Thursday, December 29, 2011
The News For Parrots ~ No Bounds of Fiction
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
The News For Parrots ~ Like a Twitter on a Wire
Influence of the Telegraph Upon Literature
The United States Magazine and Democratic Review
Vol. 22, May, 1848
INFLUENCE OF THE TELEGRAPH UPON LITERATURE.
The Telegraph has ceased to be a wonder. Its astonishing exhibition of human skill no longer excites our admiration. The emotions which the actual display of its magical powers excited in the minds of all beholders— the speculations to which it gave rise among the philosophical—the indefinable visions of commercial advantage which crowded upon the scheming brain of the capitalist and the ignorant wonder of the vulgar, have all passed away, and given place to more practical considerations. And now, amid applications for patents and contracts for constructing lines and the setting up of telegraph offices all over the land, we beg to be excused if we step aside for a moment into an untrodden path, and indulge in a few reflections upon the influence which the Telegraph will have upon literature.
We do not intend to speak of the universal diffusion of intelligence among the mass of the people, which every such great movement is calculated to promote—nor of the consequent increase in the number of those who will devote themselves to learning, and who will unite to lay the foundations of the great Republic of Letters in the West. We shall confine our remarks to a comparatively unimportant branch of the subject—its effect upon Style in Composition. Perhaps a slight sneer disfigures your pretty face, gentle reader, if you have one, at this paradoxical announcement. Perhaps you imagine that there is about as much connection between the two as there is between the shape of a cow's horn and the taste of her butter. We will try to cure you of that, and convince you that " there is something in it," as people say of animal magnetism or any other inexplicable wonder. We are to speak of its probable effect upon Style in Composition. That a great revolution is effecting in this department of literature, or rather that there is manifested a continual progressive tendency towards perfection, must be apparent to every careful observer. The complicated periods which were once so much in vogue—the sentence within sentence, armed with all the paraphernalia of comma, semicolon, colon and dash, and dragging their slow length over almost an entire page before the " full stop" put a period at once to their existence and the reader's perplexity—have been gradually disappearing—having either fallen to pieces from their own clumsy construction, or been shattered by the critic's hammer. The florid verbosity which characterised the ore rotunda style of Dr. Johnson; the polished sentences of Addison, whose smoothly gliding periods might almost have been set to music—have been gradually giving way to a more nervous and rhetorically perfect style. The human race seems ever on the march toward perfection in the use of the instruments which Providence has placed in its hands. At no period of his existence has the material appropriated to the use of man been so economically or skilfully employed as at present. Language is as important an auxiliary to man as the motive power of water or steam, the principles of mechanics, or the facilities which the locomotive or the Telegraph furnish. Language too, like the other great agents employed in his service, has been slowly yet certainly approaching the standard of perfection—becoming, in every succeeding generation, more surely and more readily the exponent of thought.
True, its onward march has often been retarded by the digressions of a false public taste. Often has it delighted to linger among the flowers of fancy, and encumber itself with a troublesome burden of useless trash, which a mistaken admiration hailed as the "graces of rhetoric." Often has it been beguiled from its direct course into some untrodden bye-path, at the beck of a name which happened to be, for a brief period, authority in the world of letters. This vain pursuit after imaginary excellence—this dallying by the way with unreal beauties, has hindered greatly the onward progress of language.
The high point at which it should aim, is this— the communication of thought with the utmost Facility and Clearness, united with the greatest possible Elegance of style. The first element of this perfection, facility of communication and clearness of thought, should never be sacrificed to beauty of style; and the second should always be, and is always in good writing, found in connection with the first. A writer may be forcible, nervous, powerful; he may be mighty to convince the judgment; but when he lacks grace to captivate the sensual ear, and elegance to charm and attract to a willing obedience, he fails in the great essential of all oratory, persuasion. But elegance alone, shorn of the other requisites of a finished style, is yet more inoperative. Beauty of language, unaccompanied with precision and clearness of thought, is not simply powerless—it becomes vapid, unmeaning, even ridiculous; like the fop who excites a smile from the very daintiness and elegance of his apparel, when it is unfortunately contrasted with his lack of energy and the muddiness of his ideas.
Yet perhaps we are making too nice a distinction between these two elements of literary excellence. We are not sure but that they may be found to be eventually the same in principle. May not perspicuity, clearness of thought and facility of communication, be the very perfection of elegance ?—though it is often supposed to consist in finely-rounded periods of different lengths, arranged in alternate succession; or in harmonious sentences skilfully disposed. However this may be, (and we leave the question for critics to settle,) it is certain that the second element of which we have spoken cannot exist without the first—that genuine elegance of style—a beauty which is something more than tawdry finery—cannot be without precision and clearness.
