[Vhfcn-l] Monday musings

[gthewlis at comcast.net]

Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour?
When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but swiftly they have sidled back to power
By the favor and contrivance of their kind?
Rudyard Kipling "Mesopotamia"

There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?
Woody Allen

I don’t have a bad handwriting; I have my own font.
Anonymous

Money often costs too much.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m so poor I can’t even pay attention.
Ron Kittle

If people don't want to come out to the ball park, nobody's gonna stop 'em.
Yogi Berra

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Pearls of wisdom

This usually refers to advice or to some sage saying, these being compared to precious pearls dropping from the lips. These days, it has to be classed as a cliché, a hackneyed phrase whose shine has been worn off through constant repetition.

It has had plenty of time to become shopworn. The first example found in the standard form is this:

“Oh, how beautiful you will be!” said Osborne, looking in at the door. “My! my! all gold and feathers and precious stones and pearls of wisdom! A perfect aide-de-camp!” - The Conspirators, by Robert William Chambers, 1807. The narrator is being measured for his new uniform.

There are enough other examples around at roughly the same time to show that it was already becoming a fixed phrase. The direct origin is almost certainly this well-known couplet, in which the reference is undoubtedly to pearl fisheries of various parts of the tropics:

But wisdom is a pearl with most success
Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies.
The Task, by William Cowper, 1781.

However, the idea goes back still further, to one of the oldest books of the Bible:

No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies. - Job, chapter 28, verse 18, from the King James Bible of 1611.

The saying is decidedly modern compared with the other well-known expression involving precious concretions: pearls before swine, giving valuable things to people who won’t appreciate them. This has appeared in many forms since it was first written down:

That we ne thrauwe naght our preciouse stones touore the zuyn. - Ayenbite of Inwit, by Dan Michelis of Canterbury, 1340. The title means “Remorse of Conscience” (see my piece on inwit for more details). We might today render the line as “That we do not throw our precious stones towards the swine.”

The pearls first appear in John Langland’s poem Piers Plowman in 1362 and we’ve since had versions such as cast not your pearls before hogs and the much more recent admonition do not throw pearls to swine. The reference is Biblical, to the Gospel of Matthew, which in the King James version is “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine.”

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John Adams

John Adams evolved a political theory based on his vast knowledge of ancient and modern theories and histories. He believed that the age he lived gave the chance to form free and independent states with their own governments.

Joining Continental Congress quite early to resist the British, he quickly gained attention and was nicknamed ‘Atlas of Independence.’

To ensure Virginian support, he proposed George Washington to command the Continental Army in 1775. For the same cause, Adams also nominated Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence.

He supported Jefferson’s draft, seconded the motion for independence and eventually signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

The Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783 as the official peace treaty between the US and Britain. It would symbolize the end of the American Revolutionary War; since it was agreed in Paris, it was called the Treaty of Paris.

John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay represented the US while David Hartley represented the British, King George III. According to the treaty, Britain gave up claim over its thirteen colonies and also authorized the US expand westward.