The Saunterer

Henry David Thoreau on “the wild - the mallard - thought”

    Thoreau explains:

In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in Hamlet and the Iliad, in all the scriptures and mythologies, not learned in the schools, that delights us. As the wild duck is more swift and beautiful than the tame, so is the wild – the mallard – thought, which ‘mid falling dews wings its way above the fens. A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East. Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning’s flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself – and not a taper lighted at the hearthstone of the race, which pales before the light of common day. (From Thoreau’s essay, “Walking”; for a copy, click here.)
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    Just as there is found in wilderness the wild - the mallard - thought, there is found there the wild - the mallard - feeling that is special to wilderness and essential for greatest well-being.

    One of wilderness’ practical benefits to commercial business is a unique capacity to refresh us from the trials of the world, which is to say that when people take their frazzled nerves into wilderness and later return to work, they are able to work more effectively.

J. R. R. Tolkien on the most improper job for any person

    In a letter J. R. R. Tolkien wrote:

The most improper job of any man, even saints, is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity. . . . The mediaevals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari (“I do not wish to be made a bishop”) as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or racehorses. . . .
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    For a brief biography of J. R. R. Tolkien, click here.

Rachel Carson on why we must learn to sense nature’s wonders and realities

    We must if we are to stop destroying ourselves and the world, wrote Rachel Carson:

Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, with steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water. Perhaps he is intoxicated with his own power, as he goes farther and farther into experiments for the destruction of himself and his world. For this unhappy trend there is no single remedy – no panacea. But I believe that the more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 352.)
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    For a brief biography of Rachel Carson, click here.

Christopher Milne on the most precious gift a parent can give

    Christopher Milne received it from his father, A. A. Milne:

How easy if my father had been a publisher instead of an author; for then I could have entered the family business and taken over from him when he retired. But an author has nothing tangible that he can hand on to his son. . . . These, really, were his two great talents: perfectionism and enthusiasm. He handed them on to me – and he could have given me nothing more precious. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 241.)

Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold on “real success”

    Meyerhold said:

If the production pleases everyone, then consider it a total failure. If, on the other hand, everyone criticizes your work, then perhaps there’s something worthwhile in it. Real success comes when people argue about your work, when half the audience is in raptures and the other half is ready to tear you apart. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 178.)
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    By Meyerhold’s measure, some of my articles in the Journal of Wildlife Management may have something worthwhile in them: researchers have argued about, and still do, certain ideas in : Romesburg, H. C. Wildlife science: gaining reliable knowledge (1981. 45:293-313). / Romesburg, H. C. More on gaining reliable knowledge: a reply (1989. 53:1177-1180). / Romesburg, H. C. On improving the natural resources and environmental sciences (1991. 55:744-756). / Romesburg, H. C. On improving the natural resources and environmental sciences: a reply (1993. 57:184-189). Opposing views are presented in: Matter, W. J., and R.W. Mannan. More on gaining reliable knowledge: a comment (1989. 53: 1172–1176). / Knight, R. L. On improving the natural resources and environmental sciences: a comment (1993. 57:182-183).
    There’s a trick for not letting criticism of your ideas get you down: live knowing that the criticism is directed at the ideas and not at you.
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     For a brief biography of Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold, click here.

On motivating students by their respect for their teachers

    In the essay Hardscrabble Hellas, Lucien Price wrote about one of his favorite teachers when he was a student at Hardcastle Academy (Class of 1901), a preparatory school in Ohio:

    We respected him. We admired him. We would have loved him had we dared. Failing that, the game was to win his esteem. To do so one must be cultivating a vigorous body, an active mind, and a high standard of conduct. He despised cowardice; he despised meanness; he despised liars, sneaks, and squealers. On the other hand, he knew the weaknesses which the flesh of boyhood is prone to and was willing to make allowance. Perfection he did not demand. He did not even demand success. The one thing he did demand was effort.
    A personality as dynamic as this with the fiery juices of life naturally generated action. In his classes it became a recognized sport, quite as definitely as football practice, not to flunk. Reading the Anabasis, he would call on us for the principal parts of all the irregular verbs. What gallons of midnight kerosene we burned getting ourselves primed to volley these verbs at him as fast as tongues could articulate. The reward was to watch his jaw set like a boxer’s standing up to buffets. Not by so much as a syllable did he ever acknowledge the existence of this contest. No need to. His game was to stick us. Our game was not to get stuck. It was exhilarating.

    Is it possible today for high school and college students to engage in study out of respect for their teacher? Have you had any such teachers?
    This summer I was interviewed for an article for the Lafayette College alumni magazine. Asked if I recalled any favorite professors, my answer was immediate: Cleveland Jauch. His love of the essay as a literary form infected me with my love for it.
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Hardscrabble Hellas appeared in the Atlantic Monthly (1927) and was republished as a booklet (1947).

Gilbert K. Chesterton on how life is a trap for logicians

    G. K. Chesterton’s well-grounded observation:
The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p.191.)
    Reader, have you any examples of this?
    One of ours is that the world of nature is not an illogicality, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait for ecosystem modelers.
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    Long Term Capital Management, a made-safe-by-logic hedge fund, collapsed from hidden inexactitude in 1998, overpowering its mathematician-conceivers. For the story, click here.
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    For a brief biography of G. K. Chesterton, click here.