Yet this separation has been attempted more than once in the progress of letters. More than once has a vitiated public taste, blindly following the impulse of some self-constituted authority, mistaken the true standard of literary perfection, and plunged headlong in the chase after some startling novelty—the fancy of an hour. It would be an interesting and a profitable task to trace the various extravagancies which have each in their turn played the Will-o'-the-Wisp to mislead the judgment of the literary public. Looking calmly back from our high stand in the middle of the nineteenth century, many of the great movements which once agitated the public mind—many dicta which were once as the oracles of fate, must needs present an amusing phase to the intelligent observer. Such a retrospect could not but be profitable, for the same extravagancies may be attempted yet again, and happy is he who gathers wisdom for the present from the lessons of the past.
But such a digression would lead us wide of our mark.
We said that the tendency of language is invariably toward the standard of perfection.
Strange as the assertion may seem, we declare that the Telegraph will contribute directly to the attainment of that end wherever it is used. At first view we wonder what connection a mere machine has with literature. At the second thought we recall the astonishing intellectual revolution which followed the invention of the printing press, and we blush at our forgetfulness.
The manner in which the Telegraph must operate for the improvement of language is this.
The Telegraph is necessarily an expensive method of communication; yet it offers facilities which are indispensable to the man of business in this driving age of the world. Costly as it is, it must be employed. Now the desideratum of the Telegraph—the great question most important to all who have any connection with it, is this—How can the greatest amount of intelligence be communicated in the fewest words? Is not this the very question which has been for centuries theoretically proposed by scholars as the ultimatum of language ? Language is but the medium of thought—which flies as rapidly and acts as instantaneously as the invisible element which flashes along the Telegraphic wire. The more closely, then, that it follows the operation of thought, the more perfectly does it perform its office. Every useless ornament, every added grace which is not the very extreme of simplicity, is but a troublesome encumbrance.
Notice the operations of the mind in conversation. Observe how idea follows idea in such rapid succession, flitting so swiftly by that but few of them can be seized, and moulded into tangible form, even by the operation of that almost perfect instrument which the Creator has given to us for communication with our fellows. How much of the freshness and beauty of even these imperfect impressions evaporates in the slow and tedious process of committing them to writing. Especially is this the case where a vitiated public taste has introduced a style which wearies its complicated and prolix verbosity, or one so affectedly brilliant and antithetical that it requires the most minute analysis and laborious study to resolve its meaning. Now the certain effect of the Telegraph, as far as it has any influence upon the language, (and who at the present day will dare to estimate its possible influence in the future,) will be to introduce a style of writing which shall be, first of all, brief. Brevity, it is said, is the soul of wit; it is indeed the soul of all language, grave or gay, for every purpose to which it can be applied, except caricature. We never yet heard that tediousness was the soul of anything in particular. The Telegraphic style, as we shall denominate it, for the benefit of all future writers upon rhetoric, is also terse, condensed, expressive, sparing of expletives and utterly ignorant of synonyms. From its subject matter it has little to do with beauty or grace; but the all-important requisite in fine writing, perspicuity, cannot but be promoted by its prevalence. The first is a rare exotic, cultivated only in the gardens of the learned or the curious. The other is the hardy native plant, which is the very " staff of life" in the world of letters.
Let not the reader imagine that the influence of this invention is to be confined within the narrow precincts of the Telegraph office, or limited to the pen of the operator. When a half column or more of every paper in the Union is filled with Telegraphic despatches; when these reports form a large part of the daily reading of thousands; when correspondence is hourly prepared and revised, throughout the whole extent of the United States, with a view to telegraphic transmission, is it too much to expect that this invention will have an influence upon American literature; and that that influence will be marked and permanent, and withal salutary? We can very easily imagine that in course of time the register may be so much improved that the price of transmission will be materially lessened, and the great reason for brevity and concentration of style partially removed —but this is a thing only probable, by no means certain; and it is quite as probable that a long time must elapse before the present imperfect apparatus will be superceded by a more finished invention.
At all events it must ever be a consideration affecting men's pockets, and of course always operative. Telegraphic despatches will become more extended, more numerous, dealing more in details, yet regard must ever be had to the great principle of their construction; the cost of production must ever incline the balance toward economy, and the aim of the writer must ever be to interest, amuse, or instruct in the most concise and appropriate language of which he is master.
We would by no means be thought to undervalue the "graces of rhetoric," or to declare that beauty and finish of style is not an essential requisite in all good writing. No man in his senses would deny it. The idea with which we wish to impress the reader, is, that perspicuity, a quality of style infinitely more important than elegance, has been sadly neglected by many authors in times gone by; and that the invention of the Telegraph is one of those causes which are about to introduce a better state of things. In these days of Yankee enterprise and activity, we want no prosaic Johnsonism; we can tolerate no dainty euphuist. We have long since consigned to merited oblivion the endless train of harmonious and vapid authors that followed after him, who
"Lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."
