The Saunterer

Henry James on surprise and the romantic

    In great part, the romantic depends on surprise:

    When Americans went abroad in 1820, there was something romantic, almost heroic in it, as compared with the perpetual ferryings of the present hour, when photography and other conveniences have annihilated surprise.

    (Quoted from page 47 of The Aspern Papers, by Henry James. Serenity Publishers, 2008. Originally published in 1888.)
    For a brief biography of Henry James, click here. For images of or relating to Henry James, click here.

Eugène Delacroix on losing “living through others”

    The pain from the death of a loved one—cat, dog, or person—is the loss of an irreplaceable relationship. Eugène Delacroix:

    I have a sad bereavement. I have lost my aunt whom I loved like a mother. She was a woman of grand character for whom (rare thing) spiritual qualities took precedence; one had to admire her, even without loving her; you can imagine then what a gap this leaves in my lonely life. Live, then, dear friend, cherish the precious spark which makes you not only live but love and be loved. I know now by experience that we really live through other people; when one of the beings who are necessary to our existence disappears he takes away with him a whole world of feelings which no other relationship can revive.

    (Quoted from page 41 of Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800 — 1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yale University Press, 2007.)
    For a brief biography of Eugène Delacroix, click here. For images of or relating Eugène Delacroix, click here.

Boris Pasternak on how to improve art

    Perhaps the way is to have fewer artists. Boris Pasternak:

    I could never say, “The more poets — good ones and varied — the better!” because a multiplicity of people working in art constitutes unpromising, negative grounds for the emergence of someone, no matter who, someone extremely conscientious and humble, who will redeem their plurality with his singularity, redeem the broad exposure to their excesses with the laborious productivity of his suffering.

    (Quoted from page 225 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of Boris Pasternak, click here. For images of or relating Boris Pasternak, click here.

J. J. Thompson on pure science and applied science

    Whenever members of Congress suggest cutting the funding for pure science and putting the savings into applied science, warn them it’s very likely foolish. Applied science is evolutionary, pure science is revolutionary, and usually the greatest progress comes from revolutions. J. J. Thompson explains:

    This example illustrates the differences in the effects which may be produced by research in pure and applied science. A research on the lines of applied science would doubtless have led to improvement and development of the older methods — the research in pure science has given us an entirely new and much more powerful method. In fact, research in applied science leads to reforms, research in pure science leads to revolutions, and revolutions, whether political or industrial, are exceedingly profitable things if you are on the winning side.

    (Quoted from page 742 of Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists. CRC Press, 2009.)
    For a brief biography of Joseph John (J. J.) Thompson, click here. For images of or relating J. J. Thompson, click here.

Phoebe McNaugton on why we can’t stop destroying Nature

    Climate change, wiping out wilderness,.... Hers is an evolutionary explanation:

    In particular, we evolved to respond to immediate personal crises, rather than slowly advancing global ones. This is one reason why, as a species, we find it so hard to stop our current destruction of Eden. A frog, placed in a pan of water slowly heated to boiling, will not jump out to save itself, instead boiling to death, because, like us, it is hard-wired to recognize only sudden changes as profoundly dangerous. Similarly, a hungry frog surrounded by sleeping flies will starve to death — the flies aren’t buzzing about so it can’t see them.

    (Quoted from page 38 of Perspective and Other Optical Illusions, by Phoebe McNaugton. Wooden Books, 2007.)
    Phoebe McNaughton is an industrial graphic designer and a painter living in England.

David Attenborough on the keenest sense of smell

    Is there a keener sense of smell than the bloodhound’s? Consider:

    The bird with the keenest sense of smell may be the turkey vulture. Sir David Attenborough conducted a remarkable experiment. He buried some meat in leaf litter. Well within an hour, vultures had detected the smell from above the tree canopy and half a mile away, and located the meat.

    Some people have a keen sense of smell for their life’s goal. Most of us track it like a bloodhound, step to step to get there; a few are like the vulture, getting there in nearly one fell swoop.

    (Quoted from page 47 of Feathers of Hope, by Barbara Chepaitis. Excelsior Editions, 2010.)
    For a brief biography of David Attenborough, click here. For images of or relating to David Attenborough, click here.
    For information about Barbara Chepaitis, click here. For images of or relating to Barbara Chepaitis, click here.

Peter Singer on the equality of humans and animals

    Here is Peter Singer’s statement of what many believe:

    Animals can feel pain. As we saw earlier, there can be no moral justification for regarding the pain (or pleasure) that animals feel as less important than the same amount of pain (or pleasure) felt by humans.

    (Quoted from page 67 of Understanding Animal Welfare, by David Fraser. Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.)
    For a brief biography of Peter Singer, click here. For images of or relating to Peter Singer, click here.
    For a work biography of David Fraser, click here. For images of or relating to David Fraser, click here.

William James on the range of mental vision

    Hear William James:

    Your great organising geniuses are men with habitually vast fields of mental vision, in which a whole program of future operations will appear dotted out at once, the rays shooting far ahead into definite directions of advance. In common people there is never this magnificent inclusive view of a topic. They stumble along, feeling their way, as it were, from point to point, and often stop entirely. In certain diseased conditions consciousness is a mere spark, without memory of the past or thought of the future, and the present narrowed down to some one simple emotion or sensation of the body.

    (Quoted from page 189 of The Variety of Religious Experience, by William James. Harvard University Press, 1985.)

    For a brief biography of William James, click here. For images of or relating to William James, click here.

Jane Wilson on the full-body feeling

    Most of the time we use only one or two or three of our senses, giving a fractional-body feeling. When was your last full-body feeling? Most likely it involved the weather. Jane Wilson explains:

    Everyone on a farm is observant of nature — though not consciously in an aesthetic sense. On a farm you’re very aware of weather because so much of your life is dependent on it. And in a place like Iowa the weather can be so extreme. You learn to feel the weather coming. The animals do it as well. Weather is not just visual, you can feel it with all your senses. That’s what I’d like to get at in my paintings — that full-body feeling. You sniff the weather, and a complicated rush of feeling runs through you.

    (Quoted from page B12 of the January 20, 2015, issue of The New York Times.)
    For a brief biography of Jane Wilson, click here. For images of Jane Wilson and of her paintings, click here.

Christopher Hitchens on the difference between pet cats and dogs

    Christopher Hitchens:

    Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are god.

    (Quoted from “Out of the bag: The preference for either cats or dogs affects science more than you might think,” page 244 of Nature, vol. 517.)

    Besides, the same article has Winston Churchill saying: I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

    For a brief biography of Christopher Hitchens, click here. For images of or relating to Christopher Hitchens, click here.

    For a brief biography of Winston Churchill, click here. For images of or relating to Winston Churchill, click here.