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Category - "Life’s lessons":

24th September 2011

The Duc de la Rochefoucauld: Master of the One-Liner


When I was 13, I longed to be 30. I pictured myself, the height of witty sophistication, as a guest at Holly Golightly’s New York cocktail parties. Dressed in my little black dress, elegant chignon, stiletto heels, and rivers of pearls, I would exchange witticisms with Dorothy Parker and the other habitués of the Algonquin Round Table (or their latter-day equivalent). My father – who was later to recommend Marcus Aurelius – pointed out that it might be useful, if I really wanted to be part of this set, to have a few witticisms ready which I could drop into the conversation – nothing is more annoying than staircase wit. The educators among you will have spotted the ingenuity of this paternal introduction to the Maximes of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld. I devoured my father’s copy cover to cover, practising my delivery for the day it would be needed. Dorothy Parker knew all about La Rochefoucauld as her insomniac character in ‘The Little Hours’ ponders on his statement that if nobody had learned to read, very few people would be in love:

This is no time to be getting all steamed up about La Rochefoucauld. It’s only a question of minutes before I’m going to be pretty darned good and sick of La Rochefoucauld, once and for all. La Rochefoucauld this and La Rochefoucauld that. Yes, well, let me tell you that if nobody had ever learned to quote, very few people would be in love with La Rochefoucauld. I bet you I don’t know ten souls who read him without a middleman.

In the unlikely event that you, too,  do not already know all about François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac (15 September 1613 – 17 March 1680), may I serve as your middleman? He has had a rather bad press from a Christian point of view.  Lord Chesterfield, for example, said:

Till you come to know mankind by your experience, I know no thing nor no man that can in the meantime bring you so well acquainted with them as Le Duc de la Rochefoucauld. His little book of maxims, which I would advise you to look into for some moments at least every day of your life, is, I fear, too like and too exact a picture of human nature. I own it seems to degrade it, but yet my experience does not convince me that it degrades it unjustly.

Joseph Addison and Jonathan Swift wrote in similar vein. But I think this is to miss the point. While some of the duke’s sayings are about getting on in worldly society, many others are direct comments on mankind’s failure to behave in a truly moral way. His wit is indeed barbed like a rapier, and niggles away at our consciences. To me La Rochefoucauld has every bit as much claim to be described as a Christian moralist as anyone. If you are guilty of any of the failings he describes, a word to the wise is perhaps sufficient?

 

 Il ne faut pas s’offenser que les autres nous cachent la vérité, puisque nous nous la cachons si souvent à nous-mêmes.

We should not be upset that others hide the truth from us, when we hide it so often from ourselves. Maxim 11.

 

Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d’autrui.

We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others. Maxim 19.

 

La philosophie triomphe aisément des maux passés et des maux à venir. Mais les maux présents triomphent d’elle.

Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future evils; but present evils triumph over it. Maxim 22.

 

Il faut de plus grandes vertus pour soutenir la bonne fortune que la mauvaise.

We need greater virtues to sustain good than evil fortune. Maxim 25.

 

Le soleil ni la mort ne se peuvent regarder fixement.

Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily. Maxim 26.

 

Si nous n’avions point de défauts, nous ne prendrions pas tant de plaisir à en remarquer dans les autres.

If we had no faults, we should not take so much pleasure in noting those of others. Maxim 31.

 

On n’est jamais si heureux ni si malheureux qu’on s’imagine.

One is never so happy or so unhappy as one fancies. Maxim 49.

 

Il est plus honteux de se défier de ses amis que d’en être trompé.

It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them. Maxim 84.

 

Tout le monde se plaint de sa mémoire, et personne ne se plaint de son jugement.

Everyone complains about his memory, and no one complains about his judgment. Maxim 89.

 

Les vieillards aiment à donner de bons préceptes, pour se consoler de n’être plus en état de donner de mauvais exemples.

Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer provide bad examples. Maxim 93.

 

Dans l’adversité de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque chose qui ne nous déplaît pas.

In the adversity of our best friends we often find something that is not exactly displeasing. Maxim 99.