Even the polished periods of the graceful Spectator are banished to the shelves of a few philosophically-disposed old gentlemen who can find leisure to enjoy such antiquated pleasures in the quiet solitude of their own libraries, undisturbed by the turmoil and bustle of the great world surging past their doors. Shakspeare has only escaped a similar fate by that prophetical vision of the future public taste which he possessed, and the Yankee directness and concentration of his style. The glittering gems of thought, and the perfect models of composition which lie scattered about among the fragments of classic antiquity, are now only stirred from the slumber of ages, by the careless and unappreciating school boy.
Truly the present is rushing on like an arrow to its mark, scattering the venerable past to the winds. We are borne fleetly onward in the car of time—and as the invisible fluid, which may be, for ought we know, the secret of universal gravitation, flies backward and forward on its wiry track —tic,' tic, tic—like the clicking of the escapement wheels of the universe— all that is great and memorable in the past grows dim in the distance, and fades away like the formless visions of the enchanter's magic circle—while before us rise like exhalations from the western wave the islands of the blessed—the isle of engines, where the human race are to live by machinery, and flash from point to point in polar magnetic chariots; where steam is to perform all the operations of thought; where springs of sarsaparilla and cholagogue, mingled with the elixir of perpetual youth, gush out of the rocks, and where the epitaph of the French infidel, death is but an eternal sleep, will be verified by the use of concentrated chloroform.
The United States Magazine and Democratic Review
Vol. 22, May, 1848
INFLUENCE OF THE TELEGRAPH UPON LITERATURE.
The Telegraph has ceased to be a wonder. Its astonishing exhibition of human skill no longer excites our admiration. The emotions which the actual display of its magical powers excited in the minds of all beholders— the speculations to which it gave rise among the philosophical—the indefinable visions of commercial advantage which crowded upon the scheming brain of the capitalist and the ignorant wonder of the vulgar, have all passed away, and given place to more practical considerations. And now, amid applications for patents and contracts for constructing lines and the setting up of telegraph offices all over the land, we beg to be excused if we step aside for a moment into an untrodden path, and indulge in a few reflections upon the influence which the Telegraph will have upon literature.
We do not intend to speak of the universal diffusion of intelligence among the mass of the people, which every such great movement is calculated to promote—nor of the consequent increase in the number of those who will devote themselves to learning, and who will unite to lay the foundations of the great Republic of Letters in the West. We shall confine our remarks to a comparatively unimportant branch of the subject—its effect upon Style in Composition. Perhaps a slight sneer disfigures your pretty face, gentle reader, if you have one, at this paradoxical announcement. Perhaps you imagine that there is about as much connection between the two as there is between the shape of a cow's horn and the taste of her butter. We will try to cure you of that, and convince you that " there is something in it," as people say of animal magnetism or any other inexplicable wonder. We are to speak of its probable effect upon Style in Composition. That a great revolution is effecting in this department of literature, or rather that there is manifested a continual progressive tendency towards perfection, must be apparent to every careful observer. The complicated periods which were once so much in vogue—the sentence within sentence, armed with all the paraphernalia of comma, semicolon, colon and dash, and dragging their slow length over almost an entire page before the " full stop" put a period at once to their existence and the reader's perplexity—have been gradually disappearing—having either fallen to pieces from their own clumsy construction, or been shattered by the critic's hammer. The florid verbosity which characterised the ore rotunda style of Dr. Johnson; the polished sentences of Addison, whose smoothly gliding periods might almost have been set to music—have been gradually giving way to a more nervous and rhetorically perfect style. The human race seems ever on the march toward perfection in the use of the instruments which Providence has placed in its hands. At no period of his existence has the material appropriated to the use of man been so economically or skilfully employed as at present. Language is as important an auxiliary to man as the motive power of water or steam, the principles of mechanics, or the facilities which the locomotive or the Telegraph furnish. Language too, like the other great agents employed in his service, has been slowly yet certainly approaching the standard of perfection—becoming, in every succeeding generation, more surely and more readily the exponent of thought.
True, its onward march has often been retarded by the digressions of a false public taste. Often has it delighted to linger among the flowers of fancy, and encumber itself with a troublesome burden of useless trash, which a mistaken admiration hailed as the "graces of rhetoric." Often has it been beguiled from its direct course into some untrodden bye-path, at the beck of a name which happened to be, for a brief period, authority in the world of letters. This vain pursuit after imaginary excellence—this dallying by the way with unreal beauties, has hindered greatly the onward progress of language.
