“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” You may regard this utterance itself as a bit hobgoblinish, but of course it is not my own but that of one of America’s first great thinkers, Ralph Waldo Emerson. I invoke it now to salve my own conscience and perhaps attenuate potential embarrassment. I have for many years now been rather punctilious in mounting a essay on a regular weekly schedule--more or less on the basis of "come hell or high water". What I have tried to transform into a moral virtue I now perceive rather along the lines of a foolish consistency, resulting not infrequently in essays of more than usually dubious usefulness.
So here’s what’s up. Later this morning Joan and I are flying to Montreal to spend the Christmas holiday with Luke and Melanie and our grandkids John Henry and Hazel. Travel even so modest as this is a big deal for us old folks, and I want to devote my full attention to getting to Montreal and back and, more importantly, to enjoying our time there. Although I am in theory as glad as ever to learn and to teach, there will be no post on Wednesday the 25th, Christmas day. The odds are perhaps better for Wednesday, January 1st, 2025, but even that is provisional. So let me take the opportunity right now to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. For what it’s worth I am also throwing to the winds a positively epic unbroken streak on Duolingo. Why do I have the odd feeling, so portentous in my own minds, that perhaps these developments are actually ones the world will little note, nor long remember, as somebody or another memorably put it?
Although I am not a habitual commenter (this may be my first ever, anywhere), I look forward to your weekly blog entry. It not only enriches me, but serves as inspiration for lively email discussions with my faraway brother.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, your break is well-earned. Enjoy the time with your family.
Enjoy the holidays and your time off with Joan and family, but please come back to us in January. Please also tell Melanie that a generation of Princeton undergraduates remember Luke as a little boy at the dining tables of Wilson College. He and his sister were wonderful children, although we students little suspected then that small children could grow up to delight our later years.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes for safe travels and a restful and restorative holiday with your family! I was thinking of you and the Canterbury Tales yesterday on the Feast of St. Thomas Becket, and came to check out your blog this morning, only to learn that you have escaped the chains of the Internet and of foolish consistency. I will look forward to reading your musings in the New Year! Meantime, a hearty wassail to you and yours!
ReplyDelete