In a sort of ironic twist of fate, this quotation is from a passage in which Johnson is discussing the vanity of an author’s expectations. But it holds true to this day, and is as much a warning to the reader as to the writer, because the motives of man have changed little in the succeeding centuries. Caveat lector et scriptor! Vanity and greed are still flaws, believe it or not.
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes, than a publick library; for who can see the wall crouded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditation, and accurate enquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue, and preserved only to encrease the pomp of learning, without considering how many hours have been wasted in vain endeavours, how often imagination has anticipated the praises of futurity, how many statues have risen to the eye of vanity, how many ideal converts have elevated zeal, how often wit has exulted in the eternal infamy of his antagonists, and dogmatism has delighted in the gradual advances of his authority, the immutability of his decrees, and the perpetuity of his power?
—— Non unquam dedit
Documenta fors majora, quàm fragili loco
Starent superbi. ——
Seneca, TROADES, ll. 4-6.Insulting chance ne’er call’d with louder voice,
On swelling mortals to be proud no more.Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus treasured up in magnificent obscurity, most are forgotten, because they never deserved to be remembered, and owed the honours which they once obtained, not to judgment or to genius, to labour or to art, but to the prejudice of faction, the stratagem of intrigue, or the servility of adulation.
…
Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its own luxuriance, are the writers who take advantage of present incidents or characters which strongly interest the passions, and engage universal attention. It is not difficult to obtain readers, when we discuss a question which every one is desirous to understand, which is debated in every assembly, and has divided the nation into parties; or when we display the faults or virtues of him whose public conduct has made almost every man his enemy or his friend. To the quick circulation of such productions all the motives of interest and vanity concur; the disputant enlarges his knowledge, the zealot animates his passion, and every man is desirous to inform himself concerning affairs so vehemently agitated and variously represented.
It is scarcely to be imagined, through how many subordinations of interest, the ardour of party is diffused; and what multitudes fancy themselves affected by every satire or panegyrick on a man of eminence. Whoever has, at any time, taken occasion to mention him with praise or blame, whoever happens to love or hate any of his adherents, as he wishesd to confirm his opinion, and to strengthen his party, will diligently perusee every paper from which he can hope for sentiments like his own. An object, however small in itself, if placed near to the eye, will engross all the rays of light; and a transaction, however trivial, swells into importance, when it presses immediately on our attention. He that shall peruse the political pamphlets of any past reign, will wonder why they were so eagerly read, or so loudly praised. Many of the performances which had power to inflame factions, and fill a kingdom with confusion, have now very little effect upon a frigid critick, and the time is coming, when the compositions of later hirelings shall lie equally despised. In proportion, as those who write on temporary subjects, are exalted above their merit at first, they are afterwards depressed below it; nor can the brightest elegance of diction, or most artful subtilty of reasoning, hope for much esteem from those whose regard is no longer quickened by curiosity or pride.
It is, indeed, the fate of controvertists, even when they contend for philosophical or theological truth, to be soon laid aside and slighted. Either the question is decided, and there is no more place for doubt and opposition; or mankind despair of understanding it, and grow weary of disturbance, content themselves with quiet ignorance, and refuse to be harrassed with labours which they have no hopes of recompensing with knowledge.
Johnson, Samuel . No. 106. Saturday, 23 March 1751.. Retrieved from The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson.
And in case you are wanting revenge on Dr Johnson, don’t worry, Rowan Atkinson and Hugh Laurie got it, centuries later.
Enjoy your Tuesday, unless you have made other plans.
Good morning.
That is spectacular. I have been meaning to ask you to post a link to your photos again – I have been a negligent host and want to creep through them.
And nice to see you.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dudeflickr/
Nice to be seen. (This is long sleeve weather which means I have a cuff to make a remark from. What I really, really, really mean is nice to see you too.)
And if you’re creeping through (not creeping out) you will notice a few things such as I have sold two horses.
i hope that i am not a jinx. in the last thread i said i was surprised our Kmart was still open.
http://www.wisn.com/news/janesville-kmart-to-close-later-this-year/28224010
I think we could place bets on when Sears declares bankruptcy. I say two weeks before Christmas. And in the substitution economy, what comes after Kmart? The Dollar Store? And there go 70 more jobs and all the families that relied on those incomes. Letting the car industry fail quickly rather than this painful slow burn would have been much better. Instead of leaving people stagnating wondering if a plant will reopen, it all would have been sold pennies to the dollar to enterprising people, and the disruption would be in our tail-lights, so to speak. We stepped in ostensibly to save Oshawa and the UAW. Why would we want these things? It is a false belief that the auto industry is the backbone of the economy any more than it is the banks or any one industry. Corporate beggars preventing creative destruction.
And good morning.
It really is foggy, and they issued a special weather advisory! But they do that a lot.
It also is foggy in the old noggin, so no brilliant, earth-shattering, post – just more opportunities to enjoy the verbiage of Samuel Johnson. But in my searches surrounding Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, I happened upon this to me very moving documentary by Stephen Fry about his life with bi-polar disorder. I couldn’t find a higher quality version, but watched to the end. He is a brave man to be so open about his life.
Oh my, I went to get the link for the documentary and bumped into this article about a more recent suicide attempt by Fry just a few years ago, with this quotation:
Which certainly puts the documentary into perspective, which was very hopeful.
I am not trying to be depressing. But it is amazing how many outwardly funny people have a dreadful dark interior. I better stop being so darned witty!
Link to article went wrong, here it is
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/jun/05/stephen-fry-attempted-suicide-bipolar
Actually, while I am being unintentionally depressing, let me be intentionally depressing and add the military to industries that convince the government the economy would fold without them.
Enough of that! Puppies, rainbows, unicorns, monsters …
Okay, maybe that was too relevant, and I hadn’t noticed the description when I posted it.
