The best kind of rain, of course, is a cozy rain...the rain that falls on a day when you'd just as soon stay in bed a little longer, write letters or read a good book by the fire, take early tea with hot scones and jam and look out the streaked window with complacency.

--From "England For All Seasons," by Susan Allen Toth

He who boasts of being perfect is perfect in folly. I never saw a perfect man. Every rose has its thorns, and every day its night. Even the sun shows spots, and the skies are darkened with clouds. And faults of some kind nestle in every bosom.
--Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) English clergy

I've just discovered a quotation site that, on first blush at least, seems excellent.

I loved that quote so much that I posted your site in the Links for Linguaphiles thread.

In reading about Robert Frost, I find that he hated Carl Sandburg. In fact he is quoted as saying that Sandburg is, "the most artificial and studied ruffian the world has had...the kind of writer who had everything to gain and nothing to lose by being translated."

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kalleh:
In reading about Robert Frost, I find that he hated Carl Sandburg. In fact he is quoted as saying that Sandburg is, "the most artificial and studied ruffian the world has had...the kind of writer who had everything to gain and nothing to lose by being translated."

---

Now what in the world does that mean?

From "The Outline of American Literature" by Kathryn VanSpanckeren, Professor of English at the University of Tampa:
==============================================
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
A friend once said, "Trying to write briefly about Carl Sandburg is like trying to picture the Grand Canyon in one black-and-white snapshot." Poet, historian, biographer, novelist, musician, essayist -- Sandburg, son of a railroad blacksmith, was all of these and more. A journalist by profession, he wrote a massive biography of Abraham Lincoln that is one of the classic works of the 20th century.

To many, Sandburg was a latter-day Walt Whitman, writing expansive, evocative urban and patriotic poems and simple, childlike rhymes and ballads. He traveled about reciting and recording his poetry, in a lilting, mellifluously toned voice that was a kind of singing. At heart he was totally unassuming, notwithstanding his national fame. What he wanted from life, he once said, was "to be out of jail...to eat regular...to get what I write printed,...a little love at home and a little nice affection hither and yon over the American landscape,...(and) to sing every day."

A fine example of his themes and his Whitmanesque style is the poem "Chicago" (1914):


Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the
Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders...
================================================
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/lit5.htm#rise
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/oaltoc.htm
"Chicago Poems" (http://www.bartleby.com/165/index1.html)

Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois in 1878. He pays tribute to his home state not only through his "Chicago Poems", but also in his book The American Songbag (1927).

EL-A-NOY

'Way down upon the Wabash,
Sich land was never known;
If Adam had passed over it,
The soil he'd surely own;
He'd think it was the garden
He'd played in when a boy,
And straight pronounce it Eden,
In the state of El-a-noy.

Refrain:
Then move your family westward,
Good health you will enjoy,
And rise to wealth and honor
In the State of El-a-noy.

'Twas here the Queen of Sheba came,
With Solomon of old,
With an Ass load of spices,
Pomegranates and fine gold;
And when she saw this lovely land,
Her heart was filled with joy,
Straightway she said: "I'd like to be
A Queen in El-a-noy.

Refrain

She's bounded by the Wabash,
The Ohio and the Lakes,
She's crawfish in the swampy lands,
The milk-sick and the shakes;
But these are slight diversions,
And take not from the joy
Of living in this garden land,
The State of El-a-noy.

Last Refrain:

Then move your family westward,
Bring all your girls and boys,
and cross at Shawnee ferry,
To the State of El-a-noy.

He sings this song in "Carl Sandburg Sings His American Songbag", with a few minor changes.

He includes a fourth verse in his book, but not on his album. He notes that this verse was probably added later.

Away up in the northward,
Right on the border line,
A great commercial city,
Chicago, you will find.
Her men are all like Abelard,
Her women like Heloise;
All honest, virtuous people,
For they live in El-a-noy.