 

On ne donne rien si libéralement que ses conseils.

Nothing is given so profusely as advice. Maxim 110.

 

Il est plus aisé d’être sage pour les autres que de l’être pour soi-même.

It is easier to be wise for others than for oneself. Maxim 132.

 

On aime mieux dire du mal de soi-même que de n’en point parler.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all. Maxim 138.

 

Le refus des louanges est un désir d’être loué deux fois.

The refusal of praise is only the wish to be praised twice. Maxim 149.

 

Il vaut mieux employer notre esprit à supporter les infortunes qui nous arrivent qu’à prévoir celles qui nous peuvent arriver.

It is better to set one’s mind to bearing the misfortunes that are happening than to think of those that may happen. Maxim 174.

 

Ce qui nous empêche souvent de nous abandonner à un seul vice est que nous en avons plusieurs.

What often prevents us from abandoning ourselves to one vice is that we have several. Maxim 195.

 

Le désir de paraître habile empêche souvent de le devenir.

The desire to appear clever often prevents one from being so. Maxim 199.

 

Qui vit sans folie n’est pas si sage qu’il croit.

Who lives without folly is not as wise as he thinks. Maxim 209.

 

C’est une grande habileté que de savoir cacher son habileté.

There is great skill in knowing how to conceal one’s skill. Maxim 245.

 

Le plaisir de l’amour est d’aimer; et l’on est plus heureux par la passion que l’on a que par celle que l’on donne.

The pleasure of love is in loving; we are happier in the passion we feel than in what we inspire. Maxim 259.

 

Nous pardonnons souvent à ceux qui nous ennuient, mais nous ne pouvons pardonner à ceux que nous ennuyons.

We often forgive those who bore us, but we cannot forgive those whom we bore. Maxim 304.

 

Il y a dans la jalousie plus d’amour-propre que d’amour.

In jealousy there is more of self-love than love. Maxim 324.

 

Nous n’avouons de petits défauts que pour persuader que nous n’en avons pas de grands.

We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves we have no great ones. Maxim 327.

 

Nous ne trouvons guère de gens de bon sens, que ceux qui sont de notre avis.

We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us. Maxim 347.

 

Peu de gens savent être vieux.

Few know how to be old. Maxim 423.

 

Il est plus aisé de connaître l’homme en général que de connaître un homme en particulier.

It is easier to know man in general than to know one man. Maxim 436.

 

 Les querelles ne dureraient pas longtemps, si le tort n’était que d’un côté.

Quarrels would not last long if the fault were only on one side. Maxim 496.

 

Comment prétendons-nous qu’un autre puisse garder notre secret, si nous ne pouvons le garder nous-mêmes?

How can we expect others to keep our secrets if we cannot keep them ourselves? Maxim 64 of the Maximes supprimées.

 

C’est une ennuyeuse maladie que de conserver sa santé par un trop grand régime.

Preserving your health by too strict a diet is a tedious illness. Maxim 72 of the Maximes supprimées.

 

Ce qui fait que si peu de personnes sont agréables dans la conversation, c’est que chacun songe plus à ce qu’il veut dire qu’à ce que les autres disent.

The reason that there are so few good conversationalists is that most people are thinking about what they are going to say and not about what the others are saying.

Réflexions diverses, IV: De la conversation.

 

Il faut écouter ceux qui parlent, si on veut en être écouté.

One must listen if one wishes to be listened to. Réflexions diverses, IV: De la conversation.

 

 

 

 

Note

The clip of Audrey Hepburn looking into the window of Tiffany’s is provided by Wikimedia under a creative commons licence, as is the engraving of La Rochefoucauld.

Tags: , | Category: Christianity, Life's lessons

28 Comments »
Posted by at 17:27

9th August 2011

Rioting And The Herd Instinct

‘Why?’ ‘Why are people doing this?’ These are the questions being asked in bewilderment over and over again, in the press and on television, on twitter, facebook and the blogosphere.

I don’t know the answer, of course I don’t.

But I have an idea for a way of looking at the question which may just help us understand something of what is going on.

