tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26640166324660772732024-03-13T09:59:42.612-07:00The Quote Garden BlogTerri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-17840865684648428522023-02-22T06:41:00.056-07:002023-03-01T17:12:20.309-07:00Getting away with itResearching an old quotation in Google Books, I came across this clever <i>LIFE</i> magazine cover from 101 years ago. I’ll just say “Wow!” and leave it at that.<BR>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="LIFE magazine 1922 Liars Number" border="0" height="731" data-original-height="789" data-original-width="588" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5J4rWhVdDhqlcpnz5XPiM6cHiD03j9VO5B4iEDs_21_jJsGA_Ol_Dde9hiTW92As0lKbxRMK6GJLTCdG7IUqZkXlPETkaMWQm1Ey4Js4fYlJugJVcCD2y5yLd_G4QtWHeLLLxYtNFrl__uL2PJUL9R5szmOV6q2UffA_b5xOv9UYix6Xse4HTZx7UFw/s600/life-liars-1922.jpg"/></div>
<small>LIFE: Liars’ Number, 1922 February 23rd, digitized by Google, books.google.com</small><BR><BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-17866425653582685142021-12-09T07:40:00.167-07:002021-12-16T12:50:34.003-07:00What a find!<BR>I came across this excellent website, the <a href="https://wellcomecollection.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="nofollow">Wellcome Collection</a>. It is a free museum and library in London which creates “opportunities for people to think deeply about the connections between science, medicine, life and art.” Among other fascinating content, I found some beautiful — and free! — public domain images in their digitized collections. Below are some examples.<BR>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDZx62VIi9Ko3XqEaiW3E3qFbCUXlTuU53ocbaCi5ou8V5h-tinDTxshosAUBRSNSpOP3qWq_ohYD7UQd0QLmMf_rBjPbcxQbwYGlL8Rj_6jhSNLxcBcIS7xBtB482Ld_bYz8zrE_VRcpldeagSkSlejQnctuH8gfZ1gZrOXgxn9D4pIJ_1dm3nOh-Vg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="The anatomy of a horse by Andrew Snape, 1687" title="The anatomy of a horse by Andrew Snape, 1687" border="0" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDZx62VIi9Ko3XqEaiW3E3qFbCUXlTuU53ocbaCi5ou8V5h-tinDTxshosAUBRSNSpOP3qWq_ohYD7UQd0QLmMf_rBjPbcxQbwYGlL8Rj_6jhSNLxcBcIS7xBtB482Ld_bYz8zrE_VRcpldeagSkSlejQnctuH8gfZ1gZrOXgxn9D4pIJ_1dm3nOh-Vg"/></a></div>
<center>The anatomy of a horse by Andrew Snape, 1687<BR><BR></center>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJv5KFQ_XgkPrlnkjf_YItDUb14IJ6fmpBXW8rTR3HP3WVBMl3DoPLTeTOWuNrSJFvi2AtVGznV_EMhENYlWLS5S1n5r6PJfcWWPbx_wXF_xGusAur9YUd_UhCozEw8uMUgot_eCaF0dV_oJp3PJL7AXLsw6_lSOPgsBIChJ1LoLIqJHvcZXVN2ObYDg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Fruiting fungus (Stropharia aeruginosa), 1883" title="Fruiting fungus (Stropharia aeruginosa), 1883" border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJv5KFQ_XgkPrlnkjf_YItDUb14IJ6fmpBXW8rTR3HP3WVBMl3DoPLTeTOWuNrSJFvi2AtVGznV_EMhENYlWLS5S1n5r6PJfcWWPbx_wXF_xGusAur9YUd_UhCozEw8uMUgot_eCaF0dV_oJp3PJL7AXLsw6_lSOPgsBIChJ1LoLIqJHvcZXVN2ObYDg"/></a></div><!--blue mushrooms-->
<center>Fruiting fungus (Stropharia aeruginosa)<BR>
watercolour, 1883 — modified t.g.<BR><BR></center>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEib5n9-8nSNtXLl490-q7rFESvYaTvnXmALHLGXi0N_q-NxMlePzG7c6YF-F9p6EmR4BUZEA698RWbHgwZvfwDbQljyaMqhnEAcZmq2ZxoJcoQ30OzCSyTHdkeu0zc4oS5jddk7nelaQI35s35Y8I3v7Jk2m7qEFM5Nvo9O0EwyQVRRnpi9RkVcdYXR7A" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Florence Nightingale by W. Wellstood, 1856" title="Florence Nightingale by W. Wellstood, 1856" border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEib5n9-8nSNtXLl490-q7rFESvYaTvnXmALHLGXi0N_q-NxMlePzG7c6YF-F9p6EmR4BUZEA698RWbHgwZvfwDbQljyaMqhnEAcZmq2ZxoJcoQ30OzCSyTHdkeu0zc4oS5jddk7nelaQI35s35Y8I3v7Jk2m7qEFM5Nvo9O0EwyQVRRnpi9RkVcdYXR7A"/></a></div>
<center>Florence Nightingale<BR>
line engraving by W. Wellstood, 1856,<BR>
after J. B. Wandesforde — cropped t.g.<BR><BR></center><!--reading-->
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWcHsgCYC4_vdaKQYCbuzZd4clHqkkGdvLnSv15slyXyEBwtgCCjCGuKn1-9x_LDU1AcEqu5MzXuee1E4PbzeCiikXCss8G58ZmdtUzkbDVpbtCO9qpX6ehb6K6XnCIcEBlvuybpIv6jC5LePtECw5B_G-wjyFCbqGbKW4XVhjxnfAGSNZXTXhLdMetA" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="mixed media art, 1800s" title="mixed media art, 1800s" border="0" data-original-height="613" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWcHsgCYC4_vdaKQYCbuzZd4clHqkkGdvLnSv15slyXyEBwtgCCjCGuKn1-9x_LDU1AcEqu5MzXuee1E4PbzeCiikXCss8G58ZmdtUzkbDVpbtCO9qpX6ehb6K6XnCIcEBlvuybpIv6jC5LePtECw5B_G-wjyFCbqGbKW4XVhjxnfAGSNZXTXhLdMetA"/></a></div>
<center>A rose with lettering. Coloured cut<BR>
paper work with letterpress, 1800s.<BR><BR></center>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJ061oEwLUWLOjhe7F1jvCTaveHC3hhrwdChG1zu74Eo7q5L4ICgRXgNeIg4gn6WGBzxrwhXvLMLjLIwWa91yWS4Px8a8NXXN_7m6JP6IvS9SzDUb1Jc-51vKQgpaRhVl1OaaAj0Kim6wHGTP95CLZEqcBf0_8c5d_-UuvZ08JahC5phJgQcXbECMroQ" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Skeletons dancing. Etching by R. Stamper, 1700s" title="Skeletons dancing. Etching by R. Stamper, 1700s" border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJ061oEwLUWLOjhe7F1jvCTaveHC3hhrwdChG1zu74Eo7q5L4ICgRXgNeIg4gn6WGBzxrwhXvLMLjLIwWa91yWS4Px8a8NXXN_7m6JP6IvS9SzDUb1Jc-51vKQgpaRhVl1OaaAj0Kim6wHGTP95CLZEqcBf0_8c5d_-UuvZ08JahC5phJgQcXbECMroQ"/></a></div>
<center>Skeletons dancing. Etching by R. Stamper<BR>
after C. Sharp, 1700s — modified t.g.<BR><BR></center>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3dwpAlhQV7CeuZc51fASJnfKmPddG1FAfA9T9RhLg2BejoXnadUwuH_AuA5jt1W0tW0yOSpMLU7HT5RqjVgHAFAWojks9Tct3_9hRGW6QXHznEoi-2E0okQQZi7uxOuNPDyHgu8XRYxxHkXiIPyqgT5LvXWbVInCA-ofkYOEgIHa6s_3JA_UkY5HI8A" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="A skeleton in fine attire, 1800s" title="A skeleton in fine attire, 1800s" border="0" data-original-height="660" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3dwpAlhQV7CeuZc51fASJnfKmPddG1FAfA9T9RhLg2BejoXnadUwuH_AuA5jt1W0tW0yOSpMLU7HT5RqjVgHAFAWojks9Tct3_9hRGW6QXHznEoi-2E0okQQZi7uxOuNPDyHgu8XRYxxHkXiIPyqgT5LvXWbVInCA-ofkYOEgIHa6s_3JA_UkY5HI8A"/></a></div>
<center>A skeleton in fine attire.<BR>
Lithograph, 1800s — modified t.g.<BR><BR></center>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhKSDeuTHnv_2WqZioFsglMzs1WOuXcx4Dl9A7C1XyUC1ucI_AFLnQ7W9yWfqGHZW19DiT64VgGYE-jrTinKhQy31E6Gs0dtGHGMsWT5AFewFJlJSLAjN2kQTX3g--gVzx7qsRTb6lk9vY5pbyERdqSWQUrxAIrDVkjdiPt4-4WR-GKiT9ekwh9xMnjSg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="L’art de connaître les hommes par la physionomie by M. Moreau, 1800s" title="L’art de connaître les hommes par la physionomie by M. Moreau, 1800s" border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhKSDeuTHnv_2WqZioFsglMzs1WOuXcx4Dl9A7C1XyUC1ucI_AFLnQ7W9yWfqGHZW19DiT64VgGYE-jrTinKhQy31E6Gs0dtGHGMsWT5AFewFJlJSLAjN2kQTX3g--gVzx7qsRTb6lk9vY5pbyERdqSWQUrxAIrDVkjdiPt4-4WR-GKiT9ekwh9xMnjSg"/></a></div>
<center>L’art de connaître les hommes par la physionomie.<BR><!--Shakespeare-->
M. Moreau, 1806–1809<BR><BR></center>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi9eHI_ZBfoQemoJMc403ZJXWMXbvGp00xrvzq4w-mFbkTtNorIPAZeDrnADng25i6-VgwufgvO85PQg4XkzTXFTdZYTUiBRS2y9m3h-1eIGk6hoeBObQnqSPo-Liz4UDA1I5Ttt5aQpKpt4D7D-X3KB4liUEhlOwgrnDuPs3yXJMwwNxAqPeJW26QkSQ" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="pink roses" title="pink roses" border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi9eHI_ZBfoQemoJMc403ZJXWMXbvGp00xrvzq4w-mFbkTtNorIPAZeDrnADng25i6-VgwufgvO85PQg4XkzTXFTdZYTUiBRS2y9m3h-1eIGk6hoeBObQnqSPo-Liz4UDA1I5Ttt5aQpKpt4D7D-X3KB4liUEhlOwgrnDuPs3yXJMwwNxAqPeJW26QkSQ"/></a></div>
<center>A rose (Rosa species): flowering stem and<BR>
cut flower. Watercolour — modified t.g.<BR><BR></center>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6YwplCK-yuVL1okKukErHEOnyOZDVH3tHpYHekvrHcQxnyOCJEzUnM87cRLCuv_NL-z29Bq-Q6QnuhNycQIfcHueaxYTI9gyUWoiFog5Q0d88cdrqYZh7w64YZuAqoVwFmXKBR7O-sYanccjz3t2ngsWztKCw8p89A-CyFhLqyOgKSjlPDKCezDuicQ" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="A young man with spectacles, wood engraving" title="A young man with spectacles, wood engraving" border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="429" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6YwplCK-yuVL1okKukErHEOnyOZDVH3tHpYHekvrHcQxnyOCJEzUnM87cRLCuv_NL-z29Bq-Q6QnuhNycQIfcHueaxYTI9gyUWoiFog5Q0d88cdrqYZh7w64YZuAqoVwFmXKBR7O-sYanccjz3t2ngsWztKCw8p89A-CyFhLqyOgKSjlPDKCezDuicQ"/></a></div>
<center>A young man sits reading ledgers at his desk<BR>
wearing spectacles and an eyeshade. Wood engraving<BR>
after A. Oberländer — modified t.g.<BR><BR></center>
<BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-14315238927419854562021-12-01T10:03:00.012-07:002021-12-01T12:13:40.891-07:00Mr Brault’s hidden treasures<BR>If you’ve spent much time at all on <a href="https://www.quotegarden.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Quote Garden</a>, you’ll have noticed that one of my most frequently quoted authors is Robert Brault. I’m grateful that he allows me to freely post his extensive wit and wisdom in my collection. He publishes many of his writings to his blog, <a href="https://rbrault.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New Robert Brault Reader</a>, but did you know that he has also published books in which you can find some new material that isn’t posted online? Below is a summary of his six books. Follow the links for more information and to purchase online or to request inscribed, signed copies from Mr Brault directly.<BR>
<BR><BR>
<a href="https://rbrault.blogspot.com/p/round-up-usual-subjects.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Round Up The Usual Subjects</a><BR>
<i>published 2014</i><BR>
a thousand original thoughts from his first blog which is no longer accessible on the internet<BR>
<BR>
<a href="https://rbrault.blogspot.com/p/my-book-round-up-usual-subjects.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Second Collection</a><BR>
<i>published 2015</i><BR>
700 quotations, plus humor pieces, personal vignettes, and longer poems<BR>
<BR>
<a href="https://rbrault.blogspot.com/p/softcover-6-x-9-inches-258-pages-to.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Short Thoughts For The Long Haul</a><BR>
<i>published 2017</i><BR>
the signature collection of Robert Brault quotes, an anthology of 1200+ favorites from his first two books and from the original quotes-only edition of the <i>Reflections</i> book<BR>
<BR>
<a href="https://rbrault.blogspot.com/p/is-third-and-final-collection-of-my.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Thoughts On Art & Artists</a><BR>
<i>published 2019</i><BR>
original insights into the world of art and artists, enhanced by his wife Joan Brault’s beautiful artwork, 75 pages<BR>