Info. about Sandburg
(http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?45442B7C000C040C)

(http://www.joelmabus.com/songbag.htm)

Tinman

[This message was edited by tinman on Mon Jan 27th, 2003 at 2:37.]

Tinman, please don't misconstrue Robert Frost's view to be mine. I love Sandburg. While I also like Frost, my Martin Gardner book says, "In recent years several biographies of Frost have portrayed him as a vain and even a cruel man who damaged the lives of many who were close to him." If that is true, perhaps that had something to do with Frost's view.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kalleh:
Tinman, please don't misconstrue Robert Frost's view to be mine.

---

No, I didn't think that.

Tinman

Not everything that is faced can be changed,
But nothing can be changed until it is faced.
-James Baldwin

How true!

and in that same vein...

We find out what we're made of
When we face what we're afraid of.
--Goo Goo Dolls

Ah, yes. The Goo Goo Dolls - the Rene Descartes of our generation.

Someone explain them to Richard; I doubt they've made the OED yet.

And explain it to me too.

It's just a band. Geez.

quote:

---

Originally posted by TrossL:
It's just a band. Geez.

---

Not just a band. A band born in...(drumroll please)...Buffalo!

Morgan, is it true that Buffalo threw the biggest bashes in 1976 to celebrate America's 200th birthday?

After all, it was our bisontenial!

quote:

---

Originally posted by C J Strolin:
Morgan, is it true that Buffalo threw the biggest bashes in 1976 to celebrate America's 200th birthday?

After all, it was our bisontenial!

---

Of course, C J! We do everything big here in Buffalo!

A great piece from Lewis Carroll for a language board:
"I don't know what you mean by 'glory'" Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't--till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'"
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all."

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kalleh:
A great piece from Lewis Carroll for a language board:_

---

Of course as I've mentioned, oh a couple of hundred times or so since I got here, the Alice books are my favourites and I am an avid collector of various editions. There probably isn't a page in either book that doesn't have a couple of great quotes on it.

A random selection of personal favorites.

From Wonderland:

'What is the use of abook' thought Alice 'Without pictures or conversations?'

'Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on. 'I do,' Alice hastily replied; 'at least I mean what I say - that's the same thing you know.'
'Not the same thing a bit! said the Hatter. 'Why you might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"'

Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.

That's the reason they're called lessons because they lessen from day to day.

'How am I to get in?' asked Alice again in a louder tone.
'Are you to get in at all?' said the footman, 'That's the first question you know.


From Looking Glass

Now here you see it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get to somewhere else you must run at least twice as fast as that.

Let's fight until six and then have dinner.

"I see nobody on the road" said Alice.
"I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a fretful tone "To be able to see Nobody, and at this distance too."

The name of the song is called Haddock's Eyes
(and the page or so that follows this statement)



And before CJ leaps in and points out that here I am admitting to liking puns I'll add my favorite non-Carrollian quote

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
Emerson

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought, and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used."

Oliver Wendell Holmes, in re Towne v. Eisner, 1918

quote:

---

Of course as I've mentioned, oh a couple of hundred times or so since I got here, the Alice books are my favourites

---

Yes, Bob, I did remember. In fact, that quote was meant to be my little olive branch to you (considering recent personal messages).

No olive branch was needed. Misunderstandings happen.
On the other hand if you really want to offer one this auction house has copies of the Salvador Dali illustrated edition for sale and they're a snip at $3,900.

Even if you fell that that's asking a touch too much (and I suspect it might be ) go take a look at the pictures. They're wonderful.

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum

Read all about my travels around the world here.

Oh, Bob, they are beautiful. Tell you what, when TrossL and I make our millions in our new beer import business, that will be our first purchase for you!

Not exactly an inspiring quote, but one I found amusing on another site: Please Note: No trees were destroyed in the sending of this contaminant free message. We do however concede that a significant number of electrons may have been inconvenienced.

A retired lawyer, Jerry McGuire, was recently interviewed by Susan Stamberg on NPR. He stated, "The most important thing a man can do for his kids is to love their mother."