It has been an extraordinary couple of days, of lows but also of highs. There is universal wonderment at the fact that ‘pray for London’ and ‘riot clean-up’ were the top subjects on twitter for several hours, now replaced by ‘operation cup of tea’. What does this mean? Well, I think it may be easier to understand the violence and looting if we first look at these extraordinarily positive reactions. It is a very practical solution to turn up at Clapham Junction with gloves and a broom. But if you had been the only person to do so, you would have felt a bit of an idiot. A self-righteous idiot perhaps, but an idiot nonetheless. The people who responded to the #riotcleanup tweets must have wondered at first if  they would be a tiny group who responded. In contrast, can you imagine the life-affirming feeling of being in the crowd below, waving their brooms together in the air? That must have been an exhilarating moment! Heavens, it’s exhilarating  just looking at the photograph. What  might have been regarded as a well-intentioned, but slightly dotty, reaction to the violence if carried out by one person becomes instead a heroic feat if carried out by a multitude, who have universally, if unconsciously, responded to Robert Lowell’s poem:

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever, ’twixt that darkness and that light.

Then to side with truth is noble, when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses while the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied…

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Though her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.

 

So this is the good, the uplifting side of the events of the last few days. But if we turn to look at the looting and violence,  can an analysis of those who came to wield their brooms shed any light on the actions of the rioters? Well, to begin with, I wonder whether those who set fire to cars and buses, and threw stones at the police before smashing shop windows and helping themselves to the contents would have done any of these things if they had been alone? I suggest not. I think they too felt that being amongst a crowd who were doing these things as one was an exhilarating and life-affirming experience.

I expect you, like me, studied Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ at some point in your education. Do you remember how easily the crowd were swayed by Mark Antony’s ‘Brutus is an honourable man‘, so that by the end of the speech he had turned the crowd 180°? Have you ever had the experience of standing in a crowd and being swayed by the emotion of the moment? I have, and it was a salutary lesson. In 1977 Indira Gandhi had been prime minister of India for 11 years, but in that election she lost not only the leadership but her own seat. My friends and I joined what felt like millions of people congregating in front of the newspaper offices to hear the result. When it came, complete strangers were hugging each other with joy. I too felt swept up in the elation, my blood tingling, my pulse racing. In a calmer moment the next day, I wondered what I would have been capable of doing if a demagogue had called on us to act.

It is thus that apartheid, Stalinism and Nazism take root. Look at the Nuremberg rallies. Look at Kristallnacht. What one man or woman on his or her own knows perfectly well is an outrage to human decency becomes acceptable, the norm even, when you are one of a herd.

 

 

Notes

The main photograph is by Peter Galbraith via fotolia. The second is from Lawcol888 via yfrog

Category: 'Two Cultures', Collective unconscious, Life's lessons, Social media

13 Comments »
Posted by at 22:56

21st July 2011

Marcus Aurelius and the Brambles

 
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 CE, was good at multi-tasking. He is thought to have written his ‘Meditations’ in his spare time between conducting a military campaign in central Europe (c. 171-175) and holding on to his seat as emperor.

Christians have no difficulty in recognising that the words of someone nearly 2,000 years ago can still have meaning for us today and Marcus Aurelius would be my other nominee for this title. Books on how to keep calm and carry on when surrounded by conflict still become instant bestsellers. Do you know ‘The little book of Calm‘? Marcus Aurelius said it all first, and in the opinion of some, better.

When I went to university at the age of 17, my mother having just died, my father was about to be posted to India. He presented me with a leather-bound copy of the New Testament and three small books which he had acquired when he went up to Balliol thirty years earlier: the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the thoughts of Pascal and the maxims of the Duc de la Rouchefoucauld. These books, which are still with me four continents and forty years later, are one of the reasons why I hope Kindle will not take over the world. I treasure the books not just as paper and print but because of my father’s annotations – he had sidelined many of the ‘thoughts’ which he found particularly fine with a 1-4 grading system. It is always fun seeing where I agree – and disagree – with him.