<BR>
<a href="https://rbrault.blogspot.com/p/final-thoughts.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reflections: Expanded Edition</a><BR>
<i>published 2019</i><BR>
the most diverse collection of Mr Brault’s writings and his own personal favorite book, it includes not only quotations but also essays, reminiscences, and selected correspondence<BR>
<BR>
<a href="https://rbrault.blogspot.com/p/a-few-for-road.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Few For The Road</a><BR>
<i>published 2021</i><BR>
recent writings from 2020–2021, and about a third of this 131‑page book is new material, including some verse<BR>
<BR><BR>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://rbrault.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Fall Pond by Joan Brault" title="Fall Pond by Joan Brault" border="0" data-original-height="345" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9wEIh6MBFMJ-UXMZ5Wtcm1GLKSPLIhaLHeZW5FPt7LdCxk50TSlt0StUDY2RSZJOwTrkJXu4gP0Oyb29EV__xeEgRWmEJizTyAJeb-ngsBbR6rznsRUeDRNlttXbaMCw4NpYotiYQrUCg/s0/JoanBrault-FallPond.jpg"/></a></div>
<BR>
<i>Image information</i>:  book cover detail from <i>Reflections: Expanded Edition</i>, a watercolor titled “Fall Pond” painted by the author’s wife, Joan Brault<BR>
<BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-54499002260267805422021-07-17T22:53:00.092-07:002021-11-29T20:34:59.056-07:00Who Is W. Dayton Wegefarth?<p>There isn’t a bio on the Web for author W. Dayton Wegefarth, so I’ve done some research and pieced together a little something from various sources.</p>
<p>William Dayton Wegefarth was born 1885 September 10th in New York to Gustavus Wegefarth and Rebecca Janet Cox. In 1919, he married Estelle Buxbaum (1882–1950) in Philadelphia.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdRTk5OUxja_8SqG1aWeNNPRRshcfFSrkwxoebpie5r4dps4MHEh6oL_Mh1DqYgGaTxAXSWoS2_5TH6KPXfhXpIAmREgWKJ_6hyLIykOHlTTuQfKzoJZgE0gsBmD4vJme-uQPSNYU2K0S/s0/WDWegefarth.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="W. Dayton Wegefarth (1885–1973)" title="W. Dayton Wegefarth (1885–1973)" border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKdRTk5OUxja_8SqG1aWeNNPRRshcfFSrkwxoebpie5r4dps4MHEh6oL_Mh1DqYgGaTxAXSWoS2_5TH6KPXfhXpIAmREgWKJ_6hyLIykOHlTTuQfKzoJZgE0gsBmD4vJme-uQPSNYU2K0S/s0/WDWegefarth.jpg"/></a></div>
<p>Mr Wegefarth wrote for newspapers and magazines and was quite successful as a writer of verses for greeting cards. He also worked in the theatrical field, at theatres in Philadelphia and New York. He wrote lyrics and music as well as managing bookings.</p>
<p>His published books:  <i>Smiles and Sighs</i> — 1910, poems; <i>The True Story of “Bum”</i> — 1915, short story about a stray dog he adopted; and <i>Rainbow Verse</i> — 1919, inspirational poetry. As with many writers of the day, the book verses were mostly reprinted items from periodicals, such as <i>Lippincott’s Magazine</i>.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD__TMHJum9KSSSiw4fWqyW5z-P49SBILPY093AjeUhZTQmDc_VJp-OgSS5fN5xt6sH2KSS4ulm8wy0QMb7DbX3Aa_P9p5wwO6cYg3t9UPzv-HfFLqd-daGmmF0e97jgGretRku9Sbj-vw/s496/wegefarth-bum-1915.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="W.D. Wegefarth and Bum, 1915" title="W.D. Wegefarth and Bum, 1915" border="0" height="496" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD__TMHJum9KSSSiw4fWqyW5z-P49SBILPY093AjeUhZTQmDc_VJp-OgSS5fN5xt6sH2KSS4ulm8wy0QMb7DbX3Aa_P9p5wwO6cYg3t9UPzv-HfFLqd-daGmmF0e97jgGretRku9Sbj-vw/s600/wegefarth-bum-1915.jpg"/></a></div>
<p>He published under his real name as well as a pseudonym, Hugh Barrington. His name variations were: <nobr>W. Dayton</nobr> Wegefarth, William Dayton Wegefarth, W. D. Wegefarth, and William D. Wegefarth. His surname has sometimes been misspelled as Wedgefarth, Wedgeforth, and Wegeforth.</p>
<p>He passed away 1973, in New York.</p>
<p>I’ve got a few dozen excerpts from this cheerful author’s public domain works posted to various pages of <a href="https://www.quotegarden.com/" target="_blank">The Quote Garden</a>.</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPQOmdiKs6plMnUt3gwE55j8nNJeTjmtw4OurUiugMH1lA0NIGosoLXZOV4IQLob18Q7498Zlv3LMQTplGyzwZv6FXlkqOht-307aOZE6RuDmgk8RvzcK5NbZjV4WCJ8Wd6EB_NlLRDDJl/s0/WDWegefarth-signature-1916.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="W. Dayton Wegefarth signature" title="W. Dayton Wegefarth signature" border="0" data-original-height="239" data-original-width="340" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPQOmdiKs6plMnUt3gwE55j8nNJeTjmtw4OurUiugMH1lA0NIGosoLXZOV4IQLob18Q7498Zlv3LMQTplGyzwZv6FXlkqOht-307aOZE6RuDmgk8RvzcK5NbZjV4WCJ8Wd6EB_NlLRDDJl/s0/WDWegefarth-signature-1916.jpg"/></a></div>
<p><i>Sources:</i>  The Book News Monthly, Google Books, Internet Archive, Carrie <nobr>Jacobs–Bond</nobr> & Son, George W. Jacobs & Company, Sully and Kleinteich, Harvard University, HathiTrust Digital Library, Ancestry, Seeking My Roots, Teller Family in America, Illinois University Library, National Library of Ireland, Newspapers.com</p>
<p><i>Images:</i>  Book News Monthly, 1914 & 1915, and Rainbow Verse, 1919, scanned by Google Books, modified t.g.; letter to Joseph McGarrity, 1916, courtesy National Library of Ireland</p><BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-85087529450827739222021-03-08T07:49:00.021-07:002021-12-02T12:17:46.251-07:00A letter to 2021 New York, from Christopher Morley, 1921<BR><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="To a New Yorker a Hundred Years Hence, W.J. Duncan, 1923, Christopher Morley" title="To a New Yorker a Hundred Years Hence, W.J. Duncan, 1923, Christopher Morley" border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiEMG9rcZi7AiRCTN6-kbVM2xegcKaG1iGxBs3is31yVpWKwC16xqPvs_DS0pHbmCcoN0SVmy-xyNqpT9PAW5aGQ2jr5gw_1pVC22yl8Hzj4-lwS-YB8EmZvH7849J_ONjLU5mzrZl7eXG/s0/wj-duncan-1923-morley-tr.png"/></a></div><BR><BR>
<b>“To a New Yorker a Hundred Years Hence”</b><BR>
<i>essay by Christopher Morley, 1921<BR>
illustration by Walter Jack Duncan, 1923</i><BR>
<BR>
I wonder, old dear, why my mind has lately been going out towards you? I wonder if you will ever read this? They say that wood-pulp paper doesn’t last long nowadays. But perhaps some of my grandchildren (with any luck, there should be some born, say twenty-five years hence) may, in their years of tottering caducity, come across this scrap of greeting, yellowed with age. With tenderly cynical waggings of their faded polls, perhaps they will think back to the tradition of the quaint vanished creatures who lived and strove in this city in the year of disgrace, 1921...<BR>
<BR>
You seem a long way off, this soft September morning as I sit here and sneeze (will hay fever still exist in 2021, I wonder?) and listen to the chime of St. Paul’s ring eleven. Just south of St. Paul’s brown spire the girders of a great building are going up. Will that building be there when you read this? What will be the Olympian skyline of your city?... Will you look up, as I do now, to the great pale shaft of Woolworth; to the golden boy with wings above Fulton Street? What ships with new names will come slowly and grandly up your harbour? What new green spaces will your street children enjoy? But something of the city we now love will still abide, I hope, to link our days with yours...<BR>
<BR>
New stones, new steeples are comely things; but the human heart clings to places that hold association and reminiscence. That, I suppose, is the obscure cause of this queer feeling that impels me to send you so perishable a message. It is the precious unity of mankind in all ages, the compassion and love felt by the understanding spirit for those, its resting kinsmen, who once were glad and miserable in these same scenes. It keeps one aware of that marvellous dark river of human life that runs, down and down uncountably, to the unexplored sea of Time.<BR>
<BR>
You seem a long way off, I say — and yet it is but an instant, and you will be here. Do you know that feeling, I wonder (so characteristic of our city) that a man has in an elevator bound (let us say) for the eighteenth floor? He sees 5 and 6 and 7 flit by, and he wonders how he can ever live through the interminable time that must elapse before he will get to his stopping place and be about the task of the moment. It is only a few seconds, but his mind can evolve a whole honeycomb of mysteries in that flash of dragging time. Then the door slides open before him and that instantaneous eternity is gone; he is in a new era... Before we have time to turn three times in our chairs, we shall be the grandparents and you will be smiling at our old-fashioned sentiments.<BR>
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But we ask you to look kindly on this our city of wonder, the city of amazing beauties which is also (to any man of quick imagination) an actual hell of haste, din, and dishevelment. Perhaps you by this time will have brought back something of that serenity, that reverence for thoughtful things, which our generation lost — and hardly knew it had lost. But even Hell, you must admit, has always had its patriots...<BR>
<BR>
And how we loved this strange, mad city of ours, which we knew in our hearts was, to the clear eye of reason and the pure, sane vision of poetry, a bedlam of magical impertinence, a blind byway of monstrous wretchedness. And yet the blacker it seemed to the lamp of the spirit, the more we loved it with the troubled eye of flesh. For humanity, immortal only in misery and mockery, loves the very tangles in which it has enmeshed itself: with good reason, for they are the mark and sign of its being.<BR>
<BR>
So you will fail, as we have; and you will laugh, as we have — but not so heartily, we insist; no one has ever laughed the way your tremulous granfers did, old chap! And you will go on about your business, as we did, and be just as certain that you and your concerns are the very climax of human gravity and worth. And will it be any pleasure to you to know that on a soft September morning a hundred years ago your affectionate great-grandsire looked cheerfully out of his lofty kennel window, blew a whiff of smoke, smiled a trifle gravely upon the familiar panorama, knew (with that antique shrewdness of his) a hawk from a handsaw, and then went out to lunch?<BR>
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—Christopher Morley (1890–1957), “To a New Yorker a Hundred Years Hence,” 1921, as reprinted in <i>The Powder of Sympathy</i>, 1923, illustrated by Walter Jack Duncan (1881-1941), Doubleday, Page & Company, New York<!--Qe2, Qe3, xtg (paragraphs), tpvldg, cSFbAAAAMAAJ--><BR>
<BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-2411050293981316372019-09-18T14:39:00.019-07:002021-12-14T18:59:08.757-07:00What I do<BR><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgtYGaEUOloMWMrDNtW55C27yPCfo6Ep3Cp_MjRNJkjqybfzzZTcM0Eo9Iyekxbdi4BBZplacLb721yPnX8prbgsaTgz8fZ9XgDxxsG-mf8wjSmaRh69v4WMZ0MxuTqmYOk7UONWhFfPXjWjVKlnZUmXCiT9uOLxH3CDjlMVOvuJMiQINwyDFaF014K4Q" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Terri Guillemets blackout poetry" alt="Terri Guillemets blackout poetry" border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgtYGaEUOloMWMrDNtW55C27yPCfo6Ep3Cp_MjRNJkjqybfzzZTcM0Eo9Iyekxbdi4BBZplacLb721yPnX8prbgsaTgz8fZ9XgDxxsG-mf8wjSmaRh69v4WMZ0MxuTqmYOk7UONWhFfPXjWjVKlnZUmXCiT9uOLxH3CDjlMVOvuJMiQINwyDFaF014K4Q"/></a></div>
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<center>“I read a book and pick out the quotes.”<BR>
altered prose by Terri Guillemets, 2019<BR>
from <i>The Man Who Loved Jane Austen</i><BR>
by Sally Smith O'Rourke, 2001, page 53<BR></center>
<BR><!--blackout poetry, books, quotations, quotation anthologist, quote collecting--><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-5770697513962057902019-07-28T07:39:00.003-07:002021-12-12T16:15:11.904-07:00Who Is Gerald Raftery?<BR>There isn’t a bio online for author Gerald Raftery, so I’ve done lots of digging and have pieced together this brief biography from dozens of sources.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU3jZjyEhJhQIzOsVUvMzzcApMl5GxDU50TxJAAe95QDERoz3cWxzsjxf82SqDaBgUSGFJErYSjgj17WdHFJY9jPL5ZTe0Zf0wD5ptNsL2sayXqO5IU_qWJ6R_PnpOLKvs7knVxJoi2rLh/s320/gerald-raftery-c1929.jpg" width="228" height="320" data-original-width="502" data-original-height="705" /></div></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gerald Raftery, 1929<br />
Source: Seton Hall Yearbook</td></tr>
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<b>Overview.</b> Gerald “Jerry” Bransfield Raftery was a poet, teacher, librarian, and author. He was born October 30th 1905 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and died in Vermont on August 26th 1986. He wrote poems, articles, books, and even a bit of music, and was known mostly for his children’s fiction and for light verse in periodicals. His books for youth were animal-themed, or academic mysteries. One reviewer called his style “warm and wryly humorous,” and a journal editor described him as having “a penchant for the controversial or the offbeat.”<br />
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<b>Childhood & College Years.</b> Gerald was the son of Timothy E. Raftery and Mary C. Bransfield Raftery. His hobbies since boyhood were “tramping and camping.” He became a published poet while still in school, in various newspapers and magazines; his college annual called him a “budding poet” although still yet a “poetaster” and declared confidence in his literary fruition. At Seton Hall University (class of 1929), Gerald was on the yearbook staff, the school newspaper editorial staff, and he participated in Dramatics and the debate club. He was a graduate of not only Seton Hall but also NYU and Columbia (School of Library Service). During college he worked as a farm hand, laborer, salesman, waiter, clerk, and bank runner.<br />
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<b>Teacher & Librarian.</b> Raftery began teaching in 1930 in his hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey. His teaching career was interrupted for three years while he served as an Army intelligence specialist in Europe in World War II. He became a librarian at Lafayette Junior High School, New Jersey, in 1947. While there he helped craft a school policy for the handling of controversial issues and wrote many pieces about the life of a school librarian and his teenage students.<br />
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<b>Vermont.</b> In 1966 Gerald moved with his wife Eleanor Murnin (m. 1933) to Sunderland, Vermont. He wrote a column for the Bennington Banner and was librarian at the Martha Canfield Memorial Library in Arlington, transitioning after 16 years to president of the library board. The license plate on his car read: BOOKY. Eleanor passed away two years prior to Gerald, in 1984.<br />
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<b>Brother.</b> Gerald’s brother, Paul Philip Raftery (1908–2003), also wrote poetry and humor. He attended Seton Hall as well, and then law school. After working in the mayor’s office in Chicago, he retired to Vermont. He was a lifelong reader of poetry.<br />
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<b>Family History.</b> “Gerald Raftery is carrying on a famous poetical tradition. His great-grand-uncle was Anthony Raftery, the blind Irish minstrel who wandered the length of Eire, singing the verses he composed. Donn Byrne immortalized the poet in his Blind Raftery” (The Irish Book Lover, 1938). “In defense of the Raftery clan I’d like to point out that Sergeant R. is not necessarily a typical representative of our group. Anthony Raftery, a Gaelic poet who flourished some 150 years ago, not only punished his fair share of poteen but was probably the only blind horse thief in the history of Ireland, and certainly the only one to celebrate his transgressions in poetry” (Gerald Raftery, in The Saturday Evening Post, 1959).<br />
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<b>Publications & Writing.</b> Mr Raftery’s published books include: Gray Lance (1950, wolf), Snow Cloud (1951, horse), Copperhead Hollow (1952, youth earth science mystery), City Dog (1953), Twenty-Dollar Horse (1955), Slaver’s Gold (1966, youth cryptogram mystery), and The Natives Are Always Restless (1964, compilation of his junior high school library articles). In Twenty-Dollar Horse, Raftery addressed the issues of race relations and racial discrimination. His poems were published in New York World, Newark Evening News, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Sun, Harper’s Magazine, The Forge, and several other periodicals beginning in the 1920s; unfortunately, there is no compilation. His articles appeared in The New York Herald Tribune, The Clearing House, The Wilson Library Bulletin, Library Journal, and various education journals and magazines. His column for The Bennington Banner was titled “If I May Say So.” His books didn’t always get the best reviews, and in Gerald’s own words about his poetry, “I was admittedly a third-rater, although there were some kind critics who insisted that I was really second rate” (1974).<br />
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<b>Name.</b> Mr Raftery’s surname was sometimes misspelled in publications and once even by his own publisher, as Gerald Raferty. His name variations: Gerald B. Raftery, Gerald Bransfield Raftery, Jerry Raftery<BR>
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<b>One-Quote Wonder.</b> Raftery’s sole modern claim to fame — a quotation all over the internet “A horse loves freedom, and the weariest old work horse will roll on the ground or break into a lumbering gallop when he is turned loose into the open” — is widely posted under the Raferty misspelling.* After hours and hours of reading, I've tracked down this quotation to his novel <i>Snow Cloud</i>. The correct wording is “when he is turned loose in the open.” In archived items from Google Books and the Internet Archive, Raftery ceases to exist past 1964 except for one poem — “Apartment House” — which survived in some textbooks until the mid-1980s. Some of his Banner columns are referenced in newspaper archive sites up until the late 1970s or early 1980s. Unfortunately, it seems he was all but forgotten <nobr>3–4</nobr> decades ago.<br />
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* I take partial blame for spread of the misspelling. I posted the horse freedom quote to <a href="https://www.quotegarden.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Quote Garden</a> in 2001 copied from a book about horses in which his name was already misspelled. So I transferred the error from a secondhand print source to inadvertently facilitate its existence throughout all of eternity on the interwebs — as of the date of this blog post, only <i>two</i> public sites other than mine have the correct wording and name spelling, and there are 81,500 with incorrect information. I still feel bad about that old mistake; fortunately, I’ve long since changed my ways. In one of Raftery’s columns about poetry he wrote “Once a piece gets into the anthology circuit, apparently it goes on and on because anthologists just copy from other anthologies” (1974). So true. Which is, by the by, how it spread past my own site. Apologies to Mr Raftery and the world.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZCUO52nvhnXhdCIA0tvU5EHlxTA6ylgv26sDVZMt-5_zFqD3g-yURPo0CpQiEeVdmlBn4OHQ60HEhy4QmX4-14MeJq6BYwVRY5AS_eC-0CoziPu_T1_oOfj-TiOtWXXCQzZmeY09kPQ4ufnD2Z0VaPa12bCCN_YjWGajn_HK8wp-kuW7EmZC2mxQTqg=s775" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Gerald Raftery" title="Gerald Raftery" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="575" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZCUO52nvhnXhdCIA0tvU5EHlxTA6ylgv26sDVZMt-5_zFqD3g-yURPo0CpQiEeVdmlBn4OHQ60HEhy4QmX4-14MeJq6BYwVRY5AS_eC-0CoziPu_T1_oOfj-TiOtWXXCQzZmeY09kPQ4ufnD2Z0VaPa12bCCN_YjWGajn_HK8wp-kuW7EmZC2mxQTqg=s400"/></a></div>
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<i>Update, April 2020:</i>  Updated article to include Raftery’s branch of military, year of marriage, year of move to VT, license plate, place of death, and his wife’s name and year of death.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-85374162759224981772018-10-05T06:33:00.054-07:002021-12-15T10:15:59.665-07:00“How Beautiful” by George Elliston<BR>This poem is the original source of the popular quotation “How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it.” Ms. Elliston was an investigative reporter in Ohio. She was also a poet on the side, so passionate about the craft that she bequeathed much of her estate to the University of Cincinnati to encourage and promote the study and composition of poetry.<BR>
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<center>
<table border="0" align"center">
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How beautiful a day can be<BR>
When kindness touches it!<BR>
As suddenly illumined as<BR>
A room that's newly lit.<BR>
<BR>
In busy hours how grateful is<BR>
A little word of cheer,<BR>
So close it brings its tenderness,<BR>
Its sympathy so near.<BR>
<BR>
The weariness of heavy tasks<BR>
Is lost upon a day<BR>
When kind words bring their comfort, joy,<BR>
To any busy way.
