The Bible is the most translated book in history, but closely following it on the list is Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s 1943 novella, “The Little Prince.” To date, the book has been translated into 475 languages, including rarer dialects like Quechua and Aramaic, and has sold over 100 million copies. Antoine is Anthony in English and comes from the Roman name Anthony, Mark Antony being the most famous Roman with the name. The th sound is preserved in Icelandic and among West Germanic languages, such as English, and in Catalan (most of Spain). Latin begot French begot English with a heavy dose of German. Bible's Babel.
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The Ocean
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE The Ocean has its silent caves, Deep, quiet, and alone; Though there be fury on the waves, Beneath them there is none. The awful spirits of the deep Hold their communion there; And there are those for whom we weep, The young, the bright, the fair. Calmly the wearied seamen rest Beneath their own blue sea. The ocean solitudes are blest, For there is purity. The earth has guilt, the earth has care, Unquiet are its graves; But peaceful sleep is ever there, Beneath the dark blue waves. Source: The Mariner's Library or Voyager's Companion (1833) Read this hysterical parody of socially progressive Malibu welcoming its first beach landing of illegal immigrants. The parody, which is so well written by California surfer Derek Rielly that I put it in the English category, comes with real landing video (Latin for I see):
https://beachgrit.com/2023/12/socially-progressive-malibu-welcomes-first-beach-landing-of-illegal-migrants/ The Japanese made three attempts during WWII to 'land' on the West Coast and failed. www.wearethemighty.com/articles/the-time-japanese-submarines-attacked-california-and-oregon-during-wwii/ written 1959 hope you liked it
Everyone in San Francisco knew about 3rd and Howard. It's been replaced by a square convention center. Twice I went to black churches, once for some kind of graduation for a little girl I was tutoring in the Bayview, her gramma asked me to keep tutoring her, but I couldn't, I had another job, and once for a girl I knew in college who had made her piano debut on the swanky Opera House stage. My uncle was a cop in Chinatown and disparaged black ministers and Jews, but you had to know him. If anyone needed help, he was on it. Kerouac died of drink. "Button, Button", written in 1970, is in a group of short stories by Matheson published from 1950 through 1970 in different short story publications. The reader said that this was his fourth take. Wait till the end. Norma is a classic girl's name of Latin origin, translating to “the standard” or the norm.
Some politicians have careers that are too long and full of attempted démarches, but some have successful initiatives that capture the public’s enthusiasm. Trump. dǎ•märsh•es plural noun accent on second syllable
I mix a good deal with the Millionaires. I like them. I like their faces. I like the way they live. I like the things they eat. The more we mix together the better I like the things we mix.
Especially I like the way they dress, their grey check trousers, their white check waist-coats, their heavy gold chains, and the signet-rings that they sign their cheques with. My! they look nice. Get six or seven of them sitting together in the club and it's a treat to see them. And if they get the least dust on them, men come and brush it off. Yes, and are glad to. I'd like to take some of the dust off them myself. Even more than what they eat I like their intellectual grasp. It is wonderful. Just watch them read. They simply read all the time. Go into the club at any hour and you'll see three or four of them at it. And the things they can read! You'd think that a man who'd been driving hard in the office from eleven o'clock until three, with only an hour and a half for lunch, would be too fagged. Not a bit. These men can sit down after office hours and read the Sketch and the Police Gazette and the Pink Un, and understand the jokes just as well as I can. What I love to do is to walk up and down among them and catch the little scraps of conversation. The other day I heard one lean forward and say, "Well, I offered him a million and a half and said I wouldn't give a cent more, he could either take it or leave it--" I just longed to break in and say, "What! what! a million and a half! Oh! say that again! Offer it to me, to either take it or leave it. Do try me once: I know I can: or here, make it a plain million and let's call it done." Not that these men are careless over money. No, sir. Don't think it. Of course they don't take much account of big money, a hundred thousand dollars at a shot or anything of that sort. But little money. You've no idea till you know them how anxious they get about a cent, or half a cent, or less. Why, two of them came into the club the other night just frantic with delight: they said wheat had risen and they'd cleaned up four cents each in less than half an hour. They bought a dinner for sixteen on the strength of it. I don't understand it. I've often made twice as much as that writing for the papers and never felt like boasting about it. One night I heard one man say, "Well, let's call up New York and offer them a quarter of a cent." Great heavens! Imagine paying the cost of calling up New York, nearly five million people, late at night and offering them a quarter of a cent! And yet--did New York get mad? No, they took it. Of course it's high finance. I don't pretend to understand it. I tried after that to call up Chicago and offer it a cent and a half, and to call up Hamilton, Ontario, and offer it half a dollar, and the operator only thought I was crazy. All this shows, of course, that I've been studying how the millionaires do it. I have. For years. I thought it might be helpful to young men just beginning to work and anxious to stop. You know, many a man realizes late in life that if when he was a boy he had known what he knows now, instead of being what he is he might be what he won't; but how few boys stop to think that if they knew what they don't know instead of being what they will be, they wouldn't be? These are awful thoughts. At any rate, I've been gathering hints on how it is they do it. One thing I'm sure about. If a young man wants to make a million dollars he's got to be mighty careful about his diet and his living. This may seem hard. But success is only achieved with pains. There is no use in a young man who hopes to make a million dollars thinking he's entitled to get up at 7.30, eat force and poached eggs, drink cold water at lunch, and go to bed at 10 p.m. You can't do it. I've seen too many millionaires for that. If you want to be a millionaire you