Journal Entries
Ode on Solitude
Posted May 24, 2001
'Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.
Blest! who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix'd; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most doth please,
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye.'
Alexander Pope
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Today In History
Posted May 23, 2001
May 23, 1810
Writer and editor Margaret Fuller, who inspired other Americans to devote themselves to learning, was born on this day.
Fuller was born in Massachusetts and grew up during the Transcendentalist movement. She taught in the Temple School, an educational institution founded by Transcendentalist Bronson Alcott, father of Louisa May Alcott. She later taught in Providence, Rhode Island.
In 1839, she published a translation of an important book about the German writer Goethe. She wrote poetry, reviews, and essays for the Transcendentalist magazine The Dial and edited for the magazine from 1840 to 1842. She published an account of frontier life in the Midwest, called 'Summer on the Lakes in 1843' (1844), which captured the attention of New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley.
Greeley published Fuller's feminist pamphlet 'Women in the 19th Century' (1845), which argued for emotional and intellectual fulfillment for women. Fuller began writing for the Tribune and became America's first female foreign correspondent when she sailed for Europe in 1846. Her letters were published in 1856 as 'At Home and Abroad'. In 1847, she settled in Italy and married an Italian. In 1850, Fuller, her husband, and her infant son were all killed in a shipwreck off the coast of New York.
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Today in History
Posted May 22, 2001
The War of the Roses
In the opening battle of England's War of the Roses, the Yorkists defeat King Henry VI's Lancastrian forces at St. Albans, 20 miles northwest of London. Many Lancastrian nobles perished, including Edmund Beaufort, the duke of Somerset, and the king was forced to submit to the rule of his cousin, Richard of York. The dynastic struggle between the House of York, whose badge was a red rose, and the House of Lancaster, later associated with a white rose, would stretch on for 30 years.
May 22, 1859, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is born.
It's the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of master sleuth, Sherlock Holmes.
Doyle was born in Scotland and studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he met Dr. Joseph Bell, a teacher with extraordinary deductive reasoning power. Bell partly inspired Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes years later.
After medical school, Doyle moved to London, where his slow medical practice left him ample free time to write. His first Sherlock Holmes story, 'A Study in Scarlet', was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887. Starting in 1891, a series of Holmes stories appeared in The Strand magazine. Holmes enabled Doyle to leave his medical practice in 1891 and devote himself to writing, but the author soon grew weary of his creation. In 'The Final Problem', he killed off both Holmes and his nemesis, Dr. Moriarty, only to resuscitate Holmes later due to popular demand.
In 1902, Doyle was knighted for his work with a field hospital in South Africa. In addition to dozens of Sherlock Holmes stories and several novels, Doyle wrote history, pursued whaling, and engaged in many adventures and athletic endeavors. After his son died in World War I, Doyle became a dedicated spiritualist. He died in 1930.
Thanks to the History Channel for these entries. For more 'Today in History' entries, see:
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Laura Elizabeth, the Sensuous Seneschal of Sentience (a.k.a. LEM the Loon)
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