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.

During the Middle Ages people read aloud

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 224.

Everybody used to verbalize as they read. Indeed during the Middle Ages people read aloud, and everybody knows the story about the scholar who had to discontinue his studies because he had a sore throat. Because they verbalized — I hate that word, but I can’t find another — they truly took in — drank in, one might almost say — what they read and it was impressed on their minds forever.

When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins

Copybook headings are proverbs, adages and morals from Aesop's Fables which used to be printed at the top of copybook (workbooks, bluebooks, similar to spiral notebooks today) pages in England in the 19th century.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings
by Rudyard Kipling

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Most ready to hand

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 221

There are many ways of educating our feelings, but I recommend reading as that which is most ready to hand.

From the godlike to the villainous

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 221.

Anybody who cares about the matter knows that the intellect requires constant attention and renewal. The notion that someone who has graduated from a university has thereby been victualed for a long voyage through life as an intelligent human creature, is totally contradicted by common observation. And when I speak of intellect, you must not suppose that I mean merely that really rather humble ratiocinative ability — that power to reason about the ordinary concerns of life and to reach conclusions from given facts. I do not even mean that same ratiocinative faculty carried to a higher level, where it attacks complex, but still wholly finite problems. I use “intellect” to include all that vast realm of thinking and feeling that goes beyond the merely puzzle-solving work of the mind and establishes, so to speak, the very fabric and atmosphere in which life is lived and from which it is perceived. And when I talk of education I have no desire to belittle the powers of reason, but only to assert the power of feeling, the power of sympathy in the true meaning of that word, which enlarges our understanding of every aspect of our lives. We are quick to say that it is man’s power of abstract thought that separates him from the animal world, but how rarely do we say that it is man’s power to feel through a broader spectrum of emotion and sympathy that also makes him human — and, because human, capable of conduct that ranges from the godlike to the villainous.