I found this author, born on this date, and thought that those many Patrick O’Brian fans out there might enjoy Mr. Pope’s fiction also set at sea during the Napoleonic Wars. Of course, it would take a long time for those O’Brian fans to run out of Aubrey/Maturin books to read;Â there are twenty of them. I tried reading Master and Commander once, but I had a hard time getting into it–too much nautical terminology and not enough action. I thought the movie was OK, nothing to write home about. Maybe I’ll try again sometime.
Archives
Noel Streatfield
Noel Streatfield wrote 58 books for children, and she was born on Christmas Eve, 1895. (Now I suppose I know where the name “Noel” came from.) The “shoes” books are Ms. Streatfield’s most famous: Ballet Shoes, Theatre Shoes, Tennis Shoes, Dancing Shoes, Circus Shoes, Movie Shoes, New Shoes,, and Party Shoes, maybe more. Some of the books were apparently re-named for the American market and to take advantage of the popularity of Ballet Shoes. Ballet Shoes I can recommend without reservation. It’s a lovely story of three sisters, Pauline, Petrova, and Posy Fossil, who are determined to do something to make their surname famous. Each girl must find her own talent and her own way to uphold the Fossil name while coping with near-poverty and a very strict ballet school.
Charles Wesley, b. 1707
Here are the words to Charles Wesley’s lesser known Christmas hymn:
Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.
Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.
Jane Austen’s Birthday
Jane Austen was born December 16, 1775 (exactly two years after the Boston Tea Party, apropos of nothing) I found a huge website devoted to everything Austen and had to link to this page of jokes, parodies, lists, and general Austen silliness. Here’s a sample joke:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single chicken, being possessed of a good fortune and presented with a good road, must be desirous of crossing.
George Macdonald
George Macdonald was born December 10, 1824. He wrote At the Back of the North WInd, The Light Princess, The Princess and the Goblin, and The Princess and Curdie, all fairy tale/fantasies for children. I’ve read all four of these, and I like best The Light Princess, the story of a princess who was cursed at birth with “no gravity,” both in the iteral and the figurative sense. I tried to read one of Macdonald’s romances a long time ago, but I don’t remember finishing it. C.S. Lewis was quite fond of Macdonald’s adult fantasies, Phantastes and Lilith. I think I also tried one of these long ago but didn’t understand it (which proves that I’m not C.S. Lewis’ intellectual equal, not that I ever thought I was). Macdonald also had a long and successful marriage which produced six sons and five daughters.
Some people think it is not proper for a clergyman to dance. I mean to assert my freedom from any such law. If our Lord chose to represent, in His parable of the Prodigal Son, the joy in Heaven over a repentant sinner by the figure of “music and dancing’, I will hearken to Him rather than to man, be they as good as they may.” For I had long thought that the way to make indifferent things bad, was for good people not to do them.
I wonder how many Christians there are who so thoroughly believe God made them that they can laugh in God’s name; who understand that God invented laughter and gave it to His children… The Lord of gladness delights in the laughter of a merry heart.
Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness – the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.
What things are we Christians “making bad” by not participating in them? Should we not be involved in all the “indifferent” aspects of our culture in order to redeem them and bring them under the Lordship of Christ?
Engineer Husband and I had a good laughing time tonight; it was good to laugh together.
And why can’t we all just sit still and be sometimes? I wish Engineer Husband and I could try a little “sacred idleness.” Alas, we can laugh sometimes, but true idleness seems to be beyond our abilities.
John Milton, b. 1608, d. 1674
Milton was born December 9th in London. He graduated from Cambridge in 1632, and a few years later he went on a tour of the Continent. When he returned to England, he became a Puritan and a follower of Oliver Cromwell. In 1652 he became completely blind, and his first wife died. He later remarried. He wrote much of his poetry after he became blind.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music. L’Allegro It seems to me that there a quite a number of people who cannot hear the music these days. He who has ears to hear, let him hear—and dance.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Samson Agonistes There is good reason to be silent and let some people talk themselves and their ideas into oblivion. Who has the time to argue with the wind, and why?
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven. – Paradise Lost
Familiar, but still true. I hear people say all the time–in one way or another–I will not submit. I will do what I want to do. I WILL–no matter where it leads.
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. And this is true liberty, not license. If we do these things, are free to do these things, according to conscience, we will surely come to the Truth , and the Truth shall make us free.
Who overcomes By force, hath overcome but half his foe. Paradise Lost Which is why the job in Iraq is only half-finished. We must leave Iraq better than we found it, and we must demonstrate democracy amd the peace of God before we leave.
