The Saunterer

Florida Scott-Maxwell on the duty of the elderly

    Well into her years, Florida Scott-Maxwell acknowledged her duty:

    Another day to be filled, to be lived silently, watching the sky and the lights on the wall. No one will come probably. I have no duties except to myself. That is not true. I have a duty to all who care for me –- not to be a problem, not to be a burden. I must carry my age lightly for all our sakes, and thank God I still can. Oh that I may to the end. Each day then, must be filled with my first duty, I must be “all right.” But is this assurance not the gift we all give to each other daily, hourly?

    (Quoted from page 31 of The Measure of My Days, Florida Scott-Maxwell. New York: Knopf, 1968.)
    For a brief biography of Florida Pier Scott-Maxwell (1883-1979), click here.

Benoit B. Mandelbrot’s credo

    Maverick mathematician, creator of maverick mathematics, fractal geometry, Benoit B. Mandelbrot gave this as his credo:

    “Maverick” is a term I wear with pride. I lived as one and intend to die as one. I slid into being a maverick starting at the moment of my coming-of-age. A youthful decision set me on a maverick’s lonely ride. Its consequences took a long time to develop. Had I died or retired in midlife there is no way they could have been understood.

    (Quoted from page 83 of The Fractalist, by Benoit B. Mandelbrot. Pantheon Books, 2012.)
    For a brief biography of Benoit B. Mandelbrot, click here. For images of or relating to Benoit B. Mandelbrot, click here.
    For a variety of fractal images that stretch the word variety, click here.

Peter Singer’s test for when it is absolutely wrong to experiment on animals

    Peter Singer’s test is unambiguous:

    If the experimenter is not prepared to use an orphaned human infant, then his readiness to use non-humans is, simple discrimination, since adult apes, cats, mice, and other mammals are more aware of what is happening to them, more self-directing and, so far as we can tell, at least as sensitive to pain, as any human infant.   

    (Quoted from page 7 of Animal Minds, Animal Souls, Animal Rights, by James V. Parker. University Press of America, 2010.)

    For the website of the National Anti-vivisection Society, whose motto is "Advancing Science Without Harming Animals," click here.
    For a brief biography of Peter Singer and updates on his work, click here. For images of or relating to Peter Singer, click here.
    For a brief biography of James V. Parker, click here. For images of or relating to James V. Parker, click here.

 

 

Robertson Davies on experience and education

    Have you never heard of a downside to education? Hear Robertson Davies:

    Education is a great shield against experience. It offers so much, ready-made and all from the best shops, that there’s a temptation to miss your own life in pursuing the lives of your betters. It makes you wise in some ways, but it can make you a blindfolded fool in others.

    (Quoted from page 534 of The Deptford Trilogy, by Robertson Davies. Penguin Books, 1990.)
    For a brief biography of Robertson Davies, click here. For images of or relating to Robertson Davies, click here.

On Harry S. Truman’s character

    A trouble of today is the rarity of people like Harry S. Truman. In the early 1900s, working for a bank, his supervisor evaluated his first year performance as:

He is a willing worker, almost always here and tries hard to please everybody. We never had a boy in the vault like him before. He watches everything very closely and by his watchfulness, detects many errors which a careless boy would let slip through. His appearance is good and his habits and character are of the best.

    (Quoted from page 61 of Truman, by David McCullough. Simon & Schuster, 1992.)
    For a brief biography of Harry S. Truman, click here. For images of or relating to Harry S. Truman, click here.
    For a brief biography of David McCullough, click here. For images of or relating to David McCullough, click here.

T. S. Eliot on the great circle of coming to know

    There are three tours in life, beginning with the big tour around the sun we make each year, then for some of us the grand tour abroad after college, and finally the grandest of all which T.S. Eliot writes of:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

    (Quoted from Four Quartets, by T. S. Eliot. Harcourt, Brace, 1943.)
    For a brief biography of T. S. Eliot, click here. For images of or relating to T. S. Eliot, click here.

Godfrey Minot Camille on how only love can make us real

    As Godfrey Minot Camille, participant in the Harvard Grant Study, explained:

Before there were dysfunctional families, I came from one. My professional life hasn’t been disappointing –- far from it –- but the truly gratifying unfolding has been into the person I’ve slowly become: comfortable, joyful, connected and effective. Since it wasn’t widely available then, I hadn’t read that children’s classic, The Velveteen Rabbit, which tells how connectedness is something we must let happen to us, and then we become solid and whole.
    As that tale recounts tenderly, only love can make us real. Denied this in boyhood for reasons I now understand, it took me years to tap substitute sources. What seems marvelous is how many there are and how restorative they prove. What durable and pliable creatures we are, and what a storehouse of goodwill lurks in the social fabric. . . . I never dreamed my later years would be so stimulating and rewarding.

    (Quoted from page 49 of Triumphs of Experience: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study, by George E. Vaillant. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.)
    For a biographical sketch of Godfrey Minot Camille, click here.
    For information on the Harvard Grant Study, click here.
    To learn about The Velveteen Rabbit, click here.
    For a brief biography of George E. Vaillant, click here. For images of or relating to George E. Vaillant, click here.

Hedy Lamarr on how to stop thinking about death

    Below, for the words “a massage” substitute “a walk in nature” or “playing with a kitten” or “an afternoon at the National Gallery of Art,” and Hedy Lamarr’s advice will work better than any in philosophy (a massage even beats it):

    I don’t fear death because I don’t fear anything I don’t understand. When I start to think about it, I order a massage and it goes away.

    (Quoted from page 54 of Sunbeams, by Sy Safransky. North Atlantic Books, 2011.)
    For a brief biography of Hedy Lamarr, click here. For images of or relating to Hedy Lamarr, click here.
    For a bit about Sy Safransky, click here. For images of or relating to Sy Safransky, click here.

Giorgio de Chirico on the love of mystery

    Are you among those whose interest in life lessens as understanding of it grows? So was Giorgio de Chirico who wrote why:

    What shall I love if not the enigma?

    (Quoted from page 38 of Surrealism, edited by Silvano Levy. Keele University Press, 1996.)
    For a brief biography of Giorgio de Chirico, click here. For images of or relating to Giorgio de Chirico, click here.
    For a brief biography of Silvano Levy, click here. For images of or relating to Silvano Levy, click here.

Loren Eiseley on tree roots

    Admirers of gumption will be pleased to reflect on how tree roots have their way with rocks. Loren Eiseley:

    I have seen a tree root burst a rock face on a mountain or slowly wrench aside the gateway of a forgotten city. This is a very cunning feat, which men take too readily for granted. Life, unlike the inanimate, will take the long way round to circumvent barrenness. A kind of desperate will resides even in a root. It will perform the evasive tactics of an army, slowly inching its way through crevices and hoarding energy until someday it swells and a living tree upheaves the heaviest mausoleum.

    (Quoted from page 148 of The Star Thrower, by Loren Eiseley. Times Books, 1978.)
    For images of tree roots together with rocks, click here.
    For a brief biography of Loren Eiseley, click here. For images of or relating to Loren Eiseley, click here.