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—George Elliston (1883–1946), “How Beautiful,” <i>Cinderella Cargoes: Poems for Poets and for Those Who Love Poetry</i>, 1929<!--Qe2-full, Qe7, tpvo; sk: ~George Elliston (keep tilde)--><BR>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhrWdQbN_mI7qD3ov2cKxqlcle8VKE84eNlGs8fac12MaKvchCyIlDpVHUEx95FJu2n6wpAhFV62W7Rz9BrtKhmUs6t7A4NGArIoNFRHRQEV-sr-y0u_l713VRZlyMaAgZXX3w6N9I8YnqywE1RtPPTxIUBlVUOt3ojHc50xK5enzEv-u0UFN1QGVnxCg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="George Elliston, c.1935" title="George Elliston, c.1935" border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhrWdQbN_mI7qD3ov2cKxqlcle8VKE84eNlGs8fac12MaKvchCyIlDpVHUEx95FJu2n6wpAhFV62W7Rz9BrtKhmUs6t7A4NGArIoNFRHRQEV-sr-y0u_l713VRZlyMaAgZXX3w6N9I8YnqywE1RtPPTxIUBlVUOt3ojHc50xK5enzEv-u0UFN1QGVnxCg"/></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiaSsuL6elnIkYpTT02ZTb6YY6QeyOLUgKl6HVF4cA1TGJs0_YjQbxZDW-UgKv5WTzQiLx21yJv8zFjPjF7B_UWU8fkDVThmEVgd6SQYMQtoIJ81yS0vnuCSljU-5ry6Q3qAQa4WALMxsmToREJImJ4RUWvYmhdFqoBNJsJ0slTQAXPcCpie0rUdEXOPA" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Cinderella Cargoes by George Elliston, 1929" title="Cinderella Cargoes by George Elliston, 1929" border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiaSsuL6elnIkYpTT02ZTb6YY6QeyOLUgKl6HVF4cA1TGJs0_YjQbxZDW-UgKv5WTzQiLx21yJv8zFjPjF7B_UWU8fkDVThmEVgd6SQYMQtoIJ81yS0vnuCSljU-5ry6Q3qAQa4WALMxsmToREJImJ4RUWvYmhdFqoBNJsJ0slTQAXPcCpie0rUdEXOPA"/></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEil7OELN80wGgM0roJW-ymFCuYM3WFCw7bnEF5IdzfomrX4X2UB9Q5OPNyR_gQQb1zITYaFJmhIc5-4NBDWSykf1Yusk4PnJ4FG663FKx38vzzdZcuV3bufeYOXFYN27XSQ79IzkN2-NX0ky4JRRp5b4ZVuD5hKgLnx1p8FvZCf-9E2Oitfho1fMbfvYQ" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="George Elliston signature" title="George Elliston signature" border="0" data-original-height="140" data-original-width="433" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEil7OELN80wGgM0roJW-ymFCuYM3WFCw7bnEF5IdzfomrX4X2UB9Q5OPNyR_gQQb1zITYaFJmhIc5-4NBDWSykf1Yusk4PnJ4FG663FKx38vzzdZcuV3bufeYOXFYN27XSQ79IzkN2-NX0ky4JRRp5b4ZVuD5hKgLnx1p8FvZCf-9E2Oitfho1fMbfvYQ"/></a></div>
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Image sources:  <i>The Birmingham News—Age-Herald</i>, 1935, modified t.g.; my personal copy of Elliston’s <i>Cinderella Cargoes</i>, George Sully & Co., 1929; author inscription in same, undated<BR>
<BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-37685325200662064602016-07-27T05:53:00.004-07:002021-12-12T13:34:53.958-07:00Who Is James Lendall Basford?<BR>I’ve stumbled upon a “new” author I like, amongst the dusty shelves of Google Books. Mr James Lendall Basford was a jeweler and watchmaker in Massachusetts who published two books of his own aphorisms — <i>Sparks from the Philosopher’s Stone</i> in 1882 and <i>Seven Seventy Seven Sensations</i> in 1897 — “the result of ideas which have forced themselves into expression during a period of the author’s life, extending from early youth to middle age, amidst the many cares and perplexities of a business life.”<BR>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwzwN4vUNnZ9G2fN7bQs8v4QcmzFQJkqgcdLY1RiGuPhOxdGz8qhJ9vY_F5AbvyNm2S5Vgyx5UMxxXuyC5RAi0jw80DeKWkR0yI_ByDkyAtcLsnNPsmajbePAeMt4u1GU5YBMka74YJP3q/s0/james-lendall-basford2.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="James Lendall Basford" title="James Lendall Basford" border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwzwN4vUNnZ9G2fN7bQs8v4QcmzFQJkqgcdLY1RiGuPhOxdGz8qhJ9vY_F5AbvyNm2S5Vgyx5UMxxXuyC5RAi0jw80DeKWkR0yI_ByDkyAtcLsnNPsmajbePAeMt4u1GU5YBMka74YJP3q/s0/james-lendall-basford2.jpg"/></a></div><BR>
Basford was born 1845 January 27th in Livermore Falls, Maine and passed away 1915 January 30th in Wareham, Massachusetts. He was married to Mary Wyman who died in 1883 of tuberculosis; they had two children who did not survive infancy and a son Ernest Dutton (1875–1920). James later married Florence Whitney; they had a son Ellerton Whitney (1890–1960) and a daughter who did not survive infancy.<BR>
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The 1900 census reports 55-year-old Basford with an occupation of physician, but I can find no further information about a transition from jeweler, watchmaker, and watch repairer to doctor except that he had an 1891 <nobr>trade-mark</nobr> for Basford's Aquarian Balm, a “remedy for the respiratory organs and the blood.”<!--MJBMAQAAMAAJ--> If he did indeed change careers, one wonders if his interest in medicine may have stemmed from his first wife’s disease and death in her thirties. His first book was dedicated to a Boston doctor, in appreciation and admiration of his contributions to the happiness and welfare of others, so perhaps he was inspired also by that man.<BR>
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J. L. Basford doesn’t have quotations or a bio anywhere on the Web, so I’m excited to provide a bit of info on his life and to revive selections from his writings at <a href="https://www.quotegarden.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Quote Garden</a>. Below are some sample quotes. Please enjoy these old-timey gems from this watchmaker by trade and aphorist by leisure.<BR>
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<b><i>Sparks from the Philosopher’s Stone</i>, 1882</b><BR>
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“How often do our thoughts play <i>'hide-and-seek'</i> with us in our memory!” ~James Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“Deep thinkers often lose two good thoughts by coming to the surface to record one.” ~James Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“Most of what is said under excitement is regretted when we become ourselves again.” ~James Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“The man who never has money enough to pay his debts, has too much of something else.” ~James Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“No monarch is so well obeyed as that whose name is Habit.” ~James Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“Men usually take better care of their boots than of their stomachs.” ~James Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<b><i>Seven Seventy Seven Sensations</i>, 1897</b><BR>
<BR>
“Gray locks,—Nature’s flag of truce.” ~J. Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“Joy comes to us like butterflies, but sorrow like wasps.” ~J. Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“The Present gallops away with clattering feet, while the Future steals noiselessly upon us.” ~J. Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“Men sin and the law punishes; the law sins and the devil rewards.” ~J. Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“Life is a long road on a short journey.” ~J. Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“Life is a series of ever-changing color, and each day has its hue of romance.” ~J. Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“Let us fly from the Past on the wings of Faith.” ~J. Lendall Basford<BR>
<BR>
“One neglect makes ten regrets.” ~J. Lendall Basford<BR>
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“The healthiest herbs in literature are <nobr>prov‑erbs.”</nobr> ~J. Lendall Basford<BR>
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<i>Image Information.</i> Photo and signature from Google Books scans, modified by Terri Guillemets using cameran collage app, 2016. An interesting side note: the books scanned by Google were from the libraries of James Russell Lowell and William James, sent as gifts from the author.<BR>
<BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-19657896979790420462016-05-24T10:43:00.001-07:002021-12-12T16:58:10.388-07:00Remembering The Grammar Mudge<br /><b>Richard E. Turner (1937-2011)</b><br />
The Grammar Curmudgeon, a.k.a. “The Mudge”<br />
<br />
Rich Turner was a professor, copyeditor, editor, curmudgeonesque grammarian, and beloved husband, father, and grandfather. He was born 1937 in South Africa and passed away 2011 in New Jersey. Starting in 2002 he published grammar and writing tips as well as his own personal essays, articles, and “grumbles” on his website The Grammar Curmudgeon at CitySlide (username grammarmudge). Having hosted the archived site for the past five years, his family will be taking it offline at the end of this month. With their permission I am reprinting two of Mr. Turner’s essays below, so that everyone who has enjoyed his writings and personality can have this online memorial. There are also several quotations from his essays on <a href="https://www.quotegarden.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Quote Garden</a>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgO6ZO7juooA4n5sDoMTPOxy5KV2tU3_dn_OkYAhdKXZ46FYTvEK6rfoqc0NAcr0BX-f1uMh-dl5ehzbRhC5a0k-HMO9oWNBn4dSEfQ-pQi98iGOWf7Fr6lpq_AOQgFKMFKos-cR__A_5o1YOyE99flRMjar9glmFkZ4OeR_WTaC2g4_slHBu9cOMZWyg=s284" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Richard E. Turner (1937-2011)" title="Richard E. Turner (1937-2011)" border="0" width="284" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgO6ZO7juooA4n5sDoMTPOxy5KV2tU3_dn_OkYAhdKXZ46FYTvEK6rfoqc0NAcr0BX-f1uMh-dl5ehzbRhC5a0k-HMO9oWNBn4dSEfQ-pQi98iGOWf7Fr6lpq_AOQgFKMFKos-cR__A_5o1YOyE99flRMjar9glmFkZ4OeR_WTaC2g4_slHBu9cOMZWyg=s400"/></a></div><br />
<b>An Open Letter to My Grandson</b><br />
by Richard E. Turner, 1997<br />
<br />
<i>When this was written, I had only one grandson. Now, since I have three of them, the title should probably be “An Open Letter to My Grandsons.”</i><br />
<br />
By the time you read this and can understand it, I may not be around anymore. That’s the way it goes, and there’s no point in trying to change things we cannot change. A big part of life is acceptance, or, as someone said, “All you can do is wash up and show up; everything else just happens.”<br />
<br />
My first advice is not to give any advice, unless people ask for it. Even then, you may need to figure out whether they really want your advice or merely want you to agree with them (as is usually the case).<br />
<br />
Obviously, my advice not to give advice is a self-contradiction. When, as will sometimes happen, you are caught in contradiction, you can always quote Walt Whitman [“Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes)”] or Emerson [“Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”]. Where the rules are clear-cut, consistency is good; where they are not (which is most of the time), consistency may be the sign of a closed mind.<br />
<br />
Cultivate openness of mind. It is a rare quality because most of us harbor inflexible biases without realizing that we do. You should, of course, develop a set of values to guide your behavior, but you should be wary of inflicting your values on others (or expecting others to agree with you).<br />
<br />
Tend to your own garden; what other people grow in theirs is not your concern, unless their actions harm others. What others believe is their own business, even if it’s diametrically opposed to some of your own most cherished ideas. Besides, your ability to change other people is either highly limited or nonexistent.<br />
<br />
This principle applies to religion as well as to morality. If you believe in a Higher Power, that Higher Power is your own, as is everyone else’s Higher Power. You have neither the obligation nor the right to proselytize. The best you can do is develop your own sense of spirituality, follow it with all the integrity you can muster, and let your example speak for itself.<br />
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Seek knowledge. Knowing stuff is good. Do this when you are young because your ability to absorb and, especially, to remember will deteriorate sooner than you expect. Recognize, too, that the power of intellect is limited. “Smart” doesn’t account for a whole lot, and it isn’t synonymous with “good” or “happy” or even “successful.”<br />