The Chinese water torture of wind farms

    The comparison is made in a letter a West Virginia resident wrote to Linda Cooper, President of Citizens for Responsible Wind Power, Inc.:
I live in Tucker County approximately 1.5 miles from the Backbone Mountain wind turbines and have tried everything to get used to them. A brief visit to one of the viewing areas certainly gives no true impression of what it is like to be forced to live with them. We have now suffered for three long years under their hideous shadows. They have taken over the entire landscape and are in our sight no matter where we go day or night, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The movement is impossible to ignore no matter how hard we try and the noise they make travels miles and miles down the mountains and hollows disturbing people who cannot even see them from their homes. I compare the noise to Chinese water torture or fingernails on a chalkboard or water dripping in a pan. Even on the calmest nights the endless drumming goes on; windows closed, pillows over the head, it is still inescapable. While we were led to believe this would be a clean, quiet, pristine, and environmentally-friendly way to address energy problems and give a huge boost to our ailing economy, I feel we have been tricked. There appears to be no recourse or plan to compensate us for property value losses, erosion of our quality of life, or mental anguish. Besides these 44 wind turbines, thousands more are in the pipeline! God help us! (Republished from the April, 2005, issue of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy’s monthly newspaper, The Highlands Voice.)
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    Backbone Mountain’s wind turbine blades slaughter bats and birds. More than 3,000 bats were probably killed in 2003: “It's by far the biggest bat mortality event I know of worldwide, and, as far as I know, the biggest mortality event of any animal," said Merlin Tuttle, director of Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas. For an account of wind turbines killing wildlife, click here.
    The West Virginia letter writer could have truthfully said “tens of millions more are in the pipeline”; a 2005 United Nations study concluded that 13% of the land area in third world countries is suitable for wind turbines.
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    The Country Guardian, a UK organization that campaigns against wind farms, has produced a research report on their impacts. Some of its sections: “Landscape Quality of Wind Farm Sites,” “The Noise Factor,” “Wider Environmental Consequences,” “Television Interference,” “Tourist, Jobs, House Prices,” “The Effect on Birds,” “Kyoto,” “The Value of Landscape,” “The Futility of Supply-side Solutions,” “How Can Electricity Needs Be Met?” To see the report, click here.
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    Utah Senator Orrin Hatch worked this year to help achieve an extension of the wind energy production tax credit. To read the announcement at The American Wind Energy Association’s (AWEA) web site, click here.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on “the conviction of the necessary effort”

    During four years of active service in World War I, Teilhard de Chardin served as a stretcher-bearer. Writing in 1917 from the front lines to his cousin, he speaks of “the conviction of the necessary effort”

One of the things I have acquired this year is the conviction of the necessary effort, the effort without which some part of being will never be achieved. Only a fortnight ago, at Verdun, when I was seeing and experiencing the astonishing effort made by thousands of active units to mount an attack whose success was still in the balance, I had a profound impression of the contingency of any success in this world, and of its subordination to our own tenacity, to our own diligence. In fact, the sound principle is that of action that tackles everything resolutely and energetically, without wasting too much time in fruitless discussion. ‘Don’t chat, but try!’ That’s always true. (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p.174.)

    We have here a truth applying to winning all kinds of campaigns: the campaign to end cruelty to animals, the campaign to save the species, the campaign to preserve great areas of  wilderness, the campaign to save the night skies from light pollution, the campaign for pure air, . . . .
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For a brief biography of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, click here.

André Gide interprets Napoleon’s idea of true courage

    André Gide’s journal contains this passage:

“True courage,” said Napoleon, “is that of three a. m.” He meant thereby, probably, that the courage he esteemed was that from which all intoxication, all vanity, all emulation were excluded. A courage without witnesses and without accomplices; courage when sober and on an empty stomach. . . . I cannot esteem the courage that is due, as so often happens, merely to a lack of imagination, just as fear is very often the result of an excessive imagination. . . . Before admiring the one who risks his life, I should like to be sure that he values it. So many young fellows, during the war, saw in the fact of risking their life a unique opportunity of winning some glory! Just imagine all of a sudden, among them, a person who feels himself to be the possessor of some secret message which, if he lives, will soon be a great boon to all the others; would not the truest courage, for him, be trying to preserve that secret? (Quoted in The Life of the Creative Spirit, p. 176.)
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    Here are the Saunterer’s criteria for an act to be truly courageous. The act must be regarded as good by part or all of society (rules out criminal acts). The decision to do the act must be reached alone (rules out being egged on). The act must be decided by long conscious deliberation (rules out on-the-spot, automatic decisions, as running into a road to save a dog). To the one who acts, the act must carry probable risk of paying a price of psychological or physical harm.

    The criteria admit certain gay people’s coming out. The criteria admit youngsters openly renouncing their membership from bad gangs.

    Readers, what are your criteria? Have you any examples of true courage?
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    For a brief biography of André Gide, click here.