The high point at which it should aim, is this— the communication of thought with the utmost Facility and Clearness, united with the greatest possible Elegance of style. The first element of this perfection, facility of communication and clearness of thought, should never be sacrificed to beauty of style; and the second should always be, and is always in good writing, found in connection with the first. A writer may be forcible, nervous, powerful; he may be mighty to convince the judgment; but when he lacks grace to captivate the sensual ear, and elegance to charm and attract to a willing obedience, he fails in the great essential of all oratory, persuasion. But elegance alone, shorn of the other requisites of a finished style, is yet more inoperative. Beauty of language, unaccompanied with precision and clearness of thought, is not simply powerless—it becomes vapid, unmeaning, even ridiculous; like the fop who excites a smile from the very daintiness and elegance of his apparel, when it is unfortunately contrasted with his lack of energy and the muddiness of his ideas.
Yet perhaps we are making too nice a distinction between these two elements of literary excellence. We are not sure but that they may be found to be eventually the same in principle. May not perspicuity, clearness of thought and facility of communication, be the very perfection of elegance ?—though it is often supposed to consist in finely-rounded periods of different lengths, arranged in alternate succession; or in harmonious sentences skilfully disposed. However this may be, (and we leave the question for critics to settle,) it is certain that the second element of which we have spoken cannot exist without the first—that genuine elegance of style—a beauty which is something more than tawdry finery—cannot be without precision and clearness.
Yet this separation has been attempted more than once in the progress of letters. More than once has a vitiated public taste, blindly following the impulse of some self-constituted authority, mistaken the true standard of literary perfection, and plunged headlong in the chase after some startling novelty—the fancy of an hour. It would be an interesting and a profitable task to trace the various extravagancies which have each in their turn played the Will-o'-the-Wisp to mislead the judgment of the literary public. Looking calmly back from our high stand in the middle of the nineteenth century, many of the great movements which once agitated the public mind—many dicta which were once as the oracles of fate, must needs present an amusing phase to the intelligent observer. Such a retrospect could not but be profitable, for the same extravagancies may be attempted yet again, and happy is he who gathers wisdom for the present from the lessons of the past.
But such a digression would lead us wide of our mark.
We said that the tendency of language is invariably toward the standard of perfection.
Strange as the assertion may seem, we declare that the Telegraph will contribute directly to the attainment of that end wherever it is used. At first view we wonder what connection a mere machine has with literature. At the second thought we recall the astonishing intellectual revolution which followed the invention of the printing press, and we blush at our forgetfulness.
The manner in which the Telegraph must operate for the improvement of language is this.
The Telegraph is necessarily an expensive method of communication; yet it offers facilities which are indispensable to the man of business in this driving age of the world. Costly as it is, it must be employed. Now the desideratum of the Telegraph—the great question most important to all who have any connection with it, is this—How can the greatest amount of intelligence be communicated in the fewest words? Is not this the very question which has been for centuries theoretically proposed by scholars as the ultimatum of language ? Language is but the medium of thought—which flies as rapidly and acts as instantaneously as the invisible element which flashes along the Telegraphic wire. The more closely, then, that it follows the operation of thought, the more perfectly does it perform its office. Every useless ornament, every added grace which is not the very extreme of simplicity, is but a troublesome encumbrance.
Notice the operations of the mind in conversation. Observe how idea follows idea in such rapid succession, flitting so swiftly by that but few of them can be seized, and moulded into tangible form, even by the operation of that almost perfect instrument which the Creator has given to us for communication with our fellows. How much of the freshness and beauty of even these imperfect impressions evaporates in the slow and tedious process of committing them to writing. Especially is this the case where a vitiated public taste has introduced a style which wearies its complicated and prolix verbosity, or one so affectedly brilliant and antithetical that it requires the most minute analysis and laborious study to resolve its meaning. Now the certain effect of the Telegraph, as far as it has any influence upon the language, (and who at the present day will dare to estimate its possible influence in the future,) will be to introduce a style of writing which shall be, first of all, brief. Brevity, it is said, is the soul of wit; it is indeed the soul of all language, grave or gay, for every purpose to which it can be applied, except caricature. We never yet heard that tediousness was the soul of anything in particular. The Telegraphic style, as we shall denominate it, for the benefit of all future writers upon rhetoric, is also terse, condensed, expressive, sparing of expletives and utterly ignorant of synonyms. From its subject matter it has little to do with beauty or grace; but the all-important requisite in fine writing, perspicuity, cannot but be promoted by its prevalence. The first is a rare exotic, cultivated only in the gardens of the learned or the curious. The other is the hardy native plant, which is the very " staff of life" in the world of letters.