<br />
Although book knowledge is useful, what really matters is what you learn from experience. Observe the world. As Yogi Berra said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” (You probably have not heard of Yogi Berra; he was a baseball player and manager who had many curious sayings such as this one.)<br />
<br />
You may have noticed that children’s powers of observation are quite acute. One reason for this is that, to children, the world is literally wonderful – full of wonder. They see a lot because much of what they see is brand-new. After a while, though, we start to take what was once wonderful for granted – the changing sky, the seasons, the taste of food, the many sounds that we hear each day. We allow distractions that are not really worthy of our attention to divert us from “smelling the roses,” as the cliché puts it. Try to recapture the sense of wonder whenever you can.<br />
<br />
Develop the art of listening. Courtesy requires that you listen to what other people say, but you should go beyond this. By listening carefully, you can develop a sensitivity to language and an understanding of how people think and feel. A sense of the magical power of words can benefit anyone, not just writers and editors. And one does not need to be a psychologist to understand the complex internal choreography of thought and feeling that underlies people’s words.<br />
<br />
Listen also to the wordless world. Though the world of words may inform your intellect, that which cannot be expressed by words will inform your spirit. Give every form of music a hearing, especially the wordless music that expresses what words cannot, whether in the form of an inspired symphony or the sounds of the natural world. This kind of listening requires no intellectual understanding; it resonates within a part of us that is beyond intellect.<br />
<br />
Try to at least start doing these things when you’re young. Resist the natural tendency of youth to live too much in the future, believing that the future is forever. While you cannot expect to be wise and young at the same time, you can avoid the fate of those of us who treat life as a three-act play, doze during the first two acts, and wake, when the play is nearly over, to discover that this is the only performance. We do not, as far as I know, have the chance to rerun our lives.<br />
<br />
Numerous metaphors have been used to describe life. Among them is the metaphor of life as a battle. Try not to think of life in these terms because, if you regard life as a struggle, it will become one, and you will have little joy. It is far better to think of life as a journey in which the difficulties are hills to climb. The hills are there for a reason (even if you don’t know what that reason is), and the sense of satisfaction after climbing the hill is almost always worth the effort.<br />
<br />
But perhaps the best metaphor is that of life as a river. If you let the current carry you, you will be far better off than if you try to swim against it. This does not mean that it is an effortless ride; some parts of the river will be hazardous, requiring great skill to navigate safely. You will need to learn when to ask someone else to help with the paddling and when to stop paddling altogether.<br />
<br />
Finally, and possibly most important, you should take time to see the humor in it all. The world is a funny place, and funniest of all are the creatures who walk about upright on two legs, believing that they run the place. You should not take it too seriously, and that includes what I have written here.<br />
<br /><br />
<b>Kindness to Animals</b><br />
by Richard E. Turner, 2005<br />
<br />
Since I am a self-confessed, card-carrying curmudgeon, kindness is not generally considered to be one of my prominent character traits. Nevertheless, we curmudgeons tend to have a soft spot for so-called lower animals because the supposedly higher animals – namely, our fellow human beings – continually distress, disappoint, and annoy us.<br />
<br />
We do acknowledge the scientific evidence that our species has appeared to evolve physically more than any other. We admit that the human brain is probably more complex than any other known living brain, although we seriously question the uses to which our species has put this organ, and we often wonder whether some of our kind use it much at all. After all, there must be some reason why the adjective <i>stupid</i> is more often applied to people than to other animals. As for our supposed sense of morality – the ethics that we presume that <a href="https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/amoral-immoral/" target="_blank">amoral</a>* lower animals lack – the verdict is still out. The most highly developed human brains seem hard-pressed to agree on what is “right” and what is “wrong” in many situations. While we may argue that lower animals cannot do this either, that they live by instincts alone (a hypothesis now being refuted by many scientists), our relativistic morality does not necessarily mark us as superior. An equally valid conclusion could be that it serves mainly to make us more confused.<br />
<br />
Be that as it may, even we curmudgeons believe that kindness to animals (meaning, of course, <u>other</u> animals) is an admirable, possibly ennobling, trait. I’m not talking only about the fuzzy, loveable animals we have as pets. I, for example, am partial to warthogs, although I wouldn’t have one as a pet. Somehow, I feel that any animal that ugly (in my perception of beauty) must have a beautiful soul.** Besides, if warthogs didn’t find each other attractive, there wouldn’t be any baby warthogs, would there? No great loss, you say? Well, that’s your perspective and is not the warthog’s view; nor is it mine.<br />
<br />
I suppose that a case could be made against poisonous snakes, vultures, rats, and such creatures, but they are only doing what they must to protect themselves and survive. One can hardly fault a grizzly bear for mauling a two-legged intruder who threatens its young or stands between it and dinner. After all, people clobber and sometimes kill other people for little or no reason. Animals do not wage war, and, though I’m no zoologist, I don’t think many of them kill for the sheer fun of it.<br />
<br />
I’ve never understood people who shoot animals for sport. Oddly enough, people who would never think of killing a dog or cat for fun are greatly entertained by killing a deer or bear or elephant that has done nothing all its life but mind its own business. Besides, there are better things to shoot. For instance, when your computer or washing machine has broken down beyond repair, take out your trusty AK-47 or Smith & Wesson and blow that sucker to smithereens. It won’t feel a thing.<br />
<br />
What fool thinks that animals don’t feel pain? They have nervous systems and brains. Some of the less-developed species and orders indeed lack central nervous systems (yes, I swat flies and step on ants), but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about sentient creatures. We can’t be sure what feelings they have – biologists are still working on that – but their inability to express feelings in words doesn’t mean that they don’t have them. That they can’t shed tears doesn’t mean that they can’t feel hurt, mentally as well as physically. As Mark Twain observed, man is the only animal that blushes – or needs to. Does that mean that other animals can’t feel embarrassment? I swear I’ve seen many a cat or dog, caught in the act of doing something it knows it shouldn’t, <u>look</u> embarrassed.<br />
<br />
One of my fellow curmudgeons, the late Cleveland Amory, wrote that he was forming the “Hunt the Hunters Club,” the motto for which was, “If it’s red and moves, shoot it.” Perhaps I should revive this noble cause.<br />
<br />
Still, putting aside the issue of hunting, there’s no reason why we cannot be much kinder to other animals than we are. I confess my regret that I was raised to be a carnivore, and I envy people who can take their kindness toward animals to the limit of eating nothing but plants, especially when I read the horrifying articles about the way some animals are treated before they are slaughtered as food for humans. I don’t like to think about what something I’m eating looked like or how it felt when it was alive. Yesterday’s loveable and attractive animal is tomorrow’s fricassee. Yech!<br />
<br />
Still, this is all the more reason for those of us who are habitual meat-eaters to be kind to the animals that live among us and even to those that are fortunate enough to live in the wild, mostly apart from us. As with our own kind, it costs us nothing to try to understand them, to empathize with them as much as is humanly (and humanely) possible, to be gentle and considerate.<br />
<br />
To end where I began, we curmudgeons often have difficulty viewing our species as superior, let alone noble. In particular, this curmudgeon feels that the actions of people who are cruel to animals are proof of the human capacity to be barbaric and mean. On the other hand, ironically, people who treat animals with respect, consideration, and kindness give the word <i>humanity</i> at least one positive meaning.<br />
<br />
* For the first time on this website, I am using a word link that takes the user to definitions at answers.com. If you click on <i>amoral</i>, you will go to sources clarifying that <i><u>a</u>moral</i> does not have the same meaning as <i><u>im</u>moral</i> (the opposite of moral) but refers to the state of being neither moral nor immoral, of existing outside the context of morality.<br />
<br />
** “That’s ridiculous,” you say, “Warthogs don’t have souls.” How do you know? It could be that, when they die, their beautiful souls ascend to warthog heaven, the Great Mudhole in the Sky.<br />
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“Grammar Checker – A software program that is not needed by those who know grammar and virtually useless for those who don’t.” ~Richard E. Turner, “The Curmudgeon’s Short Dictionary of Modern Phrases,” c.2009<br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-70103980966190553922016-02-27T16:12:00.001-07:002021-12-12T13:16:10.204-07:00Monk's Cento on Man<br />The Poets’ Essay on Man<br />
A Literary Curiosity<br />
collected & arranged by James Monk<br />
cento of fifty-two authors, c. 1873<br />
<br />
What strange infatuation rules mankind! <i>—T. Chatterton</i><br />
What different spheres to human bliss assigned! <i>—S. Rogers</i><br />
To loftier things your finer pulses burn. <i>—C. Sprague</i><br />
If Man would but his finger nature learn. <i>—R.H. Dana</i><br />
What several ways men to their calling have! <i>—B. Johnson</i><br />
And grasp at life though sinking to the grave. <i>—W. Falconer</i><br />
Ask what is human life? The sage replies. <i>—W. Cowper</i><br />
Wealth, pomp and honor are but empty toys. <i>—R. Fergusson</i><br />
We trudge, we travel, but from pain to pain. <i>—F. Quarles</i><br />
Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main. <i>—R. Burns</i><br />
We only toil who are the first of things. <i>—A. Tennyson</i><br />
From labor health, from health contentment springs. <i>—J. Beattie</i><br />
Fame runs before us as the morning star. <i>—J. Dryden</i><br />
How little do we know that which we are! <i>—Byron</i><br />
Let none, then, here his certain knowledge boast. <i>—J. Pomfret</i><br />
Of fleeting joys too certain to be lost. <i>—E. Waller</i><br />
For over all there hangs a cloud of fear. <i>—T. Hood</i><br />
All is but change and separation here. <i>—Steele</i><br />
To smooth life's passage o'er its thorny way. <i>—T. Dwight</i><br />