Gurdur (Tim Skellett) and I were having a conversation, as you do, about life’s minor irritations and debating what one should do about them. I reminded him of my favourite Marcus Aurelius quote:

Is a cucumber bitter? Cast it away. Are there brambles in the path? Turn aside. No more is needed. Do not go on to ask: ‘why was the universe burdened by creations such as these?’ (viii.50)

One of the reasons I know this by heart is because I find it very difficult advice to take, while seeing that my life would be simpler and less fraught if I could. My husband is a constant reminder of this advice, as every time I begin a sentence with ‘Why do they…’ or  ‘Why don’t they…?’ he stops me and reminds me that these expressions of irritation are pointless: people either do or don’t have a reason for their behaviour but are unlikely to change it just because it annoys me. He’s right:

‘Turn aside. No more is needed. Do not go on to ask….’

My penultimate post recommended Maggi Dawn’s ‘Accidental Pilgrim’ as a book to keep by your bedside forever. I now nominate Marcus Aurelius’s ‘Meditations’ to be added to this list (don’t worry, both are quite slim volumes).

Notes
The illustration is a bust of Marcus Aurelius from the Glyptothek, Munich via Wikimedia

Category: Keep Calm and Carry On, Life's lessons, Marcus Aurelius, The Little Book of Calm

6 Comments »
Posted by at 16:48

15th May 2011

The Things People Do And Say!

Today our vicar led the intercessions at Morning Prayer. As you might expect, they resonated with the congregation and we felt our prayers soar collectively heavenward. Normally, as in most churches, the congregation take it in turns to lead intercessionary prayer: some are more gifted in this area than others, to put it as kindly as I can.

Why is it that some people have the gift of finding exactly the right thing to say, while others seem unable to open their mouths without inserting their feet?
This question has been uppermost in my mind in the last few months as I was diagnosed with breast cancer in January and I have just finished a course of radiotherapy.* This has given me ample time and opportunity to note the reactions of my friends and neighbours, as well as the medical staff.

Things not to do

The medical team have been both patient and kind at all times. Two anomalies, however, stand out. At my first counselling session after diagnosis, I was handed a plastic ring-binder full of information. Very thoughtful, but it was covered all over in white daisies, which took my breath away as I associated it immediately with the expression ‘you’ll be pushing up daisies’, meaning you will be toast, dead, six feet under.
During the radiography, they sensed my need to crack weak jokes, which they gleefully joined in. Ghastly muzak was playing in the background, which I complained was worse than the treatment.    I was quickly offered classical music instead, which I gratefully accepted. The piece on offer? Schubert’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ quartet!

Things not to say

Two people who I know bear me no ill will said equally breath-taking things to me on learning of my diagnosis. One immediately told me about the symptoms, treatment and ultimate death from breast cancer of his cousin, who died last year. And the lovely lady in the church choir, on hearing I was having radiotherapy, said ‘Oh yes, people look really poorly after that. They look as if they have had the life completely sucked out of them!’

A little introspection

And what am I guilty of in all this? In last week’s episode of ‘Desperate Housewives’, Susan enlists sympathy for her  dialysis to escape a traffic fine, but fails to get to the top of the restaurant queue because, as the couple behind her point out, ‘everyone has something!’ I can certainly see the temptation…

Unmerited kindness

On the other hand, my misfortune has evoked extraordinary kindness from my neighbours. Many people offered to drive me to hospital an hour away for the radiotherapy (including one friend in her late eighties and one in her nineties!). Others come unbidden, bearing welcome casseroles.
One painted my favourite flowers on a get-well card. And my closest friend, whom I call my pelican, is always there.

Being prayed for

I now have the privilege of knowing it is a truly wonderful experience to be prayed for, to be on the receiving end of intercessionary prayer from our house group, congregation and my online friends at The Ship of Fools.
I believe several studies have been done which show that being prayed for makes no appreciable difference to the outcome of the disease. But that is not what I am talking about. From my reaction to the news of the cancer to the low point after radiotherapy, I have felt buoyed up, floating on an ocean of agape, or Christian love. Much of the time I have felt elated, and have had to restrain my normally conservative Anglican self from bursting into ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’.
So if you ever wonder whether your prayers are heard, please believe me when I say that I am lucky enough to know that they are.
…………………………………………………………
Notes
1.* In case you are wondering, the prognosis is very good and I am already feeling better!
2.The illustration is ‘The Sea’ by Bernard Atkinson, courtesy The Twelve Baskets. 
3. The carving is from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, whose symbol it is.