Let not the reader imagine that the influence of this invention is to be confined within the narrow precincts of the Telegraph office, or limited to the pen of the operator. When a half column or more of every paper in the Union is filled with Telegraphic despatches; when these reports form a large part of the daily reading of thousands; when correspondence is hourly prepared and revised, throughout the whole extent of the United States, with a view to telegraphic transmission, is it too much to expect that this invention will have an influence upon American literature; and that that influence will be marked and permanent, and withal salutary? We can very easily imagine that in course of time the register may be so much improved that the price of transmission will be materially lessened, and the great reason for brevity and concentration of style partially removed —but this is a thing only probable, by no means certain; and it is quite as probable that a long time must elapse before the present imperfect apparatus will be superceded by a more finished invention.
At all events it must ever be a consideration affecting men's pockets, and of course always operative. Telegraphic despatches will become more extended, more numerous, dealing more in details, yet regard must ever be had to the great principle of their construction; the cost of production must ever incline the balance toward economy, and the aim of the writer must ever be to interest, amuse, or instruct in the most concise and appropriate language of which he is master.
We would by no means be thought to undervalue the "graces of rhetoric," or to declare that beauty and finish of style is not an essential requisite in all good writing. No man in his senses would deny it. The idea with which we wish to impress the reader, is, that perspicuity, a quality of style infinitely more important than elegance, has been sadly neglected by many authors in times gone by; and that the invention of the Telegraph is one of those causes which are about to introduce a better state of things. In these days of Yankee enterprise and activity, we want no prosaic Johnsonism; we can tolerate no dainty euphuist. We have long since consigned to merited oblivion the endless train of harmonious and vapid authors that followed after him, who
"Lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."
Even the polished periods of the graceful Spectator are banished to the shelves of a few philosophically-disposed old gentlemen who can find leisure to enjoy such antiquated pleasures in the quiet solitude of their own libraries, undisturbed by the turmoil and bustle of the great world surging past their doors. Shakspeare has only escaped a similar fate by that prophetical vision of the future public taste which he possessed, and the Yankee directness and concentration of his style. The glittering gems of thought, and the perfect models of composition which lie scattered about among the fragments of classic antiquity, are now only stirred from the slumber of ages, by the careless and unappreciating school boy.
Truly the present is rushing on like an arrow to its mark, scattering the venerable past to the winds. We are borne fleetly onward in the car of time—and as the invisible fluid, which may be, for ought we know, the secret of universal gravitation, flies backward and forward on its wiry track —tic,' tic, tic—like the clicking of the escapement wheels of the universe— all that is great and memorable in the past grows dim in the distance, and fades away like the formless visions of the enchanter's magic circle—while before us rise like exhalations from the western wave the islands of the blessed—the isle of engines, where the human race are to live by machinery, and flash from point to point in polar magnetic chariots; where steam is to perform all the operations of thought; where springs of sarsaparilla and cholagogue, mingled with the elixir of perpetual youth, gush out of the rocks, and where the epitaph of the French infidel, death is but an eternal sleep, will be verified by the use of concentrated chloroform.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Saturday, December 24, 2011
The News For Parrots ~ The Mad Spatterings of the Mod Yob
Handwriting on the wall has ever struck terror to the hearts of sane men.
A Mind That Found Itself ~ Clifford Whittingham Beers, 1908
Graffiti Yob Walks Free Despite Causing 200,000 of Damage
The Daily Mirror, 24/12/2011
A Mind That Found Itself ~ Clifford Whittingham Beers, 1908
Graffiti Yob Walks Free Despite Causing 200,000 of Damage
The Daily Mirror, 24/12/2011
The News For Parrots ~ Grandpapa In His Stocking
from The Life of Daniel Webster, a letter from Julia Appleton, his daughter.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
The News For Parrots ~ Words of a Feather
Christian Boltanski from Tate Magazine
'I stopped going to school at about age 12, and I was very crazy, and I stayed at home. One day I made a little object in plasticine and my parents said it was good. So I started to make more, and to make drawings, and I began to make large paintings in my bedroom. I have a sweet brother who said to me then, "You must learn something and you are going to speak English doing your work."
'So all the time I painted, he spoke to me in English, and that's the reason I can speak a little English. I was actually painting a large portrait, with plenty of people and stories, so there was plenty to talk about. My brother is now a professor of linguistics.'
Gymnasium Chases series
'I stopped going to school at about age 12, and I was very crazy, and I stayed at home. One day I made a little object in plasticine and my parents said it was good. So I started to make more, and to make drawings, and I began to make large paintings in my bedroom. I have a sweet brother who said to me then, "You must learn something and you are going to speak English doing your work."