Sum up at night what thou hast done by day. <i>—G. Herbert</i><br />
Be rich in patience, if thou in gudes be poor. <i>—W. Dunbar</i><br />
So many men do stoope to sights unsure. <i>—G. Whitney</i><br />
Choose out the man to virtue best inclined. <i>—N. Rowe</i><br />
Throw envy, folly, prejudice, behind. <i>—J. Langhorne</i><br />
Defer not till to-morrow to be wise. <i>—W. Congreve</i><br />
Wealth heaped on wealth nor truth nor safety buys. <i>—S. Johnson</i><br />
Remembrance worketh with her busy train. <i>—O. Goldsmith</i><br />
Care draws on care, woe comforts woe again. <i>—M. Drayton</i><br />
On high estates huge heaps of care attend. <i>—Webster</i><br />
No joy so great but runneth to an end. <i>—R. Southwell</i><br />
No hand applaud what honor shuns to hear. <i>—J. Thomson</i><br />
Who casts off shame should likewise cast off fear. <i>—J.S. Knowles</i><br />
Grief haunts us down the precipice of years. <i>—W.S. Landor</i><br />
Virtue alone no dissolution fears. <i>—E. Moore</i><br />
Time loosely spent will not again be won. <i>—R. Greene</i><br />
What shall I do to be forever known? <i>—A. Cowley</i><br />
But now the wane of life comes darkly on. <i>—J. Baillie</i><br />
After a thousand mazes overgone. <i>—J. Keats</i><br />
In this brief state of trouble and unrest. <i>—B. Barton</i><br />
Man never is, but always to be, blest. <i>—A. Pope</i><br />
How fading are the joys we dote upon! <i>—J. Norris</i><br />
Lo! while I speak the present moment's gone. <i>—J. Oldham</i><br />
Oh! thou eternal arbiter of things! <i>—M. Akenside</i><br />
How awful is the hour when conscience stings. <i>—J.G. Percival</i><br />
Conscience—stern arbiter in every breast. <i>—J.A. Hillhouse</i><br />
The fluttering wish on wing that will not rest. <i>—D. Mallet</i><br />
Time is the present hour; the past is fled. <i>—J. Marsden</i><br />
Oh! thou futurity—our hope and dread. <i>—E. Elliott</i><br />
This above all: to thin own self be true. <i>—W. Shakespeare</i><br />
Learn to live well, that thou may'st die so, too. <i>—J. Denham</i><br />
To those that list the world's gay scenes I leave. <i>—E. Spenser</i><br />
Some ills we wish for when we wish to live. <i>—E. Young</i><br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-15676537031864105052016-02-27T10:15:00.001-07:002021-12-12T13:09:33.568-07:00Deming's Cento on Life<br />The following poem is a compilation of lines selected by Mrs. H. A. Deming, from thirty-eight authors. It is said to have taken her one year of research to find and fit all the pieces to create this cento on Life. It was originally published in the <i>San Francisco Times</i>, circa 1868.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>E. Young:</i><br />
Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour?<br />
<i>Dr. Johnson:</i><br />
Life's a short summer—man a flower.<br />
<i>A. Pope:</i><br />
By turns we catch the vital breath and die—<br />
<i>M. Prior:</i><br />
The cradle and the tomb, alas! too nigh.<br />
<i>Dr. Sewell:</i><br />
To be is far better than not to be,<br />
<i>E. Spenser:</i><br />
Though all man's life may seem a tragedy.<br />
<i>S. Daniel:</i><br />
But light cares speak when mighty griefs are dumb;<br />
<i>W. Raleigh:</i><br />
The bottom is but shallow whence they come.<br />
<i>H.W. Longfellow:</i><br />
Your fate is but the common fate of all;<br />
<i>R. Southwell:</i><br />
Unmingled joys here to no man befall.<br />
<i>W. Congreve:</i><br />
Nature to each allots his proper sphere,<br />
<i>C. Churchill:</i><br />
Fortune makes folly her peculiar care.<br />
<i>Rochester:</i><br />
Custom does not often reason overrule,<br />
<i>J. Armstrong:</i><br />
And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.<br />
<i>J. Milton:</i><br />
Live well how long or short—permit to heaven,<br />
<i>P.J. Bailey:</i><br />
They who forgive most shall be most forgiven.<br />
<i>Abp. Trench:</i><br />
Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face<br />
<i>W. Somerville:</i><br />
Vile intercourse where virtue has not place.<br />
<i>J. Thomson:</i><br />
Then keep each passion down, however dear,<br />
<i>Byron:</i><br />
Thou pendulum, betwixt a smile and tear.<br />
<i>T. Smollett:</i><br />
Her sensual snares let faithless pleasures lay,<br />
<i>G. Crabbe:</i><br />
With craft and skill—to ruin and betray.<br />
<i>P. Massinger:</i><br />
Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise,<br />
<i>A. Cowley:</i><br />
We masters grow of all we despise.<br />
<i>J. Beattie:</i><br />
O then remove that impious self-esteem,<br />
<i>W. Cowper:</i><br />
Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream.<br />
<i>W. Davenant:</i><br />
Think not ambition wise because 'tis brave,<br />
<i>T. Gray:</i><br />
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.<br />
<i>N.P. Willis:</i><br />
What is ambition? 'tis a glorious cheat,<br />
<i>J. Addison:</i><br />
Only destructive to the brave and great.<br />
<i>J. Dryden:</i><br />
What's all the gaudy glitter of a crown?<br />
<i>F. Quarles:</i><br />
The way to bliss lies not on beds of down.<br />
<i>R. Watkyns:</i><br />
How long we live, not years but actions tell,<br />
<i>R. Herrick:</i><br />
That man lives twice who lives the first life well.<br />
<i>W. Mason:</i><br />
Make them while yet ye may your God your friend,<br />
<i>A. Hill:</i><br />
Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend.<br />
<i>R.H. Dana:</i><br />
The trust that's given guard and to yourself be just,<br />
<i>W. Shakespeare:</i><br />
For, live we how we can, yet die we must.<br />
<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-81279081601319443872015-10-25T10:37:00.002-07:002021-12-12T12:44:24.368-07:00Baudelaire drunk on poetry<br />
“Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually.<br />
<br />
Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken.<br />
<br />
And if sometimes, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and the drunkenness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, of whatever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks, ask what hour it is; and the wind, wave, star, bird, clock, will answer you: ‘It is the hour to be drunken! Be drunken, if you would not be martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.’”<br />
<br />
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867), “Be Drunken,” translated from the French by Arthur Symons<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-81552386586984434102015-09-01T18:18:00.007-07:002021-12-21T20:57:31.802-07:00She is too fond of books<BR>Mr. and Mrs. Stuart spent their evenings in chasing that bright bubble called social success, and usually came home rather cross because they could not catch it.<BR>
<BR>
On one of these occasions they received a warm welcome, for, as they approached the house, smoke was seen issuing from an attic window, and flames flickering behind the half-drawn curtain. Bursting out of the carriage with his usual impetuosity, Mr. Stuart let himself in and tore upstairs shouting “Fire!” like an engine company.<BR>
<BR>
In the attic Christie was discovered lying dressed upon her bed, asleep or suffocated by the smoke that filled the room. A book had slipped from her hand, and in falling had upset the candle on a chair beside her; the long wick leaned against a cotton gown hanging on the wall, and a greater part of Christie’s wardrobe was burning brilliantly.<BR>
<BR>
“I forbade her to keep the gas lighted so late, and see what the deceitful creature has done with her private candle!” cried Mrs. Stuart with a shrillness that roused the girl from her heavy sleep more effectually than the anathemas Mr. Stuart was fulminating against the fire.<BR>
<BR>
Sitting up she looked dizzily about her. The smoke was clearing fast, a window having been opened; and the tableau was a striking one. Mr. Stuart with an excited countenance was dancing frantically on a heap of half-consumed clothes pulled from the wall. He had not only drenched them with water from bowl and pitcher, but had also cast those articles upon the pile like extinguishers, and was skipping among the fragments with an agility which contrasted with his stout figure in full evening costume, and his besmirched face, made the sight irresistibly ludicrous.<BR>
<BR>
Mrs. Stuart, though in her most regal array, seemed to have left her dignity downstairs with her opera cloak, for with skirts gathered closely about her, tiara all askew, and face full of fear and anger, she stood upon a chair and scolded like any shrew.<BR>
<BR>
The comic overpowered the tragic, and being a little hysterical with the sudden alarm, Christie broke into a peal of laughter that sealed her fate.<BR>
<BR>
“Look at her! look at her!” cried Mrs. Stuart gesticulating on her perch as if about to fly. “She has been at the wine, or lost her wits. She must go, Horatio, she must go! I cannot have my nerves shattered by such dreadful scenes. She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain...”<BR>
<BR>
—Louisa May Alcott, <i>Work: A Story of Experience</i>, 1873<BR>
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<BR><i>Image:</i>  Public domain. Mezzotint by P. Dawe after J. Foldsone. 1772. Modified t.g. Courtesy of Wellcome Collection, wellcomecollection.org. Picture changed in 2021 from original blog post image.<BR>
<BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-48785376389539395902015-07-05T12:57:00.003-07:002021-12-02T15:54:14.623-07:00Thus danced Nietzsche<BR>“I desire to have goblins round me, for I am brave. Courage that dispelleth ghosts createth goblins for itself,—courage desireth to laugh...<br />
<br />
Which of you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?<br />
<br />
He who strideth across the highest mountains laugheth at all tragedies whether of the stage or of life...<br />
<br />
Ye say unto me: ‘Life is hard to bear.’ But for what purpose have ye got in the morning your pride and in the evening your submission?<br />
<br />
Life is hard to bear. But do not pretend to be so frail! We are all good he-asses and she-asses of burden.<br />
<br />
What have we in common with the rose-bud that trembleth because a drop of dew lieth on its body?<br />
<br />
It is true: we love life, not because we are accustomed to life, but because we are accustomed to love.<br />
<br />
There is always a madness in love. There is however also always a reason in madness.<br />
<br />
And to my thinking as a lover of life, butterflies, soap-bubbles, and whatever is of their kind among men, know most of happiness.<br />
<br />
To see these light, foolish, delicate, mobile little souls flitting about—that moveth Zarathustra to tears and to song.<br />
<br />
I could believe only in a God who would know how to dance.<br />
<br />
And when I saw my devil, I found him earnest, thorough, deep, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity,—through him all things fall.<br />
<br />
Not through wrath but through laughter one slayeth. Arise! let us slay the spirit of gravity!<br />
<br />
I learned to walk: now I let myself run. I learned to fly: now I need no pushing to move me from the spot.<br />
<br />
Now I am light, now I fly, now I see myself beneath myself, now a God danceth through me.”<br />
<br />
Thus spake Zarathustra.<br />
<br />
