Her passengers were all middle-aged Germans, unbelieavbly ugly but dressed with courage and enterprise

Evelyn Waugh, When the Going Was Good. An account of travels between 1929-1935, destinations including Brazil, South Africa, British Guiana, the Mediterranean and Abyssinia.

A greater frankness in discussing national traits than we are accustomed to today.

We ran into the bay early on Sunday morning, and moored alongside the quay. There was a German-owned tourist ship in the harbour, which we were to see several times during the next few weeks, as she was following practically the same lines as the Stella, but the officers spoke contemptuously of her seaworthiness. She had capsized, they said, on the day she was launched, and was now ballasted with concrete. She carried a small black aeroplane on her deck, and the passengers paid about five guineas a time to fly over the harbour. At night her name appeared on the boat deck in illuminated letters. She had two bands which played almost incessantly. Her passengers were all middle-aged Germans, unbelievably ugly but dressed with courage and enterprise. One man wore a morning coat, white trousers, and a beret. Everyone in the Stella felt great contempt for this vulgar ship.

Why, yes, he said, all the hotels in Monaco were better than this one

Evelyn Waugh, When the Going Was Good. An account of travels between 1929-1935, destinations including Brazil, South Africa, British Guiana, the Mediterranean and Abyssinia. Not only a different era but almost a different world.

The station at Monaco is very small and unpretending. The only porter I could find belonged to an hotel with a fairly reputable-sounding name. He took my suitcase and led me through the falling snow, down the hill to his hotel. It was a pension in a side street. There was a small lounge full of basket chairs in which elderly Englishwomen sat sewing. I asked the porter whether there was not a better hotel at Monaco. Why, yes, he said, all the hotels in Monaco were better than this one. So he picked up my suitcase again and we went out into the snow, pursued by a manageress, and soon reached a larger hotel facing the harbour.

Intelligence sprouts where it will and is spent day by day like income for incessant needs

The House of the Intellect by Jacques Barzun. Page 5.

Shades of E.D. Hirsch in Cultural Literacy.

Intellect is community property and can be handed down. We all know what we mean by an intellectual tradition, localized here or there; but we do not speak of a 'tradition of intelligence,' for intelligence sprouts where it will and is spent day by day like income for incessant needs. Intelligence is the native ability of the creature to achieve its ends by varying the use of its powers - living, as we say, by its wits. Accordingly, we can distinguish the intelligent from the stupid throughout the scale of sentient beings: an intelligent, but not intellectual, dog or child; an intellectual, but not intelligent, bluestocking or university professor. Intelligence is by definition the protean faculty. We find it in a political move or in a work of art, in the performance of a football team or in a piece of repartee, none of which are specifically intellectual. And though Intellect neither implies nor precludes intelligence, two of its uses are - to make up for the lack of intelligence and to amplify the force of it by giving it quick recognition and embodiment.

For intelligence wherever found is an individual and private possession; it dies with the owner unless he embodies it in more or less lasting form. Intellect is on the contrary a product of social effort and an acquirement. A man cannot help being intelligent, but he can easily help becoming an intellectual. Intellect is an institution; it stands up as it were by itself, apart from possessors of intelligence, even though they alone could rebuild it if it should be destroyed.

The measure of the age in which you live

I am reading a collection of essays and speeches by Robertson Davies, The Merry Heart.

There are two lectures, Reading and Writing, which he delivered as part of Yale University's Tanner lecture series. Filled with marvellous quotes and thoughts. Page 232.

Our grandparents used to say that we must eat a peck of dirt before we die, and they were right. And you must read a lot of rubbish before you die, as well, because an exclusive diet of masterpieces will give you spiritual dyspepsia. How can you know that a mountain peak is glorious if you have never scrambled through a dirty valley? How do you know that your gourmet meal is perfect in its kind if you have never eaten a roadside hot dog? If you want to know what a masterpiece The Pilgrim’s Progress is, read Bonfire of the Vanities, and if you have any taste — which of course may not be the case — you will quickly find out. So I advise you, as well as reading great books that I have been talking about, read some current books and some periodicals. They will help you to take the measure of the age in which you live.

The worst, and even the mediocre, must be taken for granted as a cultural constant

The House of the Intellect by Jacques Barzun. Page xiii.