'So all the time I painted, he spoke to me in English, and that's the reason I can speak a little English. I was actually painting a large portrait, with plenty of people and stories, so there was plenty to talk about. My brother is now a professor of linguistics.'
Gymnasium Chases series
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
The News For Parrots ~ Baudelaire Interviews a Madder Man, Charles Meryon
The poet proceeds with the following report of their conversation: "In one of his great plates, he [Meryon] has substituted for a little balloon a flight of birds of prey, and, when I remarked to him that it was lacking in verisimilitude to put so many eagles into a Parisian sky, he replied that what he had done was not devoid of foundation in fact, since ces gens-Id [the imperial government] had often released eagles so as to study the presages, according to the rite, — and that this had been printed in the newspapers, even in Le Moniteur.
"I must tell you that he makes no attempt to conceal his respect for all superstitions, but he explains them badly, and he sees cabalistic mysteries everywhere...
"He asked me if I had read the tales of a certain Edgar Poe. I answered that I knew them better than any one else, and for a good reason. He then asked me in a very emphatic manner, if I believed in the reality of this Edgar Poe. I naturally asked him to whom he attributed all his tales. He replied: 'To a syndicate of men of letters who are very clever, very powerful, and who are in touch with everything.' And here is one of his reasons: 'The Rue Morgue. I have made a design of the Morgue. — An Orang-outang. I have often been compared to a monkey. — This monkey murders two women, a mother and her daughter. I also have morally assassinated two women, a mother and her daughter. — I have always taken the story as an allusion to my misfortunes. You would be doing me a great favor if you could find out for me the date when Edgar Poe, supposing that he was not helped by any one, composed this story, so that I could see if the date coincided with my adventures.'
"He spoke to me, with admiration, of Michelet's book on Jeanne d'Arc, but he is convinced that this book is not by Michelet.
"One of his great preoccupations is cabalistical science, but he interprets it in a strange fashion that would make a cabalist laugh.
"Do not laugh at all this with mechants bougres. For nothing in the world would I wish to injure a man of talent. . . .
"After he left me, I asked myself how it happened that I, who have always had, in my mind and in my nerves, all that was needed to make me mad, had not become so. Seriously, I addressed to heaven the thanksgivings of the Pharisee."
It is not surprising that Baudelaire should have been somewhat disconcerted by this interview which confirmed so strikingly the reports of the mental malady of his visitor to which he had alluded in his Salon de 1859, and that he should soon have sought, after some brief intercourse, to avoid personal and private encounters which might have proved embarrassing. He gave notice in ways the artist could not long mistake, that he did not wish to continue the acquaintance on a footing of intimacy; though, as Crepet, in his Charles Baudelaire l points out, he by no means ceased to interest himself in the artist, several sets of whose Eaux-Forles sur Paris he was instrumental, with one or two other admirers of Meryon, in having purchased by the Ministry. Poor Meryon! With an incomplete realization of his own condition, which rendered him incapable of divining the real truth, he felt he had offended Baudelaire in some way, and finally addressed him the following appeal, tragic in its note of noble and unconscious pathos: —
"Dear Sir: I called on you yesterday evening at the Hotel de Dieppe. I was informed that you had changed your domicile. I wished, above all, to see you, in order to learn from your own lips that you were not angry with me, for I do not think I have ever done anything to you which could serve as a motive for your change of manner toward me. Only, as the last letter which I wrote you has remained unanswered, and as three times I have left my name at your dwelling without my having had the slightest word from you, I am entitled to believe that you have some reason for breaking with me. I did not remind you of your promise to write a newspaper article about my work, because, quite frankly, I was sure that you could make much better employment of your time and of your literary skill. My etchings are known to nearly all whom they could interest and rather too much good has been said of them. As to the interruption of our relations, which have been but of brief duration and of slight importance, I agree to this without a word if such is your desire, and I shall conserve, none the less, the recollection of the eminent services you have rendered me in coming to see me, and in occupying yourself with me at a time when I was utterly destitute.
"I have forwarded to M. Lavielle, whom I had the advantage of meeting once with you, the set of my views, reworked and a trifle modified; he has, perhaps, shown them to you. I have had difficulty in procuring the ten sets of them (the printer being very busy at that time) that I have disposed of, with sufficient rapidity. I have no longer any left and I have destroyed the Petit-Pont, which I propose to engrave anew, after I have made in it some rather important corrections.
"Adieu, dear sir, with all possible good wishes.
"I am your sincere and devoted friend,
"I am your sincere and devoted friend,
"C. Meryon.
from French Etchers of the Second Empire by William Aspenwall Bradley
The News For Parrots ~ Who's That Poodle In My Skirt?