mustn't get up till ten in the morning. They never do. They daren't. It would be as much as their business is worth if they were seen on the street at half-past nine. And the old idea of abstemiousness is all wrong. To be a millionaire you need champagne, lots of it and all the time. That and Scotch whisky and soda: you have to sit up nearly all night and drink buckets of it. This is what clears the brain for business next day. I've seen some of these men with their brains so clear in the morning, that their faces look positively boiled. To live like this requires, of course, resolution. But you can buy that by the pint. Therefore, my dear young man, if you want to get moved on from your present status in business, change your life. When your landlady brings your bacon and eggs for breakfast, throw them out of window to the dog and tell her to bring you some chilled asparagus and a pint of Moselle. Then telephone to your employer that you'll be down about eleven o'clock. You will get moved on. Yes, very quickly. Just how the millionaires make the money is a difficult question. But one way is this. Strike the town with five cents in your pocket. They nearly all do this; they've told me again and again (men with millions and millions) that the first time they struck town they had only five cents. That seems to have given them their start. Of course, it's not easy to do. I've tried it several times. I nearly did it once. I borrowed five cents, carried it away out of town, and then turned and came back at the town with an awful rush. If I hadn't struck a beer saloon in the suburbs and spent the five cents I might have been rich to-day. Another good plan is to start something. Something on a huge scale: something nobody ever thought of. For instance, one man I know told me that once he was down in Mexico without a cent (he'd lost his five in striking Central America) and he noticed that they had no power plants. So he started some and made a mint of money. Another man that I know was once stranded in New York, absolutely without a nickel. Well, it occurred to him that what was needed were buildings ten stories higher than any that had been put up. So he built two and sold them right away. Ever so many millionaires begin in some such simple way as that. There is, of course, a much easier way than any of these. I almost hate to tell this, because I want to do it myself. I learned of it just by chance one night at the club. There is one old man there, extremely rich, with one of the best faces of the lot, just like a hyena. I never used to know how he had got so rich. So one evening I asked one of the millionaires how old Bloggs had made all his money. "How he made it?" he answered with a sneer. "Why he made it by taking it out of widows and orphans." Widows and orphans! I thought, what an excellent idea. But who would have suspected that they had it? "And how," I asked pretty cautiously, "did he go at it to get it out of them?" "Why," the man answered, "he just ground them under his heels, that was how." Now isn't that simple? I've thought of that conversation often since and I mean to try it. If I can get hold of them, I'll grind them quick enough. But how to get them. Most of the widows I know look pretty solid for that sort of thing, and as for orphans, it must take an awful lot of them. Meantime I am waiting, and if I ever get a large bunch of orphans all together, I'll stamp on them and see. I find, too, on inquiry, that you can also grind it out of clergymen. They say they grind nicely. But perhaps orphans are easier. published 1914 Stephen Leacock Canadian humorist The Cremation of Sam McGee BY ROBERT W. SERVICE There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows. Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows. He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell; Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell." On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail. Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail. If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see; It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee. And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow, And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe, He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess; And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request." Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan: "It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone. Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains; So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains." A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail; And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale. He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee; And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee. There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven, With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given; It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains, But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains." Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code. In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load. In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring, Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing. And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow; And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low; The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in; And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin. Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May." And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum." Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire; Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher; The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see; And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee. Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so; And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow. It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why; And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky. I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear; But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near; I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside. I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide. And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar; And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door. It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm-- Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm." There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee. This one brother Tom and I memorized in high school. Of all the departments at the Jesuit school for boys, English was tops.