Oh, Asa, I love it! Especially on Valentine's Day.

I am in big trouble with my oldest daughter. I interfered when I shouldn't have, and she is more than a little angry with me. Do any of you know good quotes, verses, whatever, that I could send her as a way of saying, "I'm sorry" or "I was wrong" or "I'm a total jerk"????

I'm so sorry. My overpowering love for you and lifelong devotion to you have clouded my judgement. I realize now that you are a big girl and can make your own decisions and I should not have interfered. To make it up to you, you can have the dining room table when I die. Which may be soon, from my broken heart if you don't forgive me right now.

(Guilt & giggles... works every time)

She's sending it now.
Talk about the power of the written word ...

Thanks for the "guilt and giggles", TrossL! I saw this quote today and felt it appropriate for this board:
I feel wonderful drinking beer; in a blissful mood, with joy in my heart and a happy liver."
-Sumerian Poem 3,000 BC

Of course, this was Real Ale - long before the likes of A-B managed to get their corporate hands on it!

Richard English

Richard, before you wax nostalgic for ale's good old days, do consider this from The Guardian, excerpting from the book Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500-1700:

quote:

---

In this now obsolete local terminology can be found evidence of everyday practices and habits, of social customs and modes of thought, which might otherwise have remained obscure or forgotten were it not for the words which denoted them. Thus Ray exposed some interesting household practices when he recorded the verb 'to leint' applied in parts of the north to ale and meaning 'to put urine into it to make it strong'.

---

I suppose the difference between then and now is that the adulterants have changed.

I suspect that some of the additives used nowadays, while less nauseating to the mind than urine, are probably more harmful.

The excess of fat, sugar and salt in most fast food and drinks springs readily to mind...