" The second inamorata of the Emperor since his marriage was the noble and beautiful Countess de Castiglione. This lady was a native of Milan in Lombardy, and she belonged to one of those ancient and distinguished Lombard families, a portion of whom reside in Piedmont. Both at Turin and at Milan the ladies of the Castiglione family have long been renowned for their great beauty. Madame Castiglione had a good-natured husband, with whom she lived apparently on the best possible terms. She was not only a beautiful woman, but was also highly intellectual, accomplished, and refined. She never assumed the airs of a mistress, or the authority of a favorite, during the period of her connection with the Emperor. Her high birth and breeding prevented any such display of vulgarity; but certain it is that, for a time, the spell which she cast upon the Imperial mind and fancy was powerful in the extreme. The gentle Eugenie strove in vain to conjure against the fascinating Italian magician. Time at length accomplished for the Empress what her own charms had failed to do; and an incident occurred on the 30th of April, 1857, which showed publicly that the reign of the haughty daughter of Italy, for some mysterious and unknown reason had terminated. The Emperor and Empress were present at the revival of a well-known and admired opera written by Etienne and Nicolo, called Joconde. A popular romance closes with these words :
" * On devient infidele
On court de belle en belle,
Mais on revient toujours,
A ses premiers amours.'"
Mais on revient toujours,
A ses premiers amours.'"
Which may be rendered as follows:
" ' Oft we turn from fair to fair,
Faithless as the summer air,
But wherever we may rove,
Still we turn to our first love.'
Faithless as the summer air,
But wherever we may rove,
Still we turn to our first love.'
" When this couplet was recited, Louis Napoleon looked significantly at the Empress, and nodded his head so decidedly, that the audience at once remarked and applauded the act. Eugenie blushed profusely, yet smiled sweetly in token of her joy. The very next day the fair and proud Countess de Castiglione started, with her complacent husband, for Italy."
I heard a story connected with the reign of this same Countess, which is worth repeating, though I cannot vouch for its truth. A State ball was given at the Tuileries. The Countess was present, and was the object of the marked attentions of-the Emperor. Suddenly there was a commotion in the throng of guests, and in an instant they gave way as if some grand dignitary was approaching. The Emperor and his fair companion naturally turned to see the cause of this movement, and the lady beheld a sight which set her Italian blood on lire. A small poodle dog was advancing up the hall, clad in the exact counterfeit of the costume worn by the Countess. The imitation was perfect, and the dog seemed highly delighted with its good fortune. The insult was keen, and went straight to the mark, as was meant. The Emperor at once set on foot an investigation to discover the author of the " outrage," but soon dropped it, as he found that the affair was gotten up by order of the Empress, who had adopted this means of humiliating her rival.
From Paris by Sunlight and Gaslight by James D. McCabeGoogle ebook
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The News For Parrots ~ Adhering to Proper Publishing Discourse While Inarticulately Squawking
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
The News for Parrots ~ What's The 150yo Deevi-o?
Sunday, November 20, 2011
The News For Parrots - Perchatory
January 1940
~ Roy Fuller
Swift had pains in his head.
Johnson dying in bed
Tapped the dropsy himself.
Blake saw a flea and an elf.
Tennyson could hear the shriek
Of a bat. Pope was a freak.
Emily Dickinson stayed
Indoors for a decade.
Water inflated the belly
Of Hart Crane, and of Shelley.
Coleridge was a dope.
Southwell died on a rope.
Byron had a round white foot.
Smart and Cowper were put
Away. Lawrence was a fidget.
Keats was a midget.
Donne, alive in his shroud,
Shakespeare in the coil of a cloud,
Saw death as he
Came crab-wise, dark and massy.
I envy not only their talents
And fertile lack of balance
But the appearance of choice
In their sad and fatal voice.
~ Roy Fuller
Swift had pains in his head.
Johnson dying in bed
Tapped the dropsy himself.
Blake saw a flea and an elf.
Tennyson could hear the shriek
Of a bat. Pope was a freak.
Emily Dickinson stayed
Indoors for a decade.
Water inflated the belly
Of Hart Crane, and of Shelley.
Coleridge was a dope.
Southwell died on a rope.
Byron had a round white foot.
Smart and Cowper were put
Away. Lawrence was a fidget.
Keats was a midget.
Donne, alive in his shroud,
Shakespeare in the coil of a cloud,
Saw death as he
Came crab-wise, dark and massy.
I envy not only their talents
And fertile lack of balance
But the appearance of choice
In their sad and fatal voice.
Friday, November 4, 2011
The News for Parrots and/or Robber Barons
translation from The Way of Chuang Tzu, by Thomas Merton
Cracking the Safe
For security against robbers who snatch purses, rifle luggage, and crack safes,
One must fasten all property with ropes, lock it up with locks, bolt it with bolts.
