold."
In that context I read this poem by James Clerk Maxwell who, in addition to being a pioneer in physics, was also a dab hand at poetry. I love the title.
Lines written under the conviction that it is not wise to read Mathematics in November after one’s fire is outBy James Clerk MaxwellIn the sad November time,When the leaf has left the lime,And the Cam, with sludge and slime,Plasters his ugly channel,While, with sober step and slow,Round about the marshes low,Stiffening students stumping goShivering through their flannel.Then to me in doleful moodRises up a question rude,Asking what sufficient goodComes of this mode of living?Moping on from day to day,Grinding up what will not “pay,”Till the jaded brain gives wayUnder its own misgiving.Why should wretched Man employYears which Nature meant for joy,Striving vainly to destroyFreedom of thought and feeling?Still the injured powers remainEndless stores of hopeless pain,When at last the vanquished brainLanguishes past all healing.Where is then his wealth of mind—All the schemes that Hope designed?Gone, like spring, to leave behindIndolent melancholy.Thus he ends his helpless days,Vex’t with thoughts of former praise—Tell me, how are Wisdom’s waysBetter than senseless Folly?Happier those whom trifles please,Dreaming out a life of ease,Sinking by unfelt degreesInto annihilation.Or the slave, to labour born,Heedless of the freeman’s scorn,Destined to be slowly wornDown to the brute creation.Thus a tempting spirit spoke,As from troubled sleep I wokeTo a morning thick with smoke,Sunless and damp and chilly.Then to sleep I turned once more,Eyes inflamed and windpipe sore,Dreaming dreams I dreamt before,Only not quite so silly.In my dream methought I strayedWhere a learned-looking maidStores of flimsy goods displayed,Articles not worth wearing.“These,” she said, with solemn air,“Are the robes that sages wear,Warranted, when kept with care,Never to need repairing.”Then unnumbered witlings, caughtBy her wiles, the trappings bought,And by labour, not by thought,Honour and fame were earning.While the men of wiser mindPassed for blind among the blind;Pedants left them far behindIn the career of learning.“Those that fix their eager eyesEver on the nearest prizeWell may venture to despiseLoftier aspirations.Pedantry is in demand!Buy it up at second-hand,Seek no more to understandProfitless speculations.”Thus the gaudy gowns were sold,Cast off sloughs of pedants old;Proudly marched the students boldThrough the domain of error,Till their trappings, false though fair,Mouldered off and left them bare,Clustering close in blank despair,Nakedness, cold, and terror.Then, I said, “These haughty SchoolsBoast that by their formal rulesThey produce more learned foolsThan could be well expected.Learned fools they are indeed,Learned in the books they read;Fools whene’er they come to needWisdom, too long neglected.“Oh! that men indeed were wise,And would raise their purblind eyesTo the opening mysteriesScattered around them ever.Truth should spring from sterile ground,Beauty beam from all around,Right should then at last be foundJoining what none may sever.”
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