"The prince drove a sky-blue Jaguar at great speed around Oxford, and in 1953 received an invitation to the Coronation in Westminster Abbey. Over a period of six years he read Philosophy, took a diploma in Anthropology, and earned a BLitt with a thesis on the Brahma Samskâras (sacraments) as well as finding time to study drawing at the Ruskin School of Art and design ties as part of his heraldic studies. He also played the flute." -- Obituary of His Highness the Maharaja of Dhrangadhra-Halvad published in The Daily Telegraph 2 September 2010
"A native of England, pinched with the frosts of December, may lessen his affection for his own country by suffering his imagination to wander in the vales of Asia, and sport among the woods that are always green, and streams that always murmur; but if he turns his thought towards the polar regions, and considers the nations to whom a great portion of the year is darkness, and who are condemned to pass weeks and months amidst mountains of snow, he will soon recover his tranquillity, and, while he stirs his fire, or throws his cloak about him, reflect how much he owes to Providence, that he is not placed in Greenland or Siberia." -Samuel Johnson, The Rambler No. 186, Dec. 28, 1751
"He attended the Boston University College of Liberal Arts as a freshman during 1883-84, but, unable to obtain instruction in Sanskrit from that institution, transferred to Harvard University for his sophomore year." - Wikipedia, "Bernard Berenson"
The Footnote of the Day is from The Other Conquest, by John Julius Norwich. "Roger" is Roger de Hauteville, who has just arrived in Italy:
"¹Roger is sometimes surnamed Bosso; but as the name is neither frequent, necessary or melodious it can be ignored. It tends also to create confusion with Roger's nephew, Roger Borsa, whom we shall meet anon."
"No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes, than a publick library; for who can see the wall crouded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditation, and accurate enquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue, and preserved only to encrease the pomp of learning, without considering how many hours have been wasted in vain endeavours, how often imagination has anticipated the praises of futurity, how many statues have risen to the eye of vanity, how many ideal converts have elevated zeal, how often wit has exulted in the eternal infamy of his antagonists, and dogmatism has delighted in the gradual advances of his authority, the immutability of his decrees, and the perpetuity of his power?" - Samuel Johnson, The Rambler 106, Saturday, March 23, 1751
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"The prince drove a sky-blue Jaguar at great speed around Oxford, and in 1953 received an invitation to the Coronation in Westminster Abbey. Over a period of six years he read Philosophy, took a diploma in Anthropology, and earned a BLitt with a thesis on the Brahma Samskâras (sacraments) as well as finding time to study drawing at the Ruskin School of Art and design ties as part of his heraldic studies. He also played the flute."
-- Obituary of His Highness the Maharaja of Dhrangadhra-Halvad published in The Daily Telegraph 2 September 2010
"A native of England, pinched with the frosts of December, may lessen his affection for his own country by suffering his imagination to wander in the vales of Asia, and sport among the woods that are always green, and streams that always murmur; but if he turns his thought towards the polar regions, and considers the nations to whom a great portion of the year is darkness, and who are condemned to pass weeks and months amidst mountains of snow, he will soon recover his tranquillity, and, while he stirs his fire, or throws his cloak about him, reflect how much he owes to Providence, that he is not placed in Greenland or Siberia." -Samuel Johnson, The Rambler No. 186, Dec. 28, 1751
"He attended the Boston University College of Liberal Arts as a freshman during 1883-84, but, unable to obtain instruction in Sanskrit from that institution, transferred to Harvard University for his sophomore year."
- Wikipedia, "Bernard Berenson"
The Footnote of the Day is from The Other Conquest, by John Julius Norwich. "Roger" is Roger de Hauteville, who has just arrived in Italy:
"¹Roger is sometimes surnamed Bosso; but as the name is neither frequent, necessary or melodious it can be ignored. It tends also to create confusion with Roger's nephew, Roger Borsa, whom we shall meet anon."
"No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes, than a publick library; for who can see the wall crouded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditation, and accurate enquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue, and preserved only to encrease the pomp of learning, without considering how many hours have been wasted in vain endeavours, how often imagination has anticipated the praises of futurity, how many statues have risen to the eye of vanity, how many ideal converts have elevated zeal, how often wit has exulted in the eternal infamy of his antagonists, and dogmatism has delighted in the gradual advances of his authority, the immutability of his decrees, and the perpetuity of his power?" - Samuel Johnson, The Rambler 106, Saturday, March 23, 1751
"Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission."
Peter F. Drucker, Adventures of a Bystander
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