Tags: , , | Category: Christianity, Intercessions, Life's lessons, Prayer

11 Comments »
Posted by at 17:29

9th May 2011

Are you a Diamond or a Sponge?

The world can be divided into two sorts of people..[finish the sentence with your own favourite ending]. My father’s contribution to the numerous variations on this was: ‘The world can be divided into two sorts of people – diamonds and sponges’.

His idea was that there are sponge-people, who absorb energy and light from those around them (sometimes when old age pensioners seek the company of the young, it is in part because they can absorb some of their youthful energy – though this is of course not usually a conscious process). Have you ever spent the evening at a party and felt completely drained and exhausted by the end of the evening? You were probably in the company of one or more sponges.

In contrast, think of evenings when you set out feeling too tired to enjoy yourself but found, by the end, that you were stimulated and more energised than you were at the beginning, with your head spinning as you then tried to sleep. You must have been in the company of one or more diamond-people.

Of course, all diamonds have their sponge moments, if only from exhaustion, though true sponges rarely have diamond days. It is partly the difference between extravert and introvert, though not entirely. Diamonds are generous with themselves: their ‘radiance’ sustains them, but also spills over abudantly on to those around them, without in any way becoming less.

The Roman writer Martial said:

Extra fortunam est quidquid donatur amicis
Quas dederis, solas semper habebis opes.

A free English translation became our family motto:

What we gave we have;
What we spent, we kept;
What we kept, we lost.

I think diamond-people are naturally drawn to blogging, perhaps particularly in the field of religion and spirituality. I have been extremely lucky in the last few weeks to have come across several, who have helped me greatly through their (not) random acts of kindness, and I pay tribute to them all here (they know who they are). I have been warned that things get tough in the blogosphere, which I will be prepared for, but thanks to my new diamonds I have had a very welcoming start.

 Note: The photograph is actually of a cubic zirconia by Gregory Philips from Wikimedia under CCL

Tags: , | Category: Diamonds and sponges, Life's lessons

8 Comments »
Posted by at 20:58

8th May 2011

To do, or to be, that is the question

Simon Parke wrote about

being haunted by ‘The Stature of Waiting’ by W H Vanstone…it compared the active and challenging life of Jesus before his arrest in Gethsemane and his passive acceptance of circumstances afterwards…Implicit, if not explicit, was a theology of uselessness; an acceptance of holy futility as circumstances changed. If we ever link our value and place in the world with being useful, I suspect we become a danger to ourselves and others.

He followed this on 4 May with a piece about a nonagenarian correspondent who

had settled for Being not Doing in the time given to me…to reflect on things, prepare to meet my maker and enjoy myself. I sometimes comfort myself when I think I might be being self-indulgent with a verse written in protest at a hymn which began ‘Rise up, men of God, have done with lesser things.’:
‘Sit down O men of God
Ye cannot do a thing
The kingdom is the Lord’s
And he will bring it in.’

On the other hand, there is the quote attributed to St Teresa of Avila, so popular you can buy it on T-shirts and tote bags, mugs and calendars:

“Christ has no body on earth but ours, no hands but ours, no feet but ours. Ours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ looks out upon the world, ours are the feet with which he goes about doing good, ours are the hands with which he blesses his people.”

In St Teresa’s corner are St Matthew (‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father’:5.16) and numberless hymn lyrics, from ‘A work hath Christ for thee to do’ to ‘Who would true valour see’*

What’s a poor Christian pilgrim to do?

This is not an abstract question for me. I have recently started a website with the aim of bringing Anglican laity together in discussion, joined the band of the ‘No Anglican Covenant Coalition’ and begun to blog here – all partly for the joy of it, but also in the hope of nudging people and events in what seems to me to be ‘a Godward direction’. I am not alone. Like my blogging colleagues, I had hoped I was a molecule (all right, then, an atom) of the hands or feet.