Join voices, all ye living souls: ye birds, That singing up to heaven-gate ascend, Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise. Paradise Lost Great idea.
Happy Birthday, Sir
Today is the birthday of one of my favorite musicians. See if you can guess who?
1. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
2. He began his musical career by playing the penny whistle as a small child.
3. He is 65 years old today.
4. He tours extensively playing both classical and popular music.
5. He has collaborated with such musicians as Henry Mancini and John Denver and with actor Liam Neeson.
6. He also performs on several tracks from the soundtrack for “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in a score composed, orchestrated and conducted by Academy Award-winner Howard Shore.
7. Twice Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England has honored him, in 1979 with an Order of the British Empire and in 2001 with a Knighthood for services to music.
8. He reminds me of Sean Connery for some reason. I guess it’s the beard.
9. I used to try to play the same instrument that this man plays, but I was a flop.
Christina Georgina Rossetti
Poet Christina Rossetti was born in London December 5, 1830. She was homeschooled, devoutly Anglican, and she never married. Her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was both a poet and a painter. Together with William Morris, John Ruskin, William Holman Hunt, and others, Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti were leaders in what came to be called the Pre-Raphelite movement. The Pre-Raphaelites were concerned with medievalism, religious symbolism, and passion and realism in art. I think Eldest Daughter could have been a Pre-Raphaelite.
A Christmas Carol
by Christina Georgina RossettiIn the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.Our God, heaven cannot hold Him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.Enough for Him whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part, –
Yet what I can, I give Him,
Give my heart.
Birthdays Commemorated by Me and by Others
There were lots of great authors’ birthdays this week that I just couldn’t get around to memorializing.
C.S. Lewis, b. 11/29/1898.
Louisa May Alcott, b. 11/29/1832 Her best books are Eight Cousins and its sequel Rose in Bloom, by the way IMHO.
Madeleine L’Engle, 11/29/1918 I really should have blogged about this one. I really like Madeleine L’engle, especially her books The Love Letters (out of print) and A Severed Wasp. I’m planning on reading A Wrinkle in Time to the children as soon as we finish Johnny Tremain
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), b. 11/30/1835
Winston Churchill, b. 11/30/1874.
Jonathan Swift, b. 11/30/1667 Swift should be recognized for writing the essay A Modest Proposal in which he proposes that the poor of Ireland eat their excess children so as to put an end to their poverty. Unfortunately, I am told that some college students who read this proposal in these benighted times do not understand that it is satire and that JS was not seriously advocating the wholesale slaughter of infants for the convenience and enrichment of their parents.
L.M. Montgomery, b. 11/30/1874 Montgomery, of course, wrote the beloved Anne of Green Gables and seven more Anne books in addition to three books about another heroine, Emily of New Moon and various and sundry other books–all of which are favorites among the females around here. Eldest Daughter tried to get her dad to read Anne of Green Gables, but he never quite got into it.
Finally, for today, the author is one of my three favorite mystery writers. (The other two are Dame Agatha and Dorothy Sayers.) I think he’s the best American mystery writer, creator of that dynamic duo, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Nero is a 300+ pound genius, and Archie is his legman. Nero is a great detective, but he needs Archie to run errands since The Big Man seldom leaves his brownstone in New York City. The thirty-one Nero Wolfe novels and the multiple short stories are just pure fun–no socially redeeming value at all. If you’ve never read any of these books, I’d suggest you start with Prisoner’s Base or The Mother Hunt, a couple of my favorites.
Today is Rudyard Kipling’s birthday,
Today is Rudyard Kipling‘s birthday, b. 1835, d. 1936. This quotation seems appropriate to our times:
Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat.
Ballad of East and West.
I’m still reading Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. So far, my favorite quotation from GoA is this:
A question that Wilson asked of Foch during his second visit in January 1910, evoked an answer which expressed in one sentence the problem with the alliance with England, as the French saw it.
“What is the smallest British military force that would be of any practical assitance to you?” Wilson asked.
Like a rapier flash came Foch’s reply, “A single British soldier–and we will see to it that he is killed.”
This might be a good strategy to use with regard to the French and Germans in Iraq. Unfortunately, “honor” is a rather quaint term these days, and avenging one’s countryman is out of fashion. If a single French or German soldier were killed in Iraq, I have a feeling that the French or the Germans would do two things: (1) run as fast and far as they could and (2) blame the Americans for not having provided enough security.