I would also ask the reader to remember that in a critical description of this sort only examples of the best have any probative value. And by the best I mean the most developed, the most serious, the most highly regarded efforts in any relevant kind. The worst, and even the mediocre, must be taken for granted as a cultural constant. It is waste of time to belabor shady schools, corrupt journals, stupid government officials, and unscrupulous exploiters of the eternally gullible. The ignorance of the unlettered takes no scrutiny to establish. What we need to plumb is the ignorance of the educated and the anti-intellectualism of the intellectual. What matters to a nation is whether the best product, or in certain cases the high average, which prides itself on excellence, deserves its reputation.

Nobody ever reads the same book twice

I am reading a collection of essays and speeches by Robertson Davies, The Merry Heart.

There are two lectures, Reading and Writing, which he delivered as part of Yale University's Tanner lecture series. Filled with marvellous quotes and thoughts. Page 228.

What I have just said about rereading is a point I should like to stress. The great sin, as I have said, is to assume that something that has been read once has been read forever. . . . Nobody ever reads the same book twice.

Mind disciplined in specified ways to overcome Difficulty

From The House of Intellect by Jacques Barzun. Page ix.

It is interesting to me to see these sentiments expressed in this book from 1959 and which so clearly echo common sentiments of today. The Teacher, as always, was right, "there is nothing new under the sun." The elder thinkers in every generation are cautiously skeptical of those that are coming after them. Sometimes that skepticism is well merited, sometimes not.

The thought to which Barzun gives voice (and a thought which has a tradition going back centuries), is perhaps not ever one of a specific concrete concern, but more of a general rallying cry to the idea that we should protect that which apparently has brought us so far. In our case, the sentiments and motivations of the Enlightenment. We may not correctly identify the specific elements within our traditions which make the most difference, but the general sentiment to be cautious of changing that which has worked so well is not misplaced. A recent example of the native and unreflecting hostility shown by our leaders to basic rights (freedom of speech, freedome of religion) demonstrates just how pervasive has become the isolation of broad segments of the chattering classes, and what passes for their thinking, from the traditions of the Enlightenment.

So here, from 52 years ago, is a contemporary complaint.

The most obvious feature of the phase of civilization we are in is the flattening of the merit curve. It is almost level - a wobbly line. The demand for competence is weak. This is acknowledged in the cliche 'decline of standards,' which applies to every institution, from schooling to the professions and from manners to language. Error, often born of indifference, is accepted, indeed saluted, as a proof of 'being human.' The word 'elitism' has arisen to condemn any expression of desire for what is in any way high. All these attitudes are validated to the possessors by the conviction that to display and act upon them is 'democratic.'

Clearly, every impulse behind this general surrender is inimical to Intellect, since it is mind disciplined in specified ways to overcome Difficulty. This discipline implies things now abhorred - rigor, power, authority, superiority.

Also the names of Emory P. Gray

A revision of one of my favorite poems, the original, Ozymandias by Shelley.

Ozymandias Revisited
by Morris Bishop

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said —“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Also the names of Emory P. Gray,
Mr. and Mrs. Dukes, and Oscar Baer
Of 17 West 4th St., Oyster Bay.”

Not the sea, but the sound of the sea

What is poetry?
by Eleanor Farjeon

What is poetry? Who knows?
Not the rose, but the scent of the rose;
Not the sky, but the light of the sky;
Not the fly, but the gleam of the fly;
Not the sea, but the sound of the sea;
Not myself, but what makes me
See, hear, and feel something that prose
Cannot; and what is it, who knows?

I met an elf man in the woods

How To Treat Elves
by Morris Bishop

I met an elf man in the woods,
The wee-est little elf!
Sitting under a mushroom tall--
'Twas taller than himself!

"How do you do, little elf," I said,
"And what do you do all day?"
"I dance 'n fwolic about," said he,
"'N scuttle about and play;"

"I s'prise the butterflies, 'n when
A katydid I see,
'Katy didn't' I say, and he
Says 'Katy did!' to me!

"I hide behind my mushroom stalk
When Mister Mole comes froo,
'N only jus' to fwighten him
I jump out'n say 'Boo!'

"'N then I swing on a cobweb swing
Up in the air so high,
'N the cwickets chirp to hear me sing
'Upsy-daisy-die!'

"'N then I play with the baby chicks,
I call them, chick chick chick!
'N what do you think of that?" said he.
I said, "It makes me sick.

"It gives me sharp and shooting pains
To listen to such drool."
I lifted up my foot, and squashed
The God damn little fool.