Richard English

Quoth the Raven ...... never mind !!



~~~ jerry

quote:

---

I suppose the difference between then and now is that the adulterants have changed.

---

Let us fervently hope so. I have a beer recipe taken from an 1899 book by Edward Spencer. The recipe is for "Cock Ale". The main adjunct is..."a large cock, the older the better, stamped until his bones are broken." (!!!) Fortunately, the brewer is advised to gut the bird in advance. The only redeeming virtue to this concoction is the recommended addition of two quarts of dry Spanish white wine. Haven't tried this myself!

This is a genuine recipe and I did read a report from an amateur beermaker who had tried it. Apparently it made a fine, full-bodied (no pun) brew and, I for one am not surprised.

Let's face it, the process of fermentation works on most sugars regardless of whether they are contained in animal or vegetable protein and the attendant leaching out of flavours will also work in the same manner.

Unless we are vegetarians I can see no reason why animal proteins can't be used in fermented drink production, providing we accept that what we produce might not be Real Ale under the definitions of such as the Reinheitsgebot.

Richard English

I think I will avoid cock ale!

When I think of the double helix I think of Watson and Crick. Apparently pivotal to their breakthrough, though, were x-ray photographs of the DNA molecule made by Rosalind Franklin, a British crystallographer who specialized in producing marvelously detailed images of microscopic structures, images that required hundreds of hours to develop. Franklin's former lab partner showed the photographs to Watson and Crick behind her back, setting the stage for their discovery. This story comes as the 50-year anniversary of the discovery of the double helix approaches (Friday).

James Watson is quoted as saying, "The best home for a feminist is someone else's lab"--referring to Franklin and her female colleagues. I can only say that Kalleh's blood is boiling!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kalleh:
I can only say that Kalleh's blood is boiling!

---

As it should be!

Rosalind Franklin was 15 when she decided to become a scientist in the male-oriented world of 1935. Her father disapproved of higher education for women, but relented "when an aunt expressed her opinion that Rosalind's decision was the right one and she was allowed to attend the college of choice. "

She excelled at Cambridge, getting an undergraduate degree in chemistry in 1941. She researched ways to use coal mor efficiently as a fuel during the war, and this work led to a greater understanding of carbon compounds and eventually led to her Ph.D. in 1945. The basic element of life is carbon; thus her work was essential in understanding biochemistry, including the structure of DNA.

She was appointed to King's College as a research associate of John Randall and peer of Maurice Wilkins. Wilkins initially believed she was his assistant and James Watson, in The Double Helix, incorrectly portrayed her as such. At King's College she developed a technique, using X-ray crystallography, to photograph the DNA molecule. Watson and Crick used her photographs without her knowledge.

Rosalind Franklin was a great scientist and should be hornored. So think of Friday as "Rosalind Franklin Day".

My blood boils, too.

Tinman

References:

Franklin, Rosalind Elsie," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2003 (http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/refarticle.aspx?refid=761564570)

Rosalind Elsie Franklin, Pioneer Molecular Biologist (http://www.sdsc.edu/ScienceWomen/franklin.html)

Rosalind Franklin,1920-1958, by Bobbi L. Gribble (http://www.anthro.mankato.msus.edu/information/biography/fghij/franklin_rosalind.html)

Rosalind Franklin (1920 - 1958) by David Ardell (http://www.accessexcellence.org/AB/BC/Rosalind_Franklin.html)

Rosalind Franklin, by Keli A. Sato (http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/Museum/frankli.html)

"Woman Power" - Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)
By Melanie P. (http://sln.fi.edu/qa98/biology/journals/part1.html)

Oh, thanks, Tinman!

I was going to post something more about this since today is the 50th anniversary of the identification of the double helix as the structure of DNA. But, you've done it for me--and much better than I ever could have. The links are great--as are you!

This link is from a Chicago Tribune article on the subject, so it will probably die in a week or so. But, it describes how other women have not been given their due in science, particularly:
1) Meliva Maric - Einstein's wife who evidently checked all his math
2) Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin - astronomer who identified that stars are composed of helium and hydrogen
3) Lise Meitner - for her work in nuclear fission
4) Jocelyn Bell Burnell - for her discovery of pulsars

I have not read much on those 4 women so I don't know how valid those claims are.

There is a good article in Time magazine this week about this whole saga.

Richard English

Thanks, Richard, I will read it. I found link describing some of the work of Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin, whom I hadn't heard of before. I probably should have started another thread about this since this discussion really doesn't belong here.

quote:

---

Originally posted by ghoti bowl:
"We are all pencils in the hand of God."

Mother Teresa

---

"War is the great eraser."

Chris J. Strolin

"Life isn't a matter of milestones, but moments."

~~ Rose Kennedy

"We'll teach these natives democracy if we have to shoot every last one of them."
 
-- Col. Winston Purdy III, "Teahouse of the August Moon"

E-mailed to me by a friend. How appropriate.

Another quote e-mailed to me by the same friend. I am trying to convince him to join us:

"You know the whole world's on a tilt when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer a black guy, the tallest basketball player a Chinese guy--and Germany doesn't want to go to war."
 
-- Charles Barkley

I came across a Dorothy Parker website which had a page devoted to her quotes. Here are a few choice ones:

"You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think."


In a book review:
"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown aside with great force."


"I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
After four I'm under my host!"

And Ms Parker's problem here is...?

Richard English

Perhaps it is in drinking martinis, instead of Hogsback T.E.A.!

Dorothy Parker, Goddess of Cynicism, could turn a phrase with the absolute best of them. One of my favorites was "It's a small apartment. I've barely enough room to lay my hat and a few friends." And then there's:


One Perfect Rose

A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet -
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret.
"My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose."
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.


BA-BOOOM!!! I mean, really! How much closer to perfection can you get?! I absolutely envy anyone who has not yet read Parker's work but who is just about to!

"Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live. "


I have always loved Dorothy Parker!

Here's the link for the Dorothy Parker site, I forgot to paste it to my other post.Dorothy Parker