I Have a Rendezvous with Death
BY ALAN SEEGER I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air-- I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair. It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath-- It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear. God knows 'twere better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear ... But I've a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous. Source: A Treasury of War Poetry (1917) classic science fiction Does the story bring to mind a parable? https://www.drbo.org/chapter/49018.htm He was born Chicago 1926, graduated from Berkeley HS 1949, attended UC Berkeley for three months, Sept. 1949-Nov. 1949, and left, had his first story published 1952, and died 30 years later in 1982. Self-described religious anarchist and ‘acosmic panentheist’, he opposed communism, Malthusianism, and eugenics, and was pro-life.
I add my interpretation without reading any online analysis and give some biographical details, too, but let the story itself guide you. O farmers, more than happy if they’ve realised their blessings,
for whom Earth unprompted, supreme in justice, pours out a rich livelihood from her soil, far from the clash of armies! If no tall mansion with proud entrance disgorges a tide of guests at dawn, if they don’t gaze at doors inlaid with tortoiseshell, clothes threaded with gold, or bronzes from Ephyra, if their white wool’s not dipped in Assyrian dyes, nor the clear oil they use spoiled by rosemary, still there’s no lack of tranquil peace, life without deceit, rich in many things, the quiet of broad estates (caves, and natural lakes, and cool valleys, the cattle lowing, and sweet sleep under the trees): they have glades in the woods, and haunts of game, a youth of patient effort, accustomed to hardship, worship of the gods, and respect for old age: Justice, as she left the Earth, planted her last steps among them. As for me, may the sweet Muses, supreme above all, O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint, agricolas! quibus ipsa procul discordibus armis fundit humo facilem victum iustissima tellus. si non ingentem foribus domus alta superbis mane salutantum totis vomit aedibus undam, nec varios inhiant pulchra testudine postis inlusasque auro uestis Ephyreiaque aera, alba neque Assyrio fucatur lana veneno, nec casia liquidi corrumpitur usus olivi; at secura quies et nescia fallere vita, diues opum uariarum, at latis otia fundis, speluncae vivique lacus, at frigida tempe mugitusque boum mollesque sub arbore somni non absunt; illic saltus ac lustra ferarum et patiens operum exiguoque adsueta iuventus, sacra deum sanctique patres; extrema per illos Iustitia excedens terris vestigia fecit, BKII: 458-542 The Joys of True Life Publius Vergilius Maro, b. Cisalpine Gaul 70 BC, d. Brindisi, Italy 19 BC The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings. Be careful about blaming the devil for anything: faults are internal. Yes, I pray the St. Michael prayer at every Mass, but I give it no further thought, and you will find few words on the devil in the blog, nor will you find much on prophecy or predictions. If you need an exorcism, go to a Catholic priest. That’s all I have to say. The lines are known by almost everyone, but few recognize Shakespeare’s recusancy in Julius Caesar. Good writers disguise their thoughts. Marcus Junius Brutus, born c. 85 BC, died 42 BC, COD suicide, murdered Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 BC. (Oremus Let us pray, related word oration)
Mark Antony's Oration over the Body of Caesar George Edward Robertson (1864–1926) Hartlepool Museums and Heritage Service Date: c. 1894–1895 Medium: oil on canvas Measurements: H 134 x W 193 cm Accession number: HAPMG: 1920.55 Acquisition method: gift, 1920 Mark holds Caesar’s will, and the only man who looks at the body and is truly horrified is the hooded monk standing behind Mark and hiding from the crowd. The monk holds himself up with a hand on Mark’s right arm and stands at his right hand. Who is at God’s right hand? “After moving to Germany with George Henry Lewes in 1854, Evans wrote to a friend explaining her views on the relationship: ‘Light and easily broken ties are what I neither desire theoretically nor could live for practically. Women who are satisfied with such ties do not act as I have done — they obtain what they desire and are still invited to dinner.’” -George Eliot, pen name for Mary Ann Evans, author of The Mill on the Floss, 1863, an excellent novel that has been dramatized many times. Sounds like Fani Willis. She is still invited to dinner, but she is no novelist, no giant. thriftbooks.com part 2, sad and beautiful, best movie on brother-sister loyalty
