Saturday

I starved the cats last night, hoping to get them in the house this morning, but Sammy isn't having any of it and slinks away. He is not just playing hard to get either, as he won't let me pick him up. I cannot blame him. I only let them out yesterday afternoon, after the latest storm. The problem is, tonight's the Fourth and fireworks, and our neighborhood has been going all out in recent years making the place sound like a battlefield.

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1750

There he is, finally! And Sammy comes straight in to eat. It's almost six o'clock in the evening. I was starting to worry that he wasn't going to make it before the fireworks. This made it into a discussion at PolitiCartoons, and I remarked that I felt like I was in that movie series "The Purge".

Byron

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Dear Becher, you tell me to mix with mankind;
I cannot deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind:
I will not descend to a world I despise.

[...]

Oh! thus, the desire, in my bosom, for fame
Bids me live, but to hope for Posterity's praise.
Could I soar with the Phœnix on pinions of flame,
With him I would wish to expire in the blaze.

[...]

To me what is wealth?—it may pass in an hour,
If Tyrants prevail, or if Fortune should frown:
To me what is title?—the phantom of power;
To me what is fashion?—I seek but renown.

-- Lord Byron, "Lines: ADDRESSED TO THE REV. J. T. BECHER, ON HIS ADVISING THE AUTHOR TO MIX MORE WITH SOCIETY"

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I am not certain that I am reading him correctly anent the phoenix, but I like the concept of Byron imagining his fame taking off and living upon his death.

Aldous Huxley

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INTERVIEWER

What would you say makes the writer different from other people?

HUXLEY

Well, one has the urge, first of all, to order the facts one observes and to give meaning to life; and along with that goes the love of words for their own sake and a desire to manipulate them. It’s not a matter of intelligence; some very intelligent and original people don’t have the love of words or the knack to use them effectively. On the verbal level they express themselves very badly.

-- Aldous Huxley at The Paris Review (1960)

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