Is contemplation really superior to action? For what it’s worth, I think that God hopes we will we do whatever we can to make good our daily prayer, ‘Thy Kingdom come’. The way that we try and do this will of course vary from person to person (that is why we talk about spiritual gifts) and it will also vary according to our physical well-being, as Milton famously pointed out in his sonnet about his blindness:

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask; but Patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best, his state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

What do you think? Are we here to do or to be?

*Thank-you, Sally Barnes and Mary Judkins, for the nudges!

Tags: , , , , | Category: Being and Doing, Church of England, Life's lessons

6 Comments »
Posted by at 17:11

4th May 2011

False Quotation Attributions and the Collective Unconscious

By now you will probably have seen the explanation by Megan McArdle in ‘The Atlantic’, (thank-you, Simon Sarmiento for the link):

Anatomy of a Fake Quotation
“May 3 2011 Yesterday, I saw a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. fly across my Twitter feed: “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr”. I was about to retweet it, but I hesitated. It didn’t sound right. After some Googling, I determined that it was probably fake, which I blogged about last night.

Here’s the story of how that quote was created… Jessica Dovey… a 24-year old Penn State graduate who now teaches English to middle schoolers in Kobe, Japan, posted a very timely and moving thought on her Facebook status, and then followed it up with the Martin Luther King Jr. quote. “I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.” Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” MLK Jr. At some point, someone cut and pasted the quote, and–for reasons that I, appropriately chastened, will not speculate on–stripped out the quotation marks. Eventually, the mangled quotation somehow came to the attention of Penn Jillette, of Penn and Teller fame. He tweeted it to his 1.6 million Facebook followers, and the rest was internet history. Twenty-four hours later, the quote brought back over 9,000 hits on Google. The quote also went viral on Twitter, and since the 140-character limit precluded quoting the whole thing, people stripped it down to the most timely and appropriate part: the fake quote.”

The Bible, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde and now Martin Luther King Jr all seem to have quotations which strike a chord with us attributed to them. Somehow the ‘collective unconscious’ is not satisfied with a good quotation which comes from an unknown person, particularly an unknown contemporary. When Oscar Wilde is said to have commented on a remark he particularly relished ‘I wish I had said that’, James Whistler added ‘You will, Oscar, you will!’

The one that has always bothered me is the ‘Desiderata’, printed on endless tea towels and proudly displayed in many downstairs loos. This is usually attributed to a nun, buried in a Baltimore church in 1692, but the wording cannot possibly have been seventeenth century. For example:

“Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.”

I have now found the explanation at the splendid website http://www.businessballs.com/desideratapoem.htm, which I thoroughly recommend if you are the sort of person, like me, who is stupidly capable of spending hours in the middle of the night worrying about this sort of thing.

“The common myth is that the Desiderata poem was found in a Baltimore church in 1692 and is centuries old, of unknown origin. Desiderata was in fact written around 1920 (although some say as early as 1906), and certainly copyrighted in 1927, by lawyer Max Ehrmann (1872-1945) based in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Desiderata myth began after Reverend Frederick Kates reproduced the Desiderata poem in a collection of inspirational works for his congregation in 1959 on church notepaper, headed: ‘The Old St Paul’s Church, Baltimore, AD 1692’ (the year the church was founded). Copies of the Desiderata page were circulated among friends, and the myth grew, accelerated particularly when a copy of the erroneously attributed Desiderata was found at the bedside of deceased Democratic politician Adlai Stevenson in 1965.

I think these all come into the category of  ‘Si non e vero, e ben trovato’ or, freely translated: ‘If it’s not true, it bloody well ought to be’.

Does anyone have any similar quotations falsely attributed to add?

…………………………………….

Post-script. ComRes published a survey on 13 May showing how many phrases from the bible are mis-attributed: “In one instance, an equal proportion (more than one in ten) believe that the phrase “a drop in the bucket” originates from Tony Blair (12%), Shakespeare (14%) or Charles Dickens (12%)”.