This (for property owners) is elementary good sense.
But when a strong thief comes along he picks up the whole lot,
Puts it on his back, and goes away with only one fear:
That ropes, locks, and bolts may give way.
Thus what the world calls good business is only a way
To gather up the loot, pack it, make it secure
In one convenient load for the more enterprising thieves.
Who is there, among those called smart,
Who does not spend his time amassing loot
For a bigger robber than himself?
In the land of Khi, from village to village,
You could hear cocks crowing, dogs barking.
Fishermen cast their nets,
Ploughmen ploughed their wide fields,
Everything was neatly marked out
By boundary lines. For five hundred square miles
There were temples for ancestors, altars
For field-gods and corn-spirits.
Every canton, county, and district
Was run according to the laws and statutes—
Until one morning the Attorney General, Tien Khang Tzu,
Did away with the King and took over the whole state.
Was he content to steal the land? No,
He also took over the laws and statutes at the same time,
And all the lawyers with them, not to mention the police.
They all formed part of the same package.
Of course, people called Khang Tzu a robber,
But they left him alone
To live as happy as the Patriarchs.
No small state would say a word against him,
No large state would make a move in his direction,
So for twelve generations the state of Khi
Belonged to his family. No one interfered
With his inalienable rights.
The invention
Of weights and measures
Makes robbery easier.
Signing contracts, setting seals,
Makes robbery more sure.
Teaching love and duty
Provides a fitting language
With which to prove that robbery
Is really for the general good.
A poor man must swing
For stealing a belt buckle
But if a rich man steals a whole state
He is acclaimed
As statesman of the year.
Hence if you want to hear the very best speeches
On love, duty, justice, etc.,
Listen to statesmen.
But when the creek dries up
Nothing grows in the valley.
When the mound is leveled
The hollow next to it is filled.
And when the statesmen and lawyers
And preachers of duty disappear
There are no more robberies either
And the world is at peace.
Moral: the more you pile up ethical principles
And duties and obligations
To bring everyone in line
The more you gather loot
For a thief like Khang.
By ethical argument
And moral principle
The greatest crimes are eventually shown
To have been necessary, and, in fact,
A signal benefit
To mankind.
Cracking the Safe
For security against robbers who snatch purses, rifle luggage, and crack safes,
One must fasten all property with ropes, lock it up with locks, bolt it with bolts.
This (for property owners) is elementary good sense.
But when a strong thief comes along he picks up the whole lot,
Puts it on his back, and goes away with only one fear:
That ropes, locks, and bolts may give way.
Thus what the world calls good business is only a way
To gather up the loot, pack it, make it secure
In one convenient load for the more enterprising thieves.
Who is there, among those called smart,
Who does not spend his time amassing loot
For a bigger robber than himself?
In the land of Khi, from village to village,
You could hear cocks crowing, dogs barking.
Fishermen cast their nets,
Ploughmen ploughed their wide fields,
Everything was neatly marked out
By boundary lines. For five hundred square miles
There were temples for ancestors, altars
For field-gods and corn-spirits.
Every canton, county, and district
Was run according to the laws and statutes—
Until one morning the Attorney General, Tien Khang Tzu,
Did away with the King and took over the whole state.
Was he content to steal the land? No,
He also took over the laws and statutes at the same time,
And all the lawyers with them, not to mention the police.
They all formed part of the same package.
Of course, people called Khang Tzu a robber,
But they left him alone
To live as happy as the Patriarchs.
No small state would say a word against him,
No large state would make a move in his direction,
So for twelve generations the state of Khi
Belonged to his family. No one interfered
With his inalienable rights.
The invention
Of weights and measures
Makes robbery easier.
Signing contracts, setting seals,
Makes robbery more sure.
Teaching love and duty
Provides a fitting language
With which to prove that robbery
Is really for the general good.
A poor man must swing
For stealing a belt buckle
But if a rich man steals a whole state
He is acclaimed
As statesman of the year.
Hence if you want to hear the very best speeches
On love, duty, justice, etc.,
Listen to statesmen.
But when the creek dries up
Nothing grows in the valley.
When the mound is leveled
The hollow next to it is filled.
And when the statesmen and lawyers
And preachers of duty disappear
There are no more robberies either
And the world is at peace.
Moral: the more you pile up ethical principles
And duties and obligations
To bring everyone in line
The more you gather loot
For a thief like Khang.
By ethical argument
And moral principle
The greatest crimes are eventually shown
To have been necessary, and, in fact,
A signal benefit
To mankind.
Friday, October 28, 2011
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