to see, the craving of sailors, as of rest of blind humanity
Adapted from a passage in Chapter 27 of The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1906), where Mr. Conrad writes:
To see! to see! —
this is the craving of the sailor, as of the rest of blind humanity.
To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.
I have heard a reserved, silent man, with no nerves to speak of, after three days of hard running in thick south-westerly weather, burst out passionately: “I wish to God we could get sight of something!”
Looking ahead to next day, the next week, the next month … I wish to God I could get sight of something.
I know it should be enough that I know that God sees far far ahead of anything I could see and I should let it sit there with God.
Truthfully I would LOVE to be able to let it sit there.
But as Mr. Conrad also writes: Love and regret go hand in hand in this world of changes swifter than the shifting of the clouds reflected in the mirror of the sea.
heart has its reasons le coeur a ses raisons, which reason does not know …
First published in The New Yorker Magazine today, July 27, 91 years ago in 1935.
Wikipedia states that the phrase, Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît pas or The heart has its reasons which reason does not know, Notwithstanding its frequent use in popular culture regarding emotions , this aphorism deals with religion .
This is a shorthand for Pascal’s concept that reason is not the best way to understand God.
The phrase has become a maxim evoking, with a certain indulgence, the intimate complexity of certain choices, difficult for an observer to read, particularly in matters of choosing a romantic partner.
Whether man trying to understand an attraction between a man and a woman … or man trying to understand God, reason is not the best way.
view history as prime tool to advance ideas of social justice
Taken as sentence, who would find anything to complain about if anyone said that we, as people of the world, should view history as a prime tool to advance ideas of social justice?
Taken as sentence, who would find anything to complain about if anyone said that we, as Americans, should view history as a prime tool to advance ideas of social justice?
Would it not be accurate to say that we, as Americans, are proud of our history and the world can use the history of America as a prime tool to advance the ideas of social justice?
Would it not be accurate to say that we, as Americans, would want a place where we could present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated and a “prime tool” to advance ideas of social justice?
As Lee Corso might have said, NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND.
That current man in office is upset and angry that it has been reported to him that the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a “prime tool” to advance ideas of social justice as stated in an executive order titled Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution (white house – July 24, 2026).
For the sake of clarity, that current man in office is angry at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American BECAUSE it views American history as a “prime tool” to advance ideas of social justice.
Not that the current man in office has been to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History but something called the Domestic Policy Council told him that the Museum does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a “prime tool” to advance ideas of social justice.
According to Wikipedia, The Domestic Policy Council (DPC) is the main White House body that coordinates domestic policy, advises the president, and manages policy implementation. Housed within the Executive Office of the President, it brings together cabinet members and agency leaders to handle internal national issues.
This may be the worst idea in American Government since HUAC.
HUAC?
The House Un American Activities Comittee.
UN – American?
Going to a baseball game and getting nachos instead of a hot dog?
BUT I DIGRESS!
Last time I read the Constitution of the United States, I couldn’t help but notice that it starts, We the PEOPLE:
in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
In other words advance ideas of social justice?
The order calls for appropriate signage to be placed on sidewalks outside the building with appropriate warnings that notify visitors that the Museum exhibits should be renovated consistent with the findings in the Report and direct visitors to locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history
I also have to report that in looking up the executive order at the official White House website, the branding on the website proclaims, Welcome to the Golden Age.
We arrive at a Golden Age made possible by denying our past?
As George Orwell wrote in 1984:
The past not only changed, but changed continuously.
What most afflicted him with the sense of nightmare was that he had never clearly understood why the huge imposture was undertaken.
The immediate advantages of falsifying the past were obvious, but the ultimate motive was mysterious.
fight without rancor or selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves
Adapted from Woodrow Wilson’s Joint Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Germany (1917) where President Wilson said:
We desire no conquest, no dominion.
We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make.
We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind.
We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
Just because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.
But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always carried nearest our hearts,
for democracy,
for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own Governments,
for the rights and liberties of small nations,
for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations
and make the world itself at last free.
To such a task we can dedicate our selves and our fortunes,
every thing that we are and everything that we have,
with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured.
God helping her, she can do no other.
According to the National Gallery of Art website, This painting commemorates the nation’s entry into World War I in spring 1917. Childe Hassam shows Fifth Avenue in New York City decorated with red, white, and blue flags. It had been declared “the Avenue of the Allies” in honor of the military alliance between the United States, Great Britain, and France.
This is part of a series of flag images in which Hassam used brilliant sunlight and color in the style of the French impressionists. The breezy, celebratory air glosses over the horrors of modern warfare that American soldiers would face fighting in Europe.
fight without rancor or selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves
I just holding up the mirror.
You can take from this whatever you bring with it.
