The London Library
The London Library is perhaps the largest private subscription library in the world. If you love books it is a fabulous place to spend time. Most of the space is occupied by stacks, apart from the issue hall and the reading room. The books are crammed into what is not a particularly large building, and so you find yourself deep in this matrix, this three dimensional array of books which surround you on every side, as well as below your feet and above your head. It is even more striking where the floors are made of metal grids. As you look down you can see not only the next floor down, but more floors beyond that. And the passageways are wonderfully narrow so that it is impossible to avoid being diverted by books which you have to slide past to get to those you are seeking. Wonderful, quite wonderful, and worth every penny.
Wednesday, 23 November 2005
Tuesday, 22 November 2005
Flora Poetica
Flora Poetica
I am greatly enjoying this anthology of poetry about flowers collected by Sarah Maguire. Here are are a couple of examples which I hope you might also enjoy. Leave me a note if you want more details of the book from which I have taken them.
The Woodspurge
The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
I had walked on at the wind's will--
I sat now, for the wind was still.
Between my knees my forehead was--
My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass.
My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon;
Among those few, out of the sun,
The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.
From perfect grief there need not be
Wisdom or even memory:
One thing then learnt remains to me--
The woodspurge has a cup of three.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
1870
And here is another:
Sundew
A little marsh-plant, yellow green,
And pricked at lip with tender red.
Tread close, and either way you tread
Some faint black water jets between
Lest you should bruise the curious head.
A live thing maybe; who shall know?
The summer knows and suffers it;
For the cool moss is thick and sweet
Each side, and saves the blossom so
That it lives out the long June heat.
The deep scent of the heather burns
About it; breathless though it be,
Bow down and worship; more than we
Is the least flower whose life returns,
Least weed renascent in the sea.
We are vexed and cumbered in earth's sight
With wants, with many memories;
These see their mother what she is,
Glad-growing, till August leave more bright
The apple-coloured cranberries.
Wind blows and bleaches the strong grass,
Blown all one way to shelter it
From trample of strayed kine, with feet
Felt heavier than the moorhen was,
Strayed up past patches of wild wheat.
You call it sundew: how it grows,
If with its colour it have breath,
If life taste sweet to it, if death
Pain its soft petal, no man knows:
Man has no sight or sense that saith.
My sundew, grown of gentle days,
In these green miles the spring begun
Thy growth ere April had half done
With the soft secret of her ways
Or June made ready for the sun.
O red-lipped mouth of marsh-flower,
I have a secret halved with thee.
The name that is love's name to me
Thou knowest, and the face of her
Who is my festival to see.
The hard sun, as thy petals knew,
Coloured the heavy moss-water:
Thou wert not worth green midsummer
Nor fit to live to August blue,
O sundew, not remembering her.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
1866
I am greatly enjoying this anthology of poetry about flowers collected by Sarah Maguire. Here are are a couple of examples which I hope you might also enjoy. Leave me a note if you want more details of the book from which I have taken them.
The Woodspurge
The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
I had walked on at the wind's will--
I sat now, for the wind was still.
Between my knees my forehead was--
My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass.
My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon;
Among those few, out of the sun,
The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.
From perfect grief there need not be
Wisdom or even memory:
One thing then learnt remains to me--
The woodspurge has a cup of three.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
1870
And here is another:
Sundew
A little marsh-plant, yellow green,
And pricked at lip with tender red.
Tread close, and either way you tread
Some faint black water jets between
Lest you should bruise the curious head.
A live thing maybe; who shall know?
The summer knows and suffers it;
For the cool moss is thick and sweet
Each side, and saves the blossom so
That it lives out the long June heat.
The deep scent of the heather burns
About it; breathless though it be,
Bow down and worship; more than we
Is the least flower whose life returns,
Least weed renascent in the sea.
We are vexed and cumbered in earth's sight
With wants, with many memories;
These see their mother what she is,
Glad-growing, till August leave more bright
The apple-coloured cranberries.
Wind blows and bleaches the strong grass,
Blown all one way to shelter it
From trample of strayed kine, with feet
Felt heavier than the moorhen was,
Strayed up past patches of wild wheat.
You call it sundew: how it grows,
If with its colour it have breath,
If life taste sweet to it, if death
Pain its soft petal, no man knows:
Man has no sight or sense that saith.
My sundew, grown of gentle days,
In these green miles the spring begun
Thy growth ere April had half done
With the soft secret of her ways
Or June made ready for the sun.
O red-lipped mouth of marsh-flower,
I have a secret halved with thee.
The name that is love's name to me
Thou knowest, and the face of her
Who is my festival to see.
The hard sun, as thy petals knew,
Coloured the heavy moss-water:
Thou wert not worth green midsummer
Nor fit to live to August blue,
O sundew, not remembering her.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
1866
Sunday, 20 November 2005
Allan Octavian Hume
Allan Octavian Hume
A O Hume 1829-1912
Hume was born near London and became a notable Indian civil servant and ornithologist. He was the son of Joseph Hume the radical MP. Hume joined the Bengal civil service in 1849. He received the CB for services during the so-called Indian Mutiny, 1860. He retired in 1882 and worked for an Indian parliamentary system through the Indian National Congress which was established with his help. He collaborated in a standard work on Indian game birds.
These bare facts hardly begin to give a sense of a remarkable man who was hugely productive during his life and who was right about almost everything on which he took a view. He was particularly right in seeing that Indian people should govern their own affairs, a view which was very advanced at that time.
After his return to England Hume became interested in Botany and established the South London Botanical Institute which continues to promote the study of plants to the present day.
A O Hume 1829-1912
Hume was born near London and became a notable Indian civil servant and ornithologist. He was the son of Joseph Hume the radical MP. Hume joined the Bengal civil service in 1849. He received the CB for services during the so-called Indian Mutiny, 1860. He retired in 1882 and worked for an Indian parliamentary system through the Indian National Congress which was established with his help. He collaborated in a standard work on Indian game birds.
These bare facts hardly begin to give a sense of a remarkable man who was hugely productive during his life and who was right about almost everything on which he took a view. He was particularly right in seeing that Indian people should govern their own affairs, a view which was very advanced at that time.
After his return to England Hume became interested in Botany and established the South London Botanical Institute which continues to promote the study of plants to the present day.
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