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), “Of Reading and Writing,” <i>Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None</i>, translated from the German by Alexander Tille, 1896<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoOqDDFuft9Xr0f3-5kClIro9Ep2k-biUW666zaiSNiKldpXVMvUnc3ur-uRCesX5a_ay7QRDRngB580omSmuxwyIjA3j4d9eNOkqgamJrs3LU43BKftWGfgVwU82cR823NRBM2cCczdAk/s545/nietzsche-purple.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img border="0" height="450" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoOqDDFuft9Xr0f3-5kClIro9Ep2k-biUW666zaiSNiKldpXVMvUnc3ur-uRCesX5a_ay7QRDRngB580omSmuxwyIjA3j4d9eNOkqgamJrs3LU43BKftWGfgVwU82cR823NRBM2cCczdAk/s400/nietzsche-purple.jpg"/></a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-27118663073763037262015-07-02T19:49:00.003-07:002021-12-12T12:24:27.759-07:00A simple definition of life<BR><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhj08t7Qg403ctcFoar8P1FjgtiA8VfSF90VggjbSa7TVJYAgHjKgKI3E4u6HFsBeZuDPRZGNOMJeaw1FfvlDSakDZfuFMDPu-LP6g_Ue3bqBupZRB50gRToniWswMPnWoT0FVu-huicSaHr7x4rgWQ6T8pu4_p_oss7xWH4p1NejzaOUPZFbQ21A6T0g=s545" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img border="0" width="450" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="545" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhj08t7Qg403ctcFoar8P1FjgtiA8VfSF90VggjbSa7TVJYAgHjKgKI3E4u6HFsBeZuDPRZGNOMJeaw1FfvlDSakDZfuFMDPu-LP6g_Ue3bqBupZRB50gRToniWswMPnWoT0FVu-huicSaHr7x4rgWQ6T8pu4_p_oss7xWH4p1NejzaOUPZFbQ21A6T0g=s400"/></a></div>
<BR>
<center>“A simple definition of life:<BR>
The chance you’ve been waiting for.”<BR>
– Robert Brault –</center>
<BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-50735873738516458702015-06-25T10:16:00.004-07:002021-12-12T12:40:32.132-07:00And be a friend to man...<BR>
<b>The House by the Side of the Road</b><BR>
<BR>
<i>      “He was a friend to man,<BR>
      and lived in a house by the<BR>
      side of the road.”<BR>
      —Homer</i><BR>
<BR>
There are hermit souls that live withdrawn<BR>
    In the peace of their self-content;<BR>
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart,<BR>
    In a fellowless firmament;<BR>
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths<BR>
    Where highways never ran;—<BR>
But let me live by the side of the road<BR>
    And be a friend to man.<BR>
<BR>
Let me live in a house by the side of the road,<BR>
    Where the race of men go by—<BR>
The men who are good and the men who are bad,<BR>
    As good and as bad as I.<BR>
I would not sit in the scorner's seat,<BR>
    Or hurl the cynic's ban;—<BR>
Let me live in a house by the side of the road<BR>
    And be a friend to man.<BR>
<BR>
I see from my house by the side of the road,<BR>
    By the side of the highway of life,<BR>
The men who press with the ardor of hope,<BR>
    The men who are faint with the strife.<BR>
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears—<BR>
    Both parts of an infinite plan;—<BR>
Let me live in my house by the side of the road<BR>
    And be a friend to man.<BR>
<BR>
I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead<BR>
    And mountains of wearisome height;<BR>
That the road passes on through the long afternoon<BR>
    And stretches away to the night.<BR>
But still I rejoice when the travellers rejoice,<BR>
    And weep with the strangers that moan,<BR>
Nor live in my house by the side of the road<BR>
    Like a man who dwells alone.<BR>
<BR>
Let me live in my house by the side of the road<BR>
    Where the race of men go by—<BR>
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,<BR>
    Wise, foolish—so am I.<BR>
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat<BR>
    Or hurl the cynic's ban?—<BR>
Let me live in my house by the side of the road<BR>
    And be a friend to man.<BR>
<BR>
—Sam Walter Foss (1858–1911)<BR>
<BR>
“The House by the Side of the Road” was published in <i>The Independent</i>, 1897, and in Foss’ own book, <i>Dreams in Homespun</i>. According to <i>The Alumnæ News</i> of The Normal College, New York, the sentiments of this poem were inspired by the Roadside Settlement in Des Moines, Iowa. And the wording was inspired by Homer, as seen in the epigraph to this beautiful poem. I’m not the best of Greek scholars, but I think the excerpt would be:<BR>
“Axylus: in Arisba fair he dwelt<BR>
With riches blest, near to the public way<BR>
His dwelling: thus a general friend to man<BR>
He lov’d them all, and all their wants reliev’d...”<BR>
<BR>
And as if Foss’ poetry wasn’t enough to give me joy, get this — he was also a librarian. <i>Swoon!</i><BR>
<BR>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgnf6iiPqrNVFIhKQUbpKHJ9BSNHCLUYCz1fVfcv4Nq1uzaD6thy2obkD0ahWXllMuZHC7zj2hWC2dNo_yWHKGD-zVrpD_7tnntHc6_ijL6mLCK3o4BEKCQWD3r0HXgIxGeLAL5S_vLv3iLvcUF-Y1okavyZspOXAyMHXnw4k5_XmMllnTQgVn4jBHcRg=s600" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Sam Walter Foss (1858–1911)" title="Sam Walter Foss (1858–1911)" border="0" height="450" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgnf6iiPqrNVFIhKQUbpKHJ9BSNHCLUYCz1fVfcv4Nq1uzaD6thy2obkD0ahWXllMuZHC7zj2hWC2dNo_yWHKGD-zVrpD_7tnntHc6_ijL6mLCK3o4BEKCQWD3r0HXgIxGeLAL5S_vLv3iLvcUF-Y1okavyZspOXAyMHXnw4k5_XmMllnTQgVn4jBHcRg=s400"/></a></div><BR>
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<i>Image source:</i> “A Poet of the Common Life: Editorial Sketch of Sam Walter Foss,” in <i>The Coming Age</i>, October 1899<BR>
<BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-79847968227634700032015-05-19T18:12:00.001-07:002021-12-02T10:31:44.965-07:00There’s a quotemark in my lunch!<BR>What a quotatious day I had. First there was lunch at a salad buffet where my radishes were shaped like quotation marks or speech bubbles! And after work I relaxed by flipping on the TV to a rerun of <i>The Middle</i>, and it turned out to be the episode (S3,E6) in which Brick repeatedly quotes Shakespeare. Ahhh, some days are just better than others.<br />
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“I do remember him... like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring. When ’a was naked, he was for all the world like a fork’d radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife.” ~William Shakespeare, <i>Henry IV, Part II</i>  [III, 2, Falstaff]<br />
<br />
“My salad days,<br />
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,<br />
To say as I said then! But, come, away;<br />
Get me ink and paper...”<br />
~William Shakespeare, <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>  [I, 5, Cleopatra]<br />
<br />
“’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb.” ~William Shakespeare, <i>All's Well That Ends Well</i>  [IV, 5, Lafeu]<br />
<br />
And, as if life couldn’t get much sweeter, while trying to find an appropriate quotation for this blog entry I happened upon a book from the 1800s, <i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=autIAAAAIAAJ" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Plant-lore and Garden-craft of Shakespeare</a></i> by H. N. Ellacombe, in which the quotes are all related to gardening, plants, and flowers. What a find!<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-49138508294501791072014-12-31T14:32:00.009-07:002021-12-02T12:16:50.243-07:00Introducing Gertrude Tooley Buckingham<BR>A few months ago I posted to <a href="https://www.quotegarden.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Quote Garden</a> some excerpts from the poetry of Gertrude Tooley Buckingham. Mrs Buckingham was a friend of my family a few generations ago in New York. My parents inherited an inscribed copy of her 1948 book <i>Poems at Random</i> when my grandma passed away about eight years ago, but I had not heard of Gertrude until then. We also received a few unpublished poems, journal entries, and letters.<br />
<br />
Gertrude was born on June 26th 1880 in New York City. Her maiden name was Tooley and she was an only child to very loving and hard-working parents, Spencer F. Tooley and Fanny Angell. When she was 17 she studied for one year at the Conservatory of Music in Detroit while staying at the home of her cousin. She became a music teacher. She and her husband were both engaged to other people when they fell in love. She married Samuel L. Buckingham (1875–1958) on October 21st 1903. They had two daughters, Doris (b.1909) and Lorraine (b.1912). All were born in New York, and they lived on Northern Avenue which in 1938 was renamed to Cabrini Boulevard. Gertrude became a housewife but maintained a lifelong interest in music; Sam liked sports and games; and Lorraine was a bank secretary.<br />
<br />
In 1939, the family sustained a great loss when Doris was taken from them through an accident, at the young age of 29. A few months later, Gertrude received from Spirit the gift of poetic talent. She became what we could call a medium poet, as she heard the words spoken in her head and saw them pass in front of her eyes, sensing what she was to write. She was about age sixty at the time. <i>Poems at Random</i> is dedicated to Doris.<br />
<br />
Gertrude and Sam, who was an undertaker, were married for 54 years before he passed away. She refers to them in her journal as soul mates, and six years after his death writes “My great love for Sam will never die as I’m sure his love for me will always live.” They had three grandchildren: two girls and a boy. Gertrude passed away on August 4th 1971.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4jiFgQbtqDmarlzFHgNcEVAKEHdSH85_c8FtLJ10PgXAijLlieEvUKcNglfqoit-ay63LzSssRmfgjbg4AHcqPYCwEMkLBghqAvfBG7jtj5U0l1EgF96YvuZgsUoQzj9jCNJ3L6a7We5w/s800/GertrudeBuckinghamInscription.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Gertrude Tooley Buckingham signature" title="Gertrude Tooley Buckingham signature" border="0" width="400" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4jiFgQbtqDmarlzFHgNcEVAKEHdSH85_c8FtLJ10PgXAijLlieEvUKcNglfqoit-ay63LzSssRmfgjbg4AHcqPYCwEMkLBghqAvfBG7jtj5U0l1EgF96YvuZgsUoQzj9jCNJ3L6a7We5w/s400/GertrudeBuckinghamInscription.png"/></a></div>
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Here are the name variations I’ve come across:  Gertrude Tooley, Gertrude A. Tooley, Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, Gertrude A. Buckingham, Gertrude E. Buckingham, Gertrude T. Buckingham, Gertrude Buckingham, Mrs. Sam Buckingham, Mrs. Samuel Buckingham, Gertie Buckingham<br />
<br />
I’ve not yet been able to find any of Gertrude’s family, but I’d love to ask for a photograph of her and any other information they can provide. If you are related to this lovely author, please contact me.<!--I think these may be relatives: John Reynolds and wife Ann, Joan Reynolds and husband Hank, Ruth Reynolds, Joan Doris Buckingham, Lorraine Buckingham, John J. Reynolds, Lorraine B. Reynolds, Ruth Ann Tooley, Ruth Ann Angell, Lorraine Gertrude Buckingham, Lorraine Gertrude Reynolds, Lorraine Buckingham Reynolds, New Jersey, Van Buren Ave, Franklin Square, Wading River, Westhampton Beach, St Petersburg Beach, Florida. I think Lorraine passed away in 2006 and had 5 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren.--><br />
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<i>Update, April 2020:</i> added Gertrude’s year of death, name of parents, profession, and daughters’ birth years<br />
<br />
