In an effort to educate myself, I am reading The Oxford Book of Essays, chosen and edited by John Gross. [copies for sale here] There’s 142 of the blighters, so it will take me all year. To make this “stick” I am going to blog each essay.
This essay is online
Who was the author:
Sir Richard Steele (c. 1671 – 1 September 1729) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright and politician best known as the co-founder of the magazine The Spectator alongside his close friend Joseph Addison.
What happened the year they were born (and the C02 ppm): 1671
The Big Events they were alive for: The Glorious Revolution. The coming of the Hanovers. Er…
What happened in the year they died (and the C02 ppm): 1729
My awareness of/appreciation of this author (if any): Basically zero.
What’s the essay?
The essay is called “On recollections of childhood.” It’s 4 pages long. For me, the key take-aways were that, well, memories maketh the man, and that we can be happy being unhappy – “and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from the memory of past afflictions”
Best line(s)
I had to lament the loss of many of my friends are now as forcible as at the moment of their departure, yet did not my heart swell with the same sorrow which I felt at the time; but I could, without tears, reflect upon many pleasing adventures I have had with some, who have long been blended with common earth.
The mind in infancy is, methinks, like the body in embryo; and receives impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to be removed by reason, as any mark with which a child is born is to be taken away by any future application
and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from the memory of past afflictions
Stuff I had to look up
Battledore – 1.
- a game played with a shuttlecock and rackets, a forerunner of badminton.
- 2.
- a wooden paddle-shaped implement formerly used in washing clothes for beating and stirring.
Stuff worth thinking about.
The pre-Freudian understanding of the importance of maternal/paternal love, of how memory shapes us.
Stuff to look up
xxx
Connects to (watch this space – if there are later essays that resonate with this one, I’ll come back and add a link to the post for that essay).
marchudson.net 
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