But at my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.
Andrew Marvel Epigraph to A Study of History Volume X (1954)
Another from February 2019. This needs some context. The first of the year–most years–is when I conduct my annual book dusting. (At some point, I’ll get around to it this year.) It’s a good exercise not just for the books but for me because it helps me remember where things are, and I can do a bit of reorganization. “Miss-You-Only-Need-30-Books” refers to that young woman who’d recently claimed you need to minimize your life in order to be happy–a sentiment that goes against my grain.
With respect to Toynbee… Sigh. Some time ago–it may have been 2019–I saved up enough money to buy the complete 10-volume set. It weren’t cheap, I think $800. It made it from the Pacific coast all the way to Memphis. And that’s the last we heard from it. The better part of the refund went to buy the 6-volume set.
And now, to February 2019.
How is it possible that I do not have a complete set of A Study of History?*
How is it possible that Archive dot org does not have Volume X?
How is it possible that a year and a half ago I purchased two volumes of Toynbee’s classic and did not shelve them with the other Toynbee books I have?
Heh. This seems timely.
The meaning behind the facts of History towards which the poetry in the facts is leading us is a revelation of God and a hope of communion with Him; but in this quest for Beatific Vision that is visible to a Communion of Saints we are ever in danger of being diverted from our search for God to a glorification of Man; and this sin of associating the creature with the Creator precipitates the man-worshipper into a continuing fall from idolatry through disillusionment to an eventual depreciation of Man which is almost as excessive as the adulation to which it is the inevitable sequel.
Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History Volume X (1954; section XIII, The Inspirations of Historians, subsection E, The Quest for a Meaning Behind the Facts of History; p. 126)
*Yeah yeah yeah. I get it. Some of you kids don’t think much of Toynbee. Too bad. I don’t care. My mission is to preserve Western Culture one crappy old book at a time. An abridgment of this 12 volume work will not suffice.
This right here boys & girls is why the annual book dusting takes so long, and why stupid Miss-You-Only-Need-30-Books life must be so utterly empty.
Hey, Marica, This is why I keep books and actual recordings of music. Things that stay online can be changed. We need the original words and we need the paranoids who actual keep them. Greetings from North Georgia.
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Hey Jazz– Yes! Books. CDs and CD players. DVDs. We even have VCRs and tapes in good shape. And of course, LPs and a turntable. And thanks to a Bleatnik, I downloaded the entire Civilisation series onto an SD drive. Should back it up onto a hard drive.
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Hey, Marica,
This is why I keep books and actual recordings of music. Things that stay online can be changed. We need the original words and we need the paranoids who actual keep them.
Greetings from North Georgia.
Hey Jazz– Yes! Books. CDs and CD players. DVDs. We even have VCRs and tapes in good shape. And of course, LPs and a turntable. And thanks to a Bleatnik, I downloaded the entire Civilisation series onto an SD drive. Should back it up onto a hard drive.