Root: derived from the Latin verb cavillari, to raise silly objections. Usage: “Tradition-minded Catholics, let us not cavil with each other.”
When I was a boy, we had a telephone.
I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person. There was nothing she did not know. “Information Please” was her name, and she could supply anyone’s number and the correct time. My personal experience with the genie-in-a-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting the neighbor next door. Houses in San Francisco are built up against each other. Amusing myself in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer, the pain was terrible, and there was no point in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the niche in the hallway. I held the receiver to my ear, and said, “Information, please.” A click or two and a small but clear voice spoke into my ear, “Information.” “I hurt my finger.” Tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. “Isn’t your mother home?” “Nobody’s home except me.” “Are you bleeding?” the voice asked. “No,” I replied. “I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts.” “Can you open the freezer?” she asked. I said I could. “Then hold an ice cube to your finger.” After that, I called “Information Please” for everything. I asked her for help with my geography, and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk eats fruit and nuts. Then there was the time, Petey, our parakeet, died. I called “Information Please” and told her the sad story. She listened, and then said things grown-ups say to soothe a child. But I was not consoled. I asked her, “Why is it that birds sing so beautifully and bring joy to all the families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?” She must have sensed my deep concern and said quietly, “Bobby, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in.” Somehow, I felt better. Another day I was on the telephone, “Information, please.” “Information.” “How do I spell fixed?” As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often in moments of doubt, I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated how kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy. My cousins, Nancy and Vickie, answered calls from The Black Telephone. The Charge of the Light Brigade BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON I Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. II “Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. III Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of hell Rode the six hundred. IV Flashed all their sabres bare, Flashed as they turned in air Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wondered. Plunged in the battery-smoke Right through the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reeled from the sabre stroke Shattered and sundered. Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred. V Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell. They that had fought so well Came through the jaws of Death, Back from the mouth of hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred. VI When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered. Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred! Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images Click on his name for a twenty-minute read about a difficult life (family, male friends, marriage).
Today is Poe's birthday. Love that lonely man, more because he was so lonely.
From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw—I could not bring My passions from a common spring-- From the same source I have not taken My sorrow—I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone-- And all I lov’d--I lov’d alone-- Then—in my childhood—in the dawn Of a most stormy life—was drawn From ev’ry depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still-- From the torrent, or the fountain-- From the red cliff of the mountain-- From the sun that ’round me roll’d In its autumn tint of gold-- From the lightning in the sky As it pass’d me flying by-- From the thunder, and the storm-- And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view-- "Alone" Presenting a new novel from a friend - available on Amazon. He has two other books on policing.
https://www.adamplantinga.com/ This version is "as a center at the scent of a quail" and another version is "He was as quiet as a hunting dog when it is near a bird." Let's go with Robert's, for he has a name worthy of screams. While feeding, one quail bears the responsibility of acting as a lookout. If danger arises, the quail cries out to the others.
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