Tags: , , , , , | Category: Collective unconscious, False attribution of quotations, Life's lessons

8 Comments »
Posted by at 08:45

1st May 2011

Advice to Those About to Marry

You almost certainly know ‘Punch’s Almanac’ famous one word of ‘advice to those about to marry’, which was ‘Don’t!’ Ignoring that, and rising above Oscar Wilde’s very sensible remark (‘It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is fatal’), I cannot resist the nudgings of the week to offer a few musings of my own.

I have a better excuse than most as, on Monday, it will be thirty years since Robert and I were married in the chapel of Jesus College, Oxford, nearly three months before Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul’s.

What advice were we given about the institution of marriage which has proved helpful? The two memorable remarks were both about the management of conflict.

Firstly the priest who married us, The Revd Bruce Gillingham, who is still in Oxford. He recommended establishing a physical place in the home where, as in a child’s game, you could call ‘Pax’ or ‘Time Out’. This works if both spouses stick to the rules, but we found the crosser one often refused to do so.

More realistic was the advice of  the London-based Hungarian journalist, Lajos Lederer, who by the 1980s was earning a handsome income on the side through lecture tours of America, advising women on avoiding divorce (on a cost/benefit analysis basis alone, he felt it was stupid to abandon such an investment of time and energy without better grounds than were usually given).  He told us on no account to take St Paul’s advice to the Ephesians: ‘let not the sun go down upon your wrath’ (4.26). Apologising, and expecting an apology in return, is a great mistake too soon after a row, when you are really still angry. Sleeping on it is a good start – it is surprising how petty many squabbles seem the morning after. If you are hoping for your partner to change his or her behaviour, it is best to wait a few days and then bring it into the conversation when you are discussing something mundane and emotionally neutral. (But do bear in mind that, by the time someone is old enough to get married their behaviour patterns are hard to alter; it is fatal to marry someone thinking you will be able to change them!)

Two pieces of advice from older women, which have stood the test of time for me:
‘Marry your best friend, not the person you’re in lust with: Agape is more reliable and longer-lasting than Eros’. This is why so many arranged marriages in India are in fact very happy – couples expect to fall in love after the wedding, not before.
‘Begin as you mean to go on: it is the first week of your life together after the honeymoon that sets the pattern for the rest of your life.’ I took this piece of advice quite seriously and as I was cooking supper after getting home from work I asked Robert to open a bottle of wine. ‘Do you drink wine every night?’, asked Robert. ‘Oh yes, every night’, I replied. Now, this wasn’t quite true but I thought it was a good principle to establish. So it has proved – I don’t know what it has done to our livers, but we have survived thus far and sharing a bottle of wine together at the end of the day has done much to smoothe away life’s little daily irritations.

One or two things we worked out ourselves. Praise is more effective than criticism as a means of changing behaviour. On the second night, Robert cooked the supper. It was not the best meal I had ever had, but when he asked if I had enjoyed it, I knew the rest of our life together hinged on my reply. ‘Oh darling, it was delicious. You really are a good cook!’ He purred. The next night he offered to cook again and I graciously accepted. The more he did the cooking, the more interested he became and the better he cooked. This is a truly virtuous circle and I promise you it really works.

It is often said to be a good idea to share interests with your spouse. Up to a point, no doubt this is true, but we have found it better to have different occupations and pre-occupations, which we can then discuss together later. When we have spent the day together, doing the same thing, such as when we are on holiday, we try and dine with other people so that we are not searching for things to talk about.

Don’t groan, but I am going to end with Kahlil Gibran. (For those still groaning, look away now).

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

What advice would you give, dear readers, to those about to marry (or enter into a long-term partnership)?

Tags: , , | Category: Life's lessons, Marriage advice

4 Comments »
Posted by at 10:14

23rd April 2011

We must not let in daylight upon the Anglican Communion

We, the people, are the embodiment of the Anglican Communion. This point is so self-evident, banal even, that it seems on the face of it hardly worth blogging about. And yet the powers that be seem so obsessed with lining up the trees in nice, neat rows that they fail to notice the wood.