For myself, it like talking about an entirely different country sometimes and I wonder where that county went.
fire burns beyond the vaporous sun delivered from the gloom of night
Sunrise over Broad Creek – 7-24-206 Hilton Head Island
Far into the vast the mist grows dim, A deep and holy silence broods around, Fire burns beyond the vaporous rim, And crystal-like the dew bestrews the ground.
The last laggard star has fled the glowing sky, Comes a quiet stirring and a gentle light, A vast pulsating music, throbbing harmony, Beyond the Sun delivered from the gloom of night!
Dawn by W. H Auden as published in Juvenilia: Poems, 1922-1928 by W. H Auden (Princeton University Press: Princeton, N.J., 2003).
According to Wikipedia, Wystan Hugh Auden 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973 was a British-American poet. Auden’s poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content.
Public recognition of Auden’s work sharply increased after his “Funeral Blues” (“Stop all the clocks”) was read aloud in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994); subsequently, a pamphlet edition of ten of his poems, Tell Me the Truth About Love, sold more than 275,000 copies. An excerpt from his poem “As I walked out one evening” was recited in the film Before Sunrise (1995). After the 11 September 2001 attacks, his 1939 poem “September 1, 1939” was widely circulated and frequently broadcast. Public readings and broadcast tributes in the UK and US in 2007 marked his centenary year.
I remember that poem from Four Weddings and a Funeral …
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
I would be lying if I said I was any more familiar with the Mr. Auden.
What sticks in my mind is a single quote from a commencement address at the University of Michigan back in 1986 by Dr. Charles G. Adams, Pastor of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit.
Not sure why but I was listening to WUOM radio that day and the broadcast what went down in history as one of the best commencement speeches ever given at Michigan.
It was titled, Hope vs. Fatalism and in his address, Dr. Adams challenged the new graduates TO DO SOMETHING.
Dr. Adams said, “The hope that you represent is both within you and beyond you. As W. H. Auden observed, “Nothing but a miracle can save us.”
Dr. Adams then painted a dark dark picture of the world at large, and quotes a recent Newspaper editorial that stated, “There is no answer to the human dilemma, no deliverance from the human predicament, no formula for world peace, no means of achieving racial harmony and ethnic mutuality and congeniality. Life is a lie, a meaning less aimless hoax.”
So we find ourselves suspended on a see-saw between an optimism that fails us and a fatalism that does not try to help us.
Optimism says, “There is no sickness.
Fatalism says, “There is no cure.”
Optimism says, “There is no death.
Fatalism says, “There is no victory over death.
Optimism says, “God is in his heaven; all’s right with the world.”
Fatalism says, “Life is but walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. And then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound-and fury, Signifying nothing.
Is there no way out of this vicious, manic-depressive cycle of optimism and fatalism? I make bold to suggest that you who have been educated at Michigan can be open doors of hope into a system that is deemed closed, final and fatal. It is up to you to break the vicious cycle of nihilism and transform cyclical futility and fatality into linear progress and destiny.
You have been trained here to go into all the world and stand and serve as living alternatives to ignorant optimism that blinds one to real difficulties and also to crippling fatalism and cynicism that freeze human initiative and paralyze human effort.
You are graduating from Michigan to inherit the whole world with all of its problems. Go into all the world and take the power of your mentality, the energy of your integrity, the efficiency of your technology and the fire of your spirit.
Inherit the whole world with all of its problems.
Go into all the world and take the power of your mentality,
the energy of your integrity,
the efficiency of your technology
and the fire of your spirit.
Dr. Adams, speaking in the manner of a revialist preacher had the crowd roaring and he closed with:
If you have a hard way to go, walk it by faith. If you face a mean problem, work with it until you work through it. If you have a misunderstanding, settle it. If you have a grudge, drop it. If you have hatred or resentment, shake it off. If you have a high mountain, move it by faith or climb it by work. If .you have a battle, fight it. If you have a handicap, rise above it. If you have race prejudice, overcome it. If you have temptation, conquer it. If you have evil, destroy it. If you have a challenge, face it. If you have trouble, take it. If you have a cross, bear it. If they knock you down, get up. If they push you against the ropes, come out swinging. If they laugh at you, keep smiling at them. If they talk about you, keep praying for them. If they hate you, keep loving them and If they kill you, just rise again–
Don’t let anything paralyze your mind, tie your hands or defeat your spirit.
You are the hope of the world, a light to the nations, a blessing to humanity.
We-shall overcome!
As an after thought, it seems like years later I happen to catch an announcement that WUOM radio that the address was going to rebroadcast (and I mean years later) and the announcer, Fred Hindley, added … this is most requested rebroadcast recording of anything we have. I will add this was also the official radio station of Michigan football.
ANYWAY so where am I.
Not sure really but the sunrise and finding the Auden poem and the Auden reference that brought this speech were all a very welcome part of my day.