“My prayer is that many of the poems in this book may help to bring joy and peace and understanding to those souls who may be grieving for loved ones whom they call ‘dead’ but who, in reality, are still living in a real world of beauty, being able to manifest to their dear ones of earth when the door is opened for them to come in.” ~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, <i>Poems at Random</i>, 1948<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-1618085106218783772014-09-14T06:47:00.004-07:002021-12-12T12:08:51.086-07:00As is the generation of leaves<BR>Apparently quotation collecting is genetic. Ten years ago, which was 18 years after I had already become obsessed with quotes, I learned that my great-grandmother Amy kept a notebook of inspirational quotations. She was born in 1896 and died before I was born. My grandma found the book and that is how it came to me. Based on the dates of the first items, it appears to be about a hundred years old. The first item that is dated is from 1919, and the last entry with a date is from 1969. Click photos to enlarge.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQdZTOYFZoByHVVpUFlDcNfR2v8tZFKyVj1JhHRm-H-7hOw5caB8oc8vFLeL7M9gWVF1Ib5XCSw5AEKV508pdY0__q_1KMyBTqmw0e_eazRDZ7iAr6_Jmb19fgmdKz3Eg27UuQM_d-FcIh/s600/amybk1.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="my great-grandmother's commonplace book" title="my great-grandmother's commonplace book" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="507" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQdZTOYFZoByHVVpUFlDcNfR2v8tZFKyVj1JhHRm-H-7hOw5caB8oc8vFLeL7M9gWVF1Ib5XCSw5AEKV508pdY0__q_1KMyBTqmw0e_eazRDZ7iAr6_Jmb19fgmdKz3Eg27UuQM_d-FcIh/s400/amybk1.jpg"/></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzoLyI8gWlYvowwVUEzv-R9hVk90Rjse_twFI4swljQkA7vOWtf1UF_IjveBGPHJLEnwNC8669B1Vsw6CMW7j4bxjObsLuJgJFPF_-y3oPaN0GrGm0HgDl5tdNs0D_8CySa00g7lM1MUZC/s774/amybk3.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="my great-grandmother's commonplace book" title="my great-grandmother's commonplace book" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzoLyI8gWlYvowwVUEzv-R9hVk90Rjse_twFI4swljQkA7vOWtf1UF_IjveBGPHJLEnwNC8669B1Vsw6CMW7j4bxjObsLuJgJFPF_-y3oPaN0GrGm0HgDl5tdNs0D_8CySa00g7lM1MUZC/s400/amybk3.jpg"/></a></div>
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<i>“As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity.<br />
The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber<br />
Burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning.<br />
So one generation of men will grow while another dies.”<br />
—Homer</i><br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-85426959356215673152014-06-16T08:07:00.051-07:002021-12-12T12:07:54.888-07:00Altering prose<BR>I remember in the mid-1980s doing blackout poetry (as it is now called — also known as found poetry, poetry in prose, altered prose, etc.) with my friends after learning about it from an English teacher. I’ve been a lover of words for as long as I can remember but somehow forgot about that fun hobby over the years. Recently I rediscovered it thanks to this beautiful thing called the world wide web, and so I grabbed my old falling-apart 50¢ paperback of <i>The Scarlet Letter</i> and started playing around again with these wordly treasure hunts after nearly three decades. And what a good time I’m having.<BR>
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Here’s a photo of one of my first adventures. It reads: “Hester unadulterated. The end.” 🤣 Click to enlarge.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY8QpEmjyt6gQPzcJTQhTGFssYyuYvtaxio9xD6dIkLfTiFpznXV8I8QD6YxBaHmLVLv6uQS93v72mkW9LjVw9w1zggssz3JF9jvyv5kKyCojmm93B4gDzlncgOsX4GWOFd7jXwIsPjFFy/s1024/20140616Hester.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="Hester Unadulterated — Scarlet Letter blackout poetry by Terri Guillemets" title="Hester Unadulterated — Scarlet Letter blackout poetry by Terri Guillemets" border="0" height="600" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY8QpEmjyt6gQPzcJTQhTGFssYyuYvtaxio9xD6dIkLfTiFpznXV8I8QD6YxBaHmLVLv6uQS93v72mkW9LjVw9w1zggssz3JF9jvyv5kKyCojmm93B4gDzlncgOsX4GWOFd7jXwIsPjFFy/s600/20140616Hester.JPG"/></a></div>
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The problem with blackout poetry is the destruction of books which of course makes me cringe, but I’m intending to leave my books intact and not literally blackout many words so that the books are slowly turned into readable art. Some people make a copy of the page instead of modifying the actual book, which seems like a good idea as well.<br />
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This pastime is such a fulfilling creative outlet. To all the authors whose works I end up modifying, I offer sincerest of advance apologies. I will try my darndest to create new written art without disrespecting your original words (too much).<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-56969024253033352582014-06-02T11:35:00.000-07:002020-07-28T16:17:03.084-07:00¡Viva la Oxford comma!<br />
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<a href="https://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/34/f5/89/34f5898bb5b529cf7b3cb9e3ca0b56da.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/34/f5/89/34f5898bb5b529cf7b3cb9e3ca0b56da.jpg" height="535" width="420" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Professional editor Laura Poole</div>
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of <a href="https://www.archereditorial.com/" target="_blank">Archer Editorial Services</a> created</div>
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this “serial comma” hand signal.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>¡Viva la Oxford comma!</b></span></div>
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“There are people who embrace the Oxford<br />
comma, and people who don’t, and I’ll just say<br />
this: <i>never</i> get between these people when<br />
drink has been taken.” —Lynne Truss</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-44072538736944886902014-04-22T13:40:00.002-07:002021-12-02T12:15:28.169-07:00John Ruskin — first user of emoticons?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjroaKefx5VeUDV5I6EjX0jx-RSC3sO1pURGJaboGd1ppl-ywfGLPmxMzEfX_W98B8hC-GVIZ2P7RrEtRYPTOsIRYbPXvKB-vseRwn13Q2fUxE4m-A04YstHJKwCFeu6MQWHTOtGe5GboDg/s589/ruskin-wink-1879.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="from Proserpina: Studies of Wayside Flowers, 1879, digitized by Google Books" title="from Proserpina: Studies of Wayside Flowers, 1879, digitized by Google Books" border="0" width="479" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="589" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjroaKefx5VeUDV5I6EjX0jx-RSC3sO1pURGJaboGd1ppl-ywfGLPmxMzEfX_W98B8hC-GVIZ2P7RrEtRYPTOsIRYbPXvKB-vseRwn13Q2fUxE4m-A04YstHJKwCFeu6MQWHTOtGe5GboDg/s400/ruskin-wink-1879.png"/></a></div><BR>
I’m pretty sure I see a winky face in Ruskin’s 1879 book <i>Proserpina</i>  ;)<!--Introduction, p.5, 7wMGAAAAQAAJ--><br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-50858211254325543402014-04-03T10:20:00.024-07:002022-01-17T09:58:51.335-07:00Grinding us down to a single flat surface (iOS7 quotes)<BR>iOS 7-inspired. Phooey! Flat means boring. Who wants flat champagne. Or a flat personality, or singer. Nobody. “They” say it means simple, clean, clear. Well, I much prefer the texture, the depth! Nature is the ultimate in simplicity, yet she is full of texture. Effervescence is life.<BR>
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The death of skeuomorphism is a reflection of our newfound “simplicity” in life, which seems to me the opposite of simplicity — a glossing over of the beautiful details in life, to make more room in our minds for the irrelevant details that bog us down. What exactly are we replacing our time with, that we save by using txtspeak instead of real words, and what are we losing by transporting ourselves in metal machines over concrete and asphalt to flat office walls, and shopping in shiny supermarkets instead of pulling the vegetables from the land with our own hands, feet in the warm dirt, sun on our faces? We’re losing the Art that is Life.<BR>
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The decline of design, the decline of society? Have our lives really gone from tapestry to glass? Imagine how quickly Michelangelo could’ve finished the Sistine Chapel ceiling in iOS 7‑style. And how speedily we could pass through a flattened Louvre.<BR>
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Before I give the impression of a technological malcontent I will stop here and declare that even though I can’t get on board with this modern design, I am grateful for all the opportunities that technology gives us and all the ways it improves our lives — don’t get me wrong there. And I’m fully aware that this is a first-world problem. But I like shadows with my sun, and big billowy clouds in my sky, and leafy sprawling trees I can hug or climb — not ones I’d bump into then slide down like a cartoon character into a glass door. Keep your cloudless mono‑blue sky with backlit sunshine, thanks all the same.<BR>
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“The longer I live, the more I am satisfied of two things: first, that the truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about them; secondly, that society is always trying in some way or other to grind us down to a single flat surface. It is hard work to resist this grinding-down action.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, <i>The Professor at the Breakfast-Table</i>, 1859<!--tpv--><BR>
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“Life just seems so full of connections. Most of the time we don’t even pay attention to the depth of life. We only see flat surfaces.” ~Colin Neenan, <i>Live a Little</i>, 1996<BR>
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“One’s life must seem extremely flat<BR>
With nothing whatever to grumble at!”<BR>
~W. S. Gilbert, <i>Princess Ida</i>, 1884<BR>
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“I think miracles exist in part as gifts and in part as clues that there is something beyond the flat world we see.” ~Peggy Noonan, <i>What I Saw at the Revolution</i>, 1990<!--tpv--><BR>
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“Skeuomorphism isn’t the be-all, end-all of things, but after using [Apple iOS 7] for 24 hours now, I’m really not a fan of the bland and flat look at all. It feels almost soulless and has none of the personality I’ve loved since the first day I bought my 3G all those years ago.” ~Wayne Hunt, September 2013, comment at CultOfMac.com<BR>
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“The speed and functionality is great. The look is dull and stupid — and the glaring, bright colors don’t fix that.” ~VirtualVisitor, September 2013, comment at CultOfMac.com about Apple’s iOS 7<!--article: "Jony Ive Explains Why He Decided To Gut Skeuomorphism From iOS 7" by Buster Hein--><BR>
<BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2664016632466077273.post-35808335645107859312013-10-06T09:45:00.034-07:002021-12-12T12:03:53.022-07:00Old Sage faux quotes collage<BR>I saw this creative handmade advertisement in Prescott, Arizona on a bulletin board outside <a href="https://www.facebook.com/The-Old-Sage-Bookshop-166466246721124/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="nofollow">The Old Sage Bookshop</a>. It’s a lovely shop with some awesome old books. Drop in if you ever visit the area, they’re at Whiskey Row. Click photo to enlarge. This adorable collage was made using The Unemployed Philosophers Guild <a href="https://philosophersguild.com/collections/die-cut-greeting-cards" target="_blank" rel="noopener" rel="nofollow">Quotable Notables</a>, which they sell in the shop. I bought the Edgar Allan Poe for bookshelf decor along with some vintage books.<BR>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuogKp1rxnW5JmuCtI6zOBW4Vgg5JPLmnQR358cp8zibIVH6y8jaGTbOjc7RohCicLrAEivvwYe7fRjBK9GXjAIbI2PlsmsepqHUT4skzmWEkL8_-YHmsX3ZGcSWlULzy_-Tjg6nlP6r6/s1280/20131006-OldSage.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="The Old Sage Bookshop, Prescott, Arizona" title="The Old Sage Bookshop, Prescott, Arizona" border="0" width="450" data-original-height="1121" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZuogKp1rxnW5JmuCtI6zOBW4Vgg5JPLmnQR358cp8zibIVH6y8jaGTbOjc7RohCicLrAEivvwYe7fRjBK9GXjAIbI2PlsmsepqHUT4skzmWEkL8_-YHmsX3ZGcSWlULzy_-Tjg6nlP6r6/s400/20131006-OldSage.jpg"/></a></div>
<BR><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.quotegarden.com</div>Terri Guillemetshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09583614940230883951noreply@blogger.com110 S Montezuma St # H, Prescott, AZ 86303, USA34.5415696 -112.47057686.2725943310058661 -147.6268268 62.810544868994143 -77.3143268