We, the blogging and tweeting community, represent this worldwide Communion in microcosm. What unites us is a shared love of the Anglican church, coupled with occasional exasperation. What divides us?  Well, we are no doubt a very mixed bunch. If you could assemble us all in one room, you might well wonder how such a disparate group could ever have got together. It would be like getting Mahler and Bartok together with Dolly Parton, Mick Jagger and Lily Allen. The film-maker, Jean Renoir, explained it thus in a television interview on 7 September 1979:

‘If a French farmer were to sit down to dinner with a French financier, they would have nothing to say to each other. But if a French farmer were to sit down with a Chinese farmer, they would talk late into the night.’

From their shared values, bonds of affection would develop. A certain amount of good-natured teasing might ensue over the different methods of farming. (Like the Australians persistently calling the Brits ‘Pommy bastards’, they ‘only do it to annoy because they know it teases’). But imagine if you started to try and pin this relationship down in paragraphs, clauses and sub-clauses: does anyone really imagine this would deepen the ties? To state the obvious, we have managed well enough until now on the basis of an agreement metaphorically written on the back of an envelope: the longer and more detailed our Covenant becomes, the more there is to disagree over.

Anglicanism has been accused of fudge, sweeping all controversy under the carpet, and saying collectively ‘If it’s not pleasant, it does not exist’. Well, as our grandmothers told us, together with remembering our manners, there are worse recipes for getting through the vicissitudes of life. Examining dusty corners with powerful halogen beams is unlikely to prove illuminating in the long run.

St Paul said it first, in his letter to the Philippians (4.8):

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

“We must not let in daylight upon magic,” Walter Bagehot famously wrote about the British monarchy. “We must not bring the Queen into the combat of politics, or she will cease to be reverenced by all combatants; she will become one combatant among many.” Autre temps, autre moeurs—or do I mean plus ça change… ?

Tags: , , , | Category: Anglican Communion, Anglican Covenant, Life's lessons

No Comments »
Posted by at 16:01

17th April 2011

Is Archbishop Rowan fatally dependent on his sat nav?

Everyone has heard silly stories, some surely apocryphal, of drivers being led astray by their sat navs, with varying results from getting stuck in narrow country lanes to driving off piers into the sea. In my own experience, friends staying with us in Hampshire from the Middle East needed to take their son to Leicester to put him into university. I insisted on map-reading for the outward journey, which they thought quaintly stubborn; the journey took one and a half hours. We would return, they announced, via sat nav (or GPS, to our cousins across the pond). As they had programmed ‘using motorways’, the sat nav decided to return via the M1 and the journey took nearly three hours.

I am wondering whether ++Rowan (and his advisors) are similarly fatally fixated on their sat nav. One can imagine the archbishop settling down in 2008 to plan the march towards the worldwide adoption of the Covenant. He would have punched all data then available into the massive central processing unit that is undoubtedly his brain, hit the enter button and then produced the route he intended to take to his simplistic panacea for all the ills that beset the Anglican Communion.

He does not appear to have noticed that the parameters have changed. Roadworks have started along the way, there have been diversions, and some roads have been turned into cul-de-sacs or, as the French really say, ‘voies sans issue’. More seriously, some of his original data was also corrupted.

And yet, like Mr Magoo, he carries on regardless. Helpless onlookers do their best to prevent him from falling into the ditch, but he marches forward saying ‘I can do no other’.

Archbishop Rowan, this is a petition.

Please, please stop, look and listen. Remember the law of unintended consequences. Only proceed further with great caution!

We echo the heartfelt words of  Oliver Cromwell  to the 1650 general assembly of the Church of Scotland and “beseech you in the bowels of Christ [to] think it possible you may be mistaken.”

………………………………………….

Postscript: If you enjoyed this, you may also like the story on  Lay Anglicana, which was hijacked by Archbishop Rowan on page 2

Tags: , | Category: Anglican Covenant, Archbishop Rowan, Life's lessons

20 Comments »
Posted by at 16:59
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