Background on the Guide to Daily Reading. Yesterday’s Daily Reading (w/bullet points!!) here. Wallace Irvin, born yesterday in the year 1876. Reading: “The Servant Problem.” But see below. [I had the same question. Why not something about good ol’ Julius Caesar yesterday? I mean, it’s not like nothing has ever been written about the Ideas
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Swearing, of course, is not the prerogative of all men. Many lack the natural gift for it, and others are too timorous. For such toters of inferiority complexes there is a repertory of what may be called denaturalized profanity. H.L. Mencken, The American Language: An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States
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Today in 1789 the United States Constitution became effective when the first session of congress met in New York City. In 1829, the Illinois Legislature grants a city charter to Chicago. From The American Patriot’s Almanac, William J. Bennett and John T.E.. Cribb, Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2008.
The gallery will make sense momentarily. You may recall that in wandering my way around last month’s Crappy Old Book of the Month, The Standard Dictionary of Facts (1914), I discovered an famous/unheard of/ author/editor of whom I had never heard, but who edited, in 1902, a book that I could find almost no mention
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The preferred model of the smart person is someone whose living space is overwhelmed with books – piled on tables, chairs, shelves, heaped in the corner. Occasionally the occupant will think “now, what was it that Arnold Hasgrove said about agrarian populism in the late 19th century? I just saw that book – ah, it
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On the left, The Standard Dictionary of Facts (1914). On the right, The Standard Question Book and Home Study Outlines (1919). The Question Book is… well-titled. It’s a book of questions organized along the lines of The Dictionary: History, Language, Literature… . Let us suppose we are interested in testing our knowledge of, or learning
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HOMEMAKING A happy home is one in which all the members of the family take pleasure in sharing their experiences and their abilities. Your home may be one room, a small apartment, a modest cottage, or a large house with many rooms. Whatever the size, the happiness of the home depends upon the skill and kindliness
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The Lockhorns: “What’s the Garbage Doing on the Stove?” by Bill Hoest (King Features Syndicate, 1975). From that infallible source which quotes comics historian Don Markstein: [The comic strip] focused just on the couple themselves—no children, no next-door neighbors, no boss, etc., except to the extent others were occasionally needed as props. The entire raison d’etre of the
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“Lo! when the service was ended, a form appeared on the threshold, Clad in armor of steel, a somber and sorrowful figure! Why does the bridegroom start and stare at the apparition? Why does the bride turn pale, and hide her face on his shoulder?” The Courtship of Miles Standish, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Bobbs-Merrill
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Turn not your back to others, especially in speaking; jog not the table or desk on which another reads or writes; lean not on anyone. George Washington’s “Rules of Behavior” as found in Stepping Stones to Literature: A Reader for Seventh Grades (1898, p134).
I know I said I was growing weary of the calendar– and I am– but I feel badly that I’ve not mentioned a few items the past day or two. William Konrad Röntgen was born March 27, 1845. He discovered X-rays in 1895 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. Here’s a
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—From Plutarch Lives, Caesar, 63 Today we render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s… . (The Holy Bible: Matthew22:21.) And so a few quotes about Caesar from Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations 17th Edition (though there are more recent, and older editions). Go on, my friend, and fear nothing; you carry Caesar and his fortune in
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