Back to the vault.
So 80’s, but hey, at least I climbed out of the 70’s for a moment.
I just had a rather squirrelly thought pop into my head. Remember back when there was a lot of discussion about US tax law, and how it treats gold and silver as “collectibles”, and imposes a minimum 28% cap gains rate on it? None of those giveaway rates for gold and silver bugs. Oh, it’s so unfair, and hostile to honest money, blah, blah, blah…
Well, not too many guys have to worry about having gains in metals any more. Problem solved. That horrible injustice has been dealt with by the marketplace.
Found another cute Subaru video. I apologize in advance.
The funniest part is in the comments. A lot of the guys can’t resist talking about how sexy she sounds. One guy said that if you just listen, and don’t watch, you could imagine a completely different video, lol.
I just wish at the very end, she would have said, “and now he better bring me donuts from town”.
Dude: I do not understand how I could tell that you have sold two horses. My creeping skills are luckily rusty. But I do want to know why you sold them.
How the Christian Right Is Getting Beat at Its Own Game, By Satanists of All People
Looks like the joke is on Apple for sure. Even Kit Kat bar got in on it.
Apple’s PR nightmare turns into social media’s ‘joke of the day’
So true. As I said recently, “Republicans love a desparate and compliant working class.” And a lot of their constant rant against any kind of stimulus goes right to that point. Social safety nets too. That crap could be bad for business.
Ah…blog burnout. I’ve never even had my own blog, and yet I feel like I’ve already been there, done that.
When Blogging Becomes a Slog
And in other news, we are in the middle of a bathroom remodeling project, on a fairly tight time schedule. About two hours ago I regretably informed my construction guy that he had installed the vinyl flooring upside down. Flipping it over wouldn’t work. Cutouts and glue downs had already been done. In fact, the vanity, trim, and vent had already been done. And there wasn’t enough scrap left to work with. Cue some hasty phone calls and a trip to the local wholesaler. All told I guess we’ll have maybe three hours lost. Good thing I wasn’t working today, or we wouldn’t have seen it until end of day, when the whole job would have been 90% done.
There’s a lesson here. I’m a natural hoverer and nitpicker. But I’ve been doing my damnedest to stay out of his way, don’t hover, don’t nitpick, and generally don’t be a pain in the ass. I told him about how I do tax returns for a living, and the last thing I would want is a client standing over my shoulder while I do his return. So I stay out of his way, and when I did take a look, I find the damned floor in upside down.
So now I’m doing my best not to make him feel any worse. There was no way to not let the local flooring place know what he had done. So now it’ll be all over town. I feel for the guy.
Not that it was horrible. In fact when we were looking at samples we said, “This isn’t bad. Oh wait. That’s the backside, because it’s the same on all the samples.” 😳
OK, so interior designers WE ARE NOT!
That seems like it would be a hard mistake to make.
Weren’t we talking about areas of expertise the other day?
Yeah. Even as a born nitpicker, this was not something I thought needed supervision. 🙄
Xty- Because I had posted pictures of four horses a couple of times previously. Sorry, thought you had a photographic memory like me.
No one is interested in them any more, besides me, and I haven’t ridden in several years. Too hard on my knees. So they’re just big expensive pets and I can only handle two at a time.
I broke up my wife yesterday when she called home from work. When she asked me why I was so distracted and inattentive, I told her that I was workin’ on a picture of two grasshoppers fuckin’.
I call it “Splendor in the Grass” after the movie of the same name and am also reminded of Bob Hope saying to a girl “some dew in the grass” to which she promptly replied “yeah, but I ain’t that kind”.
As Mrs. O likes to say, “Hey, Baaaaaaaaby!”
SLightly different inflection, but the sentiment is similar…
Driving While Black
This shit’s gotta stop.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/sean-groubert-south-carolina-police-shooting
I wonder if the dipshit officer still gave him the ticket for the seatbelt violation. “Oh, by the way, that’ll be $179 please, unless you are still able to appear in court…”
Goes with that editorial cartoon from yesterday
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/some-at-the-fed-dont-want-you-to-get-a-raise-2014-09-26?dist=beforebell
that cop shot at point blank range four times, and only hit the guy once. he should be fired just for that. unbelievable. maybe our “coppers” should only be allowed beat sticks like in Great Britain. all kidding aside, it is embarrassing and pathetic to see apes like that “protecting and serving” the citizenry.
this had been on topic… sort of. anyway, here’s one of the dressers sans paint. you can see some of the awful paint color, if you look carefully. i will let some of it stay on the inside as a reminder of this dressers tough former life. i have most of the original finish sanded off the actual dresser, but the drawers have some remaining.
i did a little research last night. the manufacturer is B.P. John. it is a Shaker/Craftsman style “highboy” dresser built probably in the 1930’s but could be as late as 1950. need to do a bit more digging. solid maple throughout, even the drawers and knobs.
i should have taken a picture of these before i stripped them. i had no idea how nice they were underneath. i will post some more pictures when they are finished, unless i blow it. 😯
edit: i did say i was stripping and refinishing a couple dressers, right?
I guess all those guys who were crowing that miners were the best performing asset class of the year are all sucking eggs right about now. For further reference, see The Tortoise and The Hare.
And to bring this up, and to point out that this chart doesn’t even include reinvested dividends, well now that’s just plain rude.
Gold looks better though. Let’s give credit where credit is due, though the red line (SPY) would probably still have enough dividends to put it out front. Note, the real effect of putting GLD on the chart is to highlight just how crappy the miners really are.
People think that miners are just a juiced version of gold. No, actually miners are just a shitty version of gold.
Was listening to this just a bit ago. It just occured to me, Super Bowl 2009, that’s about January 2009. Go back to those charts. If only we’d known then what we know now, eh?