There are just too many books out there I’d like to read. I remain largely ignorant about contemporary writers because I keep finding new stones to look under from the past.
Yesterday, I noted a citation from the C-18L list from The Spirit of the Public Journals. There was a deeper explanation of this source today: it was an anthology of writings from newspapers and magazines published annually in London from about 1798 for the next 20 years or so. Something tells me it would take a while to weed through. But, the author on that mailing list keeps posting gems:
On the subject of ‘starveling’ poets, The Spirit of the Public Journals for 1801 (1802), p.362, has this:
On a Library, where the Books were in Curious Bindings
With eyes of wonder the gay shelves behold!
Poets—all rags alive—now clad in gold;
In life and death one common fate they share, And on their backs still their riches wear.On the same subject.
POLLIO, who values nothing that’s within, Rates books, like beavers—only for their skin.
These musings make me wonder. How often do we value fruits, strictly for the quality of their skins?
